Guardian list of specialist food websites

This link lists some specialist food websites. Worth a look through as it lists suppliers of weird and exotic ingredients.

Thai Food Ingredients | Cooking | Temple of Thai

Thai Food Ingredients | Cooking | Temple of Thai

FoodFever - eat out, eat in, eat easy

It's not quite a recipe but it has loads of info about food.

FoodFever - eat out, eat in, eat easy

Ringo Stingo

Fiery lamb curry

This is the best curry i have ever cooked! its better than the red fort!!!!!!

As the name suggests, this is a very hot dish, not for people with a weak constitution. This is one of the few Indian dishes that contains heat in every sense - both 'chilli hot' and 'spice hot'. You can decide the amount of heat you'd like. Discard most of the seeds from the chillies if you want to reduce the heat, or keep them in if you want it really hot.

Serves 4

25-35 dried red chillies, stalks removed
11/2 tsp cloves
150g ghee or vegetable oil
250g plain yogurt, whisked until smooth
2 tsp cumin seeds, roasted
20g ground coriander
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp salt
3 cinnamon leaves or bay leaves
6 green cardamom pods
5 black cardamom pods
75g garlic cloves, finely chopped
250g onions, finely chopped
1kg leg of lamb or goat with bone chopped into 2.5cm cubes
750ml lamb stock or water
30g coriander leaves, finely chopped

Set aside 3 or 4 of the dried chillies to use later; put the remainder to soak in 125ml water. Also put aside 4-6 of the cloves and 1 tbs of the ghee. Mix the yogurt with the cumin seeds, ground coriander, chilli powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Heat the rest of the ghee in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the remaining cloves, the cinnamon leaves and the green and black cardamoms. When they begin to crackle and change colour, add the garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes or until the garlic begins to turn golden. Add the onions and cook for 10 minutes or until golden brown, stirring constantly. Stir in the meat and cook for 2-3 minutes. Drain the red chillies and add to the pan.

Continue cooking for 10-12 minutes or until the liquid has evaporated and the meat starts to brown. Now add the spiced yogurt and cook for another 10-12 minutes or until the liquid from the yogurt has evaporated. Add the stock or water and bring to the boil, then cover the pan, reduce the heat and simmer until the meat is tender. Check the seasoning. Remove from the heat and keep warm.

To prepare the tadka, or tempering, which boosts the flavours, heat up the reserved ghee or oil in a large ladle over a flame (or in a small pan) and add the reserved cloves and dried red chillies. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until the ghee changes colour and the spice flavours are released. Pour the contents of the ladle over the lamb curry, sprinkle with the chopped coriander and serve.

The John Curry Potato Curry

John Curry Potato Curry

Serves 3-4

2 tbs sunflower oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 large plum tomatoes, skinned and chopped
8 red chillies
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
salt
500g potatoes, peeled and diced, or whole new potatoes
chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion and cook until slightly browned. Add the chopped tomatoes, then stir in the chillies, chilli powder, cumin seeds and salt to taste. Add 125ml water and cook, stirring, until excess liquid has evaporated.

Add the potatoes together with another 125ml water. Stir well to coat the potatoes with the spice mixture, then put the lid on the pan. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender but not breaking up.

Remove the lid and continue cooking until the oil separates out. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot. whooooooooooooo.....

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

You can send pix directly to this blog from your modile. Well I never!!

CURRIED CAULIFLOWER SOUP

An easy and quick one this.

Serves 4 big eaters, 3 very big eaters and 25 extremely light eaters.

Time - prep 5 minutes, cooking 30 minutes

1 x cauliflower - chopped
1 x largish onion - chopped
1 x garlic clove - crushed
2 x baking sized potatoes - diced
A hand full of split peas
Curry powder - at least a table spoon
Cumin powder - at least a table spoon (but stick some more, I would)
2 x Veg stock cubes
Boiling water

How...

Heat some oil in a big pan, on a medium heat (unless you're my dad in which case you 'give it a blast') and fry the onion and garlic until the onion begins to go translucent. Add the caulifower and the spices (I always add a bit more than the allotted 1 table spoon here) and stir for a few minutes. Just about cover with hot water from the kettle add the stock cubes and stir some more. Add the split peas, cover and simmer for half an hour or so. Allow to cool slightly in the pan and then blend with a hand blender.

Serve with a Nan bread

For some extra woo add some chilli flakes

TWIST-A-RAMA CHICKEN

TWIST-A-RAMA CHICKEN

.........................................

THE BITS


2 nice big fat chicken breasts

6 chunky mushrooms

4 cloves of garlic

1 chicken stock cube (maggi if poss)

100 ml of single cream

knob of butter

4 slices of wholemeal bread

olive oil

salt, pepper, paprika.

broccoli (purple if poss) 200g

cheese

1 chili

START

cut chicken and mushrooms into small chunks.
fry in butter and garlic till browned.
steam 200g of broccoli until tender.
when chicken and mushrooms browned add stock cube and give it a good stir.
add half tsp of flour (make sure you have liquid in pan) give it a good stir (roux)
add cream slowly to create a nice thick sauce. add tsp of mustard and a nice chunk of cheddar
(cut up) up to you how cheesy you like it i use about 50g.
when all looking good put into dish and add salt and pepper.
layer with broccoli.
put the bread into a bowl with paprika and olive oil (good dash)
and use hand blender to breadcrumb it all up, i tend to put 1 chopped up chili to give a bit
of colour and spice.
layer dish with breadcrumbs and bake in oven gas 4. 30 mins later .........fkin top.

I serve with pasta salad.

The Upper Room is born.

Welcome to the Upper Room, location of Our Last Supper. There is no real mystery to this here site - it is a communal blog for folks to post recipes they have recently used and enjoyed.

Joining in

If you would like to contribute to the upper room please contact

alex dot hardman a/t gmail dot com

You will need a google/gmail account (which is no problemo...)

Posting etiquette

1) Please add some tags to your post so that desribe your recipe. Try and use tags that have already been used. If they aint appropriate make one up. This means that people can more easily find recipes that they might enjoy.

2) If you use a recipe from the site please add a comment!

3) Add comments anyway!

4) Spread the word - if you know someone who might enjoy joining in with this then tell them to get in touch and we'll set em up.

5) Feel free to add a picture to your post, if your pix are massive they will eat up our free blogger space!

6) Add widgets or links to the sidebar if you think of something that would be useful to the other blog peeps