Chettinad Veg

Chettinad is an area of Tamil Nadu in South India, famous locally for its somewhat fiery cuisine. There are probably as many recipes for Chettinad veg as there are people living there, so this one's my version in their style more or less... It's a cheap and cheerful flavour sensation. Use any vegetables you like, but I've gone for a mix of aubergine, cauliflower and green beans.

Cook the veg separately for the best effect. Don't just lob everything in at once and hope for the best. Different elements require different approaches — the techniques here suit the particular veg I'm using.

One thing before we kick off... They use a weird ingredient in Chettinad — kolpasi — which is in fact a lichen found growing on tree bark. It has a distinctive flavour, hard to substitute. You can order it from specialist Asian shops online or leave it out if you want and use a little extra cinnamon instead.



Serves: 5
Cost per person: 3.60 zl (0.62 GBP, 0.84 Euros, 60 Indian Rupees)

You'll need:

- 1 aubergine
- 1/2 cauliflower
- a 1/2 cup of green beans (I'm using frozen)
- 1-2 onions finely chopped
- 2 tsp ginger garlic paste
- 1 tin of tomatoes
- a glass of coconut cream or milk
- salt
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
- 6 or so tablespoons of coconut oil, more if required
- 10 dried red chillies deseeded
- 1 tsp kolpasi
- 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 1/4 tsp black pepper corns
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 1-2 pieces of cinnamon

Let's get going!

1. Put the following in a pan: dried red chillies, kolpasi, fenugreek seeds, black pepper corns, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon. Gently roast on a low medium flame for 5 minutes.



2. Use a spice or coffee grinder to whizz the spices up into a powder.



3. In a little bowl, mix the turmeric and chilli powder with 1 tsp of salt. Chop up the aubergine and coat with the turmeric/ chilli/ salt mix



4. Let's be authentic here and use coconut oil! Get quite a lot into a hot pan.



5. Shallow fry the aubergines in this oil for around 10 minutes until soft and starting to brown. Remove from the pan, retaining as much oil as possible in the pan, and allow to drain in a sieve placed over a bowl (to catch the flavoured oil which we'll use later to fry the onions in). Aubergines absorb a lot of oil so you might need to keep adding some and you'll know the aubergine is getting there when it starts to give the oil back out in the pan.



6. While the aubergine is cooking, chop up the cauliflower and then shallow fry in the same pan after the aubergines have been removed. Give them around 5-10 minutes or until the cauliflower starts to brown slightly. This allows the cauliflower to soak up some of those spicy flavours from the pan! Remove and sit on top of the aubergines as they drain their oil.





7. Now, some oil will have drained out of the aubergines and into the bowl. Transfer the oil back to the pan and start to sweat down some finely chopped onion.



8. Give the onions around 10 minutes. Keep adding more drained oil as required as you go. Make the ginger garlic paste by grating an inch of ginger with one clove of garlic.



9. Ginger garlic paste in. Fry off for a minute or two. Get that spice powder in now. Stir in and fry off for half a minute.



10. Sort out the tinned tomatoes — i.e. remove any skins etc. Chop fine and get them into that pan!!



11. Cover and leave to cook down for 5 minutes on low. Add the coconut milk/ cream. Cook down for 5 minutes.



12. Frozen green beans — take the edge off in the microwave for a minute.



13. Beans in. Cook on low for 5 minutes



14. Cauliflower in for 3 minutes.



15. Aubergine in and turn off the heat.



16. Serve with rice and enjoy!



Costing: 

- aubergine: 4 zl
- cauliflower: 2.50 zl
- beans: 0.50 zl
- tomatoes: 2 zl
- rice for 5 people: 3 zl
- coconut oil: 4 zl
- the rest: 2 zl

total: 18 zl
serves: 5
per person: 3.60 zl

Xmas Dinner with Duck, Roast Potatoes and Cauliflower Puree

So here it is Merry Christmas, with a slightly Asian twist, incorporating elements of Indian and Chinese cuisine.

By the way, this serves 2 and the duck alone cost 70 zloties (about 12 quid) so there's my 5 zloties bang out the window. But, what the hell.

Serves: 2

Cost: a lot more than 5 zloties

You'll need:

- a duck (duh!) plus the old giblets (I like that word!)

- around 400g of potatoes, peeled

- half a cauliflower

- butter

- milk

- veg oil

- mustard seeds

- cumin seeds

- 1 dried red chilli

- salt

- 1 shallot 

- 1 clove of garlic

- 1 glass of red wine

- 1 glass of port

- star anise

- 1 coriander plant

- spring onions

- 1 tablespoon of honey

- 1 tablespoon of  soy sauce

- 1 tablespoon of sherry

- 1 tsp Sichuan pepper corns

- 1 tsp five spice powder (Chinese)

- 2 tsp grated ginger

- rosemary

Shall we?

