Mango and Avocado Salsa

This recipe for me was a really fun one! Just look at the vibrancy and the great mix of colours in that bowl – this mango and avocado salsa just screams joy, fun and laughter. But then again for me, so does Mexican food in general.

In this country most people’s first experiences of Mexican food come in the form of an Old El Paso fajita kit, (or perhaps these days it’s a Discovery pack or your Supermarket’s own brand version...)

When I was growing up Mexican food was really just starting to take off in this country. Old El Paso was seen as a real treat. It was exciting, fun, and all the family could get involved by building their own fajita/taco etc.

We still buy these kits every now and then and ‘fajita night’ is a much loved night in my house. It’s all about getting stuck in, getting a little bit messy and tailoring your food to your mood. Some day’s I’m feeling extra spicy and add mounds of jalapenos. Other day’s I want something creamy and velvety and pile on the sour cream and refried beans.

While there’s nothing wrong with using these kits. It’s really easy to do your own Mexican food at home – without taking these little short cuts. In my second year at university, some friends and I decided to do a “Come Dine with Me” style cooking competition. The idea was that we were all skint and wanted some cheap indoor entertainment. I decided that I wanted to do a Mexican Night. I had a bottle of margarita mix left over from god knows when, and the essential like a pack of chicken, wraps and sour cream could all be brought pretty cheaply. As it was a cookery competition I decided to steer away from the packet mixes and spent hours analysing the back of “fajita spice” packets before raiding my own spice cupboard to come up with my own personalised fajita spice blend.

That spice blend saw me win our little competition (though no prizes unfortunately) and set me up for fajita nights to come!

If you don’t feel like going to the extreme of developing your own spice blend, I don’t blame you! BUT there are other ways you can jazz up a Mexican meal without resorting to packets.

Take the jars of salsa for example. Travel to Mexico and I promise you the slop we buy in a jar that seeps a greyish-red liquid is NOT salsa. In fact they have hundreds of different salsas...none of which look like that!

SO, I propose you make your own salsa to serve alongside tacos, fajitas, enchiladas, or even just a delicious bit of steak as I did here. (But that’s for another day!)

I think the key to making a good salsa is to go for the key colour groups – green, red and yellow.

For example -

Green: coriander (cilantro), lime, avocado, green pepper, jalapenos

Red: tomatoes (fresh not tinned/canned), red pepper, red onion, watermelon, grapefruit, chilli peppers

Yellow: yellow pepper, sweetcorn, lemon, mango

You can mix and match any of these ingredients to make a fab Mexican inspired salsa! One thing I must say, when choosing ingredients from the colour groups above; don’t be afraid to add in fruit. The juice of lemons and limes is an obvious choice to give the salsa a bit of zing, but chunks of watermelon, grapefruit and mango all bring another flavour dimension and texture to the salsa.

I think this salsa works well for that exact reason. Not only does it include fresh mango, but also avocado which adds a creamy texture to the salsa and balances out the sharp lime juice.

Lamb Rogan Josh

Indian is by far one of my favourite cuisines and I know I’m not alone! The Indian often gives Chinese a run for its money in the country’s favourite take-away food.

When I was younger I didn’t ever eat Indian food. We’ve always been the kind of family that orders a takeaway for special occasions (like birthdays) or evenings where the routines gone out of the window (like parents evening for example). BUT the Indian takeaway leaflets were always left in the drawer until Mum and Dad were home alone.

I remember trying my first piece of Chicken Tikka. I had never tasted anything like it before! It was so new and different that I genuinely couldn’t tell if I liked it or not. I wanted to try more, but I was scared that my parents would order me a dish and I wouldn’t be able to finish it. After all, trying one piece of Chicken Tikka isn’t quite the same as sitting down to a plate of keema naan, pilau rice and a creamy curry.

It turns out my sister HATED her taste so that was that...I never really got a chance to try curry again properly until I was in my early teens. To this day I maintain I fell in love with Jon (AND cooking) because he cooked the best curries! Ok...we both know they were out of a jar, but I had never had a homemade curry until I started going for dinner at Jon’s house. They were always vegetarian (sometimes which extra quorn pieces) and served with fluffy basmati rice. That was it...I was hooked!

When I passed this news on to my parents it was decided we’d start ordering Indian take-aways as a family. No more Dominoes or Chinese. The Indian was king. By this point my sister was always round her boyfriends, so once a month on a Saturday night, I started working my way through the local curry house's menu.

