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Archive for August, 2010

Indian style (Tika’ish) lamb kebabs with Tzatziki on Italian flat bread.

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Oh LUSH !

Although this is a big mix of cultures, not quite conforming to the standard of any element of the dish, but coming out delish. The other night I was watching Jamie Oliver Does Greece, and at the same time, my flatmate was cooking a Tikka Masalar. This mix of flavours and tastes inspired me to create what I have done. I admit straight up that I had no clue what the result would end up like, I was hoping for something like a chicken Tandoori, what I ended up with was nothing like that, however, it was rather lush, and defiantly something I would make again. As a rare occurrence, all three of my flatmates were willing to try some, and they all give the thumb’s up.

I’m going to write this one a bit differently, in case you want to make each bit individually.

What you need: Indian Lamb Cubes

Some lamb cubes, however much you want.
Greek Yoghurt, about half a 360ml pot.
Grama masala, Tarmac, salt, pepper, Mild Curry Powder
Red Onion and Garlic,
Tomato Paste
Coriander
Juice of a lemon
Sandwich Bag

What you need: Tzatziki

The other half of the pot of Greek Yoghurt
A red onion
Fresh mint and coriander
A cucumber
Some sweet paprika, salt and pepper.

What you need: To bring it all together.

Some flatbread, I used Tesco’s “Tomato and Cheese Flatbread”, but you could use one of those pizza Garlic Bread things, or Nan bread. The idea was to fold it up, so a wrap would do too.
- or –
Some Rice, I like the rice from the local Turkish places.
- or -
Some couscous puffed in chicken stock with coriander and mint chopped through it, maybe some raisins and pistachios too?

What you need to do: Indian Lamb Cubes

Slice up the coriander, a red onion and crush/grate the garlic.
Get a bowl and mix in there the Greek yoghurt, and add the mixed stuff above, add 2tbs of Garam masala, 1tbs Turmeric, 2tbs of Mild Curry Powder, half a tube of tomato paste and the juice of a lemon.
Mix everything up until you get a thick pinkish paste, taste it to see if you want a bit of pepper or some salt.
When you’re happy, add the lamb cubes, cover the bowl (or put it in a sandwich bag), and leave it for a few hours.
– Intermission… this is where you should do the taziki.
Take the cubes out the bowl and put then on a hot pan. I started off doing this by putting them on a skewer, but to tell you the truth, that was a waste of time. You want the cubes to be nicely coated. You can tell when they’re right because they should be slightly blackened, not completely, but a little bit. Remember: Char’d not Burnt. Towards the end, when you think the lamb is ready, and you can always cut one in half, it should be a greyish pink colour, now you can add the rest of the sauce to heat it up a bit.

What you need to do: Tzatziki.

Plonk the other half of the yoghurt in a bowl, add to that loads of mint and coriander all chopped up.
Deseed the cucumber (as the seeds would make it too watery), slice that up, and add it to the yoghurt.
Thinly slice a red onion as thin as you can get it, add that to the yoghurt too.
Add some paprika and half the juice of a lemon, some salt and pepper to taste.
Mix everything up; lovely!

What you need to do: Bring it all together.

I put the flatbread in the oven for 10 minutes so it went all nice and soft, the put over that the tzatziki and on top of that the lamb with the sauce and enjoy =D

Get all your stuff out.

All the spices.

Mix up the yoghurt, lamb and spices'n'herbs.

The tatziki is nice and easy.

Griddle Pan up that Lamb.

Plate it up, there you go !

Tags: curry, greek, indian, lush, pork
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Whatever you’ve got Pasta Sauce and loads of things you can do with it.

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Lovely pasta sauce !

This is a recipe handed down from generation to generation, from flatmate to flatmate (e.g., I got it off my flatmate who got it off her ma’). I was bored out my mind on Tuesday and fancied doing some cooking, on the cheap, nothing special. I was sitting there, pondering what to make, when I thought I’d do a tomatoes pasta sauce. Turns out, it was the right choice, well nice, and the left over sauce went towards a rather lush brushgetta type meal. This’ll take you 45 minutes, of which you’ll spend 5 of them chopping, and then a little stir every 10 mins, piss easy, well lush, better than anything you can get out of a bottle.

What you need

A large sauce pan
Two tins of chopped tomatoes
An onion
Some carrots
Some Garlic
Some Garlic paste
Some tomato paste
A nice glug of red wine… use your flatmates if you don’t have any or don’t want to open a big bottle.
Sugar, Salt, Pepper, Sweet Paprika, Bay Leaf and a chilli.

