Saag Paneer

Great idea Anna, am jumping on the bandwagon of posting a recipe for Chris's birthday (although a day late!)

My additon to this ever increasing list of fabulous food-tasticness is a traditional punjabi dish with spinach (or Palak) and can be made with paneer and/or potatoes.

I have no idea of quantities I'm afraid so these are rough guidelines. I just normally wing it and taste and smell as I go along!!

This will feed about 4-6 people.

What you need:

Ghee (enough to coat the bottom of the pan and the cover the onions)
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 medium size onions finally chopped
Garlic
Fresh Ginger & Fresh green chilli (can be finely chopped with a hand blender)
Salt
Cumin seeds (jeera)
Whole corriandar seeds (Dhania - these will needs to be crushed in a pestle and mortar style)
Turmaric (haldi)
half tin of tinned tomotoes (pureed)
Loads of spinach chopped. If you're buying from the supermarket in bags then you'll need about 8 bags. If buying fresh then you'll need about 5 bunches if quite big.
Paneer - some supermarkets stock this now
or potatoes
Fresh corriander
Masala

And this is how you do it....

In a large pan, heat the ghee. Once hot add the mustard seeds, cumin, ground corriander and garlic. This will release the flavour of the spices. let them sizzle for a few seconds and then add in the finely chopped onions. The onions are the important bit. The onions need to slow cook for about 20 mins or until they're a red/brown in colour (but not burnt!)

Once they turned red/brown in colour, add the finely chopped ginger, chilli and salt and turmaric (haldi) and then the pureed tomotoes. Cook the tomatoes for about 10 mins on a low heat to cook through and once it's in a paste add the spinach. Cover and cook for about half an hour or until it breaks down nicely, and then add the paneer and/or potatoes then cook for a further 20 mins or unitl the potatoes are cooked.

At the end, add about 1/2 - 1 tspn of masala to taste and some fresh chopped corriandar.

Serve with chappatti (roti) and rice.

Yum yum.

Scrambled Eggs done properly

As a kid, eating wobbly, rubbery scrambled eggs was all I knew. As a grown-up I've learnt how to make them properly and now I'm telling the world! You too will want them cooked this divine way instead of fried or poached on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

Ingredients
Free range eggs (1-2 per person)
Butter
Chives or spring onions, chopped
Salt and pepper

Method
Whisk your eggs in a bowl with a fork. Put a saucepan (not too small, you don't want the egg half-way up the sides) over a gentle heat and melt some butter. As soon as it's all melted add in the chives or spring onions and let them soften for a short while. Then add in the eggs. You will need stir the eggs regularly to ensure they don't stick and the uncooked egg gets the heat from the bottom of the pan.

Get your bread/crumpets/muffins in the toaster!

As the egg cooks and the mixture will become more solid make sure you stir it so the consistency is as even as possible. When you think it's nearly ready take it off the heat so it is still runny. Yes, before it's ready - this is necessary! You will see steam still coming off it and this means that the egg is continuing to cook in its own heat, which is what you want.

Add salt and pepper to taste. You should be able to 'pour' the eggs from the pan onto your toast. Serve with some lovely sausages from the butcher (or tomatos if you're a veggie).

I'm salivating just writing this. And it's only Tuesday - can i wait til the weekend?

P.S. This is dedicated to Chris who's been nagging me to do this for ages and since it's his 30th birthday I thought it would be an easier present to sort out than the stripper I know he really wanted. Happy birthday Chris.

Thai Green Monk Fish Curry

Monk fish is an ideal fish for most types of curry as its tougher than most supermarket bought fish. In many cases it can just be substituted for chicken to varying success. The fish itself does not have an overbearing flavour so it tends to absorb the taste from the dish.

Ingredients:
1 Monkfish skinned and cubed
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
100g mange tout (halved)
2 tbsp thai green curry paste
1 can of coconut milk
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 small chilli (chopped) (optional)
bunch of coriander (roughly chopped)
1-2 tbsp olive oil

1) Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan until hot. Add in the chopped chilli and fry for a minute. Then add in the rest of the vegetables and fry for a further 3-5 mins until they have softened.

