Reza's Indian Spice

Green Cardamon - divine

How can someone not love cookbooks - especially if they are as beautiful as Reza's Indian Spice. Reza Mahammed is a flamboyant chef who grew up in London and lives now in France. The two cuisines together with his Indian roots make up the most amazing and interesting food.

Slowcooking onions - sweet

A lot of onions

The book is divided into chapters that show how interesting he thinks and writes: Quick & Chic, Slow Burners, Showing Off, Classic Curries, Perfect Partners and Sweet like Candy leave a lot of room for imagination. I couldn't wait to read through the book. His recipes are short and easy to read and even a novice at cooking can follow th recipes. Some have more ingredients than others but keep in mind that you might have most of them already in your pantry - I know I have.

Mr T and I scooped through the book and settled on 2 recipes. Persian Chicken with Saffron & Cardamon and White Chocolate, Cardamon & Rose Pannacotta - the pictures of these recipes were mouthwatering and you almost smelled the aromatic spices coming flowing from the pages.

Persian Chicken

Frying the chicken pieces

The introduction to the chicken recipe was interesting as it told the story on how chicken were kept at the Royal Indian Palace (much better than my dad's ones) and he explained the importance of using the best chicken meat there is. He also states to use a whole chicken but since I wasn't cooking for 4, I decided to use chicken breast. I was in the middle of the preparations when Wendy phoned just to say hello and after I told her what I was cooking, squeezed an invite out of me (ok, I didn't put up much of a fight).... Anyhow, slowcooking the onions is the key here, so I took my time. Mincing the onions in the food processor released even more of their sweet flavour. The rest of the recipe was so easy that I was almost embarrassed how much Wendy and Mr T enjoyed the meal - saying I was a genius in the kitchen (no objection from my side anyway).

Pouring the chocolate milk into moulds

Great aroma of cardamon

White Chocolate Pannacotta

But the dessert made it all the way up to heaven - Wendy and Mr T didn't talk until the dessert was finished. Again, the result didn't show how easy the whole recipe was. It is a real show stopper and the rose syrup is the topping of the whole dessert (I didn't have rose syrup so I made it up my making a sugar syrup and mixing rosewater in)..... a few strawberries and I only saw happy faces at the table....and I love the title 'Genius in the Kitchen' ..... Thanks Reza for that.....