Slow cooker lamb dhansak

 Bart Simpson

The bard of farting

Beans, beans, the musical fruit. You've got to love your legumes. I've already done a few dishes containing beans and they really make a hearty dish all the more hearty. Of course, the undigestible complex carbohydrates they contain make a good food source for the bugs that live up your arse. And when they get fed, they celebrate by making methane and hydrogen. This is when the brass section gets cued into the performance and Le Petomaine makes an appearance.

 French professional farter, Le Petomaine from the late 1800s

So we have beans, peas and other pulses which make up a substantial source of protein for a huge part of the human population. The soya bean alone feeds vast swathes of the far eastern portion of the Asian continent, especially as bean curd, not to mention being a fundamental component of the cuisine of literally billions of people when fermented in various ways in the shape of soy sauce, black bean sauce or the myriad of coloured pastes in Chinese, Japanese and Korean dishes (yellow bean, red bean, black bean, gochujang etc). Further west, the legume of choice becomes the lentil. Given the number of devout Hindus in India, they consume huge amounts of lentils as a good source of protein. So much so that there are numerous forms of these titchy little pea things available. This page lists 12 types of the flatulent little fuckers.

Lentils were something of a joke when I was growing up, being the relatively affluent, privileged Western European with a diet containing meat that I am (certainly compared to your average Indian of the time, anyway). Lentils were the staple of weirdo vegetarians, we didn't eat that sort of thing. Well, apart from when money got a bit tight (as I say, relatively affluent, compared to truly impoverished people in the Sub-Continent), so there was a trip to the butchers to get a batch of bacon bones and a thick, hearty broth was made up with these, with scraps of meat on them, and yellow split peas, a form of lentil. It lasted for days, and it was my first actual exposure to the lentil.

Anyway, back to the recipe in hand. Dhansak, though a popular dish in UK curry houses, is actually a recipe brought to India by Parsis, an ethnic group originating in Persia. It's a very tasty take on a curry, with the lentils bulking up the whole thing, and giving a nutty taste and adding richness to a sweet and tangy flavoured sauce.

TIMING
Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking: 20-30 minutes on the pre-ccoking hob, 5 hours in the slow cooker
(You could do this on the hob or in the oven, though cooking time would be shorter.  See notes for more details)

INGREDIENTS
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves of garlic
chunk of fresh ginger, finely chopped (aboout the size of a thumb, about 3cm by 2cm)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ground fenugreek seeds
½ tsp ground black pepper
piece of cinnamon bark (about 5cm)
1 bayleaf
1 star anise
3 green cardamom pods
3 whole cloves
A pinch of onion seeds
1.2 tsp salt
1-2 fresh green chillies, finely chopped (depends on heat)
200g diced lamb
150g tomatoes blended up, or peeled and chopped
Juice of half a lemon
2 tsp sugar
Half a butternut squash, peeled, cored and chopped into bite-sized chunks
75g dried chana dhal

The all important spices

(from the top and clockwise: ground corander, star anise, cardamom pods, cloves, cround cumin, ground turmeric, salt, fenugreek seeds, onion seeds, bay leaf, cinnamon stick)

 

Ginger, garlic and onion

RECIPE
Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and add the onions, garlic and ginger.

Fry for about 5 minutes until the onions are soft, then add the spices and salt.

Continue stirring so it doesn't stick, adding a splash of water if it looks a bit dry.

Add the lamb and keep sauteing for about 5 more minutes, until the meat is browned.

Throw in the tomatoes, lemon juice, sugar, chana dhal and squash and stir wel.

Add 300ml water and bring to a gentle boil.

Pour the lot into your slow cooker, set it to medium, cover, and leave it for a few hours (at least 5 in a slow cooker, but see notes for alernative methods).

Allow the amazing aroma permeate your house, then serve with pilau rice,and naan bread or add a vegetable side dish if you're hungry.

Served up, ready to eat

NOTES
This is made with lamb, but I've also made it with chicken (bone-in thighs, skinless), though you could cook it for less time, or would also work with beef.

