Chicken tikka with lemon rice, raita, lentils and mango chutney
Last weekend was largely about food. Food, friends and fun.
And the most important place of action: the kitchen.
There’s a bunch of us who grew up in Pakistan and/or Thailand and went to school together but now live somewhere in good old Germany. At some point someone began to suggest reunions and the idea caught on – some get togethers being quite large and pre-planned, others small and spontaneous. I find them to be a bit of a break from normal routine, a time where you don’t need to explain why “where are you from” is such a difficult question and can catch up, talk about life, God and the universe just as easily as any random, silly topic you feel like or just shut up and silently enjoy the sun – and most of all, the food. I would say that is what these reunions generally have in common – no matter who, how many or where – all you need is a kitchen and the right ingredients.
I love cooking Pakistani food. And I love eating it.
Somehow I feel there must be an oil-yumminess-ratio.
Because the more oil we use preparing these dishes…the more incredible it all tastes.
So we had rice with onions and various spices.
And boneless chicken in a delicious spicy tomato, ginger, onion, garlic etc. sauce…
and barbequed chicken that had been marinated in incredible tikka marinade for like 24 hours
and lemon rice with nuts and mustard seeds
and yellow lentils and raita (a yoghurt dish) and this funky mashed potato stuff
and homemade roti – which is basically a type of flat bread made from flour, salt and water.
Paratha and fried egg
And then you can add oil to that and the roti magically turns into – paratha. The best breakfast ever. In my opinion at least…I recommend you try it with fried egg. Lots of oil. Really yummy.
You can also eat it with chickpeas or omlette and a bunch of other things. Even with nutella – but that’s sort of not typical, I just like almost anything with nutella.
To go with the paratha you drink a perfect cup of chai.
During the reunion, we used more oil and butter in two days than I usually use in two weeks…
But it was so worth it – it was so yummy.
The place to be – definitely the kitchen.
I would so like to cook this stuff more often…but somehow I feel the smell of oil, onions and garlic is not always so appreciated in Germany =)
maybe I will work on a more “neighbour friendly” version of these recipes…but then that would go against the yumminess-ratio. What a dilemma…
