mutton curry on a cold, winter's day

my mum is really ill with flu at the moment so it was up to me to cook the curry today. you would know from a previous entry that although i love mutton curry, i am a bit nervous about cooking it - but i know exactly what i want this time - i enter the battle with more knowledge!

so here is the dish that is such perfection and comfort on a cold day such as this! i have included a step by step photo illustration so that you know what it should (sort of) look like!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 kg of mutton (or lamb if you prefer)
• 1 large finely sliced onion
• 2 roughly chopped tomatoes
• 2 small potatoes (or 1 large potato)
• masala of your choice (about 2 tablespoons) - i use 1 tablespoon of mild masala and 1 tablespoon of chilli  powder
• ground ginger and garlic
• jeera seeds (cumin)
• 2 small pieces of cinnamon bark
• 1 tablespoon curry seeds (now this i get from gorima's which is a spice shop in durban, but basically it is a blend of seeds used for curries like cumin, onion seeds, mustard seeds sauted in tumeric powder amongst other things - i am sure you could get something similar in any spice shop)
• salt to taste

METHOD:

• in a large, heavy based pot add in your onion to cook on a medium heat until golden. take your time, a mutton curry is all in the braising (like my mum says).
• at this stage you will need to add in your jeera seeds, cinnamon bark and curry seeds. let this saute for a good couple minutes.

• then add in your ground ginger and garlic.
• after a few minutes add in your meat. now many people add the masala into the ginger/garlic/onion mixture in the pot to cook, but i prefer to add it in after the meat has been added if you are starting out with a mutton curry for the first few times. thereafter you can "burn" (which is really just cooking out the rawness of the spice) the masala in the onion mix - i think it comes with more experience.
• so add in your masala and salt to taste and give it a good mix.
• after about 5 minutes, throw in your tomatoes and a stem of curry leaf and let that cook on medium heat for 30 minutes.

• when the time has lapsed, you will see a gravy beginning to form. place your potatoes into the gravy and turn the heat slightly lower. cover and leave to simmer for another 20 minutes.
• thereafter, add in another curry leaf and simmer for about 10 minutes.
• remove from heat and serve.

a mutton curry is nothing without rice (in my opinion) so i made basmati and enjoyed a nice plate :) please try it out if you can - it's really easier than it seems!

peace and love all!
x

steak for supper & apple and cinnamon crumpets for dessert :)

last thursday my mum had to rush up to johannesburg for a funeral. we joined her on friday, but on thursday night my brother and i decided to cook up a storm for my father and my grandmother. my brother, who as i mentioned in previous post, is a dessert kind of guy, so he was gonna make his first steak! i have to hand it to him, that steak was perfection! the boy can cook!

here's his steak and salad:

with a little salt & pepper, steak spice and a couple minutes

on the grill, this steak was perfection on a plate!

i have to admit, i felt useless (lol). happy that my brother had made supper, but sad that i had nothing to do! so my brother suggested i make dessert, which came in the form of apple and cinammon crumpets (or flapjacks if you prefer).

from: www.postcardfromholland.com

i use my mum's old recipe in her recipe file (which i go to on a down day just to find some inspiration, or when i'm looking for an old fashion recipe. my mum started this recipe file when she was in university!). it's literally

• 180 g cake flour
• 20 ml baking powder
• 1 ml salt
• 100 g sugar
• 1 egg
• milk (this can'r be measured because i usually know when it's the right consistency)
• 30 g melted butter
• one large apple
• cinnamon

we made one in the shape of an "M" haha

METHOD:

• in one bowl sift your dry ingrdients and add the sugar.
• beat the egg and melted butter together in a separate bowl with the milk and add your dry ingredients.
• mix until smooth.
• in a blender, put in your cored apples (i keep the skin on actually) and blitz. do this until the apples are small enough but not pureed. 
• add into the crumpet batter with a generous amount of cinammon (to your taste). 
• give the batter a good mix and then drop small ladlefuls of the batter into a hot, lightly greased pancake pan.
• as soon as bubbles form on the top of the crumpet it's ready to turn and then allow to brown on the other side before removing from the heat.

my take on spaghetti carbonara

one of the most amazing pasta dishes ever created is the simple carbonara. the original dish is one that is oh so perfect as it stands, and i usually would reccommend that you use nigella lawson's recipe (click here to go to that) because it is the easiest version i have ever seen, but let's just say that my dish is a variation on the original because i was really craving it but did not have all the ingredients. (ps: nigella has the most amazing website and i have almost this child-like adoration for her that you usually have for a pop star! will elaborate more on that in another post!)

now for the recipe... you will need:

