You Tubes
While sailing the Seven Seas of Rhye, for some reason I went through a phase of watching recipe videos on YouTube.
And here they are. Must try them one day 🙂

Grandpa's Butter Chicken
curry fowl
A recipe I couldn't resist writing up off of Grandpa's YouTube channel. It's a pretty impressive dish for quantity, though the result looked a bit watery if I'm honest.
Grandpa doesn't measure his ingredients, so you're on your own there.
Start with plucking about a dozen chickens...

Serves a Village

Ingredients
Method
Mix the marinade ingredients with the chicken. Leave for 15 minutes.
Heat a large karahi, add butter then the chicken and fry. Set Aside.

Make the Gravy/Sauce:
Pour oil into a large frying pan, add chopped onion and fry.
Add chopped tomato and cashew nuts and fry.
Add water, ginger-garlic paste, then all remaining sauce ingredients.
Blend. Set aside.

Butter a fresh karahi and add the gravy from above.
Add more butter
Add cream
Add the fried chicken and any marinade.
Add kasoori methi
Adjust cream

Grandpa: Butter chicken ready

Make the Chapatis:
Mix the flour and the ghee. Add salt. Add water. Knead. Dress with oil and leave to soften for half an hour.
Roll into balls, then roll out into chapatis.
Oil hot plate and fry chapatis, turning once.

Grandpa: Eat

Kung Pau Chicken
oriental fowl
A Sichuan classic billed as better than takeout by Souped Up Recipes.

Serves 4

Ingredients
Method
Cut the chicken into ½" cubes and mix with the salt, onion powder, Chinese cooking wine, cornstarch and an egg white. Stir thoroughly until the meat develops a creamy velvety texture then set aside for 20 minutes.
The cornstarch and egg white combination is a technique in Chinese cuisine, known as velveting. It creates a starchy layer that can preserve the moisture of meat while cooking. Which leads to the juicy, tender meat.

Crush or finely chop the Sichuan peppers unless you enjoy eating them whole, cut some the chilli peppers into short pieces with scissors to help release their flavour, chop the scallions into ½" pieces, mince the garlic and ginger.

Heat your wok until it's smoking. Add a generous amount of oil. Give it a toss so the oil covers the bottom. Wait for it to smoke. That means the wok is hot enough. Then add the chicken. Spread the meat so most pieces are touching the bottom of the wok. Do not attempt to stir and flip the meat immediately as it will stick to the wok. When cooking with a carbon steel wok, you have to wait and let one side of the meat sear. Once it is nice and golden, the wok will release the food and it will turn easily.
Scoop out the chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add more oil, fry the fermented broad bean paste for a couple of minutes on low heat, then add the garlic, ginger, peppercorns and dried chillies and 2 tblsps brown sugar. I think I'd be tempted to fry the peppercorns and maybe the chillies first. Add the reserved chicken and stir thoroughly.
Add the light soy sauce, black vinegar, dark soy sauce, then cornstarch mixed in a little water and stir immediately. When the sauce thickens add the roasted peanuts other nuts are also available and the scallions.
Taste, adjust seasoning and serve over white rice.
Better than takeout? Well, we'll have to see...

Köttbullar
Swedish Meatballs
meat main
Alex appears to be on some kind of deranged meatball quest. I was happy to watch 🙂

Serves 4 probably

Ingredients
Method
Soak bread crumbs in cream for 5-10 minutes (or 1 hour)
Chop onion. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium heat.
Add onion, and cook, stirring frequently, until onions have become translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
In a large bowl, combine all three grounded meat, soaked bread crumbs, egg, spices, salt and cooked onion.
Using a wooden spoon or clean hands, stir until well combined. The mixture will be quite loose - like a pâté.
Roll the mixture into 1¼-to-1½-inch meatballs, forming about 20 meatballs.
Swedish chef Niklas Ekstedt shapes the balls by shaking them in one cupped hand - probably so as not to over-compress them.

Add 2 tablespoon cooking oil + 2 tblsp butter to the skillet. Add meatballs, in batches, and cook until all sides are browned, about 4-5 minutes.
Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.

Pour some cream and (any left-over bread mix) into the used frying pan and bubble it down to make a sauce.
Serve with cucumbers thinly sliced and marinated with parsley in Attika (Ättika is a strong (24%) Swedish pickling vinegar made from diluting glacial (almost pure) acetic acid), mashed potato and sweetened lingonberries.

The Juiciest Italian Meatballs Alex Ever Made!
meat main
Once more following the over-excitable Alex on his quest for the perfect meatball. This time one of his own!

Serves 3

Ingredients
Method
Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F.

Soak the bread in milk for added fat and protein. Crush the garlic, finely chop the parsley (flat leaf is allowed), grate the pecorino (Parmesan works as well, but it is less funky whatever that means!) peel the courgette and grate the white flesh which will act as a moisture retainer, then squeeze out the bread, discarding the milk, and stir everything up with a tablespoon of ricotta for added moisture and texture.

Roll out about 10 golf-ball-sized meatballs: 2 oz/55g each. Roast them for 16-18 minutes.
Prepare 3 meatballs per person dressed with a tomato sauce without simmering the balls in the sauce Alex is very definite about that.
Serve sprinkled with more grated cheese, chopped parsley and a drizzle of olive oil.
Must. Stop. Downloading. Video. Recipes.