Biriani

Birianis are wonderfully rich, fragrant and unctuous  dishes, they were often prepared for feasts and special occasions as they can take quite some time to prepare.  Birianis were cooked from Persia to Bangladesh so there is not one single definition of what is in a biriani.  All versions however feature a mixture of rice and meat, fish or vegetables cooked with spices (and often nuts) in a sealed container on a low heat.  Even though birianis can take a long time to prepare, it is worth it, our house always holds a beautiful aroma of spices for days after we cook a biriani.

This is without doubt the recipe I have cooked most from all of the old recipes I collected whilst I was at sea.  You can probably tell that by the state of the original typewritten document.

Ingredients

The ingredients are pretty straight forward, there is nothing that you shouldn't be able to find in any modern supermarket.  I find it interesting that in mid '80s England you could buy basmati rice in Woolworths in England.  I can never remember being able to buy food in a UK Woolworths but now we live in Australia, Woolworths supermarkets are one of the two leading supermarket brands.

I have transcribed the recipe and updated it slightly here, clarifying some of the ingredients and steps in the original that I didn't think were that clear.  Beyond that I have not changed anything.

Method

Soak the almonds in warm water and remove their skins.

Grind to a fine paste all the ingredients marked with a * (almonds, red chillies, garlic and ginger).

Pound all the ingredients marked with a + to a coarse powder.

Finely chop the coriander (leaves and tender part of the stems only) and the green chillies.  Slice the onions finely.

Soak the saffron in the lime or lemon juice.

Cut or joint the meat into medium sized pieces, wash and drain.

In a stainless steel or glass bowl, mix together the following:

• The meat or poultry
• The curd
• The chopped green chillies and coriander
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Half of the ground spices
• Half of the pounded spices
• One quarter of the saffron extract

Mix all these together, cover and put aside for 3 - 4 hours (2 - 3 hours in a hot, humid climate).

Take half of the ghee and heat in a frying pan.  Add the remaining  half of the ground spices and fry well.  Add the marinated mixture of meat to this and continue stirring until well mixed and heated through.  Add sufficient water to cook well.  Simmer for about 20 minutes and remove from the heat.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker.  Add some salt to taste and a few drops of oil to separate the grains).  Avoid over cooking the rice at all costs; it should preferably be undercooked (by a few minutes) as it will cook further in the oven once mixed with the meat.

When nearly cooked, spread the rice in a large dish to let any moisture evaporate.  Take about 8 spoonfuls of the cooked rice (about 1/4) and mix it with the rice mixture.

Using the remaining half of the ghee, fry the onions until light brown and crisp.

Add the remaining pounded spices and and saffron extract to the rice and mix evenly.

Take an oven proof dish and spread alternate layers of rice, meat mixture and onions, one above the other.  Alternatively, mix everything together slowly and evenly whilst heating.  Place in an oven at a low heat for about 20 minutes.

Optionally, you can add crisp fried potato cubes and sliced boiled eggs in between the layers or on top of the biriani when serving.

You can download the original recipe here.

Read More

My Classic Old Indian Recipes

A long time ago, I spent several years sailing around the world with a British Merchant Navy company as an Engineer Officer.  This company was old school (even in those days), some saw us as the "Rag Tag" of the British Merchant Navy but the people I worked with were some of the most amazing engineers and navigators that I have ever come across.  We sailed into places no one else sailed to, we fixed things that no one else could have fixed and had experiences that with them that I will never forget.  

As an old school merchant navy company, they operated a traditional crewing model where the officers were British and the crew were from the Indian subcontinent.  It made for a very interesting work environment both for the mix of cultures and for the food served on board.  There were two messes, an officer's mess and a crew's mess each served by different galleys with different cooks.  The officer's food varied but was quite traditional but the crew's food was amazing.  Awesome curries, dahls, breads, kedgerees, samosas, tikkas and curry puffs and if you wanted to, you could eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On my second trip to sea, which was on a old tramp ship called the MV Pikebank, I got to know the Chief Steward and over time, I got him to share with me some of his oldest and best recipes that covered a range of styles.  I have had these since 1985 and I thought it was time they were made available again before they are lost.  

