ottawa – Beyond Umami

Butter Chicken Recipe – Cooking from Coconut Lagoon’s Cookbook

Beyond Umami — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 15:07:00 +0000

Coconut Lagoon Butter Chicken Recipe

Butter Chicken Recipe from Coconut Lagoon’s Cookbook

We loved the Shrimp Mango Curry that we cooked from Coconut Lagoon’s cookbook that we actually made the dish two more times over the month of September! Another recipe that everyone will surely want to try from Chef Joe Thottungal’s cookbook is the Butter Chicken. As mentioned in my last post, the Coconut Lagoon cookbook celebrates Chef Joe’s cooking journey that led him to open a restaurant in Ottawa, which celebrates the food from his homeland, Kerala located in Southern India. Kerala food focuses more on seafood, agriculture and spices. Rice, fish, and coconut typically dominate the cuisine. Kerala spices are typically peppercorns with mustard seeds, curry leaves with cinnamon, chilies, cardamom and cloves, kudampuli, and tumeric.

Dan and I with Chef Joe at Coconut Lagoon’s cookbook launch

In his book, Chef Joe talks about how butter chicken is really a north Indian dish and that Coconut Lagoon is a south Indian restaurant. However, after many years he finally put Butter Chicken on the menu as his son Matthew claims that butter chicken is his favourite. This recipe for Butter Chicken is dedicated to his son.

In terms of preparation, gathering the ingredients for this recipe was fairly easy. If you are uncertain about buying a huge quantity of spices, bulk stores would be a good place to shop (e.g. Bulk Barn). Though, we found some pretty inexpensive prices at Superstore/Loblaws for coriander and chili powder. The one tricky part was actually finding a good price for cashew nuts!

You do need to pre-marinate the chicken with yogurt, chili powder, tumeric, salt and oil the night before. This actually helps the chicken taste tender when cooked.

Butter Chicken cooking away

Butter Chicken Recipe (Serves 4-6) Gluten-free

2 cups raw cashew nuts
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 Tbsp plain yogurt
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp salt, plus extra to taste
1 tsp coconut oil
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2 small onions, chopped
1 1/2 tsp Ginger-Garlic Paste (recipe below)
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
3 Tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chaat masala
3 cups milk
Chopped cilantro, for garnish

Ginger-Garlic Paste (Makes ½ cup) Dairy-free, gluten-free, vegetarian

1 (4-inch) piece ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped (1/4 cup)
10 cloves garlic

Using a dish towel, pat ginger dry and transfer it to a mini food processor (or use a mortar and

pestle).

Add garlic and 2 Tbsp water and process until smooth, wiping down the sides of the food

processor as required. Stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Butter Chicken Directions

In a saucepan, combine cashews and 4 cups water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce

heat and simmer for 5 minutes, until nuts have softened. Strain and set aside to cool. Transfer

to a food processor or blender and purée until smooth.

In a large bowl, combine chicken, yogurt, chili powder, turmeric, salt, and oil and mix well until

chicken pieces are fully coated. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place chicken on prepared baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, until par-cooked.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and sauté for 3 minutes. Reduce

heat to medium. Add ginger-garlic paste and cook for another 3 minutes. Stir in coriander,

cooking for 1 more minute.

Add tomatoes and tomato paste and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in 2 Tbsp cashew paste, sugar,

fenugreek leaves, cumin, and chaat masala and cook for 1 minute. (Leftover cashew paste can

be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.) Add chicken and milk and bring

to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 8 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through but still

juicy and tender. Season with salt to taste.

Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice.

Basmati Rice

2 cups Basmati Rice
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil

Rinse Rice Well, at least 3-4 times, until the water runs clear. Put rice, salt, lemon juice, and oil in a large saucepan, add 4 cups of water, and bring to a boil, stirring to prevent rice from sticking.

Reduce head to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 12-15 minutes until rice is cooked. Remove from heat and set aside, covered, for another 8-10 minutes. Remove lid and fluff the grains with a fork. Serve immediately.

Butter chicken served with Basmati Rice and Pappadums

We really enjoyed making this Butter Chicken recipe and the directions were easy to follow. I did cut down the amount of cashew nuts we cooked to 1 cup since only 2 Tablespoons are needed for this recipe. I also used fenugreek seeds (which we added in while cooking ginger-garlic paste and onions) since I couldn’t find fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi). Serving Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice is important as the rice helps to absorb all that delicious flavours and sauce. The chicken was also super tender as it is initially parcooked and then cooked again with the rest of the spices.

