Kids and Restaurants - A Love/ Hate Relationship?

I love my four year old child. I love eating out at fancy restaurants. As it turns out, recently, I have found that one is not compatible with the other. Its one of the reasons I decided to write this post. This post is not an attempt at sneak reviews of restaurants. I may link to a few, but only if our experience was positive. I am not out to be a vengeful parent here, rather I am trying to understand this wave of kid-unfriendliness that seems to be sweeping about.

Adz at Scog's in West Kirby

Before my daughter was born, my husband and I were like any other middle income professionals in England. We ate out a fair amount. It was mostly in pubs, and local eateries, and on special ocasions, we splashed out on fairly expensive restaurants and dinners. We ate lunch at restaurants, almost every day of the week, thanks to an abundance of lovely and low priced places close to our work. We loved the ease of heading out at short notice, and finding new places to eat. I wouldn't call us foodies in a broad sense that its used today, but we knew what we liked, and we enjoyed the experience.

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Chocolate Chestnut Pots de Creme

Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings to my lovely readers and friends. Its been quite a year, and I hope that you have had a blessed Christmas with your own family and friends. Every day that I blog, I count my blessings to know you all, and you make such a difference to me. I thank you all for being in my life!

A quick post today. I've been a bit 'alasi' (lazy) over the Christmas period, and as is usual have been neglecting my blogging. I blame a combination of stress, followed by lassitude for this. Its not that I haven't been cooking, its just that I have been making food to take to potluck dinners, and this means that I am always making my signature dishes like the butter chicken, so there is no incentive to blog.

That said, I did break out a bit and made these delicious Jamie Oliver sprouts for the Christmas dinner we were attending with friends. They, along with maple glazed carrots and David Lebovitz's butterscotch pecan ice cream were my contribution to the evening. So I sit here, on Christmas day, and I am pleasantly stuffed full of Christmas dinner, roast turkey and the works, plus a totally divine sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

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Live Blogging Butter Chicken - Recipe for an Indian Classic

Marlow Moo has been stalking me for a long time now. His request? Teach him how to make butter chicken. So I finally caved in, and along came Marlow with his friends Connie of Mirabelle Macarons fame and Aditya Raghavan aka Big Addie to learn this Indian classic.

This is a first time experience for me, as Marlow, Addie, Connie and I figured that we would live blog the recipe + pictures on Twitter and our blogs. Talk about racking up the pressure, eh? Luckily for me, I do have a loophole. As I tell all my students, Indian cooking is all about interpretation. Each household in India will have their own recipe for the classics, and everyone will (and should) believe that their recipe is the best. I guarantee that if you go to ten different households in India, you will get ten different versions of this dish. And every one of them will be delicious in their own way. Its what makes cooking so much fun, and gets your creative juices flowing.

So, this experience is unique for me. I will be making butter chicken with my friends, and while I show them how to make this classic, they will be scaring the heebies out of me by posting real pictures along the way. This post is linking all their posts, so check them out and tell us how you liked the experience.

• Follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #yegcurry  
• Follow @BigAddie, @MarlowMoo and @MirabelleMacs on Twitter as they tweet their way through the recipe. I would tweet too, except that I was busy making the damn chicken. 

Here is a link to Marlow Moo's excellent step by step live blogging, and pictures of this recipe.

I come from a long line of women renowned for their amazing skills with food. They can turn the most commonplace dishes into works of culinary art. They could put Michelin starred chefs to shame with the sheer depth of flavours in one bite of food. Compared to them, well, I am a rank beginner. I did, however, grow up in an Indian household, and when you do, there is no way you cannot absorb some of the culinary wisdom of the elders. In fact, I like to joke that the predominant fragrance in my life has been that of the roasting of spices. Even today, when I roast spices to make a masala, I am transported back to my grandmother’s and mum’s kitchen, waiting impatiently for them to finish roasting, frying, grinding, simmering and garnishing that delicious dish that we would then gobble up, while complaining about the need for more salt (that’s a common Indian thing, by the way, our families are never satisfied with the food we cook, there always needs to be more this and more that or less this and less that)

So now that I've disclaimed myself, we get back to butter chicken.

