Reg's Veggie Curry

The latest of Reg's dang tasty Regipes was filmed whilst on tour in Prague! Arriving with nothing but a suitcase of spices and reggae t-shirts, Reg was ready to paint the town masala-red. Here, Reg shows us how to make his spectacular vegetable curry which can feature any vegetable, paneer, or even meat if you like! As Reg always says...

Useful Reg advice:

"If I don't have, it doesn't go in. If I do, I poot!"

"Do you like my tee-shirt? It says Reg!"

"While we are cooking, I was having a dreenk, and while I was having a dreenk, it was cooking."

Preparation time: 10 minutes         Cooking time: 40-50 minutes         Spice level: Got socks on? Not after this.

Ingredients (serves 6-8 people)

For the base:

3 large onions

2 thumbs of ginger

½ bulb of garlic 

2 tins of chopped tomatoes 

2 tspn of salt

Spices:

1 heaped tbsp coriander powder 

1 heaped tbsp cumin powder

1 heaped tbsp madras powder (curry powder)

1 tspn turmeric powder

1 tspn chili powder 

The vegetables:

(Any veg will do, but here's what Reg used)

1 cauliflower

1 broccolli

4 potatoes

Instructions

Start by finely chopping your onions, ginger and garlic. Take a large saucepan and heat up a good glug of vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, add your onions, ginger and garlic and fry them for one minute. Add the two tins of chopped tomatoes, stir well and leave on a high simmer until the onions are soft. In the meantime, coarsely chop your vegetables, and make sure that the potatoes are very chunky. By this time, the onions should be soft, so add the spices all together, stir them in, and then throw in your chopped vegetables. Bring everything to the boil, and leave to simmer with a lid on for 30 to 40 minutes until all the vegetables (especially the potatoes) are soft. Stir every 5 to 10 minutes. When you're happy that all the vegetables are cooked through and that the spices have soaked in, leave for a few minutes and then serve onto some Reg rice. Vegcurrytastic.

Optional additions: Mint and cucumber yoghurt to cool down the spice level.

  

Reg's Samosa Recipe

It's the one we've all been waiting for! Reg gives us a step-by-step demonstration of how to create the damn tastiest and well put together samosa you'll ever eat, and reveals a family secret in the form of a "little gadget"!

Useful Reg advice:

"Don't measure and fettle yourself"

"You can make it with a vegetarian - any way you like!"

"For the dough, add 50/50 milk/water to get the crunchy"

"Do it with a bit of spoon"

Preparation time: 20-30mins           Cooking time: 5-10mins           Spice level: You could feed it to toddler Reg 

Ingredients

Non-vegetarian filling:

½ lb minced lamb or beef

½ onion

½ potato

1 tbspn curry powder  

3 cloves garlic

small bunch of fresh coriander

Salt to taste

Vegetarian filling:

Substitute meat with potato & peas

Dough:

Wheat flour

Milk + Water

4 tbspns oil

Salt

Instructions

Filling: Chop and fry the ½ onion in a pan with oil. When see-through, add the mince/potato. When fried, add the curry powder and stir, then for the mince add the extra ½ potato which eventually mashes itself up and helps the mince stick together. Finally, stir in the chopped coriander.

Six Steps to Samosa Heaven.

Dough: As you know, Reg does not measure the dough, but rather feels it. The procedure, however, starts with adding the oil to the flour and mixing it evenly with your hands. Then add the water/milk as you feel, and keep adding more flour or water if the mixture becomes too hard or too soft.

The Samosa: Take a golf ball-sized peice of dough and roll it out into a flat, saucer-sized circle. Cut this in half and take one of the half-circles. Wet a paint brush (or the tip of your finger) and wet the edges of the semi-circle by about 1cm all the way round. Place a heaped tspn of filling in the middle of the half-circle, and fold each side over in turn to create a triangle (see illustration and/or video). With the handle of a teaspoon, seal the edges of the samosa. Make as many samosas as you can with your ingredients, then deep fry them for around 3 minutes, flipping them over now and then until little brown bubbles appear on the surface of the dough. Your samosas are now ready to eat!

Extras: Mix some tomato-chilli pickle with yoghurt to dip!

Reg's Rasam Soup

This Rasam recipe (also known as Charu) has a distinctive south Indian flavour and clearly takes Reg back to his days as a naughty, rural Indian boy. The video compliments the recipe well, and even explores Reg's musical side! Work it Reg!

