Cooling cucumber raita

There are few things as refreshing as a cooling yoghurt raita.  The perfect accompaniment to all Indian food, especially if its spicy, as yoghurt works perfectly to counteract the heat of chillies.  Add cucumber and mint, two more foods with cooling properties, and you're good to go.  

To make this easy recipe, you will need:

1 cup of full fat yoghurt

1 cucumber, peeled and finely chopped

1 teaspoon of dried mint

1 green chilli, finely chopped

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon red chilli flakes

½ teaspoon roasted cumin seeds, crushed

Handful of chopped mint leaves, plus extra to garnish

To roast the cumin seeds, heat a small frying pan, tip in the cumin seeds and shake gently for a few minutes until they smell aromatic.  Lightly crush in mortar and pestle, mix with the chilli flakes and set aside.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, top with cumin seed and chilli mix and a few mint leaves for garnish.  Refrigerate before serving.  

Easy no-yeast naan bread

This naan bread is so quick and easy to whip up to accompany any Indian meal, or use as a pizza base.  It's a no-yeast version, so the dough is a bit delicate to work with, but once you've made it a few times you'll know the texture you're aiming for.

To make four naan breads you will need:

1 cup of self-raising flour

4 tablespoons of full fat greek yoghurt

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Put the flour in a bowl and add the other ingredients.  Mix with a wooden spoon until gluggy and then take over with your hands and gently knead it.  You may need to adjust the quantities of flour and yoghurt slightly: it shouldn't be too wet and sticky, nor too dry as it will fall apart.  Once you get the dough into a smooth homogenous ball, cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave aside for 20 minutes.

Flour your hands and divide the dough into four balls that you can roll into individual naan breads.  I always roll my pieces of dough into the size of a hand, brush with olive oil, fold in on itself and then roll out again, to create an extra layer in my bread.

Once you have your naans shaped, place in a hot oven (about 200 degrees celsius) on baking paper for a few minutes on either side until it starts to colour.  You can also cook it in a heavy based dry frying pan for a couple of minutes on either side.  You don't want it to brown too much, just be fully cooked on the inside.  Brush with olive oil or ghee, and serve immediately.

Perfect rice

Pilau rice with turmeric and peas  

Cooking perfect rice is one of the essential skills in Indian home cooking. And the secret to this art? Buy the right rice and you're halfway there.

I would never recommend buying rice from the supermarket, you need to get yourself to an Indian grocery shop and find the best Basmati you can. Look for aged Basmati rice, beautiful long fragrant grains which will cook separately (Indian rice should never be soft and mushy).

You can even buy Sela Basmati, which is parboiled before milling to preserve its nutrients, and cooks even faster. Most Pakistani Basmati is good, a couple of the brands I buy include Dawaat, Lal Qila and Kohinoor. The rice comes in big five kilo bags, but it will last for ages.

The next trick is soaking the rice before you cook it. Always wash it well, and then leave it to rest in the water you are going to cook it in for at least 15 minutes, though half an hour is better.  In terms of the ratio of rice to water, I use 1:2 - a cup of rice (usually enough for four people) and 2 cups of water. You want the water level to be about an inch higher than the level of the rice in the pan.

To cook the rice, turn your heat to high and bring it to a boil. As soon as it boils, turn the heat down to very low, partially cover with a lid and cook for 10-12 minutes until all the water has evaporated, then turn the heat off. Put the lid on fully and leave the rice to keep cooking in its own steam for another 10 minutes, if you have an electric stove just keep it on the warm hob.

Always fluff the rice up before serving, you can drizzle in some olive oil or a spoon of butter or ghee.

There are infinite variations for flavouring rice as you cook it, and I have included a few below.  All quantities are based on a one cup serve of rice. If you are cooking more than a cup, you probably want to increase the amounts by one and a half.

Basic rice

Add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of olive oil to the cooking water.... include this in all variations below.

 Jeera rice

Add a teaspoon of cumin seeds along with the salt and oil.

 Turmeric rice

Add half a teaspoon of turmeric along with the salt and oil, with or without cumin seeds as well.

Pilau rice

Whole garam masala adds a beautiful fragrance to your rice. Add a bay leaf, 3-4 cloves, 2-3 cardamom, a few peppercorns and a stick of cinnamon.  You can also fry these in a bit of oil first, then add the raw rice and water, but simply adding them to the water is fine.

You can also include half a teaspoon of cumin seeds, and half a teaspoon of turmeric.

Cooking liquid

Another easy variation is to change the cooking liquid. Instead of water, you can use stock (homemade chicken stock is amazing with all the whole spices), or even coconut milk.

Another option is to add a quartered tomato, or include some tomato passata in the liquid. Throwing in some frozen peas as the rice cooks is also nice.

Garnish

All sorts of garnishes work well on rice, especially if you have made a lovely yellow pea pilau, or a fragrant rice with stock.

Chopped herbs, coriander, spring onions or mint, or a bit of red chilli for colour are perfect.

Deep fried shallots or onions give a lovely crunchy texture, and this also pairs well with sliced hard boiled eggs.

There are so many more delicious ways to cook rice, lovely pilaus with lots of veggies, khichri, which is rice cooked with lentils, and lots of rice variaties to use, like brown and red rice.

I'll be posting some of these more complex recipes separately this year, so stay tuned.

Quick and tasty green chutney

Green chutney has possibly been my most requested recipe this year.  It's a chutney my family has made regularly for generations, with a few recipe variations, all of them delicious.  It's such an easy chutney to whip up, and so full of taste and goodness.  

