Lemon Curd Tart

My daughter and I were watching a cooking show on TV and she reminded me that we hadn’t made a lemon curd tart in a while. So we decided to make one for dessert. I pulled out my much-thumbed-through cookbook and it wasn’t too long before we had a tart ready.

For the pastry:

2 cups flour

I cup butter

1 tablespoon icing sugar

A pinch of salt

2 beaten eggs

Cut the butter into small bits and mix it into the flour till it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugars and salt. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, a little at a time till the dough comes together. You might not need all the egg. Wrap the pastry dough in cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour. Then, roll it out between two sheets of cling wrap and line a pie dish. Blind bake till done.

For the lemon curd:

4 eggs, beaten

Juice of 2 large limes +zest of one

½ cup butter

1 ½ cups sugar

Mix all together and cook on a double boiler till it gets thick.

Fill the tart case with the lemon curd. Enjoy!

Pasta with Greens

It’s the best comfort food there is and it makes a perfect accompaniment to your favourite show on TV. It’s so easy to make and it’s ready in a jiffy.

Boil your pasta in salted water and drain. Mix some olive oil through it. Blend together baby spinach or any greens (I use fresh greens from my garden), a tablespoon of pesto sauce, grated cheese, a soup cube, a dash of salt and pepper and a little milk. Once it is pureed fine, heat it up, take off the stove before it boils and stir in a bit of cream. Now mix in the pasta and enjoy!

Chocolates

 Chocolates are so easy to make at home and they made such great gifts. Here’s a step-by-step method to make delicious chocolates.

Step 1: Break dark cooking chocolate into small bits (wrapping it in newspaper and whacking it a bit with a hammer is just the way to do it). Then put it into a double boiler and stir with a wooden spoon till it is all melted. You can use any kind of chocolate – dark, milk, white but if you want a good finish, couverture chocolate is best. (Couveture in French means covering).

Step 2: Now, you need to temper the chocolate so it doesn’t melt at ambient temperature and holds its shape when moulded. Here is a great video that explains how to do it.

Step 3: With a spoon, fill the moulds – about one third. (Optional: If you want a thin covering, paint on the chocolate with a brush).

Step 4: Put in your filling – we’ll give you a choice of fillings later.

Step 5: Cover the filling and make sure the mould is full. 

Step 6: Leave it to harden and when it does, gently slip them out of the mould. 

Step 7: Wrap in thin foil – optional.

Fillings

- Powder a few Polos or any mints, mix with an equal quantity of icing sugar, add a few drops of cold water and bind together. Make little balls out of these.
- In half a cup of brandy, put in 1/3 cup raisins and leave aside for an hour to soak.
- Caramelise half a cup of sugar, put in some powdered nuts – almonds, walnuts, cashew nuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts or a mix of whatever nuts you want. Roughly powder the nougat and use as filling.
- Melt some milk chocolate with a little butter, cool and use. You can add any liqueur you want.
- Crumble a piece of cake – never mind if it is dry or stale. Add melted chocolate – enough to bind it loosely and use.

Gifting Ideas

- Buy a cheap and cheery glass or plastic bowl, put in a few chocolates, add a bit of confetti, wrap with cling wrap.
- Wrap the chocolates in a shimmering piece of gauze and tie with a huge satin ribbon.
- Make your own chocolate boxes. Here’s a good one to start off with:

Paneer Masala

What is paneer? It’s the Indian version of cottage cheese except that the milk is coagulated with an acid, not rennet. The milk does not contain any culture either. It’s very easy to make. Take a litre of milk and bring it to the boil. As it is about to boil, turn the heat down a bit and stir in a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar. You’ll notice that the milk starts splitting. As it gets lumpy, put in another teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar and boil for a few minutes. Turn the heat off and strain it through a fine colander or sieve. You can leave the paneer like this, soft and crumbly, or you can put a weight over it and when it’s formed, cut it into cubes. The great thing is, you can make it with skimmed milk and watch your calories! You might be able to pick up packed paneer at Indian stores.

