Okay, my hair smells a little, I feel like I've been brined in Indian spiced water for the last 2 days and every corner of our home sweet home, scented like any good curry house in town, honestly, It's got to be ready.
Minus the one element though.
I am no where near ready.
As I said, I need a good bath, preferably with lots of essential bath oil poured into it, hair properly washed in the running water and yes, I confess, in this state, I do need to scrub up a little.
Followed by good strokes of blusher and mascara, you never know, I might feel and look, more like human.
This is of course, to welcome my guests.
Since appearing on our dinner party menu as a regular occurrence, cocktails have become our repertoire.
And now we hold cocktail party.
P started off by accidentally smashing a glass for the opening of the night.
L redeemed her hubby's action by knocking up gorgeously refreshing Hendricks Flower.
N perfected Absolutely Fabulous for his lovely wife V and the rest of us.
Toby rustled up Bramble and we drank thinking of lovely S who unfortunately had to make an early exit.
The list goes on...
And I, served up samosas with vegetables or smoked mackerel for starters.
For the main, slowly braised lamb curry in rich almond sauce, chicken curry in mild tomato sauce, aubergine with fresh coconut, okra cooked in tomato marsala, saffron pilau rice and selections of nann and chapatti bread.
Moscow mule jelly was our palate cleanser before rounding off the meal with green tea cheesecake served with blackberry coulis.
Samosas
makes about 20 in total
with vegetables
2 new potatoes, boiled and cubed
1 carrot, cubed
1 garlic, crushed and chopped
1 small onion, chopped
handful of peas
1/2tsp turmeric
1tsp curry powder
vegetable stock
handful of coriander, chopped
handful of mint, chopped
5 feuilles de brick pastry sheets (you can use ordinary filo pastry as well)salt and pepper
vegetable oil
Start by gently frying onion, carrot and garlic with pinch of salt and pepper in little bit of oil until slightly tender. Add potatoes, peas, turmeric, curry power into the pan and pour the stock enough to cover the vegetables.
When all liquid is absorbed and vegetables are tender, take them off the heat and leave it to cool.
Once cooled, cut the pastry sheets in long strip.
Place spoonful of mixture onto the corner of the strip and roll into samosa shape by folding the right corner to the left diagonally. This should make a small triangle.
If you are not very confident to shape it as you go along, think of folding the edge of the strip to make a small triangular shape. Then fold again twice to resemble a corn following its natural flow. When you have the corn, just fill in with your mixture and keep folding the rest away.
Now, shallow or deep fry them in the oil until crisp.
I tend to shallow fry them for couple of mins on each side in advance and crisp them up in the oven (200ยบ) for about 15mins just before serving.
with smoked mackerel
1 new potatoes, boiled and cubed
1-2 smoked mackerel fillets, flaked (not too small)
1 garlic, crushed and chopped
1 chilli, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
handful of peas
1/2tsp turmeric
1tsp curry powder
1 lime juice
handful of mint, chopped
handful of coriander, chopped
5 feuilles de brick pastry sheets
salt and pepper
vegetable oil
Method is exactly the same as vegetable one.
Just add chilli, potatoes and smoked mackerel when onions softened. Lime juice goes in nearly the end.
We chatted the night away.
Room full of jokes and laughter, stories of our lives carried on.
Existence of our living and being touched upon our spirits.
With our belly full and discoveries of our sense of identity, we were all cheerful souls.
Very cheerful souls...
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