Tunisian parsley and egg tagine

Many visitors to [Paula Wolfert's] site are familiar with Moroccan tagines---stews of meat, poultry, or fish smothered with one or two vegetables or fruits, cooked in an earthenware dish with a conical cover.

Tunisian tagines are different.

So begins leading Mediterranean food writer Paula Wolfert's introduction to this exotic meal-in-one dish that shares virtually nothing in common with its namesake stews from neighbouring Morocco. While both may start with a rich stew, the Tunisian version takes it to a whole different place with a topping of parsley (in this case), egg and cheese that's baked into a frittata-like crust. So that's meat, beans, veggies and dairy--and a breadcrumb topping for good measure--all rolled into one. Different, indeed!

You could say I made this dish as an excuse for trying out the cinnamon and rose mix that is Tunisian baharat. I had some dried rosebuds (purchased from Ohtsuya in Ueno, Tokyo) that wanted using, so I whipped up a batch of 2 parts cinnamon, 2 parts rosebuds and 1 part black pepper. The original recipe calls for one part of each, but Paula's doesn't include pepper, so I cut back a little (g). Although Paula mentions rubbing the rosebuds through a sieve, I found this, and going at them with a mortar and pestle, virtually useless. My handy dandy new spice grinder made short work of it, though. The resulting blend was quite sweet smelling, so I was interested in how this would taste.

In the original recipe, Paula has us mixing the stew with the egg, parsley and cheese mixture and baking the whole thing as one, but I thought it would be nicer to have it in two layers. If you go that way, make sure to salt the stew, as all the seasoning is in the cheesy half otherwise.

And how did it taste? Well, I quite liked the egg and parsley topping, which fairly oozed cheese (in the best way, of course (g)), but would definitely recommend you use flat-leaf parsley rather than curly (which was all I could get on the day). I wasn't so fond of the baharat in this particular dish, or maybe it was just the cinnamon. (The mix is brilliant on stewed apples, though, pepper and all.) My dear Iranian friend Hw gave this the thumbs up, but the Young Man reckoned it tasted better cold for lunch the next day. So the results were mixed at this end.

I don't think I will do this particular version again, but I am intrigued enough to find out what else Tunisian cuisine has to offer, so I might get Paula's Mediterranean Cooking at some point, even if it means mucking about with pounds and ounces and other such things we metric people are illiterate about. That's basically the only reason I haven't bought her Couscous & Other Good Food From Morocco yet, though I suspect it is the seminal work on one of my favourite cuisines.

I've altered the recipe for metric and the pressure cooker and for layers. I also used beans I had cooked and frozen myself. You can refer back to the original recipe from the link above.

Tunisian baharat

2 tsp ground dried rosebuds
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Tunisian parsley and egg tagine

1 cup cooked white beans
400 g lean boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 1.5 cm cubes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup minced onion
2 tsp tomato paste
1/4 tsp cayenne
3 packed cups chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
30 g Parmesan cheese, grated (about 1/3 cup)
100 g Gruyere cheese, cubed (about 1 cup)
1/2 tsp Tunisian baharat (1 part ground dried rosebuds mixed with 1 part ground cinnamon)
6 large eggs
6 lemon wedges

1. Toss lamb with salt and pepper.

2. Heat 1 1/4 tbsp oil in a small pressure cooker. Cook the onion until translucent, add the meat, and saute for 5 minutes. Cover and cook over low heat until the meat gives off its moisture and reabsorbs it. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, until lamb cubes are well coated. Add cayenne and about 1 cup of water. Cover, bring to pressure and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes longer, or until the meat is fully cooked and the juices are thick. Stir in beans, check seasoning and remove from the heat and allow to cool. (Up to this point the dish can be made 1 day in advance. Return to room temperature before proceeding.)

3. Place the oven rack in the second highest position and preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

4. In a mixing bowl, combine 1/3 cup of the bread crumbs, grated Parmesan, and cubed Gruyere, mixing well. Season highly with salt, pepper, and sieved baharat. Beat the eggs to a froth and add to the mixture.

