Moms daal and carrot soup

 Ingredients

• 3 large or 4 medium/small carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup of pink masoor daal
• 12 flakes of garlic, peeled
• 4 cups of water
• salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• Italian herbs

Method

1. Add the lentils, carrots, garlic, water and salt to a pressure cooker and cook for 2 whistles (about 5 minutes after it reaches pressure)
2. Blend using an immersion blender adding in the milk and italian herb seasoning
3. Add salt to taste and serve

Khow suey

 I've grown up being told that this was a burmese dish that somehow got wildly popular in India in the 70s/80s. I'm not sure there is anyone in Burma that would recognize this dish but I love it. I recently came across another recipe called Khow soi that purports to being a coconut curry/noodle soup from Burma by way of Thailand, so the truth, as they say, is out there.

Ingredients

Soup: 

• 1 kg chicken (I used chicken thighs, bone-in or boneless, cut into smaller pieces)
• 2 chopped onions
• 2 Tbsp Ginger-Garlic paste
• 6 Tbsp Chickpea flour/ besan
• 5 bowls water
• 1/2 - 1 cup desiccated or fresh/ frozen shredded coconut

Toppings:

• 6 eggs
• Limes
• Fried onions
• Fried Garlic
• Cashewnuts
• Salli/ Laccha

Carbs:

• Egg noodles
• Rice Noodles
• Rice

Method

1. Boil Eggs to hard, cool peel. Slice and fry onions and garlic separately to brown. Drain on paper towels. Quarter limes. 
2. Heat a table spoon of oil until shimmering hot, then add the onions and fry for about 5 minutes
3. Lower the heat to medium-low, add ginger-garlic paste and fry until fragrant.
4. Throw in salt, red chilli powder and saute for maybe 10 seconds, then add in the chicken and fry until the chicken has a bit of surface.
5. Add in the besan and then fry until fragrant (the smell changes, thats what you're looking for)
6. Add in the water and then boil until the chicken is cooked
7. Add in the coconut and boil for another 5 minutes. At this point, when we've used frozen fresh coconut before, we noticed the shreds were really long and would have been hard to eat, so we pulled out the chicken and used an immersion blender to make the soup smooth.
8. Boil the noodles/cook rice etc as needed
9. Assemble bowls: put noodles/rice in the bottom of a bowl and ladle on lots and lots of soup. Add on toppings, halved boiled egg and lots of lime (this is v. important, v. v. It really needs lime)

Notes

1. This recipe scales really well. Mum's rule of thumb is that you add a Tbsp of besan for every bowl of khow suey you want and about a bowl of water. At this volume as written, since the chicken and other ingredients increase the volume by around a bowl, I only used 5 bowls of water.

Koottu

I've made this with raw papaya, chow chow (choyote squash) and a couple of other veggies and it turns out amazing. The first two are my absolute favourites, but I'll happily take any koottu I can get. This recipe is adapted from a bunch of different recipes. This one uses toor dal, since it is my current fave, but I've also made it with chana dal and simple pink masoor.

Ingredients

• Tur daal 1 cup
• Choyote squash 2 medium to big
• Water 2.5 cups
• Turmeric powder 1/2 tsp

For the coconut paste

• Dessicated coconut or fresh/frozen grated coconut 1/2 cup
• Green chillies 2
• Cumin seeds 1 tsp

For the tadka / tempering

• Oil 2 -4 Tbsp  
• Mustard seeds, black 1 tsp
• White urad dal 1tsp
• curry leaves 10-15 
• Dried red chillies (optional)

Method

1. Wash and soak the daal for either 30 minutes at room temp or 15 minutes with hot water
2. Add water, chopped veggies and turmeric powder to a pressure cooker and cook for about 5 whistles
3. Grind the ingredients for the paste into a smooth paste.
4. After the pressure releases, add the paste to the cooked daal+veggie
5. Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds and the urad daal. When the daal turns light golden and the mustard begins to sputter, add the curry leaves and then turn off the heat and add the red chillies. 
6. Add to the daal+ veggies while still hot. Let the daal boil for a few minutes for the flavours to incorporate.
7. Eat with hot rice or chapati if you're a weirdo like martin. 

