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Cooking indian, Cooking international, Cooking middle eastern

A Samosa/ Sambousek/Samsa– fried pastry by yet another name

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There are various versions of a savoury filling wrapped around with a crumbly/ flakey pastry through the world. The indians have their samosas and kachoris.In the middle east there are the Sambousek/ Fateyers/rokaka. korea the Mandu, South america the empanda..Even Russia has something called a vareniki and the Uyghur Muslims the Samsa-which they bake in a clay oven like the tandoor..So all foods are related or sometimes similar. The lines started to get blurred with all the invasions and migrations..

When i lived in the West indies they would make fried potato pastry called “Aloo(potato) Pie”

Cooking indian, Random bits and bobs ..

The bhatura – dough not pass me by

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This gently oil poached bread ( fried) is perfect for clogging up those arteries which aren’t already buggered . Best served with a chick peas curry which will mean another blog post.

These are very similar to the west Indian doubles but eaten fresh and hot and not wrapped to be like a sandwich.

We can make these with multiple kind of flour mixes, but for today’s one I used wholemeal spelt, plain flour and whole wheat flour .

Flour- 250g

Spelt flour- 100 g

Whole meal flour- 100 g

Baking powder-  5 g /1 tsp

Warm water- 240-260 g depends– we want a semi soft dough

Yeast-4 g

Salt- 8 g

Sugar- 8 g

Oil-15 g

  • Mix flours yeast baking powder sugar  and add in the water to make the dough. Add in salt/oil  and leave to rest.
  • When resting keep dough covered to prevent it from skinning
  • After 15-20 mins you will see the dough start to rise .
  • Scale into about 50 g balls and rest for -5-10 mins again.
  • roll out about 1/2 cm thick .Leave for 2-3 mins
  • Gently poach(not really)/fry in hot oil. These should be puffed up and browned after frying.
  • Eat one or many depending on how badly you want to clog up those arteries.
  • Typically served with a chickpeas curry,but you could do other stuff with it..
Cooking international, Desserts and baking

Sticky date pudding

  1. Dates 200g
  2. Hot water to soak 300g
  3. Baking soda/ soda bicarb- 5 g

After 30 mins blend to a thick paste with a stick blender.

Don’t put too much bicarb otherwise will taste horrible.

  • Whisk 3 eggs with
  • Sugar 200 g
  • Vanilla essence

When thick add

  • Melted butter 50 g
  • Oil -40 g

Add date paste and fold in carefully

Flour 225 g+ baking powder 5 g

Steam or bake for 20 mins – 175 C.

Steaming makes a softer and lighter product.

Can scale this to go up to a batch multiplied by 10. We make this at work for 300 people .

Great with a salted caramel butterscotch sauce .

 

 

 

Cooking Asian, Cooking international

Kukula Kari

S as anpice mix

  • Cardamom 2 g/ 1/2 t
  • Cinnamon stick -1 small one /1 g
  • Cloves – 2g
  • Peppercorns 1 t/ 3 g can double it if you can handle the heat.
  • Dry coconut – 50 g
  • Bayleaf-1-2
  • Coriander seeds -1T.
  • Fennel seeds – 5 g/ 1 t
  • Dry red chilli – 1-2/ 5 g

Toast coconut in the microwave .when lightly browned add rest of the spices and toast yet again for upto 1.5 mins .

Cool down and grind. It should be a darkish coloured powder.

  • Chicken thighs boneless or bone in skin off – 1 kg
  • Goraka extract / tamarind/ lemone juice – 10 ml
  • Turmeric -1 t/ 5 g
  • Chilli powder -10 g/ 2 t
  • Salt
  • Oil-25 g
  • Chopped onions – 250 g
  • Crushed tomatoes – 150 g
  • Crushed garlic-25 g
  • Crushed ginger – 20 g
  • Coconut cream – 200 ml
  1. Heat oil, saute the onion till light browned.
  2. Add the chicken and the spice mix.
  3. Add the crushed tomatoes coconut cream ginger and garlic and simmer on low for 30-3 min.
  4. Best eaten the next day with some hoppers/ appam or porotta.
Desserts and baking

The formulae for successful bread

In commercial baking they talk about bakers formula and that makes life so much easier rather than trying to remember a recipe with exact details.

I will give you an example of a simple bread formula using bakers percentage. In this the flour is Always taken as a100%.and everything else is taken in proportion to the flour .

  • Flour 100%
  • Water or liquid -65%
  • Active dry yeast -2%
  •  Sugar 2%
  • Salt2%
  • Oil/fat-5%

So I were to put a weight on this I could say

  • Flour 1000g
  • Water 650g
  • Yeast 20g
  • Salt 20g
  • Oil/butter -50g

The method stays the same . Mix flour with water sugar and yeast then add in the water .add salt and oil in the end .

Proof once, then scale, shape  and proof again.

Bake usually at 190-200c for 12-15mins