Good-for-you Creamy Curry

You know those gorgeous indian curries from up north - the ones you're not supposed to eat because they are full of all the bad stuff - cream, butter, ghee, ground nuts and coconut cream - dishes like Butter Chicken and that super creamy Korma. By God, they're good. But ohhh, so BAD!

This is a healthy take. It's still incredibly decadent, creamy and rich, but has a fraction of the naughtiness you'd expect. The secret is all in making a puree from vegetables that are naturally creamy, sweet and nutty in flavour.

Ingredients

• 4 medium-sized chicken breasts (about 750g), each cut into about 6 pieces
• 500g pumpkin, medium dice
• 2 small onions, diced
• 2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 10 curry leaves
• 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 1/4 tsp cumin seeds (bruised)
• 1-2 tsp good curry powder (depending on strength)
• 1/4 tsp tumeric
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder (optional)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 small tub low fat yoghurt (approx 170g)
• olive oil
• 1 cup frozen green peas (optional)
• salt and pepper to taste

Lamb Mansaf

I've just returned from Jordan, inspired. Some people think all arabic food is the same, and living in Dubai, I can tell you I've had tabouleh and humous up to here (imagine me gesturing at my larynx).

However, I've recently been delving into the different cuisines of the area, and have also been treated to an Arabic food crawl by Arva Ahmed in Deira, and I'm finally starting to find some real gems. One of them is Mansaf, the traditional lamb and yoghurt dish of Jordan.

Ingredients (notes on ratios below)

• Lamb with bone in (I used a 1.8kg leg. Shanks would also work very well)
• Laban or yoghurt
• chicken or vegetable stock
• shawarma spice (my recipe at end if you want to mix your own)
• olive oil or ghee for browning meat
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• rice cooked with a pinch of saffron threads (in the rice-cooker)
• coriander (cilantro) leaves and toasted nuts (pine nuts and slithered almonds work well) to garnish

Chicken and Herb Salad

The problem with living life as a hedonista is that you tend to get fat - all of that overindulgence eventually catches up with you. I have a friend who refuses to let that get him down - he laughs and pops another cholesterol pill with his saucisson, and says that life would be meaningless without good food. I however, also take pleasure from wearing beautiful clothes, and at the moment, all I fit into is tents from Carrefour.

So. Diet. But what diet for a hedonista? The Atken's Diet of course. Well, maybe an abridged one - I simply avoid all starches (rather than all carbohydrates including sugars) every second day, and amazingly, it works. When things get really bad, I have to go weeks on end without starch, but that has a particularly cranky side effect. 

Green means hot

I am a very fortunate lady. Not only have I got a husband who very cleverly got us an expat stint in the centre of the world, but I also have Mary in our household. The title of "housemaid" does not fully describe her position or influence. Some days she is Maid, others Nanny, but my favorite is Chef. Mary is Tamil Sri Lankan, and so much of her food is in that vein, but she is also an exceptional study and has a remarkably good palate, so anything she finds lying in the bottom of a fridge drawer or at the back of a pantry can be added to other flavours to make something wonderful. The only underlying theme - chilli, and boy oh boy, she does like it hot!

The other week she made what she calls "herb relish". It has leafy herbs and onion and green chili, and is amazing next to her curried eggplant. It inspired me to make the sauce below - I love the fresh flavours, and imagined it without the rice, but with cucumber in it to cool that chili a little. So here we have my spicy green salad:

Cooking with Sunrise

Living in the Middle East does wonderful things to ones spice cabinet. Where we might suffer from a dearth of fresh local meat and vegetables , it is made up for in spades by what can be bought not only at the spice souq, but even out of sacks at the local Carrefour (we get plenty of imports, so don't think for a moment that I'm starving over here - it's quite to the contrary). My favorite of all is saffron - the gold of spices. Back in Melbourne, it's actually costlier than gold and here only a little less, so yes, it's a guilty pleasure. However only a few strands will do the trick, making the investment worth it.

Saffron is the stamens of the crocus  flower, and carries with it the aroma of sweet nectar and floral plains of Iran. When used in cooking it lends a flavor of honey on toast, and the color of sunrise to the sauce. It is used extensively in Persian, Arabic and North African cooking, but also anywhere the spice routes delivered it across Asia, and for so long, that many cultures argue they were the original producers - although it does appear it was actually Greece.

When buying Saffron, ensure you are buying the genuine article - there are many poor substitutes, including safflower, which looks almost identical - ensure that the colour is vibrant crimson, with hints of deep yellow-orange. The strands should be slightly moist and surprisingly strong. When moistened, they will leech bright yellow - the colour of tumeric, but never substitute turmeric in a recipe - the flavours are not the same.