If you enjoy Butter Chicken as much as I do then make this recipe! We also really liked the Shrimp Mango Curry (pictured below). You can find Chef Thottungal’s cookbook Coconut Lagoon at any major publishing outlets such as Chapters, Indigo and Amazon.

Shrimp Mango Curry – Cooking from Coconut Lagoon’s Cookbook

Beyond Umami — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 21:55:00 +0000

Shrimp Mango Curry – from Coconut Lagoon’s cookbook with basmati rice and pappadams in my wheel thrown bowls.

Finally cooked up this delicious Shrimp Mango Curry from Chef Joe Thottungal’s cookbook Coconut Lagoon. Chef Thottungal’s restaurant, Coconut Lagoon is located in Ottawa – which just so happens to be where we are living at the moment. I first experienced Chef Joe’s delicious cooking when I came to Ottawa for the Food Bloggers Conference in 2018. When I moved here in February, we went to Coconut Lagoon for dinner a few times bringing family and friends. Needless to say, I was excited when I found out that Chef Joe was launching his first cookbook.

Dan and I had the pleasure of attending the Coconut Lagoon cookbook launch party, which of course featured amazing dishes from the cookbook. The cookbook is about Chef Joe’s cooking journey that led him to open a restaurant in Ottawa, which celebrates the food from his homeland, Kerala.

Since I had eaten the Shrimp Mango Curry several times at Coconut Lagoon‘s restaurant, I decided that this would be the recipe I started with first. Most of the spices I found at Bulk Barn, which worked for me as I didn’t want a huge bag of red chili powder, fenugreek seeds or coriander. With the exception of the curry leaves and black mustard seeds, I picked up all my spices from Bulk Barn. For the curry leaves, I made my way to Thana which is a store specializing in South Asian & Caribbean groceries on Bank St. As for the black mustard seeds, since I wasn’t quite ready to commit to a huge bag of that, I picked up about 2 teaspoons worth from the Herb & Spice Store across the street from Thana.

Last but not least, the mango! I have never had green mango before and who would have thought but Farm Boy actually carried them.

The instructions for this Shrimp Mango Curry (page 13) are very straightforward. Once you have your shrimp (about 1 lb), green mango, and all the spices than you are set! Since I had purchased deveined shrimp, all I needed to do was defrost and shell them. Then I marinated them in 1.5 tsp of fresh lime juice and set it in the fridge. After that, I set out to collect the rest of the ingredients I was missing (curry leaves & black mustard seeds).

Shrimp to be marinated in lime juice.

Chef Joe’s recipe relies on using two pans (one for the spices and then later on a deeper skillet for cooking the rest of the curry. In the first pan, he uses a method called tempering for the spices, which is a traditional method to extract optimal flavours from the spices. This involves the pan being at high heat initially and then turning down the heat right before cooking the seeds. First mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds are tempered. Then onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves are added in.

Finally, the rest of the spices – tumeric, coriander, and chili powder.

Next, the shrimp and mango slices are added in and sautéed for a few minutes before the coconut milk is added.

Once the shrimp turns pink, the shrimp mango curry is done! It really does come together quite quickly! Definitely have pan splash guard ready as things will get hot!

We had our shrimp mango curry with basmati rice (following Chef Joe’s recipe – page 156) and some pappadams! Pappadams are essentially lentil crackers and these ones are made super quick! I just take them out of their package (which I also got from Thana), line the microwave with a paper towel and nuke several of them for 40 seconds.

This shrimp mango curry is so tasty! It was surprising how sweet the green mango was, but that added to the flavour of the curry. We did end up adding more coconut milk to our dish as we wanted a slightly saucier curry.

Go check out this cookbook and try this Shrimp Mango Curry for yourself. Or for an easy place to start, the chai is a good one or even the lentils. I am also looking forward to cooking up the Cauliflower Masala and the Eggplant Masala, mainly because I saw yesterday that all of those ingredients were also on sale at Farm Boy. Oh and certainly their Butter Chicken recipe.

Also I now have permission to publish the Shrimp Mango Curry. Here it is!

Shrimp Mango Curry

1 lb medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 1/2 tsp fresh lime juice
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
Pinch of fenugreek seeds
1 Onion, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 (1-inch) piece ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
20 curry leaves
1 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 cup sliced green, unripe mangoes
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tsp salt, plus extra for taste

In a small bowl, combine shrimp and lime juice. Cover and marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.

Have a splash guard and measured spices nearby. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat until nearly smoking. Immediately reduce heat to medium.

