Antipasti and fish curry

Last night we had an enormous meal. It began with antipasti and sherry - we piled little plates with marinated garlic cloves, sunblush tomatoes, avocada salsa, cold, sliced ham, black olives, marinated white anchovies, pepperdews, warm ciabatta and many other goodies.

If that wasn't enough, we then got stuck in to the main course - a delicate fish curry with coconut milk and tamarind, served with white rice and green beans with a chilli/black mustard seed and garlic dressing.

And then we had cheese...

I was stuffed.

Turkey tamarind

Last night we ate turkey stirfry with brown rice and tamarind sauce. I marinated the turkey in a jar of Bart's tamarind paste, the juice of a lime and lots of finely chopped garlic and ginger while I cooked the brown rice. Then I started some tenderstem broccoli off in a wok (just the thick, hard ends of it) before adding the meat and its marinade, then later on the stirfry veg, the tops of the tenderstem broccoli and some extra baby spinach leaves. It was delicious, and we each had a pot of leftovers for lunch today - even cold it tasted good. I normally have prawns when I cook tamarind, but turkey was tasty too.

You'd think it was still Christmas...

It's been bloody cold today, our heating's screwed, I've had a craving for indulgent food all day and we had turkey curry for supper. And I was feeling lazy. I couldn't be bothered to make my own curry sauce tonight so we used a Sharwood's jar of rogan josh sauce, and I cooked it up with turkey, peppers, onions, garlic and a courgette - the usual veg suspects. There's enough to freeze for another night and it was quick and easy. Sometimes the ready made stuff feels so indulgent.

Yesterday's food - pub lunch followed by curry - grrrrrreat!!

Mmmm, I'm practically salivating just thinking about yesterday's food. I met some friends at the White Hart for lunch (again) and this time had an open sandwich with roasted veg and goat's cheese. It was on a smallish slice of granary bread, with roasted peppers, onions and courgettes and an enormous slab of charred goat's cheese. The cheese wasn't as delicate as some, and it was a little too much for me, but it was good with the veg and bread. The salad on the side had a tangy mustard dressing which I liked
a lot and there were Salty Dog (if I'm not mistaken) crisps on the side. It was all for £4.95 - a great lunch, as you can see above.

In the evening two friends I hadn't seen for ages came round for supper armed with lots of red wine. At Christmas I had been given a packet of ready-measured spices to make 'prawns in a hot and sweet sauce' (spice packet made by Kitchen Guru) and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to sample it. The spices included were cumin seeds, a mix of ground coriander and cumin, amchoor (dried mango powder), red chilli powder, turmeric and garam masala. I also used some red chillis, lots of garlic, a green pepper, onions, tomato puree and fresh tomatoes, finely chopped. The curry was fairly dry, so I added a couple of tinned tomatoes near the end to give a bit more of a sauce.

I always think a really good curry needs a few accompaniments to ensure lots of flavours, or maybe it's just because I'm greedy, but I decided to cook a variation on brinjal bhaji (with a whole aubergine, onion, a few cherry tomatoes to add some colour, lots of garlic and cumin) to have as a side dish, and served the lot with brown rice (it was overcooked and I do apologise), garlic and coriander mini-naans, yoghurt and an onion salad. We all had seconds (and some of us, thirds) and I shall do my best to make a similar curry again, perhaps without the Kitchen Guru's help this time...

BTW, you can't see any rice in the photo but it was there (it wasn't so overcooked it was inedible or anything), but it was just hidden underneath the rest in the bowl, I promise.

Tuna steak - mmmmmmmm

I've just realised I never blogged about this. I ate it on Monday night. I marinated the tuna steak in a garlic/ginger/chilli/lemon/ coriander mixture then griddled it over a high heat and served it with stirfry veg (again), pak choi with soy sauce and brown rice. Quick and oh so tender and tasty.

