Homemade Meat Curry Powder

This meat curry powder is posted at the request of my Auckland friends.  This can be used in place of the commercial curry power.  Also delicious as a dry rub for roast chicken. 

Give it a go...it will make a difference to your chicken, lamb or beef curries !

Yield : about a few tablespoon.

Ingredients :
5 cloves
10 black peppercorn
4 cardamon pod
2" cinnamon stick
2-4 Tbsp chilli powder
4 Tbsp coriander seed
1 tsp fennel seed
1 whole star anise
1 tsp tumeric powder

Method :
1. Partially roast the whole spices over low to medium heat until fragrant. Leave to cool.

2. Grind until fine with a coffee grinder.

3. Store in an airtight container and use as required.

Note :
Add as much or as little chilli powder as you like.  It all depends how hot you like your curries.

Tips :
1. Grind spices are best used within 6 months.  Whole spices can be kept for years.

2. In Auckland, I get all my whole spices in the Indian shops. Much cheaper.

3. For the chilli powder, I buy whole dry stemless chillies (again at Indian shops), dry it in the sun, toast it lightly, grind in a coffee grinder and store in airtight containers.  This is to ensure my chilli power is pure chilli powder with no other additives.

Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce

The best chilli sauce ever. We now use this chilli sauce for dipping everything and anything from boiled mussels, bouncy beef balls, pork balls, chinese roast pork, salt and pepper squid to fried beehoon.


I am so glad to be able to cross out yet another type of processed food from my shopping list. Plus the price of a bottle of chilli sauce has really gone up. Must keep my eye out for a special on fresh chillies now so I can buy heaps to freeze.

As it is so quick and easy to make, I prefer to cook only a small quantity so that it doesn't need to 'hang out' in the fridge for too long. Even though I used my super hot chillies from the freezer, the finished product was not that hot at all. I can now use up my homegrown red hot chillis which have been residing in my freezer for years.

Makes about 75 ml

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Pininoa Tomato Sauce

Most tomato sauce recipes have a list of ingredients a mile long. Needless to say I was a bit sceptical when I saw this recipe with only five very basic ingredients. But I am game to try anything as I have tomatoes coming out of my ears.

Since the first pot, I have gone on to make 3 more batches. I love the shiny red colouring of this sauce. You can also add garlic, chilli or whatever you feel like to these base ingredients.


Makes about 750ml

Ingredients
2 kg ripe red tomatoes
400gm - 550gm sugar
½ Tbsp Salt
2 tsp ground Allspice
1½ - 2 cups vinegar

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Homemade Garam Masala

Ever since I bought a stale batch of garam masala, I have been grinding my own. As I do not use this particular spice very often, this lot will last me a few months.

Yield about 2 Tablespoon

Ingredients
1 Tbsp coriander seeds
½ Tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp (heap) cloves or 1½ tsp ground clove
1" cinnamon stick or ¼ tsp ground cinnamom
¼ tsp cardamon seeds

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Homemade Fresh Chilli Paste

Grinding a big batch of chillies is much easier than trying to grind 2 or 3 in a food processor. It is a pain with small quantities as the chillies only get flung to the side of the bowl.

I have frozen my batch of chilli paste and just snap pieces off when required. It defrost very quickly too.

Ingredients
500 gm fresh red chillis

Method
1. Wash, cut off the ends and remove most of the seeds with a teaspoon.



2. Put into a food processor and blend until fine. There is no need to add water or oil..

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Mint Sauce

I bought a small mint plant to make ice cream. Unfortunately the plant started developing rust so had to strip it of its leaves. Now I know why I don't have mint in my garden even though it is suppose to grow like weeds.

With a pile of non 'rusty' leaves I decided to try my hand at making mint sauce. Mint sauce and lamb is not my cup of tea but Mr Redneck like his with it. Didn't realise it was that easy to make. The sauce will keep for a few months in the fridge.

Ingredients
1 cup (45gm) mint
2 Tbsp water
1 cup malt vinegar
3½ Tbsp sugar

Method
1. Rinse the mint leaves and discard stalk.
2. Chop the leaves. I whizzed mine with the Amazing Bullet.
3. In a pot simmer the vinegar, water and sugar.
4. Add the chopped mint and remove from the heat.
5. Pour into sterilised bottles and keep in the fridge.

Homemade Red Curry Paste

I use to buy ready made red curry paste but by following this recipe have found it quite easy to make it yourself. Then you know that it is fresh and has not been sitting on a shelf in the shop for years. I have made this paste using easily available ingredients from my pantry and garden.