What you need to do

Chop up about 3 bulbs of garlic and a chilli, leave the seeds in, it’s not going to be hot.
Chop up an onion by cutting it in half, taking off the skin, making two cuts 90% of the way across horizontally, then chopping vertically.
Chop up the carrot too, I didn’t bother to peal it, but I nibbed off the ends.
Fry up the garlic and chilli in a drop of oil and let them soften up a little.
Add the tinned tomatoes, a bay leaf, I squidged out some garlic paste from a tube at this point, ‘cus I quite like garlic.
Add a nice glug of red wine.
Leave it to simmer gently, when the next ad break comes on the telly, in about 15 minutes, take another look.
If it’s a bit dry now, swoosh in some more red wine and let it reduce until you get the texture you want.
Now taste it, see what it needs. When I did it, it needed some Sugar, Salt and Pepper, remember: You can’t take it out, but you can always add a bit more. Add it, mix it about, taste it, when you’re happy, then I’m happy.

Nice Things you can do with the sauce.

Serve it over some rice or pasta; maybe add a bread crumbed chicken breast to it.
Cover some bread, like chiabbatta or a pizza base, or garlic bread; plonk some cheese and toppings (chorizo, sweet corn, cured meats, mushrooms… whatever you fancy).
Slice up some bread along the lines of a French loaf, top with sauce and some hallumni, and you’ve got a lovely burshgetta to serve your guests.
Put in a small ceramic dish some spinach, then on top of that the sauce, than crack and egg over and bake. I forgot what this is called, but it would work.
Put it into sandwich bags and freeze into portions.
Top a chicken breast with it, covered with cheese.
Plonk it over some chips (home made ones, prefably)
Stuff some mushrooms or red peppers with it; put some cheese on top and/or breadcrumbs.
Add some honey and more chilli cover with ribs (Waitrose do lush ones, they’re about a fiver and come in a long folded box, seriously good stuff) and bake.
Put it over a jacket potato
Use it as a salsa for Nachos, burritos, fajitas… that sort of thing.
Make a tart by putting it over some puff pastry, adding a bit of cheese.
Use it as a base for Mussaka or lasagne.

Chop up some garlic

Chop up some carrots and onions.

Cut like this in three places; then chop downwards.

Sweat the garlic, carrots and onions down 'till they soften and go sweet.

Plonk in the tomatoes and some red wine.

Cook out the wine.

There are the Chilis to give some heat, take them out afterwarsd. Here i've cooked it down to much, add some more wine if you do.

Lookin' good, Tastin' good !

Well lush, don't both with the poncy vine tomatoes.

Tags: bay leaf, carrots, garlic, onions, pasta, sauce, tomartos
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Creamy Crabtastic Pasta

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Every Monday morning I have to go to Cockfosters to see the docs, it’s a bit of an annoyance to tell you the truth, but it does give me a good chance to have a peek around the very lovely independent local butchers, fishmongers, green and Jewish shops. It always gives me a good inspiration, the fishmongers isn’t the cheapest, but they go down to the markets every day to get fresh produce, and have some very interesting stuff. The butchers is fantastic for inspiration, the guys there know their meat, and don’t think twice if you ask them for some off-cuts either “Because I fancy a bit of an experiment” or “To feed the dog”.
Last week, when I made this, I saw the Fishmongers had a special on Crab, £6 for a packet of white meat that’s frozen and has £18 on the label. I also saw a packet of crab legs, about the length of my arm in size, which was highly impressive, unfortunately when I went to pay for them, the ‘£’ was a ‘2’, and thus it was a bit out of my price range… at least, until one day when someone gives me a shedload of money for being an all-round-decent-stand-up-guy, which I don’t think they do anymore.

Anyway, back to the food, this was the first time I’ve tried real crab before, or at least, in recent memory. It tastes, oddly enough, of Crab Sticks, but the texture is slightly hairy. The dark meat has more flavour and more of a pate type texture. I wasn’t in love with it, texture wise, but the taste was right up there. I was expecting almost a prawn/lobster type taste, and although it wasn’t too far off, it wasn’t the same.
If you know someone who likes a bit of crab, this is a nice one to show off a crab’s crabbiness.

What You Need, enough to make for two.

White crab meat and/or a ‘dressed crab’.
Some pasta, I used Fusilli, but I think something like a linguini would work well too.
A glass of white wine.
Garlic, Chilli, Ginger and Parsley.
Some Single Cream
A drop of olive oil.

What you need to do.

