An Indian Feast

Before the end of term I decided I wanted to do a proper big dinner for a few of us, because I like cooking and I like people. Zosia had an 'Indian dip selection' in the fridge. That was that, really.

Sooooo I made a mixed bean curry and onion bhajis and chapatis and coriander rice. And it was exhausting. And also wonderful. The curry recipe belongs to a friend of my aunt and has been a favourite at home for years - it went down pretty well here, too! It's a long list of ingredients but don't be daunted: most of them are just store-cupboard spices. Also, because it needs time to marinade it's a good one to make earlier in the day.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 1tbsp mustard seeds
- 1tbsp cumin seeds
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 2 chillis, chopped
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
-  ½tsp turmeric
- 1tbsp ground coriander
- 1tbsp ground cumin
- ½pt boiling water
- 4 large tins of beans (I tend to use 2 of chickpeas and 2 of kidney beans)
- 3 balls of frozen spinach
- handful fresh coriander

Method:
1. Grab your biggest saucepan and drizzle in some olive oil. Add the cumin and mustard seeds and heat until they start popping.
2. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and soften 'til the onion becomes clear (about 8 minutes).

3. Add the chopped tomatoes and spices and cook for a few more minutes, then add the water.
4. Stir well, then put on a lid (or some tin foil) and simmer on a low heat for 30-40 minutes.
5. Add the beans and spinach and stir until the spinach has de-frosted, then allow to cool and marinade for as long as you have time for.
6. Cook through when required, then season and add the fresh coriander.

Simple. For the rice, I cooked some basic brown rice and then added a squeeze of lime juice, some salt and pepper and some fresh coriander to liven it up a bit.

The onion bhajis I made were a very yummy side, and seemed to work fine with gluten free flour.

And it's easy to make chapatis. You need a tablespoon of both wholemeal and white flour per person (OR you can buy chapati flour and use 2tbsp per person. All the flour in our house at uni is gluten free, so it was actually cheaper for me to do this). Add a drizzle of olive oil and enough warm water to bring it all together in a dough, then knead for a couple of minutes. Cover with clingfilm, and then leave for an hour. 

Divide the dough into pieces (4 each, so it depends how many you're making for): they'll look small, but it's all good. Roll out as thin as you can without breaking them, then grab a frying pan and and cook the chapatis one at a time, for about a minute each side (you don't need any oil). Once cooked, transfer to a plate and spread with butter, then onto the next!

Serve up to your hungry friends and enjoy your feast.

What to do when you win a coconut

First of all, I'm sorry for being a bit MIA recently. Life is mad, especially since I got a job at my local fruit and veg shop (yay vegetables), but I will make it up to you. Starting with this.

Because at the Royal Holloway Summer Ball this year, I won a coconut on the coconut shy. Here is a picture of me with my coconut.

Zosia would like to add here that she really reallllly was very very excited.

I named him Tarzan. I was very very excited and full of ideas of what to do with it... but a month later it was still sitting on my shelf, though at home now as we'd left uni. And then my sister suggested I used it to make some sort of Thai curry. AN IDEA WAS BORN. And my coconut became this:

Which was pretty darn good really.

What you need for a Bryony-style Thai green curry:
- 1 coconut
- 8 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- half a red pepper
- half an aubergine (a whole one would be fine)
- a thumb-size piece of ginger
- 2 chillies (I used 1 red and 1 green, but it's up to you)
- 6-8 new potatoes
- handful green beans
- handful mange tout
- 1 1/2 tsp soya sauce
- 1 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
- 350ml water with half a knorr stock pot or 1 oxo cube
- zest and juice of 1 lime
- fresh coriander
- jasmine or sticky rice, to serve

And the SECRET ingredient (less secret now I put it on the internet in capital letters) is a 'Thai Taste: Easy Thai Green Curry Kit'. Which sounds like a massive cheat, but actually it isn't and is also the best money-saver ever. It includes coconut milk, Thai green curry paste and herbs - which, if you bought them seperately, would come to about £5-6, and I think this was £2ish. So no complaints.

It's quite a lot of ingredients, but I promise nothing is lost and it's totally worth it. This amount served three, but it would be a good one for bulking up and cooking en-masse, too - especially if you get people to pitch in for cost.

