Back to Basics

I’ve been a little slow of late and have not managed to post at all this Ramadan, so insh’Allah you will forgive me. It has been a very hard 5 days.

Many things have happened in the past year, however the strangest has been the discovery that a couple of people I know have moved away from Islam. No one has come out and said “this isn’t the path for me”, or perhaps they have but I haven’t digested the information correctly. Either way the only thing that I know is the way that way they spent Ramadan last year is very different to the way that they are spending Ramadan this year. I’m not judging them, if anything I don’t know what to do. There have been points in my life where, on reflection, I have done the wrong thing. It was the friends who didn’t lecture me who helped me come back to the right path. They were the ones who showed me the way, but did not force me to change my direction which helped enormously. They showed me love and included me in things. I guess I would like to emulate those people but in truth I don’t know how. I don’t know for certain that what helped me would help someone else. I don’t know what to say when someone says that Ramadan means nothing to them. I just know that I feel desperately sad for them, want to help them but simply don’t know how.

For many people Ramadan is about going above and beyond, they will pray long taraweehs, they’ll decide that they no longer want to watch television or listen to music, maybe they’ll spend the whole night praying…I don’t know but for someone who may have lost their way this might seem like too much. So what could one possibly say to the person is lost? To the person who is no longer sure of their Eman? I think I would suggest that my friends start by the little things in their life. If prayers no longer play a role in the persons life they could start with those, if they are drinking or taking drugs maybe abstain for the month, if they are partying maybe come home a little earlier. Step by step. Insh’Allah that will help bring them closer to Allah(swt) and be close enough to feel the benefit of Ramadan and fasting.

I’ll leave you with a pearl of wisdom from a friend of a friend “those that enter the the deen fast, leave the deen fast”, insh’Allah take things slowly. Step by step. Insh’Allah try, you are in our duas.

“o you who believe, enter Islam completely, and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Surely, he is an open enemy for you;” Surah Al Baqara 208

Gluten Free Roti

This is one of those things that took me ages to perfect. This recipe is very simple and quite an accomplishment because not only does it taste good, but it puffs up in places. In addition you can adapt this to make parathas, because there is always someone in Ramadan who wants one!

You need:
1 part isapghal with the husk removed (this can be purchased with the husk removed from Asian shops)
5 parts doves farm gf flour
salt to taste
water

Mix the flour together with the isapghal and add a little water and leave it for about a minute (this helps the isapghal gel up) then add a bit more water until the flour comes together to form a ball. Don't knead it. Just let the dough come together to form a ball.
Shape the dough into slightly larger than golf ball sized balls. Then in a gf floured plate flatten slightly and then using a rolling pin, roll out into circles. Heat up a cast iron flat pan (tavva) or frying pan until it is very hot. Then put the roti on to the pan and allow to cook for 1-2 mins on each side before holding it with tongs on a gas flame on each side allowing it to puff up.

Serve with butter or as a side to a main meal.

Ramadan is Very Nearly Here

Alhamdulilah, the beautiful month of Ramadan is just around the corner. Whilst I could carry on and talk about the blessings (and no doubt I probably will) the reality of another Summer Ramadan means that it is going to be hard. Iftari will be approximately 9pm here in the UK. How many of us actually eat that late normally? In a normal life, you go to work, come home and eat maybe immediately or perhaps an hour later but not so much later. It is without a doubt going to be hard. I know Ramadan is supposed to be hard. When Fajr is at 2:30am it is already hard without adding fasting into the equation.

So what can we do practically right now to make our lives easier? Here is my last minute guide to making things easier.


1.Do a freezer audit, write down a list of everything your freezer contains; after all there is no point in cooking endless portions of something if your freezer already contains it. Do the same for your store cupboards. Have a read of this post written when I had a tiny freezer, and alhamdulilah that freezer stored some amazing meals which made my life so much easier: http://ramadandinners.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Preparation


2.Cook double portions of every evening meal from today for the next ten days, it will mean that you have ten meals in your freezer that are already cooked, and it means for the days when it has all got too much or that you are just exhausted you have a meal ready and waiting. Failing everything you already have a third of your Ramadan cooking done…how fantastic is that?



3.Take the time now to prepare things like:
Uzbek Palov that need preparation now but when they come to the night are very quick and easy to cook. http://ramadandinners.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/uzbek-palov.html
I still can’t believe that last year I went into the kitchen 20 minutes before iftari. This meant I had free time for so many other things.


