Breakfast: Fried Egg Dosa with Potato Curry

Again I have taken a fabulous idea from Australian Gourmet Traveler and have implemented it here with us as an a la carte breakfast. The Fried Egg Dosa with Potato Curry. Dosa is a traditional Indian pan cake, completely gluten free which is great. The flour is actually made with rice and lentils which originally get soaked over night and then ground to a paste. Yogurt is added and then it get "fermented over night in the fridge.

Sounds like a lot of work? Yes you are right it is But luckily we live in a time of convenience products and you can buy a Dosa Premix in most good Indian Grocers. Then you just follow the instruction on the packet....hopefully there is an English translation....

The curry is a very simple curry and on top of that a dry curry, so there is no sauce. But it is delicious and fills your tummy.

I usually just fry the Dosa, do my eggs on the side, then top the finished Dosa with the eggs and potato curry, generously sprinkle with freshly grated Coconut and then put a lot of fresh Coriander on top and Voila, you got a great and different Breakfast.

Do I just eat it for Breakfast? No, for sure not. I can eat the Dosa anytime of the day, but that is just because I like it at any time of the day.

Recipe

250 g Dosa Mix
170 ml Water

1 kg Potatoes
50 g Ghee
100 g Shallots
25 g Garlic

20 g Chili, green
20 g Mustard Seeds
20 g Curry Leaves
20 g Masala mix

100 g Fresh Coconut, grind
30 g Coriander, fresh
3 ea Lime wedges

10 ea Eggs

Method
Peel and cut the potatoes in cubes
Put in sauce pan, cover with water and bring to the boil
Simmer till al dente
Pour off the water

Cut Shallots and garlic in fine slices
Heat ghee and saute shallots, garlic and chili till caramelized
Add mustard seeds, curry leaves and masala mix
Saute another 2 minutes
Add the potatoes and toss quickly

Fry the Dosa on a crepe pan
Fry the eggs separately

Put a Dosa on the plate, add egg and potato curry
Generously sprinkle with coconut and coriander
Serve with lime wedges

Indian Cuisine: Masala Kulcha

Today we have another Indian Recipe of a dish we serve in our Vegetarian Restaurant, Masala Kulcha, the Indian breads which are baked in an oven, or Tandoor. To work on a Tandoor takes a lot of stamina, the heat is absolutely excruciating and then to "glue" the bread on the side of the Tandoor....is just really really burning hot. Trust me, I have put my hand and arm in a Tandoor and all my hairs on my fore arm where singed off.....

So I have my utmost respect for the chefs working on the Tandoor and what they do is absolutely delicious, but why would I give a recipe that requires a Tandoor? Because you can do it in your oven as well....maybe not as perfect, but try it, because you will see it does work.

It is just really important that to oven is very, very hot, I mean burning hot. The you put your baking tray in the oven, making sure it gets piping hot as well. The you take the dough, pull it a bit and then you slap it around with your hands, a bit like a Pizzaiolo does, just your dough is like a miniature Pizza Dough

Then you bast it quickly with some Ghee, which is simply clarified butter, add the chopped herbs and you bake it quickly. It might not be perfect, but I am sure you will get a good result.

When it comes to the topping of the breads, be creative, garlic goes well, plain is always delicious, or add ground pepper and spices!

Ingredients
Plain Flour- 500-600g
Oil- 3tbsp
Yogurt- 1 cup (lukewarm)
Sugar-1tsp
Yeast- 1 ½ tsp
Baking Powder- ½ tsp
Salt- To taste
Chopped onion
Chopped chilli
Chopped ginger
Onion seeds

Method 
Take the flour in a large bowl.
Add the yogurt, milk, sugar, baking powder, 1 tbsp oil and some salt to it.
Now add some water and the yeast to the same mixture.
Prepare a dough and leave it to rest for at least two hours.
Now take the dough and make small balls out of it.
Roll it out thinly and slap the dough between your hands a bit like a mini Pizza
Stuck all the chopped masala on top of small ball, with touch of oil
Cook in tandoor or in the hot oven and serve hot with applying salted ghee.

Vegan Cuisine: Punjabi Samosa

Yes we are going Vegan for a change, but in a way that it is amazingly tasty and anyone would enjoy it, not just Vegans.

OK, I have to admit that I usually use Ghee (clarified butter) and a little yogurt in the dough but it is easily left away and as tasty as if one uses Ghee. One can as well substitute with Soy Milk

There is a lot of Indian Vegan Cuisine, it is amazing to see the range of vegetarian and vegan dishes cooked in India. So we have brought some of it in our Restaurant called Just Veg.......as the name says, we do only serve vegetarian cuisine there and even in the kitchen, no meat of fish will be prepared.

