Butter Chicken with Paratha

I used a bottled sauce for the butter chicken and made the paratha from this recipe. Easy peasy!

Paratha

1.5 cup plain flour

20g butter

100ml milk

1/4 tsp salt

Melt the butter than add flour and salt. Add most of the milk to form a dough and knead for 3 minutes. Rest for 30 to 120 minutes under cling film. Cut the dough into quarters and roll each quarter to 2-3 mm thickness with a rolling pin. Fry in a non-stick frypan with peanut oil for 2-3 miinutes each side. Serve with curry

Cinnamon Scrolls

I used to be quite overwhelmed at the ideal of baking with yeast but I've had a bit of a play and I'm quite enjoying it. I think it's quite magical really. I would love to do it more, but I'm frankly not quite organised enough to fit in 2-3 hours of proving into my schedule. Anyway, in honour of the arrival of my dear relatives from Sydney I baked some cinnamon buns. This is the recipe:

Cinnamon Buns (yields 12 big ones)
Recipe by (you guessed it) Annabel Langbein:

Melt ½ cup butter in a saucepan then turn off the heat. Add 2 cups of milk and wait until the mixture is blood warm then add 3 tsp of yeast and ¾ cup sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. In a large bowl mix 6 cups of plain flour with 1 tsp of salt. Add the liquid and knead for 30-40 strokes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Leave it to prove under a wet tea towel until double in size (took me 2-3 hours). Roll into a rectangle about ½ cm thick. Spread a layer of softened butter on top and sprinkle over a mixture of 1 tbsp cinnamon and 1/2 cup of sugar. Roll up and cut in 3 cm segments. Arrange into baking tray and let it rise for a bit (20 min) then bake for 10-12 min at 240 degrees C.

Rosemary and Sea Salt Foccacia

This is the foccacia bread I baked for appetisers for our weekly family dinner. I served it with olive oil and basalmic vinegar for dipping. Italian meatballs and egg pasta was served with a bolognese sauce for mains. Hmm carbs makes Suebie happy....

Foccacia Bread recipe
Place half a tablespoon of sugar and three quarters of a tablespoon of dry yeast in three quarters of a cup of blood warm water. Leave for 10 minutes to activate. Mix one and a half cups of plain flour with half a tablespoon of salt and create a well in the middle. Add yeast mixture to flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Knead for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Return dough to bowl and spray with olive oil then cover with cling film. Let it prove in a warm spot (ie oven that is on a very low setting eg 50 degrees) for at least an hour. Punch it down when it has doubled in size and knead it for another minute or so. Line a cooking tray with baking paper and form a foccacia shaped dough that is 1 cm thick. Let it prove for another 30 minutes. Push your fingers into the dough to create dimples and spray with olive oil again. Sprinkle on fresh rosemary and sea salt flakes. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius until the top is golden and sounds hollow when you tap it.

White Bread

A weekend treat for W. It was time consuming but worth the wait. There is nothing like slicing into a loaf of bread that is still steamy from the oven. Drool. The recipe is at Taste.com.