I used chana dhal, which is a fairly large lentil, almost as big as a chickpea, which holds its shape well, becoming tender but still quite firm after a long, slow cook. Regular red lentils have a tendency to disintegrate, which would also work, though will add a different texture to the dish

Other vegetables would work in this, but sturdy root vegetables stand up to long cooking. Mushrooms would also work, espeicaly if you did this with beef instead of lamb. Pumpkins, like squashes, work so well in a curry, however.

You could  make this on the hob or even in a casserole dish in the oven. You could probably get away with a couple of hours on the stove, and maybe three in the oven. The joy of the slow cooker is the fact that the dish is you can stick it on, forget about it until you're ready to eat it

This blog entry sees me return to a subject I've touched on before in this blog, the act of farting. Farting is, and always will be, hilariously funny. Don't take my word for it, ask my son (9 years old at the time of writing). He'll agree.

Why were lentils regarded as something of a joke food when I was growing up? This is part of the reason why:

The Young Ones and the wonder of lentils, as long as they're not South African

Aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry)

I have mentioned vegetarianism in previous posts, how I even tried being a vegetarian as a pretentious student. What I didn't mention then was that the reason for this was, in part, to get on the good side of a girl who was in the same student hall as me that I quite fancied. It's a scientifically proven fact* that most guys who perform a coup de theatre in terms of lifestyle in their late teens, like turning away from meat for instance, are generally doing it to get into the pants of someone they like. Anyway, at the time, my justification was the poor yield of protein per hectare from raising livestock for food compared to arable farming which was morally wrong when people were starving in the world. Using this justification I could then allow eating lamb doner kebabs as sheep were raised on scrubby hills that had no use in growing vegetables, and fish, since this was mainly gotten from out of water.The spell of vegetarianism lasted for a few weeks before I lapsed back into eating meat properly. A legacy of this time is the fact that I have absolutely no qualms about eating vegetarian food on a regular basis.

More recently, it has become well publicised that meat production leaves a far larger carbon footprint than growing vegetables alone. While it's true that most people in the west have larger carbon footprints than a sasquatch in snow shoes that are five sizes too big, and any change in diet would have a pretty minute effect on this, it still gives a chance to prevent the liberation of a tiny amount of additional carbon into the atmosphere. There are other ways to reduce your carbon footprint, like not flying, having children, having pets or driving a car, but who wants to stop doing any of that?

One of the main causes of the increased carbon emission through raising livestock is the effect of intestinal gas from cattle. Cow farts are making the world a warmer place as they release methane which is 23 times worse at causing atmospheric warming than carbon dioxide. One possibility to offset this might be to stop the cows farting in the first place and one way of doing this is using charcoal. Perhaps giving Ermintrude a load of charcoal tablets might help alleviate this source of pollution. It may even have the added bonus of the cows shitting ready-formed BBQ briquettes, so everyone's a winner. Well, apart from the cows, who would be producing the fuel by which they would be cooked of a nice summer evening.

Charcoal tablets

A possible solution to global warming

from http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/lifeplan-windaway-activated-charcoal-capsules-60002792?skuid=002792&&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_adid=185747624549&utm_adgID=58700002241441623&gclid=CMC26Z3xjtUCFYIaGwodisEPAw

So where am I going with this? Well, it's another vegetarian recipe as I am planning a regular meat free dinner every week. India has more vegetarians than the population of most countries, so it's not surprising that some of the very best vegetarian cuisine comes from the subcontinent.

I have done a recipe for another potato curry previously, but this is a take on an aloo gobi, where the spud is partnered with cauliflower in one of the tastiest vegetable curries found on the menu of an Indian takeaway. As I mentioned before, potatoes have enough substance to them to make a decent main course in their own right, plus the lentils add extra protein and make for an even more substantial meal.

*It probably isn't scientifically proven, but I've not looked at the literature so it might be.

