Chana Masala

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Guest Chef No 10 - Ferdia McLoughlin

Let me present the glorious Ferdia McLoughlin who catered for up to 80 people using only beer kegs, an open fire and his manly prowess.  Well I lie, there was a gas hob as well as an open fire.


Ferdia catered for the staff and crew of Vantastival, which is a great family and campervan friendly festival located on Dunanny Estate in Co Louth. The sun was splitting the rocks all weekend, and a great time was had by all. There was music, dancing, bouncy castles, a campervan cook-off (post on this to follow) a scrap heap challenge and hidden midnight surprises in the woods.


Ferdia kept the crew well fed all weekend. I popped my head in to say hi and chop the occasional onion. His cooking gear was manufactured by the creative crew from old beer kegs - sure why not! Even including the big stirring spoon.

One outstandingly tasty dish that made it's way out of this multicoloured tent was Chana Masala. Ferdia spent a year in travelling/cycling in India. He makes some amazing Indian dishes with a great understanding of all the spices and ethnic nuances.


This recipe was written for 80 portions - Ferdia kindly scaled it down to serve 6

Ingredients
2 onions - diced
1 clove of garlic
3 teaspoons of corriander seeds
2 teaspoons of cumin
1/2 tsp of paprika
1 teaspoon of turmeric
200g of tinned tomatoes
800g of tinned chickpeas - drained
1 teaspoon of tamarind paste disolved in cup of water
3 teaspoons of amchoor powder
1 teaspoon of garam masala
1.2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
3 teaspoons of lemon juice
1 chili
1 teaspoon ginger
100 ml of cream

Method
1) Fry onions.
2) Add in corriander, cumin, paprika & turmeric.
3) Add in tomatoes, cook for a few miutes before adding in the chickpeas, tamarind including the water.
4) Add in the rest of the spices, bring to simmer cover and cook for 10 mins.
5) Uncover and cook for a further 30 mins
6) Remove from the heat and stir in the cream before serving over boiled rice.
7) Enjoy in the County Louth sun
For a lighter option use low fat yogurt instead of cream

What a guy!

Lamb Madras

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No speel just one hugely yummy recipe. I learnt this recipe on the Cooks Academy Certificate course - it's really good, especially the next day. Worth considering if you're cooking for a dinner party reduce the stress on the day in question.

 Serves 6

Ingredients

Sunflower Oil for frying

1kg of diced lamb - trim off excess fat

2 big onions 0 diced

4 large cloves of garlic crushed

1-2 tablespoons of fresh root ginger grated

1 handful of coriander roots - chopped

400g / 1 tin of tomatoes

1 pint good chicken stock

3 tablespoons ground cumin

1 tablespoon of curry powder (depending on strength and taste)

1/2 tablespoon of ground coriander

2 tsp of cardamon pods - seeds removed and ground in a pestle and mortar (or a spice grinder if you have one - please santa - hint hint!)

a big bunch of fresh coriander roughly chopped

Method

1) Brown of the lamb in the sunflower oil. Do in batches and set aside.

2) Sweat the onion off for a few minutes after you have finished the lamb.

3) When the onion has gone clear, add in the garlic, ginger, spices and coriander stalks. Cook out the ground spices for a few minutes stirring constantly.

4) Then add in the tomatoes and chicken stock. Cook for 10 minutes.

5) Liquidise the mixture with a stick blender.

6) Return the lamb to the pan and bring to a gently simmer. Cover and cook for 1.5 hours - 2 hours depending on the size and quality of your lamb.

7) Serve with rice or naan and some nice homemade chutney - or Sharwoods mango chutney. That stuff is like crack cocaine for me honestly can't get enough of the stuff.

I made my own naans for this recipe - but the recipe is not quite perfect so I'll wait till it is before I post one. If anyone has any good naan recipes they'd like to share that would be great. I also served it with a spiced vegetable and lentil dish and rice.

Cooks Academy Week 3

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Monday

Have I got your attention yet - mmm I'm yummy!