4.Create a menu planner. A rather simple idea, but it really does take the head ache out of wondering what to have for iftari when you are exhausted. If you are stuck for ideas, just follow what we ate in Ramadan 2011 and you’ll be eating your way around the world. http://ramadandinners.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00Z&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=28


5.Assess your meals. Try not to fall into unhealthy Ramadan habit traps. Remember fried food every day before your meal will fill you up very quickly, make you thirsty the next day and of course pile on the weight. By all means have a few fried things but remember the days will be long and eating time will be short so our bodies need to stay healthy so that we can gain the most from Ramadan. Similarly try and avoid thirty of days of eating meat, it is hard to digest and most of us won’t be expending the same amount of calories as we do normally. Make sure to add fruit/vegetables with a high water content to your iftari starters. Fried vegetables may taste nicer, but raw vegetables will re-hydrate you. http://ramadandinners.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/whats-at-your-iftari.html



6.Don’t go shopping for food without a list when you are hungry. You may be different but honestly every time I have come back with the strangest combination of ingredients and always come home asking myself, “why”? Well, to remind myself if no one else this is a great example of why this is a no-no! http://ramadandinners.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/shopping-while-fasting-is-always-bad.html


7.Plan for sehri too. I always think it’s a great idea not to rely on sugar infused cereal to get you through a very long day (20 hours plus if you are in Scandinavia). Instead I try and eat food that is whole grain and filling. I find I struggle to function when I’m half-asleep and instead came up with a great idea ( thanks Japan!) to make up sehri bento boxes the night before. They are easy to do and mean that you just get up, eat, pray and with any luck fall asleep again. http://ramadandinners.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Sehri%20bento



8.Guests come in Ramadan. That is a fact of life and a good one too, because there are numerous hadiths about the reward for feeding a fasting person. It’s always nice though if guests can be considerate and realise the host has also had a long day!


9.Remember that (and I’m talking myself out of a blog here!) Ramadan is not just about eating, and with the shorter nights (especially the last third of the night will only be a couple of hours) you really want to focus on quick and easy meals so that you have plenty of time for ibadat. Looking at the calendar at the moment, its easy to imagine it getting to 10.30 on just a casual meal!


10.Finally remember to make a dua’ before and after every meal. Remember all those around the world without an iftari and try and do as much as you can do to help them, not only through dua’ but through your actions.


Insh’Allah may you have a truly blessed Ramadan, may your dua’s be answered and insh’Allah Allah(swt) will rain his mercy and blessings on us. Ameen.

Sorry, No Sushi tonight!

Last night for iftari we ate Japanese. Anyone who knows me knows that I love sushi, however in order for my family to eat the meal the remit was that it should be sushi free!!! Obviously being Ramadan we all want and probably need a hot meal at the end of a long day.

I’ve often wandered past Wasabi and looked longingly at the steam escaping their cooked dishes and thought they looked very tempting. Sadly, none being gluten free I’ve never had the pleasure in trying their delights. It was quite challenge trying to firstly find dishes that were hot as a) I didn’t know the names b) the Japanese seem quite secretive about this angle of their cuisine c) there was a lot of fish, and sadly everyone isn’t as pro-fish as I am d) there was tons of pork!

Some of the dishes had to be altered significantly just to create an appropriate taste balance after all when omitting sake (rice brew), mirin (rice wine) etc I feel it is important to put something back into the dish otherwise you aren’t left with much. The end result might not be authentically Japanese but I feel that it tastes good and left me feeling as if I had eaten Japanese.

Our menu consisted of:
Prawn and Vegetable Tempura
Tsukure (minced chicken balls)
Rice Shapes
Ingen No Goma-ae (green beans in sesame dressing)
Beef Teriyaki
Berry Uire cake

Prawn and Vegetable Tempura
Tempura, in the modern world sounds very Japanese and indeed it is. However, looks can be deceptive and this was a coloniser import. The Portugese may have brought Tempura to Japan, however the Japanese have added their own twist to things making the batter lighter and crispier than other battered food that I have ever tried. The trick with Tempura is not to over mix the mix, don’t leave it to stand and only make it as you need it.

