best butter chicken ever

I know when butter chicken is good for the sole reason that I’ve had some pretty atrocious butter chicken over the years.  (It was really good in India and a handful of times not in India.)  Sometimes it’s bright red and tastes just like tomato sauce, sometimes it’s sickly sweet. Gross.  But a few weeks back, our friends made a really, really, really yummy butter chicken and perhaps best of all, it didn’t have any cream in it which kept my now increasingly lactose-intolerant belly nice and happy.  Instead of cream, this butter chicken is cooked with cashew butter and coconut cream. The serving dish it was in didn’t have a single drop of sauce left on it by the time we were done; that’s how good it was.  We got a copy of the recipe from them but it is honestly confusing. as. fuck.  I can’t even explain how confusing it is.  Apparently our friends make it differently practically every time anyway so I figured we could riff (quite a bit) on it.

Just a few notes, the recipe calls for Kashmiri red chilli powder which gives the dish its bright red hue.  But it’s still pretty spicy (taste it first!  I learned the hard way) so adjust the amount according to how much heat you want.  If you don’t have any on hand or can’t find any, the internet says the standard substitution would be a combination of 3 parts paprika and 1 part cayenne pepper.  If you want your butter chicken super mild though, I’d opt for substituting completely with paprika.

For garlic-ginger paste, I’ve seen both garlic paste and ginger paste in the ‘international’ aisle of the supermarket so you can buy them and mix them.  But I just got Rock to whip some up by pureeing equal amounts of fresh garlic and ginger with a splash of avocado oil.  Homemade garlic-ginger paste should keep in the fridge for a few weeks. And if you want this butter chicken to be lactose-free, use ghee instead of butter.

The recipe has 2 parts, the chicken and the sauce.  I started making the sauce just before Rock cooked the chicken so it could all come together at the same time but it’s up to you if you want to cook the chicken first.  And one last thing, the sauce I made is quite thick, though not in a bad way.  However if you prefer a thinner sauce I’d just reduce the amount of cashew butter and coconut cream.  You could also substitute coconut cream with coconut milk which would reduce the fat and make the sauce thinner.

This makes enough for 4 to 6 people.

Tandoori chicken: 4 chicken breasts  /  ~1 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder (adjust according to your taste buds)  /  2 tbsp garlic-ginger paste  /  3/4 cup plain yogurt  /  juice of 1 lemon  /  salt to taste  /  (If you’re going to barbecue the chicken, you’ll also need skewers.)

Butter chicken sauce:  2 x 796 ml tins of whole tomatoes, drained  /  4 rounded tbsp butter or ghee  /  ~ 1/2 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder  /  1 tbsp garlic-ginger paste  /  1 tbsp garam masala  / 3 tbsp cashew butter  / 3 – 5 tbsp coconut cream  /  1 tsp ground cardamom  /  2 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves, crushed  /  1 tbsp honey  /  salt to taste

For the chicken: In a large bowl, combine the Kashmiri chilli powder, garlic ginger paste, yogurt, lemon juice and salt.  Cube your chicken into bite-size pieces and toss into the marinade, making sure the chicken is all well-coated.  Slap a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl and stick it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

To cook the chicken, you can skewer the chicken and grill it on the barbecue (which is what we did) or simply grill or fry it on the stove. Just cook ’til the chicken is cooked through.

For the sauce: In a large pan or wok, cook tomatoes with 1 tbsp of butter over medium to medium-high heat until they are turning into, for lack of a better word, mush.  In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the remaining 3 tbsp of butter and stir in the chilli powder, garlic-ginger paste and garam masala.  Let this cook for about a minute; it will smell awesome.  Add this spice-butter mixture to the tomatoes, turn the heat down to medium, and toss a lid on for about 7 minutes or so. Next, add the cashew butter, coconut milk, cardamom powder and fenugreek leaves.  Put the lid back on, and let it all simmer together for about 5 to 7 minutes and then add the honey.  You don’t really have to do this but I dragged a hand blender through the sauce just ‘cus I wanted to get it super smooth. You could of course also pour it into a regular blender and puree it that way.

With the heat turned down to medium- low, add the chicken to the sauce and let that simmer for yet another 5 minutes or so.  Finally, serve with warm naan or some basmati rice.  SO good.  I’m telling you, the photo does not do this butter chicken justice.