You can use it in sandwiches, as a dip, a curry paste, a marinade or a salad dressing (it makes an amazing potato salad).  It keeps in the fridge for a few days, and can also be frozen.  

There are two other green chutney recipes on this website, one using toasted cumin seeds, and other with the addition of ginger and garlic. Both also use a combination of coriander and mint.  

This recipe is the easiest of them all, it only uses coriander, and takes seconds to make in a Nutribullet or blender.  I am making a huge batch for Christmas and thought I'd post the recipe as it's perfect holiday fare. 

To make your own batch you will need:

1 bunch of coriander, washed, with roots cut off (supermarket sized)

1-2 green chillies, depending on how hot you like it

1/3 to 1/2 a cup of coconut cream (Ayam brand is preferable)

1/3 cup dessicated coconut

1 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of raw sugar

Juice of half a lemon

Put all the ingredients in your blender and blend till smooth.  Taste and adjust ingredients until you are happy with the flavour and texture.  If the chutney is a bit runny, it will set like butter in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Gluten-free moong dal pancakes

I have been trying to find good substitutes for bread for a while without success, as I know that cutting bread, and reducing gluten generally from my diet makes me feel a lot healthier.  Lately I have hit upon a series of old recipes that have done the trick, and I have been making and eating dosa and various Indian savoury pancakes almost daily.

It has taken a little bit of practice to master the art of cooking them to become perfectly thin and crepe-like, but it has most definitely been worth the effort.

I highly recommend these moong dal pancakes, called chilla in India.  They are not only totally delicious, but are completely vegan: dairy, egg and gluten free, and you can source good quality organic moong dal too.  The pancakes are light, strong and have that elastic quality of good flatbread: making them perfect for wraps and to use instead of chapatis. 

The batter below will make around 8 pancakes, but make them as you need to as the batter stores in the fridge for a few days. 

You will need:

1 cup of yellow moong dal, organic if possible

1 teaspoon of salt

A little bit of coconut oil or ghee to grease 

Flavourings optional: see below

To make the pancakes, wash and rinse the dal well, then soak in enough water to cover it by about an inch and leave aside for 1-2 hours. 

Drain the dal, reserving the liquid, and place it in a blender (I use a 900 watt Nutribullet and it works perfectly).  Add a teaspoon of salt, and you can also add flavourings if you want: a teaspoon of toasted cumin seeds; a quarter teaspoon of turmeric with a twist of black pepper, some chopped ginger, green chilli, or some coriander leaves and a squeeze of lemon.  Add in a little of your reserved dal water and blend for a minute or so... you want to end up with a thick, pale yellow, creamy looking batter.  You can add more water if you need to: the final batter should have the consistency of single cream.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan, about 26 cm in diameter on a medium-high heat, then take a ladle of the batter, around a quarter cup, and pour it into the centre of the pan. With the bottom of the ladle spread the batter out in circles, until it covers the base of the pan, you may need to turn the heat down at this point.

Cook the pancake for a minute or two until the bottom is done and you can slide your spatula under it.  Spread a little bit of coconut oil or ghee on the top and sides of the pancake and then lift and flip it.  Cook the top side for another minute or two and it should be done.  I have been perfecting the art of using as little oil as possible, but my mother reassures me that more is always better. 

Cooking the perfect pancake takes a bit of practice.  You can play with the heat settings, try a high heat for less time or lower and longer... as depending on how you cook it you can make it thin and crispy or a little thicker and spongier.  

These moong dal chilla are perfect for breakfast, and because of their strong texture great as wraps or to mop up curry gravy.  I can't recommend them enough!

Simple paneer cheese

Making paneer is one of life's small simple joys.  I think we're so used to buying all our food we sometimes forget how easy it is to make things yourself: I'm thinking bread, butter, cheese... recipes our grandmothers used to know by heart.

We've made paneer at The Bombay Cook Club a few times, and have been experimenting with adding flavours to it.  Here are suggestions for three we made recently, but you can experiment with adding things according to your own preferences once you've mastered the basics.

To make one small round of cheese you will need:

2 litres of full cream milk (you can also add cream as a portion of this for a richer cheese)

3-4 tablespoons of vinegar (we use apple cider vinegar but you can use any type)

1 teaspoon of salt

Bring the milk to boil in a large pan, stirring frequently so the bottom doesn't burn. Once it is boiling, add salt and any flavourings, then add the vinegar and keep stirring. The milk will split into curds and whey very quickly.  When it does, take the pan to the sink and strain the curds into a strainer lined with a muslin cloth, or nut milk bag.  If you'd like to save the whey, do so, it can be used in baking in place of buttermilk.

Wrap the muslin cloth tightly around the curds and squeeze as much liquid out as you can.  Form a pat and place it back in the strainer, with a heavy weight on top of it. Leave for half an hour, then unwrap: you should have a firm block of cheese you can slice, eat immediately, use to make palak paneer, or fry like halloumi.

To make flavoured paneer, you basically need to add your extras to the milk at the same time as you add salt as follows:

RED CHILLI AND CUMIN SEED PANEER

Use 1 teaspoon of red chilli flakes and 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds.

FRESH HERB PANEER

Use 1 tablespoon of a couple of different herbs: we used basil and garlic chives.

SWEET PANEER

Don't add salt to this one.  Instead add 2 teaspoons of brown sugar, a good pinch of cardamom powder and as much saffron as you can spare: around 1/3 of a teaspoon works.  We also added a tablespoon of finely chopped walnuts.  

We served our sweet paneer with honey.

You can use your paneer to make palak paneer, from the recipe on this site.