Speedy Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Raita

We were blessed in the last two locations to have our daughters attend two of the best schools in Southeast Asia.  Both ISKL – the International School of Kuala Lumpur - and SAS – Singapore American School – are part of an intercollegiate league called IASAS.  This dish brings back happy memories of hosting IASAS friends and players when we were living in Singapore.  It’s quick and so delicious.  I think the last time I served it was for a softball/baseball exchange or perhaps even tournament and we had a house full up to the rafters.  Along with a bunch of girls from JIS in Jakarta (one of them a former ISKL student whose mother also stayed with us), we had one ISKL team member’s mother, father and sister staying with us too.  So many people to feed and I was in my element.  But after working all day at the SAS Booster Hut, selling food and spirit wear with my fellow Booster Club moms, I couldn’t have a complicated meal waiting to be prepared at home.  This quick salmon tikka, adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food, was perfect.  

I made it again last night, but with homemade naan. You can find that recipe and those instructions here.  It was just as tasty as I remembered.

Ingredients

4 small naan breads or two big ones cut in half

For the raita:
4 medium cucumbers

1 fresh chili pepper

1 thick green onion

1 lime

2-3 heaped tablespoons natural plain yoghurt

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Cayenne pepper (optional)

Small bunch of cilantro or fresh coriander

For the salmon:
2 salmon fillets – about 90-100g or oz each

1 heaped tablespoon curry paste – almost any one will do.

Olive oil

In these amounts, you can feed two.  Multiply this as many times as is necessary for your crowd.

Method
Preheat your oven to 110°C or 225°F. 

Pop your naan into the oven to warm through.  Or, if you have time earlier in the day, make them fresh yourself.  It’s easy and homemade are so much tastier than the store bought. Again, complete instructions are right here.

First, the raita.  Halve your cucumber lengthways, and then halve it again.  Use a sharp knife to cut off the watery seedy part.  Chop the cucumber diagonally into about 1/2 inch or 1cm pieces.  Put them in a bowl with room to stir.

My helper and I share the inside seedy bits.  One for him, one for me.  Until they are gone.

Then he loses interest in helping and I get this face.

Finely chop your chili, cilantro and green onion.   Add them to the cucumber bowl.

Halve your lime and squeeze the juice from one half into the bowl.

Add a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and the cumin.  Mix well.  Now add the yogurt.  Give it a taste and if you would like the raita spicier, add some cayenne pepper and add more salt, if necessary. 

Slice each salmon fillet across lengthways into four equal slices.  Thinner is easier to accomplish if the salmon is slightly frozen.  

Jamie’s original recipe calls for skin-on salmon.  I choose to take the skin off mine by slipping a sharp knife between the skin and the flesh (skin side down on the cutting board) because 1. I find it very difficult to cut through the skin, especially when I am trying to cut thin slices and 2.  I like to fry it up crispy, sprinkle it with sea salt and eat it just like that.  Delicious. 

Spoon the heaped tablespoon of curry paste into a small dish and loosen it with a little drizzle of olive oil.  

Use a pastry brush to spread the paste all over each piece.

One side

The other side

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat.  Once hot, put the salmon into the pan and cook for about 1½ minutes on each side, until cooked through.  

Serve on the warmed or fresh naan, topped with your cucumber raita and a squeeze of juice from the other half of the lime.   We folded ours up like tacos and ate them with relish.  Do lean over your plate though, because these can get drippy.  

Enjoy!

Easy Homemade Naan Bread

Warm, homemade griddle naan, made from a yeast dough. It's better than store-bought any day.

Yes, yes, I am aware that if naan is said with the proper aahh sound for the As, that title doesn’t rhyme for us Americans. Still couldn’t resist. Pretend you are Queen Elizabeth II (God bless her in her 60^th year of queenship!) and now, it rhymes.

This recipe is so easy that, time available for rising and what not, there is no reason to buy naan pre-baked in a store to reheat. You can have soft, tasty naan right in your own home. Will it taste like it was baked on a hot stone or brick oven? No, but neither does that store-bought stuff. I can promise you that it will be delicious. And, like all bread, it smells heavenly while you cook it.

