Indian Recipes | Finding Feasts

Spinach Saag with Handmade Paneer

Spinach Saag with Handmade Paneer, Who doesn’t love Indian, especially when it’s so easy to make a feast of food to satisfy anyone.

As my family chooses to have at least one meat free day a week (part time flexitarians if I choose to hop onto a bandwagon) coming up with tasty, satisfying meals is always fun and inspiring.

What I find though, when doing a cuisine like Indian or asian food, I need to have several dishes – at least two curries with samosas or dumplings and condiments. When I cook with meat I seem to be happy to plate up just one bowl. I don’t know why that is but no one’s complaining 🙂

This spinach saag is creamy, spinachy and full of delicious spices, including my absolute favourite herb, fenugreek aka methi. The aroma is just insane… it gets added to most of my Indian meals. Add the golden panfried, handmade paneer and you have meal that will sit pride of place at the dinner table.

Enjoy with family and friends… Blondie

Blondie2 Comments

Simple Indian Flat Bread

Finding feasts - Flat Bread Recipe — Click image for recipe

Simple Indian Flat Bread – A wonderful addition to any curry is the flaky flat bread that you use to sop up all the delicious sauce.

This recipe is a quick version that works beautifully, especially if you roll it out nice and thin so you get the thin crispy, nicely tarnished bits on it.

You can also make flavoured butters to brush over the cooked bread, such as garlic or coriander melted butter.

This recipe can also be used for any recipe that requires a bread wrap such as gyros or falafel wraps.

Happy sopping! Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment

Mum’s Indian Chicken Curry

Mum’s Indian Chicken Curry – This recipe has been part of my mum’s food repertoire for years, decades even. It’s one of those dishes that is made to feed an army of friends and family.

As friends gather for a week away in a beautiful house in the country somewhere, turning up sporadically throughout the day, they will be welcomed with the delicious, warming aroma of this Chicken Curry that has been whipped up and ready to reheat as needed.

I make it with a lovely amount of gravy that is just perfect to be mopped up with some freshly cooked flat bread. The chicken I use is the chicken cutlet, which is the thigh with the bone left in. After the chicken has cooked I just remove the bone and pull the chicken into large shredded chunks but you can use a whole chicken cut up or breast or thighs without the bone, it’s entirely up to you.

BlondieLeave a comment

Batata Vada | Indian Potato Dumplings

Batata Vada | Indian Potato Dumplings – Deep fried anything is generally awesome and these Indian street food favourites are no different.

What makes these so delicious are the lovely indian spices that are in the soft potato centre and the crispy besan flour batter.

Indian Potato Dumplings are a fantastic food option for your next party as they are very quick to make and go well with an assortment of finger foods. Make a batch of Curried Green Tomato Relish to serve with them for a wonderful pairing of flavours.

Enjoy! Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment

Gulab Jamun | Indian Syrup Soaked Doughnuts

Gulab Jamun | Indian Syrup Soaked Doughnuts are delicious light and moist deep fried balls that have been sitting in a sweet syrup gently scented with cardamom and saffron.

I have been wanting to make these for such a long time, ever since my first tasting, which oddly I can’t quite pin point. They really are like an Indian version of a doughnut and ideally with the same consistency, that being light almost fluffy. So with Mother’s Day on Sunday I was able to explore this amazing dessert.

Surprisingly they are a very quick dessert to make and have an added bonus of needing to be made ahead of time so the balls have time to soak up the syrup. So you can easily make these in the morning and then leave till serving time later in the day or night. All you need to do is lightly reheat them so the are slightly warm, this can be done (carefully) in the microwave, on the stove top or, ideally place in a low, warm oven during dinner.

A couple of things to point out with Galub Jamuns is that you do not want to overwork the dough, the more the dough is worked during the mixing process the greater the risk of gluten forming. This will produce a tough, dense ball that will have trouble soaking up the syrup. They are still edible but not ideal.

If you are wanting to make more balls than the 12 that this mixture makes (will serve 4 people with 3 balls each) then make a completely new batch of dough, don’t try to double the recipe as you run the risk of tough balls. I tried two different recipes, this one and then one, which was a bigger batch of dough and that batch was definitely not as light as this recipe.

The balls may appear small when you first roll them out but they will almost double in size, firstly from the cooking and then soaking up the syrup. Three balls works perfectly per person.

Try adding different flavours to the syrup; rose water is very popular, a couple of strips of peel from a citrus fruit will work beautifully, maybe a chai spice blend (great for Christmas).

Happy soaking! Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment

Zucchini, Spinach & Dill Fritters

Zucchini, Spinach & Dill Fritters are a delicious pancake style dish that perfectly compliments a light salad or as a side dish to a curry buffet.

My family is still on our alternative day meat free lifestyle, which is going really well. Maybe more so for me as it now gives me a guideline to work with. There really is something to be said about having restrictions to help motivate and encourage new ideas and strategies; whether it be needing to include an ingredient for your diet or remove an ingredient due to allergies, or perhaps it’s even a budget necessity but each one means putting more thought into what you actually eat and stock your fridge and cupboards with.

I was thinking about this recently, as I was going through my ever growing cookbook library, about how, in our mother’s time they would have had two maybe three cookbooks. Cookbooks that would have been worked through thoroughly, family discussions about what was liked and what didn’t really work. Favourite family meals would have be discovered and made often – Sausage Casserole Tuesdays for instance. If you wanted to change it up you would open one of your favourite cookbooks (out of the three) and pick a recipe to make, it was certainly an easier time.

Now, everyone has so many books, so many recipes in printed form, most books of which would be lucky to get one recipe made from it … Perhaps I’m feeling the loss of the simplicity and romance of times gone by… perhaps I need to do a cookbook cull?

This recipe has probably been around in some form or another for many decades. It is full of flavour, especially with one of my most favourite herbs, dill, and can easily accommodate more herbs and spices depending on the style of meal you are serving.

Enjoy, Blondie 🙂

PS: I would never/ could never get rid of my cookbook babies… I think I just need a coffee!

BlondieLeave a comment

Coriander Egg Curry

Coriander Egg Curry … Here is a quick-ish meal that is delicious and full of flavours that can be made as a side dish to go along with a buffet of Indian meals or eaten on the couch with some rice or a scallion pancake for dipping.

Enjoy – Blondie 🙂

BlondieLeave a comment