To start off with, I know what a butter chicken should taste like. This is simply by eating it everywhere, from roadside dhabas and friends' houses to five star hotel restaurants and oh, in England too. I've been lucky enough to sample some amazing butter chicken, and my challenge today is to recreate one with at least an approximation of that luxurious, rich, creamy, mouthwatering aroma and taste. 

Here's what's happening.

I am off to the Old Strathcona Farmer's Market, and I've bought some succulent organic chicken thighs from Sunworks Farm. We start off by making fresh homemade tandoori masala. We then make some garam masala from scratch. The chicken will be marinated the night before. We will then prep the ingredients for the makhani (butter) sauce. Then, grill the chicken in the oven (or perhaps the barbeque, if the snow stays away) The sauce will be made. Finally, we fold in the chicken into the sauce and simmer till its meltingly tender, and oh-so-delicious. Then garnish with more cream and butter and fresh coriander. We'll be serving it with some simple saffron rice and a cucumber raita. Plus, what do you know? We're also having mango frozen yoghurt with cardamom and rosewater + pistachios for dessert. No one's calling me a stingy hostess.

Making this dish is actually not that complicated. With a little organisation, this is a simple recipe, that can be made relatively quickly, and with minimum fuss. The sauce is easy to put together, and the once the chicken is marinated, it gets grilled for that smoky tandoori flavour. You can cheat in many ways, if you care to. You could use tomato paste, instead of blanching and pureeing tomatoes, for example. You could easily use store bought tandoori masala and garam masala. The chicken can actually be marinated and then frozen, if you choose to make it in advance. So yes, its not a hugely difficult dish to make.

I'll be posting pictures that my friends take, and will be making notes along the way. The idea is to cook, photograph, write out the recipe and post, all today. So. Lets make some butter chicken.

PS - And what about my dear veggie husband and child? Fear not, the paneer has been marinated too.

Recipe:
(Printable Recipe)

Chicken and Marinade:

8 - 10 chicken thighs, bone in, or boneless, cut into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons tandoori masala
1 cup plain yoghurt
1 teaspoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon garlic paste
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon paprika
2 tablespoons unscented oil
2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
Salt to taste (I use about 1 teaspoon)

Butter Chicken Sauce:

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon unscented oil
2 medium onions, finely diced
4 - 5 whole cloves + 4 pods green cardamom + 1 inch piece of cassia bark + 1/2 star anise (also known as whole spice garam masala)
2 inch piece of ginger, grated
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons tandoori masala
1 tablespoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (chilli powder) (increase for added heat)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves) + 1 extra tablespoon
2 cups tomato puree (or passata) *see notes
1 cup hot chicken stock (or deglazed pan juices from chicken) + 1/2 cup extra (in case sauce is too thick)
1 cup whipping cream (or half and half)
3 tablespoons cashewnut or almond paste *see notes
Salt to taste
1/2 tablespoon sugar

Fresh cream + fresh chopped coriander leaves (cilantro) to garnish

Method:

Whisk together the tandoori masala, yoghurt, ginger/ garlic, garam masala, paprika, oil, lemon juice and salt.

Rub into the chicken pieces and marinate, at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Heat a heavy, cast iron, oven safe pan, add a splash of oil, and brown the chicken pieces in batches. Transfer to an oven, and roast for about 15 - 20 minutes, turning once, until just cooked through. Take out of the oven, remove the chicken, and deglaze the pan with some hot stock, making it up to 1 cup. Keep aside.

You can also barbeque the chicken for an authentic tandoori flavour (in which case you will use stock for the sauce)

To make the sauce:

Heat the 2 tablespoons of butter and the oil.

Add the finely diced onions to the pan, along with the whole spice garam masala. Fry on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the edges are beginning to go golden brown and the onion is very soft.

Add the grated ginger and garlic to the onion/ spice mixture, and fry for an additional 30 seconds.

Add the tandoori masala, garam masala, chilli powder, ground cinnamon and 1 tablespoon kasuri methi. Cook for a few seconds.