Useful Reg advice:
"Charu and rice is enough for a poor man's food."
"Charu is used in poetry to indicate a soft, gentle and elegant. Like a moon."
"Heat the liquid part until the tamarind is fully dissolve."
"Also, there is a song..."


Preparation time: 5 minutes               Cooking time: 15 minutes               Spice level: About avereg.


Ingredients (Serves up to 4 people)
For the liquidy part:
½ Finely chopped onion
1 Large chunk of tamarind
1 tspn turmeric
2 tspns salt
4 cups of water
For the tempering:
1 tspn poppy seeds
1 tspn mustard seeds
1 tspn cumin seeds
1 tspn coriander seeds
1 dry red chilli
2 cloves of garlic
Small bunch of fresh coriander


Instructions
Start with the liquidy part: Pour the water into a large pan, then add the tamarind, onion, turmeric and salt. Place onto a hob and leave to boil for approximately 10 minutes until the tamarind chunk has completely dissolved. At this stage, you can add any vegetables you want, for example tomatoes, to create a thicker soup.
Then the Tempering: Place a few tablespoons of oil into a wok and heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and stir, then add your thali mix (poppy, mustard, cumin and coriander seeds). With scissors, cut the dry red chilli directly into the wok and stir for another minute.
Now to combine: Rip off some coriander leaves and place them into the liquidy rasam, then pick up this pan and pour the soup into the wok, so a satisfying sizzle occurs. Stir through, and you're ready to Rasam!


Optional additions: Can be served over warm or cold rice, can be eaten alone as a soup, or you can add and cook in vegetables to the soup to make it a meal of its own.

Reg's Perfect Pancakes

It's that time of year again, and Reg is ready!

Useful Reg advice:

"I make the pancakes at least once a month. I alternate between the pancakes, the Bombay toast (coming soon) and the 'fool' English breakfast." 

"I don't measure the mixture. This is the secret, trust your instinct with the texture."
"Wait for the tiny holes."

Preparation time: 5 mins            Cooking time: 3 mins per pancake         Spice level: Add a chilli, go on.

Check out that mixing!

Ingredients (makes 10-15 small pancakes)

1 cup of plain flour
1 egg
2 cups of milk
1 tbspn of melted butter
Vegetable/sunflower oil
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Put the egg into a bowl and beat, then add the milk and salt and beat together. Slowly add flour, table spoon by table spoon and mix well until you're happy with the consistency ("trust your instincts"). Now mix in the melted butter for taste. Take a non-stick frying pan and heat. If you don't have a non-stick pan, take a peice of kitchen roll, fold and roll it up and put a clothes peg on one end. Dip one end of your home made brush into some oil and coat your pan well. Repeat after every pancake cooked.

Once the pan is hot, pour half a ladle of mixture quickly into the pan. Pick up the pan handle immediately and start tilting and rotating the pan to spread the mixture. Keep doing this until the mixture holds solid and then wait for "the tiny holes" to appear. This should take around 2-3 minutes, and then you need to flip your pancake and cook on the other side for another 2-3 minutes. Your pancake is ready to roll!

Purely for the sake of awesomeness, Reg always has 2 pans on the go at once, and sometimes even 3. Regend.

Suggested fillings: Golden syrup and fresh lemon juice.

Reg's Spinach and Onion Bhajis

Reg pulls out yet another damn-tasty Reg snack from his chef hat (which he got as a Christmas present but said was the wrong shape for his head so now uses it to store Spinach and Onion Bhajis)!

Useful Reg advice:

"Whatever you have/don't have, you can put, you know? That's why my cooking is not strenuous - if I don't have, I don't bother!"

"Make the Bhajis round and flat so they cook better"

"I didn't know I can do the eyes like that" (see video)

Preparation time: 10 minutes              Cooking time: 5 minutes              Spice level: Non-registant

Ingredients (To make 20-25 Bhajis)

1 medium-sized onion 

½ thumb of ginger

1 green chilli

2-3 handfuls of fresh spinach

½ cup of water

300g gram flour

1 tspn salt

Oil for deep frying

Instructions

Slice the onions into long, thin strips, and finely chop the ginger and also the chilli. Place the gram flour into a large bowl then add the onion, ginger, chilli and salt. Dry-stir this mixture well until all of the ingredients are coated in flour. Add the spinach now, and stir well until also evenly coated in flour. Now add the water slowly, stirring constantly. Add water as you need, to ensure a wet, yet sticky texture. Once you're happy with the consistency and texture of the mixture (see pic below!), turn on the oil. Once hot, test the oil by placing a strip of onion in, and if it floats instantly, the oil is ready for frying. 