Up bright and early an continuing on with the Italian theme again mostly. Pea Risotto, Chorizo and Chickpea and Apple Tarte Normande, ok so that makes it more European Day then I guess. My lack of partner today saw me tackle the whole menu alone.

Practising my mise en place. You know on TV cookery shows when the chef says 'I'll just add some finely diced onion' and promptly tips a small glass bowl full of perfectly diced onion into his pan. I always thought this was just for TV shows. Apparently not. This is what you do if you're a super organised chef - like myself of course. Yup, even two cloves are lovingly placed in their own little tiny receptacle - cute.

Now this is super helpful - if you have a little assistant/elf/kitchen hobbit. Lacking any of these and even a human cooking partner; I set about establishing a veritable colony of little bowls filled with all my ingredients.

The words 'must try harder' were invented for this photo

Now I can cook. The morning passed in a super efficient manner, until I got to making my risotto. Glancing over my shoulder I noticed that nobody else was even cooking anymore - whoops. Oh well and I wasn't even the only one cooking solo today. Ah well nothing to do but keep going. So one I went stirring and stirring risotto, stir stir stir all alone whhhhhhy - oww my arm.

The big mistake I made with the risotto was to add stock a little too early before all the liquid had been absorbed. The end result wasn't too pretty but what risotto is. It was delicious, and there is some fresh mint in there too - a nice subtle amount with the peas and Parmesan - nice.

Chorizo Soup

The tarte Normande was amazing, anything involving pastry and apples is a winner in my book. Alan was the first to reply to my free cake tweet. So the lucky guy had some cake delivered to his place of work in Temple Bar.

Chorizo soup was nice I might leave the lid off for a little longer next time to thicken up a bit more, I was otherwise preoccupied with the other dishes to pay it too much attention - many apologies pot of soup!

Tuesday

I'm typing up Tuesday antics on Wednesday morning with the last slice of Apple Normande for breakfast  - it's grand it has apples in it! I also awoke to find that all my nice white chef smocks have been turned pink by a rouge sock - I'll never get work in a Michelin star restaurant in these.

Lamb Madras

Yesterday was Indian Day, which saw us produce an array of delicious and authentic (with some deviation towards the Middle East) We prepared Lamb Masala and lamb koftas. Along with these we also made naan breads spiked with onion seeds.

Koftas

Yumbo dessert

For dessert we prepared cardamon cream pots.  A lovely subtle and light (ish) dessert ideal served with fruit. It was a chance to use some gelatin for the first time - very easy a good trick to have up your sleeve allowing you to turn many delicious liquids into impressive and tasty desserts.

The lamb koftas were spicy and full of flavour, and ideal starter, for the barbeque or smaller for canapes.

The afternoon demo was jam packed. Our pastry expert showed use some sugar boiling techniques and then produced an amazing and sparkling array of spun sugar cages, nests and spirals. To be tried at home with extreme caution due to very high temperatures of the sugar/caramel mix and the fact that you need to kind of throw it around the place. Utensils to be well oiled before starting!

A whole salmon was poached and prepared, with eyes and scales recreated from various other food items. It looked  bit creepy, but I can imagine on the centre of a  large buffet it would look pretty impressive.

We had a demo on how best to prepare and cook scallops - quickly and at a high heat. They were made into a tasty linguine with pancetta, spinach and rosemary butter mmmmmmm.

Finally an large bowl of hummus was prepared, illustrating my need for a food processor once again (hint hint Internet philanthropists!) One of the best recipes I've tasted, nice and spicy a good amount of lemon and lots of tahini. About to be late now for Wednesdays sushi workshop, so 'd better run off in my pink smocks.

byee

Wednesday

Looking at today on the timetable made me feel a bit quesy. Sushi workshop, then cheese tasting, followed by canape making and a wine tasting evening. That's a lot of food to be putting in one stomach - oh and wine.

Sushi to start. The rice seems to be a  key part in how your sushi will work or not. Japanese sushi chefs can train for up to 16 years. The wash must be washed many times, until the water runs clear (or near to clear) Then the rice must be put in cold water before being brought to the boil, then boiled for 15 mins, then sits for 15 minutes. Then covered in rice vinegar and sugar solution, spread on a tray and fanned! la de dah miss sushi rice!

