Chicken Makhani

Ingredients for stage one

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 2 onions
  
• 1/2 cup chopped garlic
  
• 2 cups tomato sauce (not Heinz...the liquidy stuff in tins)
  
• 1 cup plain yoghurt (don't use low fat or fat free...it'll all go horribly wrong)
  
• 2 tbsp cumin/coriander (i.e. 1 tbsp each)
  
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
  
• 4 cloves
  
• 1 cinnamon stick
  
• 1" root ginger, peeled and chopped
  
• 3 bay leaves
  
• 2 cardomom pods
  

Ingredients for stage two

• 1 pint heavy cream
  
• 1/2 stick butter
  
• 1 tsp paprika
  
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  
• 1.5 tsp salt
  
• 1/2 tsp hot chili powder

You will also need about 6 - 8 chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces.

Puree the onions, garlic and ginger in a blender. If you have a way to grind up the cinnamon stick and cloves do so. If not they can go in whole.

Heat oil till hot but not smoking, add cardomom and bay leaves. If you are not grinding up the cinnamon stick and cloves add them now. Stir for a few seconds then add the pureed mixture. Cook for 10 - 20 minutes stirring regularly to prevent it catching and burning. Add everything else from the stage one ingredients list and bring to a boil. The yoghurt may appear to curdle, but if it does don't worry -- everything will right itself shortly.

Now add stage two ingredients and return to a boil. Add the chicken pieces and simmer for 20 minutes or so until chicken is cooked and the sauce has taken on a slightly thicker consistency.

Serve with basmati rice and naan bread.

Naan Bread

• 1/2 cup plain yoghurt
  
• 1/2 cup milk
  
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
  
• 1 tsp white sugar
  
• 2 tsp dry yeast
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1 tsp nigella (aka black onion seeds) 
  
• 2 tbsp melted butter
  
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  
• 3 cups plain flour
  

I've noticed that Indian restaurants in the US don't seem to put nigella in their naan bread whereas those in the UK do. Having spent most of my life in England I find them to be essential. I've made naan in the past without them though and they are OK, just missing that unique nigella flavor. In my opinion they are well worth seeking out. I found my last batch in an Indian grocery store. It used to be that Whole Foods sold them but last time I looked they have greatly reduced the variety of spices they now have. 

Start off by placing the yoghurt and milk in a large glass bowl and heating for approximately a minute or so in the microwave. Warming this up helps activate the yeast allegedly...

Next add the baking powder, sugar, melted butter, eggs and yeast to the bowl and stir well with balloon whisk to incorporate everything. Finally add the nigella seeds and stir to distribute.

Switch from the whisk to a wooden spoon and begin adding the flour. Add about a cup at a time and the stir in. When you have added all three cups if the dough is still too sticky add up to an extra half cup to make it easier to manage.

Turn out the dough and kneed for several minutes until it starts to have that nice sheen and elasticity that well kneeded dough has. Roll into a ball and cover with the glass bowl. Leave to rise for about an hour at room temperature. Dough should approximately double in size.

Once dough has risen divide it into at least four and as many eight pieces (depends how many you have to feed, how big you like your naan...)

Take each piece of dough and "encourage" it into the typical naan shape. This is a very approximate thing (for me at least) achieved through stretching, pressing and other general forms of manipulation as needed to get something reasonable looking.  In general the dough should end up pretty thin, a millimeter or two. No idea what fraction of an inch that is but not much...

Melt some more butter (perhaps 2 Tbsp or so) and brush each of your naan lightly on the top side.  Now place them butter-side down in a large hot skillet/frying pan that you have pre-heated and quickly brush the second side with a little butter. It should only take a couple of minutes before you need to flip the naan over. Use a fish slice to check on progress and ultimately turn the bread.

As each naan is finished transfer to a warm plate and keep covered with something (clean tea towel, foil, etc.)

These are great with any curry, but especially those with a lot of sauce.

Stuffed Tomatoes

This is a recipe my wife and I discovered when toying with veganism (which was ultimately a failure - although we did pick up some good additional food.) Anyway, it was nice enough that it's been kept around and we still make it from time to time. The original recipe has you bake it in the oven, which is good...but to take it to a whole new level I highly recommend doing this over charcoal with some hickory wood chips for extra flavor. If you take the BBQ approach you don't want terribly hot coals, so either cook something else first or don't place the tomatoes over direct heat.

• 1/2 cup of orzo pasta (the small stuff that looks like rice)
• 4 large ripe tomatoes (such as beefsteak)
• 1/3 cup of pine nuts, briefly toasted in hot skillet
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley
• 2 tbsp roughly chopped basil leaves

Cook the orzo according to instructions. Drain and rinse in cold water till chilled so it will keep without sticking together.

Whilst the orzo is cooking, slice the top off each of the tomatoes and then scoop out the insides using a spoon. Chop the tomato pulp and place it in a mixing bowl. Add the pine nuts, orzo, garlic, parsley and basil. Season with some salt and black pepper then mix well.

Stuff each of the tomatoes with the mixture, top with previously removed slice and drizzle with some olive oil.

If cooking in an oven, have it preheated to 375 degrees F, place on a foil covered baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. If cooking on the BBQ, use your skill and judgment... :-)

Once cooked, serve with a generous amount of yellow pepper coulis which can be made as follows: fry one chopped onion and 3 chopped yellow bell peppers in a little olive oil. After 5 minutes add half a cup of water and some salt and pepper. Simmer until very soft, perhaps 15 - 20 minutes. Add more water if necessary. When done puree in a blender.

Gazpacho Soup

I really like this soup, the flavors are amazing. Truly one of those things where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Also, the fact that everything in it is raw (besides the bread) still strikes me as some kind of magic.

• About 2lbs very ripe tomatoes
• 1 large English-style cucumber, peeled and diced
• Half a baguette - a little stale is considered better. For those avoiding white flour I've used wholewheat bread too and it seems OK.
• 1 green bell pepper, de-seeded and and chopped reasonably small
• 1 cup (a little under half a UK pint) extra virgin olive oil
• 6 scallions (spring onions) roughly chopped
• 1 - 4 gloves garlic (how much do you like garlic?), roughly chopped
• 3 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp paprika
• salt and pepper to taste (probably 1/2 - 1 tsp salt is what you want)
• 1 pint or less water

Tear the bread into small pieces and leave to soak in 1 cup of water. Immerse the tomatoes in just-boiled water briefly and then "encourage" the skins to split after a few seconds with a sharp knife. Pull them out of the water and remove skins. Chop tomatoes, removing seeds first.

Place chopped tomatoes into a large bowl along with the pepper, cucumber, scallions, garlic, bread and olive oil; stir to combine. Add the white wine vinegar, paprika, salt and pepper. Lastly add remaining water (1 cup). Stir again to fully combine.

Now transfer the contents of the bowl to a blender - you may need to do this in two or three batches due to the volume. Puree the mixture.

Obviously you can use more or less water depending on the consistency you prefer.

Once blended the soup should be chilled in the fridge for at least an hour. This also allows the flavors to really develop too.

To serve you can add a garnish of avocado cubes, diced red peppers, sprinkle of paprika etc.