 

oven-roasted döner kebab

Rock and I are obsessed with the döner kebabs we had from this little kebab place that we had stumbled upon near our airbnb flat in the Friedrichschain district when we were in Berlin last year.  Thinly shaved chicken döner, veggies, feta (I think?) cheese, and delicious mystery sauces all sandwiched in toasted Turkish pide bread. Best. Thing. Ever.  We didn’t even know the name of the place we had those kebabs at but a google search shows it up as Döner Dach on yelp and seeing photos of those kebabs, oh man.

For literally months now, I’d google döner kebabs every so often (is that weird?), trying to find a good recipe for Berlin-style kebabs but I could never find anything that seemed like it’d live up to the ones we had.  And of course, we don’t have a giant rotating spit so it had to be a recipe that we could actually make.  Anyway, we recently discovered Nigella Lawson’s recipe for oven-roasted chicken shawarma and it is first of all delicious, but more importantly, it tastes very close to the chicken döner we had in Berlin.  It is also terribly easy!  (According to my not-so-vigorous research, döner is Turkish and shawarma is Arabic but they are very similar if not the same.  Don’t quote me on that though.)  I made this chicken for the second time last night and our friends who are from Germany gave it their ‘tastes like a German döner’ seal of approval, so yay!

For the chicken: 12 boneless and skinless chicken thighs  /  2 lemons  /  7 tbsp olive oil  /  6 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced  /  2 dried bay leaves  /  2 tsp paprika  /  2 tsp ground cumin  /  1 tsp ground coriander  /  1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes  /  1/4 tsp ground cinnamon  /  1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg  /  2 tsp sea salt

For an accompanying sauce (adapted from Nigella’s recipe):  2/3 cup plain yogurt  /  1/3 cup mayonnaise  /  1/4 cup tahini  /  2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced  /  sea salt to taste

Put the chicken thighs in a large freezer ziplock bag (or any large resealable bag).  Grate in the lemon zest and then squeeze in the lemon juice.  Add the olive oil, garlic and all of the spices for the chicken.  Zip closed the bag and mush everything together so that the chicken is all well-coated with the marinade.  Plop the bag into a large bowl or onto a plate and then stick it in the fridge for at least 6 hours or up to 1 day.

About at hour or so before you intend to start cooking, take the chicken out from the fridge to let it come to room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 425F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and pour out the chicken and marinade onto the sheet.  Spread out the chicken thighs so that they are all lying flat and not on top of each other.  Roast for 30 minutes (or until it’s cooked through).

I like to thinly slice the chicken for the sole reason that it reminds me of the thinly shaved chicken you’d find in a proper kebab.

To make the sauce, simply mix all the ingredients together and that’s that.  I served the chicken with the sauce, some shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, some hunks of feta cheese, some hot sauce, and Rock baked some fresh Turkish pide bread.  The first time we made this, we had it with pitas which was also really good.

You can eat the chicken with just the veggies and sauce but to make a kebab, simply slice open your bread and stuff everything into it!

Though this sauce is delicious, it’s not exactly the same as the mystery sauces that Berlin kebab places serve.  If anyone has recipes for those amazing white and red sauces, please share!

boontjiesop (south african bean soup)

Our lovely neighbour, who is from South Africa, dropped by with some of this bean soup the other week and our kiddo, who is nowadays as likely to throw his food on the ground as he is to actually eat it, devoured it.  And I don’t even like beans, but I liked this soup.  So of course I had to get the recipe from her.  Turns out it’s an old family recipe that she doesn’t even have written down so you know this recipe is legit.  It’s a really hearty soup (with bacon in it!) which she recommends eating with some fresh bread.  Can’t believe I never had this back when I lived in Cape Town, what a shame.  Add that to the list of reasons to go back for a visit!  In the meantime, many thanks to our neighbour for sharing this with us.  Just a note, you can use either fresh blanched and skinned tomatoes and cooked dried beans or use tinned; I took the easy route.

2 tins of kidney beans (I used 1 red and 1 white), drained and rinsed  /  500 g beef steak  /  1 package of bacon  /  1 x 28 oz tin diced tomatoes  /  5 medium potatoes (red or white)  /  1 medium yellow onion  /  1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce  /  1 and 1/2 tbsp soy sauce  /  black pepper to taste

Peel and cut up your potato into chunks and set aside.  Dice the onion, cut up the steak into bite-size pieces and chop up the bacon.  Throw the onion, steak and bacon into a large pot (I used a 5 quart and this would be the minimum size) and cook over medium to medium-high heat until the onions have softened and the beef is browning.  Then add the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, black pepper and the entire contents of the tin of tomatoes.  Next, tip in your potatoes and the beans.

