Madhur Jaffrey’s baked beef curry • Wagamama’s chargrilled pineapple slices

Can you guess who it is yet?

Family feasting time

Is there a better way to spend a grey and dreary weekend than at home  tucking into a mama-made curry and snuggling on the sofa watching IT Crowd boxsets? I think not.

The apple mango hasn’t fallen far from the tree in our case – my mum is also a first-class curry fiend. I bought her a copy of Curry Easy for Christmas as I’ve been really impressed by its simplicity and the depth of flavour in the recipes. This Saturday we sat down to an aromatic dinner of home-made “baked beef” and “okra with shallots”– both were very rich and tasty. Mum also made some fresh naan breads using dough from her bread maker – superior skills.

The undoubted highlight of the meal, however, was pudding. A little ray on sunshine on a wet, grey February day, this tasted like caramelized piña colada on a plate – moreishly sweet and exotic – and I liked it a lot. I think it’s time to dust off my Wagamama’s cookbook… Here’s the gist of things if you’d like to give it a try:

Wagamama’s chargrilled pineapple & coconut broth

(serves 2-4)

• Put a can of coconut milk in a pan with 50g white sugar, the zest of half a lime and juice of a whole one. Add 5cm of lemongrass (outer leaves removed) finely sliced.

• Simmer ingredients on a  medium heat for 5 minutes then set aside to cool.

• Heat a griddle pan till almost smoking. Sprinkle 25g sugar over 6 pineapple rings (fresh or tinned) and cook for 1 minute on each side.

• Strain and reheat the sauce and pour over the pineapple to serve.

Marks: 9/10 all-round

Cinnamon Soho review – what a load of (delicious) balls

The scene was set for a great evening – drinks at Two Floors and dinner with two of my ex-colleagues from Rough Guides. I was seriously excited to be visiting Cinnamon Soho (http://www.cinnamon-kitchen.com/Soho-Home)– little sister of Cinnamon Kitchen – at last. First impressions were good – sleek metallic and dark wood decor with little to suggest a curry restaurant other than the chic green cinnamon leaf motif on the wall. For starters we shared a £9 selection of “balls”. Despite the unprepossessing name this selection of fried delights – including crab cakes, potato bondas, vegetable shikampur, spiced game and Bangla-scotch eggs, plus accompanying chutneys – was the highlight of our meal and definitely deserves its plaudit of being one of Time Out’s 100 best dishes in London for 2012. I chose a lychee cocktail to kick off with too. It was beautifully presented but I found the blue curacao a bit overwhelming – more personal preference than anything else.For our main courses my friends chose the spice-crusted hake and tandoori-spiced chicken in a cashew nut korma sauce, both of which I had a quick nibble of and which tasted divine. I decided to push the boat out and try the menu’s hottest option,  Rajasthani lamb curry, or laal maas, which was billed as “fiery”. The curry was incredible – richly flavoured and pleasantly warm and flavourful rather than painful to eat. Thumbs up all round.We finished dinner at about 9pm but didn’t leave the restaurant until about 11pm after all our chinwagging and the staff were happy to let us sit and chat. Please excuse my poor photo (above) – I didn’t have time to photograph anything else before the hungry masses (including myself) tucked in!

Marks: 9/10. The bill came to £30 a head for starters, mains, cocktails and coffees, which I think was pretty reasonable. There are also some cheaper (and still-enticing) set-menu options for those who are looking for less of a blowout.

I’m going to a wedding in Kenilworth this weekend so please bear with me on the cooking front – I’m looking forward to getting back onto the recipe-testing bandwagon soon.

