Friday 7 August 2009

an indian birthday feast

Spices
spices for the royal chicken korma

my favourite part of Indian cooking is the very first step of heating the oil up so that it glistens and dropping the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and cardamon pods in, so they crackle, spit and pop around the pan. my nose twitches and my stomach does a little dance and suddenly my body, not just my brain, knows that soon it's going to get a tasty curry to enjoy!

Indian Dinner
royal chicken korma, saag chicken, spicy chickpeas

on wednesday ben's brother got a year older and to celebrate his mum and i made indian curries. she made a really spicy melt-in-your mouth chicken curry and i made a royal chicken korma with lots of cream and saffron, a saag chicken (i think saag can refer to any leafy green, mine was an untraditional silverbeet), and spicy chickpeas and potatoes. we didn't talk about what we where going to make in advance so we ended up with lots and lots of chicken ... but it was all delicious so it didn't matter.

it's one of our 'things' to get together with ben's siblings and eat an absurd amount of take-away indian ... usually until our bellys feel like they'll explode with tastiness! i don't want to be a take-away buying person anymore. i love cooking and can make indian almost as tasty as our favourite take away, it's just getting around to doing it that's the problem ... and learning how to make good garlic naan at home ... i've got no idea how to make good garlic naan at home!

there are lots more people taking a photo a day in august at The Byron Life.
these are my photos from wednesday, but they're a bit late again... taking photos everyday is pretty easy to remember, but posting about them is much more difficult!

4 comments:

  1. nice! we love indian too, diont get meat dishes very often! sad face. I love the sound of yours, the word royal just lets you know its gonna have a wonderful array of spices in it, sounds rich and decadent. Whoop! looks great too, especially in your bowls. nice pics! i love food photography! lol

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  2. Yum, yum, yum! Looks fantastic.
    I have a great naan recipe, can scan that in for you if you like. The same page has garlic naan, too. Haven't tried that, though, but I'm sure it's a ripper!

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  3. kel - vege indian curries are delicious too, but i think they're just harder to get right...
    i'm glad you like the photos, trying to take a decent photo of a curry is a lot trickier than i expected!

    veggie - i would LOVE your nann recipe, i made lots of pappadums to compensate for the lack of nann but it really just isn't the same ...
    once i've gotten naan down pat i just need to find a good lime pickle and fruit chutney recipe and i'll be an indian feast pro!

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  4. The royal is a bit variable, flavour wise. Somehow the flavours from absurdly expensive Indian takeaway are always a lot more concentrated and powerful than our homegrown variety, which is sad. It may have something to do with organisation of premade elements cogitating for days on end, compared to our fresh bits and pieces...of course, not that im complaining given that i didnt help.

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