Add the tomato puree to the onion mixture. Stir and fry together for about 15 minutes until the mixture comes together in a sticky mass. The oil will also start to separate at this point.

Add the hot stock or deglazed pan juices from the chicken. Stir well.

Season with the salt.

Add the chicken pieces to the sauce, and cook for 3 - 4 minutes, stirring to coat the pieces with the sauce.

If the sauce is too thick, you can add about 1/2 cup of stock at a time to thin it.

Slowly add the whipping cream to the sauce, stirring well as you go along.

Add the remaining tablespoon of kasuri methi to the sauce.

Add the cashew paste to the sauce, folding it in. Add the sugar, taste and adjust seasoning, if required.

Simmer on a very low heat for about 5 - 10 minutes, until the sauce is very thick and creamy.

Garnish with fresh coriander (cilantro) and a splash of cream.

Serve with pulao or naan.

Notes:

To make tomato puree, blanch, peel and seed 4 - 5 large, fresh tomatoes. Blend until well pureed in a powerful blender. You can also use passata or Italian strained tomatoes instead of fresh tomato puree.

To make cashew nut or almond paste, place a large handful of cashews or blanched, peeled almonds in a bowl. Add enough warm milk to cover the nuts and let them soak for an hour. Using a powerful blender, blend to a smooth, creamy paste, using a little more milk, if necessary. Skip, if you have a nut allergy.

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Christmas Baking - 'Spirit Bear' Buttermilk Sugar Cookies

One of the nice things about having a BC boy for a husband is the sheer amount of useless wild animal knowledge you collect. Or perhaps its useful if you are being chased by a bear, I haven't actually had a chance to test all this knowledge yet. But seriously, I now know a LOT about bears, moose, elk, bighorn sheep, caribou, cougars, wolves, coyotes and (hehe) marmots.

I know the difference between a grizzly and a black bear, and how to react if one of them is chasing you. I know that if you startle a bear, you should make lots of clamour, and hope the bear runs away. I also know that if a bear is stalking you (and sometimes you can tell by the strong fishy smell that accompanys them) that you're dinner, and you should fight back. I know that if its a grizzly you're up against, you have to play dead. I know enough never to come between a mama and her cubs. I know that moose are strong enough to topple a car, and are also dumb enough to do that. That coyotes are sneaky animals, and cougars are rarely seen, but attack the weakest of the pack (i.e, between me and Kay, I am lunch) Yep, I probably know more than the average Brit about how to survive (or not) in the wild :-)

I've been lucky enough to see many of these magnificent animals in the wild, even if the coyotes were a bit mangy looking. We've travelled enough along lonely roads and with my friend Mike, and we've seen several black bears and grizzlies. But the one bear that has eluded me so far has been the kermode bear, also known as the 'spirit bear'. Kermodes are white black bears. A genetic mutation makes them white, instead of black and they are not to be confused with polar bears. They are only found in a very specific area of Northern BC, which probably accounts for their being called 'spirit bears' by native tribes and locals. I have been desperate to see one for all the years I've been travelling to Terrace, and the only time I've seen one was the time I saw a kermode in the back of truck being shipped out of town (he had gotten a bit too used to people and was wandering backyards scavenging garbage)

My friend Mike has been lucky enough to see a family of bears, with a mama black bear with two kermode cubs. He's got some great, and super cute pictures of them here, if you want to take a look. My favourite is the one of this little cub, and its the picture I tried to recreate with my bear cookies below.

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Rustic Squash, Mushroom and Zucchini Tart

This post has been a long time coming. So long, that we're almost at Christmas rather than Canadian Thanksgiving, when I first made it, hehe. Sorry about that. Sometimes I never know where my head is at. Especially in December, when its a busy month, and crazy even by my usual laid back standards.

We decided to stay home, just the three of us for Christmas this year. Over the last few years, we've hardly spent Christmas by ourselves. Two years ago, we were in the throes of the big move, and ended up spending Christmas in India. It was a big deal for me then, as that was my first Christmas back home in 10 years. The next year we had a whirlwind of a Christmas, with all the driving to Terrace and back in a week. So this year, I am kind of looking forward to a more relaxed week, hanging out with friends and spending Christmas with the people I love very much.

