Lamb with Roasted Cumin Crust, Smoked Eggplant Puree and Spicy Masala Sauce

From Spice by Christine Manfield, page 186, 187

What a moment! The dish actually looked like the picture from the book. Must be a first for me for any recipe I've ever cooked.

This dish was really about the masala sauce. Not one of the main recipes but a complex one never-the-less. Somewhat like a demi-glace but south-east-asian style.

The sauce was very rich and tasty. I've never made anything like it before, as well as never having made a beef stock before (thought I've made chicken stock a few times now...)

The beef stock is made and then other spices and ingredients are added before boiling down further until it becomes thick and rich.

Being the big fan of sauces that I am I made a full quantity of sauce for 6, and then cooked dishes for 2, giving myself a generous serving of sauce (3 or 4 times what I was meant to serve for myself). Much to my surprise I couldn't finish it! It was very rich and tasty and so packed with flavour without being heavy of any type of seasoning or distinct flavour like salt or sweet or sour.

Definitely one technique to add to the repertoire.

Smoked Eggplant Puree

From Spice by Christine Manfield, page 198

This dish is also known as baba ghannouj - which we often refer to as 'eggplant dip'. This is used in the recipe book as a component of other more complex dishes.

Yep, very tasty.

Unfortunately our garden was all out of eggplants so we had to buy some from the shops. They did however seem to be unnaturally shiny.

And it's always great to know you've got willing spice grinders on hand.

But here's the trick with the recipe - the eggplant needs to be grilled over a flame. Not roasted in the oven as I mistakenly assumed at the beginning.

So how does one roast eggplant over a flame for 20 minutes without getting sore muscles or burnt skin? Easy! Turns out there's more that one use for a wooden spoon. The other end comes in quite handy as well...

...there's also more than one use for a spice grinder...

...and after 20 minutes of flame exposure and turning the eggplant was roasted, smoked (as the skin had started to burn, which incidentally gave off a cigar smell?!?!) and soft all the way through. Perfect for peeling.

Happy cooking!

Beef and Potato Rendang

From Spice by Christine Manfield page 178, 179

This is one dish where I decided to keep the heat up to the prescribed level.

The kids had steak and rice for dinner so the curry was the sole domain of the more mature palette.

...however the more mature guests I did have over that night weren't that hot on having a lot of chilli. "Oh well, too late now" I thought as I ground 6 large dried chillies into the spice mix. I think we used to call that 'accidently on purpose' when I was a kid.

Interesting about the result though... Plenty of "can't talk - eating" time and not much left at the end of the night.

Interesting comment from one - that the spice was certainly there but because of the complexity of the flavours it didn't seem to matter, or at least didn't get in the way. Such is the way with a proper made-from-scratch curry it would seem.

Certainly very tasty I thought. (but then again I keep saying all of these dishes are tasty...)

One thing I will try next time - the slow-cooking time for the meat wasn't enough for me. A lot of the liquid was left (which was meant to evaporate during the slow cooking) and the meat was tender but could have been more so. Maybe a difference in the heat of the stove or the type of the pot but mine still had plenty of liquid left at serving time.

Not that I'm complaining really - it was very tasty mixed in with the rice.

Happy cooking!

Spiced Coconut Chicken Curry

From Spice by Christine Manfield page 165

Wow what an unusual dish! Maybe because of the modifications that I made or that's just maybe the way it is...

The dish is a coconut curry but calls for fresh grated coconut rather than coconut cream or milk.

I didn't have fresh grated coconut handy so I've used dry grated coconut and tried to re-hydrate it to make the equivalent.

The result was that the texture was quite unusual - very grainy as the coconut seemed to take in the moisture but retained its shape through much processing and cooking. At the very same time the flavours were great though, in the style of a really well balanced curry.

This is the first time I cooked with coconut oil. The smell is very different, or perhaps just very unfamiliar, so initially I thought maybe I'd broken something. Thankfully we had a friend over who just happened to grow up in India and is thus very familiar with the smell of coconut oil, and reassured me that everything was still on track.

The curry is slow cooked which seemed to soften the chicken nicely and develop the flavours well.

Happy cooking!

Lamb Masala

From Spice by Christine Manfield page 173

I've never been one for marinades (or is that never been good at marinades...) but this one has got me thinking.

The marinade itself was quite thick and chock full of onion.

But in 2 hours all of the flavours really penetrated the meat.

The name of the recipe made me think it was a lamb curry. A lot of the flavours were the same, but the dish was different. Using the lamb backstrap was an eye opener as well. Not sure I've used that cut of meat before. Very melt in the mouth.

I'm still getting used to the whole pan-frying and then putting in the oven thing. Since I wasn't so sure I cooked the meat for the prescribed amount of time (I used a stopwatch just to be sure...). The meat was medium to medium rare which is the way I like it cooked.

My 7-year old's comment was that it was 'really yummy' and it 'jumped out of the box and ran away with the taste'.

If there's any other 7-year olds out there could you please post your translation for me. Overall it sounds good though.

Quite the complement considering the tough crowd that night.

Served this as suggested with the Onion Nigella Bread and the Cucumber Yogurt Salad with Nigella. Quite the treat.

Happy cooking!