Indian Crab cakes with coriander chutney

I had a craving for crab cakes and something Indian so I decided to make Indian crab cakes with Coriander chutney.

Coriander chutney
makes 225 grams, you can easily make less by only using half of the ingredients.

Ingredients
1,5 tbsp lemon juice
1,5 tbsp water
90 gr coriander leaves and stalks, sliced roughly
2 tbsp finely sliced fresh coconut (or dessicated coconut works fine as well)
1 small shallot, sliced finely
0,5 cm fresh ginger root, sliced finely
1 green chillipepper, seeds removed, sliced finely
1,5 tsp sugar
0,5 tsp salt
pinch of pepper

Method
Put the lemonjuice, water and half of the coriander in a food processor and mix until you have a thick puree. Gradually add the remaining coriander and make sure to regularly scrape the bowl so you mix everything well.
Add the other ingredients and mix until everything is combined. Add pepper and salt to taste. Put the chutney in a non-metal bowl and refrigerate. The chutney will keep for 3 days.

Indian crab cakes
makes 14

Ingredients
450 gr potatoes (preferably not the variety that falls apart when you cook them) peeled and sliced in half
0,5 tsp turmeric
3 spring onions, finely chopped
1 green chilli pepper, deseeded and finely sliced
1 cm fresh ginger root, grated
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves and stalks
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 2 lemons
200 gr crabmeat (from a tin) you can also use tuna
salt and pepper
vegetable oil for frying

for the garnish:
slices of lime or lemon
coriander chutney

Method

1. Boil the potatoes in a large pan with lightly salted water. Drain them and peel when cooled down.
2. Put the potatoes in a large bowl and mash them with a fork, stir in the turmeric and add the spring onions, the chilli pepper, the ginger, coriander, lemon zest and the lemon juice. Mix in the crabmeat with your hands and add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Moisten your hands and form 14 crab cakes from the mixture. Gently flatten them, this makes baking easier.
4. Heat a layer of oil in a wok and heat it to medium – high. Put as many crabcakes as you can in the pan and fry them for 4 minutes until golden brown. Turn them after 2 minutes. Repeat for the rest of your crabcakes.
5. Serve with slices of lemon and coriander chutney. Enjoy!

Chapatti with dessicated coconut

I have been craving Indian food recently. I don’t know what it is, as there are many wonderful things to cook, but somehow I keep returning to Indian dishes.

Today I went to an Indian restaurant with a wonderful friend whom I hadn’t seen in a few weeks (way too long for us!). We wanted to sample everything and the abundance of lovely sounding Indian recipes made it extremely hard to choose. When we were making our decision our waiter advised us to also try the Peshwari Nan, a nan bread filled with coconut, fennel seeds, jaggery sugar and possibly raisins. That nan turned out to be the highlight of the evening!

The dishes we picked – samosas and lamb kebabs from the tandoor oven as a starter and tandoori chicken and lamb biryani – were awesome. The presentation was lovely as well, they served the tandoor dishes on a blazing hot marble or stone plate which smoked and smelled amazing. But that sweet nan!

As I am currently too lazy to try and make my own nan bread (and it is a  friday evening, after all, so the supermarkets are closed) I decided to make do with what I do have: chapatti bread, dessicated coconut, jaggery sugar and fennel seeds and make my own concoction which hopefully nears the original.

My take on Peshwari Nan
Ingredients
prebaked chapatti bread
melted butter
dessicated coconut 1 tbsp
pistachio nuts 1 tbsp
1 tsp fennel seeds

Method
In a pestle and mortar mix the sugar, dessicated coconut, pistachio nuts and fennel seeds to a paste. Smear some butter on the chapatti, then put a tablespoon of the mix on the chapatti, fold it and bake in the oven. Or bake in a hot, dry pan until the chapatti starts to puff up a bit.