5. Use the remaining oil to coat the bottom and sides of a 5- or 6-cup (1-1.2 l) baking dish, or an attractive23 cm well-seasoned oven proof skillet. Layer the lamb on the bottom of the dish and cover with the prepared mixture, sprinkle with reserved bread crumbs and set in the oven to bake for 12 minutes. Raise the oven heat to the highest setting, remove the tagine from the oven, tilt the dish so that the oil collects in one place, then brush this oil over the surface of the tagine. Return the dish to the oven and bake for 8 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature from the dish. [S: Don't forget the lemons (g).]

Enjoy!

A Middle Eastern afternoon 2: Gulf prawn balls in tomato & tamarind sauce

I've never tried to hide the fact that I am a cook book junkie. My collection, which once was confined to the cupboard under the phone, is now threatening to take over my sleeping space. And it's not just cook books. I always print out interesting sounding recipes from my favourite foodie haunts there and then. I mean how would you ever find them again otherwise??! So I really have no right or reason to continue buying more cook books.

I would not have even considered buying the source of today's recipe, The Complete Middle East Cookbook by Tess Mallos had I not read a little note in a blog on Bahraini cooking that made me stop and reconsider. I mean, can any cook book on such a culturally and culinarily diverse region ever be "complete", and can someone with a name like Tess actually know what she's talking about?? But here was a Bahraini telling me to check this book out for a cuisine that somehow had fallen through the cracks in my ME cook book collection.

Well you could have blown me over with a feather when I found out that not only is Tess a fellow Aussie (of Greek descent in her case), she is one of the most respected authors in the Mediterranean food world! Bit of a wake up call, I can tell you!

The book is very wide in scope, with chapters for 19 countries/regions (the Gulf states and the Levant are each treated as one). You could quibble with Tess' choice of countries (for instance can we include Egypt but leave out Morocco? Justify Greece but not Israel/Palestine?), but weighing in at almost 400 pages even with these omissions, I can understand the author wanting to finish the book already and get it off to the press! (You can read her reasons for the countries selected in the book.)

My other minor niggle is that while the photos are nice, their styling looks very Western (and circa 1980s) to my eyes. And I'm not even sure the picture for Iran's national dish Ghormeh sabzi is that dried lime-infused stew--what happened to that murky, brackish look we all know and love?! Then again, I'm sure the color plates will be welcomed by those that like that sort of thing in a cook book. Me, I'd rather use not knowing what the food' s supposed to look like as an excuse for visiting the country and finding out myself (g).

That aside, the author has really done her homework, even sourcing spice blend and bread recipes for us. With primers on the food, ingredients and cooking methods/utensils of each country, there's plenty to read here, even without the hundreds of recipes, and the book is as much at home by the bedside (for lusting over at bedtime, of course) as in the kitchen.

So to our first foray into the Tess Mallos' world of Middle Eastern cooking...

As I said, I was looking for some Gulf cooking ideas. What joy, then, to find out that Gulf cooking has some favourite ingredients, like dried limes (loomi in the Gulf, limu Omani in Iran, and noomi in Iraq), tamarind and copious amounts of seafood (think: location, location, location). This recipe for prawn balls has all three and immediately caught my eye. The girls agreed and this became the basis for a fun day of cooking, eating and belly dancing (to work it all off again (g)).

And our findings? The sauce the prawn balls are cooked in is absolutely to die for! It will go well with lots of other seafood concoctions and braised vegetables. The prawn balls I thought maybe needed a little tweaking. Perhaps a little less ground rice, or maybe a change of spicing. Or maybe I should have used the more expensive prawns (!). Then again, I may be being a bit hard on the recipe as the girls were happy with them and jumped on the opportunity to take some home for later (g).

I served this with some lovely Bahraini rice perfumed with rosewater, saffron and cardamom that the girls could not stop raving about. It's known as pearl divers' rice, and reading Tess' notes on its history, I realized with a start that she was talking about male pearl divers. In Japan it is women who have traditionally dived for pearls and I'd not considered any other possibility! Another cultural blind spot bites the dust thanks to a cook book.

