Curry Off

On Saturday night a group of enthusiasts joined for the underground world of the curry off. The night was not aimed at the hottest curry or the most curry eaten but the simple aim of rolling home with full belly's and having to lie on the sofa and say "Oh, why did I go back for thirds?"

Fijian Goat Curry
The boy brought a Fijian Goat curry, after a few false starts (Hyderabadi chicken which was too spicy for my sensitive taste buds...) The Fijian Goat curry was a winner. Goat was sourced from Wild OZ in the central markets. Cooked on the Friday night and the flavours left to mature in the fridge overnight.

It was a zesty, tasty curry where the goat was so tender you didn't need a knife but holding it's shape enough that it didn't turn to mush! Delish definitely one we will make again.

Beef Massaman Curry
Karen went for a tried and tested recipe handed down from her Mum, She had a hectic day whipping up a second batch of curry as the Friday Night batch had gone dreadfully wrong (Turns out you can't use evaporated coconut milk instead of the real stuff!) The finished product was delicious, I really liked the long strips of soft stewed onion, mmmm melt in your mouth flavour. Not as spicy as I was expecting I thought the Raita would definitely be required!

Red Thai Mussel Curry
Andrew made a Red Thai Mussel curry. When I heard about this one I was a bit wary, I've never been a fan of Seafood curries I always have a hunch that if seafood needs to be curried it's not fresh enough(also weirdly I'm never game for seafood on pizzas). This curry may have changed everything! This reminded me of a moules mariniere the mussels were cooked in a covered fry pan and allowed to steam in the red thai sauce. They were Fantastic! cooked to perfection and so tasty. It was this curry that made me go back for 2nds and I greadily spooned the sauce on to my plate. It turned out the sauce on it's own was really spicy but when combined with the mussels the flavours blended together really well. I have already stolen the recipe!

Saag Aloo
Andrew also brought Saag Aloo, A Spinich and Potato curry a tasty side

Lamb Kari
Chris made a Lamb Kari, a North Indian Curry from Madhur Jafrey's Ultimate Curry Bible ..... We realised we had a real spread of curry recipes Fiji, Malaysia, Thailand, and India. I'm glad we didn't all go for the same region. The Lamb Kari had really soft green capsicum chunks (Yip I've Australianised! They are now capsicums to me not peppers!) I really likes the big Chunks of Capsicum, soft and full of soaked in flavour, the Lamb was very tender I think this was one of the spicier curries although once they were all on my plate it was hard to tell where the heat was comming from as I'm a big fan of fitting a bit of everything on to my fork!

Mango Chuttney and 2 types of Raita
Andrew brought a homemade mango chutney,wow, he talked it down as it was a bit sweet and when you tasted it on a spoon it was really sweet but when eaten with curry it went really nicely. Good work!

Me and Karan both made Raita, different recepies mine was Cucumber and Mint Raita it turned out really runny (more than I'd intended. maybe I didn't dry the cucumber enough) and Karens had Tomato in I think? both were called upon to reduce the flames in my mouth later!

Daal
What is a curry off without Daal! I frantically made this just before we set off, I say I made it, The boy bought the ingredients and chopped everything while I got ready then I put it into the pan and stirred! Thank you my sous chef!

A Tasty Well Heaped Plate


We had a great night a wonderful follow up to last years Pie off! what will the next challenge be? Suggestions welcome.

Kathmandu Restaurant

We were attempting to go to Aahara a Sri Lankan Restaurant on Hutt St that we read about on Web Menu but it turns out it is now a Nepalese restaurant called Kathmandu.

Since we were there we thought we'd give it a go.

We decided to skip the Entree and go for 2 mains and a couple of sides.

We were served poppadoms whilst we made up our minds. The Khasi Tarkari -Traditional Pahadi style goat curry enhanced with whole spices and delicatly blended bahra masala ($21.90) was a definite dish, I'm always a fan of a nice goat curry!

We decided on Seke ko Ko Kukhura - Chicken BBQ style, marinated in fresh ginger and garlic paste, lemon, chilli, timbur and slow roasted in a charcoal clay oven. served with vegetables from the charcoal clay oven(21.50).

