You have Naan? I have a dinner (1), Onion Bhaji, Cucumber raita

So what did we have with our Naan?

From the top right: chicken balti, tandoori chicken, onion bahji and Saag Paneer Palak Paneer in the center.

During a Skype session Tanna suggested Saag paneer (which in effect became Palak Mozzarella... center of the plate), I found some long forgotten Tandoori spices in the pantry and made grilled chicken Tandoori.

I remembered a cookbook featuring all kinds of Asian dishes, and while I told Tanna that I never had anything like Saag Paneer I flipped the pages to find a recipe for it! Right there in a book I've had for ages.

Paneer being a firm cheese, the Palak stands for spinach and spices. Ok, that settled it. Timewise I substituted mozzarella for paneer. Both Husband and I didn't like the way it looked, didn't like the way it smelled. We tentatively took a bite.... Not bad at all! Paired it with Naan... delicious! Between the three of us (oldest son helped) we polished off the entire bowl.

I gladly refer you to Tanna for the recipe, I used the one I found in the book but as certified sources have it that one should be called Palak Paneer because it uses spinach. Saag Paneer is made with mustard greens... I think I'm confused. Maybe not. But it's good and you should try!

Next I made Balti chicken (recipe follows soon), fairly mild to accomodate the twins, they loved it!

A lonely cucumber I found transformed into cucumber raita, simple but a delicious aside.

Cucumber Raita

2 cucumbers, peeled, deseeded and chopped

200 ml -thick- yoghurt

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp grated gingerroot

salt and pepper

paprika for garnish

Roast cumin and mustard seeds in a dry frying pan until fragrant. Mix cucumber with yoghurt and spices plus gingerroot. Add salt and pepper to taste. (Quickly scatter some aleppo chili flakes in before anyone notices hehe). Serve!

Something else I made were little onion fritters, not entirely sure how I think about them though, in potential these sound delicious but I detected a hint of something strange. My oil? The chick pea flour too old? I do know I want to try again because as I said in potential... yum!

Recipe Onion Bhaji (onion fritters):

80 gr besan (gram flour/chickpea flour)

60 gr ap flour

1.1/2 tsp baking soda (baking soda is what they said, maybe I should have used baking powder?)

1 ts ground chili

1 egg

3 dl water (add as you see fit, you'll want a thick batter, this is way too much)

4 large onions, peeled and sliced in rings

4 garlic cloves, chopped

oil for frying (I used sunflower seed oil)

Sift flours, baking soda and chilipowder in a bowl, mix egg and water and add to whisk into a thick batter. Add garlic, whisk and finally add the onion.

Heat 1/2 to 3/4 inch of oil in a large frying pan and make small "pancakes", using approx. 2 tbs of batter for each fritter. Fry on each side until golden and done. Leave to drain on paper towels and serve as hot as possible with mango chutney or chili sauce. (Or cucumber raita!).

Enjoy!

There's only one way..

to make sure your egg whites are thorougly whisked.

Two class mates in my kitchen armed with a chocolate mousse recipe in French. Their mission? Translate that recipe in Dutch, make the recipe and present it -in French- to your class. For a grade.

So where did they go? My kitchen of course. That is... first they planned to do it at the other boys house but on second thought they decided my sons mom would be of some use. So there they were, with apologies but eh did I have chocolate? Eggs? Butter? And eh time to help?

My revenge came sooner than they thought. Egg whites beaten to stiff peaks my boys? Well there's only one way to find out. Are you sure these are the correct stiffness? (My son stepped back already seeing that mischievous smile on my face).

The egg whites were perfect! (This pic featured in their presentation, they got a 9 out of 10!)

When you feel like this:

You probably don't want to attempt this:

Mission impossible. 'Nuff said.

Bread Baking Babes: Naan

In the course of time we Babes found that we share more than "just" the love for bread, the love for spices and savoury dishes is another one. Take that and pair it with bread?

