Naan Cheese, Bacon, Tomato and Onion Sandwich

Of course, having some Indian food is also a very nice thing - with some lovely spices and all that. 

Maybe a nice potato curry together with some dal, raita and some freshly baked naan bread. Ah, that is lovely indeed. I don't know, though, whether my naan bread was the way it was supposed to be. Oh ... right ... I have only a standard oven with no extra tricks, so that was all I could do. Anyway, I had some leftovers of the naan bread. Yes, maybe some of the potato curry and dal was left, too, but somehow I must have managed to eat that up.
Whatever the case, I decided to use some of the leftover naan to make a naan sandwich with cheese, bacon, tomato and onions.

I decided to keep things simple, although I could have given it a further Indian touch somehow by frying the onions in some spices and adding some raita on top, but I didn't.
There is just a large slice of cheese, some slices of crispy bacon, a few tomato slices and some freshly fried onions ... put the lid on and go for it.

Well, there are still some more photos left on my USB stick. With some of those photos, there is the problem I don't know 100 % anymore what I did there, but here in this case it was quite obvious. 
There was simply too much time passing with doing so many other and new things I didn't get any chance to work off all those old ones.
Nevertheless, I will give you some more of those ...

Christine & Christian: Episode 9 - When Chorizo meets India

Things are not always running smoothly. In fact only sometimes they are. However, when it comes to the 'Christine & Christian' part here on my blog, things haven't been running at all and as I feel it, still things are not fine. Having some chapati or naan would have been the least to accompany today's dinner, but there was no such thing.
Today we are having some Indian food from Goa with a Portuguese influence ... which I have to change slightly on top of it. Originally the recipe is called Chorico Sausage with Dal. I had to turn it into Chorizo Sausage with Dal for I don't know where to get Portuguese chorico sausages here in the countryside. Chorico and chorizo - that sounds all the same to me. Therefore it should do no harm.

In the end it tasted delicious anyway. Still another funny thing, though, there were no chillies needed for the recipe. Alright, the sausage was spicy enough.

Christine & Christian: Episode 8 - It's all about Bread

Are you a bread lover? Then for sure you won't mind that it's all about bread today. I am a bread lover! Some fresh bread can make me happy ... at least until I have eaten it all up. Right this very minute while I am writing these words I have some experimental bread baking going on ... wait the next stage is calling ...
...
I'm back. However, that bread experiment was not what I was going to talk about today. Maybe another time. It just depends on the outcome. So far things are looking fine, but you never know.
After all we are still with India and Tasting India. Fine then! What Indian breads do you know?
Naan. Very good. That would have been the first one coming to my mind before I started this Christine & Christian project. I already had some homemade naan bread in the course of this.
In case you have read this series regularly you might have read something about puffed puri breads already. So, puri is another one.
Next, chapati may come to your mind. According to Tasting India it is "The staple flatbread of India, this is served with every meal just about everywhere." So far I didn't have it with every Indian meal I tried in my project. Then it's about time I have it at least once.

Here I had it with a Ladhaki chicken curry. For the bread you just need wholemeal flour, a bit of salt and water. You easily can see why it is the staple flatbread of India. The only downside, when you compare it with naan, is that you have to cook each bread separately. So it takes considerably more time to make more than a few of them. Anyway, if you are doing it for just one or two persons, it's absolutely alright.

A closer look at the Ladhaki chicken curry. I could have used a tiny bit more of spices, but otherwise it was fine. I enjoyed it very much with the chapati. From now on I'm going to have chapati more often with my Indian meals. Now I also remember chapati from when I was a bit younger ... eh ... yes, more than a decade ... I had chapatis a few times at the place of my friends from Kenya. So, everytime I'm going to have some chapatis it will bring up good memories and ... sad ones, too. However, you can't change the past!
There is another wonderful flatbread I had a go at and that you wouldn't want to miss: roti. It's similar to chapati, but it's a little  softer and richer than it. You don't use water for it, but milk and it contains also egg and ghee. You already see what this will do?
Since it is so lovely, there is no harm in having it with just a simple tomato chutney.

I was satisfied with that meal. Well, flatbreads don't look so spectacular on it's own, but have a closer look at the tomato chutney. By the way, it is a Nepalese flatbread.

