Lunch with family

I had my parents come home for a meal the first time since we got married. I was preparred for a long morning of cooking but it was fairly enjoyable.
Made mutton, rajma, fried karela, mutter paneer, raita, salad, mutter ke chawal and roti. Three kinds of ice cream finished the meal very well. London Dairy has some yummm flavours, we tried Strawberry cheesecake, Tiramisu and Praline & Cream. Everyone unmanimously voted for Tiramisu as the best of the lot.

My recipe for the mutton is below

Kosha Mangsho (spicy dry mutton)
Serves : 4
Preperation time : 15 mins
Cooking time : 60 mins
Ingredients:
Mutton – 1kg cut into small pieces
Oil- 2-3 tbs
Curd- 150 gms
6 Onions - finely chopped / grated
Ginger/Garlic paste - 2 tbs
Dry Red Chillies - 2-3
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Cumin Powder - 1 tsp
Corriander Powder - 1 tsp
Garam Masala - Whole pieces (clove, green cardammon, black cardammon, cinnamon, bay leaf)
Salt- To taste
Coriander leaves- finely chopped- to garnish

Method
Marinate mutton with curd, salt, turmeric, chilli powder, cumin powder and corriander powder for 1 hour.
In a pressure cooker heat oil and roast the whole spices, add ginger/garlic paste and onions, dry chillies and cook till oinions are brown.
Add marinated mutton and fry well. There is no need to add water as the mutton and curd will release water.
Pressure cook for 4-5 whistles and garnish the mutton with fresh corriander.
Serve with rice or chapattis.

Lasagna

So I tried making lasagna for the first time last week when I got chicken and apple crumble to work. There were a few mistakes I made which I will definitely learn from.

First I realized I have no bloody clue how to cook lasagna sheets! The pack doesn't tell you how to cook them and when I checked online I didn't really get any great clues. So after many failed attempts and many sticky sheets I realized what the trick was; you get the water up to a boil, add salt and oil and then drop the sheets in one by one. You wait for the first one to cook a bit before you drop the next one in and you never add more than 3-4 sheets at a time. Then you remove the sheets and drop into iced water so that they don't stick to each other.

Now you begin lining the lasagna with the sauce and once you have layered it all, the last layers should be sauce topped with cheese with the sheets not sticking out at all.

You can layer the lasagna with anything, but it seems the traditional layering is of bechamel sauce (white sauce) and tomato sauce and often minced meat. I had layered mine with ricotta and mozzarella cheese, tomato, garlic and basil sauce and spinach, mushrooms and corn cooked in olive oil and garlic.

So I cant stop thinking of food for the last few days. I don't want to eat any I just want to cook and cook and feed and feed.

I am planning to make a thai curry for office colleagues tomorrow. I am giving the recipe for the paste below. This paste can be used to make veg, chicken or prawn green curry.

Green Curry Paste - Gaeng Kieow Waan

6 green chillies
1 large onion
4-5 gloves garlic
1 inch ginger / galangal if you can get
2 tsp ground corriander seeds
1 tsp ground cumin seeds
Handful fresh corriander leaves
1 root of lemon grass
1 lime rind
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 lime juice
2 tsp salt

Grind all ingredients to a fine paste. Fry in little oil and add coconut milk. I like to then strain it and then add any pre-cooked veggies or pre-cooked chicken or then prawns. Finish with basil leaves, kaffir lime leaves and slit red chillies.