You'll have the Cookiebaker thinking out of her -cookie- box and come up with a great challenge: Bake Naan. And then Lynn warns us: every recipe starts with "naan really can't be made at home because traditional naan is made in a special super hot brick oven".

Is that so? We're the Bread Baking Babes...so we try!

The recipe comes from Paul Hollywood's 100 Great Breads (someone I encountered before and still don't own his book ...aaah! poor me!). Ingredients down below, I send you to Lynn for the directions and how to become a Bread Baking Buddy!

Curried Naan Bread
- makes 6 naan

scant 4 cups white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra for frying
2 Tbsp mild curry powder
1/2 oz / 15 g. package compressed fresh yeast*
1-1/4 cups water
generous 1/2 cup golden raisins
3 Tbsp mango chutney
* If you are using instant or dry yeast, reduce the quantities a little

Plain Naan
- makes 3 naan (which made Lynn wonder -same amount of flour as above, so why half the yield?)

scant 4 cups white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 oz / 15 g. package compressed fresh yeast*
water to mix
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
olive oil for frying

~~~~~~~~~~

Stupid me didn't use a skillet (it was right there in the directions...) but thought of a clever way by finding a shortcut. Use my plug-in table grill/skillet/thingy and bake 5 at a time. Not clever. It doesn't get hot enough and it took quite a while to get the lovely blisters. Still it made us a lovely dinner. I combined the curried and the plain Naan recipe; using curry in the dough plus caraway seeds and cumin. Not using mango chutney and raisins because I was afraid that our pickiest eater would refrain from them. I know the DH and me would have loved some raisins and chutney in them. Next time!

I paired our Naan's with a cucumber raita, a spinach paneer, Balti chicken and Tandoori chicken, and a vegetable curry, oh and the Indian version of onion rings! Leave it to me to complicate what could have been a relatively effortless dinner....

Pictures aren't the best quality; dinner was very late, we were hungry and the lighting was great for atmosphere not so for picture taking. No left overs to do a photo shoot the other day, which obviously is a good thing. Dinner was enjoyed by all in a lively manner. Eating with your hands does that. Recipes for the rest of the dinner will follow shortly! Great challenge Lynn, thanks for making me try this type of bread again!

Bits and pieces

are usually all that's left. Have you ever wondered why there are people (plural) in my house who

- eat cookies but never eats the whole package leaving one or two?

- Or eat all the whole ones not touching broken pieces?

- Snacks on dates and leave three lonely ones in the box?

- Shares and eats all chewing gum but one?

- Eats 6 poached pears, snacks on them in passing but looses interest for the last three in the bowl?

Beats me!

Bread Baking Day # 26 left overs

What kind of guest brings left overs to a birthday party? I hope Jamie will graciously open her door for me as I'm wiping the crumbs of my hands and licking my lips. Only showing the remainder of a huge seeded whole wheat braid. The rest as they say, is history. Devoured by my kids and confined in lunchboxes.

Why bring it to Jamie? Because she is hosting Bread Baking Day January, celebrating this day together with her birthday and asking all her guests to bring bread to the party.

It's been a while since I showed bread on these pages so here we go:

Seeded whole wheat braid

300 ml luke warm milk

3 tbs oil

300 gr flour (plus 3 tbs to get the dough to the right consistency)

290 gr whole wheat flour (I mixed a very dark ww with some buckwheat flour)

2 small hand full sesame seeds (I think about a 1/4 cup)

2 small hand full rolled oats (also about a 1/4 cup)

1.1/4 ts fine sea salt

2 tbs sugar

2 tbs instant yeast

3 tbs potato flakes

decoration: sesame seeds and broken linseed, egg white wash

Oven: 15 minutes on 425F (200C), lower to 350F (175C) bake for another 20 minutes

Mix the all flours with potato flakes, salt, sugar and yeast, add milk, oil and knead by hand or in a standmixer to get a cohesive dough, approx. 5 minutes. (Longer if by hand) Add in the seeds and mix for 5 minutes more to get a relatively sticky dough.