Ingredients
1 cup of plain gluten free flour (I used Doves Farm Plain Flour)
1 egg
Very cold or iced water to mix
Oil for frying (I used rapeseed oil)
Thinly sliced vegetables
Whole raw prawns / bite sizes pieces of fish

Place the flour and egg in to a bowl, gradually mix in enough very cold water/iced water to create a thin batter (thick enough to hold on your finger). Mix using a knife or chopsticks, this is so that the batter is not over mixed. If you have occasional small flour lumps in the batter this is ok!

Dip the vegetables and seafood in the batter and deep fry in hot oil until the seafood is cooked and batter is crispy.

Tsukure (minced chicken balls)
1 small chicken breast
1 clove garlic
1 piece of lemon peel (zest only) the size of your thumb

Slice the garlic thinly, slice the lemon peel in to thin slithers, chop the chicken. Place all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until the chicken is mince. Form into golf ball sized balls. Each chicken breast should produce approximately 4 balls. Grill or deep fry until cooked all the way through.

Rice Shapes
For the rice shapes, I used a ‘toy’ that I bought in Malaysia. It is absolutely fantastic, you place the hot rice in to the moulds, push on the lid and then push out the shaped rice. If you do not have a similar gadget, I would suggest placing the hot rice into a dish with an edge about an inch deep. Pack the rice in and either score squares out and remove or cut out into shapes using a biscuit cutter. Ideally you don’t want to use shapes that are too big, a mouthful size is ideal.

1 cup of rice that has a high starch content eg sushi rice (I used a supermarket ‘basics range’ long grain rice that has a very high starch content). Leave the rice to soak for about an hour in water. Then rinse only once. It is very important that the starch stays in the rice as this is what will hold the shapes together. Cook the rice using a method where the rice soaks in the water, rather than one where you pour the water off. Once the rice has cooked either use a mould or pack into a tray and then shape the rice.

Ingen No Goma-Ae (Green Beans in Sesame Dressing)
For the dressing
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon tamari sauce (naturally gluten free)
2/3 tablespoons of water

1.Toast the sesame seeds without oil in a heavy based pan until they are golden. Then transfer to a pestle and mortar and break down until they resemble breadcrumbs.
2.Blanche the green beans, and then spread the sesame seeds over them.
3.Mix the caster sugar, tamari sauce and water together then pour over the green beans.

Beef Teriyaki
Alhumdulilah we are very lucky that our butcher actually does know his cuts of beef. Most halal butches in London tend to have a slab of beef wrapped in plastic in a corner from which they cut slices upon request. If I ever asked what part of the animal the meat came from they would normally respond with a grunt. If you ask if it is suitable for steak they say yes, if you ask if it for stewing they say yes! How can it be both? If your butcher is like the aforementioned I suggest taking in an illustration of where the sirloin can be found.

Thin Serloin steak slices
Tamari sauce
1 clove garlic sliced
1 inch ginger sliced
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
5 Victoria plums (if you use other plums make sure they are small)
1 onion
1 red chilli

1.Boil the Victoria plums in enough water to cover the plums until they are cooked all the way through and their skins have come off. If the skins do not come off, remove them.
2. Place the sirloin steaks in to a container big enough to hold them.
3. Cover the steaks with enough tamari sauce so that they are covered in the sauce
4. Place the sliced ginger, slice garlic, rice vinegar, sugar and boiled plums into the container along with their juice.
5. Leave to marinate for approximately 3 hours
6. On a hot griddle pan, cook the steaks. Place them straight on to the pan and do not move until you are ready to change sides.
7. While the beef in cooking, put one thickly sliced onion in to a saucepan and place the marinade on top. Cook at a high heat for approximately 10 minutes to cook off any impurities that may have been in the meat. While you are doing this the mush the plums so that they come away from the stone and remove it.
8. Serve the beef teriyaki with the sauce on top of the meat and place the sliced chilli on top.

Berry Uire cake

To call Uire (pronounce ooo-ree) isn’t exactly truthful. Traditionally cakes are not eaten at the end of meal, instead the Japanese had accompaniments to the traditional tea ceremonies and this is one of those accompaniments. Considering the amount of sugar in this, this isn’t very sweet but it is a very tasty end to a meal. If you want a sugar rush I suggest replacing the fresh/frozen fruit with jam.

