Fatima's fingers

This Tunisian dish might look like a spring roll, but the taste is a delicate balance between tuna, cheese and harissa paste.

Ingredients:

-"feuille de brik"
-one tuna can
-2 eggs
-two spoons of cheese (emmental)
-one spoon of harissa
-additional ingredients: potatoes, capers, shallot

Deep fried in oil, Fatima's fingers remind me of samosas, even though they taste much different. While this dish was made by my fiance, I think samosas are in the near future.  

not Indian food, but I'll make an exception for this Vietnamese dish

I must be addicted to this one restaurant my colleagues and I used to visit frequently because everytime I go back home I have to get some pho to satisfy my cravings.  I was afraid they use MSG but after making it for the first time, I think the broth for the pho noodles the restaurant makes could possibly be done without additional MSG.  Although, mine didn't quite turn out like the restaurant's version (which may very well be westernized), I did enjoy it and look forward to figuring out how to practice and improve my bowl of pho.  Usually at the restaurant I would order a shrimp based pho, but since that isn't authentic I was suggested to make a beef pho based on a colleague's recipe.         

A fun short video

If I were in India, I probably wouldn't cook either provided I had the means to hire chefs...

Dum Fish Biryani

A colleague of mine recently went fishing and was kind enough to share some fresh rainbow trout with me.  While fish curries came to mind immediately, I decided to try the same tecniques designed to make tougher meat tender on the trout.  This time the length of slow cooking was shortened to compensate for the meat type.  End results showed that a fish biryani can also be quite tasty and much different from the lamb version despite the same spice blend.  I have to recommend this for the zesty flavor that can only come from fresh fish.

Kacchi Biryani

One of the biryani cooking methods is called kacchi biryani.  Using raw meat and parboiled rice sealed in a container on low heat for longer periods of time produces very tender meat and locks the spices into the rice as it cooks together.  Sometimes called dum biryani, it often proves difficult as it takes some care to ensure the meat has been cooked.  The big pots used for this dish in India are sometimes topped with coals to provide heat from the top lid as well as the bottom.

This time I tried using a dum technique by rolling dough around the lid and trapping any escaping steam.  The lamb biryani was served with mirchi ka salan, a typical Hyderabadi side dish based on jalapeno peppers. 

Nihari

This is the reason I am trying to learn to cook.  A spicy nihari with naan is certainly one of most delicious, messy, and sinus-clearing dishes I can think of.  If I could learn how to do this dish well, I would be hard-pressed not to share it with friends to let them know what they're missing in most Indian restaurants.  I'll save the history spiel on this dish later, as 2/3 of the wiki article's sources were fabricated. 

 

This first try was a surprisingly good result.  The meat easily came off the bone and the amount of ghee or oil was not overwhelming.  Of course, I will post again if I find a better spice blend, but I'll go ahead and list what I used for this one in case anyone had any suggestions.  I used lamb for this occasion, however, purists argue that nihari is a beef based stew.  

Ingredients:

1 kilo beef, with thigh or shoulder bones cut into pieces (very important)

Grind mixture:

• 2 tb fennel seeds (saunf)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp peppercorn
• 1/2 tsp dry ginger
• 2 black cardamom
• 1" cinnamon stick
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1-2 pieces mace
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp nigella seeds
• 4 dried red hot chili peppers
• 8-10 cloves

other ingredients:
3 bay leaves
salt
1 tsp turmeric
1 large onion chopped finely
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp ginger paste
2 tb flour
1 tsp red chili powder
1/4 cup yogurt
oil

As I mentioned before, I would recommend dry toasting the spices prior to grinding the spice mixture, some longer than others.  Start with heating the oil, and then browning the meat just slightly.  After draining and setting aside, use the same oil to fry onions until brown.  Then add the meat to the onions, along with the ground spice mixture, as well as the ginger-garlic paste, chili powder, yogurt, turmeric powder and bay leaves.  Salt can be added at this point, and saute for just a couple minutes to blend the ingredients.   After transferring to the stew pot, add approximately between 4 to 7 glasses of water to the meat mixture and cover.  Once the steam starts forming on the lid (hopefully its glass), turn heat to low and leave on for multiple hours (if you can't do overnight, then at least 6).  At this point, you can adjust the taste by adding whichever ingredients and cooking for longer.  If it's ready, then mix the flour with 1/2 cup water and add only a little bit at a time to the nihari.  Cook for a few minutes in between and taste to check consistency, but it will more than likely not require all of the flour.
Serve with naan, lemon, fried onions, green chilies and ginger. 

I found some infuser bags after I made this nihari that allow me to place all my whole spices in a bag which can be removed prior to serving.  I will try the recipe again using some whole spices to see which one is better for a longer stew, and also test the difference in the use of beef vs lamb. 

Some difficulties encountered

frying onions
       On a couple occasions, onions were burned to the point of bitterness which may have been due to using too high heat.  One attempt included the use of adding water periodically into the mix while frying to prevent burning but that just seemed to make a mess and the onions still came out burnt and soggy.  I've realized a lot of ghee or oil to the point of floating onion slices is not necessary for frying.  Medium heat worked well on the last couple tries, and while it takes about 10-15 minutes, it continues to brown a little once removed from the heat.  Still, its missing something from the fried onion pieces I've seen in biryanis before (mine are very dark and not as crispy).  Does anyone have suggestions on how to fry these onions properly?  Do they even add much taste if you were to marinate together with the meat a mixture of spices and greens along with these fried onions?
   

rice consistency

As you can see from the picture, the rice was clearly overcooked.  I seem to think its never done when I test the rice, and keep it boiling...leading to pictured results.  I've never had problems with Tilda Basmati rice, but I figured it shouldn't make a difference if I was using Kohi Noor rice which seems reputable.  Maybe soaking rice beforehand for an hour is not advisable when you're making a kacchi biryani.  spice mixture  For the first few times making biryani with my own ground spices, the flavor was rich, even if there were numerous other problems.  This time, pictured above, I used some leftover spices I had put in a sealed container from grinding and found a noticeable change in the taste.  I think the fact I had used too much ghee made a difference, but I think grinding the spices immediately after roasting dry spices is a good practice (albeit time consuming) for each meal.  I used a few more ingredients in the most recent spice mixture hoping to add to the taste, but I think the simpler version tasted better. Also I used shrimp instead of lamb so hopefully next time I'll use goat or lamb for a traditional taste.

Hyderabadi Biryani

Hyderabadi Biryani is often considered the most revered biryani of the hundreds of types.  This was once protected along with other recipes in the kitchens of the Nizams to the point where daughters who were to be married off to other noble households could not enter the kitchen for risk of learning or taking a part of the recipe with them.  For myself, the appeal of the biryani is the simplicity of it, the texture of the rice and the tenderness of the meat make this dish savory and worthy of serving to royalty. 

12 months 12 dishes

I hope to take on a different dish every month or so and focus on that one dish for the month.  This way I can experiment within the framework of a general recipe with multiple spice mixtures and techniques for a single dish all while avoiding Shaan masala mixes.