Homemade Naan (Much Easier Than You'd Think)

I love the fluffy naan that you get in restaurants, but not so much the supermarket ones that you heat up at home. As I was making curry for my dinner party I thought I'd also try my hand at naan to recreate that gorgeous fluffiness at home. It was amazingly easy after researching a few recipes and combining the best ideas I came up with this, which seemed a simple and tasty way of making them. They went down well and I wish I'd made more/bigger naan!

Naan Recipe

Makes 5 at the size in the picture, you could make them bigger or smaller as you wish

Preheat the grill as hot as you can

If you can't get onion seeds (I couldn't) a nice lady in Waitrose said to use sesame seeds for crunch or a handful of chopped coriander leaves for flavour

As usual I used my Kitchen aid to knead the dough for simplicity

Ingredients

1½tsp dried yeast

1½tsp sugar

200g plain flour

100g strong white bread flour

1½tsp black onion seeds

¾tsp salt

¾tsp baking powder

1½tbsp vegetable oil

3tbsp plain yogurt

3tbsp milk

Method

In a small bowl mix the yeast and sugar with a tablespoon of lukewarm water and leave to activate for 10 to 15 minutes until frothy.

In the mean time put into the mixer bowl the flours, onion seeds, salt and baking powder.

When the yeast has activated add it to the mixer bowl along with the oil and yogurt.

Set the machine to knead the dough, stopping once it is soft and smooth, add some of the milk if the dough feels dry.

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave in a warm place for at least an hour, until it has doubled in size.

Heat the grill.

Divide the dough into as many balls as you want naan.

Using your hands, gently pull and flatten each ball into a tear shape about ½cm thick.

Dry heat a frying pan and then place one of the naan into it for 15 seconds or so to lightly brown one side. Place the naan, seared side down, onto a tray under the grill for 2 to 5 minutes until it has puffed up and has golden patches on the top.

Repeat with the other balls of dough.

Enjoy with curry.

Leek and Bacon Pasta Bake

This is a family favourite and I can't remember where it originated from but my sister can probably tell me! We normally cook this in France and have a few variations - chicken and broccoli, leek and bacon, pea and chicken, or any combination of those ingredients. I'm afraid this is one of my very vague recipes as I always forget to weigh the ingredients before I cook them. You just need to make enough cheese sauce to cover the pasta. Last time I made it I used half dried pasta and half fresh pasta and it tasted delicious.

Bacon and leeks

Leek and bacon pasta bake recipe

Serves 3 or so people

Preheat the oven to 180˚

Ingredients

2 leeks, thinly sliced

6 rashers of bacon, cut into pieces

Enough cooked pasta for 2 people

Knob of butter

Plain flour

Milk

Optional grating of nutmeg

Cheddar cheese or gruyère

Method

In a frying pan gently and slowly cook the leeks and bacon until the bacon is cooked and the leeks are soft and not squeaky.

Cook the pasta so that it's al dente.

Melt the butter in a heavy based pan and add the flour to make a roux (when it makes a sort of paste from the melted butter and flour).

Once the roux is made, slowly add milk, stirring/whisking all the time, until the mixture is smooth.

Bring to gently to the boil and keep stirring until the sauce thickens.

Take off the heat.

Grate a little nutmeg in (I don't know where to put in the nutmeg in a cheese sauce so I just add it near the end) and then pop the grated cheese in to taste. Stir until the cheese is melted in.

Put the leeks, bacon, pasta and sauce in an ovenproof dish and cook in the oven for 20 minutes or so until the cheese has melted and is beginning to brown on top.

Cheese sauce with nutmeg

Murgh Makhani

Also known as Butter Chicken, this Indian curry is generally mild, though in parts of Asia I've ordered it and it's most definitely been a medium-spicy curry! In fact, the sauce I used for the dinner party was also a medium curry, so I'd suggest you use less of the paste if you don't like spice very much. According to Wikipediea the authentic Delhi version of butter chicken is more spicy than the western kinds so that might explain the spice differences!

If you want a vegetarian curry then change the chicken to Paneer cheese (it's Indian cottage cheese, I bought mine from Waitrose). You don't need to marinate the cheese, just make the sauce and add the paneer about five minutes before serving it. It's called Paneer Makhani if you make it this way.

Paneer

Murgh Makhani Recipe

Serves 4

Serve with rice and/or naan (homemade is best!)

You need to marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours, but I normally do this overnight to help the flavours develop (ooh, that sounds very professional!)

Ingredients

Marinade

450g diced chicken

2tbsp butter chicken paste (mine is Fern's and I bought it from theasiancookshop.co.uk and souschef.co.uk - it's fairly authentically spicy though!)

2tbsp thick plain yogurt

2 crushed garlic cloves

1tbsp vegetable oil

Sauce

2tbsp vegetable oil

1 diced onion

100ml cream

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

2tsp sugar

100ml water

2tbsp butter

2tbsp curry paste

Method

Mix all of the marinade ingredients together in an oven proof dish and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

When you want to start cooking preheat the oven to 200˚ and put the chicken in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, turning occasionally.

Meanwhile, fry the onions in oil until soft and then add the curry paste, frying until fragrant.

Add tomatoes, butter, water and sugar and then cover the pan with a lid, cooking for 20 minutes.

Put the cooked chicken into the sauce, or gravy as it's also known, and cook for a few more minutes, stirring everything together - it'll really start to look good now.

Finally add the cream and check seasoning before serving.