Stage 1 (the day before, if you like)

1. Chop the cauliflower and braise in a pan in butter for around 10 minutes to get a little brown

2. Meanwhile, make some Indian flavoured oil. Heat some oil in a pan and add 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 1/3 tsp mustard seeds and a dried red chilli. Wait for the seeds to splutter

3. Add 1/3 tsp of turmeric and immediately take off the heat.

4. Pass the oil into a bowl and allow to settle

5. When the cauliflower is starting to brown, add a little milk into the pan. Bring to a slight boil then put it on the lowest heat you can. Season with a little salt and pepper. Poach for ten minutes or until the cauliflower is soft. Keep the mix moving in the pan to avoid the milk curdling.

6. Strain out the cauliflower into a blender, retaining the liquid. Add a squeeze of lemon and enough of the liquid to blend into a fine puree.

7. When blended, add a little of the spiced oil, spooning from the top so that you only get the oil and leave the sediment in the bowl. 2-3 tsp should be fine. Ok - cauliflower puree done. Reheat the next day.

Stage Two the day before

1. Let's marinate the duck! So, first we'll crush 1 tablespoon of Sichuan pepper corns

2. Prep the other ingredients - coriander, spring onions, soy sauce, sherry, 5 spice, ginger.

3. Add 1 tsp of salt plus 1 tablespoon of honey

4. Mix them all up real good!

5. Score the duck skin without piercing the meat (try to do it neater than I did). This allows the fat to render more easily while roasting and also gets more of the marinade flavour in there.

6. Rub the marinade inside and out.

7. Keep in the fridge over night.

Stage Three (could be done the day before too)

1. Ok - I think we'll do a little red wine/ port reduction style of gravy. So, let's start of with some finely chopped shallots in a pan and a little hot oil. Give them a few minutes till translucent.

2. Add the giblets. I added the neck. If I was doing this again, I'd leave the neck out - it generated too much fat which I then needed to remove. Brown nicely along with a roughly crushed clove of garlic.

3. Don't forget the star anise!

4. Add in the port and wine. Season a little. Reduce down nicely.

5. Pass into a container. Reheat and reduce down further the next day just before serving the duck.

The Big Day

1. Peel the spuds and cut into fairly large pieces. Keep in a pan of cold water until you boil. Start to prepare around 60 minutes before serving.

2. The oven needs to be on 160 degrees more or less. You'll need to put the duck on a roasting rack on a baking tray. It will need around 2.5 hours to cook plus 15 minutes to rest. Have this in mind for when you time the potatoes. Roast the duck for 30 minutes uncovered. Then cover with foil - this stops the marinade elements from burning.

3. Every so often, pull the duck out the oven and drain off the fat - keep it. We'll be roasting the potatoes in it!

4. After the duck's been in for 1 hour 45 minutes, parboil the potatoes for 5 minutes - no longer!! Drain. Put back into the pan. Season. Drizzle over enough duck fat to cover the spuds. Add a little rosemary if you like.

5. Transfer to a roasting tray. Get them in the oven. They'll need around 45 minutes. Turn them from time to time.

6. After you've taken the duck out to rest, you can reheat the cauliflower puree and the red wine/ port reduction. After the duck's rested for 15 minutes, the potatoes will have been in the oven for 45 minutes and will now be perfect. Plate up!

7. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho!

Veggie Burgers (with potatoes and black-eyed beans)

A great left-overs dish when you've made too much mashed potato and you've got some other bits and pieces hanging round the fridge - in this case, some extra black-eyed beans.

Makes: 4 burgers
Cost per burger: 0.90 zl (0.15 GBP, 1.6 Danish Kroner)

We'll need:

- some mash
- some beans
- chopped spring onion
- a pinch of marjoram
- 1/2 finely chopped red chilli 
- salt and pepper
- some old bread
- a handful of basil leaves
- 1 clove of garlic
- rapeseed oil
- 1 egg, beaten
- a little flour

Let's rock!

1. You'll need some mash and beans

2. Add the spring onion, chilli, marjoram and season with salt and pepper

3. Mash it all up

4. In a food processor add some bits of old bread, basil leaves, 1 clove of garlic and season with salt and pepper. 

5. Blitz to make the breadcrumbs. Now you'll have two bowls looking more or less like this:

6. So, now we'll make the burgers. Grab a handful and form a burger. Lightly coat with flour

7. Dip in the beaten egg so it's all coated on all sides

8. Dip in the breadcrumbs and make sure it's well coated. 

9. Oil in a frying pan. Medium heat. Burger in

10. After around 2 minutes, flip and fry the other side for 2 minutes.

11. I like it served simply - with mustard in a bread roll

Magic!

Cost:

- the burger mix: 2.50 zl
- the egg: 0.50 zl
- the bun: 0.30 zl
- the rest: 0.30 zl

total: 3.60 zl
per burger: 0.90 zl