Biryani

This recipe is based on one I got from my father. Please treat the measurements as rough and adapt based on the size of your pan1.

Ingredients

  • Lamb neck2, 500g, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • Potato, 500g, peeled, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • Onion, 1 medium, sliced thin
  • Basmati rice, 450g
  • Plain yoghurt, ~250g
  • Garlic, 6 cloves, crushed
  • Ginger, 1 inch, peeled and grated
  • Cumin, 1 tablespoon
  • Turmeric, 1 teaspoon
  • Cardamom, 4 pods, gently crushed
  • Cinnamon, 2 sticks
  • Saffron, ~5 strands
  • Coriander, a generous handful, roughly chopped
  • Olive oil, 3 tablespoons
  • Harissa, a squirt
  • Lemon, ½, juiced
  • Frozen peas, a handful
  • Salt + pepper
  • Baking paper

Instructions

Marinade

  1. Take a pan and add the yoghurt, garlic, ginger, cumin, 2 cardamom, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 saffron strands, coriander, olive oil, harissa, lemon juice, olive oil, salt + pepper then stir well to combine the ingredients.
  2. Add the meat and potatoes and stir well.
  3. Pop in the fridge to marinate (ideally the night before, or the morning of the day you want to cook).

Build

  1. Fry the onion until caramelised and set aside.
  2. Take the pan out the fridge and slowly add water to the marinade, mixing as you go. Stop adding water when the marinade is almost level with the contents.
  3. Arrange the meat and potatoes so that the potatoes are at the bottom of the pan with the meat on top: a layer of potato topped with a layer of meat. Set aside.
  4. Rinse the rice well, drain, then add to a pan with 2 cardamom, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 saffron strands, turmeric and salt. Stir well.
  5. Add enough water to cover the rice then put a lid on.
  6. Bring the rice to the boil, then immediately lower the heat and simmer until the water has been absorbed, then remove from the heat. The rice will be predominantly uncooked — that’s fine.
  7. Use a large spoon to carefully place the rice on top of the marinade, then use a fork to evenly (and gently!) distribute: a layer of rice on top of the layer of meat.
  8. Top with the caramelised onion and handful of frozen peas.
  9. Cut a circular piece of baking paper, an inch larger than the pan, place on top, followed by the lid. Press down to form a seal.

Cook!

  1. Cook on a low heat for 2 hours3 then serve like you might a cake.
  1. Pan size is important: you want a pan that will fit the ingredients comfortably (not too big, not too small). ↩
  2. You can use any meat you fancy. I’ve used this recipe with chicken thighs, lamb chops, etc. ↩
  3. When cooking this recipe, you want the potato to get a bit crispy on the bottom, without burning. I find cooking it on a low heat for a longer amount of time more fault tolerant. ↩

Papas Nativas

Approximately 8,000 years ago, the first wild potatoes were harvested from the high-altitude soils surrounding Lake Titicaca at the foot of the Andes Mountains. Since then, more than 4,000 varieties of native potatoes—known in Peru as papas nativas—have been cultivated in the Andean highlands. On a month-long journey through Peru, we encounter the diverse flavors, cultural significance, agricultural challenges, history, and daily uses of papas nativas.

Streets of Rage 4

I bought this for the Nintendo Switch and it’s delightful. The graphics are beautiful, the controls handle like a Streets of Rage game, the difficulty is challenging and it has a cracking soundtrack.

★★★★☆

Ise-ji: Walk With Me

[A] collection of notes, tips, and, I guess, “travelogue” entries about walking the Ise-ji route of the Kumano Kodō. I wrote this because I love the Ise-ji, and want you, also, to think: Damn, that looks like a fine hike.

Let’s All Wear A Mask

[I]n this essay, I want to persuade you not just to wear a mask, but to go beyond the new CDC guidelines and help make mask wearing a social norm. That means always wearing a mask when you go out in public, and becoming a pest and nuisance to the people in your life until they do the same.

Delete your tweets using GitHub Actions

A few years ago I hacked together a bash script that you could use to backup and delete your tweets on a regular basis. For fun, I decided to do something similar using GitHub Actions.

tweet-delete doesn’t create backups, and deletes your tweets on a weekly basis. In addition, since the Twitter API only lets you get a maximum of 200 tweets per request, it won’t work if you have more than 200 tweets1. Many moons ago, I deleted all my tweets and started from scratch and since I don’t post more than 200 tweets in a week it works for me.

To use tweet-delete, clone the tweet-delete repo and edit tweet-delete.sh, replacing the twitter_user variable with your own Twitter user name.

Next, create an app on the Twitter Developer portal and add the following secrets to the GitHub repo using the names:

  • twitter_consumer_api_key
  • twitter_consumer_api_secret_key
  • twitter_access_token
  • twitter_access_token_secret

After committing your changes, a git push to the master branch will kick off the workflow2 and it’ll run automagically every Sunday at 23:453.

  1. I suspect it’ll delete the 200 most recent. ↩
  2. Delete the “Run when pushed to master” event from tweet-delete.ymlto run only on a schedule. ↩
  3. Configurable in the tweet-delete.yml file. ↩

Farfalle pasta with mackerel and tomato

This superquick pasta recipe takes ~10 minutes from start to finish and makes enough for two.

Ingredients

  • Farfalle pasta, 100g
  • Mackerel in olive oil, 1 tin, flaked
  • Fresh basil, small handful, roughly chopped
  • Chopped tomatoes, 227g tin
  • Harissa, a small blob
  • Parmigiano-Reggiano, 1 tbsp, grated
  • Balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp
  • Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp
  • Salt + pepper

Instructions

  1. Bring a salted pan of water to a rolling boil and add the pasta.
  2. Take a bowl, add the tomatoes, mackerel, harissa, basil, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Stir well, cover, then throw in the microwave for 2 minutes.
  3. When the pasta is a bit before al dente, drain, chuck the pasta back in the pan then add the sauce.
  4. Reduce the sauce for ~1 minute on a medium heat then add the Parmigiano-Reggiano, a touch of pepper, stir well and enjoy.

I’ve been playing with GarageBand on iPadOS and I’m surprised at how buggy it is.

Tot

An elegant, simple way to collect & edit text on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad

I really like this.

Panic Podcast

Our pilot run of six shows will cover everything Panic. (Which is a lot.)

This is a great podcast.

The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

Apple needs to recognize they have made profound conceptual mistakes in the iPad user interface, mistakes that need to be scrapped and replaced, not polished and refined. I worry that iPadOS 13 suggests the opposite — that Apple is steering the iPad full speed ahead down a blind alley.

I’ve been using iPadOS since launch and found learning multitasking a clunky and dark art indeed.

The simple joy of f***ing up in the kitchen

I had a notion the other day. This happens from time to time — I get something into my head, and I just have to see it through, whether it’s a good idea or not.

I had a notion about making soup dumplings.

/via jk

How are you today?

An unstructured digest of stuff that I've found on the information superhighway.