Category: cream

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chicken cream curry food

butter chicken

butter chicken with naan bread
butter chicken

I’ve recently discovered the charming site FoodForFriendsYeah! and have been enjoying the luscious photography and easygoing style. Last week a tantalising curry passed my RSS: butter chicken. Going a little curry gung-ho of late, I couldn’t resist. I had to try, particularly given it’s enthusiastic and passionate write-up. It’d come from a pretty authentic source too.

marinade

I set to marinating my chicken in what seemed like a little of everything of my spice drawer mixed with some yoghurt, and left it overnight to have a jolly good party. The real bonus is this is most of the work; next day is just frying onions and adding the chicken mix then baking. One line from the recipe did concern me though:

“Skim off the extra fat carefully (sometimes using kitchen rolls helps).”

What exactly was I dealing with here?! It was true to its word; I laid a piece of kitchen roll over the dish after it came out and within seconds it was sopping. God knows how much fat was left in it after adding a ton o’ cream, butter and yoghurt to it! To try and counteract this carb fest I invented some tori masala as an excuse to have some greenery.

tray baked butter chicken

The curry was very tasty but disappointing in some respects. I felt the chicken had toughened in the baking process. If I did it again I would brine the meat for a few hours beforehand to lock in moisture. The texture of the sauce was quite delicious though; creamy and sticking to the chunks of chicken and perfect to scooping up with warmed naan. The flavour itself was overwhelmingly saffron. While this wasn’t unpleasant in itself I felt I’d added a whole boat-load of other spices to no effect. I would be interested in trying it again without the saffron to see if the other aromatics had a chance to fight through. So on reflection a tasty curry, however I suspect with a couple of tweaks could be very great indeed.

P.S. Two days later I ate it warmed up for lunch, and the flavour had improved tremendously. The saffron had dulled and gave away to other spices, notably cardamom. I would recommend making it the day before and reheating for an enhanced dinner, as is so often the case with deeply spiced dishes.

Butter chicken:

For the marinade:

3cm long ginger, grated

4 cloves garlic, grated

80g ground almonds

¼ teaspoon red chilli powder

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon garam masala

4 cardamom pods, seeds only, ground

1 ¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon turmeric

A healthy pinch saffron

1 tin tomatoes

150ml thick, Greek style yogurt

1 kilogram chicken pieces, cut into chunks

For the sauté:

4 tablespoons butter

2 onions, thinly sliced

Handful of coriander leaves

1 teaspoon curry powder

5 tablespoons double cream

  1. Combine the dry marinade ingredients in a bowl, mixing well. Stir in the yoghurt and tomatoes and add the chicken. Refrigerate overnight and bring out of the fridge an hour before cooking.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200°C. In a pan melt the butter and add a splash of oil. Sauté the onions until browned and add the curry powder. Stir for a minute then add the chicken mixture and coriander. Continue to fry for a couple of minutes until everything reaches a simmer. Transfer to a baking dish, cover with foil and bake for an hour.
  3. Remove from the oven and skim off the excess fat. Serve with plenty of naan.
Categories
cream egg food pancetta parmesan pasta

tagliatelle carbonara

tagliatelle carbonara

I have a version of carbonara I like to use when I need to keep the calorie- or egg-count low for this classic Italian pasta dish, but sometimes I need to bust out the real deal. The recipe often comes up for fervent debate, but I think most can agree that pancetta, eggs, cream and parmesan play a part in there somewhere. I love the sweet pungency of garlic, so I also chuck a clove in there for fragrance. For me it’s best when the pasta is really al dente, the sauce slick with no lumpy egg bits, big punches of salty pancetta, with a tiny tingle of black pepper at the end.

Tagliatelle carbonara (serves 2):

4 tagliatelle nests

100g pancetta, diced

1 garlic clove, peeled but whole

50ml single cream

2 egg yolks

Large handful of parmesan

  1. Beat the egg yolks, cream and parmesan together with plenty of black pepper and set aside.
  2. Boil the tagliatelle until al dente. While you do this fry the pancetta and garlic together in a little oil until the meat starts to crisp. Discard the garlic at this point.
  3. Ladle a big splash of the pasta liquor into the pan with the pancetta, drain the pasta off and add this into the same pan.
  4. Turn the heat off, and working very quickly add the sauce mixture into the pan. Shake the pan vigorously and beat with a wooden spoon to make the sauce stick to the pasta. Removing the pan from the heat, and the vigorous motion will stop the egg from scrambling. After about 45 seconds check for seasoning, then serve immediately.
Categories
coffee cream food mascarpone

tiramisu

Yet another blog topped with an awful photo. I should do a course or something.

Which is a real shame, because I consider tiramisu one of my absolute star pieces. I’ve made dozens of them, and tweak them every time. It’s creamy, boozy, sweet, light, indulgent, chocolatey…  a real treat. I’ve also done one with Bailey’s mixed into the cream, which makes it a beautiful toffee colour and lends a luxurious note.

There is an angle I’m missing which I’ve yet to get, and it’s the crisp element. Perhaps some crumbled meringue like an Eton mess, or a sugary grit topping, or even something as basic as whizzed-up chocolate / coffee biscuits? I need to try these out.

So this is my standard recipe from which I start. One word of warning: it uses at least 4 bowls, so make sure there’s a few to hand.

Tiramisu:

350ml strong coffee or espresso

5 tablespoons Marsala

Vanilla pod, seeds removed (or 1 teaspoon extract)

3 eggs, separated

50g caster sugar

250g mascarpone

250ml double cream, lightly whipped

1 packet savoiardi or sponge fingers

Chocolate for decoration

  1. Blend the coffee and Marsala and allow to cool.
  2. Mix the vanilla with the egg yolks and half the sugar, then warm over a pan of simmering water until foamy. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
  3. Mix together the mascarpone and whipped cream and fold in the egg yolks.
  4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff and fold into the cream mixture.
  5. Dunk the sponge fingers into the coffee, allowing them to abosrb, then layer into a dish. Add a layer of cream mix, fingers and repeat as desired.
  6. Finish with a layer of cream and top with grated dark chocolate (or if you’re in a rush, a crumbled Flake). Leave in the fridge for two hours, or overnight if you can.
Categories
chicken cream food mushroom thyme wine

creamy chicken pot-roast

Another weekend, another slow-cooker recipe. Another from delicious magazine, this rich, soupy casserole certainly packs flavour. But is it too intense? A little oily, but certainly filling.

Creamy pot-roast chicken:

6 rashers streaky bacon, cut into lardons

8 chicken pieces (I used a mixture of thighs and drumsticks)

2 tablespoons flour

1 onion, sliced

200g baby onions, peeled

3 garlic cloves, sliced

200g button mushrooms

300ml white wine

Handful thyme leaves

Handful parsley

100ml double cream

  1. Fry the bacon and chicken in a frying pan to brown everything. Put these into the slow cooker.
  2. Fry the leeks, onions, garlic, mushrooms and flour in the same pan for 5 mins to allow some colour to develop. Add these to the slow cooker too.
  3. Add the remaining ingredients and slow cook for 6 hours. Serve with potatoes (I boiled thick potato slices in water infused with garlic and thyme).
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