Spicy lamb chops • Baby aubergines with picking spices (achari baigan) • Okra with carom seeds (ajwaini bhindi)

Hi curry peeps,

Hope you’re all well. It’s been a funny old weekend here. We had another family funeral to go to on Friday – a beautiful woodland burial near Norwich. (We had a lovely eggs Benedict at the cosy Talc cafe in town beforehand – http://www.talcinnorwich.co.uk – which I’d highly recommended). We were feeling rather drained when we got back so we got a heartwarming takeaway from our old friend the Bengal Lancer. I even spotted our upstairs neighbours having a romantic date there when I went to collect the food (incidentally, this entitles you to a 20% discount).

After a mammoth lie-in we came up fighting again on Saturday and had a lovely lunch at Phonecia in Kentish Town (amazing as ever) before exploring a couple of properties with Open House London (www.londonopenhouse.org) – a great opportunity to find the hidden gems in your local area. My favourite was Philip Hughes’ studio – an incredible space with a multitude of mirrors and a spa space hidden in a cosy white ceramic bubble. We also popped in to see the Thomas Hardy tree near St Pancras (pictured above) – a curious nub of history among all the new building around King’s Cross.

With the help of Mr CC and my lovely sister-in-law (cook extraordinaire) we rustled up a delicious spicy dinner using the Food of the Grand Trunk Road cookbook. I’ve also just invested in a copy of Rick Stein’s new India book on her recommendation so watch this space. I’m interested in trying out the Pondicherry-style prawn curry with preserved lemons and fresh herbs. Has anyone tried it out?

We’ve got a busy few weekends coming up – Mr M’s bday, our wedding anniversary and an impromptu trip to Paree, but I’ll do my best to keep in touch.

Marks: 8/10 (please excuse the lack of actual curry content in this post).

Curry Club, the return

Boom! Curry club is back! It’s been a funny old summer – four weddings and two funerals worth to be precise. Doesn’t have much of a ring to it, but therein lies the rub.

There’s been a whisper of autumn crispness in the air today so we seized the day and decided to make a warming Rajasthani red meat curry from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Easy (which sounded similar to the amazing dish I ate at Cinnamon Soho). On the side I made some tasty pan-grilled courgettes. The final result was delicious and hot, hot, hot. The recipes were of course, easy…

Rajasthani red meat curry (serves 4–6 people)

• Mix 1 tsp cayenne pepper and 2 tbsp of sweet (or smoked) red paprika.
• Cut up 900g of stewing lamb (shoulder is best) into chunks, rub on the spice mix and leave for a couple of hours.
• Heat 2 tsp oilve oil in a frying pan and fry 5 inches of cinnamon stick, 6 cloves, 8 green cardamon pods and 2 black cardamon pods. After a couple of minutes add one chopped red onion and cook until browned.
• Add 3 tsp ginger and garlic paste, plus 1 tbsp of ground coriander and cook for one minute.
• Add the lamb and cook until browned.
• Add 1 litre of water, bring to the boil, cover with a lid and simmer for an hour (or more) untl the meat is lovely and tender.
• Sprinkle chopped coriander on top and serve with a spoonful or two of greek yoghurt.

Pan-grilled  courgettes (serves 2–4 people)

• Five small courgetters, sliced into quarters
• Fry the slices in olive oil until the skin is turning a chargrilled colour. Lay the slices out and sprinkle with lemon juice, salt, pepper, a sprinking of roasted and ground cumin, and a dash of cayenne pepper.

Try it if you dare.

Marks: 8/10

Pakistani lamb chops and pan-grilled courgettes

We rolled in with the larks last night after a fun night of birthday celebrations in Tooting Broadway at The Antelope Pub (theantelopepub.com) – where I tried “monk’s beard” greens for the first time – and the Tram and Social bar/club, – a cavernous, shabby-chic warehouse-type affair. Luckily MrCurrycub put some Pakistani lamb chops in the fridge to marinate yesterday and they were just the tonic for our weary heads this evening. The  combination of home-made garam masala (ground in our Cuisinart Mini Food Processor – ideal for a small kitchen) and juicy lamb was toe-curlingly good; eat your heart out Tayyabs.

Both recipes were easy to follow, and the only adjustment he made was to crisp up the fat on the lamb chops in a frying pan  before putting them under the grill, to make them nice and crispy.

