Banana Bread

This morning, I overheard my mother-in-law complain that a big bunch of bananas had started to go black and she’d have to throw them away. This is when I realised my brain officially operates like a Foodie’s brain now: casually mention any random item and the food database that is locked up in my skull springs into action, connecting it to tried recipes, recipes still-to-try, and those recipes that always get shoved to the side because they require some kind of special ingredient.

Banana bread kind of falls into that last category. I guess technically the Food Police would not arrest you if you made it with normal, ripe bananas, but generally this recipe calls for overripe ones to get the best texture, flavour, etc.

Here’s a great tip on how to ripen bananas quickly.

Here’s what our overripe bananas looked like, but you don’t have to wait till the ones you use turn THIS black. As soon as the skin starts to blacked, they will be good enough to use

The recipe I’ve used is one from Closet Cooking. I love this site and have tried many recipes from it, including Chocolate Zuchinni Bread, Greek Stuffed Tomatoes and Peppers and Eggplant Wrapped Kebabs. All turned out delicious. The only thing I changed in the banana bread recipe was the brown sugar to white sugar, simply because I didn’t have any brown sugar to hand, no other reason. I also cut down the amount of flour slightly.

Ingredients:

1 and 3/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 and 1/3 cups mashed, overripe bananas*

*mashing the bananas is easy. Simply peel them and put into a bowl, then using the back of a fork, mash them up.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees farenheit).

In one bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, and set aside.

Seperately, whisk the butter and sugar together till well combined and creamy. The add the eggs, one at a time and whisk thoroughly. Then, stir in the mashed bananas.

Now fold in the flour mix, little by little, and pour your batter into a lined loaf tin.

Glossy banana bread batter, ready for the oven

Bake the bread for approximately an hour. You’ll know its done when a toothpick inserted into it comes out clean. Wait till it cools before you cut yourself a slice and enjoy with a hot cup of tea/coffee!

Soft, squishy, delicious banana bread

Fried Beef with Chillies – Chinese Style

Once upon a time, my father-in-law used to own a Chinese restaurant. Though Islamabad has no shortage of good places to eat, his restaurant was one of the first to serve authentic Chinese food, as he had travelled to China himself to hire the head chef. It soon became compulsory for all our family events to be held there: birthdays, welcome-to-Pakistan parties, leaving parties, graduation, wedding and anniversary parties!

That’s where  I first had this dish, which they called Beef Chilli Dry. I always found the name kind of amusing; it was as if a bunch of them sat down and said “what shall we name this? Beef, check. Chilli, check. Consistency, dry. Let’s just call it Beef Chilli Dry.”

Soon after I got married, he sold the business and along with it, my hopes of lazy ordering-in 80% of the week! After scouring the internet and some experimenting, I think I’ve finally got a recipe close enough to what we used to eat at the much missed restaurant.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg (500g) boneless beef/veal*
1 bulb of garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 tsp sugar
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp Chinese salt (a.k.a Ajino Moto)
1/2 tsp black pepper
Salt to taste
Oil (enough to shallow fry)
Green chillies, 6-8 depending on size and desired spice level
1 tbsp finely chopped garlic

*In Pakistan, you would buy “undercut.” Elsewhere, simply ask your butcher for a tenderloin cut of meat. I usually go for veal, but regular beef if perfectly fine.

Veal undercut - slightly frozen, which makes it easier to cut.

First of all, cut your meat into paper-thin slices. You could cut it lengthways if you prefer, but I like to cut it into square-ish pieces. Make sure you use a sharp knife and get the pieces as thin as possible. It helps to make sure the meat it still somewhat frozen for this.

Then place your sliced meat in a bowl.

Add to this the garlic, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, salt, Chinese salt and black pepper. Stir well to cover all of the meat and leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes. Alternatively, leave it in the fridge overnight.

Don't be afraid to use this large quantity of garlic, it really does work well with beef and does not leave a strong aftertaste.

While the meat is marinating, go ahead and prepare your green chillies. I used around 8 altogether, but these were not very spicy. If they were smaller and spicier, I would’ve only used 6.

Chop off the tops and tails, and cut the chillies into large rectanglular pieces.

When your ready to cook, pour some oil (not too much, 3-4 tbsp should suffice) into a large pan/wok, and fry the beef on high heat till it changes colour, is just over half-cooked and any water it releases begins to dry up. You can do this in batches if all of it won’t fit in your pan in one go; best not to overcrowd the meat at this stage.

