Wholemeal Spelt Pastry

I doubled this recipe and it worked well.

Ingredients

• 200g Doves Farm Organic Wholemeal Spelt Flour
• 100g butter
• pinch of salt
• 8-9 tbsp cold water
• butter, for dish
• flour, for dusting

Method

• Pre-heat the oven.
• Rub a little butter around the inside of your dish or tin.
• Put the flour and butter into a mixing bowl.
• Using a fork or pastry blender, work the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the salt and mix. (I used hands)
• Stir in enough of the water to bring the pastry together into a soft dough.
• Using your hands gather the mix together to form a smooth ball of pastry dough.
• Dust the work surface with flour, put the dough in the middle and sprinkle it with flour.
• Roll out the pastry into a circle 5cm larger than your dish and lift it into the dish, OR simply press it into the baking dish using your fingers.
• Cut away any pastry that hangs over the edge of your dish.
• Continue as per your recipe.

Temperature

Fan 160°C. Recipe I used had it baked for 50 mins, which came out fine.

Source: https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/wholemeal-spelt-shortcrust-pastry

Spinach, pumpkin and potato curry (no onions or garlic)

This was delicious. Took a bit of time to soften potato and pumpkin but otherwise pretty quick and easy. Could probably speed them up by sautéing with some water rather than just frying them.

Ingredients

• 500 grams spinach, roughly chopped (one I used works fine, but no idea if it's the type the recipe calls for, which is pui shak/basella leaf/malabar spinach)
• 250 grams pumpkin, cubed. I substituted a small butternut squash which was fine.
• 1 potato, peeled and cubed
• 2-4 green chilis, slit but not chopped (I used 2, but it was mild so prob fine with 4 as recipe suggests)
• 1 red chili, whole not chipped (I substituted with chili flakes, which promptly burnt)
• 1 tsp punch poron (Bengali 5 spice mix)
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt to taste
• Cooking oil/ghee

Method

• Heat oil and add red chili and panch porom, let them crackle (not too hot, definitely possible to burn them)
• Fry chopped potato until light golden, about 2 mins
• Add pumpkin and cook until they soften (not sure of the time,15-20 mins?)
• Add green chilis and turmeric powder, mix well and cook for 2 mins
• Add spinach a handful at a time and stir continuously. It needs to reduce a bit to fit it all into the pan.
• Dry up as much as possible of the water released from the spinach (weirdly spinach I used didn't release much water, but think it normally does)
• Stir in salt and sugar
• Cover and cook for 5-10 mins until soft
• Lightly smash some of the veg with end of spatula and stir well

Based on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iZwbBZhLxOU

Left out shrimp from original recipe. Didn't cook in mustard oil as discovered after some research that there's credible evidence of negative health effects.

Paneer

Two paneer recipes were both helpful:

https://healthynibblesandbits.com/how-to-make-paneer/

https://www.cookwithmanali.com/how-to-make-paneer-at-home-homemade-paneer-recipe/

Recipes don't seem too specific about how much milk to use. Used about 1.2 litres of milk, and got about 200 grams of paneer. That was as much as largest long handled saucepan could take. Next time definitely use largest saucepan (the one with 2 small handles).

Used a bit of old cotton sheet instead of a cheesecloth, which took more effort to squeeze water out of but was basically fine. Came out quite crumbly. I crumbled it anyway for the recipe I needed, but not sure if cubes would have held together. Was a bit half-hearted about bothering to get weight on it, and maybe that's the key.

Chole (Jain)

Worked well. Only made about 2 portions, so could easily double or triple quantities. Simplified the recipe to use tinned chickpeas - if boiling dried chickpeas see original recipe. Also see excellent photos there. 

Original recipe also calls for cinnamon when you're cooking the chickpeas. Instead I added this to the accompanying rice. Generally recipe seems adaptable, not that sensitive to missing ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1 tin tomatoes, or ~5 fresh tomatoes, blended
• ~3 diced fresh tomatoes
• 2 fresh green chillies
• Fresh coriander
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tsp anardana (pomegranate seed) powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• Salt
• Oil/ghee

Method:

1) Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat. Once hot add cumin seeds and let them sizzle.

2) Now add chopped green chilies and saute for 20-40 seconds.

3) Add tomato puree and salt. Mix and let it simmer. If it splutters a lot then you can partially cover and cook.

4) Cook until all the moisture evaporates and oil starts to ooze out from the sides. Do stir in between to make sure that it is not sticking to the pan.

5) Now add red chili powder, coriander powder and anardana powder.

6) Mix well and cook for a minute.

7) Add chickpeas, and some water to thin (original recipe is to use some of the water chickpeas boiled it, could use water from the tin but might be v salty).

8) Mix and let it simmer for 7-8 minutes or until you get the desired thickness of the gravy.

