Monday, November 15, 2004

Cooking for dad: Indian Chicken

Sunday Nov 14 is father’s day in Sweden. My dad usually likes to celebrate by gathering all his children – three of us – Godfather-style and have a big meal. In recent years, I’ve been the cook for these and other family gatherings, and this time was no exception. Attending was my brother Arno, his fiancée Thina, my sister Silvi and her fiancé Tommy, her daughter Malin, and my parents. My own darling was home with a stomach bug and was in no mood for a family dinner. This group of people have two special requirements – no read meat, and no nuts. Generally not a problem since it leaves me with a lot of options. This year, I opted for a fairly simple meal – I made an Indian-style chicken, using ready-made sauce that I promptly forgot the name of. (It was something fairly close to that Arabian TV-channel, Al-Jazeera. Oh well.) In any case, it was a fairly spicy tomato-based sauce tasting heavily of cumin. With the chicken, I served Naan, mango chutney, small pearl tomatoes, finely diced red onions and a raita. I’m really, really pleased with the raita, so I’ll share the recipe:

Raita
300 ml of sour cream (could certainly substitute yogurt or crème fraiche)
1 cucumber, shredded (press out as much fluid as you can)
the juice of 1 lime
1 large bunch of coriander, chopped
1 tablespoon of sugar
salt, to taste

It was very yummy, and I’ll definitely be making it again. It doesn’t have a particular “Indian” flavour, so it’d go well with a variety of meals. I think I’ll try it with a baked potato, next time.

For dessert, I made Nigella’s Chocolate Pots from Nigella Bites. It was the first time I tried them, and it was incredibly simple! I doubled the recipe, omitting some of the spices, and ended up with this:

Chocolate Pots
400 grams of good dark chocolate
300 ml whipping cream
200 ml full fat milk
2 eggs
dash of vanilla extract
dash of cinnamon

You need a food processor for this. Crush the chocolate in the food processor. Heat the milk, cream and spices until just about boiling, and pour over the chocolate. Let stand for a little bit, and then blitz for half a minute. Add the eggs, through the funnel of the food processor. Blitz again, for 45 seconds or so. And that’s it! Just pour into tiny glasses – this made 10 1/2 small glasses, but Nigella specifies that her recipe (which is half of mine) makes 8 servings. (She must have really tiny cups.) We had these with coffee, and it was very appreciated. The chocolate pots are intensely chocolatey, with a smooth velvet texture. It’s much more dense and creamy than a mousse. Definitely worth a try!

3 comments:

Cerebrum said...

The chocolate pots are to DIE for, and so easy to make, too! How sweet of you to be cooking for your dad, Anne - everyone should cook for their parents some more, my mom always enjoys it immensely!

Anne said...

I definitely have to make the chocolate pots again! I wonder how well they'd keep? As in, have one for dessert all week long.. ah, the inspiration. :)

I love cooking for my parents and I try to do it quite a bit. Especially for family gatherings - my mom doesn't like cooking much, so it's a bit of a relief for her, too.

Pille said...

Hi Anne - I'm reading through your old archives gradually, and it's so sweet to learn that your siblings have such Estonian names. Anne is a popular name in Estonia as well, but it's also rather international, whereas Silvi and especially Arno sound very homely to me:)
Sweet:)