For sides we went with Rayo Saag - Authentic Nepalese spinach sauteed in a dash of mustard oil with turmeric, crushed garlic and dried whole chilli($8.90).
and originally we chose Tamre Quantee - Unique Nepalese dish of nine different beans cooked with tomatoes, fresh ginger and garlic, and tempered with fried cumin and exotic lovage seeds ($9.00)
but the waitress came back and explaind that we get a little of the Tamra Quantee with the chicken main so did we want to choose somthing else. We went with the Mismas Daal - Assorted Lentils cooked with freshly chopped garlic, coriander, tomato and tempered with cumin and Himalayan herbs ($8.00)

The chicken came out first and was served on a bed of the Rayo Saag with a tiny ramikin of the Tamre Quantee. The chicken was suculent and well cooked with a lovely spicy coating.

The Goat was next, quite a small portion but very tasty, nice strong flavour adn vert tender meat.

The Daal was disapointingly bland adn quite runny. I'm a thicker daal fan myself. we should have stuck with the 9 bean curry, the tiny bit we tasted was very tasty.

The spinach was nicly crunchy in the stalks and very garlicy.

We ordered rice and Garlic roti, the roti was a single roti which I felt was a little small we like to scoop and eat with the bread. It was very garlicy and could have passed for garlic bread. Lucky we like garlic!

It was expensive for what it was and the Menu was suspiciously simmilar to the Namaste menu in parkside (almostly exact) I think next time I feel like Nepalese I will head to our old favorite Namaste as it has the atmosphere and consitancy that has made it great.
This resaraunt has a sister resteraunt in Glenelg called Kathmandu Palace which seems more established. It was a nice dinner but not my first choice.


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Kathmandu Restaurant

214 Hutt St,
Adelaide SA 5000
Phone: (08) 8359 2388
Email info@kathmandupalace.com.au

Dinner: Mon – Sat 5:30 pm onwards
Lunch: Wed – Fri, 11:30am to 2:30pm


Sorry for the lack of photos, we discovered the camera batery was flat when we tried to take the first one!

Himalayan Kitchen

I worked a six day week this week and we decided to celebrate my only night off with a nice dinner out in North Adelaide.

It was a lovely little place, very homely. with beutiful photos of Nepal on the wall and some interesting wall ornaments.



After a long look at the many options on the Menu (Sorry it's such a bad photo)


We started with a bottle of Tasmanian Pinot,



And picked 2 mains and a handful of sides instead of starters.

There was a bit of a delay in the kitchen so these Pakora arrived at our table with a spicy potato dip in the centre,

They were very taty in a chickpea batter, with a tasty little salad to go with.



Our mains arrived and looked and smelled wonderful.


The Boy chose the Goat from the main menu "Slow cooked Tender Goat in traditional Tibetan manner enriched with mustard oil and fenugreek" $21.90


I chose the Organic Spinach Chicken Curry "Oven cooked with ginger, garlic and tomato, in spinach puree, with optional chilli" $22.95


For our sides we chose Aloo Achar "Spicy potato salad, made with peas,onion, lemon juice, red chilli and a mustard oil dressing $7.00


and Pickle "Hot tomato and garlic" $2.00 Not at all what we were expecting but really tasty.


And of course Dal "Traditional red lentals simmered with cumin and garlic $7.50
I think dal is a great way to judge the quality of the kitchen, If the dal is so good you'd be happy to just have it for your meal you know the rest of the food is going to be good.

Dinner was fantastic, Probably not the best Nepalese in Adelaide that title still belongs to Namaste in Parkside but really tasty food in a place we would't usually hang out.

We had an Entertainment voucher $20 off our bill. It was still expensive but nice for a special night out.


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Open Tue,Sun 5pm-10pm;
Wed-Thu 5pm-10:30pm;
Fri-Sat 5pm-11pm

66 Melbourne St
North Adelaide SA 5006
(08) 8267 3037

Geoffreys Next Day Beef Curry

I phoned my brother Geoffrey to get his curry recipe, he traded for our fish pie recipe. He kept telling me that it would taste best after it had been in the fridge for 24 hours and he was right!
When it was cooked it was a bit bland with a spicy kick, nice flavour but not a strong curry. I thought I hadn't added enough spices at the beginning and Geoffreys advice was that once you had added everything else THAT'S IT you can't add any more spice. Then when I had it for my lunch it had transformed into this big tasty curry! So next time I will perhaps manage to avoid the temptation and put it all into the fridge for the next day!!!


