Recipes

Japanese Curry Powder

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

Japanese Curry Powder

 

Every year (ish) my friends and I attempt a ‘curry season kick off’ lunch. In the past we’ve focussed on a single dish (pork vindaloo, rogan josh) but this year Andy suggested looking at a region, to allow the cooks a bit more flexibility. As some friends of ours are set to visit Japan in a month or so, my brainwave was Japanese curry.

Yes – Japanese curry is a ‘thing’ . While perhaps not the dish most representative of Japanese cuisine for those of us in the west, it is very popular in Japan. Unsurprisingly, it was introduced to Japan in the late nineteenth century by the British and since then has undergone something of a transformation.

You can actually buy Japanese curry roux in most large Australian supermarkets, but I was basing my contribution to this lunch around a recipe Andy had cooked several times previously. This recipe doesn’t make use of a roux and just specifies that one should use some Japanese curry powder.

As Andy was off at work, I didn’t have the luxury of asking him what he’d used in the past (it transpires that the answer to that question was ‘garam masala’ …), so I immediately googled, hoping we had enough spices to cobble together my own approximation.

Happily, we did – I used a combination of sources, some of which only specified ratios, some which specified spices we didn’t have, to create the following.

I won’t be posting the entire curry recipe for some time (we, er, might have eaten it without taking any photos) but I thought I would write up the curry powder – if only so that next time I am not left scratching my head.

This curry powder will work in any situation where a recipe (Japanese or otherwise) calls for curry powder. As it contains very little chilli it’s perfect for anyone who wants some complexity of flavour without heat.

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Japanese Curry Powder

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • ½ tsp chilli powder or cayenne pepper
  • 1 clove
  • ¼ tsp fennel seeds (optional)

Instructions

  1. If any of your spices are whole, put all of the ingredients in a spice grinder and grind, otherwise just mix together.
  2. Store in a clean jar in a dark drawer or cupboard.
https://eatingadelaide.com/japanese-curry-powder/

Basic Lemonade Scone Recipe

- Alex Prichard 1 Comment

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I haven’t made scones for absolutely ages. I can remember the last occasion I made them but I can’t quite place a date, so that means it was a long time ago.

A friend back in England, let’s call him Chris THOR (apparently Chris wasn’t rock & roll enough!), has been quizzing me on scones and what better way to answer the questions than to make them myself?

I do actually have a Green & Gold Cookbook, which I’m sure has the be-all and end-all of scone recipes, but I couldn’t exactly email that off to the other side of the world so I found this simple lemonade scone recipe and suggested he give it a try.

Goodness me – hasn’t there half been a flurry of questions ensuing from that suggestion! Chris THOR was thrown off (quite legitimately, in my opinion) by the fact that the recipe uses cup measures, rather than ‘proper’ measures. But, it does redeem itself by not mix and matching its weights and measures … and baking is all about ratios.

For the benefit of anyone reading who finds themselves frustrated by the use of the cup measure, here’s a brief explanation.

1 cup = 250 mL
(that’s a metric cup, of course, your cup may be a US customary cup then it’s 237 mL … or perhaps it’s a US legal cup and then it’s 240 mL and if it’s an Imperial cup then it’s 284 mL)

For reference, whenever I say ‘cup’ in a recipe on Eating Adelaide (and I do try to use it only for wet ingredients) I mean 250 mL.

I’d prefer dry ingredients always be weighed out but a metric cup is approximately 120 – 150 g of flour.

However, in the case of this recipe, I think we can roll with the cup measure because there are just three ingredients and it’s all about the ratios.

The real trick with scones (and this is something the original post goes into in a LOT of detail – I encourage you to read it if you’re not feeling confident) is to work VERY VERY lightly. You do not need to crack out fancy kitchen kit. You need a bowl, a cup measure and a knife. Simply cut the mixture together, tip it out on to the bench and pull it together with a very light touch. If you can avoid a rolling pin, do. And keep the dough quite high – the Internet Chef says 2.5 – 3 cm – I didn’t manage quite that high but mine still rose well and were lovely and light.