 

The Queen of Sheba • Kentish Town

I’m just back from a lovely long weekend in Inverness, which was all about fresh seafood and whisky porridge, so I’m cheating with a Curryclub restaurant review this week. Last Tuesday we went for dinner at the Queen of Sheba in Kentish Town (www.thequeenofsheba.co.uk). It’s the only Ethiopian restaurant I’ve even been to, but so good I’ve never been temped to go elsewhere (except Ethiopia itself). You might not associate the Horn of Africa with great food but the curries here are incredible – richly spiced and stew-like, and not too hot either. The restaurant interior is cosy and womb-like, decorated with intriguing wooden artefacts and masks, and  infused with the tantalising scent of coffee ceremonies –  fresh coffee  beans and frankincense . The service is sometimes a little slow but the staff are so friendly and gentle this is soon forgiven. Your whole meal comes served on a moon-like injera flatbread made from teff flour, which arrives under an enormous, brightly-coloured cone of woven raffia; the texture of the injera is crumpet-like and it tastes taste slightly sour, but moreishly so. The curries are spooned out so that each person has a portion, and then they are scooped-up by hand using the injera and eaten sans-cutlery. All of the dishes on the menu here are delicious without exception, however, the derek tibs, shiro w’et and gomen are all standout options. Don’t forget a St George’s Beer to wash everything down.

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.

Easy like…Curry Easy

Almond chicken & sweet and sour baby aubergines

It’s been a busy few weeks here with weekend trips up to Edinburgh for a hen do and Machynlleth in Wales for a comedy festival, with a few curries along the way: dinner at the always dependable Rasa in Stoke Newington (www.rasarestaurants.com); a takeaway for 21 hungry hens in Edinburgh;  moreish samosas from @TheCurryStall in Machynlleth. The train journey back from Edinburgh was particularly amusing as we somehow found ourselves sandwiched between Vince Cable (serious legend) and David Milliband (surprisingly sauve).

I decided to treat myself to a new curry book this week after leafing through the sumptuous photos and eye-popping colours of Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Easy  at a friend’s house the other day. It’s already been a revelation – the great illustrations make it much more approachable than The Curry Bible and there are lots more interesting vegetable recipes in this book too.

Dinner this Sunday was Curry Easy‘s “Whole Chicken Baked with an Almond & Onion Sauce” and “Sweet and Sour Aubergines” (serves 4). Both of the recipes were incredibly easy to follow, and after 24 hours of marination the chicken tasted out of this world – tender and tangy, with lovely warm ginger undertones; the only change I’d make next time would be to reduce the amount of salt in the chicken before my blood pressure goes through the roof. The sweet and sour aubergines were a doddle too and used much less oil than some of the other aubergine dishes I’ve made.

Mr Curryclub’s leftovers corner

Serves three (using two portions of chicken)

• Heat 2tsp vegetable oil in a small pan, with one cardamon pod, a small cinnamon stick, a pinch of coriander seeds and cloves, one dried chilli and a handful of raisins.
• Add basmati rice for three people to the same pan and a pinch of salt.
• Fry the rice and oil mix while you boil the kettle.
• Add boiling water to cover the rice by 2cm.
• Simmer on a low heat with the lid on until the rice boils dry.
• Pull leftover chicken meat off carcass. Heat in a large pan and add drained rice. Mix thoroughly, pat rice down flat and leave on a medium heat with the lid on until the rice at the bottom goes brown and crispy. Repeat process until all the rice is nice and crispy.  Serve with Greek yoghurt and mango/brinjal pickle.

We also enjoyed some vegetable pakoras with our leftovers tonight courtesy of my friend Bobby’s mum – thank you!

Marks: A whole-hearted 9/10; the leftovers verged on a knockout 10/10.

Joyti’s momo recipe with Tibetan sepen chilli sauce

Joyti and Binod

Pupils at Sacred Heart School

Chicken momos

Home-made chilli sauce

Curry-themed birthday goodies courtesy of lovely friends – looking foward to experimenting with them

Momo delights

Curryclub took a walk down memory lane this weekend with a tasty guest recipe from my friend Joyti, who hosted me at her family home for 3 months when I was teaching at Sacred Heart School near Darjeeling, in India,. All of her home cooking was delicious, but her family-recipe momos (which I’ve since found out are Tibetan, not Nepalese) were always a  particular treat; so much so that my friend Alex and I used to compete to see who could eat the most.