(There are more pictures and commentary (in Japanese) on our exploration of Gulf cooking, Oriental dance and Persian poets here.)

And without further ado, the recipe.

Tess provides a baharat (spice) blend, but I mixed up my own based on this recipe. You should do this before you start anything else. This is a lovely blend that has a real citrus tang from the dried lime. It is well worth seeking this out if you are interested in any of the three cuisines mentioned above. Claudia Roden even suggests that you can make your own by drying out limes or lemons on a radiator until they turn dark and sound hollow when tapped. In the Middle East, of course, they are left to dry naturally on the tree (g).

Kebsa spice mix (Gulf baharat)

1 tbsp red pepper
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp loomi (powdered dried lime)
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp saffron threads (crushed in a mortar and pestle)

Chebeh Rubyan (Gulf prawn balls in tomato & tamarind)

For 4-6

1 kg uncooked prawns
1/4 cup coriander leaves
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground loomi (dried lime)
2/4 cup ground rice
1 tsp salt

Filling
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp Gulf baharat
1/2 tsp ground loomi (dried lime)

Tamarind sauce
2 tbsp tamarind paste
2 cups warm water
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp oil
1 large tomato, chopped (and peeled if you insist)
1 tsp Gulf baharat
1/4 --1/2 hot chilli pepper
salt
2 tsp sugar

coriander sprigs to garnish

1 Shell and devein prawns, rinse and dry well. Mix prawns with coriander leaves and process to a paste in food processor.

2. Combine prawn mixture with turmeric, loomi and ground rice. Add salt and mix well by band until thoroughly blended. Cover and refrigerate until required.

3. In a pan gently fry onion in oil until transparent, stir in Gulf baharat and loomi. Remove from heat and set aside.

4. In a large, wide-based pot or tall-sided frying pan gently fry small chopped onion in oil until transparent. Add water and tamarind paste, tomato, spices, salt to taste and sugar. Cover and gently simmer for 15-20 min.

6. While sauce is simmering, make chebeh. Take about 1 tbsp of prawn paste and flatten in moistened palm. Place 1 tsp of onion filling in the center and close up, shaping into a ball. Keep hands moist during shaping. Repeat until ingredients are used.

7. Drop completed chebeh into simmering sauce. Cover and simmer gently for 35-40 min. Chebeh will swell during cooking. Serve hot with sweet rice scented with saffron, cardamom and rose water.

Enjoy!

Fish tagine

Now here's a recipe almost custom-made for Saffron and Lemons. It is a quick and easy Moroccan-inspired fish stew containing two of my favourite ingredients (g), and it is just perfect for a weeknight.

The original recipe comes from a cookbook that by all rights should not even be in my collection (as I am holding off buying cookbooks for a while (g)), but one that I could not resist as it was on sale at 50% of its already half-price tag. Who could pass that up...?

It's a Marie Claire title, Kitchen, that has lots of takes on the classics, as well as some mouthwatering-looking creative ideas (that, if nothing else, will certainly provide food photography inspiration). The Marie Claire cookbooks had escaped my notice until a while ago (I try to stay out of the cookbook section, for obvious reasons (g)). But I was impressed by a new one spied at Yurindo earlier this year. It also turns out that Donna Hay published a couple of MC titles when she was their food editor. Anyway, it's good stuff, and interesting to see that the author of this title, Michele Cranston, is another Aussie. (I don't think this is surprising, though, as food is serious business in Oz, and the population composition makes exotic ingredients just another part of the culinary wallpaper. It makes for some fabulous fusions.)

I was so impressed, I think I'll make up this week's menus from Kitchen as well.

As always, I have done a bit of fiddling with the recipe. I do the saffron the Middle Eastern way, and I added a tsp of the tagine spice mix from a little while ago. I think it adds a little something. Anyway, I loved this, and next time will give it a burl with chicken as well.

