The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

The Greasy Spoon visits...The India Club

 

 

But where have all the students gone? Photo via: The India Club Restaurant & Bar

I've been writing The Greasy Spoon since 2007, and it's to my shame that until yesterday evening, I had never eaten at The India Club. Which is strange, as the trappings and environs of The India Club are very much to the Greasy Spoon's taste. I can go further (I’m really hanging my head in shame now) and admit to you that until a few months ago, I had never even heard of The India Club, and this is coming from somebody who was actually born here in London- in the Big Smoke, and possibly even during one of the very last November pea-soupers.

According to the restaurant's website, The India League founded the club in 1951: 

as a symbol of post-Independence friendship between India and the UK (founding members included Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten)...The charmingly eccentric India Club has remained much the same since its opening over 50 years ago...Today, enter a timewarp with portraits of the Independence era on the walls, bottle-green leather chairs, red lino flooring and wooden laminate tabletops

The original club was situated at 41 Craven Street and did not move to the current premises until 1964. It now occupies two floors of the Strand Continental Hotel (not to be confused with the Strand Palace); a rickety Edwardian hotel with an elusive entrance found beneath a grimy illuminated sign for Cadbury's chocolate.

 

Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

I asked one of my oldest pals to join me. We arrived at 7.30. The joint was heaving. The restaurant door opened to a layered wall of sound. A polite- if harassed- waiter in a white jacket asked us to have a drink downstairs in the bar and promised to come and find us in twenty minutes. The bar, on the first floor, is a cross between a National Service Officer's Mess, circa 1947 and the Student Union of a red brick university. It's a temple to chipped formica. A girl in skin-tight red leather trousers served us gin and tonics, with a wedge of lime. The restaurant, one floor above, is painted a pleasing saffron yellow and decorated with old black and white photographs of politicians and Indian freedom fighters. There is a whiff of the post-war canteen. The dining room was packed full of shouty old men with silver beards, scarily intellectual looking middle-aged women with cropped hairdos, and students. Lots of 'em.

Thinking about it, and if you will allow me to digress for a minute or two, what exactly is a student? The concept of 'a student' is decidedly European and suspiciously anti-English. Students have long hair, and don't wash; they lie in bed until noon, they watch cartoons on the television during the day, they tear up Parisian cobblestones and throw them at the police; they plot revolution and live in garrets. They eat Pot Noodles and read Karl Marx. When students grow up, they become accountants. 

One of my favourite ghost stories is by Washington Irving. It’s called The Adventure of the German Student (1824) and it says it all:

Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Göttingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body. His health was impaired; his imagination diseased. He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until, like Swedenborg, he had an ideal world of his own around him.

 

 

Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

Anyway. The food. We ordered the set menu for two for the eminently reasonable price of £16 a head. It wasn't great, and a report in the Evening Standard earlier this year suggests, perhaps, that a snap inspection of the kitchen would not be a happy experience: the coconut chutney was grim: watery and flecked with mint; a bit gritty. Packet popadums. Lime pickle, presumably from a jar. A lukewarm battered and fried green chilli. Mashed potato folded into a limp pancake. The Butter Chicken was okay- actually quite nice, in a decent, juicy tomato sauce. The Lamb Bhuna, visually, left much to be desired. The dal was thin, slightly greasy, and again, a trifle gritty, although enlivened with mustard seeds. The Basmati rice was basic and unadorned but cooked well.

The total bill came to £25 a head, including service and two pints of Cobra beer. It was if the clock had stopped in 1947; but making you appreciate the food conjured up by the terrific Vauxhall restaurant Hot Stuff even more, where for a similar price, you can enjoy Indian food of value and quality.

  

The India Club. Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

 

But, look, I don't want to be too hard on the India Club. You're not going there for some crooked little finger 'fane daning' experience, are you? My culinary standards are high. If you're a student plotting revolution or a grumpy old man lamenting the past, the atmosphere's terrific. It's fabulous value for money, and the service has charm. It's a buy.

I'm a great believer in the idea that atmosphere and continuity are just as important- if not more important than the food. Step forward: The Gay Hussar, Odin's, Daquise, The New Piccadilly Cafe, The Polish Club, The Vine Bar, Piccadilly; the former Joe Allen's, the original Ivy, Wilton's, and the old Annabel's. But as the majority of institutions on this august list are now kaput, you will understand that the rest of London struggles to appreciate my point of view.

Until very recently, The India Club was under threat of demolition- those pesky property developers at their diabolical work yet again, and I am thrilled to learn that the joint intervention of a 26,439 signature petition and Westminster Council has saved the restaurant for the time being, or at least until another wave of development hits London town.

 

The India Club Bar & Restaurant, Hotel Strand Continental, 143 Strand, London, WC2R 1JA (020 7836 4880)

 

Clientele: Students, Swiss Cottage Intellectuals, Out of Work Actors, Silvered Beards, Grumpy Old Men

Ambience: 1950s Officer's Mess meets Noisy Student Union Canteen

Food: Bog Standard

Service: Charming

Cost: £

 

The Hindoostanee Coffee House: London's First Indian Restaurant

 

It is often said that the Veerraswamy is the oldest Indian restaurant in Britain. Well, Yes. Up to a Point, Lord Copper. It's the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in Britain. But it's thought that the very first Indian restaurant in Britain- and possibly the Western World- was the splendid Hindostanee Coffee House, opened by Sake Dean Mahomed in George Street, London, in 1810.

 

 

Mahomed was an extraordinary character: the son of an official of the British East India Company but adopted at an early age by an Anglo-Irish army officer. He served in the army of the East India Company as a surgeon, and later emigrated to Cork where he converted to Anglicanism and eloped with a pretty Irish girl.

 

 

The Hindoostanee Coffee House opened in 1810 in George Street, near Portman Square:

Hindostanee Coffee-House, No. 34 George-street, Portman square-Mahomed, East-Indian, informs the Nobility and Gentry, he has fitted up the above house, neatly and elegantly, for the entertainment of Indian gentlemen, where they may enjoy the Hoakha, with real Chilm tobacco, and Indian dishes, in the highest perfection, and allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England with choice wines, and every accommodation, and now looks up to them for their future patronage and support, and gratefully acknowledges himself indebted for their former favours, and trusts it will merit the highest satisfaction when made known to the public

 

 

Mahomed sold Indian take away-too:

Apartments are fitted up for their entertainment in the Eastern style, where dinners, composed of genuine Hindoostane dishes, are served up at the shortest notice… Such ladies and gentlemen as may desirous of having India Dinners dressed and sent to their own houses will be punctually attended to by giving previous notice…

I would give my teeth to have an original recipe from the Hindoostanee coffee house, but as far as I am aware, none survive. So I turned to David Burton’s The Raj at Table which gives, at least, an impression of similar dishes that the Hindoostanee Coffee House might have served. Here’s a simple recipe for Country Captain, which was one of the most famous dishes in the Anglo-Indian repertoire:

Cut a roasting chicken into eight pieces, trim off the fat and fry in ghee until browned. Remove and set aside. To the remaining ghee add two sliced onions and cook for a few minutes along with five crushed cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of freshly grated root ginger. 

Then add one teaspoon of turmeric, freshly chopped green chillies (to taste), two teaspoons of freshly ground black pepper and two bruised cloves. Cook for a minute or two.

In goes the chicken pieces and some stock. Cover the pan and simmer at a lowish heat until the meat is tender. Top up with more stock or water, if neccessary.   Finish off with sea salt and a squeeze of lemon juice to taste. Serve with fried onion rings and chopped red and green chilis.

It’s a pretty simple curry, but sometimes simplicity is the way forward. The sauce is going to be relatively thin, so watch the reduction with care until you get the consistency you want. Adding freshly chopped coriander to the chilli garnish at the end might also be a good plan.