I just have to say how much better the meat from the butcher was, it might have been that the supermarket stuff was frozen and defrosted but WOW! I don't think I've cooked with both types at the same time before, the butcher meat was nice big chunks with no fat at all, nicer colour and generally nicer in every way. The supermarket heart smart was scrawny, stringy, little bits. but it was all cooked together and in the end it all tasted the same.

Ingredients
500g Heart Smart Beef cubes (from the Supermarket then frozen and defrosted)
500g diced Beef (from the butcher across the street)
1 can coconut milk
2 large potatoes
1 large carrot
1 red onion, chopped
quarter of a pumpkin
quarter head of cauliflower
2 hand fulls of green beans
1 green capsicum
1 handful of sultanas
2 heaped teaspoons Chili powder
2 heaped teaspoons Cumin
lots of shakes turmeric probably about 1 heaped teaspoon.
tip of teaspoon fenugreek powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 teaspoon Keen's mild Indian curry powder (Because I found it in the cupboard when I was hunting for spices)
2 teaspoons Garam Marsala

Chop vegetables into good size chunks
Brown meat off in frying pan in small batches and set aside.
Fry off onion and try to scrape up meat brownings.
Put all spices, except Garam masala, into fry pan, if it looks too dry, add more cooking oil (I added oil twice) until it forms a paste.
Cook up spices for about 5 minutes.
Stir meat through paste, add hard vegetables like potato and carrot stir through paste.
Put into slowcooker with onion
Pour coconut milk into fry pan, bring to boil while scraping brown bits off bottom of pan. Pour over meat and hard veg.
Cover and cook on high for about and hour, then add soft Veg.

I wasn't sure the pumpkin would cook fast enough so I steamed the pumpkin and Cauliflower till starting to soften and then added them.
When I added the soft Veg I sprinkled the Garam Masala powder over the top and stirred it all through.

While that was cooking I made Turmeric Rice in the Rice cooker and Dhall in the blender and wondered at how I ever got along without all these appliances!

After another hour the rice was done and the potato was still a bit hard so I left the ricecooker on warm and let the curry cook for another hour (or till I had done all the dishes)


Potato now soft so we served up with Dhall, naan and mango chutney!

Dhall
this sort of follows the recipe in Curries from the sultan's kitchen a wonderful old book we picked up at a booksale

Tin of lentils
2 cloves of garlic
salt
pepper
lemon juice
milk
pinch of chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Blend lentils in blender,
Fry off garlic.
Add spices and fry for a few minutes
add lentil paste and fry for 15 minutes adding milk to thin
squeeze lemon and season to taste.

This came put really well will defiantly make again

Lamb Rogan Josh

Ok as I'm atempting to keep track of recipes that work,
I cooked this today and it came out tasty!
It's from Bowl Food I cycled down to the Indian Spice Centre on Goodwood Rd. They have really cheep bulk spices and so many amazing things it was hard to stick to the shopping list.

Rogan Josh
1kg bonned leg of lamb
1 tbs ghee or oil
2 onions chopped
1/2 cup plain yoghurt
1tsp chilli powder
1tbs ground corriander
2tsp ground cumin
1tsp ground cardamom
1/2tsp ground cloves
1tsp ground turmeric
3 cloves garlic crushed
1tbs grated fresh ginger
400g crushed tomato
30g Slivered almonds

1. Chop Lamb into 1 in cubes trim off excess fat.

2.Heat oil in large pan, Cook onion for 5 min until soft.
Add yoghurt, spices, garlic, ginger, tin of tomato and 1 tsp salt, simmer for 5 min

3 Add lamb, stir well till all coated. cook over low heat for 1-1.5 hours until meat is tender (my meat was quite fatty so seemed to take a while to become tender, I cooked for 3.5 hours) Remove lid and simmer until liquid thickens.

4.Toast some almonds to sprinkle over the top.


This was a nice spicy-ness for me,
the recipe also said to add 1 tsp garm masala once cooking finished mixing well and serve with almonds and fresh corriander, but I abandoned the recipe and just served it with the almonds.