I cooked a couple of new recipes this week. The first was a Chicken and Paneer satay-style curry.

The sauce was equal volumes of milk and chicken stock to which I added:

• 1 teaspoon each of ground coriander and ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon each of curry powder and garam masala
• 2 tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter

I fried 2 chicken breast and one red onion and added them to the sauce, leaving them to simmer for a few minutes. Towards the end of the cooking, I diced the paneer and gently fried it in a small amount of oil, adding it to the pan just before serving.

The next recipe was a Cheese and Sausage Spatzle.

The Spatzle came from Lidl - we bought it because it was a bit different and we hadn't cooked with it before. While it was boiling, I fried a couple of red onions and a few sausages, and added a pinch each of salt, chilli flakes and thyme leaves. I also grated the cheese.

I placed half of the spatzle in the bottom of an oven-proof dish followed by a layer of the onion and sausage mixture, then a layer of cheese, then repeated the layers. I baked it in the oven for about 30 minutes at gas mark 4, until it had heated through and the cheese had melted.

It worked well for such a simple recipe. The rough texture of the spatzle would work better than a traditional italian pasta, which tends to be smoother, and wouldn't have held together as well.