Bhuna Gosht ('Bhuna' Lamb or Beef Curry)

Unlike many curries, this one isn't surrounded by lakes of sauce, rather a great aromatic, thick and punchy sauce. The recipe works great with beef or lamb, and I often like to use a beef off the bone, and lamb bones to enhance the flavour. Serves 4-6, and serve with chapatis or rice, and an onion relish of tomatoes, cucumber, onion, mint and coriander with a squeeze of lemon.

 Ingredients

Spice Mix

2tsp Whole Cumin Seeds

4tsp Whole Coriander Seeds

2tsp Whole Mustard Seeds

4 Whole, Dried Chillies

1tsp whole Caraway Seeds

2tsp Whole Fenugreek Seeds

Curry Ingredients

5tbsp Corn or Peanut Oil

140g Shallots, peeled and very finely chopped

4cm Fresh Ginger, peeled and very finely chopped

5-6 Cloves Garlic, peeled and very finely chopped

13 Curry Leaves, fresh if possible

2 Medium Tomatoes

900g Boneless Lamb or Stewing Beef, cut into 3cm pieces

1.5kg Lamb bones (just ask at the butcher; I often get them with a bit of meat on them) - optional

1.5tsp Salt

Method

1. Place a medium frying pan or skillet on a medium-high heat. When hot, add the spice mix, and stir on the heat until lightly browned and toasted. 

2. Using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, grind the spices to a powder, and set aside.

3. Before you start the curry, score an 'x' in the bottom of the tomatoes, and place in boiling water for about 30 seconds, and then remove, peel and chop.

4. Pour the oil into quite a large saucepan with a lid, and set over medium-high heat. Once heated, add the shallots, ginger and garlic and fry, stirring as you go along, for about 5 minutes or until the mix goes golden-brown. Add the curry leaves and tomatoes and cook on a lower heat until the tomatoes are reduced to a paste, stirring to make sure nothing sticks.

5. Stir in the spice mix, and cook for another minute before adding the meat, bones and salt, and cook on a medium-high heat to sear the meat. Add 250ml water, and bring to the boil, then turn down to a low heat to simmer. Cover the pan and cook for about 1.5 hours, or until the meat is tender (Lamb might take 1 hour 20 minutes, depending on preference).

6. Remove the lid, increase the heat to high, and stir continuously to reduce the sauce until the point where it's thick and clings to the meat. 

Enjoy :)

Jam Doughnuts

It's the holiday season, so I decided to add a suitable recipe. Contrary to popular belief, these can be made without a deep fat fryer, all you need is a deep pan, a candy thermometer, and 2 bottles of vegetable oil, and hey presto you have a deep fryer. These taste incredible, though make 20, so feel free to halve the quantities. 

 

 Ingredients

500g Strong White Bread Flour

50g Caster Sugar

40g Unsalted Butter, Very Soft

14g Dry Instant Yeast

10g Salt

2 Large Eggs, at Room Temperature, Beaten

150ml Lukewarm Milk

130ml Lukewarm Water

1 Jar Strawberry Jam

Caster Sugar, For Rolling

2 Large Bottles Vegetable Oil, For Frying

Essential Equipment

Slotted Spoon

Fillable Squeezy Bottle or Piping Bag

If you don't have a deep fat fryer:

Deep Saucepan

Sugar Thermometer/Probe

Method

1. Put the flour, sugar, butter, yeast, salt, eggs, milk, and 100ml of the water into a large mixing bowl, and with your hands, combine to form a firm but not hard or dry dough. 

2.Slowly add the rest of the water, working it into the dough, then gently work the dough for 4 minutes in the bowl - or use the dough hook on a free-standing mixer at a low speed. The dough should be soft and start to get a bit stretchy but not sticky.

3. If using an electric mixer with a dough hook, put it on a medium low speed for 10 minutes, otherwise turn the dough on lightly floured work surface and knead for 10 minutes to make a very smooth and quite elastic dough. Clean and lightly oil the mixing bowl and place the dough into it, and cover with a damp tea towel. Leave to rise at room temperature for an hour.

4. Once risen, whilst the dough is still in the bowl, give it a light punch, or 'knock back', turn onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 20 equal balls. Place them onto lightly floured trays, slightly spaced out, and leave to rise for another hour.

5. Toward the end of the rising time, heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep saucepan to 180C. Once risen, if the doughnuts have slightly flattened, roll them into balls before carefully dropping a few at a time into the oil. Leave to go golden brown on one side before turning. It will only take around 3-5 to brown, so pay attention to them.

6. As soon as one is done, take it out with a slotted spoon to remove excess oil, and immediately roll in caster sugar. Leave to cool completely.

7. Whilst waiting for them to cool, sieve the jam to remove seeds and lumps, and place into a squeezy bottle or piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle. Once cooled, make a deep cut using a small knife in each of the doughnuts and fill with jam.

Enjoy :)

Jammie Dodgers: My Take

'If it 'aint broke, don't fix it' - Bert Lance. I decided to take on the challenge of making a variation to jammie dodgers, and it actually worked quite well. Essentially I have made a brown sugar shortbread biscuit with reduced strawberry jam in the middle and a lemon icing on top. This recipe made about 32 biscuit sandwiches for me as I experimented with quantities of ingredients, so get ready for multiple trips to the oven!




 

 Ingredients

For the Biscuits:

225g Unsalted Butter, Softened

100g Brown Sugar

100g Caster Sugar

412g Plain Flour

1 Egg, Beaten

2tsp Baking Powder

2tbsp Milk

1/2tsp Vanilla Extract

Pinch of Salt

For the Jam Filling:

340g Strawberry/Raspberry Jam

Few Drops of Lemon Juice

For the Lemon Icing:

150g Icing Sugar, sieved

1tsp Lemon Juice

Method

1. Beat the butter until creamy and fluffy, then add both of the sugars gradually. Mix until very light in colour and texture. Gradually add the egg, beating well after each addition.

2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt, and add to the butter mix gradually, alternating with the milk, mixing at a low speed between each addition. Add vanilla extract. 

3. Divide dough into to two portions, wrap in cling film and chill for 20 mins. 

4. Preheat oven to 180C/fan 160C and line a few baking trays with greaseproof paper. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8 of an inch thickness. Using a 2 inch cookie cutter, cut out as many rounds as possible, and reroll and cut the remaining pastry until as much as possible is used up. In half of your biscuits, either using an apple corer, or a smaller cutter, cut out a hole in the middle.

5. Place biscuits onto baking trays and bake for about 10 mins or until slightly browned. When they come out the oven they will be soft, but they will harden. Cool on a wire rack.

6. To prepare the jam: pass all of the jam through a sieve to remove lumps and seeds. Then place into a saucepan with a few drops of lemon juice, and heat on a medium-low heat until steaming, then let it simmer on a lower heat for 2 mins. Chill in the fridge while preparing the icing.

7. To prepare the icing: Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice to form a loose paste - add more icing sugar/lemon juice if necessary. Put the icing into a piping bag with a small plain nozzle. Place all of the cooled biscuits with the hole in the middle on a sheet of greaseproof paper bunched together, and pipe long lines across all of them. Leave to set.

8. Take the jam out of the fridge and lightly spread the biscuits without the hole with a palette knife. Once the icing has set on the tops, place them on top, giving it a light push, so some of the jam will move to the hole in the middle. Add a drop of jam into the hole of each biscuit. 

9. Leave the biscuits in the fridge for the jam to firm up, and they will be ready. Enjoy :)