Baked Samosas with chickpea and leftover rice filling

My current culinary quest - to learn to cook and love Indian food.  Today's experiment: Samosa!

I found this recipe in Everyday Indian by Bal Arneson.  A very enjoyable author who has a great selection of Indian-Canadian dishes with a Pacific coast twist.  I have a couple of books by her and I like how she isn't afraid to meld indian flavour with West Coast ingredients.  

Some of my modifications were to half the salt, change up the fats, and completely alter the ratio of the filling to match the collection of leftovers in my fridge.  Basically I took some leftover rice, leftover chickpeas, leftover fresh cranberries, replaced some of the whole wheat flour with white... &c. and used her recipe as a guide.  

stuffing the samosa

I'm not going to post my recipe here because it's a book well worth reading.  Your local library should have it, and if they don't have it, they should and you should tell them that they should.

The red sauce is Pataks mango chutney, which turned out to be a bit sweet for this meal.  The dark dot is tamarind chutney (recipe from the same book as the samosa).  Tamarind chutney is extremely flavourful, and impressively spicy.  

I'm very excited to find out what else I can stuff in these triangles.

Affordable Cooking:  The filling today was purely leftovers and spices.  Since the chickpeas I used were cooked from dry (about 1/4 cup when dry), it brings the price down quite a lot.  Even if I was starting with ingredients bought specifically for this meal, I estimate it would be between fifty cents to two dollars for eight samosas.  

Bento:  This looks like the type of food that will travel well.  I'm definitely trying this in bento.

Even though it's my first time eating samosas, I'm filing this under comfort food.  It's just that good.

Allergy friendly:  I don't know how well it would be with different flour, but just about everything else can be changed up, from oils in the dough, to filling.  

Health:  Yes!  Arneson talks about this as the health 'lunch to go' food that she often cooks for her daughter, a highschool student.  Chickpeas, spices,  whole wheat flour, are all good things and in good ratios.  I can't find any fault with the healthy aspect of this recipe... except it's yummy and makes you want to eat a lot of them.

Vegetarian and vegans:  The original recipe looks vegan friendly, but I added some ghee when I made mine (to replace some of the flavour lost from cutting down on the salt).  But even still, it's vegetarian friendly fare.

Homemade Tikka Paste and Chicken Tika recipe

I am very fond of curry.  Though, I must admit, not too spicy.  But that's the great thing about homemade curry, you can make it as are-you-certain-this-is-curry-mild or as call-the-fire-department-hot as you like.  If you don't like chicken in your tika, try lamb, or shrimp.  If you don't like coconut then omit, or try a Tablespoon of Kechk powder instead.  There are so many choices, and it's hard to do wrong when it comes to curry.

Increasingly these days, there is a problems with curry.  A Lot of curry pastes sold in stores, contain soy, or nuts, or other potential allergens.  Vegans have a similar problem, as often these jar pastes will contain animal products like butter.  Thank goodness it's easy to make your own curry paste, especially if you have a food processor at home, but you can also do it by hand, just give yourself more time.

When I'm making my own curry paste, I like to put it together the day before I cook a curry, that way, the flavours blend together better and, in my opinion, make a nicer curry.  But other people like to make it up fresh each time, so it's really a matter of personal taste.  

Tikka Paste

1 super hot chile
4 cloves of garlic
half an inch of fresh ginger
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbs smoked paprika
2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs oil
one small tin tomato paste
1 tsp ajwain (whole)
1 tsp fennel (whole)

• In a dry fry pan, toast the ajwain and fennel on medium high until they start to change colour and smell fantastic.  Remove from heat, allow to cool a bit then grind to a fine powder.
• Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blitz until well blended.  Add more oil if needed.  
• Keep in an sealed container in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Chicken Tikka

2 to 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 large sweet onion
1 chile fresh or dry (optional)
1/2 inch fresh ginger
olive oil
1/2 cup tikka paste
1 can diced tomatoes
water

• Slice the chicken into 3/4 inch strips (or cubes if you like), put to one side
• Finely slice the onion, chili (optional) and ginger.  In a heavy bottom pot (my favourite is the cast iron, stove friendly dutch oven) heat a few glugs of oil and fry on medium heat, the onions, chili and ginger until onions start to turn golden.  
• Add the curry paste, give it a stir, then add the chicken.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the chicken is seared on the outside.
• Add the tomatoes and then fill the tin about 3/4 full with water, and add that.  mix well and bring to a boil.

