Thai Green Vegetable Curry

Thai Green Curry, with chopped tomatoes, one medium leek, two spring onions, podded peas, red and green chillies, half a green pepper, a handful of cashew nuts, half a teaspoonful of Nam Pla fish sauce, plus a Thai green curry paste. Add the cashew nuts to hot sunflower oil in a wok, along with chopped leek, tomato, peas, spring onions, and the red and green chillies. Stir-fry for ten minutes, turning the heat down after five minutes. Add boiling water, and simmer the vegetables for twenty five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the Nam Pla fish sauce, and the green curry paste. Stir the paste into the vegetables thoroughly. Cook for another fifteen minutes at least before serving. Most, if not indeed all cuisines often have a number of signature sauces which are the basis on which dishes are created. Curry sauces serve the same function. So there is no definitive Thai green curry in terms of ingredients, beyond the ingredients of the curry paste and its spices. The ingredients I used in this particular vegetable curry were items in my fridge which needed to be used, and which would be harmonious with the curry sauce.

The sauce can be augmented with (more) coconut, ground almonds, and yoghurt or cream. Served with brown basmati rice and a handful of black wild rice (cook for thirty minutes). 

Chicken Tikka Massala

Stir fried (or steamed) chicken breast pieces. The sauce was made separately with Tikka spice powder, with tomato puree, chopped mushrooms, onion, orange pepper, chicken stock, chopped chilli peppers, and some chopped boiled potato. The chicken pieces were added to the Tikka Sauce, and cooked for fifteen to twenty minutes before serving. The ingredients listed below can be added too (yoghurt, coconut, ground almond, etc). And you can start with a lentil and onion dahl.

What is a tikka massala? Normally this is understood to be a chicken dish, marinated in spices and yogurt, which is then baked in an oven, and served in a masala sauce, which is a mix of spices, whose main basis is tomato and coriander, but there is no standard recipe for chicken tikka masala.

The spices which are used commercially are hard to discover, which suggests that the story that Chicken Massala is a dish invented in an Indian restaurant in Glasgow sometime during the past 50 years,  may be true. The Tikka spices I used were bought in powder form (as Tikka spices) from a large supermarket. It's a good guess that if you start with the standard curry spices, add tomato and more coriander, yoghurt, shredded coconut, ground almonds, and tomato puree, lentils and onion, you will have an excellent tikka massala dahl. 

Chicken Tikka Massala

Turkey Tikka Massala

Hot curry made with diced turkey breast, a tikka massala flavoured dahl, made with lentil and onion, tomato puree, coriander, yoghurt, ground almonds and shredded coconut. The turkey breast was stir fried in sunflower oil, and was then added to the tikka massala dahl, and cooked for twenty minutes at a moderate heat. Served with basmati rice. Also great to eat with Naan bread.

What is a tikka massala? Normally this is understood to be a chicken dish (for which turkey breast is a good substitute), marinated in spices and yogurt, which is then baked in an oven, and served in a masala sauce, which is a mix of spices, whose main basis is tomato and coriander, but there is no standard recipe for chicken tikka masala.

The spices which are used commercially are hard to discover, which suggests that the story that Chicken Massala is a dish invented in an Indian restaurant in Glasgow sometime during the past 50 years,  may be true. The Tikka spices I used were bought in powder form (as Tikka spices) from a large supermarket. It's a good guess that if you start with the standard curry spices, add tomato and more coriander, yoghurt, shredded coconut, ground almonds, and tomato puree, lentils and onion, you will have an excellent tikka massala dahl. 

Turkey Tikka Massala 

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Almond Lamb, with Ginger, Dates, and Cinammon

Lamb mince browned for half an hour in its own fat. Sliced Spanish onion was added and stirred in to the mince for ten minutes. Boiling water was added, and then about 200g of tomato passata. Other ingredients were then added - freshly ground almonds (two handfuls), sliced ginger, garlic, three finger chillies, half a dozen stoned and chopped dates, sliced sugar snap peas, a whole sliced yellow pepper, ground black pepper, lamb and vegetable stock, a pinch of oregano, and a cinammon stick.

The temperature was reduced, and the dish was left to simmer under glass for another ninety minutes. Served with basmati rice. Don't forget to remove the cinammon stick before serving!

 Almond Lamb, with Ginger, Dates, and Cinammon