Recipes With... Miss India!

I'm back after a little hiatus, with April 2022 fading away I really ought to introduce 'Recipes With... Miss India!' 'Masala Chai' was brewed and a Delhi style 'Butter Chicken' was cooked! Ghee? Yes, I used ghee for the very first time in my life! 'Paneer Matar' had me shunning meat for once, 'Miss India' changed things up for certain! 2022 has been about cooking! Let's cook it!  

Tea time for who? Now, before 'Miss India' came to town I didn't make having a cup of milky tea a priority. Quite the opposite, I would usually drink freshly ground coffee or a black loose leaf Chinese tea instead. Backtracking to my time spent in India during December 2018, I wanted to recreate those cardamom spiced milky 'Masala Chai' cups without the Indian location. Making the best of my local high street, Bilston served up all the ingredients I needed for my teatime with a difference. With the help of YouTube as per usual, I found out an easy 'Chai' recipe that didn't require any ready made Masala mix. Boiling up a pan of milk with a little water, I went on to add a generous amount of ground cardamom pods with cinnamon and ground ginger. Using the powdered ginger had me saving those pennies because a fresh piece had me looking twice at the price! Grounded the pods and powdered spices together had my mix complete. The standard tea bags infused along with the homemade mix. It was rather technical! Easy is lazy! Too right! 

After the tea mixture rose to the boil, I simply strained the almost 'Masala Chai' through a sieve into a glass jug. Putting the excess ingredients into the bin, it was finally teatime that Friday afternoon. No biscuits or chocolate would be accompanying my cup of homemade 'Masala Chai', absolutely not! I had bought some 'Indian Sweets' to enjoy, another sweet memory from my time spent in India and also from visits to England's Coventry and Leicester. I'm going to be brutally honest, I didn't take any photos during that confectionary purchase at the sweet centre, the names have escaped my memories. The taste test had me lost for words in the best way, the names didn't matter to me because each sweet had me thinking of the dentist! Getting the plan together didn't cost me my whole budget, the sweets were reasonably priced. The 'Masala Chai' and sweets both complimented each other without any reservations to be made. My Indian style teatime had me transported back to India without a doubt, serving up those English days out.

After getting curious at my local Wolverhampton Sikh Gurdwara, the 'Langar' had served up some seriously tasty Paneer fixings! I wanted to cook up something 'meat free' for once in my very life! Yes! Making things easier for myself, I bought one frozen pack of 'Paneer' from the same sweet centre where I had bought the 'Indian Sweets' from. I wasn't about to waste time because the previously mentioned 'afternoon treat' and Paneer meal would feature during the same day. Fresh tomatoes and an assortment of spices melted away in the pan with a healthy measure of tomato purée because no way would I be using any tinned tomatoes or would I be whizzing them down in any machine! No! I was sure! Fenugreek seeds and garam masala were both sparingly used along with a healthy measure of 'Ghee'. I had never before used ghee, it was something that at first smelt awful but as time grew closer to that cooking day, the nutty aromas could be detected. Really, I had no idea what the dish would turn out as. It was truly a gamble! 

Those garden peas came in really easy, I added them to the pan but not before I had pre-fried the defrosted 'Paneer' slices. The fried slices of Paneer were thoughtfully rested before they were added to the bubbling 'Matar Paneer' in the pan. The peas acted as a crossover with the paneer. I had tried paneer in a different form at the Sikh Gurdwara in Wolverhampton, already knowing it was like an 'Indian Cheese', I had full comprehension how it would eventually taste. Choosing to enjoy this one time dinner with handful of chapatis had to be done, of course I would be eating this dish with my hands because using cutlery wasn't a mood for me that evening. With the meal complete, I sat down to enjoy my first attempt at cooking such a dish, being bias I have to say that it was delicious! Would I cook this dish again? 100% I would, although I would like to cook up other paneer dishes in the near future. Miss India had me on some kind of cooking adventure with those new ingredients, 'Recipes With...' continues to take me around the world! Alright, I! 

After taking a weeks break from 'Miss India', we reunited the following weekend for the third instalment within 'Recipes With...'. Visiting a different local 'Indian Sweet Centre' for the first had me impressed, I bagged a couple onion bhajees and some vegetable samosas. I had the idea to make something lighter for that evening meal with a drink in mind also. Finding the rest of my ingredients at my local ALDI supermarket, I was set up for the evenings cooking. Whipping up a minty fresh homemade 'Raita', that light 'coleslaw-like' addition sat pretty in the fridge whilst I moved onto the next part of that weekend meal. During my time living in Beijing, China, I would always order 'Bombay Potatoes' from my then local 'Indian Takeaway' without fail. They were my go to dish instead of rice, it came with the territory to mix things up when in a country where rice is consumed with almost every meal. During the research period for 'Miss India's' dishes, I started to crave that 2017/2018 takeaway dish! BBC Good Food came through again! 

Throwing the potatoes into boil, they were then set aside as I put together an assortment of spices and seeds, the formula wasn't too dissimilar compared with the other tomato based dishes. 'Miss India' had me keeping to a familiar base, I was able to find a common ground with ease. Coriander added the flavour by far, things blended together once the potatoes had been reintroduced. Generous dashes of garam masala had to be used along with some Fenugreek seeds because I wanted to bring back a known flavour to my homemade 'Bombay Potatoes'. A 'Mango Lassi?' Yes, I blended yoghurt, milk, ground cardamom pods along with some honey, with the addition of the fresh mango the 'Lassi' was able to take its true form. It was a little long winded but the end product looked and tasted like magic to me. Those Beijing Indian takeaways had me brought to my England based kitchen, along with the savoury shop bought bhajees and samosas they worked famously with the fresh raita. The 'Lassi' tasted insanely good once chilled.

A curry dish had to feature within 'Miss India's' blog feature, I owed it to myself to cook it completely from scratch! I decided to cook a Delhi style 'Butter Chicken' because I had enjoyed that dish several times during my December 2018 week in Delhi, India. Shunning the shop-bought jars of curry sauce, I made my own base from a mixture of spices and base ingredients. Using a liberal amount of single cream and butter, I ensured by 'Butter Chicken' had a rich sauce. I didn't focus on measurements nor the exact constraints of the recipe, I broke the rules slightly. Cooking my rice with ground cardamon pods had to be done, I wanted it to have a distinct taste without the additions not overpowering it completely. After marinating my chicken a few days previous, it had been in the freezer until I finally got my act together. Baking that defrosted already marinated chicken didn't take a lot of brain power to execute. As the chicken thighs baked in the oven nicely, I was able to get the rice and curry sauce finished. 'Miss India!' 

Buttery and ready to eat, I dished up my homestyle 'Butter Chicken' with some cardamon infused rice. I had shelved those 'Naan Bread' plans for the final segment of 'Miss India' with much anticipation because I'm just like that! Settling down to that home-cooked curry dish had me tasting more flavours from my Indian trip, 2022's 'Recipes With...' has kept me on my toes with Poland, Jamaica and now India keeping my palette topped up with exotic flavours. That 'Butter Chicken' was amazing, I already knew that it would look appealing and nobody will ever try to say anything different! The teatime had me feeling like that dental appointment come sooner than planned! Getting more Paneer back in my life is a must, I won't be mad to replace meat occasionally because variety is the spice of my life! 100%, no curry of mine will ever be cooked from a pre-mixed shop bought situation, I want to make the whole meal myself! 'Miss India' had my hometown kitchen smelling so good! Eurovision looms, beckoning 'Miss Israel!' 

Miss India, Thank You! 

Desperately Seeking Adventure