 

The Greasy Spoon Visits... Kricket

 

 

 

I’ve discovered a favourite new London restaurant. Found not in the swanky environs of St James’s, the frenetic backstreets of Soho or the hipster hovels of Shoreditch; but in a re-cycled shipping container plonked on the second floor deck of some sort of community centre pop-up in Brixton, South London. Yup, a simple shipping container, which can hold about twenty people, seated along a refectory table. Kricket’s the name. Serving, as their simple website announces, ‘Indian Small Plates & Cocktails’.

I took Mrs Aitch there on a rainy, languid, Friday afternoon in August. Nobody there, apart from two cooks working away down one end of an organised micro kitchen and a svelte waitress with a ring in her nose, which suited me just dandy; but I gather after lights out, the joint’s buzzing with creatures of the night, and as there’s (understandably) no booking and the word has spread, you might have quite a long wait before eating. But my God, it’s worth it. The food is divine.

The menu says ‘Indian’, but it ain’t like any Indian I’ve ever tasted, although I’m guessing there’s a nod to the tangy, salty, sweet and sour taste of Southern India and Goa going on in there. I’m not a fan, normally, of fusion food; in the hands of an amateur it can be scarily pretentious and if it’s going to work- and often this is a big ‘if’,  it needs a cook with the tastebuds of a Brillat-Savarin in the making. But here it works beautifully. Creative, enterprising and fun.

We ordered most of the bowls off the simple typed menu. First up was the Crab Meen Moilee (£8), Kricket’s take on a Keralan fish curry: radicchio leaves and crab tossed in a sweet creamy, lightly spiced coconut sauce, topped with crushed peanuts. Next up was Torched Mackerel with puffed brown rice, cucumber pickle and gooseberry chutney (£7). Fabulous. Deep flavour, masses of tang and crispy crunch. Then came a Smoked Sweet Potato, with gunpowder, crispy onion and labneh (£6), Lansooni Scallops, with wild garlic, poha and seaweed (£4) and Grilled Hispi Thoran with pickled carrot, coconut and curry leaf (£6). All dandy. Lovely simple presentation too, if that sort of thing bothers you. It bothers me, but then as a dealer in art and antiques, I suppose it would.

In case you’re wondering, ’Gunpowder’ is Kricket’s own spice mix, ‘labneh’ is a tangy cheese made by draining yoghurt over-night and ‘poha’ is a de-husked rice, flattened into dry flakes. We finished off with their Grilled Lamb with black stone flower, smoked paprika raita and coriander and mint chutney (£9.50). The lamb was beautifully soft, as by now you might have expected. Black Stone Flower is "an edible lichen flora, which grows on trees, rocks and stones. Botanically, it belongs to the Parmelia perlata family and it is referred to as ‘foliose’ meaning that each flower is vaguely similar to foliage or leaves and florae.” But then you knew that.

Kricket is the baby of entreprenur Rik Campbell and chef, Will Bowlby, the latter a former employee of Vivek Singh’s Cinammon Kitchen, which, I suspect, has had a benign influence. The Greasy Spoon’s signature dish is kedgeree (I can bore you to tears with a long and winding discource on kedgeree, the origins, history and development of), so I was especially interested in Kricket’s take on the dish (which sadly wasn’t on the menu when we visited). If ever there was a fusion dish, this has to be it: originally khichdi was a combination of lentils and rice, to which the British added smoked fish and eggs. Kricket’s version consists of a lightly curried dal combined with smoked haddock, pickled cauliflower (thinly sliced), a raw egg and sprigs of parsley, or quite possibly coriander. Vivek Singh makes a ‘Bengali Kedgeree’ with yellow mung beans, turmeric, green chili, cumin seeds, cream, tomato and coriander. 

It’s all terribly exciting. We went home and it suddenly struck me quite how dull my own culinary attempts can be- stuck in a molasse of retro Cordon Bleu, Elizabeth David and the Harry’s Bar Cookbook. But that’s for now. I will probably change my mind tomorrow.

 

Kricket, Pop Brixton, 49 Brixton Station Road, London SW9 8PQ (No Reservations)

 

Penny Pinching Tarka Dhal

 

 

 

I’m suddenly interested in cheap food. Not that I’ve succumbed to the oily and addictive horrors of Chicken Valley in the South Lambeth Road. No. What I’ve woken up to is how well you can eat on a modest budget, and by “modest”, I really mean modest. And by “well” I really mean well. Forget the dreaded pasta bake, we’re thinking serious food.

The late- and great- Jocasta Innes led the field with The Pauper’s Cookbook, first published back in 1971. I’m the proud owner of a well-thumbed penguin. It’s a classic, although perhaps now slightly limited by the constraints of the period it was written in. The Cordon Bleu Cookery Course meets the WI. 

 

 

I’ve got two other books on the subject: Great Value Gourmet, Meals and Menus for £1 by Paul Gayler and David Chater’s Impoverished Gastronome. The first was published in 1996, so taking inflation into account, we can forgive the optimistic title. The second book is a collection of cheffy recipes from various trendy restaurants, which is fun; but I’m not convinced that the recipes are that cheap. One of the problems is that you’ll need a well-stocked larder to cook them. That chicken thigh from Lidl might be great value it’s true, but the overall cost of the spices, bayleaves, lemon grass, jar of honey, tub of yoghurt, whipping cream, Thai paste, chilli and ginger required to cook the recipe is going to leave a whopping hole in your modest supermarket budget if you haven’t got these ingredients in the first place. 

No, I’m thinking seriously cheap food. And to do this properly, you need to broaden your horizons. Take tarka dhal for example. In England most people come across this as a side-dish to eat with their curry. If you go to one of the better chains (Masala Zone or Dishoom immediately spring to mind) this will be served to you in a small bowl.

Of course, in India dhal is a staple food and often served as a course by itself with rice or bread. We’ve started to have it as a supper dish on a regular basis (served with steamed basmati rice) and I’m really beginning to appreciate it’s silky, buttery, subtle, savoury, comforting taste. Personally, I prefer it to be quite thin in consistency- almost like a soup- and I’m glad to hear that’s how the Indians like it too.

Get into dhal and you will find there’s a whole sub-culture out there; one region likes it this way, another region prefers it with this or that spice- there’s room for experimentation. This recipe comes from the excellent Anjum Anand, and I’ve now made it on numerous occasions with great success. All the ingredients can be found in the Indian section of a standard British supermarket:

 

 

Take 100 g of chana dhal lentils and mix them in a bowl with 50 g of dried red lentils. Cover with water and wash them through several times, until the water becomes reasonably clear. There’s no need to soak either lentil beforehand. Put the washed lentils into a large pan and cover with 1 litre of cold water. Bring the pan to the boil and skim off the white foamy scum that will start to collect on the surface of the water. 

While this is going on, chop up the flavourings. Peel four cloves of garlic and chop and smash them up with a large pinch of sea salt to form a juicy paste. I use the back of a knife. Grate a large knob of peeled ginger and again, chop and smash it up with a knife to form a smooth paste. Add a teaspoon of turmeric, then the salt, garlic and ginger to the pan and simmer on a low heat, with the pan covered for forty minutes. 

Now it’s time to make the tarka, which involves frying spices in oil. Heat a combination of oil and butter in a small frying pan. Add three dried red chillies and a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds to the pan and cook them until they are slightly browned. Be careful not to burn the cumin. Add a small onion, finely chopped and cook until well browned. 

Next, add two chopped tomatoes, a decent pinch of garam masala and another pinch of sea salt and cook until the masala releases the oils. Anjum says ten minutes but I find this can happen sooner. 

After the lentils have cooked for half and hour pour the finished spicy tarka into the pan with the lentils. Take off the lid and raise the heat and cook on a highish heat for another ten minutes or so. I like to add more water at this stage, so that it’s a bit like a soup. Check the seasoning and serve in a bowl with crisply fried onions and some chopped coriander.

I find that red onions for some reason are much easier to shallow fry than white or yellow onions and don’t seem to burn to the same extent. I’ve also tried adding more tomatoes- nice flavour, but shame about the colour, as I think for this classic dish you want more of a yellow colour which you’ll get (surprisingly) from the red lentils, once they’re cooked, as well of course, as from the turmeric.