As it turns out, I like ALL types of curries – from creamy Kormas and butter chickens, to spicy Jalfrezis. I also love garlic naans, peshwari naans, keema naans, chapattis, parathas, pilau rice, lemon rice...basically there isn’t ONE thing on the menu I don’t like. Sometimes I’ll order lamb, sometimes chicken, sometime prawn and sometimes veggie. No curry is off limits.

Despite saying this, one curry has had a special place in my heart all these years. The Rogan Josh.

I don’t actually remember when this became my “go-to” curry but if we were ordering in a hurry or weren’t ordering a giant Indian feast, I’d simply order a Rogan Josh. I loved the rich sauce with tomatoes and green peppers mopped up with a keema naan – to me it was heaven!

Until my post on a Low Fat Chicken Korma I hadn’t tried recreating my take-away favourites at home. I have no friends or family from India who could teach me all their secrets, and I just can’t justify using ghee in my home cooking (I swear I would weigh a tonne overnight!) So I’ve always steered clear.

But, in my pursuit of delicious tasting healthy foods I decided it was time I tried to crack the Rogan Josh.

Rogan Josh is the signature dish of the Kashmir region and is traditionally cooked with lamb. The sauce or gravy is based on browned onions yoghurt, garlic, ginger and spices such as cloves, bay leaves, cardamom and cinnamon all of which you'll find in my recipe. The red colour of the sauce traditionally comes from dried Kashmiri chilies. These can be replaced by paprika which has a similar flavour - again you'll find this in my recipe below. It is not a really hot dish, but instead should be fragrant with a slight chilli heat rather than a kick.

Indian take-aways in countries such as England also include the addition of tomatoes. This gives it a less traditional flavour but also helps bring out the red colour found in the Kashmiri dish.

My recipe falls somewhere in between the two. It has the tomatoes and green peppers that I know so well from my local take-away, but the spices used are very traditional. I’ve also cut down on much of the oil needed to cook the lamb and baked it in the oven for a tender texture so it’s not as unhealthy for you as the take-away variety.

If you have never tried cooking “take-away style” curries at home before, this is a great recipe to start with! You will get a smoother gravy or sauce if you have a blender to hand but it’s not essential, and this can be served with rice or traditional breads.

Here’s the recipe:

Spiced Cranberry Chutney

An extra large jar of Spiced Cranberry Chutney
ready for some cheese!

This is my second venture into the Christmas kitchen this year and yet again it involves a couple of jars!
I’ve been thinking about “dabbling” in preserves since the summer. In the past we’ve ended up with a huge glut of fruit and I was looking forward to attempting to make jam for the first time. But, summer came and went, and in true British style the weather was disappointing. We had hardly any raspberries on our canes this year so my new jam thermometer never got a look in.

But, as we get ever closer to Christmas, I’ve begun to find festive uses for the jam jars I have collected.

First I attempted my own mincemeat perfect for mince pies and other festive favourites. The recipe was super simple, and I managed to get an airtight seal! Woo hoo! Not too bad for a first attempt.

This time I thought I’d try something a little bit different.

At Christmas my family gets through an UNHOLY amount of Cheese; cheeses of all kinds, from soft to smelly, sheep to goat. Last year my Dad’s present from my sister and I was actually a Cheese hamper complete with 5 types of cheese 2 chutneys and a plumb bread. You can buy these hampers from farmers markets and supermarkets alike but I started to think...how hard can it REALLY be to make chutney?! As it turns out, it’s not very hard at all.

When coming up for the flavour combination, I wanted something that didn’t just go well with cheese, but something that well and truly said CHRISTMAS! So my starting point was cranberries. As I searched the internet for basic cranberry chutney I was a bit concerned about how I would actually find fresh cranberries. Turns out...that’s also pretty damn easy! Who would’ve thought they can found in the fresh fruit isle of Sainsbury’s in a plastic bag by the nuts.

Well that was the first hurdle overcome. Next I had to decide what else I would but in the chutney. For a truly festive flavour it had to be cinnamon, nutmeg and a touch of ginger. This combined with the basic chutney mix (the fruit, red wine vinegar, a little onion) seemed like a good place to start, but I didn’t want to play it too safe. So, to give the chutney an extra kick, you can also find a red chilli in the ingredients list. This works really well to give the chutney a bit of excitement without drowning out the mellow Christmas spices.

Freshers Foodie Tip #3 - Store cupboard essentials

One of the most important bits of advice is, on your first big shop it to stock up on the basics!

If you’re lucky enough to convince your rents to do your first big shop at uni (and even if you aren't), DON’T just put alcohol in the trolley (although essential), also make sure you do some bulk buying of store cupboard essentials, that way they’ll be in the back of your cupboard for the rest of term and it works out much cheaper in the long run!