Taste & Create: Thali - Garlicky Spinach Rice

Further catch up on my rather delayed Thali collection today... and this instalment is Garlicky Spinach Rice!

This rice comes out the most extreme, green colour - it's fantastic!! As I have mentioned before spinach is my favourite food; so this dish was always going to be a winner!

The three chillies ground into a paste (with more garlic, fresh ginger and water) give it a bit of a bite... So either label it as not for the faint of heart, or use fewer chillies to dial it down a bit...

This recipe is fairly similar to a Greek one I've presented previously; only with extra garlic and chilli and ginger added... Puréeing the spinach also make this final dish much greener than the previous one! I'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite out of the two; the Greek dish being much richer and this being more punchy - you should try them both out and see which you like better!

Taste & Create: Thali - Aloo Fry

Hej, hej!

Remember my Thali from Taste & Create way back? Well... I've been paired with PJ of Seduce Your Tastebuds once again and I feel this is the optimum opportunity for me to finally get around to posting the full recipes I made last time... thus reminding both you and me how awesome they are! (It's a sign from the Gods, I tell you!)

Top: Tomato Riata, Aloo Fry, Garlicky Spinach Rice
Centre: Black Sesame Chutney
Bottom: Sambar made with home-made Sambar Powder

Although I really liked (most) of the dishes I made... Far and away my favourite (and the one I've made most often since) was PJ's Aloo Fry...

The crunch provided by the whole spices and slightly crispy fried potatoes in this dish really blew me away. Think; pan roasted, Indian spiced roast potatoes!

*drool*

Most of the spices required here (mustard seed, cumin seed, coriander seed) are not all that "unusual" and if, as a student, you were to go out and buy a packet - I'm sure you'd find many reasons to use them again and again. (Packet curries very rarely stand up to their homemade counterparts). The fenugreek (kasuri methi) leaves are a liiitle bit more unusual... and although they definitely add an enjoyable extra dimension to the dish; I hope I'll be forgiven for suggesting that you can probably get away without them if it's beyond your means.

Do try this dish out! I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Kitchen Sink Quiche

 This is one of those dishes that is so easy and such a part of my everyday life that it never even occurs to me to photograph and post it...

Not the prettiest thing ever, but still pretty damn tasty!

I call it "Kitchen Sink Quiche" but it could just as well be "Fridge Scraping Quiche"... Kitchen Sink just sounds... nicer ... to me, y'know? And Kitchen Sink or Fridge Scraping it's a great way to use up any left over bits and pieces you don't know what else to do with!

The recipe it technically "self-crusting" which means you don't need to worry about a pastry case and the batter is made with both wholemeal flour and bran flakes (although you can leave out the bran flakes or substitute for plain, all-purpose flour if that's more your jam...) so it's full of fibre!

I'll attach the recipe (almost) as I found it in the (old) Edmond's Junior Cookbook... but this is just the humble beginnings of what could be a great dish! The original is vegetarian, but the photographed one here had bacon in it as well...

Or; sub out the cheddar cheese and mushrooms and chuck in smoked chicken, brie and apricot for a rather more up-scale quiche!

The only things limiting you are your imagination and the contents of your fridge!

Younger Brother was hungry and couldn't wait for me to snap a posed photograph...

So what are you waiting for?! Dig in!!

Nigella's Mexican Scrambled Eggs

I'm starting to detect a theme here...

I feel that I have yet to learn how best to photograph scrambled eggs...

These scrambled eggs are pretty fantastic Nigella totes these as the ultimate hangover cure; even going so far as to suggest that they're worth deliberately hanging yourself over for... I'm not convinced anything is "worth" a hang over... but they're still pretty dang good!

There's something about eggs and chilli that just works for me! The kind of remind me of "Parsi Eggs" which are a spicy, Indian style of scrambled eggs my whole family enjoys... at some point I shall have to make and photograph 'em for y'all!

Now, Nigella calls for corn tortillas in her recipe; to the best of my knowledge you can't get corn tortillas in New Zealand... In fact, I've never seen a corn tortilla in the flesh my whole life! (Sheltered much?) I used the easily available flour tortilla to provide the crunch for my eggs... and to that end they worked fine! :) You could use the bottom few chips from a bag of corn chips, or even toast to the same effect, I would imagine...