It doesn't look spectacular on it's own either. So, no worries. I only can say, it tasted very delicious anyway. Apart from that, now it makes me think again about the past, since I know also quite a few people from Nepal. That was a good time, too. It's good to have some nice memories.
Well then, do you know any other Indian breads?
There are many more: Parathas, Luchi, Bhatura, Rumali, Kulcha, Dosa, Idli, Pathiri, Pappad and who knows what more. You see, there is still much more to learn and to try.
The breads I tried to do so far where not so complicated or difficult, especially when you compare it with the French bread I have been trying ... or my current experiment.
Since it is all about bread today, what is you favourite bread? How do you like to eat your bread? 
At least for me it would be even more difficult to go without bread than having a life without cheese. Now, I don't want to have this post turn again into a sad occasion. I'll better keep those things to myself.

Bloggers Around the World Round-up: India

You should stop when things are at their best. Why is that? How am I supposed to know. However, there is something I do know. One month has past again, so it's time to finish our stay in India for Bloggers Around the World.

 

Did you have a pleasant stay and enjoyed some nice food? You have to speak for yourselves, but I did. Let's see, what everyone came up with ...

First was Nicole from Yumsome! That was the fastest entry for Bloggers Around the World so far. Right the next day Nicole entered her Tomato Masala. When I see it, I get hungry again. Above that it comes with all the facts you need, like cost per serving and nutrition facts. Good!

We go on with some more lovely food from Janet at the taste space - steam, bake, boil, shake! There we get good taste with Basmati Rice Pilaf with Caramelized Onions and Broccoli. Just look at how fresh it looks.

Enjoy it! What else?  Are you familiar with garam masala? For sure you will enjoy Diane's Garam Masala Chicken. Head over to Simple Living and Eating to find out more and ... as a bonus ... so to say ... find some more lovely Indian food.

Any thoughts on cheese? I couldn't live without it. Great thing we also have some cheese in India - paneer. So, just have a look what great food Caroline conjured with it ... Caroline Makes ... Paneer Curry. Sounds intriguing? Find out.

Do you want something for pudding? Then have this rice pudding.

So far the entries I found around here.

Back to this stopping thing ... stopping when things are best. How am I supposed to know when things are best. They still could get better. 

I myself might be down at something somewhere, but I refuse to give up (for now). Where do we go then next. I guess the following would be nice. Let us go back to Europe and do ...

ITALY

There is still so much lovely food to enjoy. Italian food is one of my favourites. I reckon I need to get  some basil ready.

A few words for the trip ...

1. Leave a comment with a link to your post here in this very post or send me an email at cookingatworld@yahoo.co.uk or even - if you don't have a blog of your own - post a fitting photo on my Facebook page.
2. Link to my blog and this challenge in your post.  
3. Use the "Bloggers Around the World" badge (the one you find at the beginning and end of this post ... you know!).  
4. You can use a new or an old post, but it has to be adjusted accordingly (you know, all the linking). 
5. You can have up to three entries, but ... if you just post on my Facebook page, you can have as many as you want.
6. Enjoy cooking, eating and posting. La vita e bella ... I reckon.

So, make sure to check in before the 13th of June to leave something here with us.

We see us when we see us! 

Christine & Christian - Episode 7: From Chicken Cutlets to Pancake

It can be very enjoyable to put together some lovely, well tasting dishes. However, it is even better to share with others. While doing so online, there is nothing better than sharing a good meal with family or friends. It can even be fun cooking together.
So far 22 days have pasted since cooking from Tasting India. Up to this day, I managed 25 recipes. Recently I enjoyed some Bengali-style mashed potatoes and the day after that even something for breakfast: Breakfast Potato Parathas. I didn't manage to take some nice photos from that. The breakfast was really nice ... a simple dough with wholewheat flour and water and then stuffed with mashed potatoes mixed with coriander and chilli.
But let us now go on with cooking and eating with friends ...
That's really more enjoyable than eating alone all the time. The cooking together part is also a great thing. A side effect of it is, you manage greater variety with less work.

It's good to prepare some naan breads to go with the meal. You can learn also a lot and you get encouragement to do things better. If you eat alone, it's easier to like everything you cook.

That's a way, how ready naan breads can look like. Maybe it's good to have a mint raita with it, too.

That one was really fresh, although it included a green chilli. But what about the main course? There was a vegetable dish with potatoes and chickpeas.

Lovely tasting that was. Then we got something meaty as well: Chicken Cutlets. That recipe was from Tasting India.
The pieces of chicken breast were to be marinated in yogurt mixed with spices and ... how dangerously ... with 40 g of chopped up green chillies. Do you have any idea on how many chillies these are?
Roughly around 20 small green chillies that would have been. Argh! I decided to go for 4 chillies instead.
After the marinating of the chicken pieces they  went into a batter, which had 4 eggs in it. Then the job was to fry the pieces.

Already with 4 chillies it was quite hot. Still, it tasted good. Fine, I didn't manage to get the presentation on the photo right ... again ... but ... no worries.
It was only a chance, that there was still some yogurt of the marinade and some batter left afterwards. I just mixed both together and thought ...

