Sunday 22 September - Lamb Schwarma

I don't like lamb very much, and so we hardly ever cook it. However, I found this recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in his Jerusalem book, and it had to be tried. This is the third time I've cooked it now, and it's delicious. The marinade contains and astonishing range of different spices - these are the whole ones that were toasted and then ground,

Other spices, chopped coriander, oil and lemon juice were added and the lamb was rubbed in the mixture and left to marinate. The smaller piece of meat is a chicken breast as George won't eat lamb. The lamb itself was a frozen leg from Lidl, as fresh was far too expensive!

The marinaded lamb was covered in foil and roasted for 4 hours in a low oven.

To serve with it a salad with a base of Fireek, or Freekeh

I cooked this for about  30 minutes, and added some chopped cucumber and tomatoes, loads of coriander and mint, preserved lemons, feta pieces and some pomegranate seeds - all dressed with lemon juice and some olive oil

The lamb was served with the salad, some home made houmus and some Turkish Flatbreads to scoop everything up.

Saturday 21 September - Hairy Bikers Beef Biryani

I spotted the Hairy Bikers making this on TV during the week and really liked the look of it. I found the recipe in their Curry book so it had to be tried - also Curry is one of the few things that I can guarantee George will eat.

It was quite a long winded recipe with lots of stages to it.

First stage was the beef- a paste was made in the food processor of onions, ginger, garlic and chillies

Freshly ground spices were added to the onion paste - coriander, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and salt

This spice paste was fried, and then seared braising steak was added to it, along with some yoghurt and water, and it was left to simmer for a couple of hours

The other layers were prepared - basmati rice was part cooked and mixed with some chopped coriander, and some finely sliced onions were fried until golden.

Once all the components were ready, the dish was assembled.

First layer was half the beef.

  

 On top of that went half the rice, then half the fried onions - this was then drizzled with milk and saffron infusion. Then the layers were repeated.

The top layer was dotted with butter, then wrapped tightly in several layers of foil and into the oven. Garnishes were sultanas, toasted flaked almond and boiled eggs.

 We served this with popadoms, coriander chutney and cucumber raita and some home made onion bhajis.

Friday 30 August - Tomato Ketchup

A bit of a tomato glut, and this year I'm trying not to waste anything, so thought I'd have a go at Ketchup - using the vinegar bottles kindly supplied by The Bytham Kitchen for storage.

I based this on a Jamie Oliver recipe, with a few tweaks.

Firstly onions, garlic, ginger, basil, fennel, celery seed, cloves and cardamoms were sweated in a pan.

Then in went the tomatoes and some water and it all bubbled until reduced by half.

 

Then the mixture was blended and seived.

 

Finally, sugar and vinegar were added, and it was all reduced again, before being poured into sterilized bottles