Category Archives: indian

Indian fakeaway recipes

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April 22, 2015

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fakeaways, indian, lamb, lamb mince, one-pot, recipe card, syn free

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spiced lamb mince and potato aloo kheema

Firstly, a massive and genuinely heartfelt thank you to everyone for the lovely comments yesterday in response to my article about my nana. I can’t reply to them all but please know that they were read and enjoyed greatly. She’d have hated (but secretly loved) all the fuss. She was one of those people who would say she didn’t want anything for Christmas and then sit there with a face like a slapped arse until you got her present out. I’ll miss her at Christmas – we used to joke on amongst ourselves that she was like Dr Who – always regenerating at Christmas despite us saying for a good ten years that ‘we’d better not go away this year, it’ll be her last’. Ah well. Your comments were delightful, inspired and so very kind, and it made me feel better that I was able to encapsulate even the smallest bit of what she meant to me. That said, if she wasn’t currently on ice down at the morgue, she’d be tunneling halfway to China now spinning in her grave at what I’m about to show you.

I have literally become the thing I hate most. Just look.

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I’m drinking a mixed drink from a fucking jamjar, like some pretentious rah-yah in one of those bars where they take a perfectly affable building, cover it in veneers and turn off all the lights so you have to read the menu by the cherry of a liquorice-papered, prison-thin American Spirit roll-up. You’ll note however that the jamjar is a proper Kilner licenced jar and I even doubled down and got the awful paper straws to go with it. Paper straws though, really – the liquid equivalent of trying to dry yourself with a cloud. Five minutes in and it’s already collapsed, so I end up sucking like I’m giving the world’s worst blowjob to both parties concerned. Don’t worry, it’ll be back to George pint glasses soon enough and we’ll only wheel out the posh stuff when it’s going on Twitter, like the Christmas china.

That’s the next point – we’re now on Twitter. The observant amongst you will doubtless have spotted the little widget there on the right displaying pictures and other such nonsense. The aim is to get you lot sharing these recipes wherever you can, plus, it gives me an outlet for my bile for when I can’t be bothered sitting at the computer trying to type with a particularly needy cat clawing away at my genitals. Follow us by adding @twochubbycubs and share share share share!

Along similar lines, I’ve just noticed that we’ve sailed clean past 2000 members, which when you think I was only bleating on about having 1000 members back in January (and take a look at that page, I shit you not when I say it’s one of our best recipes), is pretty incredible. Like we always say – Paul loves cooking (he’s learnt to, Little Mo has nothing on him) and I love writing, so this is the perfect outlet for us. The fact that so many of you like hearing our nonsense and swearing only gives us a reason to try harder! With that in mind, know that we are going to be back to full speed pretty soon – recent events have knocked us a little, but we’re still doing a new recipe a day, and you’ll get the benefit of that. We’ve got breakfast ideas, themed weeks and oops – we forgot about Europe. What are we like. So bear with us, and until then, enjoy this:

lamb kheema slimming world

Tasty. And check out the presentation, I felt like I was in a Newcastle Wetherspoons. I mean, I knew I wasn’t because I have a full set of teeth and a career, but still*.

to make the spiced lamb mince you will need:

500g of lean lamb or pork mince (or beef, for that matter – hey listen, I’m not judging you), 500g of potatoes (use new potatoes if you can get them) cut into thumb sized chunks, 1 red onion finely chopped, 2 big juicy red tomatoes (i.e. don’t be buying a pack of cheap tomatoes, God is watching and he despairs of your watery orange balls of nowt), and then the spices:

to make spiced lamb mince you should:

You’ll also need a drop of oil for the onions. If you prefer, use Frylight, but like I always say: don’t.

This recipe only took us about 30 minutes to make and most of that was the pot sitting on the hob. So what’s your excuse, eh?

ingredients for the sides: a pitta bread each (HEB if you use a wholemeal Weight Watchers pitta, which has all the taste and wonder of a side of Artex), an onion, tomato, cucumber and red chilli for the onion salad and fat free natural yoghurt, cucumber and fresh mint (or mint sauce if you’re common) for the raita. 

FULL DISCLOSURE: I don’t know if this is extra-lean lamb mince. See, it was at the back of our freezer and we did buy a load of extra-lean mince from our butcher back in the day. I think it is. If it is, then the dish is syn free. If not, use extra lean beef or pork or even turkey. OH THE EXCITEMENT.