We also enjoyed some more vegetable pakora courtesy of our friend Bobby’s mum with dinner, which was a real treat – thank you Mrs Parmar.

I’m looking forward to making something special for next week’s Bank Holiday Curryclub (perhaps a sweet treat), and there’s also a Cinnamon Soho visit in the pipeline for early June – very exciting.

Marks: 9/10 for the lamb chops and 7/10 for the courgettes, which were a great accompaniment, but not particularly special.

Aubergine and yoghurt raita • Indian-style bread and butter pudding

Curryclub’s latest members

Chilled aubergine and yoghurt raita

Indian-style bread and butter pudding

Despite the weather being cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey we had a brilliant Easter weekend: oodles of chocolate; Scrabble by a log-fire; and a visit to the new David Bowie exhibition at the V&A (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/david-bowie-is/). The audio-visuals are fantastic, and your clever personal MP3 player changes the soundtrack as you explore the show, depending on your position.

We rounded off with an Indian feast fit for a king (well, my parents, anyway, who are much more important). Here’s the menu, all cooked to a soundtrack of the Thin White Duke:

• Michael Hathorne’s lamb curry – complete with fenugreek leaves this time. Still delicious, despite a slight burning incident (damn Le Creuset pan).  I’m wondering if the 40g of dried fenugreek leaves is an error, as my version was very strongly flavoured with only half the amount.
• Mango and chilli salad – fast becoming a regular dish for us. Seasoned with red chillis and lime juice this time around, it was seriously refreshing
• Madhur Jaffrey’s chilled aubergine and yoghurt raita – pretty oily, but oh so delicious. I’ll be sure to make this again.
• Saag – some tasty, token greenery to counteract the Simnel cake and Easter eggs.
• Indian-style bread and butter pudding – adapted from a Delia Smith recipe this was the star of the show. MrCurryclub added a pinch of saffron, orange zest, several cardamom pods and a dash of rosewater to the mix, along with some lovely yellow-yolked home-laid eggs from his parents’ chickens in Kent. The end result was a great, waist-line increasing success!

Marks: 9/10 for whole shebbang

The perfect tonic – chana keema, naan bread & pomegranate raita

Pomegranate raita

Chana keema and naan bread

It’s rare for me to be up past midnight nowadays (how embarassing), but we went to a 30th birthday party on Saturday night and didn’t roll home till 4am. A hearty feed was required.  Mr Curryclub and I combined forces to make not one, but three new recipes: chana keema (lamb mince stir-fried with chickpeas) from Food of the Grand Trunk Road, by Anirudh Arora and Hardeep Singh Kohli, and pomegranate riata and naan bread from the Cinnamon Kitchen’s cookbook.

The naan breads were concrete hard, but the other dishes were fab. A recipe from the Punjab section of the book – an area in the far northwest of India bordering on Jammu and Kashmir –the chana keema was totally moreish. Flavoured with smoky black cardamon, bay leaves, green and powdered chill, garlic and ginger paste (jars of which I’ve just discovered in my local deli), ground coriander and cumin, this was the perfect warming dish for staving off the winter chill and the hangover gremlins. The recipe was seasoned with a teaspoon of garam masala and livened up with lemon guice, ginger julienne and a sprinkling of fresh coriander. The raita was similarly likeable – simultaneously tart and sweet, it was definitely worth the effort of picking the seeds out one by one like a chimp.

Belly full, I realized that I haven’t bought any takeaway curries at all this year – progress indeed.

Marks: 8/10 for the whole meal (excepting the naan breads – the leftovers were much tastier with pilau rice)

Madhur Jaffrey’s “Moghlai Lamb with Spinach (Palaag Gosht)

Delicious aromas not included

Dinner in progress

Washing up “lite”

A perfect end to a lovely sunny weekend catching up with friends and celebrating milestones, exploring the New Forest and rubber-necking to see the giraffes at London Zoo. I can’t think why I’ve never made this recipe before – it’s very very easy to cook, doesn’t require too many ingredients or spices, and  doesn’t produce gargantuan amounts of washing up. A rich and scrumptious treat.

Marks: 9/10

Recipe adapted from the Ultimate Curry Bible

Marinate 600g of boneless lamb shoulder/neck meat with 4tsp grated ginger, 7 crushed garlic cloves and 2tbsp ground corainder for 30 minutes.