125g of ground rice
75g raw cane sugar
75g frozen mixed berries
Water

1.Microwave the berries until they become soft and liquid starts to release (approximately 3 minutes)
2. In a separate microwave suitable flat container mix the ground rice and sugar with ½ cup of water. Then microwave for 3 minutes.
3. Remove from the microwave and mix in the berries, their juice and additional ¼ cup of water
4. Pack in firmly into the microwave container and microwave for 5 minutes (5-7 minutes) until it has puffed and cooked.

5. Allow to cool before cutting into squares or cutting with a biscuit cutter.


PS
My apologies regarding the absence of photos for each item...I forgot!

Cooking up a Storm

I’m not exactly sure why, but last night I decided to cook a few things rather than just one or main plus carbohydrate. We’ve still been working our way through various countries but some iftaris weren’t really worth blogging about eg the night we had England as our theme, we had fish shop fish and chips…well the gluten eaters did. I had supermarket gluten free fish fingers with chips and baked beans. The following night with the US as our theme it had to be burgers. Last night we hit Spain.

Our menu was:

Lamb Paella with peppers and green beans
Prawns and mussels in garlic and chilli
Patatas Bravas
Tomato and goats cheese salad

Lamb Paella with peppers and green beans

1 onion
1/3rd of a shoulder of lamb (meat and bones)
Olive oil
2 ripe tomatoes or 2 tomatoes from a tin of tomatoes
230g of cooked Butter beans
100g green beans
1 red pepper chopped into large cubes
1 cup long grain rice
Approximately 2.5 cups* of Water
4 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons of sweet paprika (adjust to taste)
1 pinch of saffron diluted in hot water

* Cup = any mug you have just make sure to use the same for both the measures.

1. Wash the rice and set aside in some water.
2. Dice an onion
3. Put enough olive oil to cover the base of the pan, then fry the onions on a low heat until they are golden.
4. When the onions are done add the lamb shoulder, browning the meat.
5. Add 4 cloves of chopped garlic to the lamb and continue to brown.
6. Add the salt and paprika, stir and coat the lamb with them.
7. Finely chop the tomatoes then add to the pan.
8. Now add enough water to cover the meat entirely, bring to boil and then leave to simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes with a lid on. The water should have reduced slightly but there should be enough covering the meat.
9. Wash the butter beans until the water runs clear then add the beans to the pan. Stir to adjust the placement of the meat and beans in the pan.
10. Finally add the drained rice to the pan. Level out the rice so that it is evenly distributed in the pan. Do not stir the rice at all.
11. Heat the pan till the liquid till it boils, then reduce and leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes with the lid on.
12. Switch the heat off, and place the green beans and red pepper on top of the rice. Place the lid back on to the pan and leave standing for 10 minutes. Do not open until the 10 minutes are up.

Patatas Bravas

4 medium potatoes
Spray oil

Cube the potatoes into approximately ½ inch cubes, put in a pan of water and boil for approximately 5 minutes. Drain and place on an ovenproof tray and spray with spray oil and place in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour and a half or until golden brown. Serve hot with the bravas sauce and allioli.

Bravas Sauce
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion
1 red chilli
½ tin tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon smoked chipotle

Slice the onion and fry in the olive oil until golden, add the chilli, tomatoes, salt and smoked chipotle. Gently stir on a medium heat until the sauce is thick.


Allioli
1 egg
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon olive oil + extra for pouring
1 crushed garlic clove
A pinch of salt to taste

Combine the egg, garlic, teaspoon of vinegar, teaspoon of olive oil in a food processor and blitz until they take on an emulsified consistency. Gradually pour in a little olive oil until you reach a thin mayonnaise consistency. I find doing this bit slowly helps.


Prawns and mussels in garlic and chilli

Allow approximately:
200g of mussels per person (ensure they are cleaned with beards removed)
5-7 raw grey prawns per person (ensure that all intestines are removed)
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 chilli finely chopped
3 tablespoons water
Olive oil

Put approximately 1cm of olive oil in a pan with the crushed garlic and heat on a very low heat for approximately 5 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and then add the chilli, prawns, mussels and the water. Place a lid on the pan and cook for 7 minutes or until the prawns and mussels are cooked all the way through. Serve with sliced limes.

Tomato and goats cheese salad

Slice tomatoes, goats cheese. Arrange the goats cheese on the tomatoes and sprinkle cracked black pepper and coarse sea salt on top.

