A Celebratory Dinner: Lamb Korma and Crusty Persian Rice

Today, forty-two years ago, I asked a girl out on a date.  The rest is history.  So, we had this small anniversary coming up and I was thinking of something out of the ordinary.  Especially in the light of the COVID-19 lockdowns and its side effects.

Now, forty-two years is not as special a date as a twenty-five or fifty, but there you go.  It came to me that expressions of love are not limited to physical efforts or presents.  It also comes in giving something of yourself in appreciation.  And what better way than cooking a special dish for your loved one.  Then both of you can share the joy.  In the end, the effort is not in the physical work involved, it is more in applying the mind to come up with a proper recipe, something out of the ordinary.  Kahneman wrote at length about his.

My choice fell on a korma, with a special rice dish.  Lamb korma with a nutty sauce and a flavourful and crusty Persian rice.  Tahdeeq.  These are dishes that I have not come across often in an eight-year foodie adventure.  Time for shaking the tree, I thought.

The korma is made with lamb in this case.  Make sure the meat is at room temperature and quite dry before you start.  Get meat with some bones in, the bones add extra flavour to the dish.  Roast the nuts, it adds a proper flavour to the dish.  I used cashews for this dish.  Almonds also work.  Fry the meat in a dry pan in small batches, else it boils.  You need the caramelisation in the pot, this becomes the stock.  

Remember some salt while you are frying the meat.  You also need to get the sauce up to standard before simmering the meat in the flavoured sauce.  Some of the nuts may be held back to use as a garnish, the rest is blended with the onions to make a thick sauce.  The garlic/chili/ginger mix needs to be 1 chili, ½ ginger, ¼ garlic by volume.  Get a recipe here.  I would not venture into the variations of dry masala powder.  Just use your favourite.  This dish needs to be flavourful, but not strong and spicy.  Remember, you are working with very light and subtle spices.

The process for the rice is quite simple, with a cheat to make it easy.  The rice needs a crust, which tends to stick to the pan.  I get around this little problem by lining the pot with waxed paper.  No sticking, and it is easy to lift the rice out of the pot and invert it on a plate.  The rice uses coconut powder.  You can use coconut milk to boil the rice, but it is lost when the rice is rinsed.  The rice is steamed at the end, which calls for a lid that seals properly.  Use a wet tea towel if you are uncertain.

 

These two dishes require the same effort and time as any alike everyday dishes, but some extra care is required in the sequence of the process.  The korma is done first, then the rice is started only when the meat part is done.  This is done deliberately to allow the korma to rest and develop flavour, so do plan enough time for this sequence of cooking.

 

The result is absolutely worth the extra bit of effort.

 

 

Ingredients

For the korma

750 g lamb shoulder, cubed

1 ½ cup plain yogurt

1 ½ cup cashews, roasted

2 onions, finely chopped

1 ½ tbsp. of your favourite garlic/chili/ginger mix or your own fresh stuff

1 ½ tbsp dry masala, your favourite mix

2 tsp garam masala

2 tbsp rose water

¼ cup apple cider or white vinegar 

2 black cardamom pods (black elachi)

Seeds from 3 pods green cardamom, shelled and roasted

1 cinnamon stick

A sprig of fresh coriander leaves for garnish

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Oil/ghee

 

For the Persian crusty rice

1 cup basmati rice

2-3 tbsp coconut powder

I cinnamon stick

3-4 pods cardamom (green elachi)

Pinch of saffron, powdered and steeped in ½ cup hot water.

Dollops of butter

Oil/ghee

Coarse salt

Some fine salt to taste

Waxed paper to line the pot.  Proper waxed paper.

 

Here is what you do

 

Roast/fry the cashews in a dry pan until they start to show dark brown stains, then set aside to cool.  Ensure the meat is quite dry, then fry the cubes in a dry pan.  They will start to caramelise and leave some caramelisation in the pan.  You need to do this in batches, else there will be too much fluid in the pan and the meat will go grey.  Set the meat aside while preparing the sauce.

