Indian

Jasmin actually pulled Egypt out initially - but we had Yemen the previous week, so we wanted a country that wasn't in the Middle East. So Jasmin redrew and we got Indian.

I don't often cook Indian, on account that the girls normally find it a bit spicy. So this week I kept the chili to a minimum but included all the other spices. I also had some chutneys which I had made from Peaches and Pumpkin which went nicely with the weeks food.

I guess the main feature of Indian food are the spices which are used. This week these included:

• Mustard Seeds
• Cumin
• Cardamom
• Turmeric
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Coriander
• Fenugreek (so last week's Yemen purchase came in handy)
• Garam Masala
• Cinnamon

So as you can see the spice shelf got a good workout!

I cooked with sunflower oil - which is apparently quite popular these days across india. As you can imagine we ate all meals with rice, and a bread of some description - Naan, Chapitis or Pappadums.

Tuesday

We started off with the classic Butter Chicken (also known as murgh makhani) which is from the Punjabi region.  Apparently in India they serve it way more spicy than in Western countries, and the chicken is still on the bone. I kept it quite mild, and even went so far as to use a jar of butter chicken mix which was added to the yoghurt to marinate the chicken. The Jar did cost me almost $10 so it was a quality mix, which was purchased from Ding at the Food and Wine Show in Canberra not long ago.

I served the butter chicken with:

• Pumpkin Chutney
• Kachumber
• Pappadums and
• Rice

I also watched the Indian episode of Food Safari, and picked up the recipe for Kerfi from that. Kerfi are sweet balls made from shredded coconut, condensed milk and pistachios. They were pretty nice, Eliza went back for a few of them.

Wednesday

The menu for Wednesday night included:

• Curry Coconut Beef
• Coconut Rice
• Naan Breads
• Kachumber
• Pumpkin Chutney
• Peach Chutney

The curry coconut beef recipe and Kachumber recipe was from the Indian section of "Love to Eat" (the Delicious Cookbook). In the North of India they typically accompany their meals with bread, in the South they use rice - I just did both for all meals this week :-)

Thursday

The menu for Thursday night included:

• Indian Salmon Kebabs 
• (and Indian Chicken fillets included for Eliza's sake as she's not a fan of Salmon)
• Spicy Green Sauce
• Peach Chutney
• Lettuce
• Rice
• Chapatis

Thursday night ended up being our last Indian night. On account that Friday I had to pick Jasmin up from school a little early as she had an allergic reaction to something. I took her off to the chemist to get some Phenergan with anti-histamine in it, the chemist couldn't find any bites on her - so concluded that it may have been food related. She had a bright red rash from the top of her head down to the centre of her back. Two tablets and six hours later, it had disappeared completely.  We can only conclude that it was one of the many spices we had been using - which we have used before, probably in smaller quantities though. If I had to guess - it would be the turmeric which was included in each meal, and perhaps built up over the three days!

Well - that concludes the brief Indian week we had! Stay tuned for Brazilian and Japanese in the coming weeks.

Di :-)