711. Melokhia

I have to make a slight confession, there actually isn’t any melokhia in this picture. I was planning on putting it in the curry, but I (thankfully) tried some before I put it in the pot and it was so bad that I decided against it. I read that it was supposed to be a bit like spinach, and I suppose that it was, if you got all the bitterness from an entire bag of spinach and concentrated it down into one single leaf. Would not recommend!

712. Amchur

On the other hand, there actually is amchur in the dish. Amchur is a spice made from dried green mango, which means that it has a really sour, tangy flavour. I made a raita dip and added the amchur in place of lime juice and it worked really well.

712 down, 1084 to go

699. Rogan Josh

A while back my family and I went to an Asian buffet restaurant. And by Asian I mean Asian. They had Indian food, Chinese food, Korean food, Thai food, Japanese food and probably a bunch more. There was so much I wanted to try, but I didn’t want to totally overload my plate so I got little tiny bits of everything. One of the curries I got was rogan josh, which is a lamb curry with a rich, red sauce. The meat was chewy (which is why I don’t usually ever order lamb curries unless I know the place is amazing), but the sauce was great.

699 down, 1097 to go

674. Coriander Seed

As you all know, Indian food is my favourite, so I often make curries at home. Normally I tend to just make it up as I go along but for once I actually used a recipe - Turkey saag aloo from John Torode’s Chicken recipe book. I used whole spices including coriander and cumin seeds, dry toasted them in the pan and then ground them all up in my new pestle and mortar. My friend Sarah got me the pestle and mortar for Christmas and it weighs about 400 pounds and I love it and now I just want to grind everything.

674 down, 1122 to go

661. Lamb Dopiaza

This was the main course that I served for New Year’s. I made a lamb dopiaza, which is a lamb curry with lots of onions, a saag aloo, homemade onion bhajis and coconut and coriander chutney, all served with rice and naan bread. I got a fantastic Indian cookbook for Christmas so most of the dishes were made or at least inspired, from recipes in there.

661 down, 1135 to go

624. Bhindi Bhaji with 625. Okra

I know that a lot of people really don’t like okra, because when cooked it can go pretty slimy. Personally it doesn’t bother me at all and I actually like the flavour - I think it works great with spices, like in this bhindi bhaji with is literally just an okra curry.

625 down, 1171 to go

604. Mutter Paneer

Indian food! YAY! Mutter paneer is a vegetarian curry of paneer (which is an Indian curd cheese) and peas. It sounds a little weird but it’s super tasty. The paneer has that usual squeaky curd cheese texture which is oddly pleasing, and the peas add a nice sweetness to counter the spicy sauce.

604 down, 1192 to go

551. Brinjal Bhaji

As I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, Indian food is like my heaven, and Indian takeout is one of my absolute favourite comfort foods. It’s rich, spicy, warming, and just delicious. Indian food is also the one cuisine where I could just about cope with being a vegetarian. Their vegetarian dishes are just sublime, and I would not miss the meat at all if I got served up a whole plate like this. (There’s actually this vegetarian Indian restaurant near my apartment in Cardiff which is supposed to be amazing. I just have to persuade someone to forego meat and come with me!).

Brinjal bhaji is curry made with aubergine (eggplant). This one was particularly good because it used the baby aubergines and kept them whole, so the outsides were smothered in the yummy sauce and the insides were so soft that they just melted in your mouth.

551 down, 1245 to go

As I’m sure you all know well by now, I love my Indian food, and I often like to make curries at home. One day I decided to go all out with a curry and make it from a whole roast chicken. I rubbed the chicken with tandoori paste before roasting it, then shredded it when it was done and added it to fried onions and spices. I also made chicken stock out of the carcass and used this as the liquid for the curry. The result was totally delicious and completely worth the extra effort so this is for sure something I would do again. Spices I added into the curry sauce included 458. Curry Leaf, 459. Fenugreek and 460. Saffron, all of which added great aromatic flavour. I served it with some homemade raita, naan bread and some 461. Saffron Rice.

461 down, 1335 to go

449. Kheema

I made this as a quick easy supper for my friends after we had the miracle berry tasting (long enough after so the effects had worn off, I don’t think sweet lamb would have been that tasty!). If you haven’t made a lot of curries before, this is a great one to try as it is super simple. All you need to do is fry some chopped onions and ground lamb, add in a couple of spoonfuls of curry paste (I would use something like rogan josh or madras paste), then mix in a can of tomatoes. You can pretty much then cook it for as long or as little as you like, and just toss in a handful of peas a few minutes before you want to serve.

449 down, 1347 to go

433. Roti Prata

Pie used to live in Malaysia, and so he loves Malaysian food and has introduced me to a few different dishes over the past year. Thus far the roti are definitely my favourite. They are so flaky and buttery (probably about a million calories each but I can live with that for something so delicious). These were at Sedap, which is a small Malaysian restaurant in Shoreditch. I had mine with lamb curry and Pie had chicken curry. Both were scrumptious.

433 down, 1363 to go