Ginger tea for colds

I'm having a cold, so I make this special tea in the mornings.

1 tsp grated or chopped fresh ginger
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp lemon juice

Pour boiling water over ginger, thyme, rosemary and pepper, which you have put in a tea egg or other type of strainer. Leave this for 5 min. and remove.
Add honey and lemon juice.

Beef curry

My aunt gave me this recipe for a delicious beef curry.


1 kg beef (the kind for stewing, cut into pieces)
2 tsp salt
4 tsp black pepper
400 ml coconut milk
1 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped or grated
3 red chilli peppers
1 tbsp madras curry powder
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 pieces of lemon rind
1 piece of lemon grass
1 tsp ground fennel seed
1 tsp ground cumin

Mix pepper and salt thoroughly with meat.
Heat coconut milk on medium heat and add everything except meat, fennel and cumin.
Boil for 1-2 min., add meat, bring to the boil and then simmer for 2-3 hrs in a covered pan.
Roast fennel and cumin and add it at the end.

Note:
I only used 2 chillies and removed them after 1 hour.
I omitted lemon rind and lemon grass because I didn't have any.
I used normal fennel seed, not ground.
I also added a little water to the coconut milk.
After 2,5 hours I added some chopped potatoes and let the dish simmer until they were cooked.

Meatballs in vegetable sauce

Yesterday I went to see two of my old schoolfriends. My friend suggested to cook together which I thought was a great idea. So we exchanged recipes by email and got our shopping lists organized. And yesterday I took the train to Ghent armed with two cookbooks and a bunch of ingredients.

We made our own version of Claudia Roden's kubba bamia, which are meatballs cooked in a vegetable sauce.



Serves 6-8

500 g minced beef
2 onions
2 tbsp oil (olive oil or other)
2 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
1 small bunch of celery
1 small bunch of parsley or coriander
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp sugar
pepper and salt
1-1,5 kg vegetables such as okra (ladies fingers), courgette & pumpkin

Chop 1 onion finely and add it to the minced beef. Add a little chopped parsley and pepper and salt. Mix this with your hands and make it into small balls.
Fry the other onion in oil until it's golden. Add garlic and fry a little longer. Add the chopped vegetables (including the celery) and fry for a few min. Add enough hot water to let the meatballs boil in it.
Add the meatballs, sugar, lemon juice, chopped parsley or coriander, pepper & salt and let the dish boil. Then lower the heat and let it simmer for about 25 min, until the meatballs are cooked.
We served it with steamed potatoes.

Note: Claudia Roden suggests that you can use other vegetables such as tomatoes and aubergines. Use just one of the vegetables mentioned or just any mixture of them.

For dessert, I made the Danish apple dessert again (see previous post).

At night I went back to Brussels and saw the Michael Franti show, which was just terrific! It was the last concert of the Yell Fire tour in Europe. The band was very animated, the concert was sold out and the whole public was going nuts. After the show, Michael Franti was shaking hands with the fans and even came down in the public. Labelga managed to get hold of his hands twice, wouwww!

Before the concert, labelga brought me one of her juices, made with the recently bought extractor: apple - carrot - mint, yummmmy!

Pumpkin ratatouille

I still had half a pumpkin left, so I made this dish, based on a recipe by Nigella Lawson.


Serves 2-3

1-2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 peppers, one yellow and one red, chopped
2 courgettes, sliced
500 g pumpkin, chopped (weight without seeds or skin)
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp ground coriander
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp sugar

Fry the onion in olive oil for a few min. Add garlic, cumin seed and coriander and fry for a few more min.
Add peppers and fry on medium heat for a few min.
Add pumpkin, courgettes, sugar, pepper and salt and fry for a few more min.
Cover the pan, lower the heat and let the dish simmer for 30-45 min until the vegetables are soft.
One day later, this dish tastes even better!

After the meal, we went to see the Sara Tavares show in Brussels. It was great!

Chicken in coconut sauce

Yesterday my cousin who lives in Tanzania told me she prepares this dish very often there. It's a recipe by Claudia Roden, also called macalcal or masala chicken. I still had one pumpkin left that my other cousin gave me, so I decided to add this.

Serves 6

4 onions, chopped

4 tbsp sunflower or sesame seed oil

6 garlic cloves

7 cm ginger root, crushed or ground

1 tsp turmeric

6 pieces of chicken (e.g. breasts)

salt

a lot of white pepper

500 g potatoes

500 g pumpkin

1 can coconut milk or 75 g santen (creamed coconut)

1 tsp sugar

100 g cashew nuts or almonds

2 tbsp raisins

Fry the onions on low heat in the oil until they are soft and golden.