Just Veg is the first and only Vegetarian Restaurant in Maldives and is part of the All-Inclusive Plan of Atmosphere Kanifushi, a relatively new hotel that is not even one year old. But the restaurant has already fetched honors in England when it was voted one of the top 10 restaurants in Maldives by Travelogy, a top Travel Agency in the UK, and something that we are very proud of.

Towards the end of the month we will get a Guest chef here, I am not telling you much yet, but yes he has a Michelin Star, he comes from Milano, Italy and the restaurant is Vegetarian.....not many of them have a Michelin star

Ingredients
1 cup All-purpose flour
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 tsp Carom Seeds
Warm Water as required
Salt to taste

For Stuffing:
500 gm Potatoes - Boiled, Peeled and Mashed
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
2 tsp Ginger Finely Chopped
2 tsp Green Chili Finely Chopped
1/2 cup Onion Finely Chopped
½ tbsp Red Chili Powder
2 tbsp Fried Cashew Nuts - Finely Chopped
1 tbsp Garam Masala
1 tbsp Fresh Coriander Leaves
½ cup Green Peas, Boiled ½ tbsp
Dry Mango Powder
1 tbsp Oil

Oil for deep frying
Salt to taste

Method
Take a bowl. Add flour, salt, carom seeds, oil and mix well.
Knead a firm dough using warm water Heat oil in a pan.
Add cumin seeds when its splutter add ginger, green chili, onion and sauté for 3-4 minutes
Add red chili powder, garam masala, salt, dry mango powder, peas and mix well
Add mashed potatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes on medium heat
Add fresh coriander, fried cashew nuts and mix well. Keep aside
Take one lemon size dough and spread into a thin circle.
Cut it into half and make a cone of half circle with the help of water
Take a some portion of potato filling and place it in the middle of cone and close the cone with the help of water
Heat oil in a pan and deep fry samosa on medium heat.
Serve hot

Beef Curry

Let's continue with doing some very easy Indian food, something that is maybe not the real thing but comes pretty close. Not all of us live in urban areas where one can find all the ingredients needed to do a proper curry or anything the traditional way, so sometimes one has no choice than to take a short cut and do something the fast way.

Still it is a lot better than just buying something frozen from the shopping center in the frozen section.....that is actually no comparison. Anyway, we did this beef curry and it came out really beautiful, it has been cooked for many hours, just nice and slow and all the spices had time to develop and give some flavor. I like to take a "lesser" cut for my curry, the main reason for it being flavor.

With the meat it is really very simple, the tougher the cut the more flavorful it is. Toughness comes from how much it has been used by the animal, so for example the beef cheeks and the Oxtail is extremely tough and has to be cooked for hours so the flavor is absolutely amazing whereas the fillet has basically never been used, so it is super tender but looses out in flavor. Not to say that a good beef fillet has no flavor, no not at all, but it is just a lot more subtle.

But now to the recipe

2 Kg Beef Topside, Cubes
50 G Tumeric
1 Kg Onions
50 G Garlic Paste
50 G Ginger Paste
50 G Green Chili
100 G Coriander
100 G Cashew Nuts, chopped
50 G Tomato Paste
2 Ea Bay Leaf
Cardamom whole
Cardamom powder
Coriander Powder
100 Ml Cream
50 Ml Oil Salt

Pre boil Beef cubes with whole spices
Strain and keep the stock
Slice onions and cook them gently with oil till they are soft and pasty, add in powdered spices
Saute beef cubes with garlic, ginger, tomato paste and chili.
Add some beef stock and finely chopped cashew nuts
Add the onion paste
Simmer till the meat is tender and the sauce has a thick consistency
Garnish with toasted almonds, chili and chopped coriander

Tandoori Chicken

Aren't we all a bit scared of cooking Indian food? I think we are because it is the unknown factor that makes us shy away, the use of all these spices, it might just be too complicated. But the real deal is that when you have done this very first step and done some really simple food, then you see that it is not so difficult and you will get more and more adventurous.

So I thought let me start with something very, very simple, the Tandoori Chicken. Which basically means that the chicken is cooked in a Tandoor, a special clay oven in India. Most of us will buy a finished mix of Tandoori spices, mix it with yogurt and then marinate the chicken, I did exactly the same as here in Ghana it is rather difficult to find each ingredient needed

But now to the recipe, you see the result on top in the photo and it is really something nice to eat

Recipe

6 kg Chicken whole

1 glass Tandoori Paste

500 G Plain Yogurt

600 G Basmati Rice

75 G Raisins

200 G Plain Yogurt

200 G Cucumber

Salt Pepper

Method

Debone the breast and legs, making sure that there is only one bone left in the leg and the breast has still the wing bone on, cleaned

Marinate the chicken with Tandoori paste and yogurt

Roast the chicken in the oven, fairly hot but not that it burns

Cook the Basmati rice with raisins

Mix the yogurt with the finely shredded cucumber

Season to taste

Plate first the rice, then add the roast chicken