Uncle Ted's Recipes #15: Saag Paneer with pulses and pre-marinated paneer

Sorry if the lack of updates on this blog has left your appetites for film and video game reviews or recipe posts insufficiently satisfied but here I am again with an old recipe that I have updated a bit during my time spent experimenting with recipes during lockdown.

So here is a recipe I built up for saag paneer with pre-marinated paneer and extra pulses that is suitable for most occasions and is simple enough that it can be adapted to different dietary needs.

Utensils:

• Chopping board
• Sieve/colander
• Garlic crusher
• Large chopping knife
• Small vegetable/herb knife
• Wooden spoon
• Cast iron or stainless steel saucepan or pot with a lid
• Measuring spoons

Ingredients:

• 2 medium white onions
• 6-8 garlic cloves
• 400g tinned chopped tomatoes
• 400g tinned or frozen spinach
• 400g low-fat coconut milk
• 3-5 tablespoons chilli flakes
• 2 tablespoons Garam Masala
• 2 tablespoons allspice
• 2 tablespoons ground tumeric
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 2 tablespoons tikka curry powder
• 1 lemon
• Vegetable oil
• 400-500g diced paneer (preferable), chicken breast or tofu
• 400g kala chana
• 400g green lentils
• 200g chickpeas
• 1 tablespoon cardamom pods
• 1 tablespoon caraway or cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon curry leaves
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds or cloves

Cooking method/process:

1. At least 2 hours before beginning cooking, dice the paneer into a tupperware box and squeeze all of the lemon juice into the box along with grating the lemon rind. Also add in a teaspoon of oil, a few shakes of salt and the tikka curry powder. After mixing all of this into the paneer, put on the lid, wrap in clingfilm and place into the fridge for at least a couple of hours
2. Heat up a few tablespoons of oil in the pan at about 20% heat along with the seeds, pods, chilli flakes and curry leaves along with a handful of shakes of salt before stirring and allowing to lightly simmer for 5 minutes but be VERY CAREFUL to make sure this doesn't burn.
3. Dice up the onions and add them to the pan along with the garlic after it has been crushed before stirring and turning up to 50% heat and allowing to simmer until the onions are moderately soft while keeping close attention to the pan to make sure this mixture doesn't burn. Just before dicing the onions, it would be a good idea to rinse the beans and pulses in a sieve/colander so that they have at least a few minutes to drain.
4. In a mug or bowl, pour a couple of tablespoons of oil before throwing in all of the ground spices aside from the tikka powder with a couple more tablespoons of oil and a few shakes of salt on top before mixing well and setting this curry paste mixture aside for a few minutes.
5. Get the paneer out of the fridge and add it into the saucepan along with the beans and pulses and mix well with a few shakes of salt and allow to cook for 10 minutes at 40% heat.
6. Add the curry paste to the pan and stir well before turning back up to 50% heat and cooking for 10 minutes.
7. Turn the pan up to 75% heat and add in the spinach, coconut milk, tinned tomatoes and a few small shakes of salt before mixing well and adding in boiled water if the whole mix still looks a little dry and allow the mix to cook at this level for 5-10 minutes before turning it right down to 20% heat and allowing it too cook slowly for 1-1.5 hours (keep a careful eye on the pot during this period to make sure it doesn't burn or boil over.

Serving suggestions:

Serve the curry with spinach and sweetcorn or lentil samosas, garlic naan bread, mango chutney and pilau rice with a garnish of a few leaves of coriander on top.

Serve with an ice cold glass of water or bottle of Cobra beer and after you've finished eating, have a warm cup of turmeric tea and a vanilla milkshake.

What to do with leftovers:

At the end of the week, if there is any of the curry left after you've eaten most of it, try heating up the remainder in some vegetable stock water with half a teaspoon of saffron, 2 cloves of crushed garlic and 150g of stewed lentils to make some saag paneer dhal soup.

Another option to use up any leftovers is to mildly heat it up and then place in a slightly warmed up paratha wrap with pickled red cabbage, dry vinaigrette slaw, cucumber and mint rajita and then closing up the wrap and lightly toasting it in sesame seed oil so that it can be closed up as an Indian kind of, sort of burrito.

Uncle Ted's Recipes #14: Hearty but light chicken breasts

 Usually this is a type of cooking I reserve for fish and seafood (mainly salmon, prawns or cod) but I tried it tonight with chicken and it works pretty well for that too. This is a hearty dish good enough for any night of the week that can be served with a wide variety of additions and side dishes/foods but first things first, let's get to the point of cooking the chicken first.

