Pasta al dente and lightly flavoured baked chicken

Pasta al dente in cream sauce, garlic bread and baked mushroom & chicken on the side.

Herb-marinated baked Fish

Herb-marinated, crumb-coated baked seer fish fillet with chips, mushrooms and garlic bread...and a lager to go with.

Chicken Ham Open Sandwich

Grilled Open Sandwich with Stir fried chicken ham with mushrooms and tomato

Fluffy herb infused omelete and cheese sandwiches

I am back this time with the "Food I Cook" series

I have been taking photographs of food I cook and eat for some time now but due to reasons unknown I haven't populated this space with all those wonderful images and recipes. Here's another start. This is a simple onion and tomato based rajma or beans curry eaten with some flaky Paratha and vinegar onions. The secret is some yoghurt stirred in towards the end just before you serve to ensure a nice creamy texture to the curry.

Ingredients:

•  3 cups Rajma or red beans

• 2 onions finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 1 tea spoon Coriander powder
• 1 tea spoon chili powder
• Mustard Seeds 
• 3 cups yoghurt
• 250 ml of tomato puree 
• Salt to taste
• 4 cloves
• 1 spoon ginger paste
• Any kind of Indian seasoning or masala available such as Rajma masala or Kitchen King etc

Recipe:

Finely chop the onions and garlic. Heat some oil (I prefer olive oil) in a deep pan/dish, add the mustard seeds, chili powder, coriander powder, cloves and salt.

When the mustard seeds begin to pop, stir the contents of the pan and stir in the onions, garlic and ginger paste. Continue to stir on low flame until the spices have been absorbed completely and the onions are a deep golden brown.

Stir in the tomato puree and continue to stir. Allow the curry to simmer on low flame adding a little water to ensure it doesn't dry out. Add the ready masala (about 2 table spoons) to the curry and stir and simmer.

Your pre-soaked (soak rajma for at least 8 hours prior to cooking) should be pressure - boiled for about 12 minutes or 2 whistles if you're using a pressure cooker. Drain off the water and stir in the boiled, soft rajma into the curry. Continue to simmer.

As the excess water evaporates, stir in the yoghurt into the curry to improve texture and take the edge of the masala if you like it mild.

Simmer for another 15 minutes and serve with some Roti or Paratha.

Italian Food

"Italian food is all about finding good, healthy ingredients and then not screwing them up"

- Anthony Bourdain in Tuscany

Muy Sabroso

This was easily the most complex cooking endeavour I ever embarked upon. Sure AI Team Dinners in Rotterdam became a handful at times with 15 people signing up but then our objective was not to please but to fill stomachs and there were 4 of us sharing the burden. Of course my team had the incredibly talented Ms. Schroeder so cooking actually involved following directions :)

But I digress. Coming back to this Saturday past...either I allowed my excitement to get the better of me or I just didn't plan the evening to the extent that such an evening demands. However despite a few hiccups, the food came out OK. I think we had a total of 20 people who came and went through the evening when I'd planned for about 12. That resulted in not everyone being able to partake in everything I made but at least no one went away hungry!

Coming to the point, the evening was meant to feature a range of tapas style finger foods and one entree. The menu read as follows:

• Caramelized onion & cheddar cheese served on toasted bread

• Fried Ham Croquettes
  
• Mince chicken canapes (I couldn't find real canapes so made do with some basket shaped potato chips which I fried - end result was pretty good)
  
• Spicy stir fried chili prawns
  
• Nacho Chips and Salsa Sauce ( I just picked these up off the shelf)
  
• Classic Spanish Omelets (stuffed with potato and some cheese)

• Entree - Chicken Fajitas (a wheat & corn flour based dough for the tortillas which were then stuffed with marinated chicken, salsa sauce and cream, served hot)

Helen baked 2 great chocolate cakes which were wiped out in 10 minutes flat! :-)


All told, everything came out the way I had envisioned before. The next time around a little more preparation would make it even better but I think I have all the above now commited to memory. That's the exciting part :-) and most importantly I think everyone had a blast.