Curry Laksa & Naan

I would have, on rare occasions, Curry Laksa from KC Cafe in Courtany Place, it is a Malay restaurant and serves good, fast Malaysian food that I enjoy.
I started looking at a few videos on how to make it and it required far too many ingrediants that I'd have to shop for specifically for the dish.
I then found the following video that I thought was a better way.

I had a chicken breast that I was going to use in a stir fry, in fact I was looking up Char Kuey Tauw stir fry with thick rise ribbons, they also do this at KC cafe.

Char Kuey Tauw 

Anyway, I went to Pak'n'Save and ended up getting a Thai can of the Curry Laksa paste, it was a bigger jar but more watery than the one in the video. I also put in a 440 g can of Coconut Cream and added some potatoes as another additive as well as Mung Beans, Spring Onion and parsley for garnish. I had some frozen Naan bread and that was a delicious meal. The quantities made enough for 2 meals so I have enough for another. Great tastes, definitely a different flavour of curry.
Both meals were excellent.  I left the other in the fridge and had it about 3 days later. Definitely a try again

Sunday 29th Sept

I'm doing this again with the Asam  Curry Laksa paste, it is only medium but pretty potent all the same. I'm going to cook it up and let i rest for a day or so, as I bought some other meats and food that I have to finish off as well before this, but I thought I'd leave it to imbue the curry flavours into the chicken and potato.
The jar size was smaller, I still used a 400ml can of coconut cream asnd 500ml of chicken stock (2 oxo cubes).

Tofu Puffs

I'm having another crack at Tofu, this time frying them to make puffs for the soup, hopefully the soup  will give the puffs some flavour as tofu is pretty bland. I tried in Air Fryer, but that didn't work, so I used oil in a frying pan instead.

I'll report back on it when I have the 2nd Cury Laksa.

Naan

I'd made naan before and bought a great big tub of yoghurt that I ended up throwing away, and I was pretty dissapointed with the naan. I thought i'd frozen some but I haven't found the dough again.
So I plan to give it another try and cook all the naan's and freeze them. So I want to try that next. 
This video looks interesting, so I'll try that one.

Compared to the video above my naan was pretty dry and needed a lot of working. The recipe is:

• 1 teaspoon Yeast
• 1 Teaspoon Sugar
• 1/4 cup of lukewarm water-

Mix above together and let sit for 5 minutes

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup yogurt (plain unsweetened ) basically half a pottle
• 1 tablespoon of oil
•  1/4 teaspoon Salt (actually I put this in with flour instead)

Mix the flour yogurt and oil, then add the yeast/sugar/water mix. Mix more, then add

• 1/2 cup flour

and mix all together.
Cover with oil  & Then rest for 1 hour
after hour knock back
 and then split into 4  pieces
Roll out and wet one side with water then use a skillet (non -stick frying pans not enough mass) and cook one side until it bubbles then turn pan over and use element heat and brown.
Then butter & garlic.

I did this twice. One with pain flour and once with strong flour.
Have yet to test as I froze both lots for next curry.
I was quite happy with the results from the cook.
A couple of them unstuck and fell on element and burned.
Will need to practice the technique.

I had one of each packet as well as one from the shop bought frozen packet. I microwaved them all for the 2nd meal. Both of mine were too thin. They did not have enough content for absorbing the liquid in the curry, that saying, the Laksa is a very watery curry. If it were more pasty then both of them would have been fine to soak up the food. I have moe so I'll try it sometime.
Overall not that much difference between either of mine, the shop one wa1 1/2 to 2 times as thick so better at absorbing the fluids.

Naan bread, bach cooking mince for spring rolls and dumplings and frozen fruit for winter

 In Pak'n Save I came across a frozen packet of 8 Roti Channai. These are great for putting in the toaster for having with curry. Easy to prep and very flaky too.  I've noticed the freezer seems to be out of them for a while as others have found them tasty too. Its something I'll have to put on my watch list and hoard when they come in.

 At Curry Heaven in Newtown I love the fresh garlic naan bread with the curry. So I've been thinking about making naan for a while.  When I finally looked up the recipe the only main ingredient I didn't have was the yogurt, so I thought I would need to give it a try.