Tandoori lamb chops and Bombay potatoes

One of my missions is to get my boyfriend to eat more vegetables. I’ll try everything that might secretly make him eat some. Today I decided not to disguise them. My boyfriend likes spicy food so I thought: Indian food will do the trick! My parents in law gave us some incredible lambchops (another one of his favourites) so they would accompany the veggies.

Tandoori lambchops with Bombay potatoes
Serves 4

Ingredients
2,5 tbsp tandoori spice paste
1 tbsp honey
2,5 tbsp yoghurt +extra to serve
12 lamb chops
700 gr small potatoes, quartered
60 ml sunflower oil
2 tsp black (or normal) mustardseed
2 tsp mild curry powder
1 tsp garam masala
2 tsp grated fresh root ginger
2 tomatoes, seeds removed, sliced in 8 parts
100 gr spinach
mangochutney (to serve)

Method

1. Mix the tandooripaste, honey and yoghurt, cover the lamchops with the mixture and coat well. Leave it in the marinade for 40 minutes to an hour. (Just follow the rest of the recipe and when you are done, you can start frying them – or prepare the marinade beforehand and leave them in the marinade a bit longer – it only enhances the taste!)

2. Boil the potatoes (sliced in quarters) in boiling salted water for 10 minutes or until soft.

3. Heat 40 ml of oil in a wok or frying pan on middle heat, add the mustardseeds and stir fry for 1 minute or until they start jumping from the pan. Add the currypowder, garam masala, ginger and potatoes and stir fry for 2-3 minutes until the potatoes are crispy.

4. Add the spinach and tomato and stir fry for another 2-3 minutes until the spinach has wilted. Keep warm.

5. Heat the remainder of the oil in your frying pan and heat on middle high heat. Fry the lam chops for 2 minutes on each side until they are slightly charred and cooked, but still pink in the middle (NOTE: this leaves a mess in your frying pan! We will cook our chops in the oven or under the grill next time – a barbecue is of course even better, but it’s wintertime already ;-)).

6. Serve the lamb chops with the Bombay potatoes, mangochutney and some extra yoghurt. Enjoy!

ETA: the spinach was pushing it a bit – as I already was afraid of. He did like the tomato (shock!) and potato but did not like the spinach. A shame as I thought the combination was delicious. 

Chicken tandoori

Tandoori chicken is one of the best things you can do to chicken. The marinade is spicy and tasty and it is a very versatile dish. You can shred the chicken and use the meat as a sandwich filling, you can eat it with rice or naan, or – like we did this weekend – as part of a lovely barbecue with homemade bread, a light potato salad and raita.

Preferably the chicken is of course cooked in a traditional tandoor oven, but a barbecue is just as good. It gives a lovely extra smoky flavour.

For the marinade I used Anjum Anand’s tandoori marinade. She makes Tandoori lamb wraps with it, but trust me: it works on chicken as well. I rubbed the marinade in the chicken the evening before to let it marinade overnight, so we just had to light the barbecue and throw the chicken on it the day after. I love that about summer.

Barbecue tandoori chicken

Barbecued Tandoori Chicken

---

For the marinade

150ml/5fl oz Greek-style yoghurt
½ small onion, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
2.5cm/1 in piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
2 tsp each garam masala and ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground fennel seeds
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves
½ tsp red chilli powder, or to taste
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt, or to taste
2 chickens (with skin), butterflied

Method

1. Place all the marinade ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour the marinade over the butterflied chicken and rub it in well (don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, this is the best way to do it). Leave to marinate in the fridge for as long as possible, preferably overnight. Bring back to room temperature an hour before cooking.

2. Preheat a barbecue or grill until very hot or preheat the oven to 240C/gas 9.

3. Place the chicken on the hot barbecue or grill to cook on both sides until completely cooked – it takes about 15-20 minutes on each side, depending on the heat of your barbecue. Or place the pieces in a roasting tin in the oven and cook for 10 – 20 minutes, until cooked through.

This feeds a crowd, as you can see 🙂 We served it with homemade bread which was drizzled with some olive oil, garlic and parsley and put under the grill, potato salad and a cucumber raita.