Take out the meat and set aside. Then, add your chopped ginger to the pan and fry for a few seconds and add the half cooked meat, along with the sliced chillies. Toss and turn so that everything is well-mixed and cook for a few minutes till the dish is of a dry-ish consistency, and the meat is fully cooked.

At this point, try a piece and adjust seasoning if required.

Serving suggestions:

This is a side dish rather than a main, and goes well with pretty much anything, though I usually try to serve it with a veg/chicken dish; for example, chicken chow mein.

Leftovers make a great addition to omlettes or pasta (I’ve tried both: I chopped some already cooked leftover pieces even smaller and put it into my omlette mixture along with tomatoes, mushrooms, fresh corriander and some spring onions. I also put some pieces into some pasta, mixed with brocolli, green peppers and arrabiata sauce)

Here’s another meal that this makes a delicious side dish to:

Simple basmati rice pilaf with spicy mixed lentils

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’m guilty of having neglected this blog lately… Here’s the thing: the more time that passed, the more I felt like I need to come back with a Bang! Something amazing, some blow-your-mind kinda recipe. And (naturally) nothing I made on a day-to-day basis seemed to live up to that!

When I managed to FINALLY perfect the art of the chocolate chip cookie, however, it was so well recieved I thought my family members might give me a round of applause! And so I figured that even though its a classic that everyone probably already has a tried and tested recipe for, it still deserves some blogging about.

Now, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs with my cookie making. When I eventually made a great batch of cookies, I remembered something a baker once told me: “get to know your oven!”

I met this particular baker while I was taking evening Arabic language classes at City University in London a few years ago. I was dealing with a lot of lawyers in the Middle East for work at the time and figured knowing a few basics would help. I met the most diverse group of people during those few weeks: from a retired English lady doing volunteer work in Palestine, to Chinese journalists, a Polish lady who traveled all the way from Brighton to take this class as a hobby, and a Spanish baker!

I took the opportunity to grill (not literally!) the baker for baking tips, and she told me that when she first started taking it seriously, she bought herself a small electric oven and just baked to her heart’s content. She would halve recipes and tried loads until she knew her oven inside out. “Every oven is different,” she said, making ovens sound human!

This totally makes sense to me now. Whenever I try a recipe, I know to adjust the oven temp according to my own oven and often change how high the rack is halfway through baking, and make other little adjustments.

As for my recipe, you’ll notice that though traditionally brown sugar is also included, I omitted it and went for white sugar only. I also put a little less sugar than is normally used (most recipes call for 3/4 cup each of brown and white sugar) so if you like your biscuits very sweet, feel free to increase the amount by an extra 1/2 cup, but to be honest, 1 cup is more than enough for a great taste.

Ingredients:

2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
2 cup chocolate chips

Line your baking tray with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 165-170 degrees celcius (329-338 degrees farenheit), depending on your oven (I use an electric and go for 170).

In one bowl, put the flour, baking soda and salt, and stir together with a fork or whisk till they are well combined.

Seperately, beat the butter with the sugar till its soft and the sugar has mixed in well. Add the eggs one by one and then the vanilla essence, whisking to combine all the time. Then fold in the flour, in 2-3 additions with a spatula, taking care not to over mix. Stir it just till the flour has mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips.

You will have much more cookie dough than this; this is what's left after three consecutive days of cookie baking in my kitchen!

*Important: at this point, put the batter in the fridge (after you’ve eaten a spoonful of course!) or alternatively, this batter will freeze well too. I would say refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Put a teaspoon of batter  in your palm and roll it into a ball. Pop it onto your tray, and that’s going to turn into a delicious cookie soon! You should leave some space between cookies as they will spread as they bake.

Finally, bake for about 15-17 minutes. Take the cookies out but leave the oven on. Put them on a wire rack to cool completely. Don’t worry if they seem too soft as they harden as they cool. Then, grab your batter and go ahead and make another batch.

What to do with Leftover Roast Chicken

Ordering too much from Nandos is a bit of a common problem with me! In fact, I kind of do it on purpose just because you can do so much with leftover roast/grilled chicken! Even when I make roast chicken at home, I tend to make just that little bit too much so I can indulge in it the day after as well

Everyone will have their own ideas/tips on this subject. Here are my top five things to do with chicken leftovers:

1. Sandwich: this one is pretty obvious, right? This must be the most popular thing to do with leftover roast meat! I like to shred mine up, and mix it in a bowl with mayo, a tiny bit of mustard and some very finely chopped capsicum (bell pepper). I find that the capsicum flavour works so nicely with the mayo and chicken. It has a kind of sharpness of its own that comes through and lifts the flavour completely!

