Asian Mango Slaw ~ Secret recipe club October 19th 2015

This is my assignment with the Secret Recipe Club.The aim of the club is that you are allocated a blog from which you have to select a recipe and try it and blog about it. For the month of October my assigned blog is CookwithSara  I enjoyed looking through Sara's blog and finally settled for the Asian Mango Slaw as I had a semi ripe mango that was perfect for the recipe. We really enjoyed this delicious Asian Mango Slaw recipe . I did add raw mango and chillies to spice it up a little.

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Asian Mango Slaw

by October-18-2015

Delicious and tangy Mango slaw with Asian flavours.

Ingredients:

• 300g Finely shredded cabbage
• 2 medium Finely grated carrots
• 1 small Red Onion finely sliced
• 1 Semi ripe large mango finely sliced
• 2 small Raw mango sliced
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 2 red Chilli finely chopped
• 1/4 cup Flaked Almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 2 tablespoons Rice Vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Lime Juice
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon Light Soya Sauce

Method:

1. In a screw top jar add the vinegar, lime juice, soya sauce, olive oil, salt and red chillies. Put on the lid and shake the jar to mix all the ingredients.2. In a skillet add the almonds and sesame seeds and toast them lightly. Transfer them to a bowl and keep aside.3. In a large bowl add the shredded cabbage, grated carrots, sliced onions and the both types of mango slices and toss together. 4. Pour the dressing over the salad mixture and toss together to coat the vegetables with the dressing. Add half the sesame seeds and toasted almonds and toss together.5. Transfer the Asian Mango slaw to a serving dish and garnish with the remaining toasted sesame seeds.

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time:None Total time: 10 mins Yield: Serves 4

An InLinkz Link-up

#OnkenTips -A lovely book full of recipes using Onken

My family and I love yoghurt in any form or shape be it dolloped over a bowl of fruit, swirled in a bowl of soup, stirred into curries to give a rich creamy texture or added in baking to give a soft spongy texture.

Coconut and yoghurt chutney- Delicious fresh coconut and tangy yoghurt tempered with chillies and curry leaves the perfect chutney for South Indian Dishes.

Tzatziki- Delicious Greek yoghurt and cucumber dip flavoured with garlic and paprika.

Yoghurt is so healthy and  rich for your body, not only does it have healthy bacteria that is good for your gut but it can provide nutrients such as Calcium, Vitamins and Magnesium and Potassium. One of my regular brands of yoghurt that I always have in my fridge is Onken Yogurts They come in a natural and a variety of fruit flavours so there is always something for everyone.

Onken together with some food bloggers have created a lovely mini recipe book called #Onken Tips Dips, dollops and swirls of Inspiration .The book is full of ideas on how you can use Onken yoghurts in your daily life. There are recipes  for  breakfast, savory dishes and sweet. You can check out the book on instagram to get some inspiration to create your own recipes using Onken Yoghurt.

A day at River Cottage HQ -Devon

English countryside is pretty spectacular and I find that although I have travelled abroad a lot I have not visited that many places in the UK. When I recently had the opportunity to spend a day at River Cottage HQ in Axminster Devon I jumped at the chance.What better way to explore beautiful English Countryside and at the same time spend a day with foodie friends doing what I love the most "cooking" at the awesome River cottage HQ Cookery School and farm.

My trip to River cottage spread over three days and two nights. Together with my best foodie pals Heidi, Tina and Manjiri. We stayed at an awesome B&B called Millwater House in Axminster. The place was really lovely set is beautiful gardens with lovely scenery and views.

On our 1st day we just spent the afternoon exploring the town of Axminster and shopping for food photography props!!! We found an Aladdin's cave of treasures or how can I say a food bloggers dream shop. You didn't think that a food blogger could go on a foodie trip and not come back with props did you??? But this is content for another blog post so wait and watch.

In the evening we all went to the lovely coastal town of Lyme Regis for dinner. Lyme Regis is very pretty and we were really lucky with the weather and managed to take some really nice photos of the Jurassic coastal Line.

Day two after enjoying a lush cooked vegetarian breakfast we headed over to River Cottage for our day there. The farm is set in acres of farmland and we were  all transported down to the River Cottage Cookery school in a tractor. The ride down the steep hill was most certainly an experience as most of us squealed like a bunch of teenagers as we bumped down the hill.

We were greeted in style to charge up for the day with fresh coffee and pastries after which we split into three groups to enjoy the day's sessions.My first session was a tour around the farm and its vegetable and fruit gardens.

I was amazed at all the crops they grow, together with the wild flowers and  herbs which are all used in the River Cottage Kitchens.The head gardener explained to us all about crop rotation and how they group plants to get the best out of them, We also walked around the meadows and had close encounter with the chickens and pigs.

Our second session of the day was a bread and home made butter making class. We foraged for fresh blackberries and wild flowers before we set about making Apple and blackberry soda bread together with home made butter with wild flowers.