Fish tagine

4 tbsp olive oil
1 large red onion, roughly chopped
10 saffron threads, ground in mortar with a little salt and dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tagine spice mix
4 large potatoes, sliced into thick medallions or cut into bite-sized chunks
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
400 g tin chopped tomatoes
1 small cinnamon stick
600 g fish fillets, cut into 4 cm chunks
1 handful flat-leaf parsley [S: or celery leaves as I did]
2 tbsp finely chopped preserved lemon

Serves 4

Heat the olive oil in a deep-based frying pan or flame-proof casserole over medium heat. Add the onion, cumin and tagine spice mix and cook until the onion is soft and caramelized. Add the potato, celery, tomatoes, cinnamon and 250 ml water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. When the potato is soft, season the fish fillets with sea salt and add them to the stew with the saffron water. Simmer for a further 10 minutes, then season with freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with the parsley or celery leaves and preserved lemons.


Tagine spice mix (source: love to cook)

2 tbsp paprika
2 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground green cardamom

Enjoy!

Birthday cook-up round up 2: Doro wat & injera

Photo courtesy of Lea at Aloha Mahalo.

A few years ago, the YM and I went to an African Fair organized by JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization. It was a great event, a sort of trade fair cum tourist promotion cum concert cum fashion show. While we were doing the rounds, we bumped into one of the YM's classmates and her guardian and decided to have lunch together.

There were at least 20 food stalls, so the hardest thing was deciding what to eat! In the end I went for doro wat, the Ethiopian chicken stew, with injera--an Ethiopian "bread"-- rather than rice. As I remember it, the first taste of the stew nearly brought tears to my eyes it was so hot, but deeply flavourful and slightly tart, too. The injera, which looked and tasted to me more like a buckwheat (as in Japanese soba noodles) pancake than a bread, was a sharply lemony revelation. Right up my alley! By now, you probably know me well enough to know I wasn't going to sit still until I had tracked down the recipe.

I immediately ordered The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent from Amazon, but was disappointed that it did not have a recipe for doro wat. So the Ethiopian project got put on the back burner for a while.

However, some culinary Googling got me a recipe for injera, which in Ethiopia, it seems, takes the place of your table cloth and plate, with whatever dishes you may be having served right on top. I chose this recipe because it has lemon in it, and there is no way you could get the sour taste that really got my tastebuds going without it, I think, even though it is not in the authentic version, apparently.

A recipe for doro wat was not far behind, at an amazing Net resource for all things culinary from the African continent, The Congo Cookbook. I also found an adapted-for-Japan recipe on a site by a Japanese blogger who's even more of a gastro-explorer than me (!!), one Shin-san at Eline Saglik. If you can read Japanese, his food blog is a veritable treasure chest of recipes from virtually every corner of the world. I found his amazing site when looking for stockists (or another recipe) for berbere, the ubiquitous fire powder that gives Ethiopian cooking a kick. He has a recipe for the spice mix here.

Anyway, back to the injera. I know that it is customarily made with a flour called teff, but am not sure if the buckwheaty taste and colour of the version I tried at the African Fair was the result of substituting buckwheat flour for the teff, or whether this teff does actually taste like buckwheat. But given that the YM and I recently took a little trip to a hot spring in Nagano, Japan's buckwheat central, I naturally had to have some fresh buckwheat flour in my first go at injera. The type I bought, however, was white, which resulted in snowy white injera, rather than grey, but they did have a lovely springy texture that you wouldn't get from a regular pancake batter.

I only used the juice of 1 lemon, which was enough to brush one side of each injera with, but I will be brushing both sides next time.

I used the recipe for berbere in The Congo Cookbook. It calls for a "cupboard-full of herbs and spices". With two cupboards, a countertop and a drawer full, I didn't need to buy anything new, but I know not everyone is such a spice junkie, so do check the recipe before you start cooking, just in case (g). I used 1 tsp of cayenne and 4 tbsp of paprika in my mixture, which gave a mild and less red version than that of my first taste, but with Young People in attendance, I didn't want it too hot. As always, I had cayenne on the table for anyone who wanted to spice things up some more (mainly me (g)).

I didn't manage to take any good photos of the doro wat, but my good friend Lea did and put it up on her blog here. It's the second photo. The injera was reheating in the microwave at the time, but I'm sure you can imagine a white "holey" (from the addition of soda water in addition to baking powder!) pancake without too much effort (g).