... why not have it as an Indian pancake to start the meal with. Well, it could have made two or three thinner ones as well, but this way, it was fine, too.
Altogether, the meal made at least four people happy instead of just one person for more than one time ... and still there were leftovers.
Do you also like to make people happy by cooking for them even if it's not your family?

Christine & Christian - Episode 6: Dal, Naan and beyond

I need a plan ... again. Or I simply need to be careful. There is no way I am going to buy new clothing just to have it comfortably fitting. Loosening the belt from time to time isn't what I want to imagine.
Since I've started Christine & Christian, I had quite some Indian food not meaning I didn't have anything else as you can see from my previous posts. After 17 days of cooking from Tasting India I managed 22 recipes so far. I didn't have so much help with eating things up, but still I cope.
What did we have on the menu then last week? Maybe you remember the white dal from the last post. The leftovers were taking some time to be dealt with. Therefore I just made some naan bread to go with it and got any idea as well.
The dough for naan bread is quite easy to make, similar like your familiar yeast dough you might use for pizza. For the naan there was just some yogurt added, roughly spoken.
I made dough that would go for four average sized naan breads. they tasted quite good. I was satisfied. The dough for one bread, though, I decided to turn into something else ...

White dal stuff! Hm, let's rather say naan bread stuffed with white dal, almost like an Indian calzone, if there would be something like that. Samosas are prepared slightly differently. You most probably will read something about that at another time on this blog.
What else was on the menu?

There was this spiced eggplant (aubergine) salad served at room temperature. It was spicy, so it was fine.

Potatoes in curd, also a rather colder dish. That doesn't mean, though, there wasn't any chilli in there in some way.

Another quick one, sweet and sour tomatoes. While they were sweet, I couldn't detect so much the sour part in it. There was, however, something else apart from the sweetness. Oh, sure, the recipe mentioned to use chilli powder in it. Sweet and spicy would be fine.

I go on with eating more fish after I just had this Italian-style tuna, poached in tomato sauce, this time it's Indian-style fish fry. Very nicely you get the taste of ginger with a hint of lime beneath that breadcrust. Besides that the marinade included mustard and garlic. That doesn't sound too bad, does it? Yes, it tasted lovely and ... there was no chilli included.
There also was no chilli in the last dish for today ...

Do you know how long it takes to cook 1 litre milk so that it thickens? Well, it was okay in the end, although the rice pudding was a bit sweet. I guess 150 g sugar would do as well. Maybe one or to pistachio and almond more wouldn't hurt, either. At least it wouldn't hurt me. I know others, who cannot even eat a single piece of almond.
Anyway, I like to take this rice pudding along on our food trip around the world for Bloggers Around the World for as you might know, our current stop is India.

 

 
Do you notice another ingredient from the rice pudding picture? Have a guess and tell me. It shouldn't be so difficult.
In the meantime hang on and keep cooking!

Christine & Christian - Episode 5: Caramelised Bananas with Incredible Caramel Sauce

Things are still going on. I have been quite busy. After 9 days of cooking from Tasting India by Christine Manfield, I managed 16 recipes so far. Just this week, until now, I used up ... hm ... about 16 chillies: green ones, dried small ones, dried long ones, but so far no fresh red ones. Whatsoever, my supply is going down.
However, this week I also tried two recipes, where I didn't need any chillies at all. One of it were the carrot dosas I tried just this morning after leaving the batter at room temperature the whole night. The result was ... edible.
The other recipe is called in the book Sanjay's Caramel Bananas. Have a look ...

Well, um, eh ... it doesn't look so incredible now, but ... to me, in the end the TASTE counts.
The bananas are just rolled in sugar and then fries in butter.
What's important about the whole dessert is the caramel sauce. How to do caramel, you should know. Yes, you know ... sugar with a bit of water in a pan at high heat, no stirring, changing colour to brown and things like that. Whatever happens, don't be tempted to use a spoon to stir things up ... by no means.
As the colour changed to brown, add some cinnamon and also some chopped up ginger. Toss it in (don't stir), add cream and a few splashes of brown rum. Mix it, but don't stir.
Pour the sauce over the fried banana in the other pan and coat the banana with the incredible caramel sauce.
Whatever happens now ... just make sure you eat the bananas soon.
For sure I will make this again ... before I try all the other recipes from Tasting India. Even if I would stop cooking through Tasting India now (which I don't), that bananas with this caramel sauce was worth it. I have also been thinking about a version including chocolate. Hm, I will have to see about that.

