coconut – Cook and Drink

Exploring Asma Khan’s Ammu (Part 3)

7 August 2025

We conclude our review of Asma Khan’s cookbook Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul by preparing two dishes: Saffron Lamb and Pulao and asking our esteemed panel (André, Joke, Martine and Rutger) for their thoughts. In Part 1 we wrote about her Pumpkin and Coconut soup and in Part 2 about her Pineapple and Chilli Chutney and Eggs in Tamarind Gravy.

Asma Khan is an Indian British chef, cookbook author and restaurant owner. In 2012 her pop-up restaurant started for 12 guests at her home, serving food cooked from traditional family recipes. Today her all-female Darjeeling Express restaurant in London offers Indian Rajput and Bengalihome cooking specialties.

In 2024 she won the Johannes van Dam Prize, a lifetime achievement award for an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the world of gastronomy. Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Yotam Ottolenghi, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Jeroen Meus and Alain Passard.

The book is called ‘Ammu’ which translates to ‘Mother’. The stories, the recipes, the whole book is a tribute to the food her mother (and the family’s cook) prepared. But we feel it’s more: it’s also a tribute to original flavours, to people taking time to prepare food, to sharing and enjoying, to communities and heritage.

Saffron Lamb

The recipe calls for a whole leg of lamb. For practical reasons we decided to make a stew using neck of lamb. The meat is marinated for at least 4 hours (or overnight) in a combination of yoghurt, garlic, chilli powder and saffron. Using saffron can be challenging. Asma Khan soaks the saffron in tepid water, which makes it much easier to add the right amount of saffron, not only at the beginning but also just before serving. The stew was a well-balanced combination of lamb, spices and saffron. To quote Asma Khan: “This is a good one to serve friends and family to make them feel loved without having to spend a lot of time in the kitchen!”. It was Rutger’s favourite.

Pulao

Doesn’t it look amazing? Basmati rice with cardamon, cinnamon, rose petals, pistachios, apricots, cloves, onion, rose water and bay leaf. The pulao surprised us all with its flavours, aromas and vibrant colours. The rice has a sweet undertone which makes it ideal to serve with spicy dishes. It combined very well with the lamb, the chutney and the eggs.

It was Martine’s favourite. Preparing it is, as you will expect by now!, a bit of work but it’s not difficult.

Should This Book Be On Your Shelf?

Our answer is “Yes, definitely” but our esteemed panel didn’t agree with us. They loved the dishes and the range of (new) flavours, the complexity of the aromas and the beautiful colours. They would be happy to enjoy more food from Asma Khan, but the time and effort required to prepare the food would be a problem.
Which means we will plan another Asma Khan dinner, with dishes such as Stir-Fried Aubergines, Coconut Ladoo and Prawns with Peas and Potatoes. To be continued!

The Book

Ammu, Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul by Asma Khan is available via the usual channels or your local bookstore for 35,00 US$ or 26,00 EUR.
Some of her recipes were published by the BBC, other recipes were published by Great British Chefs and these by the Foodnetwork.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

9 January 2025

It’s the time of year to enjoy simple, seasonal, rich and flavourful food, for instance spicy pumpkin soup. The trick in this case is in the coconut milk or cream. Coconut milk contains something like 15 grams of fat per 100ml. For this soup you need 25+ grams of fat per 100ml. The fat enhances the coconut flavour and it combines very well with the spicy and aromatic character of the soup (ginger, chili, djeroek poeroet).

What You Need (for 4)

Small Pumpkin
Large Shallot
2 large Garlic Cloves
4 cm Fresh Ginger
Chili Pepper
Olive Oil
8 leaves of Djeroek Poeroet
Coconut Cream
Cilantro

What You Do

Wash the pumpkin and chop. If the pumpkin is organic, then you don’t need to peel it. Peel and chop the shallot, garlic and the ginger. Ground dried chili pepper. Gently fry the shallot in olive oil. Add chilli pepper. Add ginger. Stir, mix and add pumpkin. Stir and add garlic. Now add the vegetable stock, the djeroek poeroet and allow to simmer for 30 minutes. If the pumpkin is soft, remove the djeroek poeroet and blender the mixture. Taste and adjust. Add 6 spoons of coconut cream, 1 by 1, mix and taste. When you’re happy with the flavours, leave the soup on low heat for 15 minutes. Serve with lots of chopped cilantro.

RecipeTin Eats – Dinner

13 June 2024

Recently we reviewed RecipeTin Eats Cookbook: Dinner by Nagi Maehashi as part of the cookbook review project by Bernadette. It is a beautifully designed book with lots of great pictures. It is also a very positive and inviting book. In 2023 it was awarded Australian Book of the Year and it made the New York Times Best Sellers list. Nagi’s very popular website offers over three hundred recipes and videos. She has over one million followers on Instagram. Her philosophy on food and cooking is based on four principles: fast, creative, clever and fresh. And cost conscious as well!