Doro wat

One of the best-known of all African recipes, Doro Wat (Doro Watt, Doro Wot, Doro Wet, Doro We't, Dorowat) is a spicy Ethiopian chicken dish made with Berbere (a
spice mixture or spice paste) and Niter Kibbeg (or nit'ir qibe, a spicy clarified butter). Berberé and niter kibbeh, basic ingredients in many Ethiopian recipes, are usually made in large quantities and kept on hand for some time. No doubt using berberé and niter kibbeh gives a special quality to Doro Wat. But a very good result can be
obtained by adding the same spices directly to the Doro Wat, instead of indirectly in the berberé spice mix and niter kibbeh.

What you need

juice of one lemon
two teaspoons salt
one chicken (about 3 pounds), cleaned and cut into serving-size pieces...remove skin and score or pierce the meat with a knife to facilitate marinating
two (or more) onions, finely chopped
four tablespoons niter kebbeh (or butter)
four cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
one piece fresh ginger root -- cleaned, scraped, and chopped (about a teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon berberé -- or -- 1 - 2 tablespoons of a combination of cayenne pepper and paprika (if berberé and niter kebbeh are not used) [Saffron: I used 1 tsp of berbere, but will use more next time]
1 small tomato, chopped or a few tablespoons tomato paste or tomato sauce (optional)
1 cup chicken stock, water, or dry red wine
hard-boiled eggs (1 per person), pierced with a toothpick or the tine of a long fork.

What you do

In a glass bowl, combine the lemon juice (some cooks use lime juice), half the salt, and chicken pieces. Let chicken marinate for 30 minutes to an hour.

Cook the onions over medium heat for a few minutes in a dry (no oil) pot or dutch oven large enough to eventually hold all of the ingredients. Stir constantly to prevent them from browning or burning; reduce heat or remove the pot from the heat if necessary. (Some cooks add the niter kebbeh at the start, but dry-cooking the onions for a few minutes gives the dish a distinctive flavor. )

Add the niter kebbeh or butter to the onions, along with the garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cardamom, nutmeg, remaining salt, berberé (or cayenne pepper and paprika), and tomato. Stir and simmer for a few minutes. The onions should be soft, tender, and translucent, but not browned.

Add the chicken stock, water, or dry red wine. Bring the mixture to a low boil while
stirring gently. Cook for a few minutes, then reduce heat.

Add the chicken pieces, making sure to cover them with the sauce. Cover and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes --or until the chicken is done--turning the chicken a few times.
After the chicken has been cooking for 20 minutes, gently add the hard-boiled eggs and ladle sauce over them.

Serve hot. The only traditional way to serve doro wat is with a spongy flat bread called injera, which can only be properly made with difficult-to-obtain teff flour. While it's not the way Ethiopians would serve it, doro wat is very good with couscous, rice, or Middle-Eastern or Indian style flat bread.

The wine and tomato seem to be recent non-Ethiopian influences, but they are so widely used that they need to be reported here, even if their use is not traditional.

Berberé

Berberé (or Berbere) is an Ethiopian spice mixture that is the flavoring
foundation of Ethiopian cuisine, a basic ingredient in Dablo Kolo, }Doro Wat, and many other dishes.

Berberé is made from a cupboard-full of herbs and spices, fresh-ground, pan-roasted, and then packed into jars for storage. Among Ethiopian cooks there are many variations of which spices and what amounts. (In the recipe below, ingredients marked "optional" seem to be the least common.) Basic berberé is made by combining roughly equal amounts of allspice, cardamom, cloves, fenugreek, ginger, black pepper, and salt with a much larger amount of hot red (cayenne) pepper. The combination of fenugreek and red pepper is essential to berberé; while one or two of the other ingredients may be left out, the fenugreek and red pepper are must-haves. Milder berberé can be made by substituting paprika for some or most of the red pepper. Berberé is sometimes made as a dry spice mix, and is sometimes made with oil or water to form a paste.