Coconut curry (with chicken, pork or fish)

This recipe is adapted from here. I originally made it with chicken but have tried it with pork shoulder and it tastes like it would be amazing with fish as well. I've kept the heat to a minimum by deseeding the dried kashmiri chillis and the result has been a mild and very flavourful curry.

Ingredients

• Chicken 2 kg (or pork, about 1.3-1.5 kg)
• Dried Kashmiri chillies 4-5 
• Peppercorns 16-20 
• Coriander seeds 4 Tbsp
• Fenugreek seeds 1/2 tsp
• Tamarind, (if dried soak in hot water) 2 Tbsp
• Dessiccated coconut 1 cup
• Oil 3 tbsp
• Red onions chopped 4-5 
• Ginger garlic paste 1 tb
• Turmeric
• Green chilly 2 (totally optional)
• Curry leaves (if dried, add 3 times as much) 20 leaves
• Salt
• Coconut milk 1/2 cup

Method

1. Dry roast the red chillies, peppercorns, coriander seeds and fenugreek seeds in a pan. Add them to a grinder jar with the dessicated coconut and add the tamarind water to make a smooth paste. If you don't have ginger-garlic paste, add fresh ginger and garlic at this step.
2. If you are using pork as your protein, cut the pork into 2" pieces and then add to a pressure cooker with salt, pepper, a dash of vinegar and turmeric. Add 2-3 table spoons of water and pressure cook the pork until half done. I used fläskkarré and pressure cooked for 15 minutes after the first whistle. Skip this step if you're using chicken. 
3. Heat oil in a pan and add the curry leaves (And green chillies, if you're using them) and then the chopped onions. Once the onions are well cooked, add turmeric and then the masala paste. 
4. Cook the paste until oil separates and then add the protein on medium heat. Add salt (I add a tsp for every kg, to begin and then adjust to taste at the end).
5.  Leave the dish alone for about 10 minutes and then stir occasionally about every 5 minutes, for a total of 20-25 minutes.
6. Adjust the final consistency with coconut milk, adding more if you want it runnier and less if you want it more dry. Cook with coconut milk for about 5 minutes on low. 
7. Very good with rice and with roti. 

Pulled pork

A simple pressure cooker pulled pork that turned out amazing!

Ingredients

Pork

• Boston butt (fläskkarré) 3lbs
• Salt
• Sugar
• Fennel seeds
• Cumin seeds

BBQ sauce

• 1 medium onion, minced
• 1 cup (250 ml) ketchup
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) beer
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) honey
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon (25 g) brown sugar
• A good dash of soy or coconut aminos

Method

1. Cut the pork in one inch cubes. Add lots of salt and sugar and let it brine for a few hours.
2. Wash off the excess salt and sugar. The pork should now have a beautiful deep red color. Add lots of oil to the cooker and pour in the fennel and cumin seeds. Let them sit until fragrant.
3. Fry off some of the meat to get it nicely maillarded. Don't crowd the pan, you need to get it nice and brown. If you don't feel like frying all of the meat, don't - as long as some of itis browned and blackened you're good.
4. Pour in half of the BBQ sauce and deglaze the pan. The pour in the rest.
5. Dump in the meat, put the lid on and let the pressure build.
6. Let it sit at high pressure for around 40 minutes. Then take it off the heat and let it cool.
7. When the pressure equalizes, take out the meat and shred it. Reduce the sauce down to half.
8. Add sauce to the shredded meat until it tastes amazing. Maybe half of the sauce. Don't overdo it!

EAT IT!!!!!

Milk-free, Egg-free, Soy-free vanilla cake with vanilla frosting

Since we have Milk, Egg and Soy allergies in the family, we've been making a lot of vegan recipes. These taste delicious and work really well. The lack of egg seems to make a difference to the texture, with vegan waffles and pancakes in particular being more brittle than their egg-y counterparts. I've never baked a vegan cake before, and I must confess, based on my experience with eating vegan cakes at cafes, I was expecting either something slightly dry or too wet, viz, I was expecting the result to also have a different texture than regular cake. This cake was NOT at all what I was expecting. I am absolutely amazed by how ridiculously delicious it was. I got the recipe from here and made some modifications.

