curry night gets bigger

There’s a couple of new phenomena in my house: the ‘curry lull’ is the dead quiet when no one talks to each other at dinner because they’re too busy stuffing their faces, and the ‘curry stupor’ is the dead quiet when no one talks to each other because they’re all too full of curry.

Tonight, we made chicken vindaloo (we did our oh-so-clever oven baking thing again) and saag paneer. This time we also made homemade roti (as opposed to last time, we were lazy)… delicious! Served with raita, lime pickle and mango chutney of course.

Since I think we’ve perfected the roti, here’s the recipe we used (it’s very simplified but we can’t take any credit though, we stole it from the Taste website)

 

Ingredients:

300g plain bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
250ml (1 cup) chilled water
30g butter, melted
60ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil

 

Directions:

Add the flour and salt together and make a well. Add the water and mix together with your hands.

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough until smooth (approx. five minutes)

Add butter, and a bit of extra flour if required.

Divide into eight equal portions and roll out to thin, 20cm rounds.

Fry in oil until crisp.

Serve!

a novice attempt at chinese chicken and corn soup

I’m a MASSIVE sucker for chicken and sweetcorn soup. When it’s on the menu at a chinese restaurant I find it so hard not to order… and I usually end up full before the main course!

I’ve always been curious as to how it’s actually made. To me it seemed impossible – how do they get it so thick? Now I know the secret, I actually feel quite dumb for going so long in life without figuring it out. (It’s cornflour by the way)

I used a recipe from food.com although I’m hopeless as following recipes in general, so here’s how my first real Chinese experiment turned out:

 

Servings:
4-6

Ingredients:
6 cups chicken stock
1 large chicken breast fillet (boneless)
300 g canned corn kernels
300 g canned creamed corn
1 tablespoon cornflour (cornstarch)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 eggs (beaten)
2 spring onions (finely sliced) or 2 scallions (finely sliced) or 2 green onions (finely sliced)

 

Directions:

Bring the stock to the boil in a large saucepan(depending on your taste or needs you may wish to substitute some of the stock for water). I misread 6 cups and added 8 cups, not that it mattered because I used so much stock powder.

Add chicken breast fillet to the stock, turn the heat off and cover the pain with a lid for 15 minutes. I think next time I’ll keep it in for twenty as it was still a bit raw in the middle and therefore nearly impossible to shred. 

Remove chicken breast from the stock and leave to cool for a few minutes then shred. I did the shredding with two forks… not sure if there’s a better way but I’m sure I looked bizarre doing it.

Add corn to stock and bring to the boil over a medium heat.

Combine soy sauce and cornflour into a paste then stir into the soup to thicken slightly. Went overboard on the soy sauce I think, so it was both quite salty and quite dark in colour. Because I used so much stock, I had to add extra cornflour as it didn’t thicken as much as I would have liked.

Add shredded chicken to soup. Success! This bit went fine!

Slowly pour beaten eggs into the soup in a steady stream, stirring constantly with a fork. I’m a freaking genius for getting this right (with hubby’s help). Very impressed with myself and will not enter into any discussion re: not being an amazing master chef.

Serve topped with the sliced spring onions and enjoy! Umm… forgot this at the store. Oops!

funny how my food pictures never look as appetising as proper food websites???

the best pho doesn’t have a recipe

I usually find it hard to pinpoint my “favourite” things… Those who know me know that anything I happen to like is my “favourite”… but I do think one of my favourite things about travelling in Asia is the food. And no, this surely isn’t a very controversial opinion otherwise every city in the word wouldn’t have a Chinatown, and one of the most popular cuisines here in Australia wouldn’t be Thai food, and the grooviest foodie streets wouldn’t be strewn with Vietnamese restaurants. Here in Adelaide, the turnout to festivals like OzAsia or IndoFest would probably be lower if our foodie culture didn’t exist.

Anyway… let’s talk about a great passion (or obsession, whatever) of mine right now – Asian soups. I cooked a Tom Yum last night, and I love a good Laksa, but I’ve been trying to perfect pho lately. During this process I’ve learned something: you can’t “perfect” the recipe.

When I got home from the latest jaunt to Vietnam, I scoured the internet for a good pho recipe. A lot of them had star anise in them, which I hate, and they just didn’t taste right (I honestly don’t recall eating one that tasted of star anise over there, but here it’s quite common). I’m discovering that making it to taste, rather than following strict guidelines, is working much better. Then you serve it all up with lots of extras to add in (basil, fresh chilli, fish sauce, lime) and mix it all up until no-one’s bowls taste the same.

So what I want to know from everyone is: do you rely on recipes? Do you make a good pho? And if you do, what are the real essentials in your opinion? Okay… GO!

my most recent attempt at homemade pho