Madhur Jaffrey's Best Aubergines Ever

Well, it's taken a long time to write this one up. Blame the brain-splatting toll of going back to work to a new job, and getting the new two kids, two jobs, four grandparents routine under way. But here I am, watching the Olympic athletics, talking to no-one as usual, and ready to roll my sleeves up.

I make nearly all my Indian mainstays from this fab blog, which fulfils all my requirements for speed, deliciousness, authenticity, and makeability. When you know you need a meat free night, nothing is better than a saag paneer, or a dal (the dirtier the tarka the better in my opinion - ghee, asfeotida, curry leaves, and chilli!). And the best meal I've ever made for friends was probably a seafood biryani with aubergine raita.  

So I've been waiting to pinch this book for ages - I know Madhur Jaffrey can make good on a title that ambitious. It covers every part of the sub-continent and the diaspora of curry-loving nations, including South Africa, Japan, Burma, and Thailand. I chose a vegetarian recipe because, much as I love meat, I realise that I find it much more relaxing and rewarding to cook with vegetables, pulses etc. Plus, check out the name - I make a lot of damn fine aubergine dishes, so how could I not try this?

It's described by Madhur as an Afghanistan & USA (i.e. she crafted it in her kitchen) hybrid, and its four separate components reflect its composite heritage. There are a lot of ingredients, and it is a bit of work, but I made it on a very nothingy Sunday evening, and it was only about 30 minutes of pottering (I didn't bother salting the aubergines and soaking them for '3-10 hours' - I never do).

Serves 2 (with leftovers)

2 aubergines sliced lengthways about 3-5 cm thick. That's what MJ recommends - I didn't read it properly and sliced them into rounds, quite thin. 

Lots of veg oil for frying. 

For the tomato-chickpea sauce

Oil

2 dried red chillies

1 tsp whole brown mustard seeds

2 cloves of garlic chopped

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

10 curry leaves (from the freezer)

1 tin of chickpeas

Salt

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp ground tumeric

For the yoghurt sauce

Enough yoghurt to serve 2
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin seeds which you've 'roasted' in a dry frying pan

For the tamarind chutney

2 tbsp thick tamarind paste

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cumin seeds as above

Fry the aubergine slices in a large frying pan with lots of oil unti, they are deep brown on both sides. Drain them on kitchen paper.

Make the tomato sauce by frying the mustard seeds and chillies in hot oil until the seeds are popping. 

Add the garlic, and then quickly the tomatoes, curry leaves, chickpeas, and all the spices and seasonings. Bring to a simmer, cover, and let it cook gently for 20 minutes. 

Make the yoghurt sauce by just whisking some air into the yog with a fork, and then stir through the over ingredients. 

Make the chutney by combining the ingredients. I know, I know...I am an amazing cook. 

When you're ready, lay the aubergine on a baking sheet and heat in the oven at 160 degrees for 15 minutes. Put the slices on a large plate in a single layer (or, you know, just in the bottom of two bowls). Dollop as much of the tomato sauce on top as you like, then the yoghurt sauce, and then the chutney. 

The best aubergines ever? Maybe not when there's parmigiana melenzane in the world, but I'm not going to split hairs. 

Jamie Oliver's Dan Dan Noodles

I remember seeing Jamie Oliver’s third book at a friend’s house, shortly after it came out. It must have been around 2002, and it was still titled something about The Naked Chef. I thought ‘God, hasn’t he had his 15 minutes yet? How many books is he going to squeeze out?’.

Well! Here we are 10 years on with ‘Jamie’s America’. After Fifteen, and School Dinners, and the Ministry and that disastrous-sounding trip to the States to sort out their school food. He’s been backlashed, and resurgent, so many times he must wake up wondering whether he’s a national treasure, or an exposure seeking busybody with a hero complex today.

This is his tenth book in about a decade (and he’s probably put out another one since then) and they all sell a shitload, and they make him a load of money, and why not put one out every year in that case? And I’d be extremely cynical about it if this book wasn’t bloody brilliant. Seriously, it’s not going back. I’ve made the Dan Dan Noodles twice, and the Stuffed Courgette Flowers, and the Date Shake, and the Broccoli Salad, and the Best Baked Beans, and I will be making the Veal Parmigiana (Veal Parm!) and the Chicken Mole, and the Chili, and quite a few more.  

I might even attempt the somewhat tricky looking Sher Ping Pancakes – mainly because they, like the noodles, contain the incredibly alluring Szechuan pepper. This stuff is a joy for even the most jaded chili-loving palate. I’ve heard it described as ‘hot and numbing’, and the second adjective is crucial. Even if you use too much it won’t send you rushing for the water tap. You’ll just sit there, staring into space, you lips and tongue seeming to literally jangle, for as long as you’ve got. A a bonus, it has a distinct and delicious flavour: a bit lemony, a bit floral, a bit…icey? No, that’s probably just the numbingness. It’s like eating dry ice.