Joyti kindly sent me her recipe last week and I also found this website with plenty of momo tips:

http://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-food/momos.html. I also found a great online recipe (http://roshellechefaldente.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/delightful-momos-with-hot-sepen.html) for the distinctive sepen chilli sauce that usually accompanies momos and whipped a batch up with four small, smoked chillis and one big fresh red one, which was deep and rich, rather than mouth-scorchingly hot.

It was great fun crimping the momos up like tiny Cornish pasties and they were seriously delicious for such a simple recipe – the pleasure of biting into the juicy, gingery middles is hard to beat. They didn’t work very well as leftovers unfortunately  so I’d recommend cooking and eating them fresh.

Joyti’s momo recipe for 4 people

1. 500g  minced meat (chicken or any other meat).
2. 250g onions(finely chopped).
3. ginger grated- medium piece.
4. salt to taste.
5. Put all the ingrediants together and mix.

Dough

1. 500g plain flour- knead the flour with enough water to make the dough elastic.
2. Roll out small rounds of the dough and fill with 1–2 tsp of mixture, and pinch closed.
3. Grease steamer lightly and steam momos  for roughly 20 minutes.

Marks: 9/10

Curryclub is on holiday for the next couple of weeks (in Scotland and in Wales); in the meantime, here’s a fascinating article on how chillis became “cool”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/20/chilli-farm-festival-crop-harvest

Kathi chicken rolls

What a fab weekend…a happy, sunny Bristol wedding, an evening in with steak and chips, Mr Ben and Mr Jerry, pancakes for breakfast, a walk along the Thames from Richmond to Kew, curry for dinner and a long chat with an old friend. I was still feeling bit tired this evening after all the merriment of the wedding, so I made a nice easy chicken dish from Food of the Grand Trunk Road. The recipe included home-made parathas, but I made a shortcut and substitued them for wholemeal pitta breads. We ate the whole lot before I remembered to take any pictures –sorry. All in all a whole-hearted success.

Miracle paste

Here’s the recipe if you’d like to give it a try, with a few adaptations:

• Fry 1tsp cumin seeds with 1.5 chopped onions and cook until brown.
• Add 1tbsp garlic and ginger paste and cook for 2minutes.
• Add 1tsp chilli powder, 1/4 tsp tumeric powder and 1tsp ground coriander and cook for another minute.
• Add 500g boned chicken thighs, cut into 2cm cubes. Sear on all sides.
• Add 2 chopped tomatoes and cook until soft.
• Add 1/4 mug of water and cook until evaporated and the chicken is tender.
• Serve inside parathas or wholemeal pitta breads with fresh coriander, ginger julienne, natural yoghurt and a pickle/chutney of your choice (or chilli sauce).

Mark: 9/10. Easy and delicious

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

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.

Death and a Cinnamon Club field trip

Sister, lamb, lentils, you do the math

Hake curry

This weekend I was mostly eating curry, turning up for surprise parties in the nick of time and reading Wolf Hall. Oh, and learning about Death at the brilliant Wellcome Collection (www.wellcomecollection.org). The exhibition was heaving with visitors for such a rainy Sunday, and the subject matter was fascinating and sensitively handled; the mood was lightened by a little girl who launched herself into the first room fizzing with energy and declared loudly to her  mum, “I like that skull!”. “Death: a self-portrait’ is only on until the 24^th Feb, so catch it while you can.

For dinner on Saturday we surprised my mum with a 60^th birthday meal at the Cinnamon Club in Westminster (www.cinnamonclub.com). Once she’d got over the shock we enjoyed a five-course menu featuring an eyeball-rollingly  delicious paneer starter, a simple, but equally delicious chicken in fenugreek sauce main course, followed by blood orange parfait with fig sauce on a base of pistachio fudge. A hearty feed indeed and very reasonably priced. The only downside of the evening for me was the rather staid decor and atmosphere, but perhaps that’s to be expected in a Westminster ex-library. It certainly wasn’t putting off the punters, though, as the restaurant was packed. I’m keen to try out their sister restaurants in Soho and the East End now too. Late Valentine’s meal perhaps…?

Marks: 9/10