First up, boil the kettle for the pasta
While that’s going, chop up the chilli, garlic, parsley and grate the ginger. Keep the seeds if you want a bit more heat; it’s the white coating on the seeds that are the ‘hot’ bit. I found the parsley very stalky, so chop this one up fine. I found the best way to do that, was to roll it up and do a rough-chop on it.
Heat up some oil in a frying pan and add the chilli and ginger, then a few minutes later, add the garlic.
By now, the kettle will be boiled, so boil up some pasta according to the packet, don’t forget to add salt and oil to the water, it stops it sticking and flavours it better.
Add a big glug of white wine and let it reduce down to basically nothing.
Add the crab, cream and parsley, let it simmer and reduce.
I found it needed more ‘oomph’ to it, so I added juice from ¼ of a lemon, some salt, and some more wine, so I added that and let it reduce.
Pasta should be done, taste a piece and if it’s the way you like it, drain it and add to the crabby creamy goodness.
Serve and enjoy =)

Frozen white crab meat and pasta.

A nice bottle of plonk.

Chop the chili and garlic, grate the ginger.

Chop the chili and garlic, great the ginger.

'Dressed Crab' - The mix of white and brown meat works well.

Fry up the Garlic, Ginger and Chilli.

Pasta ! Tip Top Tip: Fill up about 2/3 of your bowl to get the right amount.

Add the crab: It looks rank, but won't end up like that =)

Add the cream and wine, let it reduce.

Plonk in the Parsley: chop it up finer than this though.

That's more like it, give it a taste, add some salt or whatever you think it needs.

Stir in the pasta to the sauce.

Look. At. That.... Lovely.

Crabtastic Creamy Pasta: DONE.

Tags: crab, cream, experment, food, pasta, wine
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How to bung your own ringtones on the iPhone, with just iTunes… Works in iTunes 9 / 2010.

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

I’ve had a few people ask me this, so I thought I’d write it up. I was supposed to do this a few days ago, but I forgot all about it until watching the film “I love you, man” on the telly box. The main bloke has the default iPhone ringtone, which means when-ever his phone goes off, I turn to my phone and be all like “Oh man, someone loves me and wishes to contact me”, alas, no love for me yet. I can’t take the rollercoaster ride of emotion on this one, so instead I’m going to change my ringtone for different groups of people, such as “Hawt Chicks Who Dig Me”, “Clients who want to give me money”, “Do Not Ignore This Call*”, everyone else… oh’, yeah’, Ma’ gets her own one too.

I’m on an Apple computer, so things might look a bit different to those of you in Windowsvile, but the menus and stuff are more or less the same. One of the problems with these is a quick Google on “Custom Ringtones iPhone” shows up loads of apps, and I’m sure a lot of them are great, but I’ve seen a few flooded with spyware and crap like that. Don’t get me started on that.

Ok, let’s get on with it. Setting up the ringtone.

First up, each ringtone needs to be 40 seconds or less, any more and it won’t work. Find the first song you want to do, and find the start time and end time (a lot of time you’ll want the chorus, which means you don’t want to start from the beginning). Play the song and you’ll see the time on where to start and end at the top where it’s playing. For my first one, I’m going to do Dizzee Rascal’s song “Sirens”, for calls that I shouldn’t ignore. I want to start at 58 seconds into the song, and end at 1m17s.
Right click on the song, and go to ‘Get Info’, then the tab ‘Options’, and enter the start and end time, then click OK. Just to make sure you’ve done it right, try playing the song again by double clicking on it, if everything went right, you’ll have the ringtone you want.
Right click on the file and go to the ‘Create AAC’ option, this’ll make a copy of the song but only the timeframe that you set before. Right click on this, go to ‘Get info’ again, go to the ‘Summary’ tab, and you’ll see where the file is stored. Right click on this and you can go to “Show in finder” (or I think if you’re in windows, ‘show in explorer’).
Now you want to rename the file, make sure you can see the extensions (the bit after the ‘.’, so in this case, it says ’03 Sirens.m4a’), Change it from a ‘m4a’ to an ‘m4r’. You’ll get a warning about changing the file type, click ‘ok’ on that. Now you want to copy this into iTune’s default Ringtones directory (in windows it’s “c:\Documents and Settings\[your username]\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Ringtones”… in OSX it’s “Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Music/iTunes/itunes Media/Ringtones”). Once you’ve copied it there, you can import it into itunes by just dragging the file we’ve created into it; Wallah ! It’s in the Ringtone’s section now in your library. Just now while testing it out, iTunes, or OSX, kept on moving the file back into the other place, don’t know why or how, but I found if I copy rather than move the file, it doesn’t do that.
Now we want to bung this file back into iTunes, so click on File at the top, and ‘Add To Library’, and find the file.

Now let’s get that iPhone set up !.

Now it’s a simple case of going to your Ringtones section in your library in iTunes, plugging in your iPhone (if you haven’t already) and dragging the ringtone onto your iPhone.
You can assign each contact a different ringtone, go to your Contacts section on your iPhone, edit it, click on Ringtone and select the one you want =)
To edit the default one for everybody, go into ‘Settings’, ‘sounds’, ‘ringtone’, select the one you want =)