When on holidays in India I was offered a dry chicken dish which tasted so very nice and i was absolutely sure some special ingredients or masalas were used in the dish - I asked the lady for the recipe, it goes like this -

Fry chicken pieces (approx 1 kg) in oil until light brown,add 1 spoon each of coriander powder, cumin powder and chicken curry masala and salt to taste. Fry for another 10 minutes(keep stirring) ...Done. Done!!!!??? as i was expecting something more. Back in UK I cooked it and loved it.

Simple and nice :-). As I have said before on occasions, adding onions and and tomatoes to every dish is a late 20th century thing. Many curries can be and are made without these. Next time you make it, share the full recipe and pictures with m via he contact link, I will add it here for yu.

Mamta

Will cook it tomorrow (Dusherra)as we are not suppose to consume meat during navratra.

as, indeed, Mamta, sprinkling on fresh coriander leaves over everything, and the now, ubiquitous garam masala. It seems that the idea of the global village has its disadvantages, too.

Many people seem to have lost the ability to develop flavour, and make up for it by adding, often, alien flavours. I have found that when a recipe is right, it seems to click into focus. These foreign flavours just tend to blur the result.

Happy Dusshera Rajneesh. I am in Delhi/Gurgaon area for the next 3 days, so will no doubt see a few Rawanas burning along the way!

Greetings

I made this dish tonight, sprinkled the fresh coriander leaves over it, a squeeze of lemon along with some takka dahl and it was lovely.

My husband does not like dry curries usually, but we both enjoyed this one immensely:)

Cheers

June

Glad to know that you enjoyed it and yes lime/lemon juice on top should give it a kick, welcome to the club....Cheers

One of the reasons why many chicken/meat curries are made with onions and tomatoes may be that it makes them go farther. Just thinking aloud, what do you think?

Hi Mamta

I do agree. With the addition of tomatoes you get gravy which extends the dish.

I really enjoy cooking for my family and trying new recipes to, so last weekend I decided to try making my own pickled beetroot which came out really well. So no more tinned beetroot for this family.

Also,our son is getting married in January and both he and the fiance asked me to make the wedding cake.

I feel this is a compliment from them to entrust me with this task and a huge challenge for me not to fail! They want a 2 tier square.

I have found a recipe by a Delia Smith who it seems is very popular in the UK.

Does anyone on this wonderful site (which over the years I have come to know and trust) have any commnets about Delias Christmas cake recipe and if they do what are they and who or what do they recommend?

many thanks

June

How wonderful your son is getting married. Congratulations! I am sure your cake will do him proud.

I haven't bought cooked/pickled beetroot for a very long time. I steam mine in a microwave, which takes fraction of the time and preserves the colour well.

I am looking for a TT Dill Gherkin/cucumber pickle recipe which is slightly sweet, Europe style. If you make it, I will love to hear from you or anyone else.

Delia is the queen of traditional recipes such as fruit cake, said to be very reliable. I haven't made that recipe of hers but would certainly trust her recipe!

Congratulations June!

Delia's 'classic' christmas cake has now been in print for over forty years. On the basis you don't want to 'experiment' with your son's wedding cake I don't think you'll find a more tried and tested recipe. I have the recipe and although I've never made it myself, relatives have done so always with good results.

In the UK we have an expression "doing a Delia" (now even in the Oxford English Dictionary) which like "doing a Mamta" means if you follow the recipe it won't go wrong and you can be assured of a good result. There is also an expression "Delia power" which meant if she presented one of her recipes on TV the supermarkets sold out of its ingredients the next day!

Winton

just to check June, this is the 'classic' recipe:

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/the-classic-christmas-cake.html

Winton

Many thanks to all for your wishes and tips. It is a very exciting time for the family.

Yes Winton that is the correct site. What I like about it is that it gives you the exact amounts for the various cake tin sizesso it 'should' be easy!

I will make a 10in and a 7 inch.

Wish me luck as I endeavour to 'do a Delia' and will let you know the outcome.

Kindest Regards to all

June

Mamta mentioned tteamed beetroot in this thread. Also try to wrap individual beetroots in foil paper and pop it in the oven for as long you take for jacket potatoes. This gives the beetroot a more "earthy" flavour,since flavours are not lost as when boiling it.

Hello Mamta,

My housekeeper is Polish, I can ask her for a recipe from her mother, she might have something she makes. The Polish like Gherkins.

I also have a friend in St.Petersburg and her grandmother had a Dacha (Country house to us) Her grandmother (Babushka) used to spend all summer in the Dacha to get away from the heat and traffic smells of Peterburg. She grew gherkins and cucumber all the time and dill was one of the things she preserved the pickle in, It lasted them way into the winter months and beyond. My friend told me her grandmother made huge bottles of this pickle.

I tried it once and it was a sweet and a little bit biting also from the Gherkins, the Gherkins were quite raw but the pickle seemed to soften them slightly. They just slice them up and put them on a big plate and eat them with Russian black bread and of course a shot of vodka. It is the Russian version of antipasti.

I also have a friend in Moscow and her mother also does this.

I will ask for you.

In Spain they have fresh gherkins which they treat like cucumber, I have tried Spanish pickled gherkins, forget about them, they pickle them in a vinegar that is neither sweet nor sour, It has a strange taste.

Leave it to the Russians and the Poles to come up with a recipe.

Regards

Thank you Hirta, I will look forward to your friend's babushka's and other recipes :-). You will have to get me their names and a little about them, to add to the introduction of the recipe, if it turns out to be the sort I am after. I am sure it will be, from what you describe.

I made delia's christmas cake last year. Turned out perfect. Beautiful and moist. Best fruit cake i've ever tasted. Good luck!

Delias food is always good. I don't think I will bother this year. No one except me eats fruit cakes around here and it has too much sugar for me!

Does anyone have a recipe for the chicken curry masala or would I have to buy this spice mix in my local spice shop?

like most of these spice mixes, they are just figments of people's imagination. There are traditional dry spice masalas, but the modern approach to making 'a curry' by reaching for an appropriately labeled box of spice mix is a sorry state of affairs.

I've seen a couple shelves of these new spice mixes in shops and supermarkets, and it makes me smile, There probably isn't more than a dozen different spices in the lot of them, and yet there are dozens of boxes?

Although designed to save time by premixing, they don't take into account the need to roast some of the ingredients, or to add them at different times, essential for an excellent outcome.

Just one step away from 'cook in sauces'. Boxing up spice mixes is dumbing down cooking, IMHO. What next, tea/sugar/milk powder, with dehydrated water?

Dehydrated water?

LOL!