Cucumber raita

---

Ingredients250ml/8fl oz natural yoghurt

½ cucumber, grated or finely chopped
large handful mint leaves, chopped
large pinch salt
½-1 green chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped (optional) / we always use a bit of chilli powder instead.

Method

1. Wrap the grated cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze out any excess water.

2. Mix together all the ingredients and serve chilled.

No-Mayo Potato Salad

---

By Rachael Ray (serves 4)Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds Idaho potatoes, cut into quarters lengthwise, then chopped into large chunks
1/2 cup beef consomme or broth
3 tablespoons capers
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Place the potatoes in a medium pot. Fill with cold water and bring to a boil. Add aliberal amount of salt and cook the potatoes until they are tender, about 12-15 minutes. Once the potatoes are tender, drain and return them to the warm pot to dry them out.

2. Add the beef consomme, capers, red bell pepper, celery, onion, lemon zest and juice, red wine vinegar and EVOO. Season with salt and pepper. This dish tastes great either warm or cold.

Enjoy!

Spice blends

My mother in law brought me a seriously spicy piri piri spice blend. Even pointing at it made my eyes water. It tastes delicious, however, when you mix just a pinch of it through your ground beef or sprinkle it over some baked chicken. Spice blends are wonderful to spike up a relatively simple (or easy) dish. This made me remember a conversation I recently had with a colleague, she told me her (Greek) boyfriend never really liked spicy dishes, but when she made gyros and only sprinkled some cumin and coriander over the meat, it rocked his world. It is that easy to perk up a dish!

In the Middle East a herb called za’atar is used to perk up a common pita bread: the bread is dipped in olive oil and za’atar mixed with sumac, salt and sesame. This herb was already known and used in ancient Egypt as remains of one of the varieties of the herb was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. And who can ever doubt a pharaoh?
As za’atar is probably not readily available everywhere, I’ll give you some other well-known spice blends you can easily make at home.

Ras el hanout is a well-known spice blend commonly used in Moroccan dishes. Many different versions exist, as the name already reveals: “best of the shop”. This is a streamlined version:

Spice blends

Ras el hanout

---

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon turmeic
• 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Method

Combine the spices in a pestle and mortar and start grinding. Sieve your mix into a seperate bowl now and then and put the coarse pieces back into the mortar until you have a fine powder.

The Indian spice blend Garam Masala is also very easy to make, as with Ras el Hanout many different versions exist. It is merely a matter of taste. This recipe by Camelia Punjabi is a wonderful basic blend.

Garam Masala

---

Ingredients

• 6 grams of cinnamon sticks
• 6 grams of cloves
• 6 grams of black peppercorns
• the seeds from 1 black cardamom seed or from 4 green cardamom seeds
• 1 teaspoon of fennel seed
• 1 bay leave or 1 curry leave

Method

Heat a frying pan on high heat and toast the spices for 30 seconds or until fragrant (it will smell heavenly, believe me!). Put everything into a pestle and mortar and grind until powdered. You can store the garam masala for 3-6 months in a tightly closed jar. 

Indian night

Tonight there are Indian dishes on the menu. We’ll make samosas filled with spiced potatoes and peas and chicken tandoori. I have high expectations about the samosas. I’ve been wanting to make them ever since I saw some made during Masterchef – they looked so extremely delicious and I absolutely love curried potatoes. I also hope this will be a recipe to get my boyfriend to eat more potatoes and vegetables in general…

Samosas have a long history, they probably originated in Central Asia before the 10th century. They are believed to be an innovation of the pies that were first created by the ancient Egyptians some 4000 years earlier and were passed on around 600 BC to the Greeks and Romans.

There are many different versions of samosa, some deep fried some baked, the dough and the filling also differs from region to region. I use Anjum Anand’s recipe with filo pastry and a filling of spiced potatoes and peas.

