Pathia is a wonderful Indian dish that has it’s roots in Persia. Sweet, hot and sour it hits all the right notes in out household.
Obviously you can alter the level of heat to suit your taste by using more or less Chilli powder and fresh chillies.
Chicken & Paneer Pathia Made With ‘Ome Made B.I.R Curry Masala
For this recipe I used chicken thigh as the main ingredient with a little added paneer. If you are using chicken breast it may take a little less cooking.
You can use whatever main ingredient you like though. Prawns work really well. If you are using lamb or beef remember they will need longer cooking or try par-cooking first. If you want a vegetarian version You can use whatever you like. If using root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots try par-boiling before adding to the sauce. They will then cook quicker and take on more flavour from the sauce.
Obviously I used my own ‘Ome Made B.I.R Curry Masala for this dish. You can however use any branded curry masala or your own version.
Base Sauce
I’ve used a base sauce for this recipe but I’ve made one especially for this curry. It’s a bit heavier on the tomatoes than most base sauces.
If you want to use your own base sauce go ahead. Just add the tomato ingredients to the fried spices before adding your own base.
So for Easter Sunday this year we decided to have Thai.
We were having friends and Family around for Dinner so we decided to keep it simple.
So of course it had to be Thai Fishcakes and the ubiquitous Thai Green Chicken Curry. These were complimented by some nice crunchy pickled vegetables, cucumber sauce and Thai sweet chilli sauce.
The fishcakes were made a couple of days beforehand and re-heated in the oven for 35 minutes beforehand, they reheated really well and saved time on the day. The Thai green curry paste was also made in advance to save time.
Unfortunately there are no pictures of the Thai Green Chicken Curry (I’ve put one in of a previous creation) but I’ve included the recipe anyway for anyone that wants a go.
First up the pastes. These will make more than you need but if you fry them in some oil and put them in sterilised jars they will keep in the fridge for six weeks or so. By the way if you’re one of those Veggie or Vegan types you can omit the shrimp paste.
Thai Green Curry Paste
Makes 180g/6oz
2 teaspoons coriander seeds (or two level teaspoons ground coriander)
18 small, hot green chilli peppers
2 stems of lemongrass
3 tablespoon galangal sliced (or ginger)
1 tablespoon kaffir (if you can get them, normal if not) lime zest
30g/1oz coriander (if you can get it with the root on add that too)
6 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped
60g/2oz shallots or onion chopped
1 tablespoon shrimp paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon ground white pepper (yes you can substitute black but white gives a truer and better flavour)
Add all the ingredients (starting with the hardest first) into a food processor or wet grinder and blitz to a smooth paste adding a little oil if necessary.
Thai Red Curry Paste
10 – 15 dried red chillies (soaked in hot water for twenty minutes or so)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 stems lemongrass sliced
6 cloves garlic peeled and sliced
60g/2oz shallots or onion sliced
3 tablespoon galangal or ginger sliced
1 1/2 tablespoon shrimp paste
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground white pepper
add all the ingredients into a food processor or wet grinder and blitz to a smooth paste as above.
Thai Fish Cakes (Tod Man Pla)
this makes approximately 22
375g/13oz white fish (haddock, cod, Pollock!)
1 large squid tube
1/4 portion of red curry paste (roughly a tablespoon)
1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon softened palm sugar or dark brown sugar
2 kaffir lime leaves soaked in hot water
55g/2oz yard-long beans (or any round green bean) cut into thin slices
1 small egg beaten
Prepare the fish and squid taking the bones and skin off the fish and removing the backbone, beak and intestines from the squid then rinsing. Roughly chop and process the fish in batches into a smooth paste. CurlyE was helping me with this – “Urgghhh! that looks like snot!” to be fair he was right! Mix in the other ingredients with just enough egg to bind without being sloppy.
Form the mixture into balls using about a dessert spoon of mixture for each one (having a bowl of cold water and keeping your hands wet will stop the mixture sticking to your hands). Flatten your balls into disks about 5mm thick.
place the fishcakes on greaseproof paper on a tray (if all the ingredients were fresh and not previously frozen they can be flash frozen at this stage).