Cake Ingredients

• 1 + 3/4 cups Flour
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Oatley ikaffe
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/3 cup Vegetable oil
• 1 Tbsp Vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)

Frosting

• 450g Powdered Sugar (I used Florsocker)
• 3 Tbsp Vegan Butter (room temp)
• 4 Tbsp Oatley ikaffe
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Steps

1. Turn on the oven at 180 C.
2. For the cake, sift the flour into a bowl and then add the rest of the dry ingredients-- Sugar, baking soda and salt into the flour
3. Add in all the liquid ingredients at the same time and used the whisk on my standing mixer to blend them all together
4. Grease two round foil pans with coconut oil and then split the batter between them.
5. I baked the cakes for 30 minutes. I tested them to make sure they were cooked through but both times I've made this cake, 30 minutes has been plenty.
6. For the frosting, I just threw all the ingredients into a bowl and then used the whisk on my standing mixer to blend them together. First use the lowest speed and then and then crank it up. 
7. Make sure the butter is completely blended.
8. Once the cake layers have cooled, frost them 
9. Serve with berries! We've tried this with strawberries and it is delicious!

Greek style feta kebabs with Mediterranean salad, tzatziki sauce and oven roasted root vegetables

This is a dinner that needs a lot of chopping but yields lots of food and lots of leftovers. The Greek style meatballs/kebabs recipe is adapted from here, called Grekiska fetafärsbiffar, but we changed the recipe. The original LCHF version turns out very dense and the kebabs get harder and harder in the fridge. The roots recipe is inspired from all over, it's called Rotsaker i ugn and is a swedish classic. The "Mediterranean salad" is also inspired from the LCHF recipe above.

Ingredients:

Meatballs:

• 1kg blandfärs (50-50 pork and beef mince mix)
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 3/4 cup breadcrumbs soaked in enough milk so it has the consistency of porrige
• 4 tsp ginger-garlic paste
• 250g feta cheese
• 3 tsp sumac
• 3-4 tsp thyme
• 3-4 tsp oregano
• 3 tsp salt
• 3 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• Peel of one lemon, juice of one lemon (optional, essential if you're skipping the sumac)

Mediterranean salad:

• 1 cucumber, large dice
• 1 box cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2-1 red onion finely sliced (not too much onion or it overwhelms the salad)
• Olives, seedless (we used a half bottle, we like olives!)

Tzatziki sauce:

• 1 cup thick yogurt/ greek yogurt
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 2 tsp honey
• pinch of salt

Roots:

• All the root vegetables are cut into approximately the same size, like homefries or thick-cut fries
• 5-6 small potatoes
• 2-3 parsnips
• 2-3 beets
• 1/4 celeriac root
• 2-3 carrots
• 1 Rutabaga
• 10 garlic cloves, peeled
• Fat of choice (cooking oil/ olive oil/ coconut oil)
• Honey
• Dried thyme
• Salt
• Pepper

Recipe:

For the roots: 

1. Set the oven at 200C and chop all the vegetables
2. Chop the rutabaga, beets and celeriac root first and toss them in a bowl with honey, thyme, salt and pepper. These go in the oven 10-15 minutes before the rest of the vegetables.
3. Spread them on an oven tray and put them in the middle of the oven.
4. After 10-15 minutes add the rest of the vegetables adding more honey/ fat/ thyme/ salt/ pepper as needed.
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes (or until done).

For the Kebabs:

1. Soak the breadcrumbs in milk
2. In a large bowl, combine the meat, breadcrumbs, chopped onion, thyme, sumac, oregano, salt pepper, smoked paprika, ginger-garlic paste and crumble in the feta. 
3. Mix well.
4. Shape into flat patties about 3-4" diameter
5. Cook on a greased medium-hot pan. Cook on one side for 2-3 minutes, then flip and cook on the other side for another minute and then cover and cook for 4 minutes to cook through. 

For the Mediterranean Salad

1. Chop and mix all the ingredients together

For the Tzatziki sauce:

1. In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients and let sit for at least 20-30 minutes before eating