• half a packet of spaghetti
• good olive oil
• a large packet of bacon (chopped), pancetta or lardons - or macon as a substitute if you dont eat bacon
• robertson's parmesan and pesto seasoning
• half a glass of good dry white wine
• milk
• 1 egg
• black pepper

put your pasta on to boil and then all you have to do is fry off your bacon in a pan until it's crispy but not hard. add your wine into that towards the end and let the bacon soak up some of that delicious flavour. in a separate bowl whisk your egg with a little milk, black pepper and add a generous amount of the pesto and parmesan seasoning. i can't really say how much because it's really up to your taste, but if i had to measure, i'd say about 50g.

when your pasta is cooked to perfection (act quick now) drain it and add it to the bacon and wine reduction and add in the egg/parmesan mixture and toss thoroughly, dish up and enjoy :)

such perfection on a plate!

left overs turned into yummoness :)

so right now i am sitting on the couch after having a lovely breakfast, sipping a cuppa rooibos and watching reruns of the great british menu on bbc lifestyle. it's atul kochar against this other random guy and honestly, i want to change the channel but it requires me getting out of my seat. truthfully, i wouldn't be able to multitask if i had what i really wanted to watch on tv was on right now - csi : miami :) i am such a sucker for horatio cain! yes, david caruso's character has those cringe-worthy one liners and the flip of the hair but i can't handle it - what would csi : miami without it?

(side note - everytime i watch great british menu i envy these judges. they have the best job in the world. all they have to do is sit and judge food. they get to eat lovely, gourmet delicacies from some of the best chefs in the world.)

on to what this is really about - left overs, yes yes, we don't like to talk about it because it proves we ate yesterday's food but so what, stop lying we all do it :) after having those pancakes with chocolate sauce last night, all i could think about was what i could do with the left over ones this morning. i even had a dream about pancakes last night. it was quite random and disjointed so i'm not going to share it. anyway this morning i turned a beautifully golden pancake into breakfast.

with some buttery scrambled eggs, slivers of ham and a grating of cheese, the humble pancake turns into amazingness in your mouth. so here's my breakfast (yummo!)

pancakes with chocolate sauce

well what is better than a bedtime treat? i know that we all wish we could raid our fridges for a midnight snack the way that nigella does - unfortunately for most of us, we just don't have such exciting things hiding in our refrigerators waiting for it to be discovered :( in my case, my brother and i believe that when you want something it really doesn't matter what time of the day it is, make it and enjoy it! what is more liberating than a full breakfast at 2am on a whim? we like to break the rules:)

so tonight on a whim we decided to make pancakes (and the chocolate sauce happened by a chance finding of a bar of dark chocolate lying in the fridge) after watching "jamie's american road trip" on bbc lifestyle. it was fantastic as i did very little. pancakes are my brother's piece de resistance you see. he likes to bake, and he's better at it than i am purely based on the fact that i am fearful about baking and he's fearless. i just am so paranoid something will go wrong when i bake but he just throws it together and it works.

so here's mahesh's pancake recipe and my chocolate sauce :)

MAHESH'S PANCAKES with chocolate sauce

INGREDIENTS:

• 300g of flour
• 600 ml milk
• half a teaspoon of baking powder
• a tablespoon of melted butter

mahesh mixing in the melted butter

METHOD:

• mix all your ingredients together (add more flour and milk if needed to get your desired consistency - that always seems to happen with pancake recipes)
• ladle in portions of the pancake batter into a pancake pan with a swipe of butter.
• flip and remove when light brown.

flipping it like a pro:)

For the Chocolate Sauce:

• in a saucepan melt a bar of dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) with butter.
• when melted remove from the heat and stir in two tablespoons of castor sugar.
• let it dissolve and you're ready :)

serve with the chocolate sauce drizzled over and a dusting of cinnamon.

such a delicious treat and oh so satisfying when you're in need of a little pick me up or just for fun :))

update on what's for lunch

i recently started a page - what's for lunch? - and it's aim is to try to help everyone out when they're stuck on what to make for lunch. it's all simple, easy recipes and only takes a maximum of 20 minutes!

so far on the page i have a mushroom linguine recipe (below) and a caramelised onion, garlic mushroom and red pepper bruschetta recipe (pictured above).

the page will be updated regularly so keep looking out! next on the menu is a coriander chicken recipe :))

anniversary

it's been a good week and a bit since i've blogged and i've just been too busy for words. missed it a lot though and it was necessary that tonight i get in a recipe or two!

first on the agenda - last tuesday was my boyfriend, mekarl, and my four year anniversary:) mekarl was incredibly ill but we went out to this awesome new restaurant - "jam" - in morningside. it has a beautiful ambience and impeccable standard of food! we had a fantastic time!