Utensils/tools:

1 small meat-cutting knife

1 medium baking tray & 1 oven

greaseproof paper or high-quality tin foil

Plate (you can choose to eat straight from the oven with your hands but I would not recommend it)

Ingredients:

2 medium skinless chicken breast pieces

20-30ml soya sauce

4 garlic cloves

2 teaspoons pickled ginger

1/4 chilli flakes (optional)

2 bay leaves (optional)

Cooking steps/method of preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 220C double-sided setting.
2. Lay some greaseproof paper or tin foil over the baking tray and place the chicken breasts onto said prepared tray. Use the knife to slice the chicken breasts down lengthways once halfway through and then four times sideways across the original cut a quarter through the chicken meat.
3. Pour the soya sauce all into the cuts made into the chicken but do not worry if it spills over the sides of the chicken pieces and into the parcel of paper/foil you've made on the baking tray.
4. Peel the garlic cloves then use a garlic crusher to crush the garlic over the chicken and then extract all the bits of the crushed garlic and spread over the breast pieces along with the pickled ginger. Alternatively, if you do not have a garlic crusher, get the cloves on a cutting board, crush them with the flat of the blade of a knife (with your hand on the opposite side to stabilize it) and then roughly dice the crushed garlic up.
5. Wrap up the parcel by folding it over the top and twisting either end shut and twisting them upwards.
6. Place the tray into the oven and cook for 25 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and place onto a plate that has been pre-heated for 3-4 minutes and serve

Uncle Ted's Serving recommendations

• Mash potato, ratatouille and roasted kale (this is my favourite way of serving this kind of chicken as it's probably the easiest to do considering roasted kale is easy to make and most supermarkets sell ready-to-microwave mash and tinned ratatouille).
• Brown rice cooked in vegetable stock, chilli flakes and red kidney beans with a side of wilted spinach and kale.
• Served on top of a udon noodle, vegetable broth and pak choi Chinese-style broth soup.
• Slice the chicken up and then serve it on top of a salad of avocado, petite pois, mint, bulgur wheat, cucumber, bean shoots and chives.
• Serve as part of a South-East-Asian mixed grill including kung-pow pork loin, Vietnamese pork belly bibimbap, chicken teriyaki and tempura beef.

Uncle Ted's Recipes #9: Protein-packed vegan curry

Ok I know vegan recipes or even vegetarian ones aren't the most common sight on this blog but this is one cheap and reasonably healthy.  Its good for either keeping in the fridge for yourself for a few days or for a dinner party.

INGREDIENTS (serves 4-6)

6-10 Tablespoons rapeseed oil

4 small, 3 medium or 2 large brown onions

250g fresh leave spinach washed and rinsed

600-800g chickpeas soaked and drained

300-450g green lentils soaked and drained

650g baby potatoes

4-6 teaspoons of chilli flakes

2-4 teaspoons of chilli powder

1-3 teaspoons of cumin seeds

1-3 teaspoons of ground cumin

4 teaspoons of graham masala

5 teaspoons of ground smoked paprika

Thyme or sage leaves

3-5 cloves of garlic

2-4 cups boiled water

Salt

EQUIPMENT/UTENSILS

1 large cutting knife

1 herb knife

1 cutting board

1 or 2 colanders or sieves

1 large or very large cooking pot or stove

1 heat or melting proof mixing spoon

Teaspoons for measuring spices

Ladle for dishing up curry

METHOD/PREPARATION (Time to prepare approximately 15-30 minutes)

 

Step 1: Dice up the potatoes and place them into a strainer and rinse in cold water for a couple of minutes over the sink then let them drain while you do the other initial preparations.

Step 2: Dice up the onions while pouring the oil into the pot and turning the hob onto a low-mid heat.  After a few minutes, hover your hand over the pan and if there is a mild heat coming off of it, then place the herbs except for the salt and thyme or sage into the pan and stir until the spices are mixed together in one mush.

Step 3: Place the potatoes and onions into the pan with a small extra bit of oil and stir until mixed in well with the spices.  Afterwards, begin crushing and dicing up the garlic and then place into the pan and stir again.

Step 4: After rinsing and draining the spinach, place into the pan and let the spinach wilt. then drain and rinse the lentils, chickpeas and thyme or sage then place into the pan then stir moderately.

Step 5: Add in the boiling water and a couple of pinches of salt and then stir.  Also, make sure that the spinach is mostly submerged so that it can wilt some more and get mixed in with the rest of the ingredients.  Afterwards, do a brief taste test to see if the balance of spices and herbs is to your liking and add more of one of the spices if you would like to.  Afterwards, place the lid onto the pot and turn down to a low heat and let simmer for about 15 minutes while you do the washing up.

Step 6: Serve the curry on a bed of either pilau or basmati rice with a coriander naan and served alongside either an icy cold beer such as Cobra or a yoghurt drink and a glass of tap water.

Hope you find plenty of use out of this recipe if you decide to make it like this or use my recipe as a base template to adapt your own curry recipe from.  Please feel free to make suggestions in the comment section below and let me know how you all get on with this nice, cheap and healthy curry recipe!