Channa chaat

Channa chaat is a popular Asian street food very similar to a potato salad, but with the additions of chickpeas, spices and condiments. It is often served as a starter to accompany a main meal and is traditionally made during Ramadan or on Eid. 

A slightly more upgraded version is samosa chat which basically involves piping hot samosas topped with the channa chaat. The combination of cooling yogurt colliding with crispy filled samosa is a real treat for your tastebuds 

To easily serve 4-6 people you will need

4 large potatoes 

2 tins of chick peas ( drained )
1 medium red onion
2 medium size tomatoes
1 level tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds
2 level tsp of chilli flakes
2 small green chillies
Squeeze lemon juice
2 tbsp chaat masala
1/2 a cucumber
6 tbsp imli ( i buy the ready made type in the squeezy bottles )
Chopped coriander

2 1/2 500g tubs of yogurt

Cayenne pepper paprika - to garnish

• Start by chopping the potatoes into meduim size chunks & par boil them. Drain and let them cool

• Chop the red onion finely, then cut the cucumber and tomato into small chunks. Place them all in a bowl along with the chick peas.

• Finely chop the green chilli, add to the bowl along with the cumin, salt, lemon juice, imli, chaat masala and small handful of chopped coriander. Mix everything together until combined well.

• Add in the cooled potato chunks and give it one final stir.
Put the chick pea & potato masala into a serving dish, spreading out evenly.

• Add a splash of milk to the yogurt to loosen it slightly, mix togther till smooth & pour the yougurt over the chaat ensuring all top is evenly covered, sprinkle with a mix of cayenne pepper and paprika,

• Drizzle over a little more imli and finish with a little bit of chopped coriander. Refrigerate until ready to serve

• For samosa chaat, you can either pour the channa chaat over freshly made samosas then finish off with the yogurt and garnishes or make up the chaat fully, then let your guests pour the made up chaat onto the their samosa portion themselves

sun dried tomato soda bread

Soda bread is a fab bread to start off baking with if you're not confident in bread but want to make a start and build on your skills. It's also great as its so simple to put together, a variety of fillings would compliment it. This bread doesn't require any kneading whatsoever, and you don't have to let it prove at all, it literally takes less than an hour in total.



for my sun dried tomato soda bread you will need:

500g bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda bicarbonate
400ml buttermilk*
3-4 tsp dried italian herbs
4-5 tbsp parmesan/ italian hard cheese
6-8 sundried tomatoes chopped  

• Preheat your oven to 180c, (fan)If you're making your own buttermilk, start by making that first and leave to aside.
• Add all the other ingredients to a bowl, stir together just so that the tomatoes distribute evenly
• Slowly add in the buttermilk using a wooden spoon till everything is just combined
• turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and shape the dough into a round. Place onto a grease proof lined baking tray. Cut a deep cross in the middle of the round
• Bake for 40 minutes until doubled in size and golden. It should sound hollow when tapped from the bottom.
• Eat/serve as desired.

*I made my own by adding 3 tsp of lemon juice straight into the milk - leave the milk to sit for 10 minutes once you've added the juice for the milk to become buttermilk

Chicken & chick pea masala pasties

Chicken & chick pea masala pasties are always a hit with all my family, and since getting the hang of making my own puff pastry I'll happily whip up a batch at any given chance, so handing them out to friends as well as family during ramadhan was the perfect excuse to indulge in batch loafs

So here's the recipe if you'd like to give them a go.

To make a batch of 6 -8 pasties you will need
1 batch of my home made puff pastry or 2 sheets of ready roll pastry and 1 batch of my chicken & chickpea masala

• Start by ensuring your block of pastry is chilled & cold but not rock solid. Cut the block in half, put one half to a side or back in the fridge till later use.

• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the block out to a large square, to about an inch thick. Cut the large square into 4 equal peices. If you're using the ready rolled sheets just cut both sheets into 4 equal squares.

• Taking one of the squares, fold it in half lightly and open it up. Use the line through the middle as a guide for the middle of the pastie

• Take 2 -3 tablespoons of the chicken mixture and place in the middle of the square. Brush the bottom edge and sides with a little bit of egg wash, and fold the top half of the sqaure over the filling, ensuring all 3 edges meet as neatly as possible

• Pierce 2 sets of holes in the top of the pastie using a fork - this will help the steam escape during cooking. Seal all the edges by gently pressing them with a fork.

• Repeat the above process with the remaining squares and the remaining pastry dough. Place the pasties on greasproof lined baking trays, brush the tops of each pastie with egg wash  and bake in a fan assisted oven at 180c for
20 -25 minutes or until the tops are golden brown & serve 

*** if you have any filling remaining, and run out of pastry dough,  you can freeze the filling & save it for another time. Ensure that any filling you defrost is used uo completely as you cannot re freeze thawed meat***

Chicken & chickpea masala

This is the filling i use for my chicken pasties :

1 kilo boneless chicken- I used thigh meat as i find it doesn't dry out as much as breast
1 & 1/2 level tsp salt
2 large onions diced
2 tsp cumin seeds
3 green chillies finely chopped
1 tsp chilli flakes
Handful fresh coriander chopped
1 tin of chickpeas ( water drained )
2 handfuls garden peas
Tsp of garam masala
6 - 7 baby new potatoes cubed
1 tsp lemon juice

• Start by frying off the onions i a little oil till golden brown. Add in the salt and green chillies and cook on a medium heat till the chillies have softened

• Add in the chicken, and cook the chicken through completley, then add in the potatoes & chickpeas, cook the mixture until the the potatoes are soft but not mushed & the chick peas have browned a little

• Still on a medium heat, add in the cumin seeds, chilli flakes and garam masala. Check the seasoning of the salt & chillies and if required you can add in a little more chilli flakes or salt if needed.

