BIG NIGHT IN
I come from a big extended Indian family and every Friday night we all get together at my Nan’s house, which we lovingly refer to as HQ, for dinner and a good old catch up.
As you can imagine four generations of any family can only mean one thing ... lots of mouths to feed!
Everybody brings something with them and the end result is a very large dining table that could be mistaken for a buffet restaurant serving world cuisine.
We never pre-plan what we are going to cook and it’s always nice to see what delicious goodies everybody has created.
This Friday I took an assortment of traditional Indian food. I always get asked how I manage to find time to make so many dishes but the truth is that I don’t need to as the AGA does it all for me!
For my chana masala I fry off one white onion, 1cm of fresh ginger, half a garlic clove and 2 red chillies in the lid of the 30cm buffet pan on the boiling plate, add 1 tin chopped tomatoes and an equal amount of water and then add in 2 cans of chickpeas. I give it a good stir and then leave to simmer on the simmering plate for around 40 minutes.
As a Vegan I don’t make any meat dishes so use Quorn pieces to make my ‘chicken’ tikka. I did cheat though and used a sauce from a jar rather than making a homemade one but added 2 teaspoons of garam masala for extra flavour. I made this in the 20cm buffet pan and cooked it in the baking oven for around 45 minutes and stirred halfway through.
I brought the rice to boil in the 24cm buffet pan and transferred it in to the simmering oven where it will come out nice and fluffy around 30 minutes later.
Next it’s time for a quick tidy and shower. By the time I’m done so are my 3 dishes and I’m ready to head off to HQ.
The buffet pans are a fantastic investment due to their long 25 year guarantee. They heat up very quickly and also make great servewear which is perfect for serving tonight’s Indian food in. The best bit is they are dishwasher safe so I don’t have to worry about all the washing up I’ll need to do when I get back!
Hope you all have a great weekend
Amarjit