You can test the heat of the oil by dropping in a couple of seeds. The oil is at the correct temperature when the seeds crackle, but do not burn.

Add must seeds and temper for a few seconds, until they stop popping (Cover with the splash guard, if needed).

Add fenugreek seeds and temper for another 30 seconds.

Add onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves and sauté for 2 minutes, until fragrant.

Add tumeric, coriander, and chili powder and stir for 1 minute, until the raw smell is cooked off. Transfer to a heavy-bottomed skillet.

Increase heat to high. Add shrimp and mango slices and sauté for 1 minute. Pour in coconut milk, bring to a boil, and cook for 1 minute, or until shrimp turns pink. add salt and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve with rice and parathas.

Presdelicious – La Roma on Preston Street in Ottawa

Beyond Umami — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 16:47:00 +0000

Having called Ottawa home for the past few weeks, I have been on the look out for different food events. I was happy to find out that there was one on Preston Street in Little Italy called Presdelicious. Similar to other food festivals (such as Winterlicious in Toronto and Downtown Dining Week in Edmonton) participating restaurants have three course dinner specials available. After browsing the pamphlet online with our friends we decided to try La Roma Restaurant for the dining festival and to celebrate our friend’s birthday.

We were immediately seated at our table when we arrived. Noting that their Presdelicious menu is slightly different from their regular menu all of us selected the three course meal for $38. Here are some of our selections.

Crispy, Warm Pancetta and Pecorino Arancini

Beautiful display of Vitello Tonnato – thinly sliced veal; a Northern Italy specialty

Seared Albacore Tuna medallions with sea scallop

Fall off the bone Osobucco with warm crispy polenta fries

Good sizeable portion of Tartufo Gelato

Cannoli – sicilian style

Light, almost fluffy no bake cheesecake parfait

For $38 we all thought it was a good value for the food at La Roma. We don’t always order appetizers or desserts so the three course menu gave us the opportunity to try different courses.

The Presdelicious festival, which runs from March 1 to March 10, did a great job at highlighting restaurants that we would not have known about. I am looking forward checking out more restaurants in Little Italy as it is relatively close to where we live.

La Roma Restaurant
430 Preston Street.
Ottawa, ON
www.laromaottawa.com
(613) 234-8244

5 Things to do in Ottawa in February

Beyond Umami — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 16:50:00 +0000

Well, it’s already been two weeks that I have been in Ottawa. This past weekend, one of our good friends from Edmonton came to visit us in Ottawa and it just so happened to be the Family Day long Weekend, so we checked out a few places around Ottawa.

One – The Glebe

An area that we explored was the Glebe (pronounced more as a prolonged ‘ee’)! This area is located just south of Centretown (and downtown) and is close to the Rideau Canal. We checked out the various graffiti walls in the area. There are also lots of cute stores and shops in the Glebe including the Papery (for all your paper & pen needs, and other eclectic gifts) and Little Victories for your coffee related needs!

Two – Eat at Feleenas

Mexican food at Feleenas Mexican Cantina in the Glebe. Decent prices for lunch. We didn’t eat a lot as we were doing more exploring and wanted to have enough room for snacks & desserts! For lunch specials there were enchiladas, fajitas, quesadillas, tacos and burritos.

Three – Byward Market!

Byward Market is a tourist attraction for sure and everyone should make at least one visit to the Byward Market area when they visit Ottawa. The “Ottawa” sign is also located here in the market. Aside from visiting the various shops in the area, there aren’t too many outdoor activities at the market in Winter. However, it just so happened to be the first time Winterlude was taking place in the market so we were able to check out all the ice sculptures from the various countries.

El-Camino has a second location in the market and their fish tacos are famous! Dan and I had eaten at the Elgin street El Camino location previously and liked their fish tacos so much that this time I ordered two fish tacos for just me. I am looking forward to visiting Byward Market in the summer when there will be more outdoor market stalls and things to look at.

Four – Spark Street

Spark Street is a pedestrian-only walkway spanning a couple city blocks. At the end near Elgin Street is a public arts sculpture celebrating the Stanley Cup (sadly the puck was covered under snow at the time). Spark Street is lined with restaurants, pubs, and bars (it is also where the restaurant the Rabbit Hole that we went to last week is located).

Five – Westboro & Mamie Clafoutis

Westboro! Seems like a super neat area. We came on Family Day so many places were closed. It is filled with many restaurants and cafes that we took note of and will certainly come back to visit in the near future. We stopped by Mamie Clafoutis a very cute french bakery to eat some french pastries! We ordered an almond croissant, a cheese pretzel, canelé, and a mamie aman (their take on a Kouign Aman with roasted hazelnuts and chocolate).