1. Start by getting into your coconut. We used a hammer and chisel, but the internet is full of suggestions. Once you're in, cut the fleshy bits into small, thin pieces and dry-fry them in a wok or frying pan until they're toasted. This alone is amazingly nice. Put the coconut water aside, and put the toasted coconut pieces in a bowl to cool down. Meanwhile, put your new potatoes on to boil for about 15 minutes.

2. In the now-empty wok heat up some oil, and then add the spring onions, garlic and ginger. Stir-fry these for a couple of minutes, and then add the aubergine, followed shortly by the green beans.

3. Once the vegetables are starting to colour and the aubergine is beginning to shrink, add the pepper, chillis and Thai herbs. Stir-fry all this for another 5 minutes or so, before adding in the boiled new potatoes (chopped), the curry paste and most of the toasted coconut. Cook for another few minutes.

4. Next, add the mange tout, the coconut water (the stuff that was inside your coconut), the coconut milk, the water and the stock pot/cube. It should be beginning to look more like a curry. Turn up the heat slightly and stir, and add in the sugar and soya sauce. Now is also a good time to put your rice on to cook, though it depends what sort of rice you're using.

5. After 15 minutes or so, your liquid should have reduced by about half, and should now be thicker and more sauce-like (although it isn't a particularly thick sauce, so don't worry). When you're happy with the consistency, add in most of your fresh coriander, the lime juice and most of the zest. Cook for another couple of minutes and then try the sauce and adjust whatever you need (if you need to) until you're happy with it. 

Serve with the rice, and the rest of the coconut, coriander and lime zest. You won't be disappointed.

Potato and Butterbean Curry

This has been one of my favourite things for a long time. 

When Mum says "what do you want for tea on your birthday", I often ask for this. It's utterly gorgeous and special enough for an occasion, but it's also relatively simple and easy to make. Winners all round!

I made this the other day at my dad's house in London, and it's somehow different to Mum's despite following her recipe, but Dad tactfully said it was "different but just as good" to avoid argument between Mother and myself. (Side note: I wasn't sure if we should post things that we hadn't cooked AT university, hence the lack of posts for a while, but Zosia pointed out that we're still students and we're still cooking! So looks like you won't be free from us in the summer hols after all, sorry folks.)

THE RECIPE:
- 8-10 small/new potatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 or 2 fresh red chillies
- 1 rounded tbsp flour
- 2 1/2 tbsp med. curry powder
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 desert spoon of chutney*
- squeeze of lemon juice
- heaped des. spoon peanut butter
- 400g tinned tomatoes
- 2x 400g tin butterbeans
- 2 bay leaves
- 2/3 large pot of natural yoghurt

*we use our homemade marrow chutney but any would do - best would perhaps be a mango one.

It's a lot of ingredients, but I promise it's worth it. Plus the majority of it is larder-foods, which you can use over and over in other recipes. So there. ALSO this makes enough for 6-8 hungry people, so you can freeze your inevitable leftovers and use on a a lazy-day.

THE HOW-TO:

1. Chop the potatoes into small pieces and boil for 10/15 minutes, until tender.

2. Chop the onion, garlic and chilli(s). Put some olive oil in a wok or large saucepan and fry the onion garlic and chilli until soft - about 5/10 minutes.

3. Add the dry ingredients - the flour, curry powder and ginger - and cook for another 3/4 minutes. At this stage it should look something like this:

4. Add the tinned tomatoes, then fill the empty can 3/4 full with water and add that too. Also add the chutney, lemon juice, peanut butter and bay leaves.

5. Drain and rinse the butterbeans, and add those too. Season, and cook gently for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

6. Add the potatoes. Put on the pan lid (or an upside-down plate if you don't have one) and simmer for a further 15/20 minutes.

7. Add the yoghurt and EAT.

Best served with long grain brown rice and chapattis. At home we make these ourselves, but that's just too much faff at uni so I bought some. Easy peasy. 

If you DO want to make them though (say, if you want to be gluten-free) - the mixture is a heaped tbsp of both white and wholemeal flour per person, drizzled with olive oil and enough warm water to make a dough. This is kneaded and left for at least an hour. It's then cut up into small pieces (4 per person) and rolled out, then dry-fried for about a minute each side and spread with as much butter as you dare.

And there you go. You can add or miss out anything you want - when I did the leftovers for myself and Rebecca yesterday I added some more ginger and a desert spoon of wholegrain French mustard. Plus, Rebecca said it was the best thing she'd ever tasted in her life. Beat THAT.