There you are. A delicious, filling classic. Incredibly good for you too. And Mein Gott, it’s cheap. This recipe is enough for two people- and with small second helpings to spare. You can buy a 500 g packet of chana dhal lentil on the net for £1.05. A 500 g packet of red lentils from the same source costs £1.25. That works out as 21 p for the chana dhal and 12½ p for the red lentils. For two people.

Obviously you’ve also got to factor in the other ingredients, and if I’ve got time later on this afternoon, I might get my maths into action and work out the exact cost. I’ll report back with an update. But I think you will all agree, this recipe is amazing value for money. And it tastes fantastic, which is half the battle won.

 

The Greasy Spoon tests...Rick Stein's India

  

 

 

One more post about curry. Then I will shut up. You will remember, dear reader, that in the last post we were flirting with the charms of British Indian Restaurant Cookery. I tried a recipe or two from Undercover Curry (the secret of British Indian Restaurant cookery) and, Mein Gott, it was one hell of a marathon. The base sauce took an hour or two, and then I diligently obeyed orders and had to make a garlic and ginger paste, a tomato and tandoori mix and a tandoori masala marinade. Several years later, I came up with a reasonably authentic curry. A bit like the sort of thing you might order from your local takeaway. Except it wasn't as good. Tasted similar, but something was missing. The Sag Aloo was greasy, the base sauce had a lingering cabbagey smell, and the 'Madras' was far too tomatoey. Scary amount of vegetable oil too. Swimming in the stuff. All this, of course, could have been- and probably was- the fault of Mein Host, but it would have been far easier, frankly, to have picked up that telephone and rung up my old friend from bachelor days, Captain Korma.

 

 

Which takes me to Rick Stein. One of my favourite restaurants is his Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. I like their professional, friendly attitude, I like the fact the tables are spacious. I like the way they ladle their Cornish version of Bouillabaisse from a generous tureen, enough for two. And the food is still fabulous. It tastes of something. Oh yes, Rick Stein is still going strong, after all these years. And first "discovered" by none other than one Mr Keith Floyd during the making of his early series, "Floyd on Fish".

 

 

Rick Stein's India is a recent addition to the cookery library, and it's a superb compilation. It's based on his recent television series in which we enjoyed the sight of Mr Stein eating his way across the Sub-Continent. Don't be put off by all the generic BBC television hype. It's a buy.

Don't know about you, but I am so fed up with the current crop of television documentaries. Photogenic Oxbridge dons striding across the Saharan desert in jeans and open necked blue shirts, gesticulating wildly. Next shot they're on the Great Wall of China. Then they're driving a hired open Mustang on the freeways of the Deep South, their Byronic locks blowing in the breeze. Cue long shot of television expert standing on the edge of Beachy Head (Go on Man! Jump!), staring out to sea. Or on the Grand Canyon. Or gazing at the heavens and contemplating the mysterious Universe. Step forward Doctor So and So. You know who you are. And those ridiculous repetitive intros. Which reminds us retards- i.e. those of us with attention spans of five seconds- you and me- what the series is all about in the first place. Because we've forgotten since last week, haven't we? Tiresome intros which run about five minutes into the programme. "Im Professor So and So, and in this series, for the first time in television history, I will be unlocking the secrets of the ancient kingdom of ..." Cue commercial break for international television. They're always "unlocking" the past in these programmes. Yawn.

This is the reason why the younger crowd don't watch British television. Because it ain't no good no more. There, gastronauts, I've had my little rant. Now back to Mr Stein and the dilemma of authentic and not so authentic curries.

 

 

I've really thought about this one. Not quite sleepless nights, but it's been niggling me for the last few days. I don't see the point of going to all the trouble of making a British Indian Restaurant curry when you can knock up authentic street food from Rick Steins' book in about fifteen to twenty minutes, with minimum ingredients and little washing up. So far I've made the Dry "Curry of Cabbage, Carrot and Coconut", "Cochin First-Class Railway Mutton Curry" and "Chettinad Chicken". All were superb, especially the last two. I'll be using this brilliant book for years to come. Before you reach for that telephone, please give it a try. Buy it.

 

Secrets of the Great British Indian Restaurants

 

 

Gastronauts- a question for you this fine, sunny, July morning. Do you have a thing about takeaway curry? A secret addictive vice? Go on. Admit it. It's gloriously tacky, I know, unquestionably laddish, and possibly, no probably, horribly fattening (more about that later), but isn't there just something so very comforting indeed about a rich, oily, meaty, salty, spicy Madras on a Friday night, after a difficult week? There's a place for it, despite what Mrs Aitch thinks. Her view being that why on earth anybody would want to re-create the flavours of a British Indian Takeaway is beyond comprehension.

British Indian Restaurant (BIR as the aficionados call it) is a different ball game from genuine and traditional Indian food- as prepared and eaten by families across the Sub-Continent. It all started when Bangladeshis arrived in Britain just after the Second World War. They developed a new style of cooking, perhaps more suited to British taste buds, which could be prepared with relative ease, and on a strict budget, allowing many different dishes to be served at once. 

Ever wondered how your local Indian Taj Mahal manages to serve up so many different dishes at such short notice? Ever wondered how Indian restaurants manage to survive even though you're the only punter in the room?

The secret lies in the various very affordable base sauces and pastes which the restaurant makes up before hand. I became curious about this and started to investigate. Surprise, surprise, there's a whole BIR sub-culture on YouTube, with beery jokey blokey types revealing 'for the first time' the mystery of the 'base sauce' and curry fanatics peddling their e-books revealing the 'secret' recipes of British Indian Restaurant Cookery. There's also several internet forums full of angst-ridden middle aged men arguing about the exact quantity of this spice and that sauce. In truth, there are now so many of these curry evangelists, that to claim the whole caboodle a 'secret' is, perhaps, as trifle economique with the actualité. 

I've discovered that the base sauce tends to be, in essence, a puréed vegetable stock. There doesn't seem to be any major rules, but the sauce tends to include cabbage, carrots, peppers, fresh coriander, garlic and ginger paste, green chillies, tomatoes, water and a great deal of onions. And a great deal of oil. As much as a litre of sunflower oil is poured into the cooking pot, which explains why you get that dark red oily surface floating on top of your curry. The vegetable bit is extremely healthy, but I'm not sure about the quantities of oil. A litre of oil does seem like an enormous amount. Scary. Coming to think about it, none of the Curry Crusaders I watched on YouTube seemed to have- how can I put it delicately? - washboard stomachs.

Anyway, to move on. To cut a very long story short, it's simmered for several hours. When ready it can be used as a base for any dish you think of. There are all sorts of other nifty little tricks to know about too. In a Korma, super fine coconut flour is used, not desiccated coconut. And butter is added to the dish, as well as cream. Tomato ketchup often goes into a Rogan Josh. And so on and so on. Meat is pre-cooked and then warmed through in the sauce before serving. 

 

 

The first book published on the subject seems to be Kris Dhillon's The Curry Secret. In its day it was breaking new ground. I've read this slim volume from cover to cover, and it's a bit different from all the e-books and YouTube videos out there. Very pared down. Basic even. The base sauce, for example, is much simpler and seems to lack ingredients (like cabbage and carrots) everyone else is recommending. I finished this book slightly unfulfilled, not convinced that with this one, we really were learning "The Secret"- whatever that might be.

A more complicated (and perhaps more genuine) approach seems to come from Dave Loyden's Undercover Curry, an insider's expose of British Indian Restaurant Cookery, which goes into great length and detail about exactly how to prepare all the sauces, pastes and wotnot that you need to create genuine BIR food. It's like a technician's manual. All great stuff, and worth getting, but there's so much emphasis on the technique, there's not much room left for the recipes. Classics such as Chicken Korma (which I would have loved to have learnt how to cook properly) seems to have been left out.