What you need
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
4 to 6 tablespoons of a combination of ground cayenne pepper (red pepper, dried chile peppers, or red pepper flakes) and paprika
1 tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon ginger, fresh (peeled and grated) or dried (ground) use dried ground ginger if making dry berberé
2 tablespoons finely chopped onions or shallots, omit if making dry berberé (optional) 1 teaspoon minced garlic, omit or use dried garlic if making dry berberé (optional)
1/4 cup oil, water, or red wine (omit if making dry berberé)

What you do

In a heavy skillet over medium heat, toast the dried spices for a few minutes -- stirring or shaking the skillet continuously to avoid scorching. Remove from heat and allow to cool. If making dry berberé powder: grind the mixture in a spice grinder or blender, or use a mortar and pestle. Store the berberé powder in a tightly-sealed container.

If making berberé paste: combine the toasted spices with the fresh ginger, onions or shallots, garlic, and oil (water, or wine). Grind together in a blender or with a mortar and pestle. Store the berberé paste in a tightly-sealed container.

Starting with whole spices, the various nuts and seeds and dried red chile peppers, then pan-roasting, grinding and mixing them will produce the most authentic berberé. However, perfectly satisfactory results can be obtained using already-ground or powdered spices.

Injera

Quick Injera (Ethiopian crepe)
Yield: 6-8 each

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose [S: plain] flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour [S: or buckwheat flour or teff, if you can find it]
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2-2 1/2 cups club soda
2 lemons, juice only

METHOD
Mix all dry ingredients together well. Stir in club soda and mix to a smooth batter. Should have the thin consistency of a pancake batter.

Heat a large cast-iron skillet over a medium-low flame. Wipe with a paper towel soaked in a little oil. Pour about 1/2 cup of the batter at a time into the skillet and spread with a spatula to make as large a crepe as possible. Let bake in the skillet till all bubbles on the top burst and begin to dry out, about 2-3 minutes.

Carefully turn the injera and bake on second side another minute or two. Try not to brown. Remove the injera to a warm platter and repeat with the rest of the batter,
wiping the skillet clean with the paper towel each time.

After the batter is used up, brush each injera all over with the lemon juice. Serve immediately, or hold covered in a warm oven.

VARIATIONS
You can substitute buckwheat flour for the whole wheat flour if you like. Or you can just use all white flour. If you can find teff flour at a health food store, by all means use it.
NOTES
This recipe approximates the true injera, which is made from a
fermented sourdough. Most recipes don't call for the lemon juice, but I find it
necessary to supply the essential sour flavor that injera adds to a meal.

Enjoy!

The spice of life!

Some time back, I was asking my dear Turkish friend Se about a Turkish spice blend whose name translates as "hot spices". She hadn't heard of it then (Turkish cuisine varying significantly from area to area), but recently got back to me to say that a friend of hers had, and had just brought some of that very mix back from Turkey. Better still, she would even give me some! Wahoo. I can't wait to try it in some kofte that I am planning to make soon.

I have been collecting herb and spice blend recipes found on the Net for a couple of years. Mainly because I can't let a tasty-sounding mix I come across in a recipe go un-researched, and also because I regularly use 2 US cookbooks--Saving Dinner and Saving Dinner the Low-Carb Way--to make up my weekday menus. Both of these contain lots of herb and spice mixes that I may only use once or twice a year; not enough to warrant buying a bottle (assuming I can find one), particularly when I have just about all of the required herbs and spices loose in two cupboards, a drawer and on the counter top--the places a foodie must stash her spices when she has a kitchen the size of a shoe box (g).

So, to keep all these recipes together and allow me to declutter the little bits of paper I have them scribbled down on, I am retyping them here so that others can also enjoy them as much as I have. Naturally, I tip my cap to the kind people who shared them on the Net to begin with.

