Day: June 18, 2007

A very domestic weekend

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Last weekend, I cleaned.

The whole friggin house.

It was sorely in need of it.

I stopped counting the loads of laundry I did, and we are now (for the moment) caught up in all the washing up. I probably vacuumed a cat's worth of fur out of the stairwell carpet and the sitting room drapes. We can now see the floor in the bedroom. That weird growth on the kitchen baseboard is no longer alive and well.

All of this makes me happy, but this morning, I ache.

I'm getting old.

We also trimmed back the herb garden. With all the rain and sun we've been having recently, it was threatening to go wild and invade everything in sight. I need to find the best way to dry some of them and keep them for later use.

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[Recipe] Tandoori Chicken

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I've been looking for a good tandoori chicken recipe for ages, and finally Madhur Jaffrey has provided one, which I modified a bit to personal taste. It's not difficult to make, just a bit time consuming.

Ingredients:

1kg chicken pieces (thighs, legs), skinned
150g plain yoghurt
salt
2 lemons (or limes)
2 green chillies, seedless
1 large knob of ginger, peeled.
2 tbsp tandoori spice mix (see below)

Preparation:

The chicken needs to be marinated twice. For the first marinade:

1. pat chicken dry and cut slits in the chicken pieces right to the bone. This will help the marinade soak as deep into the meat as possible.
2. season with salt on both sides and add the juice of the two lemons (or limes).
3. rub salt/juice in the chicken pieces thoroughly. Let stand for 20-30 minutes.

While that's marinating, prepare the second marinade:

1. in a food processor, combine a few tbsp of the yoghurt with the chillies, ginger and spice mix. Blitz until smooth.
2. combine with remainder of the yoghurt.
3. once the first marinating period is done, add lemon/lime juice to the mix
4. coat liberally the chicken portions with the yoghurt marinade and run well into the chicken. Cover and let stand in the fridge overnight if possible (but at least 6 hours!)

I'm assuming that you don't have a charcoal-fuelled clay tandoor, so we'll have to fake the cooking part. When the second marinade is done, place chicken portions on a grill pan and turn oven on to its highest setting. Put chicken on the highest rack in the oven and broil for 18-20 minutes until chicken is cooked (juices run clear when pricked with a fork) and is just starting to char. Note that the chicken isn't as red as you'll get in a restaurant. That's because they use food colouring.

Splash some fresh lime juice on the chicken before serving.

FYI, the tandoori spice mix contains the following:
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp hot chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp tumeric
2 tbsp paprika

To make garam masala from scratch, add the following to a clean coffee grinder and blitz until smooth:

1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp whole cloves
1/3 of a whole nutmeg (you can break a whole nutmeg by placing it on a cloth and bashing it with a meat mallet or rolling pin)
a medium stick of cinnamon, 2-3 inches, broken up into 3-4 pieces

Store in a tightly lidded jar, away from heat and sunlight and use as needed.

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They don't make nuclear shelters like they used to… thank god.

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TULSA, Oklahoma (AP) — Calling it “our King Tut's tomb,” thousands of people watched as a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere was pulled from the ground where it had been buried for 50 years as a time capsule of American Midwest culture. The concrete vault encasing the car may have been built to withstand a nuclear attack, but it couldn't keep away water.

At Friday's ceremony, protective wrapping was removed to show the mud-caked vintage vehicle covered in rust. Shiny chrome was still visible around the doors and front fender, and workers were able to put air in the tires. “I'll tell you what, she's a mess. Look at her,” said legendary car builder Boyd Coddington, who was unable to start the car as planned.

From the trunk, organizers pulled out some of the objects buried to celebrate Oklahoma's 50 years of statehood — a 5-gallon can of leaded gasoline, which went for 24 cents a gallon in those days, and rusted cans of Schlitz beer. The contents of a “typical” woman's handbag, including 14 bobby pins, lipstick and a bottle of tranquilizers, were supposed to be in the glove box, but all that was found looked like a lump of rotted leather.

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