March Cookery Book Club - Made in India and Prashad

[HuevosRancheros]

Welcome to the Mumsnet Cookery Book Club :)

Every month we choose two books to cook from - we aim to cook at least two new recipes during the month, reporting back to the group on how we got on.

This month our books are Made in India by Meera Sodha and Prashad by Kaushy Patel

Recipes are also available on line if you don't have access to the books - Meera Sodha's here and Prashad's here

If you would like to see what we cooked last month, the thread is here

Everyone is welcome, don't be shy :)

That'll be Kindle not indie.

Barbeasty we have habanero powder on our table as a condiment, having had to restrain my naturally tendency to pile on the chilli for years now. The habenero from Seasoned Pioneers has a great flavour and aviods the raw powdery feel, we couldn't live without it!

Thanks.

If only she was like 2yr old DS, who likes to grind pepper and eat it.....

Tonight I made the mustard prawns, beans with mustard and sesame, kuchambur (without any chili) and masala chips. All delicious- although I got to putting the spices on the chips and couldn't find the chili powder or ground cumin. So I sprinkled on some cayenne which was good. Might use garam masala tomorrow for DD.

I have the masala roast chicken prepped in the fridge, and I think we'll have more of the tomatoes, the squash curry, masala chips and then see if I can be bothered with the beans (probably not) with it.

I sort of made the tamarind and coconut chicken curry on Friday - except I used quorn instead of chicken.
Maybe that made a huge difference flavour-wise, but I found it quite bland tbh. I sprinkled a little garam masala over at the end to give it a bit more oomph.

I also took our leftover daily dal out of the freezer and had that with it - and it had gone really clovey! :(
When I made it, I loved it - I had taken the cloves out right at the end of cooking, not leaving them in for the rest of the day while I let it sit and the flavours develop. Despite this, and despite it tasting perfect on the day, the clove flavour has become really strong in the freezer
So I would advise leaving them out, it was just too overpowering :(

The roast chicken was nice, but I don't think the meat that wasn't in contact with the paste was any tastier than my normal herby roast chicken.

The squash curry was nice, and even better when I had a sneaky bowl just now cold from the fridge with yoghurt and left over chicken. Think I might repeat for my lunch tomorrow with the last of the squash.

I'm going the whole hog this week to use up some of the (magic mumsnet) chicken and doing a pilau and making the chicken samosas with roast chicken instead of mince.

And a sprinkle of garam masala on the masala chips went down a storm with DD.

We made the Potato Tikki this weekend really good but a bit oily perhaps fried, will try baking them next time. Delicious with the tamarind chutney and mint yoghurt.

Also the fire roasted aubergine but this was way way to garlicky for me and I have not got Gas at them moment so blackened them on a griddle pan and they were not done enough. least successful recipe so far and a surprise as i live babganoush and though it was going to be an indian version. having said that DH made this so maybe something went astray in the cooking (sh!)

We had lots of chicken left too Barbeasty but we used it all in sandwiches with more tamarind chutney ( a little bit addicted to this).

Huevos interesting about the cloves in the dal will take your advice and leave them out as they are tricky little beasts.

Oh yes cocktails great plan I love anything Triple sec/cointreau based so White lady/Margherita/poinsettia my favourites Nigella really good for these would be good to discover some other sources. loving the sound of the passion fruit margherita in Wahaca I must have tried this as love that book/restaurant/passion fruit but can remember. hmmm maybe they were really really good and i have blanked it out?

I'm making the Tamarind and Coconut curry tonight - given that Huevos found it a bit bland I might be more generous with the flavouring than the book suggests, will serve it with roasted cauliflower and rice.

Did the poppadom chaat last night. A few steps to it but all v easy and can be done in stages. It was much fresher tasting than I imagined it would be and we enjoyed nibbling away at it. It would be a good starter at a summery spicy BBQ or something.

Update on the Coconut and Tamarind chicken curry, the tamarind favour was too subtle and I add 2 teaspoons. I only added 200ml of coconut milk and i need to reduce it down to get a thicker sauce. The flavour of the curry leaves didn't come through either - kids liked it, it's very Korma like and it was pleasant but I want more oomph....imo it needs something more.

Just bought Diana Henry change of appetite - despite resolving not to-in my defense I had a hair appointment which I popped to buy a good food mag for when I spotted it in tescos at £8 ( damaged cover) surely an £8 book I'll keep is better than a £5 mag which will end up chucked . That's what I'll be telling my husband anyway

There is no hope

I fear you are right huevos- any independent observer would note that we are all co dependent addicts invested in normalising each other's addiction in order to convince ourselves there's nothing wrong

I fear you're right. I bought it on Kindle.

I also fear...

Oh I give up. *also

This exchange made me laugh! You need to pick a book I don't own to legitimise my buying it.

I've got Diana Henry and liked look of it but have not cooked much from it - so this will be useful - though I'm still on Made In India (keep making the same curries...)..

Mmmm, the coconut and tamarind chicken curry ( with turkey breast as it was reduced ) was lovely- though taking into account previous reviews I used double chilli/tamarind . Dh and I loved it- too hot for dc but I imagine it would be perfect for them with the actual quantity of chilli as per recipe

Well Cantdo, I have just bought Artisan Vegan Cheese by Miyoko Schinner, do you already have that?
Maybe a little too niche....
pregnant that is an alarmingly good description of us!

Quite niche, yes! Not just vegan cheese, but artisan vegan cheese I clearly don't have a problem in comparison, I don't have any cheese books. Never mind all the random books I do have

Lol, yes, the "Artisan" bit made me laugh, but it gets rave reviews from all vegan sites, and it is cheese/butter that stands between me and happy veganism, so I thought I'd give it a whirl :)

Well, eggs are an issue too, but I think I need to go to the chicken keeping section of Mumsnet for that, not the cooking bit

Well that if you're going to make vegan cheese it'd better be good so artisan is encouraging imo! I think I'd really miss cheese too. And eggs for baking. DD is allergic (though much improved, they often grow out of it), and I haven't enjoyed egg free baking much.