The real bonus with this recipe (besides the fact that it’s just THREE ingredients – have I already mentioned that?!) is that there is no baking powder in this recipe so you don’t end up with that nasty metallic flavour/feeling on the back of your teeth … even if you do eat two or three!

This recipe makes about 10 scones roughly 5 cm in diameter.  It’s easy to scale up – just keep the ratios the same and maintain your light touch!

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Basic Lemonade Scone Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1½ cups self raising flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ cup lemonade
  • ½ cup cream

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 220°C fan and place a small tray in to heat up.
  2. To make the scones, put the flour in a bowl, mix in the salt and then form a well.
  3. Add the lemonade and cream and mix it together by cutting through with an ordinary table knife.
  4. Once the mixture has come together (it will be crumbly), tip it out onto the bench and lightly work it together. You may not even need to put additional flour on the bench.
  5. Pat the dough into a disk about an inch thick (for the highest scones - thinner it will be OK but don't go flattening it out - it's not pastry!) and cut out your scones.
  6. Remove the heated tray from the oven, dust lightly with flour and put the scones on the tray.
  7. Place them touching each other for support as they rise.
  8. Lightly brush with milk (the original recipe suggests egg yolk and cream, but I already have egg whites which need using!) and bake for 12-15 minutes. In my oven, 12 minutes was spot on.
  9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray a little before moving to a rack.
  10. Eat warm with jam and cream or buttered.
https://eatingadelaide.com/basic-lemonade-scone-recipe/

Leek, Potato and Blue Cheese Soup

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

Leek, potato & blue cheese soup

For a week or so, winter threatened to make an appearance here in Adelaide. But then it disappeared and we’ve had the warmest couple of May weeks for about 100 years.

Which is a shame because I love winter food. I not only love eating it but I love that so often it is the type of food you can prepare well in advance and then just pop into the oven after a long day at work, leaving the cook with nothing more strenuous to do than crack open a bottle of red.

Earlier this week we revisited the leek, chicken and hazelnut pie (yes, all the way back in 2009!) and I’d had to buy a whole bunch of leeks.

So now I’m busy using them up. Which isn’t a problem because I love leeks. I also love soup and while it’s not Andy’s favourite thing to eat (by a long stretch) he’ll tolerate it in small doses.

I’d also been thinking about how I hadn’t really used any of my cookbooks for a while so while I didn’t need a recipe for leek and potato soup I had a quick flick through for inspiration. Regular readers will know I have something of a soft spot for James Martin so I was pleased to find a leek, potato and Stilton soup recipe in his book The Collection. An extra bonus was that it was even less work than I was considering!

His recipe needed a few tweaks to suit what was actually available so it’s my version that follows. The critical thing here is that it’s a one pot, boil it all up trick. Go easy with the blue cheese: they vary in strength and if you add too much you’ll really notice it!

This recipe will serve four.  Make sure you have plenty of good, crusty bread to hand!

 

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Leek, Potato and Blue Cheese Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken stock pot (or cube)
  • 700 mL hot water
  • 1 medium sized leek, sliced in half (split) and chopped
  • ½ large onion, roughly chopped
  • 1 large clove of garlic, chopped
  • 1 large potato, peeled and chopped
  • 100g blue cheese, chopped
  • sour cream
  • parsley

Instructions

  1. Place stock pot (or cube) and water in a large pot and bring to the boil.
  2. Add the leek, onion, garlic and potato to the stock and cook covered (you don't want the liquid evaporating!) until the vegetables are soft.
  3. Add half the blue cheese and stir to melt. Then blitz the soup and check the flavour. You need to check the strength of the blue cheese flavour AFTER blitzing as it's the only way of guaranteeing the flavour is through the soup.
  4. If you want to add more cheese, go ahead.
  5. Finish by correcting the seasoning - it's unlikely you'll need salt though you might want to pass the pepper separately.
  6. Serve the soup hot, with a quenelle (that's a dollop!) of sour cream and a sprinkling of parsley.
https://eatingadelaide.com/leek-potato-blue-cheese-soup/