Skills!

Now a careful and colourful assembly of fillings was prepared - after a quick demo on riling techniques we were a bit pushed for time. I still managed to make a few nori rolls, sashimi and sushi balls. It's a shame that the morning was a bit rushed, but that's the nature of the game. I will def be making sushi again, lots of fun and above all delicious.

Lunch

Cheese Montage

The morning demo was then from Kevin Sheridan from Sheridans cheese. He explained the broad cheese making processes and main types of cheese. How various factors influence the finished cheese, such as cultures, temperature, milk type, cutting, turning, storing, heat, size, the list goes on and on!

He brought in a nice range  of cheeses for us to taste,  some Irish traditional like Gubeen, Cashel Blue and a few more recent additions to the Irish cheese circuit (agh I've forgotten their names - will look at my notes) a lovely young, soft goats cheese, and a smaller more mature goats cheese as well as an amazing cheese very like Comte. Comte is the biggest selling cheese in France! There was also the most divine French Camembert.

He made the case for artisan farmers and producers clear in a succinct statement. Artisan suppliers foremost priority is taste, supermarkets foremost priority is profit. Nothing new there but I just thought it summed it up well. The manner in which supermarkets sell and display cheese is harmful to the taste, cheese is essentially very ugly really. Supermarkets attempt to make this product more attractive and in the process homogenise the taste appearance and personality of the cheese. This is a whole other argument - so this is only a small mention of a huge overall point!

After lunch it was full steam into canape preparation for the evening. I think I might have been tasted out as I was finding it very hard to get excited about our canapes - or make some taste decisions. Maybe my palette was a little overwhelmed.

Mini Lemon Tarts

With Our Sushi Combined

The evenings wine tasting was great, everyone in the class invited along a friend. We tasted a variety of red and white wines and had our canapes to accompany various wines. Ok I know I should write more about his but I'm tired - it was fun! There were lots of different canapes but my camera ran out of batteries - damn!

Thursday

Quick Chorizo Pasta

Ok so we're all a little tired after yesterdays hectic schedule and possibly also the many wines! Luckily the timetable for this morning was made up with this in mind. Nothing too taxing.

First we made up mayonnaise - add the oil slowly slowly - from the tip of a fork and you'll be alright - seems to be the major factor in success. I'm feel like I'm stuck in second gear so no chance I'll be rushing. One of the really interesting things about looking at every ones finished products is how different they are. We all followed the same recipe, used the same ingredients and equipment. The finished mayos were greatly varying in consistency. It was a point that our tutor made the day before that even the most highly trained chefs will make the same dish differently. We're like little chef snowflakes - perfectly unique (poetic!)

Also prepared was a delicious salad of Cashel blue cheese with honeyed pecans, watercress and pear - loved it. Linguine with chorizo, rocket and Parmesan - didn't sound the best on paper, but was light and fresh despite the heavy ingredients. Other dishes made included Spaghetti Carbonara (my all time favourite pasta dish) Chestnut and Carrot cannelloni (amazing) Monkfish putanesca, spicy aubergine parpadelle and a range of salads, including Ceasar, chicken  and roasted veg pesto and an spicy horseradish coleslaw. A good feed for all.

Very yummy salad

The afternoon saw our tutor making beef Wellington, moule marinere, potatoes with thyme and tallegio, creme brulle and chicken Ballentine. A delicious and impressive demonstration of multi-tasking and blowtorches, that'll stop you falling asleep!

Muelle Marinere

Afternoon Demo Foods

That's it I'm hiding away form the crazy weather in my apartment practising my wine tasting skills for the night.

Friday 

There was cooking alright - look at the pretty pictures!

Romantic Themed Raspberry Creme Brullee

Salmon Yakatori - very very nice dish

Cerviche

Paella

Chicken Balentine Tastes better than this photo

Paneer Tomato & Green Bean Masala

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So it's been a while since we went to the land of curry. I'm on a bit of an 'eat less meat buzz' right now, and I had some paneer lurking in my fridge for a week or two now. I think I should prob brush up on new Indian recipes, I've fallen into a rut with the spices and herbs I use - but hey they work - so why change!

