I had never heard of Recipe Tin Eats blog or her (Nagy) new cookbook: Recipe Tin Dinners. (mentioned here on HO) I love her blog (she lives in Sydney, Australia) and she explains her recipes well, lots of great photos. I had to wait a few days but I got her cookbook as an ebook loan from my library.
I love using fresh curry leaves … just made this recipe. For some reason, it only calls for cayenne powder. Next time I’ll add 1-2 minced, sauteed serranos for a little more kick. I like her method of roasting eggplant batons at 450 for 20 minutes, turn, another 10 minutes. (I zebra striped the skin) She instructs to mix the batons with veg oil, s & p, then roasting. To me, this wasn’t enough oil to brown well so I sprayed the batons with TJ Olive Oil spray … that did the trick. Instead of a bit of tomato sauce, I used some slow roasted cherry tomatoes. Oh, and I did a double recipe, 4 Globe Eggplants.
It’s hard to make eggplant look pretty … she did a much better job than I did but I’ll post the photo anyway.
My friends and I love the taste; I even like it cold with a little piece of pita.
I just made her recipe for Cottage Pie … first time I ever made this dish.
My Irish friend makes this recipe a lot and told me to eliminate the celery (makes it too watery) and I added just thawed frozen peas.
Recipe says to let rest for 5 minutes … I did so but when portion was scooped out mashed potatoes whoozed into meat mixture. My friend says she heats up meat part in the oven then puts lots of freshly made mashed potatoes on top, back into oven for 10 minutes. I guess if you made individual portions, this problem would go away.
I’ve stumbled upon her recipes over the years, and there are definitely some winners in there and generally fairly reliable for her Chinese recipes too. I use a recipe for char siu that is heavily based on hers, and it turns our really well each time.