An Onion and Cream cheese Curry

Continuing my current obsession with onions how about a sweet and interesting curry, not the usual curry flavour and probably one of the cheapest dishes out there . . .

- Put some oil in a frying pan to heat on high.

- Peel and slice some onions into biggish slices. You’ll need lots, for myself I used four smallish onions.

- Pop the onions into the hot pan and cook stirring now and then until the slices start to brown and blacken at edges.

- Turn the heat down low and add the spices - a teaspoon each of dried thyme and mint, half a teaspoon of turmeric, a pinch or two of chilli flakes and a couple of teaspoons of cumin seeds.

- let the spices cook for a minute or two (take the pan off the heat if they look like burning) then add a slice of butter.

- Leave to sizzle gently until the onions are well cooked and have gone a honeyed brown.

- season with a pinch of salt.

Serve with some lumps or splodges of cheese, say feta (careful with the salt) or cottage cheese or as I did some philadelphia (cream cheese). And some bread or rice of course or roll it up in a pancake like I did.

I like it quite dry but for rice it might need more of a sauce so I would add some water or yoghurt or even cream at the end.

Leek, Cheese and Walnut Pie with Wholemeal Cumin Pastry

I had a vision. A vision of leeks slowly cooked in butter and mixed with cheese, fragrantly relaxing onto my plate like a hippy earth mother at peace with the world. So I made a pie.

- Make some pastry. Take a cup of plain flour, a cup of wholemeal flour and 4 ounces of butter and a pinch of salt and rub them together with your fingertips until they resemble breadcrumbs. Mix in a teaspoon of ground cumin seeds and half a teaspoon of whole seeds then mix in just enough cold water to make it all stick together, 4 tablespoonsful in my case.

- Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and pop into the fridge for the time being.

- Now the filling. Put a frying pan on to heat with a iittle oil and a slice of butter.

- Peel and chop an onion and four or five leeks and put them in the pan top cook slowly for a good fifteen or twenty minutes.

- Turn the oven on to hot, say 200 celcius.

- once the leeks are nearly cooked, they should be translucent and turning honey coloured, drop in a handfull of walnut pieces and then stir in a dessertspoonful of plain flour.

- Roll out the pastry and line a deep dish with it, I could only find a flan dish so used a 7” cake tin. I think the metal tin helps keep the pastry crisp with the wet filling. Cut off the excess and roll it out again for the top.

- Now mix a handful or so of a nice cheese with some taste to it, cheddar in my case, into the leeks and themn spoon it all into the pastry case.

- Put the top on, squash the edges and cut a notch in the middle to let the steam out and put in the oven until golden brown on top.

- If you are lucky and allow the pie to cool a little you can turn it out onto a plate to reveal it’s full glory.

I served ours with some boiled and fried potatoes and a green salad of well . . . lettuce leaves and a honey mustard dressing.

It was lovely by the way . . .

ps the photo has the 70's retro look because it was getting dark at teatime and my photo had that bright orange look of artificial light. Come to think of it the cookery books in the 70's tended to have very colour saturated photos anyway so maybe it was appropriate after all.

Salmon, Cumin and Coriander soup

We don’t eat a lot of fish in our house, mainly because I am the only one that relly likes it. So when we do have fish it either comes in batter from the fish and chip shop or I will spice it up a bit - there is a lovely fish curry in Appetite by Nigel Slater. Mostly though it is just me that gets a sudden craving for fishyness and so I’ll make something just for myself for lunch perhaps.
This recipe is a bit of both, a mildly spiced soup made for my lunch. Fresh salmon would have been nice but I am at home all achy and headachy with a virus and didn’t have the energy to go out, so tinned salmon it was.

- Start by finely slicing a small onion and a clove of garlic and gently fry until translucent.
- Add the spices, half a teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground coriander and chilli flakes. Follow that with a teaspoon of cumin seeds and the same of black mustard seeds. Allow to fry gently for a few minutes, just relax and enjoy the aroma . . .
- Turn the heat back up and pour in half a pint of vegetable stock ( I like Rapunzel organic vegetable boullion because I always make it half strength) simmer gently for a few more minutes to blend the flavours together .
- Now take the soup off the heat and allow to cool a little, then pour in one of those tiny tins of coconut milk (165ml).
- Open a small tin of salmon, pour off the oil or water and add the chunks to the soup discarding any bones or skin as you go.
- Reheat again gently until nce and warm but do not allow to boil because the coconut milk might go all bitty and the salmon will break up into a mush. (if it did I would probably blend the whole lot smooth and serve it anyway!)
- Serve with some chopped coriander leaves scattered over.

