Butter Chicken

This recipe was given to us from Manjit´s mother and is really easy to make. I was always intimidated by attempting to create Indian Cuisine, thinking it to have some sort of mysterious and mystical process. Getting the balance of curry takes a bit of practice, but it is always tasty, regardless.

Ingredients:

700 - 900 grams chicken breast
4 cloves of garlic diced
1 large onion
sugar, optional
500 grams tomato sauce, you may or may not use the entire amount
salt
chili
garam masala*
oil
cream or coconut milk

Directions:

Cook Chicken in some oil until just cooked, no need to brown. Remove from pan.
Sauté the onions until golden, I add a little sugar and then add garlic, the curry, cumin, salt and chili to taste. Stirring well.
Add tomato sauce, depending on the amount of chicken and how saucy you want the butter chicken to be, I add the tomato sauce slowly, often checking the taste to suit our liking and not to over dilute the flavour. Simmer for 20 minutes or so, then add the chicken to the mixture and simmer for 10 minutes further. Add a little cream or coconut milk.
Serve with rice. I prefer Jasmine Rice.


* I use powdered Spicy Indian Curry and some extra cumin in place of Garam Masala due to the outrageous price of Garam Masala, here in Argentina.

Afterawhile and after doing some research I have been adding more spices to give the Butter Chicken a fuller flavour. Ground Coriander, Turmeric, Ground Ginger, Cinnamon, Pimenton. It is all very tasty, there is still something I can not quite figure out yet that is missing...

Peanut Butter aka Pasta de Mani

 

On the ex-pat living in Argentina sites, they are always whining about where to find Peanut Butter. Well you can find it here, it is called Pasta de Mani and you can get it with or without sugar. I purchase mine in Barrio Chino, it is a little less expensive than purchasing it in the Bonbonería (Candy store) around the corner from, which stocks the same brand. Most supermercados do not stock Pasta de Mani, but I hear you can find it at JUMBO. This peanut butter certainly isn´t like the typical kind like Skippy or Squirrel, which has a lot of other additives, it is more natural, made with just peanuts!

Peanut Sauce

My Peanut Sauce isn´t an exact science. Plop all the ingredients into a small pan on low flame. But stir in the water until you get the consistency you want. Voila Peanut Sauce. Excellent to top Cold Vietnamese Salads, Spring Rolls or whatever you fancy really. Mr.Tango will use it like regular peanut butter on bread.

Ingredients:

* 125 g pasta de mani-peanut butter
* 15 ml azucar-sugar
* 10 ml pasta de ajies picantes-chili paste
or aji-chili
* shake in some vinegre de arroz-rice vinegar
* agua-water
* sprinkle of sal-salt
* shake in some salsa de soja-soya sauce
* bit of grated ginimbre-ginger
* fresh ajo-garlic or dehydrated garlic...whatever

Directions:

Mix together ingredients in saucepan on low. Add water until you get desired consistancy of sauce. That´s it, that´s all!

Mr. Tango´s Crepe Recipe

Mr. Tango is a master at making crepes. You can use this recipe to make Canneloni, as a meal for breakfast or a dessert.


Para 10 unidades:

Ingredientes:

3 huevos grandes-large eggs
30 grs. de manteca-butter
1 y 3/4 tazas de leche-milk
1 taza de harina-flour
1 cucharada de té de sal-salt
1 cucharada de té de polvo de hornear-baking powder
4 cucharadas de azúcar-sugar

opcional pancakes:
1 taza de leche en polvo-powdered milk

Preparación:

Derretir la manteca y agregarla a los huevos. Batir para homogeneizar.
Disolver el azúcar con la leche entibiada. (Eventualmente agragar la taza de leche en polvo). Agregarla la leche a los huevos.
Espolvorear una cucharadita de polvo de hornear y otra de sal a la mezcla.
Continuar batiendo a la vez que se le agrega la harina, tamizándola con un colador.
Cocinar usando una panquequera tomando la mezcla con una medida de 1/4 de taza.

Maizena

Almidón de Maiz (Cornstarch in English) is known here in Argentina as Maizena. If you ask for Almidón de Maiz, it is possible they won´t even know what you are talking about. There seems to only be one brand that I am aware of and in the supermercados they keep it on the shelf with the cereals. Sometimes you will also find Maizena in the Farmacia.

