Category: curry powder

Categories
curry curry powder lamb potatoes tomato

is HelloFresh worth using?

HelloFresh set me a challenge: recreate one of their recipes. HelloFresh have a wide range of recipes on their website, so I tried HelloFresh’s Bombay-style lamb curry. Was it as expensive? Was it easier than getting it delivered?

Delivery box recipe services send you a set amount of ingredients each week to make specific dinners. Set your dietary preferences, how often you want a delivery, and away you go. Weekly you’ll get ingredients delivered to your door. HelloFresh offer such a service, among others, and has been traditionally popular with professional couples, small families looking for inspiration, and those just looking to go beyond ready meals.

I browsed HelloFresh’s most popular recipes. I was impressed with the range of dishes from many different cuisines, none of which would look out of place on a modern TV cookery show. I asked Mrs Spud what she fancied and she asked for their lamb curry.

I won’t go through every stage of the recipe, you can read the recipe on HelloFresh’s website here.

It’s a quick stir-fry of lamb mince, tomatoes, green beans and onion served with lightly spiced potatoes. It was tasty! There’s not far to hide with the small amount of ingredients, and it reminds me of an dish I used to cook called balti beef. Definitely a good one for midweek meals.

I made a video of my thoughts and a quick cookalong. Have a look here:

Comparing cost

Per portion, my ingredients cost £4.32. You could probably get that down with bulk buying and buying cheaper brands, but I went for mid-range ingredients from Tesco.

HelloFresh have a blanket cost depending on how frequently you want meals delivered, so it varies per portion. But the range is from £3.22 to £5 per serving. I expected my meal to be much cheaper, but I was surprised how similar the costs were.

Comparing time

The time quoted on HelloFresh’s website was 20 minutes. I took about 26 minutes; I wasn’t hanging around but the additional peeling, chopping and grating added up. So the HelloFresh version is there.

Verdict

HelloFresh serve a perfect need for cook-curious but time-poor people. The cost surprised me the most, being really close when making from scratch. The pre-portioning made things quicker for sure. When you buy yourself you can end up with half a jar of something or a jar of spice you don’t know what else to do with. That also gives HelloFresh’s downside, in that the prepackaged ingredients are individually wrapped. This means less food waste, but a little more packaging waste. It’s a delicate balance but a good alternative if you want to expand your culinary horizons but want tested recipes.

HelloFresh’s lamb curry recipe is here

And check out the full range of HelloFresh’s recipes here

HelloFresh have sponsored this post; I was not give any instruction what to say and my opinion was not influenced.

Categories
chips cod curry curry powder fish food potatoes

empire fish and chips

Just the other week I was bowled over by Jamie’s empire chicken. I was also taken by his prediction that if you ask the British public what their favourite meals are, they’ll say “roast chicken” and “a curry”, hence his Imperial mash-up. But my mind wandered to that other pinnacle of British food, the fish and chips. What would this look like as a crossover?

As it turns out, hilarious fun. Spicy yet familiar.

Print

Empire fish and chips

Course Main Dish
Cuisine English, Indian
Servings 2 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • For the chips:
  • 2 - 3 medium maris piper potatoes
  • 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
  • 1 teaspoon nigella seeds
  • 1 teaspoon garam masala
  • 1 teaspoon madras curry powder
  • For the fish:
  • 150 g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon garam masala
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • Carbonated water enough to make a gloopy batter, approx 300ml
  • 2 cod fillets

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cut the potatoes into nice fat chip shapes and drop them into salted boiling water. When tender drain them and allow to steam dry a little. Toss in the spices with a big pinch of salt, toss in oil and pop in the oven for 45 minutes until crispy.
  • Meanwhile make the fish. Heat some rapeseed or vegetable oil in a pan or fryer to 180°C. Whisk up the batter ingredients and then lay the fish in the batter. Allow the excess to drip off and fry the fish for approx 8 - 10 minutes until golden brown on both sides. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.
Categories
cauliflower curry curry powder lentils turmeric yoghurt

gobi tarka dall

I can’t get enough cauliflower, and am always quick to toss out a few recipes for those that think it dull and dreary. I was dead pleased to see an article in the latest Delicious magazine devoted to the joys of the cauli. It’s not just for cauliflower cheese, y’know.

Gobi tarka dall (based on a recipe by Debbie Major):

150g puy lentils

300ml vegetable stock

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 large cauliflower, broken into florets

1 medium onion, chopped

6 garlic cloves, grated

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon Madras curry powder

200ml coconut milk

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tablespoon Greek yoghurt

Bunch of fresh coriander leaves

For the tarka:

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 teaspoon nigella seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

3 cloves

  1. Rinse the lentils thoroughly then simmer them in the stock for 20 minutes until tender. Set aside.
  2. Heat a little oil in a pan, and drop in the cumin seeds. After 30 seconds or so they will spit and jump about so throw in the cauliflower and get some dark brown scorches on them. Remove to one side.
  3. In the same pan fry the onion until soft (about 10 minutes), then add the garlic. After a couple of minutes stirring add the cumin, turmeric and curry powder. Cook for a further minute, then add the coconut milk, tomatoes and cauliflower. Simmer for fifteen minutes, until the cauliflower is tender.
  4. Stir the lentils into the curry and season well with salt. Leave to simmer so everything is piping hot, then turn off the heat stirring in the yoghurt with some vigour (this will avoid separation). Throw some coriander over the top.
  5. For the tarka, get the oil sizzly hot and add the spices. After a minute’s crackling turn the heat off and toss the lot over the curry. Serve with soft and puffy naan bread.
Categories
curry powder food onion potatoes stock

maltese roast potatoes

At the recent Tilda stir-fry rice event I had the fortune to chat with many bloggers I knew well and in passing. The following morning one of them pointed me towards a recipe on their site, Maltese roast potatoes. Did You Put Garlic? specialises in Maltese cuisine.

Now, these aren’t roast potatoes as this blog knows them – in fact they are extremely close to potatoes boulangere. It turns out they sprang into being for the same reason – the baker has the biggest, hottest (only?) oven in town, so everybody would cook their potatoes in his kitchen once the bread was done. This cross-pollination of ideas is not surprising given the French occupation of Malta throughout the 19th Century.

So the food itself? Lovely. Crisp-edged, slightly soft potatoes brimming with stock only with the unexpected yet entirely welcome tickle of Madras curry powder warming the mouth through at the end. Very nice. To top it off I poured nothing but the best into it: all the veg came from my garden, including my first crop of this year’s potatoes. They were all spoilt rotten.

Head on over to Mer’s site for the recipe.

And yes, I did put garlic.

Print

Maltese roast potatoes

Patata fil Forn is an old family recipe.
Course Side Dish
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 large onion sliced into rings
  • 4 large potatoes peeled and sliced, lengthways into 5mm rounds
  • 4 garlic cloves thinly sliced
  • 2 teaspoons powdered vegetable stock
  • 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 2 tablespoons of oil

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.
  • Layer the base of a baking dish with a layer of half the onions, over this layer half the potatoes. Sprinkle with half the garlic, stock, pepper, curry powder and drizzle a tablespoon of oil over the top.
  • Repeat with the second layer.
  • Slowly pour in some water to just come up with the bottom layer of the potatoes (about 5 - 10 mm).
  • Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes until the top layer is golden brown and most of the water has evaporated. Serve with your usual roast, stews, or even between a couple of slices of bread with your favourite chutney (great for when you have left overs!)
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