Nagi also runs a food bank, RecipeTin Meals, where she and her team (including three full time chefs) make homemade meals which are donated to the vulnerable.

RecipeTin Eats Cookbook: Dinner contains not only over 150 recipes, but also recipes for basic sauces, stock, bread, a glossary and a table with internal cooked temperatures. All very helpful. Not so helpful are the indexes (don’t expect the obvious table of content) and the way the recipes are grouped in the book. The recipe index for instance comes with categories such as everyday food and what I do with a piece of…. Perhaps a bit too creative?

Every recipe in the book has a QR-code. Scan it and you have a helpful video guiding you through the recipe.

RecipeTin Eats Cookbook is a cookbook with lots of international dishes such as Beef Wellington, Mussels in White Wine, Sauce Bolognese and Chilli Con Carne; no recipes with kangaroo or ostrich.
We decided to make three dishes from the book, a salad with an Asian touch, a Moroccan dish with chicken and a blueberry tart with an almond filling. Our esteemed panel (André, Carolien, Hans, Joke, Martine and Rutger) was happy to join us on a sunny evening in May and talk about the three dishes. And the wine, of course!

Prawn Salad with Coconut Lime Dressing ©cadwu

We decided to make a Prawn Salad with Coconut Lime dressing because of the dressing. We expected the combination of Chinese Cabbage (or wombok in Australia), coconut, mint, cilantro and prawns to be tasty and refreshing.We served the dish with a glass of Pinot Grigio produced by Corte Vittorio.

A fresh and easy to drink wine with aromas of citrus and green apple. In general, you’re looking for a light white wine with pleasant acidity and fresh aromas. The panel was unanimous: refreshing, lots of flavours that go together very well, great colours, new flavours, love the way the apple combines with the cabbage, great on a summer evening, would like to make this myself, could I have the recipe?

One Tray Moroccan Baked Chicken with Chickpeas ©cadwu

The One Tray Moroccan Baked Chicken with Chickpeas comes with lots of flavours, baharat being one of them. A spice blend unknown to us. Fortunately, we could find it at our Turkish supermarket. Think cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, ginger. The chicken is marinated for 24 hours in a mixture of lemon juice, oil and baharat.

It is then fried in the oven with chickpeas (coated with ginger and turmeric), fennel and tomatoes. We served the Moroccan chicken with excellent crusted bread and a glass of full-bodied Italian red wine, produced by Stefano Accordini. The wine is made from 90% Corvina Veronese and 10% Merlot grapes. It aged for four months in oak barrels, which adds to the warmth and flavours of the wine. A very affordable wine with aromas of blackberry, plum and chocolate. In general, you’re looking for a full bodied, rich red wine that goes very well with flavours like nutmeg, cumin and cinnamon.

The panel liked the presentation, the colours, the aromas and the preparation of the chickpeas in the oven. The flavours were nice, but a bit bland. It could have done with more spices. Although the chicken marinated in the refrigerator for 24 hours, the flavours of the baharat were not really present in the meat.

Blueberry Tart with Almond Filling ©cadwu

Dessert was Blueberry Tart with Almond Filling. The heading of the recipe says prep time 45 minutes, 4 hours of cooling and chilling, 1 hour cook time. Sounds doable? In reality it’s a bit more work.
The dough needs to be made, cooled, fitted in the tin, transferred to the freezer, in to the
oven, baked blind,

cooled and then filled with an almond cream that must be mixed, cooled, added to the tin, topped with blueberries, baked, topped with more blueberries and baked for another 20 to 25 minutes. Still there?
The idea of freezing the dough in the tin was great because it allowed us to do this step a few days earlier.

The panel liked the tart, the moist filling, well balanced, not too sweet, great crust and the combination of almond and blueberry was very tasty.

All three recipes required some adjustment: when we tasted the salad before serving it, we found the dressing needed extra mint and fish sauce. We also added more berries to the tart.

Should this book be on your shelf? The panel feels it’s a great, colourful, well-designed cookbook but that the number of recipes that are new or bring something specific (like the salad and the chicken we prepared) is rather limited. We would have liked to see more of Nagi, and perhaps of Australia, in the choice of recipes. One member of the panel decided to buy RecipeTin Eats Cookbook: Dinner, given the idea that if you would prepare one of Nagi’s recipes per week you would be sure to have at least one fast, tasty, colourful and creative meal per week. Very true!

RecipeTin Eats Cookbook: Dinner by Nagi Maehashi is available via your local bookstore or the well-known channels for approximately 30 euros or 30 US$. Prices may differ.