Paneer is a lovely dense cheese, used in Indian cooking, like tofu, but much nicer. It comes in a block, and can be added to curries and cooked in the mixture, or I prefer to fry it a little to give it a nice golden brown colour and then allowing it to bubble away in the mixture to absorb all the depth and spice of your chosen curry. I made a Panner Butter Masala which is delicious, creamy and rich, make this if you feel like a treat, this however is a more healthy way of using this great cheese - inspired by the delicious food served at Govindas if you've never been it's well worth trying one of their three restaurants in Dublin City for a HUGE portion of healthy delicious food.

Ingredients

I block of paneer - cut into small cubes 2cm squares

2 small red onions - finely diced

4 large tomatoes - chopped (skins removed if you prefer)

3 cloves garlic crushed

1 inch of ginger root grated

a handful of green beans cut in half

1 red chilli (seeds optional - I optioned them in!)

1 teaspoon of mustard seeds

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 teaspoon masala curry powder

1 pinch of asa foetida (optional)

3 curry leaves (bay leaves will do)

3 cardamon pods

1/2 teaspoon of funugreek (ground)

1/4 stock cube

First dry roast the whole spices (mustard seeds, cumin and cardamon seeds) in a dry frying pan for a few minutes until fragrant. Remove to pestle and mortar and crush to release the flavors. The heat some oil in your frying pan and fry the cubes of paneer 10 or so at a time - till a nice golden colour on a few sides. Then remove to a plate and continue till they're all done.

Alternatively - use a pre-mixed spice - like garam-masala - or any type of curry powder/paste that you  have, don't let my extensive list of spices put you off!  

Add in the onion, cook for one minute before adding in the garlic and ginger. Cook these for several minutes until the onion is translucent. Then stir in your crushed spices and cook for a further minute or two, then add in the dried spices and stir. After this tip in the chopped tomatoes and stock cube add a little water and bring up to simmer, cover and leave o cook for about 20-25 minutes. Before you're ready to serve put the green beans on top of the curry - cover for two minutes, and then shy should be cooked but not mushy, stir well and serve.

I serve this with some jasmine rice and a side of aloo-gobi.

All veggies came from our box from Fruitfellas - I feel healthier just looking at this!

Spicy Roast Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup/Dal

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Soup? Dal? whatever, its delicious

You know sometimes you just get it right? I wanted to make butternut squash soup and for some reason decided to use lentils to pad it out instead of potatoes or whatever. I go through phases of having cravings for rice and dal, and making industrial quantities of both, so it made sense to me to make this soup in the way that I would make dal: cooking the onions and spices separately and adding everything together at the end. I seriously hit on a winner. It looks beautiful as all the ingredients are yellow and the turmeric just increases the intense colour. Also, this was the tastiest soup ever (not counting my Nana's chicken soup, which I will blog come winter). Fenugreek and Asa foetida are new spices for me, I added them on Lu's recommendation, you could leave them out but I think they really gave it an extra kick and an authentically indian flavour. I don't think I will ever make butternut squash soup any other way again.

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash

200 grams red or yellow lentils (I used a mix of both)

1 onion

4 cloves garlic

3/4 pint vegetable stock

4 tablespoons Ghee (or 3 tblsp veg oil, 2 tbsps butter, but flavour will not be as good)

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 teaspoons coriander seeds

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 3cm thick slice of ginger

1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon fenugreek powder

1/4 teaspoon asa foetida powder

Begin by cutting the squash in half, removing the seeds, and placing an unpeeled clove of garlic into each of the cavities. Sprinkle with oil and season, and roast in a very hot oven for about 3/4 of an hour or until soft enough to scoop the flesh out with a spoon. Meanwhile,

wash the lentils well, place in a pot, cover and simmer them in about 3 times as much water along with the turmeric and ginger.