To cook from fresh deep fry for approximately 3 minutes, from frozen give them about 4 – 5 minutes.
Pickled Vegetables
We love pickled vegetables in our house. They make a lovely side dish to all South East Asian food. Even a bit of poached chicken on some plain boiled rice is livened up and made into a tasty refreshing dish with the addition of them.
The choice of vegetable is up to you. In this instance we used baby sweet corn, onion, carrot strips, white cabbage and some green beans. We also did one jar with some sliced chilli in, some like it hot! The pickling liquor is quite light, so these will not keep for months but they should keep for a couple weeks in the fridge.
To make your pickling liquor you want roughly 50/50 vinegar to water, some sugar to taste and some bits n bobs in it to flavour (Lemongrass trimmings, coriander seeds, garlic, ginger or whatever takes your fancy).
Simmer the mixture for 20 – 30 minutes until the sugar has melted and the flavours have infused the liquor.
Prepare your veg and place in a colander over a bowl. sprinkle with salt, give it a toss and leave for 20 minutes to draw some of the water out. after twenty minutes give the veg a rinse, drain and then put in clean jars (sterilised if not using within a week). Strain your vinegar liquor while still hot and pour over the vegetables to cover. It will be ready after 24 hours.
Sorry it’s not much of a recipe but it’s just one of those things I do on the fly!
Sweet Chilli/Cucumber sauce
In a pan put 175ml/6 fl oz water, 250g/9 oz sugar, 2 teaspoons salt and 175ml/6 fl oz white vinegar. Bring to a simmer and simmer until the sugar has dissolved.
Put 1/2 of the above mixture in a serving bowl, add a dash of fish sauce and light soy sauce. Finely dice some cucumber and add to the sauce. And that’s the cucumber sauce done.
To the remaining vinegar mix in the pan add 2 teaspoons of dried chilli flakes or a couple of finely diced fresh red chillies and two teaspoons of strawberry or raspberry jam. Bring to the simmer again and cook until the jam has dissolved, that’s your sweet chilli done.
Thai Green Chicken Curry
Enough for 6 – 8 people
30g/1oz fresh coriander
1 generous tablespoon green curry paste
4 kaffir lime leaves (soaked in water if dried) shredded
1 heaped teaspoon dark brown sugar or a couple lumps of palm sugar
a dash of soy sauce
a dash of fish sauce
some Thai basil leaves shredded
2 Thai red chillies thinly sliced
juice of two limes
Blitz the fresh coriander in a food processor. Heat some oil in a large pan and add the curry paste, fresh coriander, lime leaves and the spices. Fry for a couple of minutes, stirring so the mixture doesn’t burn. Add the coconut milk, bring to a simmer and cook on a low heat for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and if necessary enough water to just cover the chicken. Bring to the simmer and cook gently, covered for approximately 10 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for a further 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. Serve with some plain rice or noodles and a little pickled veg and mango salad on the side.
Mango Salad
Dice a whole mango and place in a serving bowl. Add a dash of vinegar, black pepper, a sliced red chilli and a sprinkling of soft dark brown sugar. Top with some toasted and crushed cashew nuts before serving.
So that was our Easter Sunday Dinner. It might not have been traditional but it was damn good!
Oh… yes there was dessert but it was just a boring old trifle… and erm…. the custard didn’t set… whoops!
The trifle was a bit sloppy but that wasn’t going to stop me!
So, for 1 week only, Dj requested to have school dinners. He was mainly tempted by the change from the ‘normal’ menu to ‘International Food Week’.
A week of dishes from 5 different places in the world.
We asked him if he’d like to write a blog on his experience & he jumped at the chance.
Everything that follows (apart from the actual Menu bit) is word for word that Dj wrote….we just corrected the spellings & some punctuation to make it easier on the brain for you good people.
Monday: French
Croque Monster, avec Pomme Frites et Harico
Tart Tatin with Ice Cream
I liked the cheese & ham baguette but the bread wasn’t as good as Daddys’.
I didn’t like the chips or the beans because the chips were soggy & the beans are out of a tin, unlike daddys, he makes his own.
The pudding was nice & my friend went mental on it.