And of course, doing tons and tons of baking and cooking, and racing against the clock to get some natural light pictures for this blog. Its really funny, how I can manage to cook pretty decent food, yet my brain goes blank when it comes to creatively photographing it. I am also handicapped by the lack of light, in a way. Especially during dinnertime, when its dark outside. Kay and Aditi are getting used to eating dinner at 3 PM nowadays, if its reasonably sunny outside...

This beautiful squash, mushroom and zucchini tart is going to be at my Christmas table as well. It worked so well at Thanksgiving, I made a mental note to use it for Christmas as well. I love all the individual elements of the dish, and it was just a doddle to put together, which is always a great thing when you're rushing about trying to get to ten million things at the same time :-)

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Christmas Baking - Chocolate Orange Canada Cornstarch Shortbread Cookies

I committed sacrilege today. At least, according to my husband Kay, who walked by the kitchen as I was making these cookies, took one look at the dough, and threw up his hands in the air with a horrified look.

'What on earth are you doing?' asks he.
'Erm, making Canada Cornstarch shortbread cookies' says me.
'But, but... the last time I checked those cookies are white, not brown' says he, with a snooty look.
'Ah', says I. 'But these are Canada cornstarch shortbread cookies with a twist. A chocolate orange flavoured twist, to be precise. You'll love them so stop complaining and get back in your cage. Change is good!' says me, with a snooty look of my own.

Off he goes, shaking his head, muttering darkly about unruly daughters-in-law that messed about with time honoured grandmotherly and motherly recipes.

Disclaimer: The above events have been dramatised a wee bit, but the essential message from him was the same :-)

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Indian Spiced Mushroom Puff Pastry Braid with 'Plum' (Date) Chutney

Mushrooms were not a big part of my life, growing up. At least, the beautifully packaged ones weren't. The mushrooms that we had were foraged by us, especially right after the monsoons, when the forests were overflowing with them. My grandparents (Mai and Aba) live in a little village outside Mangalore called Karkal, and they have a considerable amount of land, and quite a bit of it is (and hopefully will continue to remain) forested. These 'padi' or forests were a source of endless joy to us as kids, and we loved roaming through them all the time, collecting cashew nuts, mangoes and binda (kokum fruit) during the summer and mushrooms (called 'almi' in Konkani) and kookan (a sort of Jerusalem artichoke, but smaller) during monsoons. Everything depended on the season, and of course, the freshness of the fruit and vegetables was a given.

Mushrooms in particular were a favourite of all of us. My cousins and I would head out first thing into the woods, and scope out the best place for each of us to search. The best place to find them was usually under a big tree and under slightly (icky) mouldy leaf falls. We each were armed with a stick and a basket or two, and the divvy up the woods. I usually took the top part where the most rain fell and scurry along the edges, turning over leaves and wet greenery, in search of that elusive fungi. When I found a patch, I scrabbled along slippery leaves, and gently cut the mushrooms off, chucking them in my basket. We had friendly competitions as to who would bring back the most mushrooms, contests that my cousin Blaise would almost always win... just because he had no conception of not getting grubby, and turned over every bit of muddy patched and mucky leaves, where the best mushrooms hid. We girls were a bit more decorous :-)

Back at Mai's we piled the mushrooms into the big stone sink, and either my mum or my aunt would get to work, sorting through and cleaning up the edible ones. Pretty much 99% of the mushrooms we picked were edible, but occasionally we would come across an unidentified one that would be chucked away (these were the days before internet, we couldn't handily look up edible mushrooms, hehe) Once the mushrooms were cleaned and sorted, depending on the size of the haul, some would be passed on to the neighbours and the rest would be very simply cooked in the 'tel - piaow' (oil - onion) style of cooking. This style is probably the simplest of Indian cooking. But don't be taken in by the simplicity, the flavours packed a real punch, with the earthiness of the mushrooms and their unique taste showcased beautifully in the delicately spiced dish. We were served the dish at lunchtime with a simple congee and homemade lime or mango pickle. This, for me, is comfort food at its best, and I miss those easy, carefree and happy days with my little cousins and family.

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