Recipes

Curried Mango Bread

May 3, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Quick breads are great because they are easy to prepare and cook. I looked around at a few different mango bread recipes and I adapted mine a bit from the ones I saw. Most of the recipes required raisins and big chunks of mango. I wanted a smoother texture so I took out the raisins and mashed the mangoes (almost like how you would mash bananas for banana bread.) The bread was easy to throw together and it came out great. I really liked how complex the flavors were. It could easily be considered a sweet, dessert bread, yet it had a savory quality that was very unique. The savory garlic, ginger, and curry tasted great with the sweet mango flavors.

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Mango and Cardamom Jam

May 2, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I wanted to make a really unique tasting recipe for my first experiment with homemade jams. You can make jam without using pectin, but I wanted to give it a try and see what happened. It added a thickness to the jam that was nice. The mango with the cardamom were very tasty together. I left some mango chunks in it for extra texture. It tastes great on toast and even with peanut butter. I look forward to having this with a slice of curried mango bread too!

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Pad Thai

April 26, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Pad Thai is a dish made with stir-fried rice noodles with egg, a sauce, a protein like shrimp or chicken, and other extras like bean sprouts, and peanuts. I have had my eye on this little Thai market in the neighborhood and I went in today to see what I could find. I discovered that unlike Vons, the check out lady knew exactly where the Tamarind paste was. I could have substituted the harder to find ingredients (galangal, palm sugar, etc) for brown sugar and ginger but I decided not to. I’m happy with that decision because I can work with a new set of flavors now.

The Pad Thai turned out really nicely too. It wasn’t as rich or sweet as restaurant Pad Thai. It had a nice balance of sour, sweet, and spicy. I took note from other bloggers and prepped everything before cooking the noodles. I now understand how easy it would be to burn the noodles while you run around looking for an egg. This dish does take some work but is well worth the effort.

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Curried Orange Couscous

March 30, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I had some leftover Moroccan chicken and I wanted to make something different than the roasted potatoes or the Moroccan couscous that I have made before. I decided to go with a fruity, sweet couscous and it ended up tasting great with the chicken. The orange juice and the clove/cinnamon spices in the garam masala were also good together.

Couscous can be pretty plain if you don’t salt it or add enough honey and spices. What I’ve found is that a boring recipe can be made better by adding more fat, salt, or sweetness. Aren’t those the three reasons why anything ever tastes good? So, if you find the recipe needing something more, add one of those three and you won’t go wrong.

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Moroccan Lentil Soup with Preserved Lemon and Quinoa

March 26, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

It’s been raining a lot lately and I wanted to make something nice and warm from the slow cooker. One of my favorite recipes has been the Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons and I wanted to see if those flavors could translate into a stew. I figured red lentils and chickpeas would go well with the curry flavors of the dish, and it ended up being really good. The soup was pretty thick from the quinoa and needed extra chicken stock throughout cooking. I will probably be adding more later since the lentils and quinoa will keep on absorbing the liquid. This recipe makes a big batch so I will have a lot of leftovers (which won’t be a problem at all).

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Garam Masala

March 26, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Garam Masala is a really common spice blend in Indian food. I have had this posted in a bunch of other recipes but the blend deserves a post of its own. I decided to go with a simpler version since I don’t own a spice blender. To get the best flavors you would have to toast and grind whole spices (cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg seeds, etc.) which is great if you can find the whole spices. I couldn’t so I just went with the ground spices and mixed them together. Very easy to make, and I just store what I don’t use in an empty spice container.

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Irish Soda Bread

March 22, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Just in time for Saint Patrick’s Day! (jk). I had some leftover buttermilk and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. I came across a recipe for Irish Soda bread and thought I would try it. This bread is so easy to make; you just toss the flour, baking soda, and salt with some buttermilk. It hardly requires any mixing and produces a nice crunchy crust and soft inside. You can either set the dough in a loaf pan or bake it on some foil. I wanted a loaf shape so I went with a pan. This bread goes well with a stew, but is just as good on its own too.

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Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Lasagna

March 21, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Lasagna is a great staple dinner but I wanted to experiment a bit with the ingredients. Instead of using ricotta cheese I used a Bechamel sauce with goat cheese and feta. Bechamel is a white sauce made from milk, cheese, and butter. The goat cheese and feta added a tangy flavor that was good with the roasted red peppers. This recipe was very unique and it was a lot of fun to make and the results were great. Lasagna takes forever (about 2 1/2-3 hours) to prepare and cook so take some time to try this one out.

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Cinnamon Bread

March 19, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I had been looking for some breakfast ideas for the weekend and thought cinnamon bread would be an easy treat to make. It turned out really good, very soft with a delicious brown sugar cinnamon flavor. I was surprised at how well it turned out because I totally messed up the recipe I was trying to follow. The recipe said to cream the butter and sugar, so I figured “sugar” meant both brown and white. Not so, because the brown sugar was supposed to be added to the cinnamon as a layer. Oops. I cut down on the sugar a lot for the cinnamon layer so I wouldn’t have a sugar coma from one slice. I liked how it turned out so I will keep the mistake as part of the recipe. I noticed that this bread was darker, and that was probably due to the brown sugar in the batter. This bread makes a great breakfast and goes well with a cup of black tea.

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Horiatiki Salata (Greek Salad)

March 15, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Greek Salad is made of simple ingredients, mixed together in a little vinegar and olive oil. I wanted to have a salad with the chicken Gyros and this proved to be a great choice. It was light, flavorful, and went well with the Gyros.

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