*******
Tuesday: Caribbean
Chicken Stew with Rice & Peas
Sticky Ginger Bread
I liked the sticky bread but if my Daddy made it, it would be better, & I didn’t like the chicken stew & rice & peas because the peas weren’t in the rice & the chicken was soggy.
The pudding which was sticky bread was nice.
I don’t thinks that’s a Caribbean.
*******
Wednesday: Portugese
Portuguese Cheese Flan with Half Jacket, Coleslaw & Sweetcorn
Vanilla Biscoitos with Ice Cream
Today I had a cheese flan with half a jacket potato.
I liked none of it because the cheese was cold & yucky!
The jacket potato was yummy but it didn’t have any butter on. The sweetcorn was nice like any other persons.
The pudding was fab & my friend liked it & I loved it too!
& there wasn’t any coleslaw.
*******
Thursday: Indian
Chicken Curry with Boiled Rice
Ice Cream with Chocolate Sauce
Today I had curry & I liked the curry & I don’t mean the rice & today the chicken was better than Tuesdays because the chicken that was in the stew was soggy but todays one was better.
The pudding was really nice & it was ice cream with chocolate sauce.
*******
Friday: Italian
Margarita Pizza with Potato Wedges & Sweetcorn
Iced Lemon Sponge
Today I had margarita pizza with soggy chips.
I liked the margarita pizza but Daddy’s ‘Ome Made pizza is 10 billion, trillion times better.
Todays pudding was sponge with grated lemon in & I liked it but Daddy’s ‘Ome Made lemon drizzle cake is better
*******
That’s the end of my Blog.
Thank you for reading it.
Love Dj XXXXXX
************
After reading Dj’s blog we know that some of you lovely people will be thinking ‘Yeah, well your Kids are lucky (& probably spoilt) to get nice food at home all the time’, & yes, you’re right!
We do tell our Kids that they are VERY lucky to have a Daddy who can cook them fabulous dishes at home (sometimes Mummy does too!).
We also make our Kids realise that for other children this maybe the ONLY good plate of food that they get in a day. For some busy/working full time parents it’s easier & they know their child is getting a meal at school. For some parents it’s the affordable option & a lifeline for their children.
Could it be better though?
This is just Dj’s 7yr old view of what he thought was going to be a fabulous week of school lunches. He did a fab job of sitting down everyday after school & writing (most) of his thoughts on paper.
We can’t help feeling he was a tad disappointed with the meals….apart from the puddings!!!
Soup… We absolutely love it in our house. Not the tinned variety of course. It has to be ‘Ome-made! And it’s so easy to make. You take your favourite ingredients sweat them off in some butter add some stock, cook for a bit and then blitz. Not leek and potato soup though, that can’t be blitzed. That’s completely breaking the rules, that has to be… ‘lumpy’.
If you make your own stock it’s even better. Even if it’s chucking the bones from the leftover roast chicken in a pot and boiling for an hour, you will be left with a nice base for a soup. Of course if your one of those non-meat eating types you can make a stock from those manky left over carrots at the back of the fridge any veg trimmings and some onion. If you roast the veg for 20 minutes or so you’ll get more flavour and a deeper colour to your stock too.
So heres a recipe for a soup I made the other day along with a recipe for some cumin, ginger and garlic croutons. If you don’t have the croutons with this soup I suggest putting the spices used to flavour them in the soup. Although this recipe has chillies and spices in it it is no way spicy. If you prefer it spicier just up the amount of red chili in the recipe.
Sweet Potato & Red Chili Soup
Ingredients
50g butter
1 medium onion roughly sliced
2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
200g (a large baker) potato cubed
700g sweet potatoes (4 small or 3 medium)cubed
1 large carrot diced
1 teaspoon ground white pepper (or extra black if you haven’t)
2 medium sized red chillies deseeded and finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped coriander
Ground black pepper and salt to taste
Method
Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan. Gently fry the onion and garlic for about 10 minutes.
Add both types of potato and carrot to the pan along with the white pepper, salt, curry massala, allspice and thyme. Gently sweat all the veg off for a further 10 minutes stirring so the spices don’t stick and burn.