And then you turn to the internet. I love YouTube, I think, partly because I like enthusiasts. There's so much quirky stuff out there for enthusiastic amateurs. If you suddenly decide you want to breed orchids, raise Alpacas, restore a Bentley Mark VI or learn how to speak Cornish with a Newlyn dialect, there's going to be some nut on YouTube showing you exactly how to do it. And with their videos come helpful 'how-to-do-it' e-books.

For once, the Sinister Kindle seems to have come into its own. Talking of which, I'm toying- and I mean toying- with the idea of writing a "Best of The Greasy Spoon" recipe book. There could be two paths- a relatively expensive de-luxe edition, wood-cuts, hand-made paper, limited print run et al, or a democratic, affordable e-book, which could be downloaded immediatley to the computer screens at your Counting House for a few golden nuggets. With the first option, I would probably end up loosing money, with the second- I might actually make a few bob or two. Enough to keep me in take-away curries for a few months. But that's beside the point.

Which one would you prefer? Are there any unmissable classic dishes that you think I should include? Please email me at [email protected] with your views. 

 

Bombay Mix

 

 

It's crunchy. It's spicy. It's horribly addictive. It's laced, I suspect, with our old friend, Mr Monosodium Glutamate. It comes in those little bags from the local corner shop. It's Bombay Mix. The Queen's a fan. Apparently she draws lines in felt-tip across her porcelain snack bowls. She discovered that quantities of the stuff were mysteriously vanishing. The Royal Protection Squad were the main suspects.

I've currently got a 'thing' about Bombay Mix too, finding it works beautifully for some reason, with a decent Gin & Tonic (Portobello Gin mixed properly, Fever Tree tonic, ice cubes and a wedge of lime). The rather appealing Bombay Mix in the picture above comes from the admirably named Ludlow Nut Company.

Mrs Aitch asked me what was in it. I'm ashamed to admit I couldn't tell her straight off. Nuts? Noodles? Raisins? I wasn't even sure if it was genuinely Indian either. Could it be one of those strange Anglo-Indian concotions conjured up in the 1970's? 

Actually it is Indian (chiwda, chevdo, bhuso, chevda (चिवडा) or chivdo (चिवडो), Chanāchura, chanachur (চানাচুর) and chuda) a traditional snack which is enjoyed by millions right across the globe. Ingredients can include: peanuts, fried lentils, chickpeas, flaked rice, fried onion, noodles and curry leaves, flavoured with salt, pepper, coriander and mustard seed.

There are various recipes out there on the net. Every Indian family has their favourite mix, there doesn't seem to be any major rules. I like Ms Marmite Lover's version, which includes aromatic fennel, green chilis, sunflower seeds, red lentils and almonds.

 

Courtesans, Company Style, Northern India, 1800-1825.

 

Aromatic Garlic & Ginger Chicken Curry

 

 

Here's a recipe for an excellent- and aromatic- chicken curry which I've based on a version in Manju Malhi's recommended book, Brit Spice. It's similar-in a way- to the chicken curries of the Punjab in Northern India. I like the simplicity of the dish. It's a brilliant after-work standby: if you're in the mood for a decent supper, but can't be bothered to make anything elaborate. The ingredients are more than readily available in any supermarket- even one of those ersatz 'quick-stop' corner places.

Whiz up two green chillies, a generous knob of peeled ginger, a few cloves of garlic and a squirt of lemon juice in your magimix. This will create a paste. Put some chicken breasts into a bowl and smear them with the paste. Leave them to marinate for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, take a largish saucepan (I love those wide-ish, flat-ish saucepans with sides) and fry two chopped onions in oil, until brown. Fry them gently. You want them to go a golden brown colour, to caramalise. This will help to create a brown-coloured sauce. This is a good thing.

Stir in a teaspoon or so of garam masala, a teaspoon of turmeric and a generous pinch of sea salt. Add the marinated chicken pieces and cook for a few minutes, stirring until the oils come to the surface. Top the dish up with water, cover, and simmer for a few minutes. You can play around with the amount of water to add, depending on how thick you like your sauce to be. That's it. Incredibly easy, and you'll end up with an authentic tasting curry in no time at all.

Before I sign off, a quick note on Garam Masala. In Britain (a nation of curry lovers) you can buy this easily enough in little jars. It's a blend of spices used in the cookery of Northern India. If you're in the mood you can make your own: 

Heat up a heavy frying pan and 'dry roast' the following ingredients: a handful of cloves, a cinammon stick or two, a few green cardamon pods, black cardamon pods, a tablespoon of cumin seeds, a few coriander seeds, one or two black peppercorns, a teaspoon of black mustard seeds and some grated nutmeg. 

I gather that recipes for Garam Masala vary from household to household, so don't freak out if you can't get all the ingredients. Nothing is set in stone.

Don't add any oil to the pan- you just want to toss the spices very quickly in the pan until you start smelling the aromas. Make sure they don't burn. We're only talking about a minute or so on the heat. Whizz them up on in a coffee grinder or spice grinder and store. You could, of course, also crush them the old-fashioned way in a good old pestle and mortar.

 

Collecting Books on Indian Cookery

 

 

 

One of the greatest pleasures of life, I think, is spending a happy Sunday afternoon, or so, re-arranging your books. It's a simple pleasure- as often the best pleasures are- and it gives you a chance to take stock, throw-out (or give away) those books you've lost interest in, and re-discover old friends. If our house ever burnt down (God Forbid!) it would be the books I would miss most- more, I think than the furniture, paintings, silver, Chinese porcelain, mezzotints, clocks, tin-plate clockwork toys, rocking horses, looking glasses, globes and all those other nick-nacks you've either inherited or accumulated over the years.

 

 

Anyway. I discovered that I'd built up an accidental collection of books on Indian Food, especially Anglo-Indian food as it was back in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In recent years the British have adopted "curry" as a national dish. We're an odd lot (a difficult people, I think sometimes); it's strange that we've adopted curry considering we've been lampooned in the past for our bland culinery tastes. But then, historically, the British have always been adapatable; compromise is a fine art.

 

 

So I'm posting up their covers to inspire you. All these books should be available from amazon or second-hand from AbeBooks. Maybe you could start your own collection?  British cookery would be another great area to think about, as would the food of the American Deep South.

 

 

 

 

 

Spiced Apple Chutney

 

 

A Happy New Year. As a self-confessed contrarian, I've suddenly decided that I rather like January. As much as I adore Christmas, it does go on a bit, doesn't it? An old friend of mine used to display a banner in his drawing room with "Christmas Must Go!" emblazoned across it. I'm beginning to understand what he felt like. Over the years I've also slowly come to the conclusion that what I really enjoy at Christmas is not the ubiquitous Turkey (dry this year, one of those things), but, instead, a succulent self-cooked, honey and mustard glazed ham (recipe from Sarah Raven), served up with home-made potted mushrooms, and chutney.

This year my mother gave me a pot of her very own "Spiced Apple Chutney", and I have to say, hand on heart, this is probably the best chutney I have tasted in a very long while. Perhaps ever. She discovered the recipe in a book on Indian food, but was a bit vague about what exactly the title was- so my apologies to the author for not being able to tell you the exact source. The chutney's almost a vegetarian curry in its own right; I think that might be part of its very considerable appeal. It's also fairly easy on the vinegar, which helps.

Peel, core and slice up 900g of cooking apples. Put them into a bowl and sprinkle them with sea salt flakes. Set aside. Grate half a head of garlic and half a knob of fresh ginger. Slice up the remaining halves thinly.

Heat up a large pan and add a dash of oil. Fry the ginger and the garlic until slightly golden. Add 2 tablespoons of mustard seed, one teaspoon of fenugreek seed, 15 peppercorns, two teaspoons of powdered cumin, one teaspoon of chilli powder, one teaspoon of tumeric, and 3-4 chopped green chillis (removing the seeds with your knife. Fry gently for a few minutes.