When the lentils are totally soft, discard the ginger. Remove the cooked squash from the oven, scoop out all the flesh and add it to the pot with the lentils and their remaining cooking water. Peel the roasted garlic cloves and add them in too. pour in the hot vegetable stock (you might not need the full amount of stock, depending on how much of the cooking water evaporated when you were cooking the lentils. It also depends on how thick you like your soup. I prefer mine a little on the thin side) Using a hand held stick blender, whizz up the lentil and squash mixture until it is smooth

Finely chop your onion and the two remaining garlic cloves. Heat the ghee in a small pan until really hot. Add the seeds first, and remove from the heat. They will darken and fill the kitchen with a wonderful aroma. Then add the rest of the spices, followed by the onion and garlic. Cover the pot and gently saute the mixture until the onions are totally soft.

Bring the soup mixture to simmering point, and add the hot onions and spices infused oil. Stir until everything is incorporated, and serve.

Tomato Dahl

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Tomato on your Roll Dahl?

Dahl is wonderfully satisfying served on top of rice as an accompaniment to curries. I've always had trouble reproducing a good one at home, they seem to vary widely in consistency. From a liquid to something thick and curry like. Because I love lentils I always tend to put too many of them in. This recipe I used only half a cup and this seemed to give a nice consistency, you could add more water if you wanted to serve it poured over the rice.

1 onion chopped
1 carrot small cubed
1-2 green chillies
4 tomatoes cubed (some recipes ask for peeled, but my life is too short to peel tomatoes)
½ cup of red lentils
2-3 garlic cloves crushed 1
inch ginger grated
¼ cup grated coconut (see previous post)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 bay leaves
some coriander to serve
1-2 tablespoons of toasted almonds (mmmm)
Ghee /Veg Oil

In a pan heat up the oil, when hot throw in the mustard seeds, cumin & chillies. Cook until the mustard seeds start to go ‘pop’ and then you can add in the onions, tomatoes and carrots, as well as some salt and turmeric. Saute them until the onions and tomatoes are soft.

Add in the lentils and cook gently while stirring for 3 mins. Then add in two cups of water and some bay leaves. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 15 mins till the lentils are soft and falling apart. You may need to add in some more water if the lentils start to stick to the bottom – so just keep an eye on it.

After 15mins or so - add the coconut simmer for another 4-5 mins. Sprinkle with coriander and toasted almonds. Serve with spiced rice for warm and satisfying meal, and mango chutney of course. Or as a side dish to accompany butter paneer masala and toasty hot naan breads.

Apologies for the terrible title - I just had to

Paneer Butter Masala

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I love Paneer - Govindas used to come to our college on a Thursday and serve up huge plates of delicious rice and paneer in a spicy tomato sauce with peas and little crunchy poppadoms. And as Thursday was a drinking night - it was good soakage for later on. I've tried many recipes to re-create the Govindas Paneer, which I will blog in the future - I promise - my mum loves it.

Here I decided to try a different paneer recipe. For once I didn't fry it first in an attempt to see if it would come out softer. It didn't, but this may have been due to the fact that this didn't have a huge amount of sauce, though it worked beautiful with the sweet onions and the rich creamy nut sauce. I must try it with chicken sometime.

Paneer Butter Masala

Paneer - packet, cubed
Onions - 3 big, chopped as finely as you can
Tomatoes - 2 big
Ginger 1 inch grated
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Medium curry masala powder - 1 tsp
Red chili powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - a tsp
Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp, grind to paste - and then a few for garnish
Mustard seeds – a table spoon
Ghee - two desert spoons
Cream - 1 tbsp (optional)
Fresh coriander leaves - chopped, to serve

Heat the ghee in a pan and add the mustard seeds. Once they pop, add the onions and fry for 2 mins. Then add the ginger, and the cashewnut paste. Saute for another 2 mins. Now add the pureed tomatoes, coriander powder, turmeric, curry masala and salt. Stir well and leave on simmer for about 5 mins.

Next, add the paneer and let cook. If the gravy seems too thick, add little water and keep cooking for about 5-6 mins. Remove from heat, mix in the fresh cream if using and garnish with chopped coriander leaves and a few cashews.

I served this with some spiced rice, a tomato dahl, naan and also some mango chutney. I may have to wean myself off the mango chutney - I'm a bit addicted.