Sometimes you get the urge to not follow a recipe and create a dish as you go along. One of these last evenings, I had the very same urge and decided on a supper dish based on what I saw in the supermarket. I did not want anything fancy and so, a pack of chicken breasts, some spinach and mushrooms along with some lovely taleggio cheese found its way into our shopping basket.
I’m a big fan of slowly braised meats. We’ve always loved a slow roasted leg of lamb and have made it on numerous occasions. We’ve also always wanted to try out slow roasting other cuts of meat such as a pork shoulder but the limited availability of these cuts made it an impossible task.
Recently when we were in a supermarket, Peter chanced upon a whole pork shoulder sitting on the counter. After much debate, mainly because it was just after Christmas and everybody had their fill of roasts and comfort foods, and the not so daunting fact (!) that it weighed a whopping 6 kilos, we decided to go for it.
I came across poussins or spring chickens while we were at Fallon & Byrne a few days ago and could not resist the temptation to purchase a couple of them. I’ve never seen poussins anywhere else in the city, not even at specialist butchers where usually you always have to place an order in advance if you want anything other than the usual fare that’s available.
I’ve heard that roasting a chicken is one of the easiest things to do in the world. I wasn’t quite sure about this myself until I recently tried a simple roast chicken recipe I found online. I think what could go wrong with roasting any kind of bird is that the meat may either be dry and overcooked or undercooked. The recipe I followed was foolhardy and resulted in a roast that was moist on the inside with a crunchy, crispy skin on the outside.
Indian food is as diverse as its culture, regions and people. Each region has its own distinct cuisine that may be similar in some aspects and at the same time, completely different from each other. The cuisine of Kerala where my family is originally from relies heavily on seafood, vegetables and coconut. Given the large Christian minority in the state, meat also forms an important part of our food culture more so than any other state in India.
Though I’ve learned the basics of South Indian cooking from my mother who’s an excellent cook, I’ve been looking for ways to expand my repertoire of Indian recipes. I am now pretty comfortable with cooking up a few North Indian dishes as well thanks to my North Indian friends and excellent online resources.
In my quest for new Indian recipes, I chanced upon an Indian cookbook by Atul Kochhar titled, ‘Simple Indian: The Fresh Tastes of India’s New Cuisine’. It’s a collection of recipes from different parts of India and gives a refreshing insight into flavours from various regions of the country. A welcome change from the usual ‘rogan josh’, ‘butter chicken’ type recipes 😉 So far, I’ve tried a few recipes from this book and all have turned out really delicious. The only issue I had with one or two of them was with some of the instructions not being clear enough, especially, with things like the time required to cook something or whether the pan should be left covered or uncovered while cooking, etc. You’ll see what I mean when you read the method for the lamb curry.
