Cooking

I probably spend, on the average, a greater proportion of a day cooking than anything else but sleeping. Mostly curries, which is why there has been a curry page on this site since the start in the 1990s - it has been in need of a rewrite for some time and will get it soon [this has now been done].

I have compiled a small pamphlet of my favourite recipes which I cannot reproduce here as it would infringe intellectual property rather more blatantly than the rest of this site, but I will detail a recent development.

Being a poor pensioner and, more importantly, a lifelong tightwad, when I was recently struck by a craving for Nando's hot chicken, I made it myself instead. There's not much to it: armed with a Nandos menu, I found what I needed on the interweb.

Chicken

You need to unwrap a chicken or two. The term for this seems to be spatchcock and there is an excellent demonstration of the process here. Take his advice and divide it into two. You should also score the flesh deeply to aid marinade penetration.

Having learned how to do this, there's no need to buy chicken joints for curries: jointing a whole chicken is considerably cheaper.

Marinade

This is the key. Peri/Piri recipes abound and are broadly similar.

• Prepare:
• 10 plump cloves cloves of garlic, chopped
• a medium red pepper, chopped
• half a bottle of red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano (while you are waiting for some to grow)
• 2 teaspoons of paprika
• a tablespoon of olive oil
• add the above to a saucepan in a sensible order and simmer for 3 minutes
• add two large bonnet peppers, chopped, season and simmer for another minute
• allow to cool and blend it to smoothness
• marinade the chicken (that's enough marinade for one large), keeping some back for basting and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight
• cook it in a roasting tin for 45-60 mins on hot (around 200), basting and turning every 15. For the last 15, have the chicken pretty side up and deploy the oven+grill option if you have it
• if you want gravy to go with it, add to what is left in the roasting tin: flour to thicken, some chicken stock (or curry gravy), wine and seasoning then reduce to the required consistency.

There's a completely different version here which suggests a number of other ingredients (many proprietary) which could be worth experimenting with.

Side dishes

I have two

• Mash
• chop carrots and sweet potato separately and steam separately for around 10 minutes until mashable. Mash with butter and season, put in the oven for the last 15. Made it again today - the carrots might need a bit longer and we're aiming for a coarse mash, lumps are expected.
• Peas
• to a can of mushy peas add a teaspoon of mint sauce, a desert spoon of chopped fresh parsley and several chopped green chillis and season. Warm it in the oven.

Chilli Jam is also worth 'making': there are numerous propriatory brands and recipes online, but my immediate solution was to goose up a jar of mundane mango chutney. If there are large lumps of mango, chop these smaller; add significant amounts of chopped fresh chillis and anything else to hand such as tabasco or chilli sauce, oregano (fresh or dry) or fresh corriander.

Tarka Dal goes well with the above (alert readers will have detected that this is becoming a curry), especially when eaten as left-overs the following day. The best lentil recipe I have used lately is from Kris Dhillon's excellent New Curry Secret. I will post a rationalised version of this in due course.

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