 

The sauce, in this case, is onions, fresh garlic, ginger, and chili, along with the cardamom (elachi) and cinnamon.  Add some oil to the caramelised pot, add the dry whole spices and fry for 20-30 seconds until the flavours come out, then add the onions.  Fry until translucent.  Add the fresh spices or spice paste and fry for another minute or two.  Add the vinegar to deglaze the pot.  You want the caramelisation in the sauce as stock.  Now add your favourite dry masala, the yogurt and the roasted cashews.  The cashews may be substituted with roasted almonds.  Keep a few nuts for the garnish in the presentation.  Mix thoroughly, then blitz this lot with a blender.  Check for sufficient salt.  If you don’t have a blender you need to chop the onions quite fine or grate them before frying.  The cashews may be crushed in a coffee mug with the back end of a spatula or your chef’s knife.  Or use your favourite mortar and pestle.  The coffee mug idea works a treat and you get a crunchy texture in the sauce.  

 

To this lot add the meat, turn the heat down and simmer the meat until quite soft.  Dilute the sauce with water if required and make sure it doesn’t catch.  If it does everything goes bitter and you will have to start over.  When the meat is done to your satisfaction, add the garam masala and rose water, douse the gas hob, and allow the dish to rest.

 

Now you start with the rice part.  Add water, rice, and some salt and the cinnamon and cardamom.  Boil this until the rice is partly done.  Now rinse the rice.  It will stop cooking.  This is where the cheating part of the process comes in.  Clean the rice pot, then line it with waxed paper.  Use proper waxed paper, else the paper will wilt into the rice.  Into this goes a dollop of cooking oil or ghee and about a dessertspoon of coarse salt, sprinkled around.   Do not use olive oil, the flavours clash with the rest of the dish.  Some dollops of real butter are then added before the rice is sprinkled on top.  Check and adjust for saltiness.  Steep the saffron in ¼ cup of boiling water.   Add the coconut powder to this, then sprinkle this over the rice in the pot.  Set a tight-fitting lid and cook at medium heat for another 15-20 minutes.  Don’t lift the lid, you want to steam the rice in pilau-style.  When the rice is done, lift the whole lot out of the pot by the wax paper and invert the rice between two plates.  The waxed paper will come away freely and you will have a wonderful crusty rice dish with an intact Tahdeeq.

 

For dishing up you put the korma in a dish for the table and garnish with coriander leaves and the rest of the nuts.  Serve the rice next to this.  After all, this is for a special occasion and the presentation of the food is as much part of the experience as the aromas and flavours.

 

I hope that you will enjoy this as much as we did.

 

Bon Appetit!  

 

 

 

Authored by Johan Zietsman

 

Last updated on 2020-10-25 

Lockdown Green Chicken Curry

It is winter her in the Cape Town area. We are making hot food, soul food.  ‘Tis the time for stews, while all my foodie friends in the northern hemisphere are raving about summer fruit and vegetables, and fruity drinks alfresco.

 

This dish is the direct result of a challenge on handwriting, where I stuck my neck out on a dish that I have never made before.  A green curry using spinach. Yes, that stuff that nobody wants to eat.  So much for keeping a low profile.  An abject lesson in system linkage; news tends to travel across social boundaries.  I should have known.

The blended spinach. I doubled this quantity

 

A quick Google search came up with a load of recipes of varying ingredients.  I decided on my own fusion of flavours.  A basic dish using spinach, coriander leaves, and mint as the base for the sauce.  Add to this some roasted cashews for flavour, a dash of lemon juice and yoghurt for the sauce and we are in business.  I decided against lamb for the meat, as it takes long to cook.  More of this option later.  I opted for chicken breasts with the bone on.  The marrow and the cartilage add flavour and some texture to the sauce.  The sauce needs to be mushy, so take care not to burn the sauce.

 

This was an out-and-out experiment.  One of the better experiments in the kitchen I have ever had, if you will.  The dish is easy to make, and the result is astounding.  A serious contender for the top of my default recipe log. 