I did not realise that making butter at home could be so easy, that is if you have a hand mixer otherwise your arms will drop off from sheer exhaustion if you whisk it by hand!!

After the baking sessions our tummies were rumbling with the glorious smells coming  from the River Cottage HQ kitchens. Lunch was delicious, the non vegetarians enjoyed Ravioli with pork filling whilst the vegetarians had a lovely ravioli filled with goats cheese and all served an a beautiful sauce made from  a medley of vegetables from the River Cottage gardens. We also enjoyed fresh corn on the cob with delicious home made bread and butter. The dessert that followed was simply delectable, we had salted caramel and vanilla ice cream with fennel infused meringue and damson sauce.

After lunch we did a food styling session with Lucy Heath from Capture by Lucy. We had some hands on training on styling and learnt some really useful tips about creating the right moods with props and lightening. I was so captivated listening to Lucy that I did not get time to do the exercise she had set us about photographing some produce from three different angles.

The day ended with a final networking session before we were transported back up the hill  via the bumpity tractor to make our way home.

In the evening we went out for dinner again to Lyme Regis and the next day we explored some more of the wonderful English country side by going to another coastal town called Beer. Beer is beautiful coastal town full of tiny quaint shops and alleyways. Devon is a beautiful place and I will most definitely return back there in the summer next year.

What an amazing and fun filled day we had at River Cottage HQ. I would like to thank Foodies 100 and River Cottage HQ for inviting me. All views and opinions expressed in this post are of my own experience and unbiased.

You can read about some of the other reviews of River Cottage Bloggers day below.
Heidi's experience of River Cottage here.
Jane Sarchet's experience of River Cottage here
Choclette's experience of River Cottage here
Anne Szadorska's experience of River Cottage here 
Claire Jessiman's experience of River Cottage here
Sus Davy's experience of River Cottage here
Rebecca Anns's experience of River Cottage here

South Indian Cookery class at Food at 52

India is a very large country with many different cultures and regions each supporting their own dialect, traditions and food. Cuisines in India can range from pure vegetarians to sea food in coastal areas to  non veg mughlai cuisines. The flavours and tastes vary as do the cooking methods, utensils and the ingredients used in the cooking.

Whilst travelling in India, I was lucky to taste a varied and delicious cuisines. One of my favorite regional cuisines was South Indian food. South India is made up  of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. Some common ingredients in South Indian cuisine are rice, dhals, ginger, chillies, tamarind, coconut, plantains and fresh regional vegetables and pulses.

I love the flavours of the curry leaves, the sweetness of the coconut cream and the spiciness and tang from the chillies and tamarind used in the cuisine. I have tried to replicate some of the dishes at home but I was most excited when John and Natasha from Food at 52 a cookery school in London invited me to attend a South Indian cookery class.

There were 12 of us at the cookery class. The evening started with a short introduction to South Indian cuisine  by John our tutor for the course, after which we split into three groups to create some dishes for our meal to enjoy later.
We learnt that South Indian cuisine predominantly uses a lot of coconut, curry leaves and  tamarind in their cuisine. The curries vary from dry salad type called Thorans to more saucy curries cooked in coconut milk and tempered with curry leaves and spices.
The group cooked a wonderful menu consisting of various different ingredients. The dishes we cooked were:

Group 1

Tindori Thoran - A dry curry made with Ivy Gourd  tempered with fresh coconut and curry leaves.

Moru Kachiathu with mango and ripe plantain-  A delicious and cooling yoghurt soup made with beaten yoghurt, ripe mangoes puree  garnished with ripe mango slices and ripe plantain slices and tempered with curry leaves and onions.

Mango Chutney- Hot and tangy mango chutney slow cooked with an array of aromatic spices.

Group 2

Lemon Rice- Hot steamed rice flavoured with lemon and tempered with curry leaves and spice.

Beet Pachadi- Grated Beetroot tempered with curry leaves and coconut.

Chicken Nadam Kozi Curry- Chicken pieces cooked in a spicy coconut curry sauce.

Group 3

Lemon Rice- Hot steamed rice flavoured with lemon and tempered with curry leaves and spices.

Aubergine Rasavangy- A delicious pidgeon pea dhal cooked with spices and tamarind and garnished with slow roasted baby aubergines.

Snake Bean Thoran- Green beans steamed and tempered with beet stalks and coconut and curry leaves.

The cookery lesson was so much fun as it was all hands on and John our tutor was very informative,  helping us along each dish  to create this mouthwatering feast .

John also showed us how to made vadai, which are a deep fried savory donut appetizer that were simply mouth watering. These are often served for breakfast also with coconut chutney.

We finally sat down to enjoy out South Indian Banquet that we prepared. Each and every dish was amazingly delicious and ironically was really simple to make.

This was one of the most enjoyable class I have attended to at Food at 52 and I would highly recommend it. The class duration was from 6.30-10.00 and it costs £115.00 per person.

I would like to thank John and Natasha for inviting me to attend the South Indian Cookery Class at Food at 52 , all views and opinions in this post are my own and of my experience of the class.