Add the sliced apples, 150ml of cider vinegar, and 110g granulated sugar. Stir and cook slowly for about thirty minutes or so. Cool and decant into sterlised screw-top jars. The chutney needs to mature for a few months before eating.

I really do hope you are tempted to make this. It's a classic chutney and utterly delicious.

 

The Last Days of The Raj: Food in British India

 

 

The Veerasawmy, from an old postcard

 

The Veeraswamy (99-101 Regent Street, London W1) is said to to be the oldest Indian restaurant in Britain. It was founded in 1926 by Edward Palmer, a retired Indian army officer. Palmer is an interesting character. From an Anglo-Indian family, his grandfather founded a Hyderabad banking house in the 18th century, and his grandmother was Indian. His great grandmother was the Princess Begum Fyze Baksh. Palmer's company E. P. Veerasawmy & Co. (note the slightly different spelling) ran the Indian foods section at the British Empire exhibiton in 1924, selling spices, chutneys and curry pastes to the British public- this must have seemed deeply exotic at the time.

 

 

 

In 1936 he published "Indian Cookery: For Use in All Countries". This is a rare book in first edition, and difficult to find, but I see that a paperback edition, published by Mayflower in 1972, is readily available, and there are various other fun editions you can get your teeth into:

 

 

 

In 1930, The Veerasawmy was taken over by the Conservative MP, Sir William Steward. The restaurant was popular with all the usual Society suspects of the day: Edward, Prince of Wales, Mrs Simpson, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin. And it's still there (although you will find the decor much changed), managed by the owners of Chutney Mary, and the brilliant and highly affordable chain, Masala Zone- which I would recommend without hesitation. 

I'm interested in Anglo-Indian food. Like so many other people in this country, I have (or have had) relations who lived in India. My great uncle, from memory, had been in the Indian Army. One of my all-time favourite dishes is kedgeree- that savoury Anglo-Indian confection of rice, smoked fish, chopped eggs and "curry" flavourings. Piccallili (which I wrote about yesterday) is another example. It's sort of in the blood. There are some who will say that Anglo-Indian food is not authentic; a bastardised version of the real McCoy. This may or may not be the case, but it exists (if slightly out of fashion) and for me, that's as real as it gets.

I've built up a modest collection of books on the topic:

 

David Burton, "The Raj at Table", Faber, 1994

 

Jennifer Brennan, "Curries & Bugles",  Harper Collins, 1990

 

Lizzie Collingham, "Curry, A Tale of Cooks & Conquerors", Random House, 2006

 

Rhona Aitken, The Memsahib's Cookbook, Piatkus Books, 1993

 

Pat Chapman's "The Taste of The Raj", Hodder & Stoughton, 1997

 

Rogan Josh

 

 

Oh, how I love youtube. It's that serendipity thing going on. You've got an hour or so to spare, and just through random coincidence and one thing leading to another, you discover infinite numbers of new sub-cultures you didn't even know existed.  And that's how I came across Chef Harpal. I have no idea if he's a huge culinary star in India, Australia, Singapore- or wherever. But what I do know is that his take on Rogan Josh is extremely delicious- and for those of you with that certain chili kick, this is going to be right up your street. Incidentally, there's no tomato or tomato sauce in it whatsoever.  All the red 'fiery' bit comes from the chili. 

If you've got the time and inclination, have a look at his video, as posted below. If you haven't, here's my version of Chef Harpal's Rogan Josh: 

In hot oil, you fry: a cinammon stick, a few cloves, a bayleaf, a few black cardamoms, and a kilogram of thinly sliced onions. Cook until the onions are beginning to turn slightly brown. Add a tablespoon of garlic paste, and then a tablespoon of ginger paste. Take a shoulder of lamb, and cut it up into chunks. Fry until evenly coloured and the lamb is soft. Add water or stock, and a generous dash of sea salt. Cover and cook for about twenty five minutes. 

Mix up a decent tablespoon or so of chili powder with water, to form a loose, liquidy paste. This is one of Chef Harpal's nifty tricks. It helps to release the oils and bind the chili to the sauce. Don't add the chili powder as it is. Throw in a teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds and a teaspoon of crushed, powdered ginger. Let them cook for a few minutes and then turn down the heat and mix in about half a cup of whisked yoghurt. Simmer until the lamb is tender.

 

 

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Lazy Spinach and Prawn Biryani

 

 

I'm going to deviate from the path with this one. Normally on The Greasy Spoon, I try to cover classic food and get to the bottom of authentic recipes. Hand up, I admit that the recipe I'm about to give you ain't a proper biryani- it's undoubtably a bastardised version, but so juicy, quick and delicious, I couldn't resist posting it. It's based on a recipe from allrecipes.co.uk, but I've unashamedly changed it in various ways.

What is a biryani?  I'm afraid many people in Britain just assume it's "Indian"- whatever that means. The story of the biryani, however, is far more complex. It originated in Persia, the name coming from the Persian word beryā(n) (بریان) which means "fried" or "roasted" and was brought to South East Asia by spice traders. It's a popular dish in India (many different versions), Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, The Middle East (including Iran and Iraq), Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

It's a combination of rice, spices, vegetables, fish eggs and meat. For an authentic biryani, the rice and curried sauce should be cooked separately, and then combined together at the end in layers, forming a contrast between the lightly spiced rice, and the intense flavours of the sauce, meat or vegetables. It's similar in a way to our very own kedgeree- which, of course, has its roots in the British Raj.

My "after-work" version is more of an Anglicised pilaf, I suppose. You could of course tweak it to become a proper biryani- by steaming basmati rice (with the lid on) and cooking this separately, creating some sort of a spicy sauce, and then combining it all together before serving. Fried crunchy, sliced onions would be an authentic and delicious garnish.

 

His Highness The Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, GBE

 

Heat up a saucepan and add a dash of cooking oil. Add a thinly sliced onion, a sliced red chilli, and a knob of fresh ginger, (peeled and chopped). Cook on a medium heat for a few minutes until soft.

Now it' time for the spices. You're going to use cumin, coriander, turmeric and nutmeg. I would suggest that you buy the cumin and coriander as seeds, and then grind them up in a pestle and mortar until they become a fine powder. A tablespoon or so should be fine. I'm afraid that the turmeric came from the jar (about a teaspoon). The nutmeg was grated directly into the saucepan: I've got a little nutmeg grater which my mother-in-law (Gawd bless 'er) gave me for Christmas. Cook on a lowish heat for a few more minutes, so that the spices are cooked properly. The aim is to cook the spices, but not to burn them.

Stir in 225g of Uncle Ben's Long Grain Rice. This cheat's rice has had the starch removed, and so won't go mushy in the cooking. It's excellent for pilafs, in my opinion. If you were planning to use Basmati rice, you would need to rinse it first, and then "steam" on a low heat for about ten minutes with the lid on.

Stir in a tin of chopped tomatoes, and top up with hot fish stock. Add a pinch of sugar, and a pinch of salt. By the way, further cheating at this stage, as I added a dollop of Umami paste, the mysterious "fifth taste sensation" (a sort of cross between anchovies and tomatoes in flavour). Simmer the biryani on a low to medium heat, until the rice has cooked. If you think it needs it, top it up with boiling water now and again.

When the rice is cooked, stir in two packets of plebby prawns (these are those pre-cooked tiny, shrimp-like pink things you can buy in the supermarket). Take the birayni off the heat, and stir in a packet of spinach. You'll find that it wilts easily in the heat. Finish the dish off with a generous helpings of chopped fresh coriander.

If you want to research biraynis further, have a look at this video in which master chef Padma Lakshmi cooks a Royal Biryani for two hundred children in Hyderabad.

 

 

Aloo Gobi

 

 

 

I've currently got this thing about caulifower; in truth, it's developing into a bizarre craving. I'm not sure what it is exactly that I like about cauliflower. Is it the slightly peppery, mustardy flavour? Or the crunchiness of the stuff when it's slightly undercooked?

