h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I bought a small packet a few weeks ago but, for the life of me, I can't remember what I intended to do with it I've made a recipe that required it and the only think I can think of that might is bhajis, or some kind of Indian cooking

Popadums!

Mix chickpea flour with a little water and salt, roll into a stiff dough, cut into very thin rounds and fry in an inch of oil or so.

Failing that, mix 50/50 with garam masala, roll paneer cubes in it, and fry until crispy before using in curry of your choice (or, like me, just eat the crispy cubes dunked in chilli sauce).

Samosas!

It makes a lovely smooth houmous instead of mashing whole chickpeas. Just mix with a small amount of boiling water and mix quickly before adding rest of ingredients.

Fab as a thickener if you have no cornflour. Also good for naan bread, parathas, pooris and most other Indian type breads or can be used as a substitute for wheatflour in making 'normal' bread.

Mix 50/50 with soy or teryaki sauce with a bit of chilli & 5 spice added to make a thin paste, marinate some really thin strips of beef, pork etc for an hour and then wok them really quickly on a high heat and a lot of oil for about a minute before draining on kitchen roll. Great crispy fried beef/pork for adding to stir fries etc

you lot always seem to know the answers... I'm still trying to figure out why I've bought such a giant tub of greek yogart and a bag of hazlenuts mmm, samosas
Isn't is used for making chapatti bread as well? Probably naam.... and... what the other people said

Not too sure about the hazlenuts but use the greek yoghurt to make a curry sauce to go with the naan breads that you used the chickpea flour & the rest of the yoghurt in!

Whizz up half an onion, a couple of garlic cloves and a half inch of fresh ginger to make a paste. I use a hand blender. Fry that in some olive oil for 5 mins and then add a decent sized chopped chicken breast and the other half of the onion chopped in chunks. Add in a chopped fresh tomato, half a green pepper, a half of a sliced chilli and a half teaspoon of turmeric. When the chicken is browned, add in 3 tablespoons greek yoghurt and mix til it disappears. Leave covered on a low heat for 5 mins then add in another chopped tomato, a handful of fresh coriander and a teaspoon of garam masala. Stir and leave for another 5 mins or til chicken is cooked through. The simplest, freshest tasting curry in the world that is done in 20 mins! That'll do 2 wih rice and naan or one big appetite and is so easy to double/treble up on for guests.

I live & swear by my Madhur Jaffrey Curry Bible!

You know...I think your right... that probably was the kind of thing I must have been thinking about... might also explain the lentals that appeared with teh grocerys this week... now... any idea how long a yogart keeps in a fridge? it arrived monday and hasn't been opened yet... But I don't know much about em...

If it's a strained greek yoghurt and arrived on Monday - you've got a good fortnight left in it. I have the leakiest, warmest, 20 yr old fridge and greek yoghurt lasts at least a month in there. I've cooked some lentils in some chicken stock before and put them in that curry above and it is lovely.

I do love to experiment with a random ingredient every week when cooking. This week I'm doing fennel - not something I ever ate as a kid but I'm loving it these days. Fennel & onion stuffed pork loin for dinner tonight!

Popadums.... that sounds very likely and kinda rings a bell. The weather here's still a little on the warm side so I'm not inclined to make a curry just yet, but give it another couple of weeks and I think I'll be dusting off the Dutch oven

I've never made samosas. Are they deep fried?

I've been making hummus throughout the summer once or twice a week. I use a big old bar blender that I got from the local restaurant supply store. Reduces a tin of chickpeas to subatomic components before you can say 'O chrónos eínai mia pseudaísthisi. Mesimeri diplá étsi.'

Gosho, that curry I mentioned above is fab even in hot weather - I only do stewy type curries in the winter as it's so hot here too, that one is really fresh and light with the yoghurt.

We are due our first thunderstorm of the year tomorrow though - it's gonna drop below 30 deg C for the first time since March - I may need to dust off the slow cooker soon!

In that case I might have a crack at it I've already got most of the ingredients in and I was planning on going shopping tomorrow anyway. Does it have to be Greek yoghurt btw? I have some really tasty Bulgarian-style

I only use Greek cos I live in Cyprus and that's all I can get - but any kind of vaguely strained would do, I reckon. I think Madhur just says natural yoghurt in her recipe (this is the closest I could find online to the recipe in the book http://www.foodari.co.uk/Recipes/Sarah%20Scott/Kadhai-Chicken?BackToListUrl=%2fRecipes%2fDefault.aspx%3fSearchText%3dgaram%2520masala%26From%3d10%26To%3d20 ) They've tweaked it a bit but it's similar.

We are just now getting some Bulgarian cheeses and yoghurts available here too and I'm liking a lot of their tastes. I got some Bulgarian chilli sausage last week that was gorgeous in a jambalaya type thing.

I wouldn't ever say I'm a great cook but moving here has been a huge learning experience - you just can't get any form of pre-packed or ready meal, not even a ready chopped salad bag! - but they do have some of the loveliest fresh ingredients so I've had to go back to basics and learn make my own stock, sauces, salads, soups etc from ingredients straight from the field. We eat a lot more fresh and healthy stuff, even if it takes a lot more planning and preparation but it is way more tasty than the same old things I used to make.

I now love cooking rather than it being a chore.

I live in the land of convenience food and convenience shopping, but I rarely use either one. I'm too used to buying fruit and veg from the greengrocer, meat from the butcher, bread from the baker etc, so although I get all those things from the supermarket, that is exactly what I buy. I almost never buy any pre-packaged food, unless you count things like Heinz beans, and I do buy things like bottles of tomato purée. And the occasional pack of McVitie's

But my weekly food haul consists mostly of fresh fruit and veg, meat, flour, milk, cheese... you get the idea.

Oh, and lots of beer

you could make a backpack IED and blow up a mode of public transport, extolling the virtues of your chosen deity?????

Well I think I'll make that curry tonight as yet not decided weather I'll cook some lentil up to go in with it as well, and if I can muster the energy I may make naan too to go with it I'll only modify the recipie slightly, probably one green adn one red chilli (don't have any ordinary peppers in...), and I might use a bit more onion but that is probably becasue the ones I've got this week are so damn small, probably use two of them... and I've some small cherry toamtos which can go in instead of a large tomato sliced... Probably put plenty of the fresh corianda in as I'll probably want to start using that up fairly soon and I like the flavour anyhow hmmm... may add half a TSP ground cumin too as there arn't many spicey dishes I don't put cumin in

I just happened to watch the first episode of River Cottage Every Day last night, and one of the recipes was a baked chicken curry
http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/baked-chicken-curry-recipe_p_1.html