Saturday, December 4, 2010

DUM KA MURG


This is another delicacy from Hyderabad. The actual process is really tedious and time consuming where we leave the chicken to cook in a pan. The lid is sealed with dough and the chicken is cooked on a very low flame for few hours...hence the name...DUM KA MURG. This requires more ghee to avoid burning and it becomes very rich and heavy. So I have simplified it here by roasting the chicken in the oven first and then adding to the prepared masala.
Ingredients:
Chicken ... 1 whole (1 kg weight)

Eggs ........ 4 (hard boiled)
Garlic ...... 2 pods
Green chillies .. 6
Onions .......... 3-4 sliced
Ginger ..... 2" piece
Raisins ..... 2 tbsp.
Cashewnuts.... handful
Charoli ........... handful
Cloves ............ 5
Cinnamon ..... two 1" pieces
Dry coconut ..... 3/4 cup (roasted)
Poppy seeds ...... 2 tbsps. (roasted)
Yogurt .............. 1 cup
Coriander powder .... 1 tsp
Cumin powder .......... 1 tsp.
Turmeric powder ...... 1/4 tsp.
Ghee ................. 1 cup
Salt .................. to taste.
Chopped nuts ..... to garnish
Method:
1.Clean the whole chicken and marinate it with 1 tbsp garlic paste, 2 tbsp. yogurt and salt.

2. Heat the ghee and fry all the ingredients one by one including the boiled eggs.( except the poppy seeds and dry coconut. Dry roast them.)

3. Fry the whole chicken turning the sides carefully to give it a brownish colour.Cook the chicken in a pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.

4. Now grind the dry masalas and the wet ones seperately.
5. In a pan take the left over ghee and saute the wet masala first for 5-7 minutes.Add the chilli, coriander,cumin, turmeric powders and salt.Now add the second masala and saute further for a few minutes.
6. At this stage tip in the roasted chicken. Using a spoon push a little masala inside the chicken.
7. Add the eggs. Simmer for 4-5 minutes on a low flame.
Garnish with chopped nuts.
Serve with nans or rotis.

Peace Corps Turkey Cookbook

The doorbell rang  a few days ago and  who should I see but my friendly postman bearing a parcel for me. When I had to sign for it, I felt a surge of anticipation as to what was going to be inside as I had had prior notice.  Sure enough, there it was, a treasure trove of ancient cookbooks sent by an old Peace Corps volunteer who now lives in Ankara and who thought I would like them. Well, I do! I really really do! Thank you! I felt just like the people in 84 Charing Cross Road when they received a parcel from the States – do you know that book? All I wanted to do was curl up and read these books that hold not only recipes but history of How It Used To be.

One is the original Basic Cookery for Peace Corps Volunteers in Turkey written by Margot Higgins in 1966. The next is the Iran Peace Corps Cookbook dated 1969 which has many of its recipes taken from the Afghan Peace Corps Bookbook compiled with the help of an American missionary who lived in Afghanistan for many years. And the third is called The Armenian Cookbook by Rachel Hogrogrian, printed in 1975 and dedicated to ‘the Hogrogians, the Ansoorians, the Boyajians, the Tashjians, the Manoukians, the Vartenissians, the Kherdians and for all their ‘’ ians’’ to come’! There they all are, battered and used, with all their stories.
Can you imagine how those young Americans must have felt when they embarked on what must have been the adventure  of their lives to come to these countries in the late sixties, early seventies? I imagine they barely knew how to cook in their own native land let alone in a wild country such as Turkey. I know because I was here then too but I didn’t have to fend for myself as I was first of all in a city, Ankara, and then my own parents were here for the first year of my married life, and after that, I had my husband’s lovely family to help me at every step.
Old Margot sounds just up my street: direct and no nonsense. She tells it how it is. Her very first words are as follows:’ if you eat properly and sensibly, you are more likely to be healthy. If you are healthy, you are more likely to be happy. Agreed?  If not, don’t bother to read another word. Give this book to somebody else.’ OK Margot, we agree.  She says that if you don’t have butane gas for the oven, ‘you will need a pump-up stove (primus) to supplement your big wood or kerosene stove and to replace it in hot weather. And then she adds dryly: ‘Some people get along fine with these, some don’t.’  Today it is hard to think of contending with wood-burning fires to cook a meal but then that’s how it was. I just can’t help thinking of those volunteers, all probably from solid middle-class American families. What did they think, I wonder? How did they survive?
 The book is full of practical, down to earth recipes with asides that are now quite hilarious to read. Eg Koç (pron: koch) Yumurtası: She says, ‘The first time I saw Koç Yumurtası on a menu, I asked the waiter what it meant. This proved a tricky question for him to answer, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me that an item could be listed on a menu which was too delicate to be discussed in normal conversation.Let’s face it. It  means ram’s (or lamb’s) testicles. Once over that hurdle, we can relax and enjoy them. They are delicious, not expensive, and simplicity itself to cook.’ To this day, I haven’t eaten them myself!
Over the years we have met a fair number of ex-Peace Corps Volunteers and of these, without exception, they have all retained a love and special affinity with Turkey and the Turkish people. Many of them married locals and stayed on while others based their entire working careers on their experiences here. Others simply kept their memories in their hearts. I remember one ex-Peace Corps guy called Bill whom we met when we were living in Tokyo in the eighties.  I had met his wife through playgroup. One day she said she and Bill would like to go out to dinner with us as Bill had heard that my husband was Turkish and wanted to meet him. And so we did. We had the most wonderful evening. Turned out that Bill had spent a fantastic year in the tiny village of Köyceğiz in south-west Turkey, and had never forgotten it. He was thrilled to meet Turhan.