Aloo Gobi is the dish of the moment- potato is the aloo bit, and caulifower the gobi. It's a dry curry from Northern India, and easy to make; or at least, I thought it was until I tried using the recipe from Manju Malhi's otherwise excellent book, "Brit Spice".  

 

 

I think I like this book: it's well laid out using decent, clear typography, has excellent photographs, and the cover shows a wholesome looking girl (presumably the author) chopping up some coriander. The blurb on the front cover (courtesy of The Guardian) says "Manju Malhi is being billed as the Next Madhur Jaffrey".

I followed Ms Malhi's instructions to the letter: tip half a teaspoon of cumin seeds into three tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil and fry for a few seconds. So far, so good. Next, you add a chopped onion, a peeled and diced potato and a chopped and seeded green chili and fry for five minutes, before adding 200g (7oz) of caulifower florets and stir-frying for a further thirty seconds.

Turmeric, coriander and salt are stirred in, and the dish is covered and cooked on a low heat for five minutes. Chopped tomato is folded in, and the aloo gobi is cooked, covered, for a further three minutes.

And the result?  Delicious flavours, but both the potatoes and cauliflower remained severely undercooked. I realise "Brit Spice" is meant to be about modern, fast Indian cookery with a British twist: busy lives and all that; but this is taking fast food to extremes. Also, the cauliflower florets were too large, but that was my fault. I'm fine with the idea of keeping the caulifower crunchy, but undercooked potato ain't a good idea.

Sometimes I wonder if editors actually test the recipes they publish? I have a sneaky feeling that we could be looking at a typo here and the potato, onions and chili should be cooked for fifteen minutes at the start, and not five minutes, as published. The cooking time for the cauliflower could probably be increased by a further five minutes, too.

But it's an interesting question. How many recipes out there from well-known cookery writers are actually just plain wrong?  I seem to remember reading about the famous case of Robert Carrier and his Chili Con Carne, when because of some misprint, thousands of eager cooks across the land spooned in five tablespoons of hot chili powder rather than four teaspoons, or whatever it was supposed to be. And this was in 1965 (or whenever it was), a time when most Britons thought garlic was the mark of The Beast. 

Stangely, curry might now almost considered to be The National Dish.

Chicken Curry in the English Style

 

I'm a huge fan of genuine Indian food, believe me. The sort of street food served by restaurants such as the excellent Masala Zone. But I'm also fond of our own bastardised British versions too- as peddled by the Cordon Bleu Cookery Academy, circa 1959. Here's my own recipe for a delicious and simple chicken curry. Most Indians worth their salt will turn their noses up at it, but I find it strangely satisfying; and it's extremely easy to make too.

First, you need to sweat some chopped onions, celery and garlic in oil. Next add some apple chopped into chunks. Stir in a tablespoon of curry paste, and some turmeric. Cook this for a few minutes. In the meantime, season some de-boned chicken thighs with salt and pepper, and dust them with some flour. Add these to the pan. Cook for several minutes, until the chicken begins to colour. Now add some chicken stock (preferably home made, otherwise Marigold reduced-salt bouillon is just the ticket), and simmer for about ten to fifteen minutes.

Next, pour in some coconut milk. Simmer for about half an hour until the chicken is cooked. You should end up with a thickish sauce. Add a teaspoon of redcurrent jelly (yes, redcurrent jelly).

Serve with chopped coriander. Instead of plain rice, try my Lemon Rice instead. This is just ordinary rinsed Basmati Rice, which has been cooked in a bit of stock, lemon juice, lemon zest, and a few cardamom pods.

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The Greasy Spoon visits... Khan's of Westbourne Grove

 

 

I'm back. First, you may remember that I had that awful bitter taste thing going on in my mouth after eating a packet of rancid Chinese pine nuts, and frankly, as the taste lasted over a week, I just wasn't in the mood for writing anything about food, let alone even thinking about it. It was as if I was constantly licking my tongue against an aluminium panel. Secondly, my modem decided to finally give up the ghost, so I was offline for a few days, and peace and harmony reigned supreme.

But last week, my taste buds had recovered enough to revisit that former favourite: Khan's, the Indian restaurant in Bayswater. In the event, this became an irrelevance, as all we encountered was bland food and, frankly, pretty rude service.

Khan's was founded, I think, in 1977. My father used to work for an advertising agency around the corner, and I remember being taken there to admire the murals and palm tree columns holding up the ceiling. That's about the only good thing about the restaurant- it used to be a Jo Lyons Corner House- and the ghosts of tea-time orchestras, walnut cake and waitresses with starched pinafores still linger; at least, to those of us with over-active imaginations.

And the first impressions of Khan's are still good, even if it is a paper napkin sort of place. Waiters in white jackets bustle around in Italian style, the palm trees give off a whiff of the Raj, and the murals are still there- if now repainted in a kitsch turquoise and beige.

We were shown to a rickety table. As the restaurant is Muslim owned, alcohol is now banned, so we ordered alcohol-free Cobras, which were surprisingly drinkable- even if alcohol-free beer is a confusing paradox in itself. Service was erratic. The beers arrived and were handed to us, as if- God forbid- we were at some sort of Antipodean barbeque.  

Poppadoms and chutneys arrived on time. The Poppadoms came, I guess, straight from the packet, and the chutneys were boring, thin and unappealing, though the lime pickle tasted all right, and had probably been made in house. I ordered a "Meat" Madras, and a mushroom side dish. The "meat" came in small grey lumps (dyed orange by the sauce) and looked suspiciously processed. The Girl had some sort of chicken thing with radioactive rice (I'm almost falling asleep as I write this). And when the waiter finally brought himself to bring it to us, he spent the whole time chatting away to the people on the next table as he dumped it all on ours. Don't think he could be bothered to look us in the eye once. Enough!  Frankly, the whole place was such a yawn, I can't even be bothered to write about it anymore.

And it's a great shame, as Khan's could, indeed, be excellent. The space is potentially fantastic, and has oodles of character. I like the bustling brasserie-like atmosphere, and the look of the waiters in their smart white jackets and black trousers. If you sacked the head chef, and gave the waiters each a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People", courtesy of Dale Breckenridge Carnegie, Khan's could be a great destination restaurant. Currently, it's not. 

And one last word on the subject: Khan's has an irritatingly slick and self-indulgent website, in which they suggest, I quote: "I suppose its (sic) fair to say that Khan's of Westbourne Grove, W2, is probably the most famous Indian restaurant in London."  Ever heard of The Veeraswamy, chaps? The Bombay Brasserie?  Or Chutney Mary?

 

Image by Kake Pugh via Flickr

 

 

 

Khan's, 13-15 Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, London, W2 4UA (020 7727 5420)

The Greasy Spoon visits... Moti Mahal

 

 

Photograph: Kake Pugh

 

I'd read good things about Moti Mahal, the oopmarket Indian restaurant of gourmet persuasion in Covent Garden, and was looking foward to our visit. We tried to get in without a booking just before Christmas, and of course, the restaurant was packed out; but the front of house staff were charming and said they would be delighted to see us again; so I booked a table last Tuesday, only to find the restaurant fairly empty. 

Before I go anywhere, I would like to officially put on record just how expensive Moti Mahal was. Jaw droppingly, go and jump off a skyscraper, expensive. Now, I'm not some mean, Scrooge-like, god-fearing, flint-like penny pincher, take my word for it, and I never mind splashing out when the occasion demands (as indeed it did on Tuesday night, when The Girl in her wisdom agreed to marry me), but I do like to get something back for my hard earned coppers; and with hindsight the Moti Mahal makes that glamorous old thing, Le Caprice, seem rather good value. 

