Inspired by the mint, curry leaves and green chillies growing in our little courtyard garden, the flavours of Kerala recipes came to mind.
This light, bright biryani is quick to make and is delicious with a zesty salad and Spicy mint and coriander pesto
It has flavours of Prawn Caldine imbued into a delicious coconut rice topping finished off cooked “dum” style in the oven.
Recipe to come….but here are some photos to whet your appetite!
These easy to make curry puffs are a great starter for any festive occasion. So popular i almost missed getting a photo of them before they were gone at our Christmas lunch today.
Using the same filling as my samosas. But much quicker and easier to make using store-bought puff pastry.
They are delicious wrapped in the buttery goodness of puff pastry too.
A sure fire winner as an appetiser.
I make them into bite-sized parcels of deliciousness but you can vary the size and shape to your liking.
Use the filling recipe from the samosa recipe below:
This is a great summer curry …the addition of lime and coriander during the cooking process results in a spicy, zesty curry which is even better the next day.
It’s a classic and regular favourite in our home. With a busy weekend scheduled I have made extra for a few meals. Here’s the link to the original recipe below.
A shortcut recipe for a Southern Thai Pork ribs curry with a zesty, spicy, sweet, sour Thai curry sauce…yum.
I was looking for dinner ideas yesterday and stumbled upon a recipe for this traditional Southern Thai “dry curry”, called this because it doesn’t have coconut milk in it. Now this is a new delicious discovery!
Shortcut Recipe
The traditional Thai dry curry recipe involves making the hot spice paste from scratch, which looked quite involved ..probably worth it if a larger amount and all the fresh ingredients required are available.
To bypass making the paste from scratch, but try to achieve the flavours outlined in the original recipe, I decided to use a bought red curry paste as a base and add additional ingredients such as turmeric, lemongrass, lime zest, fresh chillies and garlic pounding these to a paste first and then adding the bought curry paste.
The resulting paste worked really well. This is the only hard work you will have to do as the rest is just simmering it all together for about an 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Using lean pork ribs with very little fat also meant that the end result wasn’t overly oily/fatty.
My additional ingredients
I also added small eschallots and chopped green beans which are optional but the sweetness of the onions and crunch of the green beans went well with the succulent, lip smacking ribs!
This will be going on a family favourites list!
Method:
1. Cut all the ribs into individual pieces slicing between them.
2. Slice 1/2 the stick of lemongrass, chop up 3 chillies, ginger, garlic and put into a mortar and pestle. Add the lime zest and pound all the ingredients until a paste forms.
3. Add the turmeric powder to the paste and mix through.
4. Add the bought curry paste and shrimp,paste and pound/mix together with your paste to amalgamate.
5. Heat oil in a heavy based pot (which has a lid), add curry paste and the 3 other chillies (left whole with stems removed). Stir fry paste until it is fragrant.
6. Add 1/2 cup or so of water to loosen up the paste, then add pork ribs and stir to coat ribs in sauce stirring continuously so ribs don’t stick and paste doesn’t burn. Add additional water if necessary. You just want the meat to “seal” rather than brown.
7. Add kaffir lime leaves, rest of water, fish sauce, black pepper, white pepper, sugar and bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 40 minutes.
8. Add eschallots, lime juice and stir.
9. After another 15-20 minutes, check curry is not sticking, see if your meat is tender. Add green beans, and a bit more water if necessary.
10. Cook for 5-8 minutes until green beans are just tender. Sauce should be well reduced and you will see the oil separating slightly on the sides. You want the sauce to be coating the ribs!
11. Garnish with finely sliced lime leaves, chopped coriander and serve with jasmine rice, and an empty bowl on the side for your rib bones!
The combination is inspired by Bengali curries that use of Panch Phoran Five spice mix, except I substituted some of the spices with fresh ingredients to add zing, and added a “Tadka” style garnish for an extra layer of flavour.
The Nigella seeds are key to adding their unique almost maple syrup tones complementing the sweetness of the prawns.
So, the key ingredients for this curry are fresh prawns, nigella seeds (kalonji in Hindi), fennel seeds, lemon, fresh coriander and lots of ginger. I add two whole red chillies to impart some heat but they can be removed or allocated to the spice lovers!
I finished the prawns by adding my version of a Tadka, by slow frying thinly sliced onions in butter and adding fresh ginger and coriander. This “garnish” added another layer of flavour to the dish, resulting in quite a scrumptious outcome.
Can be served in lettuce cups, naan and/or with rice.looks great on a bed of turmeric rice.
Prep time: 30 minutes. Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
Method
1. Prepare all the fresh ingredients: a) shell and devein prawns, b) finely dice only 1.5 of the onions and finely slice the other half into thin half moons (keep seperate), c) finely dice the tomatoes, d) pound to make a paste the garlic, equivalent amount of fresh ginger and 1 red chilli together with 1/2 teaspoon salt, d) zest lemon and juice it.
2. Heat oil in shallow wide saucepan, add cumin seeds, add 2 red chillies left whole and curry leaves and cook on low heat until fragrant and leaves stop sputtering. Add diced onions only (not the sliced half moons), cook over low heat until just transparent.
3. Add ginger and garlic paste, nigella seeds and fennel seeds, mix through the onion mixture and cook until just fragrant, taking care so it doesn’t stick to the pot.
4. Add tomatoes and mix through, add the other 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric and 1/2 cup of water. Simmer with lid on until tomatoes break down, adding small amounts of water if necessary.
5. While tomatoes are cooking, make the onions for the “Tadka” garnish: in a seperate pan, melt butter add sliced onions and cook slowly until caramelised. Chop 2 handfuls of coriander, finely slice ginger into matchsticks together with coriander. Set aside
6.When the tomatoes have broken down into a saucy consistency, add 1/2 lemon juice, the prawns and cook for 6-10 minutes, simmering until as much excess water that might come from prawns has evaporated but ensuring prawns don’t over cook. Pour over rest of lemon juice.
7. Garnish prawns with the “Tadka” and serve with rice, naan and/lettuce cups.
Xmas is coming. We are preparing for small covid safe gatherings here in Sydney. Thought I’d organise myself by making extra of the filling for samosas tonight …and then make the actual samosas tomorrow night.
So i doubled the filling from Samosas and served with Red lentil dhal with rice and salad.
Now tomorrow I will use the rest of the filling to make the samosas, and freeze them so I have a supply to freeze up for drinks and gatherings over the weekend.