 

Dry roasted cashews

Asian spice dish recipes tend to come with a list of ingredients that is quite long, as they use their own mix of spices to make their masalas.  I have a masala that I make according to a Cape Malay recipe from Cass Abrahams, which I use for all my curries.  You may use your own.  The supply of chillies suitable for curry is intermittent here in my neck of the woods, so I standardised on a curry paste that will keep a month or two in the refrigerator.  You can find the recipe here. 

 

The green ingredients for this dish are all leafy.  So, we blitz the sauce with a blender to get a smooth consistency.  For flavour, I added dry roasted cashew nuts.  Just a ¼ cup will do. 

 

The meat can be either chicken or lamb.  I opted for chicken on this round, as the chicken cooks quite fast.  This time I used chicken breasts cut into bite size portions.  I left the skin on, as the fat adds some flavour to the dish. You will need a napkin and a dish for the bones, and you will need to use your hands.  Remember to lick your fingers clean before you start eating…

 

The blended coriander and mint

Fry the meat in batches until it gets brown, then keep aside.  If you want to use lamb, do the same, but then simmer the meat in some water until it is tender. The sauce of this dish is too thick to stand long simmering, it may burn.  Keep the stock from the lamb, you will need it to dilute your sauce as required.

 

I blended the green ingredients separately, but there is no need for that with a little planning beforehand.

 

Here is the recipe.

 

Ingredients

 

750 g chicken breasts, bone in, cut into bite sized portions

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

¼ tsp fenugreek seeds (methi)

¼ cup fresh mint leaves

1 medium size very ripe tomato, finely chopped

½ cup fresh coriander leaves

1 cup fresh spinach destemmed and coarsely chopped. Maybe more. I used about 120 grams.

1-2 tbsp chilli, garlic & ginger paste

2 tsp dry masala powder, your choice of flavours

½ cup plain yoghurt

Juice of ½ lemon

¼ cup cashew nuts, dry roasted

1-2 tsp garam masala to taste

Oil/ghee for frying

Salt

 

Process

 

This is the easy and fast version, not what I did.

 

Fry the chicken in batches in ghee/oil until it gets brown. Set aside. Fry the onions until they start getting brown, then add the curry paste or fresh spices and the chopped coriander and mint leaves.  Remember to add a little salt.  Stir fry for thirty seconds or so, the add the spinach, tomato and some yoghurt.  The acid in the tomato will pick up the caramelised meat from the bottom of the pan, adding to your stock.  The mix will be quite dry, so you may need to add a touch of boiling water or yoghurt.  Not too much, the sauce needs to be mushy.  Add the dry masala and the roasted cashews.  Stir carefully to prevent burning.  Then blitz with the blender until you have a smooth, mushy sauce.

 

Now add back the meat and turn down the heat to very low.  Add the lemon juice.  Simmer this for about half an hour or until the meat is tender.  In the case of lamb, you would have cooked the lamb until tender before adding to the mushy sauce.  When the meat is done, add the garam masala, mix through and turn off the heat.  Let the dish rest while you cook the rice.  My version came out slightly off-green, as my spice paste is made from red chillies. 

 

While the dish is resting, cook the rice.  I used basmati rice.  Don’t even bother to flavour the rice, the main dish has overpowering flavour.  However, with the thick sauce a roti may just be the optimal answer.

 

Now dish up.  I did not have the inclination for any additional side dish tonight.  This was enough balm for the soul on this cold Cape winter night.

 

Bon Appetit!

 

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2020-06-03

 

 

 

 

Beef Braciole: A Classic Italian Dish

The holiday and festive season being upon us again, boredom sets in.  Rather quickly, once the office year-end parties and club end-of-year functions have taken their toll.  In South Africa, this is the time of rich dishes and too much food.  And afterwards everybody goes: “ugh, I had too much to eat.  Again.”  Perhaps then it is time for a not-so rich, but flavourful and wholesome dish that is easy to prepare, yet classier than mac and cheese.