OK, so the recipe:

  • make up your side dishes
    • add yoghurt, mint and grated cucumber together and chill
    • toast pitta bread
    • chop up onion, tomato, cucumber and finely chop chilli – combine and add a pinch of salt
    • set aside
  • get your best pan out of the cupboard – heavy bottomed (that’s the pan, not you, cheeky)
  • add the cinnamon stick, bay leaf and cumin seeds and get it on a medium high heat until they sizzle
  • add the chopped onions, cook until golden, add the ginger and garlic paste
  • add the turmeric, chilli and coriander powder and let it sweat for a moment or two before chucking in the mince and potato
  • allow to brown for a few minutes and then add the chopped tomatoes – two big tomatoes should produce more than enough water once you put the lid on and turn the heat down to a medium
  • cook until the meat is cooked and the potatoes tender – chuck in the garam masala and cook down for a moment or two more
  • serve.

Enjoy!

* I actually like Wetherspoons and don’t have a problem with them. Creative licence, alright?

J

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February 7, 2015

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breakfast, fakeaways, indian, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

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spicy scrambled eggs that’ll take your ring off

I’ve had occasion to go into two places I’d never normally venture this week – a proper designer fashion shop and an expensive perfume place – normally places I avoid like the plague.

My first task was to buy some jewellery for my boss who was leaving – so in I minced to Vivienne Westwood, expecting to be immediately shooed back outside by some harridan with a broom with exclamations of ‘WE DON’T WANT YOUR SORT IN HERE’ like a stray cat in a butchers. I don’t do high-end fashion. Hell, I don’t do fashion at all – I buy most of my clothes from Tesco because I couldn’t care less what I look like as long as I’m clean and warm. Now the interesting thing was that my preconceptions about the designer shop were entirely wrong – the assistant behind the counter could not have been more friendly, warm or welcoming, despite me standing there in my Florence and Fred shirt and elastic trousers. Actually, I did have expensive shoes on, if that helps. Us fat men can’t spend money on normal clothes but by gaw can we put it away on bags and shoes if we need it. She asked me what tone my friend was, I had no idea, whether she liked silver or gold, I had no idea, whether she was classic or modern, I had no idea. She masked her exasperation impeccably. I did almost want to tip her over the edge by asking if they had shirts in my size – looking at the offerings on the rails the only way I could wear a Vivienne Westwood shirt is if I folded it in two and used it as a handkerchief. One jacket that I thought would have been suitable for my two year old nephew was hastily put back when I realised it was an Adult M. Nevertheless, after a fashion, we managed to pick out a tasteful piece of jewellery and whilst I cold-sweated my way through paying for it, I engaged in a polite chitchat with the assistant, until she told me that the rug I was standing on was worth £9,000 and all I could think is that I’d covered it in cat-hair from where I had set my rucksack down. The cats use my rucksack as a sleeping bag, see, and no, I don’t have a fag-bag or a murse. So…

The next stop was a fancy-dan perfume shop for a different gift for a different friend.  I hate these places at the best of times, because walking through a perfume department is like being pepper-sprayed by eighteen old ladies at once. I find most perfumes repellent and as a general rule, if you walk near me and it smells like you’ve had a bath in Charlie Red, things aren’t going to end well. It didn’t help that the lady behind the counter was clearly only flying with one engine because she kept repeating the last three words back to me like a parrot – I was asking for some advice on perfumes and it was like I was in an echoey tunnel. ‘LIKE SOME PERFUME?’ followed by ‘DON’T KNOW MUCH’ and then ‘PAYING BY CARD’ and ‘FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE’ got real vexing, real quickly. Plus, I know it’s par for the course when you work on a make-up counter, but I swear she’d put her make-up on with an emulsion roller – it was on so heavy I felt like I was undergoing rorschach testing, I nearly shouted out throbbing cock when she bent down to check my card. You shouldn’t be able to remove 90% of your face with a damp wet-wipe and to be honest, I’m yet to see someone who doesn’t look 100% prettier when they don’t have half of Superdrug on their face. Says he, the fucking oil painting. Ah but see, I MIGHT have a face like a bucket of burnt Lego*, but I’m not bothered.

Because I’m early posting today, here’s a picture of breakfast from this morning. I think Slimming World can be quite challenging when it comes to breakfast because the portion of cereal you’re allowed wouldn’t fill me up – I normally use a ladle when I’m having my coco-pops (as an aside, I had originally typed cock-pops there, and only spotted the error when I was proof-reading – wouldn’t that be a nauseating cereal, though the box-art would be amazing) and there’s little else to have in a rush in the morning. Understand this – I’d sooner spend another ten minutes doing the snooze-sleep-shuffle than get up and fry an egg. I usually just eat a tin of beans with an egg stirred in, but that’s frightfully common. But today I thought I’d try something new, and after a quick flick through my recipe books (I must get those pages laminated) I found an Indian recipe for egg bhurji – spicy scrambled eggs, which I immediately set about cooking with my usual culturally insensitive bastardisations. Tell you what though, it was absolutely delicious – I ate the lot. Give it a go and never look back. Syn free and absolutely rammed with superfree foods too!