TIMING
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 70 minutes

INGREDIENTS
150g dried red lentils
200g cauliflower florets broken into bite-sized pieces
450g potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-3cm cubes
1 medium onion, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin seeds
½ tsp whole fenugreek seeds
½ tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp black mustard seeds
½ tsp onion seeds
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground tumeric
pinch of chilli flakes
Salt

It's another spice picture
(from 10 o'clock: coriander, black pepper, mustard seeds, chilli flakes, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, onion seeds with paprika in the middle)

RECIPE
Boil the lentils for 20 minutes, strain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a good, heavy pan and add the spices, onion and garlic and gently fry for 10 minutes.

Add the potatoes and continue to fry for another 10 minutes.

Throw in the cauliflower and keep stirring for another 5 minutes.

Add the lentils to the pan and add 200ml water and salt according to taste.

Bring to the boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes (until the potatoes become tender).

Serve with rice and/or naan bread, on its own or with another curry or two
.

 Aloo gobi 

(on the left, with a courgette curry on a bed of plain boiled rice)

NOTES
In contrast to most of my previous curry recipes, this dish uses lots of earthy rather than the more aromatic spice flavours and doesn't have a tomato base. It is a good contrast to these if you are serving more than one dish

I used floury old potatoes in this recipe as the texture works better than new potatoes.

A cow farts aren't the only trump that cause a stink and fucks up the world.

Traditionally, cauliflower has been a fairly unassuming vegetable, being boiled on its own or perhaps upping the ante a little with cauliflower cheese, the vegetarian staple of the 70s. However, cauliflower is currently having a bit of a surge in popularity as a "low carb" food and is finding uses as a substitute for rice, pizza base or even steak. Why stop there? How about cauliflower chocolate brownies, cauliflower yoghurt, cauliflower flavoured condoms? It's fucking cauliflower for Christ's sake. It's a lovely vegetable in its own right and doesn't need to be given superpowers. However, if you are using it in some other dish, I would say that aloo gobi is as good as it gets.

There aren't a huge number of songs that mention curries in general, let alone aloo gobi in particular. One that does, however, is this spoof of Kula Shaker's Govinda, by former Radio 1 DJs Mark and Lard performing as their band the Shire Horses.

Broccoli and cashew pilaf

"Know who I love? That James Bond. Movie heroes don't come tougher than him. Everything he did was thanks to broccoli and, me being a greengrocer, I know all about broccoli Yum, yum, yum! Apples and fackin' pears"
Actually, Potato Gregg, I think you're getting confused about Albert "Cubby" Broccoli. He wasn't actually a vegetable. He was the film producer responsible for the James Bond franchise.

Broccoli is actually quite a tasty vegetable considering it's often touted as a "superfood", which is usually a synonym for "unevidenced bollocks propagated by people who's grasp of science is obtained from Frankenstein films or somewhere really unbelievable, like the Daily Mail". In the case of broccoli, however, there is actually some evidence to suggest that it does, as a cruciferous vegetable, have a high content of some compounds research suggests may be beneficial in preventing cancer, plus various antioxidants and is a source of various minerals and vitamins, so eating it is a good thing.

It's the bête noire of many children who generally hate it. Sweary Jr actually quite likes it, probably because it makes him break wind and there is nothing Sweary Jr (or Sweary Sr for that matter) thinks is more funny than farting.






"Bodily functions don't get any funnier than farting"


Oh, for fuck's sake, Potato Gregg, this is getting tedious. Please get another catch phrase or you're going to be featuring as an ingredient in my next recipe.

Anyway, despite its virtuous qualities, it's quite difficult to incorporate broccoli into recipes. It's good on its own as part of a Sunday roast, but in other things? OK, there's broccoli and Stilton soup and from Chinese takeaways you get it with beef and oyster sauce but not much else. Then there's this, a recipe that I've been making for a long time which makes great use of broccoli, pairing it with cashews plus a little spice to make a satisfying rice dish. It's a great accompaniment to anything from the Mediterranean area, be it South  European, Asian or North African. It's also good for anyone wanting a wheat-free alternative to cous cous.