Aslan Calls for a Jihad!

... and none of us would ever have known this had Liam Neeson not let us in on the secret.
Ahead of the release of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader next Thursday, Neeson said: ‘Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.

‘That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.’
A mentor figure? Hey, wait a minute! Maybe Aslan is just some schlub working on the Head Start program for HHS.


Here, Aslan gets the kids up so they can all get a good breakfast through a government meals program before heading off to a seminar on using condoms.

Update: There's something tragic about this story. By all accounts, Liam Neeson is a swell guy. It's like he's been marinated for so long in the fetid stew of multiculturalism that reflexively he comes out and says stuff like this. C. S. Lewis was an unapologetic Christian. Aslan is a Christ figure and that's that. There's no doubt that Liam was trying to say something nice and inclusive, but it's just wrong.

The Scratching Post Challenge

Don Surber has issued The Surber Challenge suggesting a way to make a debating point with those who want to raise taxes.
Why don’t we skinflint conservatives with our miserly ways and narrow minds write a check to the Treasury and show that even though we oppose higher taxes, we are willing to — as patriotic and loyal Americans — voluntarily bail out our national government?

Sure.

While liberals talk, conservatives act.

So I wrote a check for a hundred bucks today to United States Treasury and mailed it to:
Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782
That is a $100 donation that is not tax-deductible.

This is my protest against being required to pay higher taxes.

Readers can do the same. Write a check for $10 because this is not a contest to top one another, but rather an odd protest against the self-righteous hypocrisy of Warren Buffett and Fareed Zakaria and all the others who complain they are not taxed “enough” but do nothing — absolutely nothing — to increase their taxes voluntarily.
I think I've got a better one. Almost all of the people suggesting that the rich should pay more taxes are not rich. They know not of what they speak. Hence, this proposal:

Participants should first get rich and then pay more taxes.

What's the point of sending $10 in to the Treasury? Even if we all did it, that would only be $3.5B. We'd blow through that in a matter of hours. No, what we need is the rich to pay their fair share.

You first.

Mr. William H. Weideman is the Chief Financial Officer of Dow Chemicals. He makes $920K a year. You go get his job, or an equivalent, and then pay more in taxes. Start a blog and let us know how it goes. Provide the leadership in financial sacrifice that America so desperately needs.

$10? Bah! If you're going to set an example, make it a meaningful one.

Steak and Black Pudding Pie with Pan Roasted Potatoes and Honey Glazed Carrots


This steak and black pudding (blood sausage) pie recipe is one which I devised myself but the concept is not of my creation and I only learned of it through coincidence. About a week ago, a family member of mine visited the small Scottish town of Aberfoyle and happened to go in to a local butcher's shop. This particular shop was selling a variation of the traditional Scotch Pie, incorporating steak and black pudding instead of the more traditional minced/ground lamb. I became the lucky recipient of two of these pies for a taste and I enjoyed them so much, I decided to come up with my own version. Rather than create the smaller, individual pies, however, I thought I would make a puff pastry pie, capable of serving two people.


