Curry leaves

Just a quick post about one of my favourite ingredients – curry leaves (limda in Gujarati). A wonderful aromatic herb which add a distinctive flavour to dhals and when fried to bombay mix type concotions. I’m hoping to grow some and have tracked down two nurseries that supply plants in the UK: Old hall plants and Poyntzfield herb nursery.

Now before we go on, let’s get one thing clear – I am not talking about the curry plants that are sold in some garden centres which have a very strong curry like smell Heichrysum italicum. I bought a bunch of these to keep the cats out of my garden. The plants that grew very well only succeeded in being cat barriers when they had grown so big the cats couldn’t get in. As far as I know, the leaves aren’t edible.

I am talking about Murraya koenigii. If you go to an asian supermarket, they are easy to find. They will be in the fresh herb section next to the coriander (another fave). The leaves should be glossy green and attached to their branches. You can pick each one off individually, or be lazy like me and just run your fingers down the stalk and just pull them all off in one go. Wash them well in cold water. Chuck out any bruised/black ones and freeze the rest. They last for ages (which is my way of saying, I don’t know how long you can freeze them but it’s ages)

 

 

Bark as good as my bite

Often in my recipes I include cinnamon. I use the alternative which is known as cassia bark or chinese cinnamon for most of my cooking as it’s more robust in a sauce or when being boiled as part of a pilau. The usual amount is a 2inch piece of the bark. It is  cheaper, stronger tasting and less sweet than cinnamon – IMHO the latter is better suited to sweet dishes or for hot chocolate/mulled wine drinks.

There are some health concerns with cassia having large amounts of coumarin which can affect the coagulation of blood so if you are worried, use true cinnamon instead. For this reason, I only use Schwartz’ powdered cinnamon for my daughter’s food.

How to tell the difference: Cassia is bark like – dark, very thick and when in a tube, it is hollow

     

Cinnamon – a very pretty reddish brown. True cinnamon is shaped as quills and will cost a lot lot more than cassia.

 

Too hot to handle

Woooohooooo I am back to cooking on gas. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to have left our last house with it’s annoying induction hob and move to a place with a 5 ring gas hob. So now I’m back to proper cooking I  have an issue to overcome – all the spicy food I cook lately is too spicy. This might sound odd but I have never enjoyed food that is all heat – I like to taste the vegetable that I am eating and also some of the other ingredients in the dish. If a dish is too spicy all you get is pain (both on the way in and on the way out).

I have tried changing from the  4 rated finger chili to the 2 rated green chili (aka as an Indian Hot Pepper) from Tescos. In truth I prefer using bullet chilies from an Asian grocers but there aren’t any around here.  I just had a quick look on a chilli site which mentions a Jinta chilli that looks similar to ones I’ve used before so maybe I will order some.

In addition, I’ve just chucked all my Natco chili powder. The package is marked Very Hot which made me wonder if that was the cause of the heat in my food. Unfortunately, the TRS chili powder I found in a local supermarket is Extra Hot – what a shame they don’t sell the normal TRS chili powder. I’ve bought it for now though as I have to have chilli powder in my kitchen.

So I’m turning into a  Heston B here and experimenting with different amounts of fresh chilli and the chilli powder as there seems to be a point where too little is just so bland but a few grains more and I’m back to burning my head off. I would love to buy all the different versions of chillies and chilli powders (see the site Spices of India …there are loads and loads). And in the meantime, I’m going to start growing some at home using this pack that I was give for Christmas

Burnt on food

The first part of this tip is:

Do not leave food cooking while you jump on the computer to quickly check something on the internet. There is never anything quick about the internet and before you know it, food has burnt to a crisp and ruined your favourite stainless steel pressure cooker.

The second part of this tip is:

Follow manufacturers instructions for cleaning your pot. But if you are brave, ditch the Mr Muscle type products and reach for a can of diet soda, irn bru or in my case Fanta. Pour in enough to cover the burnt on food, then bring to boil. Leave overnight and magically the next day, the burnt on food should be easy to take off with a scourer.

I take no responsibility for your pots being ruined if you follow this tip. For myself, I have a nice shiny pressure cooker again so I’m happy.

Tips: Ginger

Here are some tips on how to buy and store ginger. Fresh ginger lasts for a couple of weeks in the fridge but I find that it tends to dry out quite quickly so I prefer to freeze it.

Look for ginger that is not dried out – the best way to check is to snap a piece off. It should break cleanly and the centre should not be too fibrous. Fresh ginger is very wet too when snapped.

I store ginger in the freezer. To do this, peel the skin off. I know that some TV chefs say you don’t need to peel it, and that’s up to you but personally I prefer peeled. The skin comes off quite easily either by scraping it with a knife or even a spoon. I think grate it up to the fibrous core which I discard.

For convenience, I put the ginger into ice-cube trays. Once frozen, I take the cubes of ginger out and store in a freezer bag. I confess I’ve used frozen ginger months after storing it. I have an ice cube tray where each cube is the equivalent of a teaspoon of grated ginger.

When I need it in a recipe, I just take a cube out and pop it into the dish – it thaws when cooking very quickly.