Pop the lid on and lower the heat to let the soup simmer for 5 to 6 hours.

1 hour before serving, use a masher to give the soup a good mash.  If you find it too thick, you can thin it out with a bit of water.  Serve with warm fresh bread. This makes quite a large pot of soup and apparently leftovers will have thickened up quite a bit so you can simply reheat with a bit of water added to it if needed.  Enjoy!

 

 

vegan mexican chocolate pie

This recipe from the New York Times popped up in my newsfeed this past weekend and I just had to try it.  It’s made with tofu and I was just so curious to see how it would turn out.  The recipe calls for silken tofu which I couldn’t find (though I didn’t go on a Moose Jaw-wide hunt or anything) so I used soft tofu instead. I did some research on tofu after I already bought the stuff and turns out silken tofu is the super soft, high moisture content tofu that hasn’t been pressed.  Soooooo, not the same as soft tofu.  Dammit! I decided my pie would be a disaster but I figured I’d give it a go anyway to see what happens. Well it turned out pretty great!  I guess with the silken tofu you’d get more of a mousse-like texture but with the soft tofu it’s kinda like a cheesecake.  Tofu cheesecake!!  And even if you’re thinking, ew tofu, well this doesn’t taste at all like tofu.  I swear you wouldn’t even know there was tofu in it if someone didn’t tell you.  The only thing is I found it a bit too sweet for my taste so next time I’d dial back the sugar in both the crust and filling (I’m giving the reduced amounts here).

for the crust:  10 whole graham crackers (you’ll end up with 1 and 1/4 cups crumbs)  /  2 tbsp sugar  /  4 tbsp coconut oil, melted  /  1 tbsp almond milk

for the pie filling:  500 g silken or soft tofu  /  1/2 cup sugar  /  8 oz high quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, melted  /  1 tsp vanilla extract  /  1 and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon  /  1/4 tsp cayenne powder  /  a pinch of salt  /  chocolate shavings to top (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350F and lightly spray a 9 inch pie plate with some non-stick cooking spray (I used some coconut oil Pam that we’re trying out).  Throw the graham crackers into a food processor or blender and blitz until you get fine crumbs.  Add the sugar, coconut oil and almond milk and just blend until everything starts to kinda clump together.  Using the back of a spoon or your fingers, press the crumbs evenly into the bottom of your pie plate.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until it’s lightly golden and then let it cool while you move onto your filling.

Dissolve the sugar in 1/2 a cup of boiling water.  Now simply put the sugary water and the rest of the ingredients for the pie filling (except for the chocolate shavings if you’re using them) into a food processor or blender and blend until totally smooth.

Pour the filling over the crust and then take a piece of cling wrap and smooth it directly onto the pie filling.  Pop it into the fridge for at least 4 hours and that’s it.  You can garnish it with some chocolate shavings if you’d like.  I know my photo of the pie is not the most photogenic thing ever but really, it was delicious.  Even if you aren’t a fan of tofu, this is definitely worth trying!

boozy vegan coconut raspberry shake

It was my childhood dream to open a ’50s style diner and I was just saying to Rock a little while ago that if that ever happened, we should totally have boozy milkshakes on the menu.  Then we were just in Vegas and we happened to glance at the menu at Holsteins Shakes and Buns and lo and behold, ‘bam-boozled’ shakes.  Because my gut has decided in the last few years that it will ruthlessly punish me whenever I eat ice cream, I was super stoked to see that they had a vegan shake.  Of course, I had to have this vegan shake, and it was amazing.  And so of course, now we had to try and replicate it at home.  This is really yummy and bonus, it won’t cost you 2o bucks for one.  So drink up!

3 scoops coconut flavour dairy-free ice cream (Coconut Bliss brand is definitely the best)  / 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk  /  1/2 cup frozen raspberries  /  1 oz raspberry flavoured vodka  /  1 oz coconut flavoured vodka or rum

Simply blend everything together with either a hand-held blender or a blender and enjoy!  Alcohol was totally meant to be in milkshakes.