Chapati

Chapati are easy to make and really tasty for just being flour, a bit of butter and water. My girls love them and the only thing that keeps me from making them more often is that they take a long time to make.

Preparation time: 1 1/4 hours ; makes 8 (serves 4 of my family) 

Ingredients:

350 g	Wheat flour
1/2 tsp.	Salt
175 - 250 ml	Warm water
1/4 - 1/2 cup	Flour for coating

Method:

For this recipe do not be tempted to use all purpose flour. I've tried using it and the chapati didn't turn out very nice at all. In fact it was just by chance that I made them  again when we were in Germany. In Germany the most common flour is pure wheat flour. In the USA you can either buy pure wheat flour or use cake flour. Place the flour in a large bowl and rub in the butter or ghee. Make sure that the fat is cold. This is espcially important if you are using ghee, which is liquid at room temperature (depending on where you live of course!).

Add the warm water and knead into a soft dough. You can now knead it by hand until it is smooth, which will take about 10 minutes, or you can put it in a kitchen machine with a dough hook (6 minutes). I'm terrible at kneading so I use the dough hook.

Then cover your dough with a damp cloth and place it in a warm place. I don't usually have a warm place so I just put it next to the cooker with the hope that when I start cooking things will warm up! Let it sit like this for at least 30 minutes.

Now comes the time consuming part... frying the chapati! Don't try to do this in parallel with anything else. It's best to do it once you are done with all the other things so that it gets to the table warm. You need a cast iron frying pan for the best results. You could use a non-stick pan, but it won't come out as well.

Put your pan on the cooker and heat it to medium high. You'll have to adjust the heat according to your pan and your cooker. You'll know if it's too hot because the chapati will start to burn! Take a piece of dough and roll it into a ball about the size of a golf ball. You can, of course, make smaller or larger chapati depending on the size of your pan or the amount of time you have (smaller ones taking way longer of course).

Dip the ball in flour and roll out to form a thin chapati about 22 cm in diameter. Put it in the hot pan and fry on both sides. The chapati will bubble in some places and, because the dough is so thin, burn in those places. Try to make sure this does not happen too much, but a little is necessary. If this burnt stuff sticks to your pan wipe it out with a paper towel before putting the next chapati in. Once you have put one pancake into the pan start forming the next one. If you have nothing else to do you should be able to have a chapati ready for the pan as soon as one is done. This will speed up the process a little bit.

Enjoy your chapati with anything. My kids sometimes just eat it with butter! But a paneer tikka masala on the side is their favourite (together with the butter of course).

Paneer Tikka Masala

When we lived in San Francisco this was one of our favourite dishes at our favourite Indian place "Naan and Curry". We were introduced to this, then hole in the wall restaurant, by a American colleague of mine whose wife was Indian. We were quite amazed at how bad the place looked but after eating there, well, we never went anywhere else (for Indian food that is). The food was amazingly good, amazingly cheap and there was free chai, as much as you could possibly drink.
Since that first visit the restaurant branched out and we were lucky enough to have a large branch open up a few blocks from where we lived. So we would dress up our kids in yellow, orange or red attire and walk down the street to get our naan and curry fix. The dress was very important given that there was so much turmeric (note that there is none in the recipe below but the tomato will do the trick) in everything, that the kids ate with their hands, there were no booster seats and our kids were under 4 years old! Any mistake with the dress code meant that piece of clothing was destroyed for life.
Once we moved to Germany we found that not only was there no Nann and Curry (which we fully expected) but there was no decent Indian food. We finally found one that had decent food but the price has gone up by so much that the only decently priced item on the menu is "suicide water", which is just a fancy word for tap water (price 0 Euro). There was no option but to start cooking Indian food at home. After much research and much tweaking I settled on this recipe.
There is one problem though. My kids do not like the taste of the paneer that we get in Germany. We substitute with feta made from cows milk, which is a much cheaper option than paneer so everyone is happy.

Preparation time: 40 minutes (can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen); Serves 4 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp.	Butter or ghee
2	Cloves of garlic, minced
1	Chili, minced (optional)
2 tsp.	Ground coriander
1 tsp.	Ground cumin

1 tsp.	Chili powder
1 tsp.	Garam masala
1/2 tsp.	Salt
8 fl.oz.	Tomato puree
1 cup	Whipping cream
1/4 cup	Cilantro, chopped
200 g	Paneer (or feta or tofu or anything you like!)

Method:

This is a majorly simple recipe it just takes a while because the longer you cook it the better it tastes! So first melt the butter over medium high heat. Once the butter is melted add the garlic and chili and fry them until they become fragrant (usually a few seconds). Then add the coriander, cumin, chili, garam masala and salt and continue to fry stirring all the time. Do this also until fragrant. Do not burn the spices! Talking about fragrant, be aware that after you fry all this stuff you are going to have to air your kitchen really well to get rid of the lingering spice smell. 

Now add all the tomato puree, stir and cook on low heat for 15 minutes. I actually don't use tomato puree but something called "Tomatenmark" it is very highly concentrated tomato and comes in a tube as a paste. I put around 2 - 3 fl. oz of this and make up the rest with water. How much I put depends on which particular brand I am using because they all claim different concentrations.

Now add the whipping cream (or full cream or heavy whipping cream) and bring to the boil again. Reduce the heat and simmer for another 5 minutes. I don't have any photos after this stage because I turned off the cooker and ran out of the house to pick someone up. Instructions were then sent via Whatsapp as to how to heat up the dinner. 

Finally add the cheese and the coriander leaves, heat everything through and serve with any type of bread or rice. 

I have found that the sauce re-heats and freezes very well but the cheese doesn't. So what I do is I make a double batch of gravy and only put in the amount of cheese that can be consumed in one meal. The left over gravy can then be reheated and new cheese put in. 

Left overs from the next day!

Enjoy!