Two choices here

1. simmer on the stove with the lid on, for about 20 minutes, string often to make certain nothing burns on the bottom.  OR...
2. Put the lid on the pot and put it in the oven, at 325 F for at least half an hour, and up to 2 hours.

• Serve with rice and optional a dab of yogurt on top.

This recipe is (heavily) modified from Jamie Oliver's book Food Revolution.  He has a nice selection of easy to make curry pastes, from super-spicy Vindaloo, to a nice everyday Korma paste.  Each of these pastes lasts one to two weeks in the fridge, and in my mind are just as good as any commercial curry paste. If you end up getting that book, I highly recommend the Vegetable Bhajis as a side dish to the chicken tikka, served with a simple salad and a bed of rice.  His Aloo Gobhi recipe is a fantastic vegetarian (omit the butter for a vegan friendly) curry.

Another source of curry recipes is 1000 Indian Recipes by Batra.  There are some fantastic recipes in this book, but I find it a bit difficult to use.  Most recipes include well over a dozen, in some cases up to 3 dozen, ingredients, and often refer you back to other recipes, that require yet other recipes... and so forth.  But for someone truly enamoured with Indian cooking, it's a fantastic reference.  The flat breads are especially yummy and even nicer when adapted to use sourdough yeast.

Affordable?  Yep.  If you have the tikka as a main, then you only need about 1 chicken breast per person, however, if you keep it as a side dish with rice and a vegi dish, then you can feed 2 or 3 people per chicken breast.

This is exceptionally yummy in bento.  Reheat leftover Tikka and pack with fresh rice.  Allow everything to cool before closing the lid.  The spices in the tikka help keep the meat fresh longer at room temp, but of course, always use your common sense if keeping meat at room temp for more than a few hours.

Vegetarian Vindaloo while camping

Having been camping twice now this summer, I have discovered that after being outside all day, even on a hot day, it is really nice to have a warm and wholesome dinner.

For the group I made vegetarian vindaloo with sourdough bread (both nettle and regular sourdough), home made wine sauerkraut and cucumber salad.  

The vindaloo included onions, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, and chickpeas.  The cucumber salad - my personal favourite - was cucumbers, shallots, salt and white balsamic vinegar.  The most difficult aspect of this was to make something that everyone could eat - we had quite a collection of allergies in our group.

It worked out to be $3 per adult - which was a bit steep I admit.  However, I used organic veg, not all of which were in season, and when you factor the salads and the spice mix into the price, it adds up quickly.  

This time I made the curry (with help from The Captain) the day before heading camping, packed it in a big giant bucket, and then heated it up on site.  Next time, if I make it in advance like this, I will store it in two or three smaller buckets, and only heat up one at a time instead of the whole thing at once.  That way if people don't want it all, then it's easier to keep it for lunch the next day.

Camping menu idea, or Will cook for ride share.

Camping, perhaps one of the weirdest things in the world.  People actually choose to sleep, away from home, in the wild, with a thin wall of cloth separating them from whatever rats or larger monsters lurk in the darkness.

But, then again, so long as I can bring along my trusty pots and pans, I can use it as an excuse to cook some very nice food for myself and others.

In fact, I got out my camping stoves the other day and started practicing cooking on it.


The first stove I'm brining is an alcohol stove for boiling water.

Basically the kettle is too small for the stove, so I used a metal trivet to stabilize it.  Should be good for boiling water for coffee  tea or doing the washing up.


I absolutely love this stove. It's a little butane stove, like the type you find in dorm rooms.  It has excellent temperature control and a very sturdy base, but I do wonder if it's going to be a bit too windy for it.

Other than it's a delight to cook with, the thing I like best about this stove is it has a lock/unlock feature for the butane gas canister.  Although pretty obvious when you think about it (it's the lever that has the words 'lock' and 'unlock' written beside it), most prying hands (of the child and adult variety) can't figure out how to turn on the stove when the gas is disengaged.  One canister lasts roughly 2 to 4 hours.  So, I figure one canister per day and one for luck ought to do it.


As for food, I'm hoping to keep the cooking simple, costs down but get the best results.

Here's my tentative menu work in progress at the moment.