Beef braciole is a classic Italian dish of this nature.  It requires some effort but is reasonably quick and easy to prepare.  The dish consists of an Italian version of what we here in South Africa know as beef olives, stewed in a wholesome tomato-based sauce.  The internet abounds with various versions of the sauce.  I chose a standard standby, this time adding a little red wine to deglaze the pan.  This may be substituted by a little apple cider vinegar.  

The dish is usually made using a whole flank or a round cut.   You may opt for a large roll or several small ones.  I went for the small rolls, rather like the beef olives.  The beef may be substituted by mutton or pork of a suitable cut.  The rolls always have a savoury filling.  I chose prosciutto and breadcrumbs inundated with garlic, some grated hard cheese like parmesan and some finely chopped parsley.  I also added a drop of olive oil, as the filling looked a bit dry.  The breadcrumbs will soak up the sauce, so be sure to make a sauce that will penetrate.  The prosciutto may be substituted for any smoked flavour meat.

As for the cut of meat, I opted for beef topside, which I sliced across the grain.  This gave me several narrow pieces, in addition to some small offcuts.  The slices of beef are then rolled out using a rolling pin to get thin slices, rather like carpaccio. 

The sauce is made from peeled tomatoes.  I made my own variation by frying some onions, grated carrots and chopped celery, before adding the tomatoes.  I also added a dollop of cayenne pepper/dried chilli powder and a bay leaf.  For the main flavour I pounded two small sprigs’ worth of oregano leaves from the garden in a mortar and pestle and added this to the sauce.  Oregano is a hard herb, normally used in larger quantities.  This time I decided on a little experiment, which worked beautifully.  The oregano flavour came through, but not overpoweringly.

Ingredients:

400 g topside beef

120 g prosciutto ham

½ cup breadcrumbs

2 cloves garlic, minced

Sprig of parsley, chopped

½ cup finely grated hard cheese

1-2 cans whole peeled tomatoes (my shortcut)

1-2 bay leaves

2x fingers celery, thinly sliced

1 carrot, coarsely grated

Leaves from two small sprigs of oregano, mashed

½ cup red wine or apple cider vinegar

Some salt to taste

Some pepper to taste

Some olive oil for frying

500 g pasta for serving

Process:

Slice the meat in thin slices across the grain.  This is always a good idea.  Use a rolling pin to roll the slices even thinner.  Arrange the slices flat on the work area and top each with a slice of the prosciutto.  Top this again with a layer of breadcrumbs, chopped parsley and the mashed garlic.  Then roll up the olives into small rolls and stick a toothpick through to keep each one together for frying.   Heat up a frying pan and fry the olives in light olive oil.  The meat needs to caramelise and there should be some caramelisation in the pan.  The offcuts from the cut of meat may be chopped finely and fried with the last batch of olives.  Remove the olives from the pan and fry the onions, carrots, and celery, but leave the small meat grits, they add to the stock.  When the onions are translucent, add the wine to deglaze the pan.  Then add the tomatoes.  Mash them with a potato masher.  Add the mashed oregano and the bay leaves.   Salt to taste.  This is where you add the cayenne pepper or dried chilli.   Bring to the boil and allow the sauce to reduce a little.   When the sauce thickens a little, add the olives back, turn the heat down and simmer for at least forty minutes.  

This dish is served with pasta of your choice.  As it is a chunky dish, I opted for penne.  These I cooked separately, then strained and added it to the main dish as a mix.  Garnish with some more grated cheese and serve hot.  A hearty and delicious family meal.  It goes well with a medium bodied red wine.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last edited on 2019-12-24

Jewelled Rice and Tandoori Chicken

These two dishes together must surely be the epitome of a reasonably easy, but special course for a special occasion.

Recently, I had the chance of such an occasion, being Mother's Day. This also fell on the eve of a planned and long-outstanding knee-op for myself.  So Mother's Day offered a suitable opportunity to experiment in the kitchen, with my long suffering wife as the guinea pig.

In this instance the experiment was not eclectic in any way, as the preparation of either dish appeared to be reasonably simple, if involved.  And so it turned out to be.