Ingredients

1/2lb stewing steak
1 6oz black pudding
5oz puff pastry
2 pints fresh beef stock
Beaten egg for glazing

4 medium potatoes

2 large carrots
1 tbsp liquid honey
Pinch of grated nutmeg

Method

The stewing steak will firstly have to be cooked. It should be added to a large pot and quickly browned and sealed over a high heat. The beef stock should be added and brought to a simmer. Different cuts of steak will take different lengths of time to tenderise in this way, from one to two hours. When the steak is tender, the heat should be turned off, the pot covered and the steak allowed to cool for at least half an hour.

While the steak is stewing, the potatoes should be peeled and chopped in to bite-sized pieces. They should be added to a pot of cold water, the water brought to a boil and simmered for around twenty-five minutes until soft. They should then be drained and added to a pot or basin of cold water to cool completely.


When the steak is cooled, the oven should be put on to preheat to 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6. The steak should then be added to a pie dish. The black pudding should be sliced in to 1/2" thick discs and arranged on top as shown. If you can only get slices of larger black pudding, simply chop it in to smaller pieces and arrange it in a similar fashion. Be sure to remove and discard the rind that may still be on it. Enough stock should then be added to come to within an inch of the top of the pie dish rim.

The pastry should then be rolled out large enough to slightly more than cover the pie dish, laid on top and pressed down to seal around the edges. The pie should be glazed with the beaten egg, steam vents cut in the top and placed in to the oven for thirty-five to forty minutes, until the pastry is risen and golden.


When the pie is ready, it should be removed from the oven and left to rest briefly while the carrots and potatoes are cooked. The carrots should be scraped, sliced and chopped in to approximately two inch pieces before being stirred in the mixture of honey and nutmeg in a bowl. They should then be spread on a baking sheet and placed in to the still hot oven for fifteen minutes.

The potatoes should be drained and dried in a clean tea towel. They should then be deep fried in hot oil for eight to ten minutes, until beautifully golden, and drained on some kitchen towel. The dish can then be plated up and served.

Great Christmas Gift Ideas for Cooks 2010: Ice Cream Makers

It may seem strange for me to suggest ice cream makers as a Christmas gift idea for cooks when many people reading this will be able to look out of their window at a blanket of snow and ice! The fact is, however, that ice cream is an extremely popular dessert all year round, not just in the summer. Any cook who has their own ice cream maker can not only experiment extremely effectively with different textures and flavours, they can very possibly save a considerable amount of money in the longer term.

Below are just a few examples of the bargain ice cream makers currently available on Amazon, for delivery right to your door. Click on any link for further details or to browse the options in full.

Barcelona's Fashion Night Out

Last thursday it was the Fashion Night Out here at Barcelona, some shops were open until 12 o'clock and there was lot of people around Passeig de Gracia, the main street where the event was.

 Christmas lights are finally on in Barcelona!
(more about this night here!)

 
Laia Chic and Laia talked for La Vanguardia tv

For me, the most interesting thing about the event was the showroom at Majestic Hotel, one of the most beautiful around the city.

 
 
 With Aitor, a friend... I didn't expected him there!

At the showroom we had a look about the collections of Manuel Bolaño and American Perez... without doubt, they both were my favourie ones! I also liked some of Maria Escoté's gloves.

 
 I simply adore these shoes from Manuel Bolaño!
 

It wass great seeing many people that I had not seen for a long time, Like Albert and Javi!


And I met Alicia, a lovely girl who's a follower of Not here to Please You... thank you, Alicia! it was really really nice to meet you, I was so happy! Thanks for your support!!

Oh, by the way... this is what I was wearing:

 Sweater - Sonia Rykiel pour H&M
Skirt - Mango
Tights - H&M
Shoes - Promod
Flower - Blanco
 

Are you doing something interesting this weekend? I'm doing a Sailor & pirates' party for my birthday... it isn't until 9th of December but as that day is thursday, we're doing it today!

I almost forgot!! I'm doing a Christmas Contest at Bunnies are Pirates too! with some other cute shops! If you're interested on it, have a look at here or here!

And I've been featured in Fashion Collision, thanks to Jersey Ferrari!