And, with restaurants, value is not just about the food, it also includes the atmosphere, and obviously the service. The decor at Moti Mahal disappoints: you're lured inside by an interesting array of blue glass bottles in the window, but the interior, frankly, was bland and uninspiring: pale walls, a few tables dotted about, and a bar in the Los Angeles airport style (yawn). I can't even remember if there were any interesting pictures on the wall? It reminded me a bit of one of those local restaurants you find in places like Fulham or Chiswick (nothing intrinsically wrong with them, but lost in a sea of magnolia and ghastly good taste); and made me think longingly of that lovely conservatory at Chutney Mary, or indeed the kitsch trompe l'oeil and palm trees at Khan's in Westbourne Grove.

I can find no fault with the staff- they were all charming and efficient, in an understated way, and made minimal fuss, though lacked the professionalism of a restaurant at the top of its game, and which, at the prices Moti Mahal are charging, you might, not unreasonably, expect. 

The food was good. Typically, I went for the rabbit kebab spiked with cinnamon crack pepper, and served on an asparagus n' chestnut roesti (Gilafi Khargosh ki Seekh), half expecting Neanderthal-like hunks of pink rabbit flesh stuck on a barbeque stick, but instead, getting two juicy and delicately spiced rolls of meat, which to look at reminded me of those hot, steamy towels you're given to wipe your sweaty face with after coffee and a mint chocolate, and reminded The Girl of something else.

Lamb Biryiani 'scented ' with green cardamom (Matkey ki Gosht Biriyani) came in a small earthenware pot, again delicious, but considering it was supposed to be the main course, mean. The Girl skipped her first course and went for the wild bream with garlic, baked Devon Crab, and bean cakes with quails' eggs (Surkh Lasooni Macchi), and pronounced it all finger lickin' good, with the fish perfectly cooked, and the bean cake with quail's egg fabulous.The wine list was suitable for all the spice floating around, so I went for a Reisling, rather than a pricier Gerwuztraminer.

So, mixed feelings.  Would we go again?  Yes, if I conveniently happened to leave my wallet behind, and some kind soul was paying the bill. For my money, I'd rather have spent an evening at J. Sheekey's or Le Caprice- and with hindsight either of those two places would have been more suitable for that particular night of wit and romance, but- hey! "if you can't fail, you can't do anything", as I believe the late Eric Thompson (of Magic Roundabout fame) once said.

 

Moti Mahal, 45 Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2B 5AA  (020 7240 9329)

Hug a Hoodie: Hot Stuff Revisited

 

 

 

A few days ago I was amazed to discover that a foodie friend of mine (over here for a few months from Bangkok) had never been to the cult South London Indian restaurant, Hot Stuff. Hot Stuff reminds me of one of those tiny local restaurants you can find in France: a few tables, an enthusiastic patron, and a loyal clientele. The food at Hot Stuff is not going to win any awards, but it's still pretty darn good, and a refreshing change from the mediocre delights of the Pimlico Curry Centre, paparazzi photographs of Lady Di, withstanding.

Hot Stuff lies in that windswept hinterland between Vauxhall, Stockwell and Clapham, just south of the river Thames. If you stretch your imagination and ignore the gang-land graffiti, 60's brutalist architecture, and otherwise edgy concrete surroundings; it's all a bit reminiscent of the Blitz with green painted vegetable barrows, oily cobbled streets and a "Knees up Mother Brown" pub on the corner; from which floats the strain of inebriated group singing: "Wun Wabbit, Wun Wabbit, Wun, Wun, Wun": highly appropriate, as the eager chefs of Hot Stuff lurk a few doors up. Hot Stuff doesn't have a licence, so you have to nip next door to the offie to buy marked-up plonk. The enlightened bring beer.

As usual, we were met by the affable transfer-tattooed host, Raj, who suggested that he leave the order to him. Hot Stuff is really just a small room, with a few formica tables squeezed inside, and a blackboard on the wall. You can watch the kitchen from the "restaurant": a team of hoodies (baggy jeans half way down their derrières) all working in unison to the soothing harmonies of Snoop Dog. The chilli prawns, saag gosht, karahi chicken, masala fish, makhani dhal and 'magic mushroom' rice were all good; The nan bread was also delicious.

It's the sort of place where they don't give you a bill ("let's call it twenty quid, mate"), but instead, round it up (or more likely, down), for Hot Stuff is remarkably good value. It would be wonderful if there were more family-run restaurants like this in London: serving unpretentious, well-cooked food that won't break your wallet. Often, local restaurants still suffer from delusions of grandeur (do the ghosts of Nouvelle Cuisine still linger?) and entirely miss the point. If you're planning a visit to Hot Stuff, it's essential to book.

Hot Stuff, 19 Wilcox Road, Vauxhall, London, SW8 (020 7720 1480)

 

Clientele: Locals, Yuppies, Thirty Something Groups

Ambience: Bouncy

Food: Amazing value

Service: Helpful

Price: £

 

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Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney

 

 

At Dotheboys Hall, I remember being fascinated by an ancient copy of Hobson Jobson which I found hidden away on a dusty shelf in the school's Victorian Gothic library. First published in 1903, Hobson was an etymological glossary of Anglo-Indian words and language. A study of words such as Pajama, Veranda, Bungalow, Tiffin, Kedgeree and of course, our very own Curry.

Anglo-Indian food is another fascinating study, in its own right. One of the best books on the subject is David Burton's The Raj at Table, published by Faber & Faber.

Here's a recipe for Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney. Today, there are various brands out there using this name. Actually, Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney is something that you will find in the old Anglo-Indian cookery books and the original recipe involved leaving the chutney outside in the backyard to fester under the hot sun for a few days. I tried to find out who the original Colonel Skinner was (sounds Irish?), but without success.

Chop up the following ingredients in your Magimix or otherwise trendy food processor: twelve ounces of dried mangoes, half a pound of brown sugar, ginger, raisins, chillis and garlic to taste. Once they're chopped up, spoon the mixture into a large preserving pan.  Add two and half pints of vinegar and season with salt. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Transfer into sterlilised jars and store in a dark cupboard.

 

Dr Kitchener's Curry Powder

 

 

I was leafing through a paperback copy of the original 1861 edition of "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management" (Oxford World's Classics) and came across her recipe for Indian Curry-Powder, founded on Dr Kitchener's Recipe. William Kitchiner (1775?-1827) was the author of the "Apicus Redivivus, The Cook's Oracle", first published in 1817.

I'm quite fond of these historic Anglo-Indian curry powders; the sort of thing we chuck into stews and then have the nerve to call "curry". Here's my version of Dr Kitchener's curry powder, as described by Mrs Beeton. I've slightly adapted it for the modern kitchen and added cardamom and black pepper.

 

Add the following ingredients to a mixing bowl: two teaspoons of powdered turmeric, two teaspoons of powdered cinammon,  two teaspoons of powdered ginger, two teaspoons of powdered fenugreek, a dash of cayenne pepper and a good grinding of black pepper. Mix them up so they form a powder.

In a pestle and mortar, grind up the following ingredients until they form a fine powder: two teaspoons of coriander seeds, two teaspoons of mustard seeds, and a few cardamom pods. (You will have to discard the cardamom's outer shells). I love grinding up spices: all those lovely, aromatic smells. When you reckon the ingredients are ready, mix them in with the other spices.  

Keep the finished curry powder in an air-tight container. It should keep reasonably well. Obviously, if you want to make more of the stuff, you will need to increase the quantities. Half the fun of this sort of thing is to play around with the proportions, to suit your own tastes. Secret recipes and all that.

Cardamom

 

 

Yesterday, I wrote about a white chocolate mousse flavoured with a hint of cardamom. Did you know that cardamom was a member of the ginger family?  There are two types of cadamom: green cardamom (Elettaria) and black cardamom (Amomum). The type you buy over here in little jars is more likely to be the green variety. It's quite likely to have come from Sri Lanka too.

Cardamom has a deeply aromatic smell, which reminds me of menthol, or perhaps even mint. The pods contain seeds, which quickly loose their flavour once the pod's broken apart. It's also used to cure toothache, digestive disorders and skin conditions. According to Kew Gardens, it's the third most expensive spice in the world.