Day one, drive up in the late afternoon

Snacks for dinner, probably onigiri (rice balls with filling) which are light but wholesome.  We will be tired from driving and setting up camp, so don't want to make anything too fancy.  Possibly BLTs instead.   Some grapes make nice car eating food.

I would love an idea for dessert once camp is set up, perhaps something with fruit.  Wonder if I can make a fruit crumble on the stovetop... (runs off to try it).

Day two, busy but relaxed

Breakfast: Sourdough pancakes with Strawberries in balsamic glaze.  Maybe a banana.

Price... about $1 per person for the pancakes, another $2 each for the toppings (I'm taking a small bag of organic flour instead of using my regular stuff, that ups the price quite a bit).  So, not the cheapest meal in the world, but easy enough to make.

Time - make the strawberries first, then heat griddle while mixing batter.  keep the pancakes covered with a towel as they come off the stove, and by that time, the strawberries should be ready.

Lunch: Ploughman's  sandwich.  Onion marmalade, cheese, lettuce,  butter and  bread.  Put some cold cuts and maybe a tomato or two on the side.

Price - about 20 cents each for the bread, another 5 cents for the onion, cheese is the main expense ... &c.  Probably $1.50 to $2 per plate.

Time - onions can be done in advance, but are better fresh and take about 30 min to make.  While the onions cook, I can assemble the rest of the ingredients and create a build your own sammie situation.

Or I could just do bread, cold cuts, cheese and veg, which is basically no cooking - and seems more and more likely at this point.

Dinner: Lamb Curry and flatbreads.  Really looking forward to this one, as it's one of my current favourite meal.  Add some cucumber salad for more veg and freshness.

price - 2 people only need about 1/4 lb meat.  so that's about a dollar, plus the tomats, potats, carrots, and onion, another 2 dollars.  Sauce, bread &c.  Cucumber salad, lets say a dollar.  About $5 or $2.50 per plate

Time- About an hour and a half.
Make the bread dough and leave to one side covered. Fry the onions while preparing the other veg.  add veg for a min to get them started, then brown the meat, add the sauce, add the tomats and wine/water, then let simmer.  After half an hour, roll out the flatbreads, remove curry from burner, heat griddle and cook flatbreads.  Wrap breads in towel to keep warm.  Put curry back on burner and bring up to boil.  Serve.

Day three, going home day

Breakfast, sigh same as yesterday.  Hope she doesn't mind terribly.  But I really hate breakfast as a rule, and this is about the only thing I feel like eating or cooking.

Lunch, cold cuts, bread, lettuce... basically any leftovers and some bread.

Snacks for the drive home.



Speaking of snacks.  I'm thinking scones or workman's cake (like a pound cake) make a good quick energy thing.  Apples, cured meats, crackers, &c.  That should be more than enough.

Emergency food: Broth Cubes.  Just add warm water (hot is better).  Makes an awesome start to all sorts of meals, like bread soup (broth, butter and bread - a thousand times tastier than it sounds.).  Also a good chunk of bacon - It's home cured and extra smoked, so it's quite shelf stable.  I'll probably pack it frozen in one big chunk though, just in case.

My goal was to minimize the amount of stuff I need to keep cool (finish it up by the end of Day 2), as most of the cold cuts I hope to bring are shelf stable at room temperature for a few weeks.


So... if you were going camping, would you enjoy this menu?  Or more to the point, would you enjoy having someone else cook this for you?   I know it's not hotdogs and marshmallows  but it is good wholesome food that I enjoy making.

Curry Saves the Day: Basic Goat Curry Recipe

This is the curry before it goes in the oven.
As usual, I didn't have a chance to take a finished photo before it was wolfed down/

We often have work parties here on the farm when there's a large job to get done.  Lots of people come out to help, which means I need to make a lunch that has a lot of high energy food, is easy to make, isn't fussy about the serving time, and is affordable.

You can make this with any dark stewing meat.  It takes about 10 minuets or so (depending on how fast you are at pealing and slicing) to prepare in the morning, and cooks slow and low in the oven until lunch time.  You can also cook this on the stove if you like.  It's very flexible.  I'll give directions for both methods.

You can also make this in the slow cooker, but that's more for lunch than dinner.  2 hours on high, 4 plus hours on low.  Delicious.

Another thing, the actual size of the tins does not matter too much. I use 14 oz tins.

