Jac made a chicken and vegetable (green beans, carrots and broccoli) balti curry last weekend, which she served with mini pappadams. I love this kind of curry sauce, with an oniony and tomatoey base. It’s fragrant and spicy without blowing your head off (though of course if you wanted it super hot you could simply add more chilli). Here’s the recipe, which came from one of Jac’s cookbooks:
From 100 Best Balti Curries: Authentic Dishes from the Baltihouses by Diane Lowe and Mike Davidson, published by Pavilion Books, London 1994, pp.24-25
Basic Balti sauce (everyday version)
This quick, easy sauce forms the basis of most recipes in the book.Makes 750 ml or 1 1/4 pints
3 tbsp vegetable oil
4 onions, chopped
small piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 large garlic clove, crushed
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 tumeric powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp chilli powder
salt to taste
palmful of chopped fresh corianderHeat the oil in a large saucepan over moderate heat and fry the onions, ginger and garlic until the onions are translucent. Add the tomato and stir-fry, breaking it up with the spoon. Pour in 300 ml (1/2 pint) water and stir in the other ingredients. Bring to the boil. Turn the heat to low, cover with a lid and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Pour into a blender or food processor and liquidise.
We cooked the pappadums in the microwave according to the instructions, but without any oil this time (thanks, Rhonda, for the tip last time!).
We grabbed a takeaway lunch from Spencer Village on the long weekend Monday. This was nasi lemak, which came wrapped in brown paper from Sarindo, the Indonesian stall. For a measly AU$3.30, you get some really tasty coconut rice, ikan bilis with peanuts, cucumber, fried egg, chilli sambal and a chunky piece of fried fish. I can’t believe I’ve been going to Spencer’s all this time and never ate this! It was great! Nothing fancy, but a really tasty cheap savoury feed. I’ll definitely have it again.
I’ve been replying to comments this evening – I hope I haven’t missed any. Thank you for all your comments and questions! Keep ‘em coming. :)
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
It look’s to good to be through I am definitely going to try this
Sorina,
Definitely worth trying. Hope you get the chance to, let me know how it goes.
Microwaved pappadums are SO much healthier! And quicker and cleaner. No oil to dispose of, no oil smells permeating the kitchen and the rest of the house for days, no oil to drain off the pappadums, no oil to ingest. And super quick – watch them as they only need a few seconds depending on how many you put in the microwave at once and what it’s power is. Err on the side of less time and add more microwaving time as needed, otherwise they’ll burn and set off the smoke alarm! (yes, the voice of experience)
My roommate used to have this book and I missed it. Thanks for posting this recipe.
That nasi lemak looks really good! Just like the kind I saw and tasted on holiday in Malaysia. For $3.30, that’s a jolly good feed.
What kind of papadom’s are those? I saw your post and remembered eating them as a kid so I went to an Indian store to find some. They had some but they came in a pack of big sheets the size of tortillas. Looking at the texture of the papadoms, I wasn’t sure if they would come out the same as yours if I microwaved them. I’ve done fish chips in the microwave and they came out nicely.
Rhonda,
Agreed, much cleaner and healthier. That’s one of the best tips I’ve gotten from anyone via the internet. :)
maybelle’s mom,
No worries at all. I believe you may still be able to buy it secondhand via Amazon.co.uk.
dea,
It was lovely. I’ve been eating nasi lemak quite often lately and just can’t get enough.
Zaw,
They come in a box and are “mini pappadums”. They really are mini, like a quarter of the size of the usual ones. We’ve bought plain ones at a supermarket and garlic ones in an Asian supermarket. Sorry, the boxes are gone, so I am unable to tell you what brand they were.