Try these three recipe ideas for an original twist on National Chip Week:

1. Spicy Chips: Cook your chips as normal then sprinkle ready mixed spices such as chaat masala; squeeze over a little lemon juice and sprinkle finely chopped coriander for a really tasty treat.

2. Chip Kick: Finely chop fresh onions, add mixed spices and fresh coriander and mix into the chips to make a snack with a kick. If you want a real kick, chop fresh chillies and add to the mix.

3. Nice & Saucy Chips: Mix chopped tomatoes, coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder to make a delicious sauce, add cooked chips and simmer for a couple of minutes to create a wonderfully rich and spicy side dish.

Or why not try serving your spicy chips with some fried fish dusted in flour, chilli powder, black pepper, turmeric and garlic puree, and you have created your very own Indian fish and chips!

Not only is seasonal veg, fruit and meat at it’s best in season, but this is also when you can get the best deals for your favourite ingredients. Simply add seasonal veg to customise your favourite recipes, how about adding spinach to your Balti to give it a bit of a seasonal twist.  Or take inspiration from the ingredients of the season. Potato, cauliflower, garlic as well as spinach are all in season this month – the perfect ingredients for one of my favourite dishes: Gobi Aloo Saag.

Now may also be the ideal time to think about what produce you can grow at home throughout the year. This is an ideal way of planning ahead and getting the whole family involved. Chilli plants are quick and easy to grow and are ready for planting February/March time so why not have a competition amongst your family for who can grow the biggest chilli.

Let me know how you get on – and happy eating.

As promised, I would like to share with you the recipe for one my favourite Indian salads – perfect for all those with New Year’s Health and Diet resolutions.

‘Kachumber’ literally means to cut into small pieces. This salad is a favourite of mine as it is quick, easy, healthy and the ingredients can be substituted for whatever salad/veg you have in your fridge, or would like to use up.

Serves 2 as a main meal/ 3 or 4 as an accomp to a main meal or starter

Ingredients:
2 Large Jubilee Vine Tomatoes (225g)
1/2 Cucumber (250g)
2 Small Red Onions (150g)
3 Spring Onions (40g)/Coriander (40g)
2 Fresh Red Chillies
2 Fresh Green Chillies

For the dressing:
1 Lemon
Chaat Masala (5g)
Sugar (7g)

Baby leaf salad, naans/chappatis, raita to serve

- Dice the tomatoes, onions and cucumber into small chunks
- Thinly slice chillies and spring onions/coriander (NB: the heat of chillies varies hugely so you can adapt quantities as necessary, removing veins and seeds to reduce heat – I like mine really hot so leave the seeds in)
- Add to the tomato/onion/cucumber mix and stir well
- For the salad dressing, in a seperate bowl, squeeze the juice of one lemon
- Add the sugar and chaat masala to the lemon juice and stir

Before serving, add the dressing to the salad mix and stir; the salt in the chaat masala makes the salad release water so the later you leave this, the fresher/crisper the salad will be.

This salad is delicious as an accomp to a main, starter or simply served with a baby leaf salad and served with chappatis/naan and raita. For extra punch, add juliennes of ginger.

I think having stocked ingredients is always handy for people who want to experiment with flavours, as a lot of the time you only have inspiration for mixing certain ingredients when you’re actually cooking.

I would have to add cumin, chilli powder, turmeric, coriander and onion to this list as these are classic essentials for cooking various Indian dishes, especially curry.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20 – 25 minutes

Serves: 4 people

Ingredients

250g    basmati rice
½    yellow pepper, thinly sliced
½    green pepper, thinly sliced
½    red pepper, thinly sliced
100g    potatoes, cut into small cubes
100g    frozen sweetcorn
100g    cauliflower, cut into florets
100g    courgette, cut into cubes
100g    natural yoghurt
120g    tomatoes, chopped
1.5 tbs    whole cumin seeds
6    small dry red chillies, whole
20g    garlic, chopped
20g    ginger, chopped
4tbs    coriander, chopped
2    green chillies, chopped
2    small onions, sliced
6 tbs    oil
Salt to taste

Whole spices:
1tsp    black pepper corns
4    green cardamoms
2    black cardamoms
4    bay leaves
1/2    cinnamon stick

Method

1.    Boil the rice with all the whole spices and a little salt
2.    Once the rice is cooked but still firm, drain the water (set to one side)
3.    Heat the oil in a large saucepan or wok, add the cumin seeds, chopped ginger, garlic and chilli and sauté for 1 minute
4.    Add the sliced onion and sauté for a further 2-3 minutes
5.    Put the cauliflower and courgette in a microwavable dish and cover with water. Cook in the microwave on a high heat for 4 minutes to soften the vegetables.
6.    Now put the diced potatoes in a microwavable dish and cover with water. Microwave on a high heat for 4 minutes
7.    Add all vegetables (peppers, potatoes, sweetcorn, cauliflower, courgette, tomatoes) to the pan, and cook for 3-4 minutes
8.    Add the yoghurt, season to taste, and cook for another 2 minutes. Finally add the rice and stir fry for 3-4 minutes.
9.    Garnish with coriander and serve with raita, salad, chutneys and poppadoms

There’s an old ‘story’ that I heard from growing up in India about an emperor, Shah Jahan, who was imprisoned for eight years until his death during his son’s quest for power. Shah Jahan was given the choice of one food type for every meal. A wise choice was made by the emperor, and his choice was yellow lentils or channa as we know it in Hindi, as they are so versatile.