What else did I cook. Here some further impressions:

That is curry-leaf chicken, which tastes great as well. The brownish bits are the fried curry-leaves. Sorry, I didn't have fresh curry leaves, but so far, I don't  have an idea were to get them. I would go for planting or sowing in my garden, if I get the chance. Ah, do you notice the long dried red chilli in the background as well?

A white dal, enjoyable, but not as good as the other dal I tried. There is a cinnamon stick to be seen here and ... have a guess ... there are three dried red chillies in it. For this dal it was necessary to prepare an onion paste. So far I have found out, that it is quite important to have these pastes, although I still need to find out, why exactly. I still have leftover dal and so I might end up using them to stuff some samosas, but I might eat it just as it is as well.

Here comes another lovely potato dish: sesame potatoes. Apart from the sesame and some ginger paste, there was the need for some ... yes, green chillies. It was also the first time ever, I used fenugreek seeds.
I guess, there are a lot more adventures to come. After all, next I have a whole weekend for that. Who knows!?!

If you want more pictures, just check out my Facebook page here.

Christine & Christian - Episode 4: Up and running

After a few hours of warm up by leafing through the pages of Tasting India, I started cooking from it on Thursday April 11th. 
I mentioned there would be over 250 recipes in the book. Now after carefully counting ... that is if I really was that careful, but that would be too many 'ifs' ... I came to the number of 283 recipes in the book, not counting any variations. I added, though, also individual recipes for spice mixes and pastes, of which I might need some more then once. That also means there are also some quite simple recipes in it.
While cooking for 5 days I managed 8 so far, including one for garlic and ginger paste ... or was it ginger and garlic paste. No worries. I was also invited to cook some Indian food with some friends. On that day, there was also butter chicken on the menu, which tasted very very luvly. Fine, that doesn't count for the recipes, because I didn't make it from the book.
I contributed a gorgeous dal, which tasted as luvly as the chicken, although one of my friends said, it was even better than the chicken. Ah, whatever, very lovely.
I leave you with some food impressions before I have a few more words.

 

Dal Makhani - one of the best dals I ever had ... with that ginger and garlic paste, tomato puree, butter and cream it promises a lot of taste and ... guess what? Have no fear!

Butter Chicken - I wonder, why it has this name. There were a lot of spices, yoghurt, milk and obviously chicken.

Just give me a large plate of it ... anytime!

Sweets for the sweet - Wholemeal Halwa. Don't ask, just taste ... there is a touch of cardamom to it ... if you do it right. All that stirring was some good exercise. Was it half an hour? It was supposed to be less.

 That would be something for hot days - Ginger Lime Soda. I just hope we will have some days this year, so I can put that drink to proper use. It's really refreshing. The ginger isn't too intrusive.

Eggplant (Aubergine) Masala - There were two green chillies and two dries red chillies going into it. I wonder what that will do, if you have properly hot chillies. Those fresh green ones from my windowsill need some more sun. This eggplant masala is delicious how it is with some rice ... good I have a rice cooker.

I hope, that gives you also some good inspiration for our current Bloggers Around the World - India. If you like to know more about one of those dishes, ask away ...
 
Now I had also chance to stock up some things. While sitting at home unprepared and pondering about what to cook, I was still in need of some vital ingredients and there was no chance for shopping. By now, it's fine! I'm up and running ... as you can see above as well.
What about fresh coriander, though? That might cause a problem, searching through shops for some. Parallel to that I started my coriander growing program again. Better late then never, although it will take some time before I can use some of that ... if it works at all. I definitely should get some more ready plants for the garden, when the time is right.

Bloggers Around the World Round-up: Japan ... and guess what?

Inevitably this was going to come, the end of our trip ... eh ... stay in Japan. What shall we say? Where all our dreams fulfilled? What about yours?

Let's see what everyone was busy with. So, without any further ado, we start our Japanese food round up with ...

Some lovely Matcha Madeleines from Choclette. For sure you love that colour and ... most probably that cake stand as well. Who doesn't? Go, have a closer look. You can't see it all from here.

Next, have some Yakisoba from Elizabeth ... and don't pay too much attention to what her brother says. Judge for yourselves and get some noodles ready. That is, if you have any.

Caroline has something completely different for us: Jap Cakes. Is that any sort of trick? I wouldn't know. Do YOU remember Jap Cakes? No? Then have a look and find out some more details ...

Before we leave, let me remind you of something you read here on this blog some time ago, something with rice and salmon: Rice Balls with Spring Onions and Smoked Salmon.

However, what is travelling without some surprises. So, here it comes ...