Yield : 4 Tablespoons

Ingredients
3 stalk fresh lemongrass (use the bottom white part only, slice thinly)
1 Tbsp galangal
5 clove garlic
2 tsp chilli paste
½ tsp shrimp paste (belacan)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
5 tsp red paprika

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Tahini with a mortar 'n pestle

I had more or less perfected the art of making tahini using my coffee grinder until one day the coffee grinder decided to go on strike and refused to work. What to do....I had everything ready to make hummus except the tahini.

I was so desperate I decided to try making it with the old fashion mortar and pestle. I was quite surprised as to how much easier and quicker it was than the coffee grinder method. It only took 5 minutes and the mortar was so much easier to clean than the coffee grinder.


Ingredients
2 Tbsp sesame seed
½ tsp sesame oil
¼ tsp sea salt
½ -1 Tbsp warm water

Method
1. Lightly toast sesame seeds in a small pot over a stove on low heat. This should not take more than 5 minutes. Leave to cool.

2. Grind (it is easier to grind. If you 'pound' the seeds will tend to fly all over the place) your sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle until smooth. Add in sesame oil and salt and mix till well blended.

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Homemade Tahini

Making tahini is easy provided you have the proper blender or grinder. Unless you are making a big quantity, you will need something small or the blade will just go round and round without touching the mix. I used my coffee grinder which worked a treat.

This recipe is double what is needed for my cumin and coriander hummus.


Ingredients
4 Tbsp sesame seed
1 tsp sesame oil
½ tsp sea salt
1-2 Tbsp warm water

Method
1. Lightly toast sesame seeds in a small pot over a stove on low heat. This should not take more than 5 minutes. Leave to cool.
2. Grind your sesame seeds in the coffee grinder until smooth. Add in sesame oil and salt and grind again.

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Homemade Tomato Sauce

I waited until I had a glut from my home grown tomatoes to make this tomato sauce. The last lot I made had lasted me the year. This tomato sauce is lovely with fish n chips, bbq sausages, meat patties, fish cakes etc.... It can also be cooked until thick enough to be used on pizza.


Makes 6 300ml jars

Ingredients
2kg tomato
600g apple, skin off
3 big onion

510g sugar
55g salt
300-350ml vinegar

10g clove
½ tsp black peppercorn
½ tsp whole all spice

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Frying of Sambal, Curry or Spice Paste

When I first started cooking curries, the frying of the paste 'until fragrant and oil separates from the paste ' was a puzzle. No matter how long I fried it, no oil appeared. So I had to resort to guess work as to when the paste is considered ready. One day I decided to try out the gas bbq wok burner to fry the paste and voila - oil did start coming out of the paste.

This is the sequence of frying the spice paste for my satay sauce.

grinded paste ready for frying


Pic 1. The paste is fried in 2 Tbsp of oil.
Pic 2. After a few minutes of frying, the oil is slowly absorbed.

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Beef & Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce

Satay is an all time favourite with almost anyone. I decided to experiment and create my own combination of marinade and satay sauce. It also gave Mr Redneck a chance to test out the new barbecue. Needless to say he was pleased with the performance of the bbq - it passed the satay test without burning the sticks or the satay! The satay and sauce were good and Mr Redneck said it was by far the best and most authentic satay sauce I have ever made and it tasted like those we had from Malaysia.

Don't let the long list of ingredients deter you. The tedious part in making satay is the stringing of the meat to the sticks but Mr Redneck does a wonderful job of this.

Makes 21 chicken & 31 beef satay

Ingredients
600 gm chicken breast
400 gm porterhouse beef

Marinade
1 Tbsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp ground fennel
1 tsp ground tumeric
3 stalks lemongrass, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp garlic flake or fresh garlic
1 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt

Method
1. Soak 50-60 satay skewers in cold water for at least 2 hours to prevent them from burning during grilling.

2. Cut the meat into small strips about 2" long and 3/4" wide.

3. Grind marinade ingredients until fine and mix with the meat to marinate overnight.

4. Thread 4-5 pieces of the meat onto the skewer.

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Sambal Har Mai ~ Spicy Dry Shrimp

I have fried this hae bee hiam as a filling for my savoury kok chai (puff). Any leftovers are delicious eaten as a side dish with rice or noodles. I sprinkled mine on top of our fried beehoon.

Ingredients

Grind together
2 medium red onions or 4 shallots
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp Baba chilli powder or 2 dried chilli
75 gm dried prawns, soaked to soften

1 tsp sugar
dash of pepper and soy sauce

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Sweet & Sour Fish

This sweet and sour sauce taste superb. It has just the right balance of sweet and sour and goes very well with fried fish or pork.


Ingredients for sweet sour sauce :
5 Tbsp tomato sauce
4 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp Chinese Rice Vinegar
1 white onion (sliced)
2 red tomatoes (quartered)
2 tsp Cornflour mixed with 4 tbsp of water

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