1 tin chickpeas
1 tin mixed beans (or beans of your choice)
1 tin crushed tomatoes
2 carrots
4 medium size potatoes (a solid flesh potato like Yukon Gold works best)
Roughly 1 lb goat meat, chopped into stewing size chunks
1 large onion
2 Tbs Pataks mild curry paste (or curry paste of your choice)

• Drain the beans and chickpeas, poor them into a heavy cast iron pot, or a deep pot with a lid that can go on both the stove or in the oven.
• Add the contents of the tin of tomatoes to the pot (keep this tin to one side, we will use it later)
• Chop up the onion fairly fine, so that the chunks of onion are smaller than the chickpeas.  Add to the pot.
• Peal and chop the carrots into whatever size you like, just not too big.  As you can see, I did mine in half moon slices, fairly thin.  Add to the pot.
• Peal and chop the potatoes into about 1.5" to 2" chunks.  Add to the pot.  If you don't want to peal them, make sure they are well washed and the eyes gorged out.
• Add the meat to the pot
• Fill the empty tin that had the tomatoes in it just over half full of water.  Add the curry paste to the water and mix really well until paste is dissolved .  Top up the tin with more water, and add it all to the pot.
• Mix everything together really well and place the lid on the pot.  Choose one of the three methods below.

Method 1 - oven only

• Place in oven at 325F for at least two hours.  Turn it down to 300F after 3 hours.  Stir every two hours or so, checking to see if it needs more moisture.  Will be ready any time after 2 hours, but is best if you cook it about 4 to 5 hours.  Longer is fine so long as you keep an eye on the mosture level.

Method 2 - stove and oven

• Place on stove, on high heat, bring to boil, stirring every so often.  Simmer for about 30 minuites.
• Place in oven, still covered, at 300F until ready (at least an hour, no more than 5 hours).  Stir every couple of hours, adding water if it starts to dry out.

Method 3 Stove only

• Place on the stove with the lid on, on high heat bring to boil.  Simmer for at least an hour, and up to 3 hours.  Stirring every 20 min or so, checking to make sure it's not too dry, add water as needed.

Serve as is, or better still with rice or home made bread.  Goes great with chutney and a simple salad.

This is very popular with kids and adults alike, so long as you don't make it too spicy.

Affordable Cooking: It costs me between $5 to $8 for the entire pot, depending on the quality of the canned beans and price of veg and meat that week.  It will easily feed 8 people, but it's better if you can serve it with a starch like rice (about $1-$2) or home baked bread (about 40 cent for a medium loaf, so say about $1 worth of bread).  Then it will feed 10 hungry people with lots left over for seconds.  

So now we are at about $1 per person, assuming they are going back for seconds.  You might want to splurge on a nice, but simple, salad.

Bento friendly: Left overs go great in bento on a bed of rice and a side of veg.  Heat thoroughly before packing and allow to cool before putting the lid on.  Make sure you use fresh rice.

Allergies: Most curry pastes has soy oil, usually labelled 'vegetable oil'.  Pataks says vegetable oil on it, but the stuff made in the UK does not give me a soy reaction.  It is possible to make your own curry paste, I'll see if I can dig up a recipe that's easy and quick to make.

This is a high fibre meal, so may aggravate people with certain digestive problems.

Healthy eating: Yes I think so.  Beans are very high in trace minerals, fibre, B vits, and other good for you stuff.  There is also a lot of protein in this meal.  This is a high energy meal.  Given how much fibre is in the beans, it's probably best to serve this with white rice or white bread unless everyone who eats this is accustom to a Very high fibre diet.

For a more balanced meal, add a watery green side like lettuce, cabbage, or cucumber salad.  Serve with sauerkraut to make the beans easier to digest. 

Earth Friendly: Moderately so.

If you compare this to say... ordering pizza for everyone, curry is the better option.  But it is important to note that tinned foods have a very heavy footprint (with the transportation, the manufacturing of the tins, &c.).

For a more earth friendly version, you can start with dry beans and chop your own tomatoes.

For a 0 mile impact, grow every ingredient and process them at home, including the chillies needed to make your own curry paste.  It is possible to do it with this recipe, but you may need to alter which beans you use depending on your clime.   Although, this option kind of takes away from the quick and easy nature of this curry recipe - it's up to you how far you want to go.

Curry Saves the Day - what to do with that too dry roast beast

Roast meat turn out tough and dry?  Sounds like it's time for Curry to save the day!

mmmm curry!

