Staff testing April 2016

Suze on Date night in Peru; Hands down, this is the Spicery recipe that has won most acclaim at home within the last 12 months at least. Arriving home about 7.30pm, I was thrilled to find my sous chef enthusiastically chopping onions and sweet potatoes already. Leaving him in charge of chopping and washing up, I started boiling kettles, throwing things into bowls and saucepans, and opening the oven into his legs. Not deterred by the huge number of bowls in use, we carried on - and before I knew it, dinner was ready! The starter was ceviche - a Peruvian dish of fish, cured in lime juice rather than cooked with heat. Our haddock cured for about half an hour before being mixed in with avocado, herbs and onion, and was served with a bright yellow sauce made from aji amarillo chilli. It was amazing! Not least the quantity - which would have been enough for a main course, not just a starter. Comments of "wow, this is great!", "that is delicious" and "I hope we don't get food poisoning" were frequent. (I hastily reassured my sous chef that if we got food poisoning, at least it'd be a day off work. No food poisoning occurred.) Then for the main, roasted chicken surrounded by deliciously soft and tasty roasted veggies, served with hot salsa criolla and - the surprising star of the show - sweet potato "ketchup", very tangy and delicious! The dessert I had made ahead of time - chocolate pots spiced with panca chilli, served with little spicy chocolate cookies. Due to a recipe/user error my chocolate pots didn't actually set, and my cookies were a bit too soft to dip in the pots, but I happily spooned chocolate goo onto them and all went down really well. Next time I'll know to heat my cream to nearly boiling, not just hot! All in all, completely delicious. Lots of happy leftovers. Would make all of that again. :)   Alice on Fathers Day Madras Curry; This month I fancied testing an old favourite - madras curry but revamped into a father's day subscription with lots of delicious side dishes including beer battered bhajis, pilau rice, a naga chilli chutney and garlic naan breads. We don't often get takeaway curry at home (not the first thing I want having eaten curry every weekday lunchtime) so my boyfriend was very pleased. The meal serves 4 pretty generously but we had 6 to feed so we made some extra samosas and a paneer curry in addition.every last little scrap got eaten up!     Jess on Sri Lankan Lamprais; Not the average bear!  A meal of two halves?  Call it what you will ... This is a slightly unusual meal - a stereotypical Sri Lankan coconut curry with flavoursome rice and green bean salad with a lid of hearty meatballs, fried eggs and tamarind aubergines! 
Perhaps piling it all on top of each other was my downfall or maybe serving up enough for four into two bowls, it's hard to say. It all tastes delicious, the curry was subtle and fragrant and the rice added a flavour injection.  The tamarind aubergines added a welcome tang and sweetness to the dish (I think they wee my favourite part!) but the eggs and meatballs felt a bit strange alongside the rest ... of course they were nice, who doesn't like eggs and meatballs, I'm just not totally convinced they belong together. However, what is a spicebox if not encouragement to eat outside the box! Andrea on Kathi Rolls and Mango Kulfi; That mango kulfi! I reckon I could live off the stuff, it was so delicious. The whole meal came together pretty well, but then again I was expecting it to, as I enjoyed it so much at work. Making the actual paratha/omelette things was a tiny bit of a challenge - I ended up pouring about 3/4 of the egg mixture onto the first paratha so the second one was a bit lacking in the egg department. I also didn't bother to fry the chips before I put them in the oven, as there was quite a lot of prep that went into the meal already, and I was operating as a one-man show. They came out lovely and crisp however, and I didn't miss the deep-fried flavour or texture. A meal that I'd make again, if only for that stellar mango kulfi...