I have a bunch of typewritten recipes that I will be sharing with you all over the next few months. I'll share both the original recipe and a slightly modified version which uses more recognised ingredient names and tidies up some of the recipe instructions and processes.

These are the recipes I'll be posting for your pleasure (Enjoy):

• Biriani
• Chicken Curry
• Fish Curry
• Prawn Curry
• Curry Powder
• Palin Kedgeree
• Tandoori Chicken

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have over the last 30 years.  

Read More

Perfecting the Pizza Oven

I finished our pizza oven over two years ago now and although we have used it regularly over that time, I feel that I have really perfected how to use the oven over this summer. The learning curve is pretty steep, even as a former Englishman who swore by charcoal barbecues over gas, the art of firing a pizza oven is completely different.  For about the first year, I made the same silly mistakes.  I didn't put enough wood on to get the temperature up fast enough.  I didn't consider what the weather had been like over the previous two weeks (humid, damp?) and of course, I never had enough wood ready to go when I needed it.

We had two very public failures, both when we had guests and where I just failed to plan properly and misjudged the whole thing. Now though, I think I have perfected it.  There are a few simple things that you need to get right to get a roaring oven like this:

Weather

It might seem obvious but the weather is crucial, check the forecast, not just for when you want to fire the oven but also for the days before.  A damp oven just won't fire, it is as simple as that.  If there has been heavy rain in the week preceding, I always check to see if I need to light a smaller fire just to dry the oven out the day before we need it.  One hour spent the day before makes the difference between a fire like the one above and a damp oven that will only just about make soggy pizza.

Wood

Always have plenty of dry seasoned wood in a variety of sizes from small kindling to get the fire going, mid sized pieces to get the fire to the point where it will light the larger pieces and finally, the larger pieces that will get the oven up to the 400 degrees centigrade that makes the perfect pizza in just about 3 minutes.

Pizza Dough

Always make your own.  It is so simple that it is a no brainer.  We use a recipe that uses a 50%-50% blend of strong white bread flour and plain flour.  That seems to be the perfect mix that works from scratch in about 2 hours including rising time.

Tomato Sauce

Again, make your own, it is so simple. Core and halve your tomatoes and put them in the oven in a baking tray with a whole bulb of garlic. When you start getting white spots on the top or the side of your oven, the temperature is right to put your tomatoes in.   The garlic and the tomatoes will roast and soften beautifully and all you need to do will be squeeze the garlic cloves out into the tomatoes, add some oregano and basil and blitz in a food processor.  This freezes really well so I always make more than we need and freeze what is left over.

Oven Temperature

This is the last point but without doubt the one and only point that makes or breaks a good pizza, if you really wanted, you could buy pre-made dough or tomato sauce but if the oven is not hot enough, game over for pizzas.  

So how do you tell if your pizza oven is hot enough? It's actually quite simple and there are two test to double check.  If the roof and sides of your oven have burned white, it is hot enough but just to check, crumple a half sheet of newspaper into a ball and throw it onto the floor of the oven (away from any flames or embers).  If the newspaper self-combusts, then the oven is hot enough. 

Get these point right and you'll serve great pizzas.  If you want to learn how to build your own pizza oven then look at my series of posts from a couple of years ago.

Read More

A Bigger, Better, Safer Chookhouse

So, if you have read my blog before, you will know that a fox took my chickens in August (2014).  We really liked our chickens but we loved the eggs they produced; there really is nothing better than a breakfast poached egg that has been collected warm from the nesting box that morning.  

Before we could get more chickens I really felt that I had to give them a bigger, better but above all, a safer hen house.  This took a bit of work which delayed us getting out next flock but I wanted them to be safe now we know that there are sometimes foxes in the area.  