A word on scrambling eggs: when I was first "taught" how to scramble eggs (ie; sans microwave) at school we were told to cook them reeeally slowly over a very low heat, stirring all the time 'else they'd go rubbery. This leads to very soft, but slightly grainy eggs, in my experience, not a texture I particularly enjoy. What I like to do is to crank the heat right up on a non-stick pan, melt a knob of butter and whip the eggs into a bubbly frenzy. Then I pour the eggs into the hot pan and allow them to set on the bottom before slowly pushing them 'round (wrinkling them, really) with a silicone spatula. Once you've wrinkled the first layer of egg, stop and let the next layer set on the hot pan before wrinkling again. Continue until all the eggs are neeearly cooked. Then turn off the heat and tip out onto a plate/piece of marmited toast... smother with HP Sauce and you're away (although I'd skip the marmite/HP sauce for Mexican eggs...)!

You don't want to cook the eggs all the way in the pan because they'll continue to cook in their own heat off the pan... over cooking eggs WILL make them rubbery!

The point of all this, I think, is scramble your eggs in the way that makes you most happy!

Click on for the ingredients...

Taste & Create: Chicken Acapulco

(sorry guys, this is super late)

For Taste & Create this month, my first in aaages I was paired with Sid of Sid's Sea Palm Cooking. SSPC is a really interesting blog with an eclectic collection of recipes from the Southern USA, Mexico and Denmark... I really enjoyed looking through the Danish recipes and trying to work out what they were for without first clicking the link for a translation. Swedish and Danish are quite similar, and I was fairly successful! :D

Ultimately though, I chose to make a Mexican recipe: Chicken Acapulco with Pico de Gallo!

(thank  you, blogger for re-flipping my images. I am most grateful. Not.)

Mexican recipes are kinda hard to get right in my neck of the woods (suburban NZ) because we simply don't have access to authentic ingredients... But I love almost anything that comes in a tortilla so I chose to give it a whirl! And I'm glad I did!

At it's most basic, this is what I would call a chicken burrito with cheese melted over the chicken while it was still in the pan... but the result is so much more than that!

Cheesy, cheesy goodness!

I had a slight issue in that Sid called for a specific meat marinade but I was able to google the name of the company and check it's listed ingredients... I made my own marinade using the ingredients listed and although the result might not be the same as the packet (I have no way of knowing!) it was still pretty darn good! Kinda sour and salty with a bit of heat from the mustard powder and paprika.

Soy sauce, paprika, mustard, lemon juice, garlic and onion whizzed together with cider vinegar, oil and water; it's a winner!

And that Pico de Gallo! Wow! It was so fresh and fantastic! And perfect accompaniment! Don't do as I did thought, and attempt to whizz it all up in a too small blender - be intrepid and cut your own... I ended up with mush. It didn't detract from the flavour any, but the texture was kinda weird.

Thanks Sid and Min ; this was a lot of fun!

Raw chicken will never be the prettiest; but it turns into some pretty tasty things!

Red Lentil and Tomato Soup

So guys, guess what? I'm still around!! Can I get a woop, woop?! :)

This is a recipe inspired by the delicious soup my cousin, Vicky served me while I was staying with her in England... It requires very few, very cheap ingredients but with the lentils providing protein and the tomatoes providing their fantastic anti-cancer qualities it's an excellent soup to keep away the Winter (or the it-really-ought-to-be-spring-by-now?!) Blues...

Gorgeous, terracotta soup garnished with crumbled feta and a drizzle of olive oil!

If you use vegetable stock (and skip the feta I sprinkled on my serving!) this soup is easily vegan/vegetarian... but because I'm perfectly happy to have animal in my diet - I made my soup with powdered chicken stock!

The recipe I used is based on this one from About.com's Low Fat Cooking Section... Because I was in Sweden for only 6 months - I was unwilling to buy all the spices I might ordinarily have in my kitchen - so I chose ground cumin over ground coriander - but use what you've got! Cooking should be a fluid action...

This was quick, easy, hearty and delicious... and it lasted for AGES (you can decide whether that last point is a pro or a con...)... I really encourage you to try it!!

Taste & Create: Mushroom Ragout

This month I did my first Taste & Create in months and months and months and... ages!

Taste & Create is a monthly blogging event where the lovely Min of the Bad Girl's Kitchen pairs you up with another blogger and you each get to make, and report on one of each other's recipes.

This month I was paired with Min herself and I chose to experiment with her recipe for Mushroom Ragout... I followed the index link for FAST recipes because I didn't want to have to make anything too complicated. Complicated and/or time consuming are just not valid options when you're sharing a kitchen with 11 other people (not to mention their friends)!

And it was a good choice. As Min mentions in her own post - this ragout has bacon in it! How could it be anything but a good thing!

It came together very quickly with minimal effort and dishes and maximum flavour! I served mine over boiled brussel sprouts, rather than pasta - but this is a recipe for a sauce! Put it on whatever you want! It'd be awesome in a toastie-pie sandwich!

This is a tasty ragout that I've already made twice! I thoroughly recommend it!