Slice 1 large onion into slim half-rings and fry until golden in 4tbsp olive/vegetable oil. Remove and leave on kitchen paper. Add meat to remaining oil in pan with 1/2tsp tumeric powder, 1tsp cayenne pepper and 1 tsp salt, and cook for 10 minutes on a medium heat with the lid on.

Gradually add 4tbsp of natural yoghurt, waiting until each spoonful is absorbed, then add chopped, fried onions and 450g thinly sliced raw spinach. Cook on a low heat for 50 minutes, or until the lamb is tender.

Spicy February triple-header

Banana tartin

February’s Curryclub started on a high with not one, but three memorable new recipes…

This Saturday evening we planned to go and see Django Unchained but MrCurryclub decided to make the “spice-braised shoulder of lamb” from Vivek Singh’s Cinnamon Kitchen cookbook. Unctious and melt-in-the-mouth after  3 hours in the oven we missed the cinema and ended up staying in to watch The Dictator” instead… The film wasn’t up to much but this was a grand old dish and would be great to try again when we have guests.

Dinner is served

Look at the leg on that

Spicy goodness up-close

Tonight I re-used the leftover lamb (approximately 350g) to make a delicious lamb pilaf from the Ginger Pig’s Ginger Pig Meat Book. Lightly spiced, this was a nice easy dish to make with basmati rice, onion, tomato, and big bunches of fresh parsley and coriander. Deceptively rich, colourful and moreish, this was even more satisfying because it used up our leftovers so well.

Fiesta time

A hive of activity

One fine lookin’ pilaf

For dessert I made Cinnamon Kitchen’s “spiced banana tartin”. Melting the caramel from scratch was fun– I had no idea how quickly it would cool though, so it was quite hard to handle. The recipe’s slight nod to Indian cooking was the addition of crushed pink peppercorns; I’ve been trying to find a use for them for a while, and despite my initial reservations they were a perfect counterpart to the cloying sweetness of the bananas and caramel. Delicious.

Caramel-geddon

Pink peppercorns…say wha?

Marks:

Cinnamon Kitchen’s “spice-braised shoulder of lamb” 8/10

The Ginger Pig’s “spiced lamb pilaf” 9/10

Cinnamon Kitchen’s “spiced banana tarte tartin” 7/10

Unbeatable lamb curry

Lamb shoulder ready to rock and roll

Curryclub started on a high today with a delicious lamb curry recipe from Mr Curryclub’s 90-year-old great uncle. He is great company and was the original inspiration for this blog, having founded his own long-running Curry Club at home in Gospel Oak (the other members are his grandchildren and we have both  been lucky enough to attend as guests).

Had a good flick through Mafhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible today for inspiration and we’re feeling excited about the weeks ahead – hopinng Curryclub will turn Sunday evenings into an event in our household, rather than just the start of the inevitable decline into the moroseness of Monday. I’m ashamed to have never made anything from this cookbook, despite being given it for my birthday by my lovely ex-colleagues 2 years ago. I bought 5 pairs of trousers in Uniqlo yesterday – excessive I know, but I can never find ones that fit me – here’s hoping they still fit this time next year.

Marks: 9/10. More side dishes required apparently.

Unbeatable lamb curry

Serves 4

• 175ml olive oil
• onions x 2
• lamb 750g
• chopped tomatoes 300–400g
• garlic cloves x 4
• medium potato x 1
• aubergine x 1
• salt x1 flat dsp
• tumeric x 2tsp
• marsala (TRS Hot Madras Curry Powder) x 4 tsp
• cloves x 4
• cinnamon bark x 3″
• fresh ginger x thumb-sized
• fennel seeds x 2tsp
• fenugreek leaves x 40g (fresh leaves don’t taste as good as dried).

Heat oil. When hot, add one chopped onion and fry until golden. Add cinnamon, cloves, marsala and turmeric. After a minute or so add the diced lamb (rinsed first( and salt). Cook vigorously and stir regularly for approximately 1 hour. Top up with boiling water.

When the cubes of meat can be crushed between thumb and forefinger add the ginger, garlic, tomatoes and the second chopped onion. Cook vigorously for 20 minutes, stirring contstantly.

Heat the fennel seeds (souff) in a pan and when brown and just smoking, grind and add the potatoes, aubergine and fenugreek (mehti) as well. Cook for 20–30 minutes or until the potatoes and bringal are cooked. Serve with chopped coriander leaves. This curry freezes well.