we both ordered the fillet of beef which was served with a potato rosti and onion rings, and fresh crunchy vegetables. karl had the pepper sauce and i had the bernaise sauce (which i absolutely love to death!) i couldn't wait to tuck into mine that i forgot to take a picture, but here's a picture of karl's :)

i'm not into advertising, but i am all for (in a friend's words) "sharing the lovelight" on great restaurants and "jam" is definitely one everyone should try out if you're in the durban area!

peace & love everyone :)
x

what's for lunch?

if you have been following this blog you would have noticed that i do a lot of lunch dishes. for that reason, i would like to introduce "what's for lunch" which will be a stand alone page that will be updated often to include a few of my favourite lunch ideas!

keep reading guys, it will be up in a few :))

new developments

this is going to be a short post, but a very exciting one!

the last few years i have been struggling with decisions about myself. from a very young age i have immersed myself in creative activities and it has always been my passion whether it be drawing or arranging a vase of flowers. in the last 2 years, i discovered that i have a passion for cooking and that i am actually quite good at it!

that being said in the coming months i will (hopefully) be starting a small business aimed at catering for small dinner parties of maximum of 10 people. this is something that is so close to my heart and is so absolutely exciting! i will be contactable via twitter (@MayuriGovender) once the business is up and running, and from there personally. there will be a number of menus to choose from, but unfortunately, i will be limited to the durban area only at first.

so this is the first of my new developments :)

peace and love
x

birthday!

yesterday was my grandmother's brithday, but she has been up in pretoria visiting my uncle for the last 3 weeks and she just arrived back home tonight. this was the first year that we (the four grandchildren) haven't spent her birthday with her since we were born! i am the eldest grandchild and i really felt it odd without her here, especially since i love birthdays and anyones birthday is an event for me :)

so her flight was delayed tonight but she arrived to spicy prawns in a creamy sauce and chicken stir fry, as well as the traditional birthday party she missed this year.

Yummo Bar One Cake :)

My grandma cutting her cake! Would you ever

know that she just turned 72? ha!

:)

 

more delicious dressings

Image by silver_seams (Karen in Wichita) via Flickr

sometimes i feel like people don't put enough effort into salad dressings (and salads in general) buying the dreadful ready made kind from the store. i just believe that if you just use a little brain power you can save so much more money and have tastier alternatives.

a simple salad i like to make is just a cherry tomato, red onion and cucumber salad as a side for fish. for the dressing: olive oil, fresh coriander, a squeeze of lime and white sugar.

as a south african indian, the first sort of salad i ever ate was a grated carrot salad. as we got more sophisticated, lettuce and cucumber were added, but the original one was such sliced onion, grated carrot and finely chopped green chilli. with salt and a spash of vinegar, this was the salad we ate with curries, breyanis and bunny chow (click here for my post on this).

another salad we're used to eating with indian food is a sour milk salad. made from fermented milk originally, we now just use plain yoghurt which is mixed together with fried (almost caramelised) onion, sometimes a bit of tumeric powder and cucumber. this adds a cool relief when eating a really hot curry and is a MUST with south african breyanis.

i am now tired and hungry and can get the smell of freshly cooked chicken curry which is making it hard for me to concentrate on completing this post so more on this later (ha!)

x

dressings and daveydarling :)

a quick thought crossed my mind when i realised that i wanted to start another blog! but do i have the time? i don't know. what i do know is that i feel like a little more of me needs to be shared and you all will be updated in time as to whether i am going to extend may's morsels into something wider. it's just that i feel like food and my love for it is just a small part of who i am and what i love.

this all came about due to my friendo asking me to be part of her new extension to her blog (click here to go to daveydarling) pretty face practi-fashion (hehe i will take it as a compliment cos of the pretty face thing) which will entail a few people dressing in our daveydarling pieces and describing our style inspiration which is just the tip of the iceberg. such an awesome idea from her always creative self! suuper excited to do this, and to share my experience of daveydarling clothing - and let me tell you, i have been rocking my new favourite top!

anyway, onto dressings of another type:)

today i was lazy so i literally threw together a salad and put frozen chicken sticks in the oven (lol). i usually don't eat frozen convenience foods but i was just being a lazy bum. anyway, to redeem my lethargic ways i decided to do a really awesome dressing for my salad. now this is a really well known dressing that i used but i put my little twist to it.

may's balsamic vinaigrette

• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• mustard (you should use dijon but i used hotenglish)
• salt
• pepper
• lemon juice
• sugar
• fresh herbs

you will need to add one part balsamic to two parts olive oil and literally eyeball the rest, keep tasting so it is suited to your taste. i add a little white sugar so it balances the tartness of the balsamic, mustard, and lemon juice. i also add fresh parsley (or rosemary sometimes) just to lift up the flavour. this addition makes all the difference!!!

dress your salad leaves - i used a mixture of baby spinach leaves and herbed lettuce - and then just plate up and serve with whatever you like :)