Nov 13 2008
Curry for starters
It might well seem odd for a blog about British food to start with a post about the food of the Indian sub-continent, but it has become a part of our national cuisine, just as surely as people from that part of the world have become part of our society and it is much welcomed.
Back in the time of Queen Victoria, the last ‘Empress of India’, people who worked or soldiered in India started to bring home spices and recipes. Only in the last 30 or 40 years though, have really authentic ingredients become commonly available and made cooking at home, those dishes you can get in your local restaurant or takeaway, really possible.
The restaurants and the food now available in supermarket chill cabinets are still heavily ‘adjusted’ to British tastes, and are very different to what is available in restaurants in say, the Brick Lane area of East London where they are catering for the local population rather than more general tastes.
What I cooked for dinner this evening was my take on chicken dhansak, a Parsi dish from Northwest India and made with lentils. I like spicy, but not as much chilli heat as in the traditional recipe.
The lentils (small red ones, need very little pre-soaking) give it substance and body, and the method of making a massala or paste with the onions, garlic and spices and frying at the start of cooking also helps to make the dish thick and tasty. It was also very economical, a small amount of meat bulked out with lentils – there is a portion for lunch tomorrow. With a mind to nutrition, I threw in a handful of chopped fresh green beans at the end.
I used a ready prepared, but good quality curry paste today, but I do use freshly ground or whole spices quite a lot, for instance, grinding cumin and coriander seeds, to spice up a soup or mash made from butternut squash or sweet potato. I use a mortar and pestle, but you can buy electric spice grinders. That little bit of physical work and the wonderful aroma is part of the pleasure of cooking.
When a survey was done a couple of years ago, it emerged that one of Britain’s most popular dishes was Chicken Tikka Massala, which is very definitely a ‘made-up’ dish and not one you would ever find on any menu in India or Pakistan.
What I have tried to show in this post is that we can, and do use ingredients and methods from other cuisines to make tasty food, and so can you, without feeling that you have to follow an authentic recipe word for word. And last, but not least that the most humble and inexpensive ingredients are all that is needed to make a great meal.