• Once the mixture has cooled completley, add in the fresh coriander and lemon juice & mix well. The mixture is now ready to use to make my chicken pasties or alternatively as a filling for a pie.

Pineapple Salsa

Pineapple is definitely one of my all time favourite fruits & i love it even more having  recently discovered it tastes amazing made up into salsa as a side accompaniment to a main meal

What makes it even more amazing is that the sweet griddled pineapple makes it perfect to snack on & kill those late night sweet cravings & works perfect with the sharp lime & build up of heat from the chilli

So for my pineapple salsa you will need:

2x 500g bag of pineapple fingers
1x 100g tub of pomegranate seeds
Juice of one lime
A good handful of fresh mint leaves
1 red chilli de seeded
Salt & pepper to taste

•Start by dry frying the pinapple fingers in a griddle or frying pan. Don't add any oil, just let it colour golden brown. Set aside and leave to cool

•Chop the chilli and mint finely, place in a bowl. Add the lime juice and pomegranate seeds to the bowl. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, stir together.

•Add in the cooled pineapple, drizzle in a little olive oil, season to taste with salt & pepper, stir together till its all evenly mixed and serve. You can either serve it as an accompaniment to your main meal - it goes really well with chicken or fish, or just eat it on its own as a snack

You can leave the seeds in the chilli if you want it quite spicy, i de seeded it as my kids like it slightly milder

Amy's tabouleh

Amy's tabouleh .. I've named this recipe as such due to the fact that tabouleh is something that I'd always wanted to try but never actually had up until meeting with my friend Amy for a girly catch up and a cooking session of all sorts of little bits and bobs.  Not only do I absolutely love the flavour and textures in this dish, but I love how it consists of s little and there's no exact measurements of ingredients ; Simply toss it all together and tweak as you go along .

So for Amy's tabouleh you will need :

about 200g bulgar wheat*
a bunch of mint
a bunch of flat leaf parsley
a bunch of fresh coriander
1/2 tomatoes
pomegranate seeds
olive oil
lemon juice (optional)
salt and pepper to season

• Start by boiling the bulgar wheat in a pan until just tender, (just as you would with rice, it will also expand as rice does as it cooks away ) drain any remaining water, put into a bowl or dish you want to serve it in and leave to completely cool, then add a good splash of olive oil & a little lemon juice
• While the wheat cools, finely chop half the bunch of mint, coriander and parsley, add it into the wheat and stir through
• Roughly chop the tomato, add to the bowl along with the pomegranate seeds. Season with a little salt and pepper, check if your happy with the flavours and if you need to add more of whatever you feel it needs to. 
• Serve as you would a side salad with any main or simply eat on it's own as it is 

* if you're not keen on bulgar wheat you can swap it with cous cous. All you'd need to do is soak the cous cous with freshly boiled water. You need just enough water to cover the cous cous and cover it with cling film and leave for about 5-10 minutes to fluff up. You could even try bulgar whet with quinoa 

Happy Birthday Emma

Todays post is a blog down memory lane and it's dedicated to my High School friend Emma Stewart Pearce as it's her birthday.You're probably thinking whats a friends birthday got to do with a food blog?

Well one of the things I will be doing with this blog is sharing memories of foods I loved cooking/eating when I was younger. 

Today I'm sharing a childhood tea time recipe that turned into a snack that I loved during my High School days and Emma came to like it so much I'd end up bringing some into school just for her.The timing of this post ties in rather nicely with her birthday so it just had to be dedicated to her .

Being a mum of 5 kids meant my mum was constantly on her feet so when it came to tea time, some days she would want to whip up something quick and easy, but also healthy and tasty. My Brother would happily settle for fried egg with a chappati, but I would struggle with eating any type of egg (and still do) 

so mum being mum added a twist of curry powder to give the good old scrambled egg a bit of a kick. I loved it so much I would take to school sandwiched in bread and so the spicy egg sandwich was born !

so for anyone that's a fan of eggs .. and of course just for you Emma .. Heres how to make your very own :

• In a bowl crack 3 medium eggs, add 2-3 good pinches of salt, a level teaspoon of curry pwder and a little fresh chopped coriander. Give it a good whisk
• In a frying pan melt a little butter on a medium heat, pour in the egg mixture and cook just as you would for scrambled eggs

• Lightly butter 2 slices of bread, and sanwich the egg between the slices and tuck in !

That really is all it takes. It's also a great base for an omlette .. just add in whatver you fancy , my kids will favour it over any any other type of egg for breakfast, they love it on weekends with toast and beans. My personal fave is to add Hp or Worcester sauce in the sandwich for an extra kick.... So how do you like your eggs in the morning ?!