The first thing I did was to move the new chookhouse closer to where we sleep so that we will hear if anything is going on in the night.  The next thing was to build a structure that their existing coop would fit into so that they had outside space to move around in but that would also be completely secure. 

I started by clearing the ground, levelling it off so the chookhouse would be level.

Then I built a structure that I could make completely fox proof.  A roof and vermin proof wired walls. 

Then the I installed the old coop into the chookhouse and raised it on blocks to the chooks could move around underneath.  This gave them more space so they can move around freely when they are locked away for their own safety. I also made sure that I could access the nesting box from outside the chookhouse so we could collect their eggs without going into the house.

And finally (almost) complete.  All I have to do now is to finish off the flooring and complete the fox proofing around the perimeter.

So our new chooks will still have the whole chook run during the day, but at night, they will be safely locked up away from the reaches of any foxes that stray onto our property.  Hopefully, our new chooks will have a much safer but just as happy life as our previous trio.  RIP Daisy, Geraldine and Boris.

Read More

Not All Sunshine And Roses

I get a huge amount of pleasure from my garden and it's produce but it can't always be sunshine and roses (even in Australia).  Last Sunday morning, I went out to feed the chickens as I do every morning, but that morning they didn't run down to meet me keen to see what treats I had brought for them that day.  Instead, I found three chicken carcasses with each head cleanly decapitated.  Something had got to my chooks in the night and that was the end of Daisy, Geraldine and Boris.

Here is how they were in happier times:

And the culprit? Well we have a security camera system around our house and in the early part of Sunday morning it captured this fox that must have wandered in from the bush.

I had thought that our area was fox free but a baiting program in the bush near our house has recently ended and maybe this little sod managed to get through.

So at least we know what happened to the girls and yes, it is now clear to me that foxes can climb 6 foot high walls.  So before we even think about getting any more chickens, I need to fox proof the entire run.  That will mean putting a wire roof over the top of the run (the walls were fox proof already).  I'll also put an internal cage with the nesting boxes which will be closed up every night once the new girls go to bed.

So rest in peace Daisy, Geraldine and Boris, you had two good years during which you kept us handsomely in eggs.  You also became part of the family and we miss your clucks in the morning and when we fed you.  You will be missed.

Read More

It has been a very quiet few months for this blog.

It has been a very quiet time for this blog.  Summer has been and gone and we are close to the end of winter now.  Evenings are getting longer and the doors outside are staying open longer in the day than even just a few weeks ago.  Give it until September and the doors will be open all day and it will be time to lock the windows open until next May.

This year, I have a few projects planned for my garden and kitchen. A few months back we installed a Balinese gazebo in a corner of our garden which has opened our a part of the garden that wasn't really used before.  So over this year, I need to put in some new beds and also landscape some areas that have been left wild until now.

I also need to finish off the outdoor kitchen which is already looking pretty good.  At the end of last summer we installed the stainless steel workbench which makes rolling out pizzas a dream.

I am also going to try growing some different plants.  I'll have some new beds this year so I need to find something to plant In the new space.  This year capers, Ceylon gooseberries, blueberries, youngberries are on my list.  

I love this time of year; longer and warmer evenings tell us that the Australian winter is coming to an end.  It is time to get back into the garden and make the most of what this beautiful country gives us.

Read More

The First Chillies of Summer 2013

In Sydney, the warmer weather means our chilli plants grow as perennials and each year they seem to produce more and more fruit.  I grow several different varieties from mild Rococo, long thin hot Indian chillies, fiery hot Thai chillies to the blindingly hot Scotch Bonnets.  Some of these have been producing for over 4 years and show no sign of slowing down.
Last year, we had enough fresh chillies to keep us going from late spring and into early autumn with the excess frozen for use in winter.  We even had enough to make a few batches of our chilli pickle.  The pattern seems to be continuing as we already have harvested more than enough chillies to last us well into the New Year.  I have so far picked the largest and will leave the smaller chillies to grow.  Interestingly, our Thai chillies are not quite ready to pick yet.

Time for some more Chlli Pickle!

Read More