Friday Night Take-away: Chana Saag

With the Olympic Food Challenge taking up all of our time over summer we have neglected some of our own food traditions.  The Friday Night Take-away started before I had even thought of writing Tonight's Menu so it's about time we started cooking our own take-away inspired food at home again.

To ease our journey back into our Friday night ritual I'm using leftovers from the Olympic Food Challenge. Qorma e Sabzi from Afghanistan to be precise.  Fried onions and a tin of chick peas were added to the mild spinach curry, along with some garam maslala and chilli powder to lift the dish.

Having transformed Qorma e Sabzi into chana saag it was only right that we had even more leftovers to mop up the curry.  I had made too many puris for Pakistan so I defrosted a couple of them, warmed them up and tucked in.  We can get spinach dishes from the local take-away but they are nowhere near as good as this.

Olympic Food Challenge: Afghanistan - Lawang with Qorma e Sabzi

I was having a whale of a time when I was carrying out the draw for the Olympic Food Challenge.  That was until I drew Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan for myself.  All I knew about these countries was what is reported in the news and a smattering of their histories.  Sadly most of my knowledge was all war related and in no way culinary.

More time was spent researching these countries than any of the others.  A lot of websites seem to have exactly the same recipies with the same spelling mistakes and the same lack of inspiration.  Finally I stumbled on the blog of Humaira, an Afghanistani living in America.  Humaira and her friend Katie have spent a long time recreating the dishes of Humaira's birthplace and have even won awards for their dumplings.

Having read through most of the food pages on their blog* I decided to pair a couple of the dishes for tonight's meal.  Lawang is a braised chicken curry with turmeric as the lead flavour.  I thought it would go very well with Qorma e Sabzi.  Qormas (korma) are at the heart of Afghani cookery.  I was really taken by the idea of a huge pile of this aromatic spiced spinach curry, even though the ingredient list included frozen spinach.  I can only assume that this is an american twist on the original recipe.  Both dishes were superb, the spinach was really fresh and balanced wonderfully with the earthy tones of the chicken.  I was dubious about the frozen spinach but it worked and was a cheap way of generating a lot of tasty food so who am I to argue?

I'm certainly not going to argue with Afghanistan's Rohullah Nikpai.  Rohullah is aiming to get a second Olympic medal when he atempts to better his bronze medal from Bejing and win gold in taekwondo.  The taekwondo doesn't start until next week but until then I'll have happy memories of two new dishes that we'll definitely be cooking again.

*it is really well written and I kind of got drawn in to the stories as well as the recipies.

Olympic Food Challenge: Central African Republic - Fish and Greens with Fufu

Tonight's Olympic Food Challenge meal comes from Central African Republic (CAR).  CAR is a land locked country in the heart of Africa so I was surprised to find this recipe for Fish and Greens.  It turns out that meat is scarce in CAR, so freshwater fish is one of their main sources of protein.

Z has had a great day trawling around Kirkgate Market, looking for the ingredients for the next few days meals and picking the knowledgeable brains of the stall holders.  The recipe for Fish and Greens does not specify what fish to use.  Having consulted the staff at R Bethell's fishmongers Z decided to buy catfish.  We have never had catfish before but the jolly fishmonger assured Z that we should cook the head as well as the steaks so that's what we planned to do.

When we opened the bag of fish there was no head to be seen so we just cooked what we had*.  The catfish skin was salted** and then fried in more oil than I would normally use.  Onions and garlic were added next and softened.  The final ingredients were a tin of tomatoes, spinach and seasoning.  The whole lot was simmered until cooked.

 

We served the fish with another first for tonight, the African staple, Fufu.  Traditionally, fufu is made of cooked cassava, yams or plantains which are pounded until they form a firm dough.  The staff at Spice Corner suggested that a packet of plantain fufu, made the same way as polenta, would be acceptable and much less time consuming than making it from scratch.

CAR have never won an Olympic medal even though they have sent a team to every Olympic games since 1984.  Perhaps one of their six athletes will bring home the gold this year.  Tonight's meal certainly did.

*a bit of a relief if I'm honest, the fishmonger's description of cutting the head in half so that the brain could melt into the sauce was a little off putting!
**to break down the slime!

Chana Saag Paneer

This was meant to be the meal that we cooked on Friday for our Friday Night Take-Away but as you will see from yesterday's post things got well and truly in the way.  I also have a new distraction, the Olympic Food Challenge.  I spent most of today creating a new blog for my one-off summer food adventure, so it fell to Z to make the evening meal.

We started with a couple of onion bhajis each before the main event.  Z fried onions and garlic with mustard seeds, cumin, coriander, chilli powder and cinnamon before adding the paneer.  Once the paneer had started to colour she added a tin of chick peas and a glass of water.  When the water had all but evaporated the pre cooked spinach went into the pan.

A couple of tablespoons of yoghurt were stirred through with a good handful of chopped coriander and the meal was ready to serve.  After waiting three days for this I had started to wonder if we were ever going to cook it.  I'm glad Z took the reins, it was delicious.

Friday Night Take-away - Turkey and Spinach Korma

We have Z's Mum staying with us this week.  She's helping with childcare/toddler wrangling while we pack up the entire ground floor of our house.  In return for all the help that she's giving us we're paying in food and drink.  Having a third person to cook for is no hardship, it's only a little bit more food.  It also means that you need to consider the other person's food preferences which is a good workout for the internal recipe book.

Z's Mum is not a big red meat eater, so white meat and vegetarian cooking is on the menu tonight and tomorrow.  Tonight, as it's Friday night, I cooked a curry but rather than using the ubiquitous chicken, I cooked turkey instead.

The curry was a nice quick one to make.  Onions and garlic were fried before the spices were added, with a splash of water to stop them from burning.  Then the turkey was added along with a tin of coconut milk.  After simmering for a few minutes add some pre-cooked spinach and a bunch of chopped coriander and serve.  We had chapatis and basmati rice.

Vegetable Curry

There are occasions when you just need to use up all of those vegetables that are in the fridge.  I'm not advocating cooking without due care and attention.  I am advocating making the most of the food that is to hand.

After checking the store cupboards it was clear that a curry was the way forward.  I wouldn't call it an authentic curry but I did choose the spices with the vegetables in mind.  Most curries I cook start with mustard seeds but not tonight.  I felt that the flavour would have been to earthy and mask the sweetness of the veg.

The base of the sauce consisted of a finely chopped red onion, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli.  These were fried together with a tomato which added liquid and thickened the mixture.  The first of the vegetables, butternut squash, along with a tin of chick peas and some water was added and left to simmer until tender.

The curry was then finished with a tin of coconut milk some leftover roast sweet potato and two bunches of spinach.  If I had planned this curry and been out to buy the ingredients I probably would have omitted the squash and sweet potato.  I would have included paneer and fresh coriander and ended up with a completely different meal.  I'm glad I didn't because this curry was great.