Blueberry Ginger Ricotta Cheesecake

It was Mr. Tango´s birthday yesterday, so I modified The Sicilian Ricotta Cheesecake and used the left over Shortbread Cookie dough for a crust and added a Blueberry Ginger Topping.

Pre-bake the Shortbread cookie dough in the bottom of pan, just press it in covering the bottom, bake for about 10 or 15 minutes on low, until the crust turns to a light golden colour. You can do this the night before to save time.

Ginger Ricotta Cheesecake:
INGREDIENTS:

* 750 g ricotta cheese
* 120 g white sugar
* 30 g all-purpose flour
* 3 eggs
* 0.6 g grated ginger
* 4 g orange zest
* 10 ml vanilla extract
* 0.8 g salt (*oops i forgot to add)

DIRECTIONS:

1. **Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Set rack in the middle of the oven. Butter and flour a *6 1/2 inch springform pan, and ***tap out excess flour.
2. Place the ricotta in a large mixing bowl, and stir it as smooth as possible with a rubber spatula. Stir the sugar and flour together thoroughly into the ricotta. Stir in the eggs 1 at a time. Blend in the vanilla, cinnamon, orange zest, and salt. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the center of the oven for about ****1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, until a light golden color. Make sure the center is fairly firm, and the point of a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. It will sink slightly as it cools. Cover, and chill till serving time.

* Forgot to add the salt!

** In Argentina our ovens basically have 2 settings low and hot, I used low

*** Forgot to butter and flour pan

**** I used a Pan Dulce Spring Form Pan, which is about 6.5" and much taller. Cooking time was about 90 to 105 minutes more or less.

Blueberry Ginger Topping:
INGREDIENTS

* 250 g blueberry jam
* 75 ml water
* bit of grated ginger
* 15 mls maizena (corn starch)
* 15 mls sugar

In a small pot warm jam, ginger, water and sugar, stirring out lumps.
Add some of the warmed liquid to a cup and add maizena through a sieve, stir thoughly and add back into mixture on stove. Keep stirring until thickens...you can put in the freezer for a bit to cool down before adding to top of cake.

End result:
I was a bit worried the crust would burn in the second baking phase, sooooo I read that you could bake the cheesecake in a bath water. Well little good was that! My pan was not hermetically sealed and some water seeped in. So I dumped out the water as best I could and poured the batter back into the bowl to drain out the remaining water. The crust became a bit damp, but in the end once the baking was done everything was perfectly fine...crust and all. I found the ginger flavour did not come through in the cake, so I will try and add more the next time, but I could taste it in the blueberry topping. All together the ingredients added up to around 11 pesos more or less, pretty good considering a small cheesecake costs about 30 pesos, or 10.50 for a slice with coffee at Bonafide.

Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread Cookies are my favourite. To me it is the taste of Christmas! I started baking them for Mr.Tango and Munchkin and now little Munchkin refuses to eat prepackaged cookies. He woke up the other night at 2am and demanded galle, we told him I had to bake them first, so Munchkin took me by the hand and said vamos and led me to the kitchen to bake some for him.
For some unknown reason I have lost my cookie baking mojo and keep burning them, so this duty has been delegated to Mr.Tango. In fact, I think he bakes a better cookie than me.

Shortbread Cookies
INGREDIENTS:

* 125 g maizena - cornstarch
* 125 g azucar impalpable - icing sugar
* 250 g harina - flour
* 175 g manteca - butter

DIRECTIONS:

Pre-heat the Argentina oven to low or 325ºF.

Cream butter,I then add each dry ingredient individually creaming it into the butter icing sugar, cornstarch and lastly the flour.

Roll into 1" balls on baking tray and flatten with a fork.

Bake 10 to 15 minutes in Argentine oven, watching carefully (bake on lowest rack), in an oven with temperature control they may take 20 to 25 minutes.

We enjoy eating the Shortbread plain, but once they have cooled you can make the cookies cross cultural by adding Dulce de Leche in between two cookies and create an Alfajore.