Taco seasoning mix
1 tbsp mild chili powder (reduce amount if using cayenne; perhaps a couple of shakes)
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp each cumin, garlic powder, paprika, oregano and sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Italian herb mix
2 tsp each basil, marjoram and oregano
1 tsp sage

Mixed spice (this seems to be a Commonwealth mix as it is almost unheard of in the US, apparently)

1/2 tbsp each allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg
1 tsp mace
1/2 tsp each cloves, coriander and ginger

Cajun seasoning mix
3/4 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbsp sweet paprika
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp each onion powder, garlic powder and ground red pepper
3/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano

Non-hot curry powder (a de-fanged mix; you'll probably need to use more of this than regular curry powder)

3 tbsp sweet paprika
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp each ginger, turmeric and coriander
1/2 tsp each cardamom and garlic powder

Fragrant sweet spices (excellent in porridge and sweet things in place of cinnamon)

1 1/2 tsp coriander
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp each poppy seeds, cloves, cardamom and rose petals (rose petals are not essential, but if you have them, put in as much as you like; they're very subtle)

Middle Eastern 7-spice (also known as sabah baharat; interestingly, this recipe has 8 ingredients)

1 tbsp each ground black pepper, paprika and cumin
1/2 tbsp each coriander and ground cloves
1/2 tsp each nutmeg and cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom

Tagine spice blend (I haven' t tried this Moroccan blend, but it sounds delish. It comes from what looks like an authority on spices, from a recipe that is begging to be tried--if parsnips ever show up in downtown Yokohama (g))

2 tbsp paprika
2 1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp each cinnamon and chili powder
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp each ground cloves and cardamom

Turkish baharat (from an excellent online spice resource. You'll also find the kofte recipe I'm going to use to test-run my new "hot spices" in on this site)

2 tbsp each ground black pepper and cumin
1 tbsp each coriander, ground mint and cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cardamom
Pinch of cinnamon

Spice it up and enjoy!

Saffron's recipe of 2007: Keema aloo

Sometimes you really hit the jackpot with a recipe, and just can't get it out of your head. This is one of those for me. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was my taste sensation of 2007.

I found it in the Guardian, a favourite haunt for new cooking ideas. The article that accompanies it is not bad either, so definitely do go and take a look.

The recipe is a Pakistani take on mince and tatties, only far more exciting (g). I cooked it for parties, impromptu engagement celebrations and other occasions throughout 2007, and even took a jar of the spices with me to Turkey to make it for my kind hosts in Konya and Istanbul. I made it there with lamb and with beef, and in Japan with chicken and with the beef/pork mix that is the standard mince here. In all cases, plates have been cleared and (importantly (g)) I am far from tiring of it.

As an aside, my dear host U in Istanbul recognized the dish as similar to something in Turkish cuisine (with different spicing, obviously (g)). If you're reading, U, I'm sure we would all love to try the Turkish version if you have the recipe...

St Google gives up several recipes for tandoori masala powder. Many of them include red food colouring. This one doesn't, and is pretty fabulous. In Japan, you can get amchoor/amchur/dried mango powder (a souring agent) from Ohtsuya in Ameyoko in Ueno (near to Okachimachi Stn). If you can't get it, use extra lemon instead.

I find that no oil is necessary in this, but go ahead if you feel it needs it.

Rasool Bibi's family recipe: Keema aloo

Try eating Keema aloo with chapatis or pitta bread, with a few drops of lemon juice squeezed on top.

Serves 4

455g lamb mince
4-6 green and red chillies
1 medium sized onion
4 medium sized tomatoes
3-4 medium sized potatoes
a handful of coriander
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs chilli powder
1 tbs tandoori masala powder
1 tsp crushed ginger
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 lemon

Chop the tomatoes, onions and chillies and put into a pot with a few drops of olive oil.
Stir over a medium heat for a few minutes.

Add the spices and a few tablespoons of olive oil and heat for around five minutes. Add the mince and a splash more olive oil and stir until the mince looks uniformly cooked.

Meanwhile peel and slice the potatoes and add to the mince.

Finely chop the coriander and add to the pot. Place a lid on top and allow the potatoes to cook right through.

Serve with yoghurt or raita.

Tandoori masala powder

4 tsp ground coriander
3 tsp ground cumin
4 tsp garlic powder
4 tsp paprika
3 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp mango powder (amchoor)
1 tsp dried mint
1 tsp chilli powder (optional; I tend to add the heat in the pot or at the table)

Mix and store until needed in an airtight container.

Enjoy!