INGREDIENTS
1 mug of decent quality dried rice (works out at about 200g)
½ a vegetable stock cube
75g cashew nuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tsp ground cumin
1 cinnamon stick (about 10cm long)
Black pepper
150g broccoli, broken up into bite-size florets

TIMING
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 15-20 minutes

RECIPE
Put the rice in a heavy pan and wash it in a couple of changes of water. Drain well and return to the pan and add 1½ times the volume of water as rice. Crumble in the half stock cube and stir well before heating to boiling, turning down the heat as low as possible and covering for 15-20 minutes. When it's ready, the liquid should be fully absorbed leaving nice, fluffy rice.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a deep frying pan or wok and throw in the cashews and brown them by stirring or tossing regularly for 5 minutes or so, then remove with a slotted spoon.

Add the onion, garlic and spices to the hot oil and sauté until the onions are transparent, about 10 minutes. Add the broccoli and stir fry for another 10 minutes or so until tender. If the mix gets dry add a splash of water.

Throw in the fried cashews and the cooked rice. Mix well and serve.

This recipe makes easily enough for a couple of adults and goes well with something like my recipe for pork afelia or perhaps stuffat tal fenek


NOTES
This is the second pilaf I've done in the blog after my tomato pilaf a few months back.

The word pilaf is derived from the Turkish word "pilav" which is in turn derived (by way of Persian) from the Hindi pulao or pilau.

I know I twat on about this every time I do a rice dish, but do use good rice like Thai jasmine or Basmati, and not that American long grain shit they sell on the same shelf in the supermarket. The rice is the main part of this recipe, so bland, tasteless polystyrene-textured grains just make it not worth the bother. It is the difference between a pilaf like this being something you'd be proud to serve your parents and something you'd serve your parents once you discover they're leaving the house to a local donkey sanctuary.

I don't put any salt in this recipe since stock cubes contain an awful lot.

This could be the last we see of Potato Gregg for a time as I think there is a risk of this blog turning into a ventriloquist act which, though it may be unique in terms of cooking (if you don't count Fanny Craddock and Johnnie), there's probably a good reason for that. On the other hand, I would have paid good money to see the late Keith Harris and Orville do a cookery show where Orville's nappy comes into its own when Keith mentions he's going to be making an orange sauce.

 

Keith Harris and Orville
I wish I could fry...

Latino Pork and beans

The loss of Native American territory as the modern United States was settled through the 19th century
http://www.thewire.com/national/2012/07/how-west-was-lost-native-americans/54797/

Commonly spoken about in cowboy films, pork and beans takes its place in culinary mythology as the dish that fueled pioneer America when settlers forged west into unexplored territory. Well, unexplored by white people anyway. I mean, it was already home to quite a lot of people who were living there quite happily already (but not for much longer, see the graphic above) but they weren't white European settlers and their story never made it into films so they were clearly not very important.

On a lighter note, a diet consisting largely of beans does have some unwanted side-effect, and you'd not want to share a tent with anyone who eats like this. 

Cowboys eating beans

 Mel Brooks captures the pain of the human condition that can only be relieved by lifting your buttock and farting

Apparently there is also a tinned version of this famous American staple in the States which sounds quite vile. Rumour has it that the pork content is of such poor quality and so insignificant that you might be suspicious that it's made of the sweepings from the floor of an abattoir. As I say, this is hearsay as I've never tried it, but I'd imagine it's something like the full English breakfast in a can which looks and sounds equally revolting. I've also never tried this and, indeed, wouldn't want to eat it if my life depended on it and the only way to consume it was in suppository form. I think I'd prefer a shit sandwich with hemlock dressing and a polonium salsa

Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, this dish is based on a recipe that appeared in the Guardian Saturday cooking supplement (for example they suggest you soak and boil dried beans when I say, in best Sweary style, fuck that when good quality tinned ones are available) though this itself was actually based on Brazilian feijola. It includes Spanish chorizo, Mexican chipotle and dark (ie British/Irish) beer so it's not quite authentically Brazilian. It's similar in a lot of ways to my chilli recipe but it does taste quite different and is another slow cooked classic made in one pot. There is something wonderful about trying a new recipe and it turning out so great you know it is a keeper, and this is one of those dishes