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to make spicy scrambled eggs (egg bhurji), you’ll need:

ingredients: cumin seeds, a tiny bit of olive or frylight if you must, chopped onion, chopped pepper (I used an old red and yellow pepper I had), garlic, chopped ginger, three eggs, frozen peas, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a chicken stock cube. You’ll also need a chopped chilli or some chilli flakes and garam masala – though I couldn’t find any so I used some curry powder.

to make spicy scrambled eggs (egg bhurji), you should:

recipe: it’s a one pot delight! First, put your oil into the pan and put the cumin seeds in there on a reasonably high heat until they snap, crackle and pop. Chuck in the ginger and chilli, saute for a moment or two. Then the onions for two minutes. Now, the pepper for another two minutes. Cook high and fast. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and the peas, and cook for another two minutes. Next in goes the curry powder/garam masala and salt, mix, and keep bubbling away – you don’t want lots of liquid. I added a stock cube at this point just because I like the taste – if you do that, don’t add more salt. Now crack your eggs into a bowl, beat them up, pour into pan and keep stirring. Remember to keep the heat high but keep stirring so nothing catches – you want the liquid to evaporate off. Serve quickly with coriander. I hate coriander, and I think you’re morally reprehensible for using it.

extra-easy: yep – syn free too, though if you’re absolutely anal you should syn the oil. But come on. Lots of superfree food in this and certainly more than you’d normally get in a breakfast.

Seriously – give this one a go. It’s just scrambled eggs but tastier, and it’s something different. Keeping things mixed up is the way forward.

  • just kidding, I’m fucking beautiful. No matter what they say. Words can’t bring me oh fuck off.

J

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January 9, 2015

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breast, classics, fakeaways, indian, low syn, poultry, recipe card, rice

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simple chicken curry and rice

Just a wee post tonight for tonight’s dinner, a chicken curry with rice. I’m posting a big article about the cost of Slimming World tomorrow, so I’m working on that tonight. Plus, Paul has Judge Rinder on, and he’s distracting me…

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to make chicken curry and rice, you’ll need:

ingredients: two chicken breasts (decent size!), tin of chopped tomatoes, one large chopped onion, three tablespoons of curry powder, 100ml of light coconut milk, 250g of broccoli, bog standard white rice, chicken stock cube.

and to make chicken curry and rice, you should:

recipe: the curry is the easiest ever – sweat the onion for a few minutes, add the diced chicken, curry powder, chopped tomatoes, coconut milk and cook for ten minutes. Then chuck in the broccoli and simmer for another fifteen minutes on a medium heat with the lid off. Fifteen minutes before that is done, measure out a cup of rice, follow it up with two cups of chicken stock, throw it in a pan, cover and cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes. Don’t peek at it. The cups rule is spot on – use any old mug as long as you keep the ratio the same.

extra-easy: yep! The syns come from the coconut milk – I used Blue Dragon Light, and it works out (with this serving four) as 1.25 syns each – or 1.5syns for the sake of argument. It’s not a flavour explosion, but if you want a quick, hot meal – and a cheap one at that, you can knock this out quickly.

top tip: rather than piling your rice all over the plate like one of those obscene people at a chinese buffet, get a small bowl, oil it ever so lightly with a drop of olive oil, fill it with cooked rice, press down hard to pack it together, and then tip out onto the plate. It looks pretty and it controls your portion size too. Don’t worry, you can always go back, jeez…

J

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January 6, 2015

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fakeaways, indian, lunch, one-pot, recipe card, savoury snacks, slow cooker, snacks, syn free, vegan, vegetarian

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flicked bean overnight chilli

I find parking an inherently stressful experience. How I envy those who can smoothly glide into a bay like a well-oiled plop round a u-bend. I’m a very confident driver, and I’ll always have a go, but I’m always left wracked with anxiety that someone is either going to scratch my car or judge me remorselessly for being slightly bent – story of my life. Paul will sit and tut and do asthmatic sighs as I back out of the bay, move back in, reverse, slightly to the left, slightly to the right – but I like to be dead centre, damn it. I can reverse into a bay like an old pro but as soon as I’m in there, I’m fidgeting and fussing. If anyone has somewhere I can park in the centre of Newcastle for free or at least £5, and won’t put a picture of my car on those awful parking blogs, get in touch. Only a quick blog entry tonight because we didn’t get to sleep until 2am last night and I’m dead on my feet. So without further delay – tonight’s tea was flicked bean chilli with cauliflower rice.