 

Grab a table spoon-sized amount of mixture with your hand, and carefully place into the oil. Depending on the size of your pan, you can put around 3 Bhajis in at a time. Once they've started cooking and become more solid, make sure they are all separated from each other. When light brown/golden, they are cooked. Directly from the oil, place the Spinach and Onion Bhajis onto a piece of kitchen roll to drain excess oil. Your Bhajis are ready to eat!

Additional home-made dip: Raita - cucumber and yoghurt. 

Reg does Two in One: Puri and Chapati/Roti

Here, you'll witness a Reg tip that he held secret for decades, even to his kids! Be it puris or chapatis, find out how to make the perfect bread accompaniment to any curry dish!

 Useful Reg advice:

"Don't measure the dough - make it what you feel. Add milk/flour as you need, to ensure the perfect texture of the dough."

"Don't worry about the shape - you're not going to eat the shape, you're going to eat the ingredient."

"As snack can have it with mango pickle and yogurt."

Preparation time: 10 minutes         Cooking time: 5 minutes         Spice level: Non-regsistant

Ingredients (Serves however many you want)

Note: Reg refuses to measure dough (see Reg advice above)

Wheat flour for the dough
Plain flour for sprinkling

Milk

Pinch of salt

A wok full of oil for deep frying

Dough Instructions

Make the dough and knead it well (we wish we could tell you more than that but Reg encourages "feeling the food").

Puri Instructions

Pour a good amount of oil into a wok and begin to heat. Sprinkle a clean surface with plain flour. Take a half golf ball-sized piece of dough and roll it into a ball. Place the ball onto the floury surface and press it with 3 fingers to make the ball flat. Try and keep the dough circular throughout. Roll the dough into a flat circle (around the size of your palm), flipping and turning the dough to ensure a consistent shape and texture. Add flour as you need - if it sticks to the surface or rolling pin.

To cook, test if the oil is ready by pinching off a tiny piece of dough and putting it into the oil. If the dough floats immediately, it's ready for cooking. Carefully place the puri(s) one-by-one into the oil. Keep covering both sides of the puri with oil or flip to ensure they cook evenly. Once the puri has puffed up "like a balloon" and is golden brown, take it out of the pan and put it onto kitchen roll to absorb excess oil. Make as many as you want: Reg usually makes a batch of around 20. If you're making lots, use folded newspaper to store them before cooking (it doesn't stick to the dough and keeps them from drying out).

Chapati Instructions

Take a golf ball-sized piece of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten with your fingers and roll out into a plate-size, flipping and turning and sprinkling with flour as you roll. Spread two tspns of oil onto one side of the chapati, avoiding the edges. Roll chapati into "a little carpet" then spirally fold the carpet into a "snake". Squash it flat and roll out into a plate-sized circle again.

To cook, heat a frying pan, and when hot, place in the chapati oil-surface down. After a few minutes, brush the upper surface of the chapati with oil. When "blebs" start to appear, flip the chapati over and cook for a further minute. You can brush the other side with oil again and flip it over quickly one more time if you need to. Now your chapati is ready.

(R)egg Fried Rice: Indian Styyyyle

One of his most requested meals, and by far the tastiest egg fried rice out there, (R)egg fried rice can be made as a dish of it's own or to accompany a curry. As ever, Reg shows us how it's done Indian style.

Useful Reg advice:

"It is good for the Eggarians."

"It's a fragrant."

"Don't premix the eggs. You want the different textures of the white and the yellow, OK?"

Preparation time: 5 minutes       Cooking time: 5 minutes      Spice level: You could feed it to a baby Reg

Ingredients (Serves 2 people)

Lug of olive oil

Half thumb of ginger

2 cloves of garlic

2 medium-sized eggs

2 tbspns Soy sauce

1 slice of lemon

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp salt (or more)

2 servings of pre-cooked Reg rice

Instructions

Pour the olive oil into the wok (or pan) and heat. Chop the ginger and garlic, and put in the wok to fry. When the ginger and garlic are turning yellow, crack both eggs (without premixing) into the pan. Quickly add the Soy sauce and a squeeze of lemon, and the turmeric and salt. Stir immediately for 1 or 2 minutes until cooked but still soft, then add as much rice as you like. If you feel the rice is too dry, you can add a small lug of oil to enhance appearance and texture. Your (R)egg fried rice is ready to serve.