2) Add in all the thai green curry paste, stir thoroughly. Then add the coconut milk, bay leaf and fish sauce. Bring the sauce to the boil.

3) When it reaches boiling point add in the monk fish turn down the heat and simmer for ten minutes or until the fish is cooked. Remove the bay leaf and serve with rice or noodles (or as in our case both).

Cumin Minced Lamb in Pitta

This dish takes about 10 minutes to cook after preparation and will serve four, although we gobbled this lot between us. It is one of Shanshan's favourite street foods in China.


Ingredients:
500g minced lamb
4 sticks of celery (sliced into 0.5cm slices)
4 pitta breads
pinch of szechuan pepper corn (use normal pepper corns if you don't have these)
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp of cumin powder
1 tsp of hot chilli oil or hot chilli powder
salt (to taste)
1 tbps light soy sauce

1) Heat half the olive oil in a large frying pan or wok. When hot fry all the minced lamb until browned. Then drain the excessive liquid and set aside (placing the lamb on kitchen paper on a plate will do the job)

2) Heat the other half of the olive oil in the same pan and add the sechuan pepper corns, fry for 10 seconds then add the celery and fry until softened. Then add the minced lamb you set aside earlier, mix well then add the cumin powder, soy sauce chilli oil (or powder) and salt and continue to mix. Add water if the dish is too dry.

3) Toast the pittas for a minute each, slice in half and open up. In the pocket of the pittas fill stuff with the dish. Serve.

Marinated Pork Satay

Right then here we go with the first recipe. This was one of the dishes that inspired this blog. Its a recipe for two. I hope you enjoy.

Ingredients:
2 pork steaks (sliced into strips)
100g of green beans (halved in length)
1 green pepper (sliced)
7 cherry tomatoes (halved)
1 clove of garlic (chopped)
2 pinches of Muer (Wood ear)
1 tbsp satay sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp knorr chicken powder
1 tbsp olive oil

For the marinade:
1 tsp corn flour
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

1) Mix the marinade ingredients together and pour over the pork strips. They will need to marinate for at least 10 minutes. To prepare the muer place in a bowl of recently boiled water for 10 minutes.

2) When the pork has been marinated for long enough, heat half the olive oil in a pan and fry the pork strips for 5 minutes. Once cooked through remove pork from pan and set aside.

3) Using the same pan heat the rest of the oil, when hot add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Then add the tomatoes, beans and pepper. Fry for 3-5 mins until the vegetables lose some of their firmness.

4) Drain the muer and add to the pan with the pork. Add the satay sauce, soy sauce and the chicken powder and stir thoroughly. If the dish looks a bit dry add some water but not too much.

5) Serve immediately with rice.

Welcome to Zhoodles

Zhoodles is a food blog. It has been put together simply to share with you some recipes and to help you understand how to cobble together some pretty decent food with a small amount of information. No doubt, if you've found this blog already you'll already be fairly accomplished in the kitchen and won't need much direction around the pots and pans yourself. We're not here professing to be experts, but as a huge fan of food and in particular the food my girlfriend (Shanshan Zhu) cooks I feel almost a sense of guilt as I gorge myself greedily. Which quickly passes and then I realise that these dishes would be readily welcomed on any table across the country/world. So after much consideration I'm delivering the blog.

None of these recipes will be taken directly out of cookbooks, but that's not to say that some of the recipes on here won't be in cookbooks. We'll never knowingly steal a recipe and publish it here....
But if we do we'll make sure that we acknowledge the creator and post links etc.

And finally. We won't be posting every day but we'll (hopefully) be posting quality recipes for you to enjoy. I'll do my best to get photos but no promises, I know what I'm like when the food hits the table.

In the meantime get yourself off to http://www.dorjes.co.uk/ and order a bottle of Fragolino before the summer ends. Its perfect for this Indian Summer we're all praying for.

Take care
Chris