Because it was just for myself the quantities here are reduced - this amount will just serve two people one bowl each, or in my case two bowls for me and several spoonfuls out of the saucepan for Nicola who just arrived back from work as I was reheating it.

Enjoy

Tomato and Cumin soup

You have been working late but have finally arrived home. Tired and hungry you gaze hopefully into the fridge, but there is nothing that interesting there . . . so what do you do?

Open a tin? Of course you do, but not of some preprepared foodstuff that probably tastes like every other ready food out there. No you are a creative individual and so open a can of the best invention ever . . . tinned tomatoes. 

- Peel and chop half an onion and a big clove of garlic and fry slowly in some olive oil.
- Add in a small potato, peeled and diced, and continue to cook slowly until the onion is translucent - ten minutes or so.
- Pour in a tin of tomatoes, half a pint of half strength vegetable stock from a powder and a handfull of chopped fresh parsley in you have some.
- Bring to a gentle boil and continue to cook for another ten minutes until the potato is soft.
- Meanwhile pop a dry frying pan on to heat. Put a teaspoonful of cumin seeds and let them toast for a few minutes. Watch carefully in case they burn removing the seeds from the heat just as they turn a darker brown and smell lovely.
- Once the soup is cooked mash up the potato, onion and tomatoes with a potato masher, leaving it all a bit chunky.
- Check and add salt if neccesary and reheat.
- Ladle into a bowl and sprinkle over some of the cumin seeds along with anything you may have found in the fridge - I had sour cream but feta would have been nice as well ( don’t add salt to your soup before tasting it with the feta, as feta can be pretty salty)



 This is a very simplified version of Tomato and Rosemary soup with Cumin instead of Rosemary. Cumin seems to be my favourite spice at the moment, especially with tomatoes - the lemonyness of the Cumin complimenting the tomatoes beautifully. Just be carefull not to add too much as it can easily overpower everything else, a teaspoonful between two people seems about right to me, but taste it and see . . . 

Failure, or a pretty cool way to crack walnuts

My soup making has gone off lately, nothing seems to taste right. Being bunged up with flu probably has something to do with it. So instead of making soup this weekend, my youngest and I built a small trebuchet.


And then spent the afternoon throwing walnuts around the garden.


Lunch was Courgette, Cumin and Chick Pea soup from the freezer.

If your cooking mojo seems to have left you, don't worry, open a tin or look in the freezer and do something else for a while.

Potato, Cumin, Yoghurt and Mint soup

Always the bridesmaid, potato rarely gets the starring role in a soup. This is a bit unfair because it has a lovely texture, smooth and creamy with a stickiness about it that is as comforting as porridge is on a cold day. And a potato is a true friend as well, no matter what dire straights I have found myself in there has always been a potato or two in the larder somewhere to make sure I am fed. So today I celebrate the potato with a quite intensly savoury soup that is at the same time tangy as well.

- Gently fry an onion and a clove of garlic (peeled and roughly chopped) in some oil and butter until softly translucent.
- Add in a teaspoon of ground Cunin seeds, a teaspoon of whole cumin seeds, half a teaspoon of ground Blackpepper and half a teaspoon of Turmuric for it's earthiness.
- Stir the spices around a bit for a couple of minutes then add in two or three potatoes peeled and roughly diced, stir around again to mix everything together.
- Pour in a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock, bring to a gentle boil and leave until the potatoes are cooked.
- Blend or liquidise the soup and return to the now washed pan.
- Stir in a tablespoon of creamy greek yoghurt and a small palmfull of sliced mint leaves along with some salt and pepper if required.
- Reheat gently, don't let it boil or the yoghurt will separate into little white bits.
- Serve with another dollop of yoghurt and some more chopped mint.



Student food really but there is nothing wrong with that. Jamie Oliver would be proud of me I think . . . .

A mildly spiced Kumara and Cream Soup

Nothing new or startlingly different from me here, just a mildly spiced creamy soup. And you know, amidst the hectic bustle and stress of the modern grown up world don't we all need a little comforting familiarity sometimes. Like returning home after a journey this is the type of soup that I look for when it all gets too much out there . . .