I cooked a roast moose (at least I think it was moose, probably was moose, although it might have been elk now that I think about it, or deer, or ... no I don't think it was boar, but it could have been.  But come to think about it, it was probably moose) the other night.  Made a major miscalculation in the cooking time and ended up with a lump of something that could possibly pass for a rock.  It wasn't burnt, just dry and tough as, well, a rock.

This is not the first time I've messed up a roast beast, and won't be the last I'm sure.  But it's a waste to toss out the meat just because it's tough.  Instead, let's use this as an excuse to make curry.

Here is a variation on The Captain's curry recipe.  There are hundreds of versions of this curry, but tonight, a simple version perfect for tenderizing overcooked meat.

Feel free to use this recipe to salvage any ruined meat, from dry duck breast to mystery roast, and anything in between.  Although, I would hesitate to use fish in this.  Please don't use burnt meat, as this recipe amplifies the burnt flavour.

This is also best when cooked in a slowcooker.  Most of the curry recipes I have don't mind being on the stove, oven or slowcooker, but since the main goal of this recipe is to tenderize the dessicated meat, a slow cooker is by far the best for this.

Curry Saves the Day: Basic Curry Recipe for Salvaging Over Cooked Meat

1 to 2 lb of over-cooked, dry meat (not burnt)
1 tin chick peas
1 tin mixed beans
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 onion
Pataks mild curry paste (or curry paste of your preference)

• In the slow cooker, place the chickpeas (strained), mixed beans (strained) and chopped tomatoes (as is).  Keep the tomato tin to one side, don't rinse it yet.
• Chop up your onion very fine, so that the pieces are about half the size of a chickpea.  Add to the pot.

• Chop the meat up into about 3/4" cubes.  Don't get all fussy here, it doesn't need to be precise.  Add it to the pot.
• Take the can that had the tomatoes in it, fill about 1/2 full with water and add 2 Tbs of curry paste (more if you like it hot).  Mix until the curry is blended with the water.  Add to the slow cooker and mix all the ingredients together.
• If you have automatic setting on the slow cooker, use this, otherwise, cook on high for about 1 hour (no more than 4 hours) and then turn down to low for between 4 to 10 hours, or until you are ready to eat it.  This is one of those recipes that you want it to bring to a moderate boil first, then cook low and slow.  The longer you cook it (and the smaller you chop the meat) the more tender the meat will become.  Sir at least once during the cooking, to distribute the moisture.  Check every couple of hours to make sure that it isn't getting dry, if it starts to dry out around the edges, then add 1/4 cup of water (or even wine), and stir in well.

Serve on a bed of rice.

You cannot actually see it here, but the bowl is half full of rice
 with curry on top

This is even better the next day.  Will easily keep in the fridge up to 3 days, reheat thoroughly before serving.

Healthy Eating: Yes, I would consider this a healthy meal, especially if served with a salad.  Green veg is important for balance and colour.  But even on it's own once or twice a week would be fine.   

Bento Friendly: Very much so.  Great for single layer bento box.  A layer of fresh rice, with the re-heated curry on top.  Let cool completely before putting the lid on, will keep well all day in all but the hottest of weather.  

Affordable Cooking!  This comes out to about $1 to $2.10 per very large serving depending on the quality/price of the canned beans you use, including the coast of running the slow cooker all day and the cost of the rice.  That's not including the cost of the meat since it would have been tossed in the trash otherwise.  The electricity used by the slow cooker is about 40 cents for the 8 hours we had it on, but we have low rates here, so it might be as more where you live.  It is considerably less to cook this in the slow cooker than in the oven or on the stove, unless of course you have the oven on for other reasons.

This could be made with dry ingredients   Dry chickpeas and beans and such are cheaper to buy, but if we are talking affordability, then they coast more (energy bill) to rehydrate than buying tinned beans, chickpeas, &c.   

Cooking for Allergies: This is fine for most allergies, however, you do need to pay attention to the ingredients in the curry paste.  Most curry paste includes soy, or 'vegetable oil' which is usually soy.  I've found that Pataks curry paste made in the UK says 'vegetable oil' but does not give the same reaction that soy oil does.  When in doubt, make your own curry paste using one of the awesome recipes in Jamie's Food Revolution

This curry although mild in spicy, can aggravate irritable bowel related problems due to the high fibre content.    Eat in moderation if you are not use to a high fibre diet.