cauliflower

to make flicked bean overnight chilli, you’ll need:

Firstly, I apologise for the awful colour filter. I use a bit of software called Layout and it creates awful auto-corrections on my images. Hence it looks like every other food picture that every tit with a beard and sperm-strangling skinny trousers might have.

ingredients: for the cauliflower rice – one big cauliflower and some frozen peas. For the flicked bean chilli, I just tipped two tins of barlotti beans, one tin of black eyed peas, one tin of baked beans, one tin of tomatoes, bunch of dried chilli, chopped garlic, kidney beans, two oxo cubes and half a cup of boiling water. For the meat, you could use mince (brown it off in a pan first) or, in this case, use Quorn mince – it’s perfect for EE:SP but will also boost the weight loss.

to make flicked bean overnight chilli you should:

recipe: this is what makes it so easy – chuck all the chilli bits into a slow cooker and leave it on overnight, where it’ll thicken and simmer nicely. For the cauliflower rice, just blitz the whole cauliflower in a food processor, chuck in some frozen peas – and then pop it in a frying pan without oil and cook it through. Near the end, I chuck an egg in just to bind it a little. Lots of salt and pepper. Tasty and very, very low in calories. Add a sprinkling of cheese from your HEA allowance if you like.

extra-easy: definitely, and I think it’s decent for an EE:SP day but don’t take me at my word. It’s certainly syn free and all those beans will really get your bum working!

Enjoy. So easy to make…in the meantime, I’m going to go to bed early. LIVING THE DREAM.

J

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October 18, 2014

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classics, fakeaways, indian, low syn, recipe card, vegan, vegetarian

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vegetable curry

I’ve done a bit of rejigging on the blog as I realised it was getting difficult to find all the recipes – so now if you’re looking for them, just click the category on the right and voila, all the badly realised comic-style recipes you can manage! 

Paul’s actually off down in London at the ‘Give Britain a Payrise’ rally. I work in the private sector so my eyes tend to glaze over when he goes on about rallies and protests, but fair play to the bugger for campaigning. Last time I told him to try and keep a low profile, and he ended up headlining the 1pm news with a soundbite about pensions. Even worse, the last time his place of work went on strike, he threw himself in front of someone’s car and called her a scab, without realising it was the Chief Executive inside. Oops. Anyway, he’s coming back home now and the latest text I got was ‘Missing you, dying for a shit’, which I don’t really know how to take but I’ll assume it was meant as a compliment.

I spent all morning lying in bed and willing myself to get up, but I didn’t quite manage it until 1pm. Which sounds lazy, but I’ve had a very long week and our bed is super comfortable. Actually, that’s a bit of a fib as I got up once and managed to moon someone putting a leaflet through our front door at the same time. I should explain. I got up for a wee and noticed the postman had been. We sleep naked, but the curtains were drawn so I went to the front door and bent down, completely naked, at the same time someone pushed a takeaway leaflet through the letterbox. Luckily our front door has that weird frosted glass in it, but I’m still fairly sure he got a damn good view of my tea-towel holder winking at him as I scrabbled to pick up the post. Ah well. This afternoon I decided to take it upon myself to go to B&M to find an elusive curry mix that Slimming World members go on about which is low in syns. Now, I’ve never been in B&M before, and well, goodness me.

Let me caveat the following by saying that I’m no snob, I don’t mind cheap shops and I don’t care how much something costs. But honest to god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many polyester-mix fleeces hung in one place. I’m lucky I didn’t come out of there sparking and jolting like Electro from Spiderman. I did, however, get the elusive curry mix – Mayflower Curry Sauce Mix, at 8 syns for 56g (which makes more than enough sauce for two people to have a curry). With this in my hot sweaty hands, and the smell of chip-pans and sour milk a mere memory, I set about making tonight’s meal – a vegetable curry.

