Indian Chicken Curry - Recipe

Curries are a great way to spice up the supper time, whether it is a chicken tikka masala or a red thai curry. Now, I love both Thai curries as well as Indian curries. For today's meal, I decided to make a Indian curry. My main inspiration for this dish is the youtube clip below. The man who is cooking this dish in the youtube clip is an Indian chef and he is really funny to watch. I've watched a number of his youtube clips of how he cooks the Indian dishes, especially curries and they are all so easy to follow. His clips are very uninformative but easy to learn from as he is so relaxed in his cooking and seem to make the dishes so easy and effortlessly. Will def try out more of his recipes.

Other recipes of various type of curries that I've tried come from the recipe collection on bbc's recipe website.

The ingredients fro this curry:

2 can of chopped tomatoes, 200 grams each

1 green paprika, chopped

1 cup of assorted frosen veggies ( peas, sweetcorn, carrots, red paprika) 

3 chicken breast, diced (in the youtube clip below he uses big pieces of chicken but I like to used diced thighs or chicken breast instead)

1/2 cup of yogurt

1 cuo of water

2 tablespoon of vegetable oil

rise

Spices: 

1/2 teaspoon of: hot paprika, cumin, coriander, ginger & garlic powder, black pepper, salt, garam masala, turmeric, bay leaf, fenugreek, black mustard seed and mild curry powder. (In the clip, he uses whole seeds to roast and then grind, but I simply use the ground version of the above mentioned spices).

Process:

1- Start by putting the diced chicken breast in a pot and cover it over medium heat so that the chicken breast gets steamed in its own juices. Then remove the lid so that the liquid from the chicken evaporate. Add the oil and brown the chicken breast.

2- Add all the veggies and fry for few minutes on medium heat until the mix get a little color. Then add all the spices and let it fry for few minutes. Add the tomatoes and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. If it is to dry after 15 minutes add the water as well and let it all cook trough. I added yogurt the last 5-10 minutes, to give the curry a mild and round taste and let it simmer so that all the spices have mixed well and chicken is cooked through.

I served the curry with basmati rise. It tasted heavenly. 

The clip below is my inspiration for the chicken curry I made this time.

Enjoy!

Feta Cheese Pasty

When I am really hungry but to lazy to cook something, I love to come up with easy recipes that are delicious and can be done in less then half hour. So the other day when I felt hungry, I checked what i had at home to make something quick and easy for an evening snack. I found the perfect ingredients for a tasty hot feta cheese pasty: herbs, feta cheese and puff pastry dough.

It is really easy to make the pasty. Basically, I just cut of a piece of the puff pastry dough and rolled it out with some flour to make it non-sticky. I cut up some feta cheese in a bowl and mixed it with a tea spoon of the herbes de provence and mixed well. 

I took some of the filling and put it on one side of the rolled out dough and folded the other side over. I folded the edges twice and pinched it so that the filling will not leak through once melted in the oven. I made small holes with a fork in the pasty so that hot are would come out. I put the pasty in the oven for 10-20 minutes on 200 C degrees and out came the most delicious and cheesy pasties :)

Best way to enjoy one of 

 these feta cheese pasty is with a cup of nice tea. Hope you will give this easy pasty a try. Trust me, you will go back to make it over and over again :)

Enjoy!

Strawberry Cake with Vanilla Cream

Source

My Strawberry Cake with vanilla cream is my all time favorite cake. I have never had a tastier cake than this. It is quite heavy and sweet, but the flavors are delicious and I never get tired of making and eating it. The way I make the strawberry cake is very similar to another very famous Swedish cake called the Princess cake (Princesstårta). It is a typical Swedish cake served with coffee for afternoon tea. The combination is so good and it really is a cake for royals, hence the name :)

The Swedish Princess cake is very similar to mine in the sense that it looks the same inside of it, with the vanilla cream and strawberry jam. The difference is that mine has whipped cream and fruit covering the whole cake, while a proper Princess Cake is covered with a tasty marzipan icing. 

There are two different ways in doing my Strawberry Cake. Either you make the sponge cake base yourself or you buy ready made cake layers. In Sweden there are sponge cake bases already cut in 3 layers which I often used when I didn't have time to bake my own cake. Here in UK, I have been looking for something similar and these 2 cakes below are the closest I have come in finding already made cake bases. If you have better alternatives please share it with me. 

So I bought 2 of these cakes and one of them I simply cut in the middle to create 3 layers.

Although my cake is called the Strawberry cake, I actually use more fruits than just strawberries, such as banana, kiwi and raspberries or blueberries. I begin with a layer of vanilla cream (not custard). There are different recipes of vanilla cream you can find online. I usually use snabb-marsan from the brand Ekströms, which is a quick  mix of vanilla cream powder and milk, but I often use a little dubble cream to make it thick and smooth.

The first layer of the cake is prepared with the vanilla cream. The good thing with these cakes are that they have a depth in the middle with higher sides so that you can fill it with the vanilla cream without spilling over the sides. I usually add bananas to this layer.

The second layer was the top part cut from the second cake base. I used the top part so I could fill it with strawberry jam and fresh strawberries. That way it will not spill or run done on the sides.

The 3d layer is the actual bottom of the cake base that I cut into 2 pieces, which I put upside down as it is flat and smooth. It will therefore make it easier to spread the whipped cream. The corrugated pattern of the sides around the cake makes  it easier as well to apply the whipped cream all around it.

Lastly, I decorate the cake with the rest of the fruits. This cake is super easy to make and does not take to much time once you have a ready made cake base. Everyone who tasted it, said it was really delicious. I would definitely recommend you to give it a try :) and if so, please share your ideas and the result with me.