Chili pepper and ethical chocolate

Valentine´s day tomorrow, that is rather new for people in Iceland to celebrate that day.  I don´t.  I am such a party pooper, I just think about the marketing around all this.  I am guessing many will buy chocolate for their sweethearts.  If ever, this is the day to splurge on a good chocolate, then I mean ethical good.  Here is a good article about ethical chocolate.  Read it before you go to the store to buy some chocolate.

The dry spices you get in the store are so tasteless, I get more taste from chewing on a newspaper.  We have a really good one, grown here in Iceland, it´s hot, but not too hot.  I dry it and put it in a mortel and work it until it becomes powder.

I made an Indian food the other day using only fresh garlic, ginger and my chili pepper and a little bit of turmeric.  IT was so good and good taste and little bit spicy.

The perfect “naan” FINALLY! and gorgeous Northern Lights

The good thing about waking up every now and then to feed your baby is when you look out the window of your bedroom in the middle of the night to feed and you see the sky lit up with beautiful green Northern Lights.

My bedroom view last night

I had to go out and see the sky dance.  It was hard to get out of the warm bed after the baby was a sleep with the rest of the family members.  But it was worth it.

As some of you might know I live in the country.  Than means no traffic, no street lights and very few neighbors.  So, at 2 in the morning I was up and out to enjoy the beauty of the Northern Lights, all by myself.  The sky was filled with stars as well.  The weather was completely still, little bit cold but nice.

At one point I saw an amazing shooting star, burning up.  It was so clear and unreal.  At a point like this, where you are all by yourself, it´s totally still, not a sound around, the sky covered with a green dancing light and bright stars, some of them falling…It makes you wonder 🙂

My back yard last night 

How to make a good naan has also made me wonder…how do they do it, at those good Indian restaurants, they have tandoori oven I know, but I was sure I should be able to do something better than what I´ve done in the past.  I always find my naan more like a pizza crust.  Too hard.

I saw a recipe for a naan, similar to all of the ones I´ve tried.  Then browsing around that site I found a recipe for something called Onion Kulchas.  It did sound good and something worth trying…and O MY COD, yes..COD! ( I´m from a fishing nation 😉 ) They were so good that the Indian dinner I did with it wasn´t eaten.  My husband and I, we stood by the kitchen Island the whole time and ate the naan as soon as they came off the pan, with raw onion mix… I have a recipe for that as well.

They were so soft that I could roll them up, that is how I like my Naan.  So this isn´t Naan but Kulchas I guess, and Kulchas is what I will be making from now on…

You can put a little pit of the onion mix into the dough while you are rolling it out, i prefer the onion mix raw…

Kulchas

• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 1/8th tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/2 cup Yogurt

Mix all ingredients well together, add little bit of water if you need the dough more wet.  Set a side for 1-2 hours, room temperature.

Divide the dough into small golf ball size balls.  Flat out very thin with a rolling pin.  Bake on a very hot pan on your stove, about 1 minute each side.

Raw onion mix

• 1 onion, chopped very finely
• 1-2 chillies, slices thinly
• 1/2 tsp ginger,grated
• Fresh Koriander (Cilantro)
• Salt to taste

I made a vegetarian dish as well, even though we didn´t end up sitting down to eat it, it was really good.

Believe it or not, I used the leftovers on a pizza couple of days later!  It was a reeeeaally good pizza, I will make it again.  I had the rest of the fresh onion mix spread on top of the pizza when it came out of the oven.

The paste was onion, garlic, chili, ginger, fried in oil added canned tomatoes and a bag of cashew nuts.  I spiced this up with an Indian spice blend I have, durban curry.  I put it in a blender.  Then I fried up veggies and mixed it with the paste as well as some yogurt.  VERY TASTY!

I am all about not buying jarred stuff, get yourself a good Indian spice blend and make your own sauces.

It´s fresh and you know what you are eating.

Inspired by Aloo Palak

I have a garden full of spinach and it´s growing so fast that I need to find more spinach recipes.  Soon my potatoes in the garden will be ready as well.    I found a recipe for Aloo Palak and used it as an inspiration for this dish.  If you have a garden full of spinach and potatoes you need to use, then this recipe is perfect.

 

Spinach potato dish

• 1-2 handfuls spinach
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 onion
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1-2 teaspoon good Indian spice blend
• 5-6 boiled potatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• Little bit of milk, 1/2 dl or so
• Salt and pepper
• Bit of butter

Wash the spinach and heat it on a pan with little bit of water.  Mix it in a blender.  Set a side.

Brown onion on a pan with little butter and garlic.  Add the spices, then finely chopped  tomatoes and sugar.  Add the spinach, splash of milk and stir.  Add potatoes, salt and pepper if you like.

I added extra pinch of butter in the end because they say everything tastes better with butter 😉

 

Ready to eat, I served mine with cod.

This is one of my favorite photo, called Sierra.  It wasn´t planned or posed, It was more of a snapshot.  The light outside was beautiful and a great contrast in shadows because of the trees in the yard.

The East Indian guy cooks for us

Our friend from India came for a visit to Iceland. On our way to an East Indian restaurant we drove by a supermarket. So we decided to go buy food and have our friend cook Indian for us instead.This was his first visit to an Icelandic supermarket, he didn´t know what we´d be able to buy, but spontaneously bought a bit of this and bit of that.That was the best Idea we could have had because the food was super!
We bought:

• Red lentils
• Spinach, fresh
• Fresh tomatoes
• An onion
• Red Onion
• Chile and pepper season
• Cumin seeds
• Paprika (spice)
• Sharwood Mango Chutney

NB. Make sure you use the cumin seeds not cumin powder.

DAHL made from red lentils

1. Boil the lentils
2. Put in a half a bag of spinach
3. 2 tbs Garam masala, 2 tbs paprika and salt
4. Added 4 tomatos and 1 onion roughly chopped
5. In another small casarole he heated 1 dl veggie oil. Add 3 garlic cloves, chileflakes, 1 tbs cumin or so.
6. After it had been heated in the oil for about 3-4 min, he put it to the lentils pot. Had it simmering for about 10 minutes. The texture is like a thick soup.

While it was simmering he made a Roti, East Indian flat bread. Flour, salt and luke warm water.

Put 1 cup flour in a bowl. Add about 1/2 cup luke warm water and bit of salt. Make a dough. Devide it into little balls and roll it out. (So it looks like a mexican tortilla)

Heat a non stick pan. Cook the bread on one side for few secons, flip over and cook for few seconds. Press it carefully to get air into it. Then again flip.

Here is a great video to see how it is done. I totally recommend you watch it if you wanna make this. It´s so easy. I make it all the time now.

I usually don´t use oil on the pan. She uses Ghee, but if you like you can use oil or butter.

I made the Raita.

• 2 cups plain yougurt or greek yogurt
• Cucumber
• Red onion
• 1/2 tbs Garam masala or other good indian spice blends
• About 2-3 tbs Maldon salt

Mix ingredients together, you can garnish with fresh cilantro and red chili.

Refrigerate the Raita for a bit. Serve it all with rice and Mango chutney.

So, so good!