The recipe started yet again with a brief search on the internet for jewelled rice recipes.  I eventually settled for ingredients which I had in hand or easily available.  Again, what struck me is that the eventual flavours are determined more by the process of preparation, than the ingredients themselves.

The rice part was completed by basmati rice.  As for the rest of the ingredients, I had to be somewhat more creative.  The nuts part were filled by some almonds and cashews.  The dried fruit contained raisins and dried cranberries.  I toyed with the idea of adding some fruit cake mix, but decided that doing so would be stretching my luck.  The carrots were coarsely julienned, the onions finely chopped.   The spice contingent was made up of cinnamon sticks, saffron, turmeric, some sugar and dried citrus peel. 



The dried citrus peel I made myself some time ago.  This is a very Cape Malay spice, widely used in sweet dishes.  This is made by drying citrus peel.  Especially the soft citrus peel, which does not have the bitter white inside of lemon and orange peel.  You dry the fresh peel in the microwave oven, taking care not to fry the fresh peel.  The dried peel is then blitzed in the blender or coffee grinder until the required fine-ness.  Very personal taste, I guess.  This dried powder may then be used in rice or any sweet dishes to enhance the flavour.  This Cape style food habit of drying fruit and making a pesto or paste for curries stems from the intermittent supply of suitable ingredients in the old days, giving rise to a whole fusion of culinary styles.  For which I am eternally grateful.



So here goes:

Jewelled Rice with Tandoori Chicken

Tandoori Chicken

6 Chicken drum sticks/thighs
250 ml plain or double cream yoghurt
1 tablespoon masala paste
Some salt

Jewelled Rice

3/4 cup basmati rice, soaked and rinsed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, coarsely julienned
3 cinnamon sticks
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
pinch of saffron
4 green cardamom pods, whole
some sugar
1 tablespoon dried citrus powder
1/2 cup raw almond shavings
1/2 cup unsalted cashews
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries
some oil for cooking


Process

The chicken is thawed properly, then cut through the skin to allow the marinade to penetrate.  The marinade is the yoghurt, add some salt and add the masala paste.  The chicken is thoroughly bedaubed with the marinade and then left to marinate until the rice is done.  I cooked the chicken over medium coals on the griddle outside, while the rice was resting, before dishing up.   The chicken on the braai griddle was a culinary adventure on its own, providing suitable psychological torture to the rest of the neighbourhood.

The jewelled rice was a new adventure altogether.  I had these ghosts of past experiments in the back of my head, where I was confronted afterwards with bitter resentment of the many dirty dishes and a dirty kitchen.  Jewelled rice calls for several ingredients to be cooked and prepared before final assembly, so some thought about sequence are in order.  The nuts provide much more flavour when they are freshly roasted, so this happens first.  The nuts were ground coarsely in a mortar and pestle, then roasted in a dry pan until they started to caramelise, then set aside until cooled.

The cinnamon sticks and cardamom pods were fried in a lightly oiled pan until the flavours come out, then the carrots added.  To this lot I added some sugar and the dried citrus peel and fried until the sugar caramelised, then came the dried fruit.  This was also set aside as soon as the dried fruit and citrus peel started to show flavours.

The rice was soaked and rinsed during all this preparation.  The next thing was to start the final assembly of the dish.  The onions were fried until they started to caramelise, after which I added the turmeric.  This was fried until the turmeric was taken up by the onions, about fifteen seconds or so.  The soaked and rinsed rice went in next to pick up some of the flavours.  While this was going on, the pinch of saffron got ground along with some sugar in the mortar and pestle, then boiling water added to steep the flavours out.

As soon as the rice was sufficiently fried to my taste, I added some boiling water to the pan and started the dish in pulao style.  I deemed this an appropriate way of getting flavours into the rice.  Once the first dollop of water was absorbed, the saffron water went in.  Check for salt.  Add some water as the rice dictates, little by little.  When the rice is almost cooked, the carrots, raisins and nuts are added.  Then no more water goes into the pan.  The lid goes on the pan and the burner turned low for a few minutes, then off.  This dish has to go fluffy with the steam inside.