Ruth still has to offer us some Japanese food. Let's grab some nice tofu and go for Lemon & Ginger Soba Noodles with Tofu and Salmon Gari. Above that, if you want some Matcha ice-cream, you have to check out Ruth's blog at another time.

Thanks for all who had a share! It's always be a pleasure to travel with you. 
Did you miss your blog entry? Yes, we missed it, too. Or maybe it's just some great misunderstanding and I didn't see it. In that case, let me know. In the other case, just hang on as we travel westwards ... to ... have a guess ... maybe it's simply inevitably ... it couldn't be any other way ...

INDIA

Do I have to say anything more? You know what to do, don't you?
In that case ...

1. Leave a comment with a link to your post here in this very post, below (ha ha - can't comment anywhere else on that post). 
2. Link to my blog and this challenge in your post.  
3. Use the "Bloggers Around the World" badge (the one you find at the beginning and end of this post ... you know!).  
4. You can use a new or an old post, but it has to be adjusted accordingly (you know, all the linking). 
5. Have fun and enjoy it (and maybe tell others)!

If we don't hear or see us again in this regard or connection, you know, we will meet here again at the 13th of May (Have you ever wondered why 13th?). 

In case you are lacking inspiration, just tune in to Christine & Christian here on this very blog. It's all about India.

Christine & Christian - Episode 2: Mind the Ghee

Since the book arrived on Wednesday, I had a bit of time to check it out. Not too much, though. I don't want to rush anything. Too often in life we have to rush and so we miss some good parts.
Therefore, I decided to take it easy on that cooking business. There are over 250 recipes in the book and when I say I want to cook them in over 250 days, that could mean ... hm ... 500 days ... or ... 444 days ... or even ... 250 days. Due to that, it might mean nothing at all.
Now, Tasting India is divided in 10 regions food wise. So far I had a glimpse at the first section: Kalkata & Darjeeling. First thought? 
Mine was tea. I appreciate a good cup of Darjeeling tea once in a while. In this section of the book are 35 recipes. So, if you would like to take on a mathematical approach and would assume that there are equally numbers of recipes in each section, you would get 350 recipes. I don't want to confirm anything and I don't want to take a mathematical approach either. Just in case, you want to do anyway, you can tick 2 off, because I already had a go at two of those. I went for something simple, where I don't have to spent a lot of money on ingredients. I simply got a few potatoes. The rest I have at home.
As to that, I consider myself to be well equipped, also for taking on a lot of Indian cooking. At least that is what I thought. Some weeks ago I was in need of some cardamom pods. I knew they had to be somewhere, but I couldn't find them.
This time, when I needed them, it was just opening the cupboard, quick glance and here we are. I don't know what it was back then.
To the two selected recipes ... the first is Alur Dom and the other Luchi, in other words Curried Potatoes and Puffed Puri Bread. Both recipes were in need of ghee, the bread recipe even heavily.
There was still ghee in the house, but by far not the amount mentioned.
To put it simple, ghee is clarified butter, that can stand more heat and adds more flavour to your meals. I have to check again some shops for ghee. I guess I need to have some in the house at all times, unless I want to make my own, which has to be possible somehow.
In the meantime, I have to select a few recipes without ghee until I get chance to stock up some more of it.
I guess, at the essential points this time I used sufficient ghee, as things tasted fine.
For the curried potatoes I had to do my own spice mix with turmeric, cumin, salt, pepper, coriander seeds and sugar.
While the preparation for the curried potato wasn't in need of any attention, I went for the puffed puri bread.

You can already see, where this is heading ... a lot of food. Well, they are not all evenly sized on the picture, but hey, enjoy! There was enough dough for 36, but I decided to put half of the balls to the fridge to make some fresh puffed puri breads tomorrow. Fresh is better.
The balls were flattened, rolled out and then, normally in ghee, deep fried. 

Simply try to imagine the smoke in the house. I opened each and every window afterwards. The luchis (puffed puri breads) will only puff properly, if the ghee (or oil) has the right temperature. I must have done everything right, for there was a lovely puffing going on.
After all the luchis had been fried, the potatoes were ready, too.

Time to enjoy an Indian meal. To create some atmosphere, I switched my newly acquired Internet radio to an Indian radio station and went for it ...

I for sure will have some more of it. The recipe for the Alur Dom stated it would serve 8 people. Maybe it holds true, if you have some fish with the potatoes as was suggested in the recipe or ... alternatively it stated to have the puri bread along with it. Hm! I thought it would last at most for 4 people ... Oh! I hope I'm not that greedy. I was supposed to use 1 kg of potatoes. So, judge for yourself.
Anyway, if I want to go through the whole book, I need some time to eat up all the food in a reasonable way or I need some guests. Any volunteers?