Easy Homemade Naan Bread

Ingredients
1/2 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (Pop the balance in the freezer to keep fresh for next time you want to make this – or double the rest of your ingredients to use the whole thing, but still only use ONE egg.)
1 cup or 240ml warm water
1/8 cup or 30g sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
2 – 2 1/4 cups or 250-280g flour
1/8 cup or 30g butter, melted

Method
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy.

Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. You may not use all of the flour.

Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth.

Place dough in a well-oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.

Punch down dough. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball.

Roll into balls, and place on a tray or plate. Sprinkle lightly with flour. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

During the second rising, preheat non-stick skillet or pancake griddle to high heat. Warm your oven and put a tray inside for your naan to stay warm on after you cook them. I also add a bit of tin foil so I can fold it over the naan just a little bit.

Roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle.Lightly brush the surface with the butter.You will want to stretch this as much as you can because it tends to shrink back up when it hits the pan.

Place dough in pan, buttered side down and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned on the bottom.

Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes.

This is the first side down.

This is the second side down. I turned it back over so you could see.

Remove from pan and place on warm tray in the oven. Continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Enjoy!

These are wonderful served with potato curry, salmon tikka, Burmese curry or Tarka Dal.

Sopa de Albóndigas or Mexican Meatball Soup

When we were preparing to move to Cairo, I found a website that gives all kinds of personal advice, written by people who have been posted worldwide by the US State Department.  They clearly had a questionnaire they were following and I am sure this information was supposed to be for the benefit of other State Department folks but I came to it through a link from a friend (Thanks, Sabine!) and I wasted time researched, for many hours.  (Hey, you never know where we will go next!  Reading other country reports is still research.  Check it out!)  The questionnaire respondents were full of vital information about their postings in Cairo (and elsewhere) and I got a good laugh from many of the answers.  My favorite question though, because it was so unexpected, was “What would you leave behind?”  Some respondents didn’t answer this one.  But what I thought was the best answer, based on the annual Cairene weather forecast was ”An umbrella.”  And then, I moved to Cairo. 

The wind was howling last Friday and then the rain came on.  Yes, the rain came on.  Which, as you know, means – say it with me – a soup day.  And while a soup day in KL was JUST rainy, a Cairene soup day in February is also chilly.  Hallelujah!

LOOK! The aftermath:  It's all wet and our one piece of outdoor furniture
was blown clear into the yard by the strong winds.  Yeah, our shipment hasn't been delivered yet.
   Forty-four days and counting.  Thanks for caring.

I made a lovely soup adapted from a recipe in my Christmas cookbook, which you have all heard about before, Fried Chicken and Champagne.  This is not fancy but it has a lovely flavor that puts me in mind of tortilla soup.  I think it must be the cilantro (fresh coriander) and ground cumin.  I can highly recommend it.

Ingredients

For the soup:

1 tablespoon butter

Olive oil

1 small onion

1 medium carrot

2-3 cloves of garlic

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 tomatoes

1 tablespoon Mexican oregano (I didn’t have any so I substituted regular oregano.)

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3/4 cup chopped celery

1 bunch of cilantro or fresh coriander

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock  (Water and stock cubes are fine.)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Sea salt

Black pepper

For the meatballs:

1 lb or 500g of ground beef

1 small bunch of cilantro or fresh coriander

1/4 cup of uncooked long-grain rice

2 eggs

Sea salt

Black pepper

Method

Chop your onion and carrots and slice the garlic finely in the melted butter with a little drizzle of olive oil.   Cook until they are tender.

Meanwhile, chop your tomatoes, celery and cilantro.

When your sautéed vegetables are ready, add the tomatoes, cilantro, celery, then the cumin, oregano and cayenne. 

Add in the chicken stock and the tomato paste and the half-teaspoon of sugar.

Bring to the boil and then let this simmer while you make your meatballs. 

For the meatballs, chop the cilantro finely and mix it in well with the ground beef, rice, eggs and a good sprinkle of the salt and pepper.

Using a couple of teaspoons, drop small amounts of the mixture onto a flat surface and then roll them into little balls.  As you can see, I got 30+ meatballs out of my mixture.

Drop the meatballs gently into the simmering soup and stir very carefully to separate them.  You do not want to break them up.  

Simmer for another 20-30 minutes or until you are sure the meat and rice in the meatballs are cooked.  

You can garnish with some additional cilantro to serve, but I completely forgot that step. 

Enjoy!