An Indian Evening amongst friends

This was an evening (well an afternoon and evening) soirée, I had been in the kitchen most of the previous day and all morning, but this is a place I love to spend my time.

The table before the meal

The Soup had been made the week before and placed in the freezer, this you will find under the recipes, thanks once again Mamta.

The bread is a one that I have made before and as with most bread, is my variation on a theme. It is spiced saffron bread, the recipe you will find on my baking Fred page.

The mains consisted of:

Clockwise, buttered chicken, Bombay potatoes, tandoori lamb, beef vindaloo, more lamb and centre the Imperial Biryani

Buttered chicken*, this is a one that I tried out on Linda last week only this week I used de-boned chicken thighs (they where on special offer at my local Turkish butchers €4.99 kg). You will find it  under Indian

Beef Vindaloo*

Here is the link to Mamtas web site and my recipe that I posted last year

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_display.php?id=13424

And a few photos just to give you a clue!

The 2kg piece of rump.

Dicing ready for action

                                                                                                            Chopped onions, garlic and ginger

Softening them

Pounding them with the chillies and dry spices and garam masala add the red wine vinegar etc, and then

Marinade the meat over night

                                       

Next day pop your mustard seeds

Add to the caramalised onions and curry leaves

add the marinated meat and fry over a hot heat, transfer to a slow cooker for 6 hours, 1 hour before serving add the parboiled potatoes




Tandoori butterflied lamb* (and not as Lind called it spatch-cocked lamb)

A nice piece of best end  leg filet (bone removed)

Legslit through and laid out for the chop.

The meat butterflied (lots of slashes to take the marinate)

The ground onion, ginger, tumeric powder (didn't have any fresh root) and garlic start to the marinate

To this was added the Kashmiri-Garam Masala

consisting of 2 large cinnamon sticks

2 teaspns black cumin seeds

5 dried bay leaves

20 green cardamoms

 2 black cardamoms

2 teaspns  sblack peppercorns

5 cloves

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

and as I had no mace I used more nutmeg (1.5 teaspns)

This I dry roasted, pounded in a motar and pestle and then ground in my trusty coffee grinder (my electric moulinette had  broken a cog) The masala would be used as the base for all of my marinade and when ever a recipe called for Garam Masala.

To this was added  4 green Jalapeño chillies, diced and pounded  with 1 teaspn of cumin powder, zest and juice of a lime , 2 tblspoons of sunflower oil, a handful of coriander, a handful of mint leaves (I had now been out and purchased a new devils machine) blitzed the whole lot down and added a good couple of dollops of 10% yoghurt. This was smeared all over over the meat and placed in a ziploc bag and put into the fridge.

A Biryani Royal a la Keith Floyd, though I used chicken instead of lamb and Gold leaf instead of silver (well if it is going to be done right, then do it right).

Bombay Potatoes*

Bombay Aloo this was direct with nothing changed from Mamtas site.

Uschi's plate of food (just then first one) at the front was the last of my chutney made to my old ma's recipe. Will have to make another load.

We had cool Bitburger, rosé, gray Burgundy and red Bordeaux to drink during the meal. Linda made a gin based cocktail called Bala Bala, as a digestive the choice was from my drinks cabinet, so it was grappa for some and brandy for others.

All recipes marked with * are either direct or some what changed from Mamtas website, thanks once again Mamta for your wonderful web site. For those of you that do not know it (and those of you in Germany and else where here is the Link.

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/board/showthreads.php

Dick at work and Dick at play