2. Stir fry: if I have a lot of chicken leftover, or some breast meat, sometimes I like to cut it into thin strips and add it to a stir fry. In addition to the chicken, usually my stir fries consist of carrots, capsicums, french beans, brocoli, mushrooms, and cabbage. I keep seasoning to a minimum (literally just salt, pepper, garlic and soy sauce). Serve with white rice…

3. Omlette: if I have spicier leftover roast, I love to chop it up and add it to my breakfast omlette! You can go all out and add tomatoes, onion, corrainder leaves, even some grated cheese. The chicken works great with any/all of these flavours. But this is definitley a “heavier” breakfast option that I only really make for a Sunday brunch, not on a regular working day!

4. Pizza topping: leftover roast chicken is a fantastic pizza topping option. In fact, I use lots of different types of leftover chicken meals as pizza topping, not just roast; Pakistani wok-style chicken (chicken karahi) is one example. Probably best not to try this with die-hard Italian-food fans, but for fusion lovers like me, this is one of my favourite things to do!

5. Freeze: finally, you can just shred up any leftovers, pop it into a ziploc bag and freeze! Just remember to label the bag with the date. And whenever you have a sandwich craving, or need to jazz up an omlette/pizza/stir-fry, hey presto! (See here for some great tips on thawing frozen chicken)

Mangalorian Fish Curry

Everyone has their go-to cookbooks for recipes you’re sure will turn out good. Mine are my Anjum Anand books, first introduced to me right before I got married by one of my closest friends. In a pre-wedding, walking-sack-of-nerves moment, I confessed to her that I can’t cook Asian food to save my life! Without hesitation, she pulled out her “Indian Every Day,” wrote me a msg inside and handed it to me. She may not know it till she reads this post, but I’ve read that msg many times in my kitchen, alone, daunted by the task of cooking the meal ahead and felt less worried!

The msg inside my trusted recipe book

So today was one of those days when I was totally out of ideas for dinner. I had some fish in my freezer, and literally flicked through this book, stopping at the first fish recipe I saw!

If you don’t like coconut, don’t be put off by what may seem like a LOT of coconut milk powder in the recipe. The taste is SO subtle. Also, don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients. If you cook Indian/Pakistani food a lot, you’ll have everything in your spice cupboard already! And gathering the ingredients is the only relatively long part in preparing this. Once you get cooking, it takes only 20-30 mins altogether.

My recipe has been adapted slightly from the original version.

Ingredients:
(Serves 4-6)

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 small onion, finely sliced
2 large tomatoes, each cut into 8 wedges
1/2 tsp ginger paste
1 green chilli, left whole with a small slit down the middle
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
Salt to taste (I used approx. 2 tsp)
5 tbsp coconut milk powder
150 ml hot water

Approx. 1 kg white, boneless fish

Paste
1/2 small onion, roughly chopped
3 large garlic cloves
1 tsp ginger paste
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
3 tsp corriander powder
2-3 whole red chillies (or less if you prefer milder curries)
100ml (1/2 cup) water

Start off by making the paste. Just put all the ingredients (except the water) in a blender and blend. Then add the water a bit at a time. The final consistency should be very fine and fluffy. Set aside.

Cut your fish into reasonably large chunks and set aside.

The fish I used, before cutting into large chunks

Next, heat the oil in a non-stick pan and fry the onion for a minute. Then add the tomatoes, ginger paste, chilli, paprika, turmeric and salt.

Getting everything ready beforehand to avoid the chaotic "OMG I forgot to add XYZ!" (the latter happens more often than the former)

Fry for a couple minutes, then add the paste. Cover and cook over a low-ish heat for about 10 mins.

Next, stir the coconut milk powder into the hot water. Mix well, take a sniff, restrain from drinking it because it smells so good!

This is what I had in my cupboard. Not strictly coconut *milk* powder but I didn't taste anydifference!

Add the coconut milk to the pan and bring to boil. Then let it simmer uncovered for a few minutes. Then add your fish. Make sure you mix it gently, stirring to coat. The fish cooks quite quickly so you don’t want to break it by mixing too roughly.

My fish took about 8 minutes too cook all the way through. However, my pieces were quite thin. So depending on what fish you’ve used, it might take a couple of minutes more. Just keep an eye on it from 5 minutes onwards.

When its ready, the gravy should be creamy in texture. Take it out into a dish. I served this roti (flatbread) but white rice would be even better!