While this went on, I started a fire and cooked the chicken outside. 

Then we had dinner.

Having read a lot about the Persian style dishes and their sweetness, I had some idea of what to expect.  However, my wildest dreams could not reach the flavour profiles we experienced during this meal.  The chicken provides a salty but soft angle, while the saffron and the cardamom puts the rice in a different category altogether.

A recipe to keep. For sure.

Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2019-05-19

Tropical Pilaf With Chicken

Living here in the Western Cape we are surrounded by the Cape Malay style cooking, in a geo-culinary way. Which means that we literally have access to all the ingredients that make up the Cape Malay menu.

And we are not really expanding our domestic menu. Not very clever, one would venture.


So, with this realisation in mind and having the creative urge again, I did some brief research. Meaning I actually opened two of my cook books and perused the contents in a scholarly fashion, rather than a drooling hungry sailor fashion.

In our home we have regular curries with plain rice. But also we make biryanis, risottos and paellas, not forgetting stir fried rice with veggies. All of these are dishes that contains some form of sauce, making them on the juicy side. From my brief research the missus and I then decided to broaden our scope of rice dishes by trying a drier variety of rice dish and specifically pilaf. This dish has a myriad of variations and flavours and can be served as a side with just about any main by just varying the spices. The dish also has different styles and names, depending on where in the world you are. Wikipedia has some interesting facts on this dish.

We decided on a version with chicken, where the chicken is steamed in the rice. This makes it a complete one pot main. No extra cleaning up required! And just for fun I decided on a sweet and fruity version. Complete with coconut milk and mangos.

This dish will go very well with any fried or barbecued fish as a side dish. Especially in a tropical setting. The ingredients are simple and the process is almost a no-brainer. Preparation and cooking time is about half an hour.

The standard pilaf consists of raw rice fried in a flavoured oil, then slowly simmered in a stock till done. The rice comes out fluffy and loose, with all the flavours blended in. I chose to use coconut milk and some chopped dried mangos as main flavours to enhance the nutty flavour of the basmati rice.

Part of the stock for this dish comes from the caramelised meat sticking to the pan in the beginning.

The ingredients for this dish are simple and few, which is what makes pilaf so popular, I guess.

So here goes:

Tropical Pilaf With Chicken

Ingredients

400g chicken breast fillets, diced
1 to 1¼ cup basmati rice
¾ cup fresh peas
400 ml (1 can) coconut milk
3-4 slices dried mango, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp whole cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp whole mustard seeds
3 pods cardamom (elachi), seeded
1½ tsp turmeric
salt and pepper to taste
ghee, butter and oil for frying

Process

Pat the chicken quite dry, then fry the cubes in a dry pan until they are brown. Set aside. Now add some ghee or butter and a small amount of oil to the pan and fry the onion until at least translucent. Add the whole spices and fry them until the fragrance fills the kitchen. Now add the raw rice and stir fry until all the kernels are coated with oil. This will help with flavour and with the separation of the kernels. The flavours of the rice should begin to fill the kitchen too.

Now add the coconut milk and the chopped mango and the turmeric. Check for salt and add as required. Mix through and check again. This will be the last of stirring the pan. Add back the chicken and cover the pan.


Turn the flame down to a minimum, the lowest it will go on the smallest burner.

The rice will swell out and absorb the fluid, so you will need to check that the dish doesn't burn. Add some boiling water as required. The peas are added when the rice is almost done. Peas cook quite fast and you want them not to be soggy and lose their flavour.


The most important part comes now. Once the rice is done, turn the stove off and leave the dish to rest for at least fifteen minutes. Some recipes even call for covering the pan with a dishcloth before putting the lid on. The dishcloth will absorb the steam and not allow the condensed water to drip back into the pan. This all is designed to allow the rice to turn fluffy.

Now dish up in bowls and garnish with some fresh coriander leaves.


And then understand why pilaf may just be the prince of rice dishes.


Bon appetit!





Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2017-05-25