Chingri malai curry
This fine dish comes from chef Amrish Sood of Ushna – which won Best Indian at the Time Out Food Awards 2011. He’s provided us with a recipe which will hit the spot when nothing but curry will do. So if you want a good Indian but know that your frequent takeaways are endangering your midriff, cook this at home.
Ingredients:
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp pommery mustard
2 cups boiled onion paste
4 cups coconut milk
1 tsp turmeric
5 or 6 green chillies
1.5 tsp salt
12 shrimps
2 cups water
Method:
1. Heat oil in a pot, add boiled onion paste and sauté over a low flame until the paste thickens.
2. Add pommery mustard, turmeric and salt. Cook this masala well for 8-10 minutes.
3. Add coconut milk and allow the curry to simmer.
4. Add the shrimps and water (if it’s too thick) to the curry and continue to simmer until the shrimps are cooked through.
5. Towards the end of cooking add green chillies that have been slit lengthways.
6. Serve the shrimp curry with steamed rice.
Braised lamb shanks with rosemary jus and crushed new potatoes
Chef Daragh Lawlor from the InterContinental’s Belgian Café contributes a recipe that will make you look like a domestic god, with little effort on your part. All you’ll need for this one is to make sure you prepare and bung it all in the oven two hours before you want to get stuck in. Then kick back and relax while it pretty much cooks itself.
We recommend this one as the ‘welcome back home, honey’ meal
for when the missus returns. It’s guaranteed to impress.
Ingredients:
2x450g lamb shank
250g carrots
250g celery
250g onion
50g garlic
25g rosemary
4 bay leaves
2 litres lamb stock
500g new potatoes
28g butter
2.5g chopped rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
1. Rub the lamb shank all over with salt and pepper.
2. Make an incision with a sharp knife and push inside pieces of garlic and sprigs of rosemary.
3. In a deep pan, heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil, add onion, garlic, celery, carrot, rosemary, bay leaf and fry until a light golden brown colour.
4. In a separate pan heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil and sauté the lamb shanks until golden brown.
5. Add the sealed lamb shanks to the deep pan of vegetables and cover with stock. The lamb shanks need to be completely submerged in order to braise evenly.
6. Add more rosemary sprigs.
7. Cover pan with two layers of aluminium foil and cook at a low heat for approximately two hours.
8. Remove the foil after 1.5 hours; place a sharp knife between the meat and bone, if the meat is starting to come away from the bone it is close to being cooked.
9. Remove lamb from liquid and leave to rest on the side.
10. Strain liquid from the vegetables and reduce until the consistency is close to gravy.
11. In a separate pan, boil the potatoes with the skin on.
12. Remove from water when cooked and add butter, salt and pepper to taste and finely chopped rosemary.
13. Crush the new potatoes with a fork and place on a serving plate.
14. Place the lamb shank on the crushed potato.
15. Pour the rosemary infused gravy over the lamb and serve.
Escalope pizzaiola
Our last meal is a quick fix from a relatively new member of Prego’s restaurant kitchen staff, chef Pascal. This is an ideal light meal for those evenings when you get in late and can’t be bothered to faff around for
too long in the kitchen. It’ll only take a minute to toss the ingredients together in a frying pan and voilà: you’ll have wiped that plate clean before you know it.
Ingredients:
250g veal escalope
400g tomatoes peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
1. In a saucepan, put two tablespoons of oil over moderate heat.
2. Sauté the garlic until it becomes golden brown.
3. Add the escalope, salt and pepper to taste and then the tomatoes and dried oregano.
4. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes then serve.