Of course, if you don’t want to go through all this extra work, you could use cubed tofu or mozzarella cheese.


To make the curry:

In 2 teaspoons of oil, put in a little cumin seed, then add ½ a chopped onion and fry till transparent. Add 1 tablespoon of the red masala paste and fry for a minute, then add a cup of water, 1 tablespoon yogurt and bring to the boil. Boil till the gravy is reduced to half, turn down the heat, add the paneer that you made from the one litre of milk and stir gently. After a couple of minutes, turn off the heat and sprinkle chopped cilantro or coriander leaves on top.

Variations:

Paneer masala tastes great with peas. Boil a handful of peas till soft and add it to the masala before you add the paneer. Or you could blanch a few leaves of spinach and add that after you’ve added the paneer.

This is a great accompaniment to rice or rotis – like the rice roti.

You could also eat it with thin pancakes. Don’t use sugar in the pancake mix, make it a bit thinner than usual, make the pancake, put in the masala and roll up. You might want to make the mixture a little thinker so it doesn’t run.

Paneer masala also tastes good in pita bread. Just stuff it in, add chopped cabbage, chopped onion and enjoy.

Red Chicken Curry With Rice Rotis

Take ½ kg of chicken, cut it into bite-size pieces and marinate for an hour with this: 

¼ teaspoon ginger paste

½ teaspoon garlic paste

1 heaped teaspoon yogurt

1 level teaspoon salt

In a deep bottomed pan, put in 11/4 teaspoon cumminseed and fry ½ an onion chopped till transparent and put in 2 heaped teaspoons of the red masala paste. Stir for a few minutes, put in the chicken, stir for a couple of minutes, add a cup of water, cover and cook on a slow fire till the meat is tender. If needed, add a bit of water. The gravy should be thick, not thin and the meat firm but soft. Taste to see if the salt is right and remove from the stove.

When you serve this, garnish with ½ a teaspoon of freshly chopped cilantro or coriander leaves on top.

This dish can be served with rice or with rotis.

Easy to make Rotis

You need to practice a lot before you get rotis just right so here’s an easy way. Mix rice flour with a little salt and water to a firm but slightly sticky dough. If you can get whole-wheat flour, so much the better. Put a teaspoon of oil into a frying pan and flatten a ball of dough the size of a golf ball on the pan. Wet you hands a bit to make it easier. Flatten as much as you can, wait for it to turn slightly brown on one side, flip over and wait till it turns brown on the other. Make sure you do this on slow or medium heat, never high. Eat while it’s still hot. 

Chickpeas Salad

A salad that goes with Indian or Western meals, and it’s so easy to make.

All you need is two cups of cooked or canned chickpeas. For the dressing, you need a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, salt, 1 teaspoon of demerara or brown sugar, a few chilly flakes. Shake it all together and stir into the chickpeas till well mixed.

Cabbage Salad

Chop red and white cabbage and mix together. Shake together vinegar, sugar and salt. Add a bit of mayonnaise, mix well together and mix into the cabbage.

Pumpkin Salad

Easy peasy. Just grate the pumpkin, mix it into yoghurt that has been stirred with salt and a bit of sugar.

White Masala Chicken

This, I find, is a great dish that is so very Indian without the customary spiciness that tends to be present in most of our cooking. So when I have people over who can’t handle too much spice, I pull out this recipe. It’s easy to make and delicious.

4 Chicken legs

Grind:
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
½ cup cashewnuts (you can used almonds that have been blanched)
A piece of cinnamon, a few cloves, cardamoms and a few peppercorns
2 tablespoons yoghurt
Salt to taste
A small piece of ginger
A few cloves of garlic

Rub the mixture over the chicken legs and leave in the fridge for a few hours (one whole day is even better!). Pour a little water in, add ½ a teaspoon of sugar and cook covered on a slow fire till done. Before you take it off the stove, stir in two teaspoons of butter. Make sure there’s enough of liquid so you can serve it with gravy. Great with rice, rotis or bread.