 

I like the fact you can use cardamom in both savoury and sweet dishes. If you're cooking basmati rice, try throwing in a few cardamom pods and a squeeze of lemon juice to give it an extra lift.

Taste the Mystery of the Orient...

 

 

A few weeks ago- purely in the interests of nostalgic experimentation, you understand- I made myself a Vesta curry. Those of you of a certain age should know all about this: the Vesta range offered a tantalising choice, which included "indian" curry, chow mein, and I think, "Spanish" paella. Inside the brightly coloured boxes, which conjured up images of sophisticated exotica, were sachets of dried noodles, dehydrayted bits of this and that, and- oh joy to behold- soy sauce, or some sort of mango chutney, thrown in as an extra goodie.

 

Now, the amazing thing, is that Vesta are still in business and their product, more or less, still looks like it did thirty years ago. And it tastes the same, too. I followed the instructions down to the letter; adding the powder to a saucepan, topping it up with cold water, and then simmering it gently for- I think- fifteen minutes, twenty six and a half seconds.

The result was, as Her Majesty might have said, "surprising": a watery, saline mess, studded with dried-up, bullet-like peas suffering from an identity crisis; the sheer horror of it all (almost as bad as being a participant in an Hieronymus Bosch tableau vivant) still lingering in my befuddled and confused brain to this day.

Have tastes changed that much over the years? I suppose that back in the 1970's, clever admen could evoke the sophistication of places like Spain and India, which, in those far off halycon days, were beyond the reach of ordinary people, more used to taking a boat out on the Broads for their summer holidays. They used the same technique to sell the Mastermind board game (Game of the Year 1972), which had pictured on its box a suave, mysterious, and bearded Man of Taste; his dead-sexy Hong Konganese side-kick (young enough to have been his grand-daughter) standing alluringly behind the smoked glass coffee table. Most disappointingly to my ten year old mind (reared on a television diet of The New Avengers and The Persuaders), the game turned out to be just a small, grey plastic board, with a collection of brightly coloured plastic pegs which soon got gobbled up by my mother's frantic hoovering.

 

I'm glad to say the advertising agencies are still at it today: just remember, that charming little jar of Mrs Bridge's Home-Cooked Farmhouse Surprise, was probably manufactured- and manufactured is the right word here- in some Kafkaesque unit in the Slough Trading Estate. On a similar tack, I've often wondered if 'Free Range Eggs' really do mean free range. That could be a good idea for a future post. So, until then my amigos, adios...

Saffron

 

 

Yesterday, I gave you Patricia Wells' Chicken Stewed with Fennel and Saffron. I'm fascinated by saffron. It's expensive- scarily expensive; but luckily you don't need that much of the stuff to bring out the deep yellow colouring and the distinctive, metallic, oily, and petrolly flavours.

The history of Saffron goes back over three thousand years, when it was an important spice in the Ancient World. The name comes from the 12th century Old French word, safran. It's made from the flower of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), a species of crocus in the family Iridaceae. Historically, it's also been used both as a medicine and as a dye.

What about the saffron you can buy in the shops today? Where does it come from? Spanish saffron tends to be mellow in flavour and aroma. Italian varieties are stronger. Even stronger still is the saffron grown in Greece, Iran, and India (although the Indian government has banned the export of its high-grade saffron). The pungent "Aquila" saffron (zafferano dell'Aquila) is grown exclusively on eight hectares in the Navelli Valley of Italy's Abruzzo region, near L'Aquila; introduced to Italy by some Dominican monk.

But in Italy the biggest saffron cultivation, for quality and quantity, is in San Gavino Monreale, Sardinia. Another superb saffron is the Kashmiri purple-coloured Mongra or Lacha saffron (Crocus sativus 'Cashmirianus'), which is almost impossible to get hold of, and when and if you do, you'll need to take out a second overdraft. I'm going to finish off by giving you an interesting link to a website I've just discovered: Vanilla Saffron Imports. I know nothing about this company (they're American importers of high-grade saffron), so if you decide to use their services- on your head be it...

The Ivy's Chicken Masala

 

 

In the early days of The Greasy Spoon, one of the most popular posts was my Cordon Bleu influenced recipe for Chicken Curry (English Style). Here's another excellent take on curry from A. A. Gill's The Ivy, the Restaurant and its Recipes. Unusually, it uses cooked aubergine (or egg plant) to thicken the sauce.

Take some chicken thighs, remove the skin, and season them in salt and black pepper. Heat up some ghee (that's the Indian word for clarified butter) in a hot pan, and fry a teaspoon of cumin seeds, two teaspoons of cumin powder, two teaspoons of tumeric, a pinch of saffron, four teaspoons of curry powder, a small cinammon stick, a pinch of curry leaves (or three bay leaves), two teaspoons of paprika, four cloves, a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds, and a teaspoon of mustard seeds.

While the spices are cooking away, add six cloves of crushed garlic, a knob of peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger, and two small chopped chillies. Cook for a few minutes to release all the flavours, but make sure the spices don't burn, so you may have to watch the gas.

Next, put in the seasoned chicken thighs, 200g aubergine flesh (which you've previously skinned, and chopped into small pieces), and two teaspoons of tomato purée. Cook for a further five minutes. Then pour in a litre or so of good chicken stock, and the juice of half a lemon. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.

The aubergine should disintegrate and thicken up the sauce. Finish off the dish with cream of coconut (you can buy this in a block, and add it bit by bit), and some chopped coriander. Serve with either Basmati or my Lemon Rice, and some home-made chutney.

Cucumber and Mint Raita

 

 

 

Last night I went to an almost perfect Indian restaurant. It's called "Hot Stuff" and can be found in the Vauxhall area of South London. Why was it so good? It reminded me a bit of the local restaurants you find in France. Utterly unpretentious, a simple menu; an affable, slighty quirky owner, and most importantly, excellent properly cooked food. It's a tiny place, with only a few tables, and as it seemed to be packed out, you will need to book to get in.

Here's my version of the Cucumber and Mint Raita Sauce we had last night. It would be perfect with poppadoms. Get hold of some yoghurt and beat it with a fork until it's smooth and creamy. Next, add Maldon Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and ground cumin. I suggest that you grind the cumin yourself. In a frying pan, dry-roast some cumin seeds until they start to pop about. Make sure you don't burn them. It will only take a minute or so. Then it's an easy matter to grind them up into a powder in a pestle and mortar.

Add some chopped chili, ginger, some diced cucumber (remove the skin though, otherwise you will get nasty miniscule bits floating around in the finished effort), and finely chopped fresh mint. It would probably be a good idea to whizz the whole thing up in a Magimix, or a similar mixer if you've got one. That's it.

Chicken Curry (English Style)

 

 

I'm a huge fan of genuine Indian food, believe me. Street food served by restaurants such as the excellent Masala Zone. But I'm also fond of our own bastardised British versions too- as peddled by the Cordon Bleu Cookery Academy, circa 1959. Here's my recipe for a delicious and simple chicken curry. Most Indians worth their salt will turn their noses up at it, but I find it strangely satisfying; and it's straightforward to make too.

First, you need to sweat some chopped onions, celery and garlic in oil. Next, add some apple chopped into chunks. Stir in a tablespoon of curry paste, and some turmeric. Cook this for a few minutes.

In the meantime, season some de-boned chicken thighs with salt and pepper, and dust them with some flour. Add these to the pan. Cook for several minutes, until the chicken begins to colour. Now add some chicken stock (preferably homemade. Otherwise Marigold reduced-salt bouillon is just the ticket), and simmer for about ten to fifteen minutes. Next, pour in some coconut milk. Simmer for about half an hour until the chicken is cooked. You should end up with a thickish sauce. Add a teaspoon of redcurrant jelly (yes, redcurrant jelly).

Serve with chopped coriander. Instead of plain rice, try my Lemon Rice instead. It's just ordinary rinsed Basmati Rice cooked in a bit of stock, lemon juice, lemon zest, and a few cardamom pods.