Add garlic and fry for a few more minutes.

Add ginger and turmeric and stir this.

Add the pieces of chicken and pepper and salt. Fry this a bit and turn the chicken around.

After 5 min, add the potatoes, pumpkin and coconut milk. Add hot water until everything is just covered.

Let the dish simmer for 30-45 min until everything is cooked.

Add cashew nuts or almonds and raisins and heat for a few min.

Spicy lamb and coconut stew

This delicious stew is an Indian recipe from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'. It just has a hint of coconut flavour, very delicate.


Serves 4

500 g onions
3-4 tbsp oil (e.g. sunflower)
1 kg lamb
3-5 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1,5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves (or 2 whole cloves)
3-5 small dried chilli peppers
750 g small potatoes, peeled or washed and cut in big pieces
50 g santen (creamed coconut) or 125 g coconut milk
1,5 tbsp tamarind paste or lemon juice
1,5 tbsp sugar

Cut the onions in rings and halve these. Fry them on low heat in 1-2 tbsp oil until they are soft and golden. Cover the pan and stir regularly to prevent them from burning. This can take 15-20 min.
Clean the meat: cut the skin off and big pieces of fat. Cut the meat in pieces of 4 cm. Fry it on high heat in 1-2 tbsp oil until it's brown on all sides.
Add crushed garlic, cumin and coriander to the onions and cook for a few minutes while stirring. Add the meat to the onions and add hot water until everything is covered. Let this boil.
Skim off the foam and add cinnamon, cloves and chilli peppers.
Cook this on very low heat in a covered pan for 1,5-2 hrs. Remove the chilli peppers.
Add potatoes, santen (cut into pieces) or coconut milk, tamarind and sugar. If necessary add more hot water until everything is just covered. Cook for another 30-40 min. until the potatoes are done. There should be plenty of sauce left.
Serve with rice, chapati's or bread.

Rice flour pudding with coconut

I love puddings with rice flour. Usually I make Claudia Roden's mulhallabeya, with milk, or kheer, with coconut milk.
Today I tried a recipe from Weldon's 'THAILAND The Beautiful Cookbook', called ta-go, from southern Thailand.



Serves 8

Pudding
125 g rice flour
185 g sugar
5,5 dl jasmin water (water with jasmin essence)

Covering
45 g rice flour
5 dl coconut cream
2 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt

Mix rice flour and sugar with the water and let it stand for 15 min.
Bring this to the boil and cook it on low heat for 15 min. while stirring continuously.
Divide the mixture in 8-12 small bowls (with a volume of around 1 dl); fill only half of each bowl.
Mix the ingredients for the covering and bring them to the boil. Cook this on low heat for 15-20 min. while stirring continuously. Pour this on top of the first mixture in the bowls and let it cool.
The texture of the top layer should be much thinner than the one on the bottom.

Notes
I didn't find jasmin essence so I used rose water in stead. I added it at the end of the cooking to the first mixture.
For coconut cream you dissolve creamed coconut (santen) in hot water. I wasn't sure about the proportions so I used 100 g creamed coconut in 5 dl water. Afterwards I checked Claudia Roden's instructions and she advises to use 100 g santen with 2,5 dl water to obtain 3 dl. This means I should have used more santen: 170 g in 4,2 dl water.
I was afraid this dessert would be too sweet, so I made it with less sugar. But when I tasted it, it could use more sugar, so it's best to stay with the amount mentioned.
The recipe states these quantities serve 4, but it's very rich so it's better to serve small portions, for up to 8 people.

Before this I had a lamb couscous with a hot sauce and an onion and raisin sauce (confit d'oignon et de raisins secs), from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'. Don't think I will blog it though; the cooking in itself was enough work ;-)

Roast pumpkin

Roasting is my favourite way of preparing vegetables. It gives them a great flavour. I do it with potatoes, carrots, fennel, sweet potato etc. and usually just add some olive oil, salt and rosemary or fennel seeds.
For pumpkin I use this delicious recipe by Jamie Oliver. The nice thing about it is that you don't need to peel the pumpkin, which is hard work sometimes. Depending on the type of pumpkin, you can even eat the skin.

Serves 6

1 pumpkin
2 tsp coriander seed
2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp fennel seed
2 small dried chili peppers
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp olive oil

Wash the pumpkin, cut it in halves, remove top en bottom and the seeds. Cut it in wedges of 2,5 cm.
Take all dried herbs and spices and ground them with the salt and pepper in a mortar. Add garlic and mash it together.
Put this mixture in a bowl, add the olive oil and mix well. Add the pumpkin wedges and turn them around until they're all covered with the mixture.
Put them in an oven dish and roast them for 30 min. at 200°C.