I don’t think I did the noodles justice either time I made them, because my chili oil was seriously underpowered – even with the Szechuan pepper, and raw garlic, a bit more heat would have made it (for me – the husband would probably demur). I will rectify this store cupboard oversight as  this is a great midweek meal, and a good way to eat a lot of green veg. I made it with pork and beef, and both were good.

Serves 2

A chicken stock cube
250-350g minced beef or pork
1 tbsp runny honey
100-150g wheat noodles
2 mega handfuls of dark green veg – kale, broccoli, Chinese stuff, spinach
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Szechuan pepper
2-3 tbsp chili oil
1 spring onion, finely sliced
Lime juice

Dry fry the meat in a large frying pan until they are crispy and golden brown – this takes a good ten minutes, and you need to keep moving it around, though not constantly. When it done, pour away any excess fat, and add the honey. Coat the meat, and cook for about 30 seconds. Then put it aside.

Boil a pan of water, and dissolve the stock cube in it. When it’s boiling, add the noodles, and cook for as long as they need. When they’ve only got a minute left, throw in the veg too. Then drain and return to the hot pan – don’t shake them dry, put them back in with lots of water still clinging.

Immediately throw in the sliced garlic, chili oil, soy sauce, and Szechuan pepper. Mix mix mix and then divide between bowls. Scatter the sticky crispy mince on top, and add the sliced sping onion, and a bit of lime juice. 

Sri Owen’s Balinese Pork Satay

And now for something completely different. One of the great things about being all grown up and stuff, is that, without even really trying, you amass a proper selection of spices, bottles, and things, like tamarind paste. Suddenly, those Asian recipes, with their intimidatingly long list of ingredients require a trip to the cupboard, and not a bus ride to a nicer part of town that you can afford to live in, and a visit to Waitrose. The upside is that now I regularly cook delicious Indian food, and sometimes Chinese too. The downside is that I’ve become incredibly fussy about takeaways. On balance, it’s definitely more good than bad.

The Indonesian recipes in this book are long, and with much ingredient crossover with Indian and Thai food. I’m pleased to say the only things I had to buy for this pork satay was the meat (bog standard mystery mince, though, not tenderloin as Sri Owen specified) and the onion. Everything else was to hand. And it was flipping gorgeous.

I hadn’t really heard of Sri Owen, but the book convincingly sells her as a semi-doyenne of food writing in the UK. She writes interestingly about her experiences as a child (and eater) in pre-war Indonesia, as an ambitious young woman, and then young wife of an English academic, and then as an evangelist for Indonesian food in the UK and Italy from the 60s until today. And she presents an extensive selection of recipes for all occasions, including the famous rendangs and satays.

Much of it looked tricky – I don’t know where to get banana leaves, I don’t buy giant raw prawns on the grounds of sustainability, and the reliance on candlenuts (to be substituted with macademia nuts here) and peanuts ruled out many recipes in this nut-allergic house. But this pork satay jumped out at me on the grounds of mince! (frugal), tamarind! (got a massive pot), ginger! (so yum), and all kinds of ingredients  that I knew were going to be good together. Plus, pork doesn’t feature much in many Asian cuisines, so the change was tempting. Needless to say, pork doesn’t appear in much Indonesian food: this recipe is specifically Balinese. I am pitifully poorly travelled, so my food has to do it for me - how could I resist bringing the flavours of that luscious sounding island into a wet Wednesday evening in Streatham?

I deviated slightly from the recipe in terms of quantity and method (the only ingredient I didn’t have was galangal) – I didn’t use skewers because the mixture looked dangerously wet. I suppose next time (and there will be a next time) I should reduce the amount of spice paste, or up the meat. But this turned out seriously juicy, and I’m not sure I’d want to jeopardise that.

Serves two, generously, with rice. The amount of paste would definitely stretch to 500g, maybe even 750g of meat.

350 g minced pork
A small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ tsp chili powder (I don’t think more would hurt)
Knobble of ginger (you know how much you like)
1 lemongrass stalk
1 tsp coriander seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
2 green cardamom pods
A shard of cassia bark or half a cinnamon stick
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 tsp of tamarind paste with 2tsp of water
1 tsp salt
½ tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp of low flavour oil (I used rapeseed)

Using a food processor, or stick blender, whizz all the ingredients other than the pork, into a paste.

Add the meat and stir to combine. Let the meat marinate in the fridge for as long as you’ve got.

About an hour before you want to cook, take the meat out of the fridge. If you’re going to use sticks you can either form meatballs and thread them on or mould the meat onto the sticks like proper satay (I bet this is trickier than it looks). Because my mixture looks a little wet and loose (I’m sorry) I decided not to risk them falling off the sticks – so they were just unthreaded meatballs.

Grill the meatballs for around 10 minutes, turning them, and brushing them with oil as necessary. Serve with rice, and an Asiany salad – I made a dressing of sesame oil, soy sauce, lime juice, and sugar. It wasn’t quite right, but it was in the ballpark.