My Swiss niece and her Mexican husband have just had their second child. By way of celebration, I thought I’d offer up this recipe for a soup with a difference. The chilis, avocado, coriander and limes bring an unusual twist to the tomato and stock base. Good luck to Annette, Memo and both their boys now, as they will soon be moving from Europe back to Mexico for the second time.
Tortilla Soup
Don’t be afraid to experiment with recipes like this, a little less of this, a little more of that and adding a favourite ingredient to see how it influences the final dish. Tortilla soup comes in many guises, as these Flickr pictures show.
2 cloves garlic
½ onion, halved
4 tomatoes
6 cups chicken stock
1 tbsn corn oil
2 sprigs coriander
8 corn tortillas
2 hot chilis
2 avocados
1 cup queso fresco or feta cheese
½ cup sour cream
3 limes — halved
Cut the chilis into thin ring and remove the seeds. Halve, peel and thinly slice the avocados lengthwise. Put the garlic, onion and tomatoes on a baking tray and roast at high heat until charred, should be about about 5 minutes. Peel the tomatoes, coarsely chop and place in a blender or food processor with the garlic and onion and blend until you have a thick puree. You can thin with a little stock if it’s too thick to pour. In a large saucepan over high heat, warm the 1 tablespoon oil the add the puree and stir for a couple of minutes. Reduce the heat to low and cook uncovered for about 5 minutes until the puree reduces slightly. Add the coriander sprigs and the remaining chicken stock and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes longer.
In the meantime, cut the tortillas in half, then cut each half crosswise into thin strips. In a small frying pan over high heat, pour in oil to a depth of ½ inch. Fry the tortilla pieces in batches until crisp, about 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels to drain. Fry the chili rings in the same oil until crisp, about 1 minute. Ladle into individual bowls, add the fried tortilla strips to the soup and top with some of the chili rings, avocado slices and crumbled cheese. Serve immediately with the cream, limes and remaining avocado slices and chili rings in separate bowls at the side.
This recipe is dedicated to The Urge, a good friend, former colleague, rock chick and Spurs fan who describes herself somewhat self-deprecatingly as the silly blonde from Finnish Karelia.
After Dilbert-like days fixing bits of the internet in the booming London Docklands of the ’90s, we occasionally numbed ourselves with wine, beer and food in the local pub and tapas bar. Having lived there previously, The Urge is a frequent visitor to the Greek islands and regularly posts ‘count down to Greek holiday’ items on her blog, invariably accompanied by a picture of gorgeous Greek food.
A recent visit to her blog set my mind to thinking about such food and, with five hungry and fussy mouths to feed tonight, I decided that kebabs of some description would fit the bill nicely. Easy to prepare, easy to cook, easy to serve, kebabs (or gyros to our US and NZ cousins) can represent a pretty well balanced meal when accompanied by salad. The recipe below was more than adequate to feed five of us.
Lamb Kofte
If you plan to grill or barbecue the kofte, you can place three or four each on (pre-soaked) bamboo or metal skewers. Alternatively, simply shallow fry them in batches and transfer them to a warm oven until you are ready to serve.
2 slices bread
¼ cup parsley, finely chopped
¼ mint leaves, finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 small onion, minced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
500g. ground lamb
Pita breads
Tzatziki (cucumber yoghurt salad)
Reduce the bread to a fine crumb in a food processor and transfer to a large bowl. Add the parsley, egg, mint, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, cumin, coriander, mix well and then work in the lamb by hand. Shape the lamb mixture into pieces like a small elongated egg – these are called koftes – and set out on greased paper on a baking sheet. Keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to grill or freeze and then bag for future use. Shallow fry or cook over a medium/hot grill for 5 to 7 minutes, turning or moving a couple of times to ensure even cooking.
To make tzatziki, simply add grated or finely diced cucumbers to yoghurt. Depending on what recipe you read, you can then add varying amounts of any or all of the following to taste – minced onion, garlic, dill, parsley,mint. Once you have it to your satisfaction, season with a little olive oil, a teaspoonful of vinegar and perhaps an olive or two on top.
Serve the kofte in warmed pita with tzatziki, hummus and perhaps a little shredded lettuce if you feel like it, not to mention a large glass of your favourite wine.
Click on each image for full size before and after goodness.
As Kevin will tell you, most of us folks from the East End of London are partial to the odd curry. Having started out on my Dad’s homemade curries based on meals he’d eaten while in India with the army, I have enjoyed many curries over the years. From beer-chasing curries in student discount curry houses to the home cooked dishes of Indian friends, I have come to appreciate the almost infinite variety of foods from the Indian subcontinent.
Although I enjoy cooking, there are days when I wish that I could walk through the door after a long day and find a meal has magically cooked itself. Though that day may be a long way off, we recently picked up a family sized crockpot (slow cooker) that gets us a little closer. Given that rich, sauce based curries lend themselves to slow cooking, it seemed only fitting that the first meal cooked in our new purchase was just such a dish.
As the tolerance of chili and spices varies in the family, I decided on a curry house style butter chicken dish. Much like the British obsession with chicken tikka masala, butter chicken is very popular with Kiwis and is readily accepted as an authentic Indian dish, despite a somewhat doubtful and hazy provenance.
Regardless of authenticity, the only real test is taste and flavour and this slow cooked curry proved to be very popular with four out of the five present and declared one of the best curries ever made in our house. In fact, we polished the whole thing off inside 15 minutes despite having said we’d save a portion for the absent curry-loving daughter. All of which means I’ll be making it again soon and, having written about it here, I’d better invite Kevin and Tanya too!
Makhni Chicken
This recipe was adapted from one I found on Yogi Gupta’s web site Indiacurry.com. I substituted extra yoghurt for a reduced amount of cream and added a little hot curry paste which gave a little more depth to the flavour without adding any more heat.
3 tablespoons cooking oil
3 or 4 large skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces.
1 finely chopped onion
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon minced garlic
½ tablespoon minced ginger
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon hot curry paste
3 tablespoons yoghurt
1 cup chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon paprika
½ cup cream
Heat the oil in a heavy bottom pan and fry chicken pieces till white/light brown. Remove with slotted spoon and put in the crock pot. Add onions, salt and cayenne to hot oil in the pan. Sauté until the onions are translucent and the edges start to turn brown. Add the garlic and ginger, sauté for another 2 minutes. Add the curry powder and paste and sauté for a minute before adding yoghurt and reducing for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and butter and heat until the mixture starts to bubble before transfering to your crock pot. Use the ¼ cup water to deglaze the pan and add water to the crock pot. Add remaining ingredients, except for the garam masala and cream, stir and cover the crock pot. Set the crockpot to high, After the first 40 minutes, turn down cooker to low and leave to cook for 5 hours, stirring in the cream and garam masala 10 minutes before the end. Alternatively, if you want a quicker result, cook at high for 4 hours. Serve with basmati rice and roti
