Hope you like curry!!!

Friday night had finally arrived, and it was time to get my curry cooking underway! I had decided to invite my wonderful friend Rosie, who is probably the most appreciative person in the universe when it comes to food, and my sister and brother-in-law with nephew in tow. My bro-in-law couldn't come because my nephew wasn't having a good day, so was instead put to bed early, and my B-I-L stayed with him.

I knew that all of my guests love some good Indian food, so I knew that the meal would be a hit, provided nothing went totally wrong!

39. A (kind of) Prawn Korma - *Indian*
40. Peas Braised with Indian Cheese (Muttor Paneer) - *Indian*
41. DIY: Make Your Own Paneer - *Larder Salads*
42. An Easy Pilau - *Indian*
43. Mint and Onion Chutney - *Indian*
44. Tropical Shake - *Afters*

You may recall that I had already made the Mango Chutney, but I needed to get the rest of the stuff done just before eating so that it could be lovely and fresh. Usually curries are best left in the fridge for a couple of days, but since I was working with prawns and cheese, I didn't want to cook the meals too far in advance. So the whole thing was a bit of a rush but I am not one to shy away from a challenge.

As soon as I got home from Queens, we started getting ready as we weren't sure when my sister would arrive. I chopped up the onion for the chutney as it needed to sit in milk for about an hour to get rid of its acrid taste. (After the hour, all I did was add chopped mint and salt, and that was it!)


I then sliced up another onion for the garnish for the Easy Pilau. I added the thinly sliced onion to a pan of warm vegetable oil and slowly fried it until golden brown.

In the short time it took to brown, I defrosted the prawns for the korma. Once the fried onion was done, I removed it with a slotted spoon to a plate, and then I started on the actual pilau. Using a few of the tablespoons of the oniony oil, I slowly fried a cinnamon stick, cloves, and some cardamon pods to release their aromatic flavor. To this I added the rice, sultanas, a saffron-infusion made of water, and enough water for the rice to steam. I let the mixture boil and then reduced the heat and covered the rice. After about fifteen minutes, the rice was lovely and fluffy, and I let it sit covered until the rest of dinner was done. (The final stage was to add some butter and salt to the rice, but I did that last, shortly before serving.)

While the rice was cooking I was sweating some onions, garlic, and loads of spices for the Muttor Paneer. Once they had released their juices, I added passata, water, and peas. This simmered gently for about fifteen minutes. I then took it off the heat, so that I could add the paneer (lovely Indian cheese) later. You will notice that I added the DIY version in my recipe count and included it in here, as well. Well, Tom has a few DIY recipes; I gather they are a way of showing anyone they can make lovely shop-bought ingredients from things you have at home. I'm taking these suggestions with a grain of salt, as I find sometimes shop-bought would be ten times better than my concoction. I am not being overly modest; I am just really clumsy, and a bit lazy! So although I will be only making some of the DIY recipes, I have included all of them in my recipe count -- how naughty am I! Before you start throwing your CL's at me, I have to say I have counted some recipes in the count that I now find aren't actually separate recipes, like the 'raw toppings' for the pizzas, which I intend to make. So the count still stands at 201 as it is approximately how many separate recipes there are in the book... Phew, back to cooking!

It was at about this time that my sister arrived, and quite hungry, so I put the pedal to the metal and really cranked it up a notch! We put the naan and samosas in the oven to warm a bit, and then it was time to cook the korma, which didn't take very long at all. It involved also sweating some onion and garlic with water. To this I added some spices, and then the prawns. The final additions were yogurt, ground almonds and some water. The korma thickened slightly, I added the paneer to the muttor, Rosie did an excellent job with her pyrotechnics while charring the poppadums, and then it was time to serve it up!

muttor paneer - absolutely luscious and delicious -- fantastic!

Clockwise from far left -- fresh naan, mango chutney, easy pilau, mint and onion chutney, prawn korma, and lovely poppadums prepared by my pyromaniac friend (and aren't the chutney bowls so cute - courtesy of Patel Brothers)

Fabulous Rosie -- lover of fire, eater of everything, and the perfect sous chef always asking how she could help -- that is the pilau on the left, my favorite part of the meal

Another view of the table - better view of the pilau

My plate - poppadums with mango chutney and the spiciest samosa known to man!

Well dinner was a complete success!! Everyone seemed to really enjoy everything, but as usual I made too much! Tom's recipes served 2, so I doubled all of them, but I think since we had extras like naan, poppadums, and chutney, we could never finish everything, though the prawns and the rice were almost finished. I have to say I enjoyed everything except for the prawns. Tom commented in the beginning of the recipe that his was not a typical Anglo-Indian korma that many Brits, and Americans I daresay, are quite familiar with. I found his particular korma too watery; perhaps I didn't thicken it enough, or maybe I should have added a thicker type of yogurt, like greek yogurt. It was still pretty darn good though, piled high on top of the pilau. Speaking of which, the rice was so perfect, lovely with the scent of cinnamon and cardamon, and the added sweetness of the fried onions and sultanas. I am going to be making this again, curry night or no curry night.

After some lovely dinner conversation and lots of laughing, I got started on dessert. I hadn't planned on anything heavy due to the large amount of courses, and wanted something cooling after the heavy curry. The Tropical Shake was the perfect candidate. It was a blended mixture of vanilla ice cream, pineapple juice, ice cubes, and bananas. It turned into a perfect, cooling shake, and so unbelievably yummy!

We all had a fair share of the shakes, and then my sister finished all of them off in her lovely slurping manner.

So the verdict from last night's curry night: Yum, and fun! And I was lucky that my guests loved to eat, a lot!