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This was supposed to be a chicken curry, but fate put the kibosh on that. I defrosted the chicken, had the audacity to leave the room for a minute to have a slash, only to find upon my return Bowser (our cat) munching his way through it, having dragged it out of the kitchen, across the living room and into his cat house. I was gone less than a minute, and the chicken was steaming hot. He must have been like bloody lightning, so I let him have the chicken and decided to ‘superfree’ the curry instead. He got a stern look and as a punishment, I won’t be turning on his water fountain tonight and he’ll just have to quench his thirst like a normal cat. I’m kidding, I’m far too in love with his button nose to do that.

ingredients: all the veg you see above, and really, anything you have spare. Pack it out with whatever you have left in the freezer, or tins, or fresh – we tend to buy a lot of stuff on the off-chance we’ll use it and then chuck it out, but don’t – throw it all in the curry. It’s a fantastic way of getting your superfree food quota, and this meal is easily over your 1/3 portion size rule. Serve with rice, or chips, or even on its own as a warming treat. It’ll certainly warm you again in eight hours or so.

recipe: cut up all your veg, add a dash of water, steam it until soft but not mush. The mushier the veg, the less nutrients, plus it’ll feel like you’re eating your dinner in a nursing home. To make the curry sauce, add 56g of powder to cold water, and start whisking. Turn the heat up to get the liquid to boiling, then whack it right back down to a very low heat. It’ll thicken in no time at all, but if you stop whisking, it’ll end up lumpy. Mix it up with the veg and serve with your side.

extra-easy: yes – though not syn free. the sauce is 8 syns for 56g of powder but then divided down into portion size, I reckon about 2 syns. This recipe would easily serve four. You’ve got more superfree food in here than you could shake a water-retaining finger at. Best of all, it really DOES taste like takeaway curry.

top tips: this would be made a lot more ‘takeaway’ by taking away a lot of the veg, and remaking it with cooked chicken, garden peas and chunks of onion. It could be made even more takeaway by flicking some fag ash and a few chest hairs in there, and having the ‘chicken’ squeak when you bite into it.

OK, anyway – enjoy. I’m off to shave off my beard. Sob!

J

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September 26, 2014

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breast, fakeaways, indian, poultry, recipe card, syn free

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syn free chicken korma

A minor catastrophe this morning. Having been asked to go into work early, I find that my wonderful work colleague has kindly left me a pain au chocolat and croissant on my desk, still warm and freshly baked as compensation for the early start. Now, if I had wanted to be a rude arse, I would have declined and stuck to my banana (er, as in the fruit, not a euphemism for wanking) but because you ‘fit Slimming World into your life’ I took the pain au chocolat and enjoyed every last buttery morsel. My colleagues are used to me spraying crumbs everywhere when I talk so that was no great problem. 12 syns! But worth it. I did give my croissant away, and spent the next twenty minutes crying curled up in a foetal positions in the gents. Generosity doesn’t come easy to me! Anyway, today’s recipe.

BTW, I think Paul got sick of me shouting SAAAAAGALOOOOO like Olivia Newton-John’s Xanadu about four minutes into cooking. He should be grateful I didn’t come wheeling into the kitchen dressed in Bacofoil and wearing skates.

I apologise for the standard of photos in this recipe card. It’s quite hard to make a curry look appetising when you’re using fromage frais rather than oil! It does, unfortunately, look like someone has been sick into my Le Creuset pot. Let me tell you now, if that happened they’d find themselves detesticled quicker than you can say boiled eggs. Both the saag aloo and the korma are completely syn-free on extra easy and I’ve included the spice mixes after the recipe as they’re quite comprehensive. My favourite spice? Ginger. Wrecked the fucking group when she left, mind – Holler was NOTHING.

Halftone

to make syn free chicken korma

The full recipe can be found in Slimming World’s fakeaways recipe book, which is genuinely really good. Both the korma and saag aloo are a case of preparing the meat or potatoes, adding spices, adding stock, boiling down and for the korma, a couple of dollops of fromage frais (let the sauce cool before adding or it’ll curdle and look like a pavement pizza).

Saag aloo spices: 2tsp cumin seeds, 2tsp black mustard seeds, 1tsp cumin, 1tsp ground coriander, 1/2tsp turemic, 1/2tsp garam masala, 1/2tsp chilli powder

Korma: 1 cinnamon stick, 1tsp cardamom seeds (crushed), 1/4tsp ground cloves, 2tsp cumin seeds, 1tbsp ground coriander, 1tbsp ground cumin, 2tsp mild curry powder.

It’s worth getting yourself a good range of spices if you haven’t already. They’re a great way to add flavour without adding syns to a meal, and a small amount goes a long, long way.

warning: take heed of the warning about the fromage frais, because it looks bloody rotten if it curdles. You can still eat it but there’s no guarantee your body won’t think it’s already tried it and chucked it. Nothing else to say here, you can’t go too wrong with a curry as long as you’re not pouring bloody Gold Top into it.

extra-easy: completely syn-free. chuck it full of peppers, onion, tomatoes and chilli to boost your superfree.

double warning: Paul accidentally used red-hot chilli peppers instead of the milder version, so that’ll be me on the toilet firing a chocolate laser out of my nipsy tomorrow. Cheers love!

Enjoy!

J