Food Friday- Chicken Curry

Hi guys :)

I have just realised that there is a pattern to this Friday posts but it is not intentional :) I didn't intend it to be about a restaurant one week and then about a recipe I tried the other. That just happened.
Following this pattern it's about a recipe again this week :)
Yeah I love cooking.

This week I made chicken curry and a delicious dessert with a friend.
You might recognize the kitchen as it is the same friend :)
Both recipes are actually from Jamie Oliver but since we never tell each other what we are making till we actually start making it, I did not know that beforehand either. 
He chose the main course and I did come up with a dessert.

Chicken Curry:

Ingredients: (serves 4)

6  cloves of garlic

7 cm peeled ginger

2-3 fresh red chillis (without the seeds)

1 tbsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp paprika powder

1 tbsp Garam Masala (Indian spice blend)

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander seed

Olive Oil

200 g plain yoghurt

4 medium-sized chicken breasts, skinned and chopped into pieces

1 tbsp butter

2 medium-sized onions, peeled and chopped into thin slices

2 tbsp tomato purée

1 small hand full of cashew nuts (chop up small)

sea salt

100 ml cream

1 hand full of fresh coriander, chopped

juice of 2 limes

How to do this :


Chop up the chillis as thin as possible and mix with the finely grated ginger and garlic. 



Heat up some oil in a pan and roast the mustard seed till they start bouncing then mix them with the paprika powder, ground cumin, coriander, 1/2 tbsp of Garam Masala and your chilli-ginger-garlic-mix.
Take half of your mixture and add the yoghurt (set the other half aside).
Marinate the meat in your yoghurt-spice-mixture for half an hour.

Melt the butter in a pan and sweat it with the onion slices and the other half of your chilli-ginger-garlic-mix for about 15 minutes. After that you can add the tomato purée, 1/2 liter of water and 1/2 tbsp of sea salt and let it simmer for another couple of minutes. Set aside afterwards.


Fry the marinated chicken till it's done. Take the sauce, add the cream with the rest of the Garam Masala and season it further if needed. 
Your almost done now. Just add the chicken into the sauce with the fresh coriander and the lime juice and your good to go.

We decided to have it with rice but it would also be really good with naan bread. And Jamie Oliver recommends you have a cool beer with it :D Since I don't drink I had sparkling mineral water with some more lime juice which was also very good although it doesn't sound that exciting :)

Enjoy your meal.

DESSERT!!!!! As you might have guessed by now: I'm obsessed with desserts! There is nothing in this world that is better then a good dessert :)

For our dessert we had something called Banoffee sundae which was sooooooo good I don't even have words to describe it. But it takes quite some time to make, since part of what you are making is ice cream, yeah!!! It's a great summery dessert though.

Ingredients: (serves 6)

• 6 medium bananas
• 200 g full-fat Greek yoghurt
• 1 good pinch ground cinnamon
• 2-3 tablespoons honey, depending on how ripe the bananas are
• 50 g raisins
• 3 tablespoons dark rum
• 50 g good-quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
• 50 g hazelnuts
• 4 tablespoons dulce de leche

Slice 4 of the 6 bananas and whiz them up in a food processor with the cinnamon, honey, raisins and rum until smooth (if you have more time you can let the raisins soak in the rum for a bit beforehand). And off in the freezer it goes for about 5 hours. 

           

When your ice cream is done you can start with the rest. Grate the chocolate and roughly chop the hazelnuts, then toast them in a pan till they are golden.
Heat the dulche de leche in a small saucepan until it is runny and, while it warms up, slice the remaining 2 bananas.








Take your dessert glasses or whatever you wanna have the dessert in and start with a layer of your sliced banana. Top with a scoop of banana ice cream, drizzle over the runny dulche de leche and finish off with the hazelnuts and your grated chocolate. 

 
























Sadly ours did not look like Jamie's lol. If you want to have a look at the original recipe: jamieoliver.com


And the most important thing: Have fun cooking :)

Yes we are silly enough to make faces with cooking spoons and our food :D

x
J.

Food Friday - Salmon Lasagne and Dessert

Hello you guys :)

This week I was invited to a friends for a homemade dinner, we both love to cook so we decided it was  about time we cooked together. He chose our main course and I was responsible for our dessert.
This came to us making salmon lasagne and a tiramisu like dessert.

Since the lasagne needed to cook in the oven for about 25 minutes we decided to start of with it and  making the dessert while the lasagne was in the oven.


Salmon Lasagne

Ingredients:

400 g    fresh spinach (or 200 g frozen)
160 g    salmon
400 g    diced tomatoes
400 g    cream cheese
300 ml  vegetable stock
12        lasagne sheets
2          onions
3 tbsp   grated cheese ( we definitely used more :D)
1 tsp     lemon juice
1 tsp     olive oil
1 tbsp   dill
1 tsp    thyme
salt, pepper and nutmeg

(Preheat oven to 200°C)
Peel and dice the onions. Wash spinach and chop it (if you use frozen spinach just defrost it). Wash your salmon, dry it and cut it in cubes.

Stew the onions with the olive oil and the spinach in a pan and deglaze with vegetable stock after 3-5 minutes. Add the salmon and diced tomatoes and spice with salt pepper and thyme.

Mix the cream cheese with dill and lemon juice and spice with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
As soon as that's done you can start to layer your lasagne into a baking dish (ca. 21x32 cm).
Start of with your salmon-spinach-mix, then lasagne sheets and then cream cheese. Repeat that and finish off with your cream cheese mix topping it with your graded cheese after that your lasagne is ready to go into the oven for about 25 minutes.

For the dessert you need:

250 g   quark
100 g  plain yoghurt
200g  chocolate biscuits (or you can also use amaretti)
Maple syrup and caster sugar

And you need fruits. We had strawberries but you could also have it with peaches or raspberries whatever floats your boat :)
How much you need depends on how big the glasses are that you want to have your dessert in. But mainly I would say you need about a hand full of fruit each.

Mix the yoghurt with the quark and add as much sugar as you want depending on how sweet you want it. Chop your fruits and add a bit of maple syrup again this is something everyone likes differently. I love maple syrup so I tend to use quite a lot but not everyone is that fond of it so just try it till you like it.
Then blitz the biscuits in a blender.

Fill your glasses starting off with the quark-yoghurt-mix, then your blitzed biscuits and fruit on top of it. Repeat it till your glass is full finishing off with the quark-yoghurt mix.

EAT :D

It was delicious and we were so full we had to roll ourselves out of the kitchen :)
Both recipes are really easy to make and taste very nice.
The dish works quite well with a good white wine and although I don't usually drink alcohol it was enjoyable to have a glas with it.

All in all a felicitous evening that didn't lack a bit of silliness whilst cooking :)

Enjoy your weekend and maybe this dish :)

x
J.