So that’s it. February is over. The weather continued to be very wet and windy and sadly like January it was very boring for the most part. I’ve really struggled to find anything to write about. Its not like I went on holiday or attended a concert and could give you all a Moli review. I got up, went to work and for the most part. Came straight back home again. I’m actually boring myself as I write this so I can only apologise and hope that you’ve not turned off and surfed to another website. Talking about websites, I’ve started learning about coding and was given a link to a coding training website called www.codecademy.com. I’m still at the early stages of my learning and I’m told a child could do it but I do feel like a monkey ringing a bell to get some food. I get the bell to ring, some food drops but I really have no idea what I did to get my tasty treat. I’m sure it will come to me…
One thing I did do this month was start learning to cook something new. I do love to cook and should really spend time doing it. This month I learnt to cook a Chicken Madras Curry. I’m sure those who are still reading are all scoffing. “Oh, it’s easy” But I’ve never done it before. I always end up at Aladin on Brick Lane, Dockmasters in E14 or ordering in a take away. I started like most things in my day with searching Google for a recipe and soon discovered currytastic.com what claimed to be the best. I bought the ingredients and tried to follow along.
- 4 Chicken breasts, one per person
- 3 tbsp Vegetable oil
- 2 Onions, peeled and finely chopped
- 2cm block of fresh root ginger, peeled and grated
- 2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped – Depends how much garlic you like. Personally I don’t like it to be over-powering
- Sea salt and black pepper
- 400g ripe tomatoes, chopped
- 300ml water
- 1 tsp Garam masala
- 2–4 red Chillies, finely chopped – You can de-seed if you prefer, but this will make it not as spicy
- 2 tsp ground Cumin
- 1 tsp ground Coriander
- 1 tsp ground Turmeric
- 1–3 tsp (or more!) hot Chilli powder, to taste – Adding more or less will vary the hotness
- 6–8 Curry leaves
- Juice of half a lemon or lime (you can use vinegar here instead, but not both)
- Coriander leaves, to garnish
In the most part it was actually very easy to do, as its mostly just creating the sauce to the taste and heat level you require. I eased off on the chili powder and chili’s putting in half the recommended amount, as I didn’t want to over do it.
Strangely I found it to be about right for me. Apart from putting too much water into it and too many tomato’s, which made it very runny, it was one of the most fresh and tasty Curry’s I’ve eaten. I now need to try it again and as I’ve read somewhere, practice makes perfect apparently.
I bumped into someone recently who lives not that far from me. This in itself isn’t unusual but I’ve never seen him before and given what he drives, I rather think I would. He pulled into a local car park driving the Knight 2000, AKA KITT from Knight Rider. Come On!!! This guy really drives this car about to go shopping instead of cuddling it every night and day. Surprisingly it only cost £12,000 in mint condition, which is something for a car build in 1982 and fully converted into the Universal Studio’s super car of the future. Awesome!!!
He was a very nice guy who even let me sit inside the ultimate car from my childhood.
That made my day and may have just helped me get through February…
M