How spicy do you like your curries?

Easy Peasy Tomato Sauce

I never seem to have pasta sauces in the house when I need them so I make my own sauce whenever I want a simple meal. It tastes amazing with homemade pasta (dried pasta also tastes very good) and takes maybe half an hour to make (if the pasta's already been done that is). Take a look at my other recipes for how to make your own pasta.

Pasta sauce recipe
Use a heavy bottomed pan with a lid and remember to stir it occasionally or else it sticks
Feeds 2 with one can of tomatoes, add another and adjust the seasoning for 4 people

Ingredients
1 onion, roughly diced
drizzle of olive oil
1x 400g tin of tomatoes
Crushed garlic
Seasoning
Fresh basil (optional but great if you have it)

Method
It's simple, really, just soften the onions and garlic in the oil, add the tomatoes basil and seasoning.
Cover and let simmer for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.
If you over-salt the sauce just add some brown sugar for a sweet counterpoint.

What's your go-to sauce? Is it homemade or shop bought?

Decadent Dinner Party Chocolate Tart

I hosted a dinner party last night. I'm currently curled up on the sofa remembering the awesome, if I say so myself, food, and less fondly, the amount of alcohol. I'm not hungover, before you say anything, but absolutely shattered and full to the brim. It was meant to be a meal for 7 but the day before people started dropping like flies so it wound up being the me, Grace and her boyfriend, Dom eating curries with pilau rice and homemade naan, followed by vanilla ice-cream (the first time I made it) and a double chocolate tart with amaretto, which is the recipe that I'm sharing with you today. The other recipes will follow.

The recipe is from Tom Kerridge's recent TV show and his version has sugar coated almonds and coffee cream plus even more chocolate. Whilst chocolate is never a bad thing there was rather lot of it - three quarters of a kilo to be precise! I kept the amaretto as it tastes really good, though you can omit it if you need to. Try not to be tempted to add more as the flavour really does develop over time. Also, the best/only type of amaretto sold in England is Disaronno Originale, a fact that I didn't know until I asked someone at Waitrose if they had amaretto and they pointed to the Disaronno right next to me!

Chocolate Tart Recipe

You need a 9" round loose bottomed tart tin for this - it turns out that this is very different from the 8" sandwich tin that I originally was going to use, so if you don't have one then I'm afraid you do need to buy one.

Ingredients

Pastry

175g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

80g icing sugar

140g cold butter, diced 

2 free range egg yolks (preferably medium eggs)

Filling

560g milk chocolate

195g double, or heavy double, cream

90ml amaretto

Method

Pastry

Sift the cocoa, sugar and flour into a large bowl (sifting really is necessary for this one - sorry!).

Add the butter and rub into breadcrumbs, or blitz in a stand mixer - be careful not to over mix it like I did!

Then add the eggs yolks and mix into a dough, adding cold water if it feels dry.

Wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge to rest for an hour (I left mine overnight and it was a bad idea - very solid and then poof, it was suddenly too soft to do much more than rush it).

Preheat the oven to 170˚C.

Lightly flour your work surface (or use The Mat by Sweetwise, like I did) and roll the dough out so that it is large enough to fit in the tin and about half a centimetre thick.

Gently place the rolled dough over the case and carefully press the dough into the corners of the tin (if there's a large extra long piece of dough then tear it off, wrap it in cling film and use that to press the dough into the tin).

Line with baking parchment and then baking beans and place in the oven for 25 minutes before removing the beans and parchment and returning the pastry to the oven for another 10 minutes to dry it out.

Once it has cooled firm the excess dough off the edges of the pastry case.

Filling

Using a bain marie (see Coeliac brownies post) melt the chocolate over a low heat.

Pour the cream and amaretto into a pan and heat until boiling.

Add the cream and amaretto mix to the chocolate and stir until incorporated.

Put the ganache that you've just made into the cooled pastry case and leave to cool.

Once the ganache has cooled, place into the fridge for at least 30 minutes so that it sets (In my case I had to put it into a cake carrier and then on my balcony as the fridge was too full!!).

Serve with ice cream (vanilla or coffee would be best).

Do you like double chocolate or do you find chocolate desserts too sweet?

Oops, sorry - this evidently refused to post yesterday!!

Gluten-Free Brownies

We all know someone who's coeliac or doesn't eat gluten, it's becoming a common phenomenon now.  I came across this recipe years ago when a friend was newly diagnosed and envious of all the cakes and sweet treats that everyone seemed to be enjoying. It's such a good recipe that it's now my go-to brownie recipe, although I rarely use gluten free flour as none of my immediate friends here are coeliac. The only problem is if someone is allergic to nuts as the way the recipe keeps down the flour is by using ground almonds. On the other hand, if you like nuts then add hazelnut butter in place of half the butter (keeping the other half) - it makes it taste of nutella!

New Name For The Blog

Hi guys, as you might have noticed, I've changed the name of my blog. The Interesting Food Blog was a good name (my sister came up with it) but unfortunately if you type that into Google you just get lots of awards sites, which are great but I have no hope of competing with the likes of Saveur and Delicious. given that they are magazines. Gourmet In The Making, is the new name and hopefully it's accurate - apparently my father said to my mum "I think Lily's turning into a foodie". Mum's response? "She always has been!". I may never compete with the top chefs (and I'm not sure I want to at this point in time) but I hope you enjoy my recipes and don't forget to like me know how they go (I believe the anonymous option for posting comments is working but the google one isn't - I'm still working on it).