- Peel and chop an onion, a clove of garlic and a small red chilli and cook slowly in some olive oil and butter. (I don't bother to remove the chilli seeds anymore, I just slice up the whole thing)
- After ten minutes or so add in two teaspoonsful of ground coriander seeds and the same of ground cumin.
- Peel and chop a Kumara (sweet potato) and pop it in the pan along with a tomato, turning up the heat and stirring it around.
- Pour in a pint and a quarter of half strength vegetable stock, lower the heat to a gentle bubble and do something else for twenty minutes.
- Blend or liquidise the soup, return it to the pan and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and some salt and ground black pepper if you think it needs it. (mine needed a little salt, and black pepper is not really optional when I cook so in it went as well)
- Finally stir in a couple of tablespoonsful of cream as you reheat the soup. I don't like a lot of cream (and often use milk instead) but go with what tastes right for you.

Sit somewhere quiet and peaceful, forget the world outside and enjoy . . .

Beetroot and Cumin soup

Intense earthy flavours for Autumn here. This is a time of the woodlands and fields, of rich earthy smells and sight of your misty breath coiling away into the chill air. It is a time time for slow cooking, for deep complex flavours that echo the world outside and fill the house with enticing smells. You cannot get much more earthy than beetroot of course and paired with cumin forms a sublime combination. The cumin here is elevated to one of the main ingredients and if you get it right they will balance each other perfectly.

- Start with the beetroot. Boil two or three whole for a quarter of an hour or so before putting it into a hot oven (200 centigrade) for half an hour to roast.
- When the beet is nearly done, peel and roughly chop an onion and a couple of garlic cloves and fry slowly in some olive oil and some butter, this will take fifteen to twenty minutes and the onion will be translucent and look like it is bathed in honey.
- Add in two teaspoons of ground cumin seeds, stir and allow to cook for a minute then add a small potato peeled and chopped.
- Take the beets out of the oven, peel them chop into pieces and add to the pan.
- Pour in a pint and a quarter of half strength vegetable stock and leave to simmer until the potato is cooked.
- Blend smooth and return to the pan,
- Heat a dry frying pan and pour in a teaspoon of whole cumin seeds and toast until lightly browned. Add these to the soup.
- Lastly squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and some salt and pepper if you think it needs any.


I like whole spices in my soups, They soften but keep their flavour and when you crunch one up you get a sudden burst of flavour as well as the extra crunchiness. Serve with a splodge of sour cream and some lemon zest, both of which will back up the lemonyness of the cumin.

Courgette, Cumin and Chick pea soup

Mid summer and the courgettes are growing like magic beans. I like courgettes but they are very plain and I tend to mix them with other flavours - roast tomatoes, onions, and brie all go well but one of my especial favourites is cumin. And if I am going down the middle eastern or indian flavour route then chick peas are a great choice because cumin also goes with most types of beans as well. I am using the chick peas here for that floury texture they have so they go in early and get cooked through and blended with the rest of the soup.

The courgette I had was quite large so the quantities here are larger - a pint and a half of stock, instead of my usual pint and a quarter.

- Begin by warming some olive oil and a half inch slice of butter in a saucepan.
- Add in an onion peeled and sliced and three or four garlic cloves peeled and crushed.
- Chop up the courgette and open a tin of chick peas and rinse them under cold water (in a seive under the tap)
- Cook until soft and translucent the add in a dessertspoonfull of ground cumin seeds and the roughly chopped courgette and half the chick peas.
- Stir about to mix, turn up the heat and continue to cook until the liquid released by the courgette has pretty well evaporated.
- Add in a chopped tomato (skin and all) and a pint and a half of half strength vegetable stock from powder.
- Let it come to the boil the turn the heat back down and gently cook until the courgette is softish.
- Let the soup cool for a few minutes the blend smooth.
- Return to the now clean pan, reheat and add salt or pepper if you think it needs it. Mine didn't but it all depends on your stock.

A handfull of coriander leaves would have been good with the soup but I didn't have any so I sprinkled on some fennel seeds that had been gently toasted in a dry frying pan until just brown. They added a nice crunchyness and went well with the lemony tang of the cumin.