Keema Karela Paneer

Exotic sounding, I know ... it's curry.

Keema - mince ... ground meat. Lamb. Karela - bitter gourd. Paneer - cheese.

First, the mince, then the karela, then the paneer.

Fry off some lamb mince in some fat - I used ghee. Lower the heat and set it to soften.

Meanwhile take some karela - these are bitter gourds and need some preparation.

Slice the gourds into centimetre slices and boil them in very salted water for a good hour! That does sound like a long time, but it is necessary to get them soft and take some of the bitterness out.

While that is going on, return to the mince.

Finely chop and onion, a few cloves of garlic and a good thumb of ginger. Pop these into the pan with the minced lamb.

Spice it up!

Turmeric, coriander, cumin and celery salt. Chilli flakes, asafoetida and a little white pepper. Squirt of tomato purée and we're done.

Let that mix steam in a sauté pan for a good while, adding more water to keep it wet.

Once the karela is soft, drain off and pour into the minced lamb.

Cook on ...

Cube up some paneer. Search your supermarket for paneer, or make it yourself.

Respectful of Hindi and Sikh people, paneer is set off with lemon juice rather than rennet. To make it yourself, boil up some milk and pour lemon juice in. Stir, stir and keep stirring. Pour into a muslin bag and place in a tray with a board and some weight on top to squeeze out the liquid. Once set, cube up.

... or buy it from a supermarket!

Cube up and chuck into the lamb mince and karela. Cook on with more water for another hour, or so. Some folks like to pre-fry the paneer ... I don't.

Okay ... done!

Serve up, or place into a dish for lunch tomorrow. That'll do me.

Yorkshire Pudding

Possibly Yorkshire's most famous export!

Yorkshire, largest county in England, in Great Britain and in the United Kingdom; practically a nation, and certainly thought as such by its countrymen.

Yorkshire, land of green and grey, land of thin lipped drizzle, skinny whippets and proud people sound in their history, their principles and their outlook. Yes, I'm a Yorkshireman!

Since going paleo, my beloved Yorkshire pudding has been off the table.

Since considering some foods beyond paleo, I am very happy to say ... it is back on the table!

How?

The magic of sorghum flour ...

Sorghum flour is produced by grinding the seeds of amaranth grass from the flowers.

Seed - that's the important word. As a food source, it is used extensively on the Indian sub-continent, and as a potential paleo food source, it is gluten-free and has a lower phytate content and a lower lectin content than traditional grains.

Paleo? No ... well, not yet ...

No, really ... how?

Pre-heat your oven to 230C and place a couple of tins in there with some dripping.

Dripping is awesome! It is that simple. Furthermore, dripping is pretty much defended as the last bastion of pre-industrial food and used widely in Yorkshire in traditional food as well as our plentiful 'Chippies' - Fish & Chip shops.

Dripping has a high smoke point (something like 280C) and can be continuously fried for something like 40 hours before it becomes oxidised. Now, that is a fat! That is a fat fit for paleo!

Dripping gives an authentic flavour to Yorkshire pudding. Accept no substitute!

Heat the fat. It will not smoke so you will not have any kind of clue that it is ready to use. Read on ...

Recipe? I suppose I should ... "take some of this and add a splash of that" is not really helpful when it comes to batter.

Intermission: Recipe

Take shy of 4 oz of sorghum flour into a mixing bowl and top up to 4 oz with some kind of starch - corn starch, potato starch or even cassava flour. The starch will help lift the flour from a heavy dough to a lighter batter. Experiment here - some sorghum flours are much lighter than others.

Crack in a couple of eggs - free range and naturally reared, naturally.

Add 7 fl oz of full fat milk and 3 fl oz of water.

Add a touch of sea salt.

Melt a good knob of butter and pour into the mix - this is the key. Yorkshire folk love butter! No, seriously, this is the key! Do not skip this ingredient.

Blend together with a hand blender or food processor for some time.

Back to the main feature ...

Take a teaspoon and pour it into the dripping tray. Does it spit and bubble? Yes? It's ready to roll!

Pour the batter into the trays - this will make two large round Yorkshire puddings, sufficient for a couple of people. Feel free to pour into one large tray and share, or into a number of smaller cupcake sized moulds. They're all acceptable.

Drop the heat to 200C and cook for 20 minutes, after which the puddings should be crispy, light and not dry.

Eat them sweet with berries and whipped cream. No, seriously, this will work out fine.

Eat them savoury by loading up your favourite food over - Chilli con Carne, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Corned Beef Hash, Beef Stew, Curry, whatever it is you love ... you'll love it more in a Yorkshire!

Britannia Beef Dripping

Intermission: Dripping

Dripping?

I gather the word is unfamiliar to many around the world - simply put, dripping is the fat juices collected from a roasting joint. The fat drips into a tray and is collected for cooking with later, hence dripping.

Let's look to Wikipedia to see if there is a better description: "Dripping, also known usually as beef dripping or more rarely, as pork dripping, is an animal fat produced from the fatty or otherwise unusable parts of cow or pig carcasses. It is similar to lard and tallow although tallow is an unacceptable flavor for shortening or cooking generally."

"Preparation is traditionally described as collection of the residue from meat roasts but true production is from such residue added to boiling water with a generous amount of salt. The stock pot should be chilled and the solid lump of dripping which settles when chilled should be scraped clean and re-chilled for future use."

So, much akin to lard and tallow.

Dripping is awesome! It is that simple. Furthermore, dripping is pretty much defended as the last bastion of pre-industrial food and used widely in Yorkshire in traditional food as well as our plentiful 'Chippies' - Fish & Chip shops, in fact I talked about dripping in the post about Chips.

Dripping has a high smoke point (something like 280C) and checking the figures on the Rancimat analysis can be continuously fried for something like 40 hours before it becomes oxidised.

Now, that is a fat! That is a fat fit for paleo!

Britannia brand is popular throughout the UK and can be found in most supermarkets. It is commercially extracted, but don't let that put you off. As I mused in Coming in From the Cold, when it comes to packaged food we have the ingredient principle to guide us: "does the list of ingredients read longer than the description of the food?"

Description: Finest Beef Dripping
Ingredients: Beef Dripping

It passes!