Potato and pea samosas

---

By Anjum Anand from Indian Food Made EasyPreparation time: less than 30 mins
Cooking time: 30 mins to 1 hour
Makes 20

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1⁄2 tsp mustard seeds
• 60g/21⁄2oz chopped onion
• 1 tsp finely chopped ginger
• 60g/21⁄2oz frozen peas
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1⁄4 tsp red chilli powder
• 1⁄2-3⁄4 tsp garam masala
• 1-2 tsp dried mango powder, to taste
• salt, to taste
• splash water
• 600g/1lb 5oz potatoes, peeled, boiled until soft and crushed into large lumps
• 4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves
• packet ready-made filo pastry
• 5 tbsp melted butter, for brushing
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds (optional) (you can also use poppy or nigella seeds)

Method

1. Heat the oil in a small non-stick pan and fry the mustard seeds for about ten seconds, or until they begin to splutter.
2. Add the onion and ginger and cook for 2-3 minutes over a high heat. Add the peas, stir well and add the spices, mango powder, salt and a splash of water. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the potatoes and coriander and cook for 2-3 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
4. Unroll the pastry and cover with cling film and a damp tea towel. Peel off one piece and keep the rest covered so that it doesn’t dry out. Lay the pastry sheet flat on a clean surface and brush with melted butter. Fold in one third of the pastry lengthways towards the middle. Brush again with the butter and fold in the other side to make a long triple-layered strip.
5. Place one rounded teaspoon of the filling mixture at one end of the strip, leaving a 2cm/1in border. Take the right corner and fold diagonally to the left, enclosing the filling and forming a triangle. Fold again along the upper crease of the triangle. Keep folding in this way until you reach the end of the strip. Brush the outer surface with more butter. Place onto a baking sheet and cover while you make the rest of the samosas. Sprinkle over a few sesame seeds, if using.
6. Bake in the centre of the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until golden and crisp, turning halfway through the cooking time.
7. To serve, place the samosas onto a large serving plate with a bowlful of chutney.

As I still have a jar of tamarind paste going to waste in the refrigerator, I decided to make tamarind chutney to go with the samosas. We both love tamarind but don’t use it often enough, there are too many good recipes around!

Tamarind and jaggery chutney

---

By Anjum Anand from Indian Food Made EasyPreparation time: less than 30 mins
Cooking time: 10 to 30 mins
Serves 4

Ingredients

• 3⁄4 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tsp tamarind paste (available from Asian supermarkets)
• 3-4 tbsp jaggery (palm sugar), chopped
• 1⁄2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• pinch salt
• 70ml/21⁄2fl oz water
• 6 mint leaves, shredded (optional)

Method

1. Heat the cumin seeds in a frying pan and dry fry for 1-2 minutes, or until fragrant and golden-brown. Transfer to a pestle and mortar and grind to a powder.
2. Put all of the ingredients into a small pan and mix until well combined. Bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer for 3-5 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened. Set aside to cool.
3. Serve as a dip with samosas, chaat or dhokla. (This chutney will keep in the fridge for 4-5 weeks.)

We also made chicken tandoori skewers (so it was not a vegetarian night :-))

Chicken tandoori skewers

---

Ingredients

• 400 g chicken thigh meat
• 500 g yoghurt
• 1 tbsp cumin powder
• 1 tbsp Garam Massala
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• the juice of 1 lemon
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 heaped tbsp of grated root ginger
• 1 lemon (to serve)
• some skewers that have been soaking in water for an hour (I always forget this, so I thought I’d add this step ;-))

Method

1. Clean the chicken (I always do this, I cut of the “funky” bits – I think it’s a Dutch thing ;-)), slice it in long, broad strips and put it in a bowl.
2. Add the yoghurt and the spices, the garlic, ginger and the juice of one of the lemons, mix well. Put it in the refrigerator for 2 hours / overnight.
3. When ready to bake, preheat the over to 230 degrees celsius.
4. Take the chicken out of the refrigerator and thread the chicken on the skewers.
5. Put the chicken into the oven and bake for 6 to 8 mins until the meat is cooked.
6. Serve with rice and a wedge of lemon.