Secret Recipe Club - Chicken Tikka Masala and Garlic Chive and Mozzarella Paratha

This is my first post for the Secret Recipe Club! I was given a really interesting blog called Enriching Your Kid written by mum Shirley to chronicle the recipes she makes for her family.

The recipes all have a strong Indian vibe and given we love Indian food in this house it was a really tough choice picking just one. So I went with 2 instead!

First up was a creamy Chicken Tikka Masala with a twist, that twist being that it contains cheese! A little research showed this is actually not uncommon. I love cheese but would never have thought to use it in a curry.

I did make a few changes to the recipe, firstly using chicken thighs instead of breast for extra flavour and also to ensure it stayed moist as we were cooking on the BBQ. Secondly, I used the remainder of the marinade in the sauce so as not to waste all those delicious flavours and to make the sauce really creamy. There were a few measures missing from the original recipe, for example the amount of lemon juice needed so I have just included what I used. I also doubled the recipe and that's what you will see below. You could easily halve it.

The second recipe I chose was the Garlic Chive and Mozzarella Parathas. While we do make curries pretty often I have never really made Indian breads and this one looked too good to pass up. It didn't disappoint. We all LOVED this bread!

The chicken and parathas made a fabulous dinner. The Chicken Tikka Masala has a lovely warmth from the spices (no chillies) so it is the perfect curry for kids. My 2 year wasn't keen (but he's going through a VERY picky stage) but he did love the bread. My almost 4 year old loved both and wanted seconds. So that's a pretty big tick of approval.

There were lots of other great recipes for choose from so make sure you check out Shirley's blog!

Chicken Tikka Masala
Recipe adapted from Enriching Your Kid

8 chicken thighs

1st marinade
1 tbs ginger-garlic paste (see recipe below)
Juice of 1 lemon

Cut each chicken thigh in half, add marinade ingredients and mix thoroughly. Place in the fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight.

2nd marinade
200 ml Cream
2tbs ginger-garlic paste
50 grams cheddar cheese, finely grated
3 tbs almond meal
2 egg white
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 ts crushed black pepper
oil
salt to taste

In a large bowl, mix together the first 5 ingredients the cheese dissolves and becomes a fine paste. Add the cardamom and pepper and mix well. Add the marinated chicken pieces and mix until the chicken is well coated. Set aside in the fridge for 2 hours.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, scraping off any excess. Reserve the leftover marinade to use in the sauce. Drizzle oil over the pieces, sprinkle with salt to taste and cook on a hot grill, turning often until golden brown and cooked through, approx 10 minutes.

Sauce
1 tbs oil
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion
2 large ripe tomatoes
½ bunch fresh coriander, roughly chopped
salt to taste

Blitz the onion and tomato in a blender until smooth. Heat oil in a large frying pan, add the cumin seeds and cook for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the onion and tomato mixture along with the remaining marinade and mix well. Bring to the boil then cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer for around 15 minutes. Season to taste. Toss through the cooked chicken pieces and coriander and serve with parathas.

Serves 6.


Ginger & Garlic Paste
Recipe from Hub UK

115g fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
115g garlic cloves

In a food processor blend the ginger and garlic to form a smooth paste, adding a little cold water or oil if necessary. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks in a glass container. Makes approximately 100ml.


Garlic Chives and Mozzarella Paratha
Recipe adapted from Enriching Your Kid

1 bunch garlic chives, finely chopped
½ cup grated mozzarella
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup plain flour
2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tumeric
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp asafoetida (I used 2 ts ginger-garlic paste instead)
1 ts salt
Approx 1/3 cup water

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and add enough water to create a dough. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and roll each portion out into a round, approx 15 cm across. Brush each side with oil and fry in a hot pan on both sides until crisp and golden brown. Serve hot.
Makes 8.

 

TWD BWJ - Oasis Naan and Creamy Prawn Curry

After the calorie-laden treats of the past few weeks of BWJ I was delighted to have a simple savoury recipe this week, and even more delighted that it was naan! We love Indian food around here and cook it quite often but we have never really made our own naan. 

This was a very simple bread, just 4 ingredients. I baked them on a pizza stone so they were lovely and crispy on the bottom. They just never got the flat middle and puffed edges that I think was intended, maybe my oven doesn't get hot enough for them to puff up? The parts that did puff up sank as soon as they were taken out.

I even happened to have an unopened packet of caraway seeds in the pantry (no idea what that was bought for!) so could make them exactly as per the recipe for a change. Though I did make one with just sesame seeds on top so my boys didn't have to pick off 'the green'.

I served our naan with a creamy prawn curry which we had also never made before. Truly this was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten! And so simple. We are already imagining this sauce on chicken and fish and making it for guests. Absolutely delicious. 

Our hosts this week were Maggie of Always Add More Butter and Phyl of Cabbages & King Cakes. They will have the recipe up for the Oasis Naan. The curry recipe is below.

Creamy Prawn Curry

Adapted from A Little Taste of India, Murdoch Books 2003, p104-105

400g prawns (peeled, raw, frozen)

2 tbs oil

2 spring onions, finely sliced

1/2 ts ground turmeric

1/2 ts ground cinnamon
1/2 ts ground cumin

1/8 ts ground cloves

7 cardamon pods

1 ts chilli paste

3cm piece fresh ginger, grated

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 x 400ml tin coconut milk

Heat the oil in a large heavy based fry pan. Fry the spring onions for 1 minute then add the turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, cardamon, garlic and ginger. Fry for 2 minutes. Add the chilli, coconut milk and some salt to taste and bring to the boil. 

Reduce the heat to low and add the prawns. Simmer for 5 minutes or until the prawns are cooked through and the sauce has thickened. Garnish with extra sliced spring onions and serve with rice and/or naan. Serves 4.

Daring Cooks September - Indian Dosas

Our host this month is Debyi from the Healthy Vegan Kitchen. She has chosen Indian Dosas from the reFresh cookbook by Ruth Tal.

I love Indian food but have never made or even eaten dosas before so this was a great challenge. It was made more challenging by also being a vegan recipe. While I think I could go vegetarian quite easily, I do love my eggs and cheese a bit too much to go vegan for any length of time!

A dosa is essentially an indian pancake, and very similar to a French crepe in many respects. I used atta (chickpea) flour for the dosas and also subbed garam masala for the curry powder. For the filling I went with curried potatoes from our fave Indian cookbook, A Taste of India. This was a heady mixture of potatoes with onions, garlic, chili and mustard seeds. I think the mustard seeds must pack a lot of heat because even my chilli loving husband thought it was a bit too spicy!

Dosa Pancakes
1 cup (120gm) spelt flour (or all-purpose, gluten free flour)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp curry powder
½ cup (125ml) almond milk (or soy, or rice, etc.)
¾ cup (175ml) water
cooking spray, if needed

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, slowly adding the almond milk and water, whisking until smooth. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spray your pan with a thin layer of cooking spray, if needed (I found the spray prevented the dosa mix from spreading around the pan). Ladle 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of your pan in a circular motion until it is a thin, round pancake. When bubbles appear on the surface and it no longer looks wet, flip it over and cook for a few seconds. Remove from heat and repeat with remaining batter. Makes 8 pancakes.

The taste test ...

The dosas themselves were fantastic. If you like pancakes you'll love these! I probably wouldn't make the potato filling again without major changes to the recipe. It was just too spicy and I felt it needed a fuller flavour. I would have added in some coconut milk to cut through the heat but unfortunately we'd run out. I would love to experiment with different vegan fillings and I also think the dosas would be the perfect accompaniment to a curry just on their own.

Thanks for a great challenge Debyi! Looking forward to next month!