You can make so many dishes with the yellow lentil – they are especially good with lamb, such as Daal Gosht, used with rice, in desserts, and for stuffing in parathas.

These lentils are also ground down to make flour, called ‘gram flour’ used for making bhajis and pakoras.

Before cooking the lentils it’s best to soak them for at least four hours in four times the amount of hot water to lentils. This reduces the cooking time. If you don’t have time to soak for four hours, you can wash then cook but this will increase the cooking time.

Yellow lentils do break-up a little when they’re soft, so if you’d like a thicker consistency to your daal, a good tip is to puree a small amount in a blender or with a whisk. This adds a bit of thickness to the dish and creates an interesting texture with a mixture of smooth and whole lentils.

Personally, I love fish and especially oily fish simply because it’s a rich source of Omega 3.

Fish such as salmon, sea bass, trout or mackerel is best enjoyed when it’s just about cooked through, so it still has moisture and flavour. Here’s a beautiful recipe for salmon.

Ingredients

250g -  salmon steak with skin on (per person)

2 tbs – oil for frying fish

For the marinade:

1/2 tsp – chilli paste (red or green)

1 tsp – garlic puree

1 tbs – lemon juice

1 tbs – fresh finely chopped coriander

1 tbs – olive oil

Salt, to taste

1/4 tsp – sugar

1/2 tsp – cumin powder

1/2 tsp – coriander powder

1/4 tsp – turmeric powder

Method

1. Mix the marinade ingredients together in a bowl, adding seasoning to taste
2. Tumble the fish evenly in the marinade, so the salmon is fully covered
3. Heat oil in a pan, place the fish skin side down on to the hot oil for two minutes (if steaks are particularly thick, give them a little longer)
4. After two minutes turn the fish and cook for another two minutes
5. When the fish is firm to touch, remove from the heat. The fish is now ready to be served.

Serve with chapattis, rice, salad or roasted vegetables.

In India we eat a type of fish called rehu or grass carp.  It’s a river fish and is wonderful to cook with spices.  Rehu has a great texture and works particularly well in curries as it absorbs the flavour of spices and marinades so well.  Fish like cod and haddock don’t hold spices so well, which means the flavours don’t get so deeply seeded. Rehu takes on the flavours and combines this with its own beautiful, fine texture and quite sweet flavour.

Rehu is always best cooked from fresh. A delicious recipe for fresh rehu is to mix with spices, a small amount of onion puree, garlic puree, turmeric, chilli powder and a little salt.

Heat some oil in a pan, not too hot, and fry the fish. Remove from the heat when the fish is cooked through and crispy fried. It’s a really quick and delicious recipe for the family. Serve with chapatis and vegetables or just with salad.

Each morning the spices were selected for the planned dishes of the day. Pieces were carefully counted out or estimated in a hand like my mother does, and quantities of spices would be carefully compared to make sure the ratio was just right. These were then washed and ground ready for use.  Turmeric and whole dry red chillies, garlic, ginger, were all ground fresh for each and every meal.

Spices are ground using a sil batta. The sil is a flat stone and the batta is a smaller cylindrical stone, a little like a rolling pin, which is rolled and pressed over the spices to grind and combine them. It is jolly hard work, literally taking blood and sweat sitting there twice a day under the hot sun in summer.  Large quantities would take hours – but it was a labour of love, a dedication to wonderful food and flavour and a part of my heritage I will never forget.

These days ground and dried spices are accepted in Indian households and it helps that the quality has improved greatly. In the UK there are many wonderful varieties of spice and mixed spices readily available, such as garam masala, although I still blend my own.

When you are pushed for time but still want to cook, ingredients like pre-prepared fried onion or vegetables, can really come in handy. My recipes and tips are going to feature a wide range of spices, so I urge you to try them out and please let me know what you think and if you enjoyed cooking with them.

Experimenting and just having a go is the best way to discover which spices you prefer, but also your favourite way of cooking with them.

Cumin is an interesting and versatile spice and there is now a wide range of varieties readily available in the UK.

I love cumin because it dramatically changes its flavour depending on how you cook with it. If you roast it you get a more intense nutty flavour. If you crackle it in oil, this produces an intense smoky flavour, while gently frying it will give you a mellow roasted flavour.

Another way of cooking with cumin is to boil it.  This method ensures the seed retains its flavour, giving a savoury taste with a back-note of sweetness.

Delicious Indian cooking is about getting each element just right – the combination of flavours and careful mix of ingredients.  If you mix a spice with tomato you get a totally different flavour than if you mix the same spice with yoghurt, lemon or lime so by experimenting with ingredients you can discover exciting new tastes.

Next time you’re in the supermarket why not buy some cumin and try in a stir-fry or roasted vegetable dish? I’d like to hear what you think.