INGREDIENTS
400g belly pork
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
1 medium sized carrot chopped
50g chorizo, chopped
1 tin of black beans, drained
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chipotle paste
½ tsp chilli flakes
1½ tbsp tomato puree
1tsp mixed herbs
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 tin tomatoes
200ml dark beer
500 ml water
1 vegetable stock cube

It's all in the chopping
Celery, carrot, garlic, onion and chorizo

RECIPE
Remove the skin/crackling from the pork belly (I posted a blog mentioning my fatal attraction to pork scratchings recently so you ought to realise there's no way in hell I'm letting this go to waste. See the notes for what you can do with this)

Heat the oil in a pan, add the pork and brown it for a few minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon

Add the onion and garlic to fry for 5 minuted before adding the carrot and celery. Allow these to sweat out for 5-10 minutes before adding the chorizo and fry for another five minutes when the chorizo should colour up the vegetables.

More ingredients ready to go in

From 11 o'clock: mixed herbs, tomato puree, chipotle paste, black pepper, cumin

Add the cumin, black pepper, herbs, chipotle paste, chilli flakes, mustard and tomato puree then mix before adding the chopped yellow peppers to soften for a few minutes.

Pour in the tinned tomatoes, beer, water and crumble in the stock cubes before mixing well.

Add the beans and return the pork to the pan.

Simmer, covered, on a low heat for 3 hours or more (this would be a good slow cooker recipe). The pork should be almost falling apart.

Serve with rice, bread or baked or sauteed potatoes (roasted sweet potatoes would be fucking amazing with this).

A panful of porky joy

NOTES
This is what to do with the crackling:
- Ensure the skin is well scored into 2cm strips (should be done already, but use a sharp knife to do it yourself if not).
-Chuck it in a pan of water, heat it to boiling and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.
-Pat it dry with kitchen roll, sprinkle salt on it, then wrap it in more kitchen roll for 30 minutes.
-Put it into an ovenproof dish and put it in a hot oven at 200°C for 45 minutes.
That's fantastic pork scratchings right there. In the recipe I adapted for this blog entry it states you use this as a garnish on the stew but I'd say fuck that and eat the scratchings on their own as a snack.

Chipotle chillies are fantastic, and the heat and warm smoky flavour the paste brings the dish is wonderful. On the other hand, chipotle paste isn't that easy to come by in the UK, unless you go to one of the really big supermarkets or some wanky Mexican deli. I mean, I make no secret of the fact that I'm a foodie wanker and I got hold of it, but improvisation is the bedrock of a great dish. Add more chilli flakes and a couple of teaspoons of smoked paprika instead. Damn it, even swap some of the chorizo for smoked bacon to give the same flavour if you can't get smoked paprika.

Mexican delis aren't that common in the UK, mainly on account of there not being a significant Mexican community over here. For example, where I live, the Mexican community is incredibly small. So small, in fact, that he lives in the centre of town and is actually my Spanish teacher.

The recipe would work with pork filet as well as the belly used in this incarnation and this would also be lower in fat and cook quicker.

As I mentioned above, the black beans are available in tins so why bother soaking and boiling the dried variety? Seriously, why make something more complicated than it needs to be? Sure, they'll be a bit cheaper, but how fucking tight are you to want to do that if you're already paying for chipotle paste and pork belly but want to save 10p on the beans? Also, make sure you get black turtle beans, not Chinese black beans which are fermented soya beans and totally different. The tin I bought for this was from Dunn's River (though if you can't find these, red kidney beans would also work):

This is the sort of dish Thomasina Miers might feature in her column. She is one of those trendy celeb chefs, slightly less trendy than the Yott, but she won Masterchef and her speciality is fantastic Central American Latino food that demands things like quail and day-old brioche. It's probably no revelation to say I've never won Masterchef. To be fair, I've never actually applied to enter the show as it's not really my kind of cooking. In fact the only reason I'd try to get on the show might be to try and infect John Torode and Greg Wallace with norovirus.