Quick Palov

I’ve been slack of late, not necessarily in art of cooking but more in remembering to photograph or where I have remembered to photograph I’ve just been lazy in writing things up! Not good! Alhumdulilah, we’ve been fortunate enough to choose a different country to eat from every day this Ramadan and my objective was to share this so inshallah I will start sharing!

Last night for iftari we ate Palov from Uzbekistan done earlier (click Uzbekistan on the side - I can't figure out links!). Actually it was very easy almost too easy! Before Ramadan I had prepared the lamb stock for the palov which meant that with iftari at approximately 8:23 last night the food didn’t actually get on to cook until 8pm! My husband did actually question me a couple of times to make sure I was on schedule.

The plus point was that all I had to do was chop carrots, if I had been at work I would have bought pre chopped carrots, but honestly I needed something to do just to pass the time! Once my carrots were chopped perfectly all that remained to do was drain and wash the chick peas, throw in the pre-soaked rice, the mandatory head of garlic and hey presto iftari was done! It was so easy, quick and brilliant for when your head just isn’t functioning.

Alhumudlilah everyone enjoyed iftari.

An Indian

Monday night, my mother cooked iftari for us so we indulged in true home cooking which made us feel truly loved, Alhumdulilah. She cooked keema aloo (Indian/Pakistani mince meat cooked in spices with potatoes) it is a dish my husband loves and yet one which my father-in-law cannot come to terms with. He repeats the same phrase every time my husband mentions this dish on the phone “ ..but how can you have a mince meat curry?” My husband views this dish as his childhood favourite meal of mince and tatties (now this I cannot get my head around this, plain boiled mince with boiled potatoes!) taken up a level.

My mum made a simple bougia of courgettes to accompany. Its really simple and one of my favourite vegetable dishes and best of all it can be done with any vegetable: a little oil, some whole cumin, whole coriander, whole cloves, whole black pepper then add some ginger, garlic and courgettes. Just add a little water until the courgettes begin to cook down and release their own water.

Finally my mum made a real treat for me, gulab jamon. Gulab jamon are little balls of milk solids which are gently fried until dark and then, like so many arab influenced desserts, are steeped in sugar syrup delicately flavoured with rose water or kerwa water. Surprisingly I have no memories of my mother making these for me when I was little simply because we always bought them from Ambala (an Indian/Pakistani sweet shop) however since becoming coeliac and prompted by Ambala’s refusal to state what their gulab jamon contains my lovely mother decided to make me some herself! If I ever do get to see what she does I promise to reveal all! In the mean time I’ll leave you with some lovely photos!

London Riots

Salam alaykum, I’ve been a bit slow in posting up what we’ve been eating over the last few days just simply because I have been watching television. I, like may others, have been shocked and outraged at the levels of wanton violence that mobs have been using to attack shops and homes. It is beyond disgusting.

For those of you not in the UK, one of the many justifications that is being put about by various people is that the voice of the youth is not being heard, that they are deprived, that they are fed up of a life without prospects, that they have no youth clubs, that they have no where to hang out and that they have no choice but to hang around on street corners!

The truth is that besides leaving a wake of broken shops, burnt out homes and ruined livelihoods, there are another group of people who have suffered even more because of these yobs…the people who are starving because of the drought. Only the day before the riots began there was a story of a little baby boy who was about five months old and after spending two weeks in the refugee camps and being intensively fed, he had gone from a ghost of a baby made of skin, bone and hollowed eyes to what a baby should look like: bright eyed, smiling, happy mash’Allah! Since the riots began these stories have totally disappeared. Somalia and the other countries don’t seem to feature anywhere. They need us, they need our prayers and they need our actual help to help them.

The looters in my area attacked a sports shop and mobile phone shops. These aren’t shops that sell the basics of life, they sell the luxuries of life. They also attacked a petrol pump and threatened to blow that up too. There is no justification for this. Some may try and say that these are similar to riots that led to revolutions, there is no revolution because there is no ideology. Ideology has a purpose. This has no purpose. The objective here is to loot, to damage, to harm, to injure and now to kill. In three short days one man has been shot in London, one Malaysian student badly injured and then robbed, and now three men have been killed in Birmingham while standing outside a mosque trying to protect it.

We need normality back. We need sense back. We need parents to take responsibility. We need calm. Most of all we need the real people who have NEEDS back as the headline of the news.