Can’t wait to check out more places in the Glebe and Westboro once it gets warmer. Plus, there are quite a few festivals in the Glebe such as a the Sugar Festival in April, the new Art Festival in June and the Westboro Fuse Street festival in August!

Week One in Ottawa & Food Notes February 15, 2019

Beyond Umami — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 22:02:00 +0000

Hello food blog world! It’s been some time that I’ve had the chance to do some blogging. With that being said, I am truly hoping to be able to jump right back in with recipe creating & testing, macaron making, cookbook reviews all while exploring the city of Ottawa! Yup, that’s right. I moved across the country and right back into my home province of Ontario (I grew up in Toronto) to be with my husband (Dan)! If you follow along with me on other social media, you will know that one of the reasons I decided to take a one year leave of absence from work is of course to be with Dan, and also to rest mentally & physically. I love being a Speech-Language Pathologist and that won’t change. I also plan on going back to work at the end of this year off. In the meantime, we are framing this year off to be like a sabbatical! Taking the time to get better mentally, physically, and while doing so dabble further in my hobbies.

I can’t believe how fast the time has gone and that I have already been in Ottawa for one week! Here are some of the places we checked out this week:

Tapas Bar at 222 Lyon on the night I arrived. We ordered most of the veggie dishes as well as today’s mussels in a white wine sauce ($16) that I ended up drinking like soup, while Dan sopped up the sauce with the house bread.
Skating on the Rideau Canal!
Latte at Dan’s favourite coffee shop in Ottawa – Equator Coffee Roasters (which says a lot as he can’t have too much caffeine). I do love how smooth their lattes are. The one we went to is inside the National Arts Center.
Visited La Bottega Nicastro in Byward Market and picked up a few goodies for the fridge and pantry!
After skating and checking out Winterlude, we went to Shanghai Wonton Noodle (178 Rideau Street) as I was craving a bowl of hot noodles! Tricky at first to find if you aren’t looking for it as their signage is on the window. Order the Beef Noodle Soup ($7.95) and “Pan Fried Pork Mushroom Big Wonton”($8.95). These are not pan fried though, but deep fried! Still really good.
Korean House (785 Somerset St W) for their hot bowls of dol sot bibimbap after church. Dan also loves that all their soups arrive at the table bubbling and hot! $12.95 for the galbi dol sot bibimbap with an egg.
Coffee break at The Ministry of Coffee. Great place to work, blog, or just read
Lunch bowls at Mad Radish. Love how health & environmental conscious they are. On this particular occasion I ordered a rice bowl topped with curry cauliflower, greens and papadum ($11.95). They used to have this delish soba noodle bowl, but sadly I don’t see on the menu any more. All bowls are good choices here!
I went and explored Little Italy myself Thursday. So many cute shops here: Free Wheeling Craft for all your gift ideas, Shop Vincent and more! In terms of food places I’m interested in returning to dine at La Roma Restaurant and EVOO Greek Kitchen.
Then last night after skating a whole 12 km of the Rideau Canal (which frankly gets a bit scary skating in the dark!), we went down the Rabbit Hole! They are a recent new opening to Spark Street (208 Sparks Street – corner of Bank & Spark). They specialize in cocktail and oysters as well as other dishes. We ordered a dozen oysters ($40) and an order of fries on the side ($5).
Last but not least, I should mention the cannelés from Adam Bakes. He makes the cannelés and you can order them for dessert at the Rabbit Hole. We ended up ordering all 3 flavours for dessert – chocolate rose, strawberry cream & cinnamon sugar – as Dan is obsessed over these and continues to strive at making them himself. All cannelés had their characteristic crunchy dark caramelized exterior and a chewy custard inside.

Other Food News in Ottawa:

In the summer when I was visiting Dan, we went to Flying Piggy’s. Sadly, we heard recently that they have now closed.
Moo Shu Ice Cream (we used to live around the corner from them last year!) is now open again after their January break and serving their delicious ice creams as well as lunch options (until mid April). Definitely go during their $5 Wednesday deals (one scoop + bubble waffle for $5!).

We also did do some home cooking ourselves which you may have seen if you follow me on instagram or twitter (steak 3 different times, baked chicken, cookies, waffles).

Well, that’s all for now in my adventures of Ottawa this week! I’ll update with more as the weeks go by! Leaving you all with a gorgeous picture from the top floor of the Rabbit Hole.