Add your stock which should just cover the vegetables. Bring to a simmer and cook for approximately forty minutes or until all the veg is cooked through and soft. Take off the heat and carefully blitz with a hand blender, blender or food processor.
Put back on the heat and add the remaining ingredients. The soup will be ready after 20 minutes.
Cumin Ginger & Garlic Croutons
8 slices white bread
Olive oil
2 teaspoon crushed garlic
2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Salt and black pepper
Method
Cut the bread into cubes and put in a shallow roasting/baking tin.
Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with the garlic, cumin and ginger. Give the croutons a good toss and then sprinkle a little more olive oil on them and toss them again.
Put in an oven preheated to 165°C on fan setting (185°C for conventional)the croutons will take 30 – 40 minutes but you need to regularly check on them and give them a shake or turn every 10 minutes or so.
Once the croutons are cooked they can be used straight away. Once the croutons are completely cool they can be put in a sealed container where they should be good for up to five days.
So one Friday I get a call from Mick the Butcher… “Jez” (Yeah, I know it’s Jerome or ‘Ome, I’ve never been a Jez but then Mick is Mike so I guess we’re even!) “I’ve got some Highland short ribs in d’ya want ’em?”
It turns out that a restaurant had ordered them but then decided at the last minute to change their mind, more fool them… what a treat!
The beast that the ribs hailed from came from a very well looked after herd of Highland Cross (Cross as in crossed with another breed not a bit ticked off… although if they knew what was coming I’m sure they’d be pretty livid!) cattle that reside about ten minutes walk from our house. Well you can’t get much more local than that!
If you have never cooked short ribs at first glance they seem particularly fatty. However you have to remember that these tasty hunks of meat need slow cooking at a temperature that allows the fat to render down and flavour the rest of the meat before being given a blast on a high heat to crisp up the remaining fat.
When it comes to cooking big chunks of meat I have to admit that the Americans seem to have it right. So, dry rub of spices, seasoning, sugar and herbs it is before a last minute glaze of something slightly sweet and spicy… I just know that the kids are going to get messy for this tea time!
The best thing to have with these ribs is a nice side of chips… or fries if you want to be really Americanised, salad and a nice vinegary ‘slaw’ to cut through the richness of the meat. We even had a squirt of tomato ketchup to finish it off, to be fair it went really well!
BBQ Short Rib Of Beef
I used 4.5 Kilo of ribs which would feed 8 hungry people. They do heat up quite well so if you have any left over you could always freeze until needed or you could halve the amount if you wanted to do less.
Dry Rub
2 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoon smoked paprika (If you have it)
2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoon Muscavado sugar (or dark brown or molasses)
2 teaspoons of salt
a good grind of black pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
Mix all the ingredients together and then rub into the ribs using your hands. The ribs can then be left to marinate up to 24 hours.
To cook preheat the oven to 220°C/428°F (slightly less if using a fan oven).
Place the ribs on a rack in a large roasting dish. Cover with a double layer of foil and then place in the oven. Turn the temperature down to165°C/330°F (145°C/290°F if using fan assisted oven).
The ribs can now be left to cook for 6 hours.
Sweet Chilli Glaze
50ml of vinegar (white wine or cider)
50ml water
2 tablespoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon chilli powder (or more if you like a real kick!)
dash of ‘Ome Made Chilli Sauce (or your favourite hot sauce)
1 tablespoon Tomato Ketchup
pinch of salt/pepper
1 teaspoon (about 1 clove) of crushed garlic
Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer gently for 20 minutes
Once the ribs have finished their slow cooking take out of the oven and turn the oven temperature up to a high heat (alternatively the ribs can be finished on a BBQ or can be left to cool and finished off another day)
Take the foil off the ribs and using a pastry brush give the ribs a good coating of glaze all over.
Put back in the oven (or on a BBQ) for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes take out of the oven again, give another coating of glaze and cook for a further 20 minutes after which the ribs should look shiny, sticky and slightly charred, if not cook for a little longer.
Once finished leave the ribs for ten minutes or so before serving, you don’t want to take the roof of your mouth off while eating… the ribs can be like the food equivalent to Napalm!
Oh… and make sure you have a hose ready to clean the kids down with afterwards!
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