Friday Sunday Tea - a Tandoori Hut curry special

You'd think I'd be too full to eat a proper supper after my Friday Sunday lunch of roast beef and afters, but no! It was still the Christmas season - any excuse for overindulgence. My boyfriend and I went away to the seaside for a short New Year holiday on Friday afternoon and as there was no internet connection there, I'm having to update all my meals now. We arrived when it was dark and ordered a curry from the excellent curry house there. Here's my plate. I was stuffed and didn't manage to eat much of the garlic naan but manfully finished the rest. On my plate you can see, clockwise from the top, a scarily coloured chicken tikka masala, pilau rice (also scarily coloured in places), king prawn jalfrezi (nice and spicy with lots of green chillis), sag aloo (spinach and potatoes), garlic naan and in the centre brinjal bhaji (fried aubergine) and a bit of the end of the onion salad we'd had with poppadoms. Did you think we didn't have poppadoms with mint sauce and all the trimmings to start? Would a takeaway curry be acceptable without them? Of course not. Oohh, and the garlic naan was great dipped in a bit of cold curry in the morning - a fab breakfast.

Hangover tuna etc...

Today I had a mammoth hangover. It was our work Christmas party last night and we made the most of the free booze. Fortunately I made it into work - I might not have been particularly productive, but I guess those who managed to make it in were able to show a bit of willing! At lunchtime we needed carbs - carbs and cheese. And somewhere cheapish with a free table for 6 in central London 10 days before Christmas. The obvious choice? Well, Pizza Express, of course as they don't take table reservations. I decided to have an American with extra sundried tomatoes - I guess they didn't have any sundried as when my pizza turned up I saw they'd replaced them with the marinated, oven-cooked tomatoes they've recently added to their menu as an appetiser. Much better - I love those tomatoes. It was wonderful - a perfect pizza in my view - but my plate was dirty with bits of old spinach which I could have done without. I wasn't sure afterwards if I felt better or worse, but by about 5.00pm I was ok, I think.

Anyway, tonight I needed something healthy and we had a pack of stirfry veg in the fridge so I thought I may as well use that. I went past a Tesco Express on my way home and saw they had tuna steaks on offer - I got two for £2 something - I thought that was pretty good. We put some brown rice on to boil and I smeared the tuna in a mixture of finely grated ginger and garlic, a couple of dessert spoons of olive oil, a spoon of lemon vinegar, some dried coriander leaves, a crushed, dried chilli and a bit of black pepper. We did the stirfry veg in a wok and added a dash or two of soy sauce and sherry vinegar, then griddled the tuna steaks on a high heat for a couple of minutes each side, or maybe even less time than that. With nutty brown rice, simple veg and deliciously tender tuna this felt like a healthy end to a decidedly unhealthy day.

Viet Garden, 207 Liverpool Road, London N1 1LX

After the cinema some friends rang us to see if we wanted to meet for a drink or two, so we met in a nearby pub. They ordered some chips, which arrived in rubbish-sized portions and after a few more drinks we decided to go for a vietnamese meal at Viet Garden on Liverpool Road.

I love this place. We wanted to get a load of dishes and share, so we got squid in tamarind, sizzling prawns with ginger and spring onion, beef with greens in oyster sauce, chicken in chilli and lemongrass, some singapore noodles and steamed rice. See each dish to the left.

The service was quick and everyone who works there is charming and lovely and full of smiles - and they seemed delighted that I was taking photographs of the food. It was all very tasty - just what we needed - a good mix of flavours, and exactly the right amount to leave all four of us satisfied. See the dishes on the left - mmmmm, lovely. The only thing I wasn't too fond of was the chicken dish - it tasted a bit flabby and low quality to me, but everyone else said they loved it. I've always been a fan of their stirfried beef with greens, and the seafood is great, although it's always deep-fried before being added to a sauce which I think is a bit of a shame. The sauces are always delicious and I assume they add the protein choice to a ready-made sauce to order - if they don't I wonder how their takeaways are almost always ready in just ten minutes.

However they do it, the food tastes great and this place comes highly recommended. With just one bottle of wine shared between us, and including service, it came to just £48. Well worth it.