9) Now heat the oil in a small pan for tempering. Once hot add tomatoes and cook until it is semi-soft.

10) Add that to the ready Jain chole masala.

11) Immediately cover the pan to trap all the flavors. Keep it covered for 5 minutes.

12) Now garnish with chopped cilantro and serve.

Based on: https://www.spiceupthecurry.com/jain-punjabi-chole/

Dal Makhani (Jain)

Based on this recipe:

https://www.archanaskitchen.com/jain-style-dal-makhani-recipe

May be worth comparing to others, it was decent but not perfect.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Black Urad Dal (Whole)
• 1/4 cup Rajma (Large Kidney Beans) - used 1 tin
• 1 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera)
• 1 inch Cinnamon Stick (Dalchini)
• 3 Cloves (Laung)
• 2 Black cardamom (Badi Elaichi)
• 2 Tomatoes , pureed
• 1 Green Chilli , finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon Red Chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon Garam masala powder
• 2 teaspoon Dry ginger powder
• 2 tablespoons Ghee
• 1 cup Milk , low fat (optional)
• Salt, to taste

To garnish

• 1 inch Ginger , cut to julienne (optional)
• 2 tablespoons Fresh cream (optional)

Method

• Wash and soak the whole urad dal and overnight.
• Boil and dal until soft.
• Add the kidney beans and lightly mash. Set aside the beans.
• In the meantime, puree the tomatoes using a mixer grinder and keep aside.
• Heat ghee in a wok/kadhai on medium flame, add the cinnamon stick, cloves, black cardamom and let it release its aroma into the ghee.
• Add the cumin seeds and let it crackle. (not too hot, I burnt them)
• Add the tomato puree, green chillies and cook for 2 minutes.
• Once the tomatoes have cooked add the spice powders including red chilli, garam masala, dry ginger powder and cook until the ghee floats on top.
• Now, add the cooked dals, season with salt, add water to your desired consistency and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
• Add the milk if using, let the dal boil.
• Once the Dal Makhani reaches your desired consistency, switch off the flame. 
• Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with ginger julienne and cream. 

No-Knead Crusty Artisan Bread

Ingredients:

• 400g plain white flour (strong flour worked fine)
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 0.5 tsp teaspoon dry yeast (active dry or highly active dry work best)
• 350ml water

Method:

1. Sift flour into a large bowl and stir in salt and yeast. 
2. Stir in water using a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a shaggy but cohesive dough. Do not over-work the dough. 
3. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let dough sit at room temperature for 8-24 hours until dough is bubbly.
4. [skipped pre-heating of the pan]
5. Oil white casserole dish with gold handles. Pour in dough. Rest for 30 mins.
6. Preheat oven to 230c.
7. Bake for 30 mins covered with a metal bowl. Remove bowl and bake for 15 mins more.
8. Cool.

Source: https://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2013/04/no-knead-crusty-artisan-bread.html

Bali banana pancakes

These worked quite well. Not spectacular, but nice as an occasional thing to do for guests.

Makes 4 pancakes.

Ingredients:

• 150g plain flour
• 1 egg
• 300 ml milk (substituted with soya without issue)
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (could try a little more)
• 1 tbsp butter plus extra for cooking
• 4 tsp light muscovado sugar (used caster sugar, which was alright but prob not as good)
• 1 large bananas, not too ripe as they don't slice well, 
• 4 tbsp desiccated coconut (not essential, couldn't really taste)

I like served for yoghurt, sprinkle of desiccated coconut and perhaps honey/syrup depending on how sweet bananas are. Jude likes plain.

Method:

• Slice bananas thinly on the diagonal (about 3mm)
• Melt 1 tbsp butter
• Sift flour into large well. Make well in centre and crack in the egg. Pour in a little milk, then whisk the egg and milk, incorporating a little more of the flour with each whisk, adding milk gradually until you have a batter. Whisk in the salt, cinnamon and melted butter.
• I used centre of non-stick wok. Heat to medium-high heat. Add a knob of butter and swirl it around the pan. Sprinkle 1 tspn of the sugar over the base of the pan, then arrange a quarter of the banana slices over the base of the pan. Cook for 2-3 mins until the bananas start to caramelise (check this by lifting up one of the slices with the tip of a knife), then scatter over a quarter of the coconut and cook for another minute.
• Pour over a quarter of the pancake batter and tip the pan gently to cover the banana pieces and coconut evenly. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the batter is almost set, then flip over the pancake carefully using a palette knife or spatula, and cook for another 1-2 minutes, until golden. (I found it's better to over-cook then under-cook).
• Keep the pancakes warm in a low oven while you cook the rest.

Taken from: The Botanical Kitchen by Elly McCausland, extracted in The Week.