Tip over on a clean work surface and finish by handkneading it until smooth and strong. Slapping this dough on the counter (scroll down for a series of explanatory pics) will transfer a sticky unruly doughball into a strong and springy one. You just need a couple of minutes to get this result.

Cover and leave to proof in a warm spot until doubled, divide in three equal pieces and roll these into ropes. You might want to give your counter a miniature spraying with oil. Leave to rest for a couple of minutes and proceed by braiding a simple three-strand braid. Brush with some eggwhite and sprinkle on the seeds, patting them into the dough.

Cover and leave to rise a second time until evidently puffy. Bake in a preheated oven: 15 minutes on 425, lower to 350F and bake another 20 minutes. Check color and tent with alu foil if necessary. Inner temp around 190F.

(Above is my lunch today)

Lovely colour, soft and moist crumb with a nice crunch because of the seeds. The sesame leaves a tell tale nutty sweet flavour. I really liked it a lot. Oldest son engineered a lunch box trade today so I wonder what the verdict in school is like. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Doughnuts or Oliebollen?

Liberated by myself, isn't that the best feeling? In the first three hours after waking up this morning I had a ping pinging: don't have to, don't need to ladidadidaaaa....

Because I already had.

Already had my traditional bath in oil. Locked up in the small kitchen annex together with a frying pan and a huge bowl of batter. Radio blaring. Fleece sweater. Winter boots.

You guessed it, I baked my oliebollen yesterday. And as things go, not only oliebollen with raisins and currants, also plain ones, appelflappen (apple turnovers) and this year's success: donuts.

I loved baking these! Not only because you don't have to juggle a cookiescoop, almost liquid batter clinging to every surface, meanwhile praying that they will be nice, airy and dutifully will round out in the pan with hot oil. (Oliebollen bliss? Super round balls that will turn out of their own accord when they are done on one side..)

None of that, this is a sponge based sweet yeasted dough, after a first rise you make balls which rise a second time and then they go dunk dunk dunk into the frying oil.

Recipe:

( "Excellent cakes" by Dan Lepard)

makes 25 small ones

2 tsp yeast

175 ml warm milk

170 gr ap flour

280 gr strong white flour (bread flour) + extra for dusting

1 tsp salt

85 gr unsalted butter, diced and softened (I used 50 gr)

2 eggs

85 gr caster sugar + extra fine sugar for coating (I used 50 in the dough and mixed cinnamon and sugar for dusting)

grated zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp cinnamon

sunflower oil for deep frying

Sponge: whisk together yeast, milk and plain flour, cover and leave in a warm place until actively bubbling or risen by at least one-third.

In your mixer combine sponge, bread flour and salt at the lowest speed. Add butter one piece at a time, when fully incorporated mix in the eggs. Add sugar, zest and cinnamon and knead for 8 minutes. Turn to higher speed and knead for a further 2 minutes. It really takes some time for this dough to come together.

Turn out your dough (still sticky) on a floured surface and finish kneading by hand until you have a smooth elastic ball of dough with fully developed gluten. Leave to prove and double at room temperature. Approx. 2 hours.

Turn out on a floured (I prefer a very light oiling) surface, gently deflate, roll up and divide into 25 pieces. Roll the pieces into balls with a very tight surface and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 40 minutes or there-abouts. (On a floured tray covered with a cloth or plastic).

Heat oil for deep frying or use a deep fryer, temp 190C. Fry in small batches, turning after 1-2 minutes on one side. When done, drain on kitchen paper and coat the doughnuts while still warm. Put some caster sugar on a plate and turn them in the sugar to coat.Really very good, easy to work with, no hassle. I'd love to try them again with a jam-filling or maybe a glaze.. Or, or, or... make them savoury by using bacon and cheese... I can see some more donuts instead of our traditional oliebollen in New Years Eves to come. Closing down for now, preparing for our New Year's Eve.

Until then, I'd like to wish you a very Happy New Year, stay safe tonight, count your blessings and don't forget to have fun. Now and on the other side of 2009, in 2010!