Tandoori Chicken Club Sandwiches

I’ve always been a bit fussy when it comes to sandwiches. If its not a chicken and mayo sandwich, wrapped tightly in cling-film and from a Pakistani bakery, then it better be an M&S sandwich!

So I first tried this recipe out not expecting anything great. But I have always recieved great reviews whenever I’ve made this; whether its my youngest brother-in-law, or my health-obsessed uncles, or my mother! Everyone seems to like these.

The obvious difference between this and a regular club sandwich is the lack of bacon. I don’t eat pork so can’t say what’s better! But the tandoori twist on the chicken in this recipe definitley brings a whole new dimension to this sandwich, so hopefully traditional club sandwich lovers will be saying “pfff, what bacon?!”

The Leaning Tower of Sandwiches?

Ingredients
(serves 4)

12 slices of bread, crusts removed
250g chicken breast, sliced thinly
2 tbsp plain yoghurt
1 tsp tandoori masala*
1 tsp ginger and garlic paste
Salt, to taste
A pinch of black pepper
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tsp mustard
Butter, as needed
Mayo, as needed
2 eggs, beaten
4 lettuce leaves
Slices of any salad vegetables you prefer, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, gherkins, etc.

First of all, place the yoghurt, tandoori masala, ginger and garlic paste, and salt in a bowl and mix well. Add the chicken pieces and leave to marinate for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, you can toast the bread slices, and butter them on one side while they are still warm from the toaster. Set aside.

Heat about 1 tbsp of butter, or a little oil, in a frying pan. Fry the chicken till the water released has dried and the chicken is cooked. Take out into a bowl and sprinkle the black pepper and add the ketchup and mustard. Mix well.

On 4 slices of bread, spread some mayo and place some chicken on each slice, dividing equally. Spread some mayo on 4 more slices and cover the chicken with them.

Now, make an omlette out of the beaten eggs. You can add a pinch of salt and pepper to it if you wish. Cut the omlette into 4 pieces and place a piece on top of each slice of bread that you just covered the chicken with.

Now you can top with whatever you like. I went for just a piece of lettuce this time, but you can add anything you like: cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, gherkins, a slice of cheese…

Finally, spread some mayo on the 4 remaining slices and cover the sandwiches with them. Using a sharp knife, slice your sandwiches in half. If you like, you can use toothpicks to secure your sandwiches.

*tandoori masala is available in most large supermarkets or South Asian stores. I use Shan Tandoori Chicken BBQ Mix.

Baguette and Butter Pudding

Bread and butter pudding is one of my favourite winter desserts. But being British, that’s probably a given isn’t it? With 10 months of the year being “winter” back in London, warm, hearty dishes like this are always well-recieved. Now that its chillier on the Eastern side of the world too, I gave my first-ever bread and butter pudding a go. Except… I used a baguette!

At first I thought I was being “out there” and pioneering a new type of pudding… Until I googled “making bread and butter pudding with a baguette” and lo and behold, none other than Mr Gordon Ramsey himself has already penned a recipe for this! That put me firmly back in my amateur boots.

This recipe is great, extremely easy to follow and the simple flavours are delicate and delicious on the tongue. My husband tasted this for the first time and stamped his seal of approval. I’m an old fan of the dish and felt like I’d been transported back to my mother’s kitchen with every bite!

I’ve adapted Mr Ramsey’s recipe slightly, only because I was in a rush and really wanted to make this so tried to make things a bit easier for myself, like using 4 whole eggs, instead of 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks.You can find his recipe on this pretty blog, Always With Butter. Otherwise, here’s my adaptation:

Ingredients:

1/2 a baguette, thinly sliced
50g butter, softened
750ml (3 cups) milk
200ml double cream
4 eggs
3-4 tablespoons sugar (according to how sweet you like your desserts)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp cinammon powder

First of all, take some butter and grease your baking dish. Then, spread the rest of the butter on all the baguette slices.

Meanwhile, heat the milk and cream till they reach boiling point, then turn off the heat and let the mixture cool to lukewarm.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together till well-combined, then whisk in the vanilla essence. Add the egg mixture to the milk and cream.

Place half the baguette slices in a layer in the dish:

Cover with half the milk-eggs mixture. Then repeat this layering process:

Leave the dish for approximately 15 mins so the baguette slices soak up the mixture well. During this time, preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees farenheit). Then sprinkle over the cinnamon before baking (uncovered) for 40-45 mins; it should be set and light brown when ready.

Wait 5-10 minutes before serving. Make yourself a nice cup of tea and enjoy