 Naan bread

There seem to be quite a few naan bread recipes  on YouTube, some having baking powder or soda. I would prefer just the yeast and be patient with the rise. In the end I used the recipe from the Guardian, here.
I want to make a batch and freeze them and bring them out when I'm going to have a curry.
I'll report back on this one. This is one video I watched on Naan. I don't have gas (apart from BBQ) so will have to cook both sides.

 I made 8 balls from the Guardian recipe and have frozen them. I hope to plan to take a couple out the night before with a curry and test them. I would have done it sooner but over the weekend I went mad and was prepping for a number of meals, so I'll have to wait until I'm ready for another freezer curry meal.

 Recipe from the Guardian

Makes 6-8
1.5 tsp fast-action yeast
1 tsp sugar
150ml warm water
300g strong white bread flour, plus extra to dust
1 tsp salt
5 tbsp natural yoghurt
2 tbsp melted ghee or butter, plus extra to brush
A little vegetable oil, to grease
1 tsp nigella (black onion), sesame or poppy seeds (optional)

Put the yeast, sugar and two tablespoons of warm water in a bowl and stir well. Leave until it begins to froth.
Put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Stir the yoghurt into the yeast mixture, then make a well in the middle of the flour and pour it in, plus the melted ghee. Mix, then gradually stir in the water to make a soft, sticky mixture that is just firm enough to call a dough, but not at all dry. Tip out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about five minutes until smooth and a little less sticky, then put in a large, lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover and leave in a draught-free place (the airing cupboard, or an unlit oven) until doubled in size: roughly 90–120 minutes.
Tip the dough back out on to the lightly floured surface and knock the air out, then divide into eight balls (or six if you have a particularly large frying pan). Meanwhile, heat a non-stick frying pan over a very high heat for five minutes and put the oven on low. Prepare the melted ghee and any seeds to garnish.
Flatten one of the balls and prod or roll it into a flat circle, slightly thicker around the edge. Pick it up by the top to stretch it slightly into a teardrop shape, then put it in the hot pan. When it starts to bubble, turn it over and cook until the other side is browned in patches. Turn it back over and cook until there are no doughy bits remaining.
Brush with melted ghee and sprinkle with seeds, if using, and put in the oven to keep warm while you make the other breads.

Batch mince for Spring rolls and dumplings

I bought some pork mince, and also have some beef mince so decided to cook them both up with some garlic and onion, separately. Then I drained them over a sieve (to get excess oil out) and froze them in smaller batches, about 200/250 grams, so that I can make small portions of spring rolls or dumplings.
I bought some dumpling pastry at the Asian supermarket in Kilbirnie so I have to test some of that out, as well as buying some larger spring roll pastry as the other ones were too small. There was some rice paper ones but  I think I'll leave that for later.
I need to prep the vegetables for fillings and make a big batch of dumplings and spring rolls again to freeze.

They sold mung bean seeds there, far cheaper than at the natural health place, about 1/3 of the price, so when I've finished with those that's where I'll be buying the next batch.

 Seasonal fruit. Kiwifruit. Freezing for winter

Its coming into some of the fruit season in autumn, and I want to prepare for winter.
I thought about tomatoes and freezing them, but they are so cheap in cans that its not really worth the effort or space. Fresh tomatoes blitzed for Brochetta with garlic and onion is great but for a lot of cooking tinned tomatoes are fine.
The fruit may be worth freezing. Since I've been playing with the puff pastry I can make some simple danish with custard and fruit. I was looking at frozen fruit to use for this.
 It's the more practical way to go as I'm not a fruit eater and some goes off, which upsets me, but now with the freezer I can prepare small batches to use when I need it for pastries , desserts or for smoothies.
I had bought some over ripe mangos and peaches that I blitzed and put into ice cube trays and froze. I had them with tonic water in the afternoon on hot days. It was very nice. Autumn fruit will be coming down in price so I want to prepare for that.
I did have some fejoas that I was going to freeze, but I ate them all. I love the perfume of Feijoas, it is such an aromatic smell to the skin.