Parsnip Kadhi

Whether you know it or not almost every single one of you has been to a Buddhist restaurant at some point in your life, in fact I imagine most of you eat from Siddhartha’s kitchen at least once a month, and potentially on a Sunday like my family does, somewhat religiously.

 Almost exactly a year ago today my girlfriend and I were standing underneath the very same Bodhi tree that Prince Siddharta Gautama plonked himself under and became enlightened many, many moons ago. At the time food wasn’t the first thing on my mind, it wasn’t the last either, it never is; however when I was learning about the struggles and epiphanies of this Jesus of the eastern world, it wasn’t his influence upon my weekly Sabbath staple that came to mind.

The realm of Buddhist food encompasses more than half of humanity. From its birth in India, the gospel spread to Sri Lanka with Mahendra and Sangmitra, the children of Emperor Ashoka. In the centuries that followed as the new faith spread to South East Asia, so did the concepts and ideas behind the Buddhist kitchen. Through Burma, Thailand and Cambodia, intrepid monks and scholars conveyed the message of The Enlightened One to China via Tibet, to the vast expanses of Mongolia, and as far as Korea and Japan in the east.

In one of his sermons Buddha compares the human body to the string of a musical instrument – if it is stretched too tightly imposing on it a hard aesthetic discipline of self-denial, it may break. On the other hand if it is allowed to hang loose, following the path of least resistance, it cannot create any music. An individual aspiring to achieve nirvana – blissful liberation – cannot afford to forget this.

The essence of Buddha’s teachings is encapsulated in majjhima patipada – ‘The Middle Path’. If desire, the root of all distress and misery is to be conquered, we must lead perfectly balanced lives, avoiding all excess and ensuring that nothing disturbs the tranquillity of our mind. The body, according to the Buddhists, must be properly nourished and kept free from painful diseases that can only distract the mind from sadhana – practice. So basically if you go out and nail a meat feast pizza, make sure you chase it with a Caesar salad, and hold the dressing. 

I have to say that with the above in mind I wouldn’t make a very good Buddhist, which isn’t to say I’m not partial to a veggy stir fry from time to time, however I do draw the line at the waste of stomach space that is Tofu, and the idea of boycotting beans and denying my frequent cravings for pate and McCain smiley faces (although never together), I find utterly depressing. So the interpretation I have made of the Buddhist legacy is not to eat on ‘The Middle Path’ as recommended, but rather veer violently off it in either direction with the hope of establishing some sort of inner karma somewhere in my lower intestine. Which on a Monday morning after the Sunday spice, is a far cry from reality.

The Buddhist mantra doesn’t only apply to food but rather to all aspects of your life, so whilst you fill your belly with goodness you should fill your head with happiness and your heart with love. With that in belly, mind and chest, I decided to adapt a classic Indian ‘peace recipe’ made with lotus stems, and make it with parsnips instead, because they’re my favourite vegetable and make me happy; and whilst I eat it I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of my family and latest entrant to my heart – the coolest dude that you ever did see, so sweet he’d have Hitler swooning. The awesome: BOOM.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

For the Dumplings:

3 large parsnips, peeled and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 small red pepper, finely chopped

1 tablespoon of corn flour

2 tspns garlic, crushed

1 tspn ginger, finely chopped

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Salt and Pepper

For the Sauce:

15g salted butter

1 tspn cumin seeds

1 tspn garlic, crushed

1 tspn tumeric powder

1 tspn medium chilli powder

2 cups yoghurt, beaten

60ml double cream

Fresh coriander for garnishing

Method:

1. Boil the parsnips and carrots in water for 10 – 12 minutes or until soft enough to mash, remove from the heat, strain and mash with a little butter, season to taste.

2. Heat enough oil in a sauce pan to submerge a ping pong ball sized dumpling over a medium high heat.

3. Sautée the red pepper, ginger and garlic over a medium heat for a couple of minutes until softened. Pour into the mashed parsnip / carrot mix and stir through. Add a tablespoon of corn flour to the mix and stir thoroughly. Season again if necessary. Set aside.

4. Roll the mash mix into dumplings and carefully lower into the oil, deep fry until golden and drain on kitchen roll.

5. Whilst the balls are frying heat the butter in frying pan over a medium heat; add the cumin seeds and brown, then add the garlic and sautée for a couple of minutes before adding the tumeric and chilli powder, mix well. Add the yoghurt immediately and lower the heat, cook until the yoghurt smell disappears and the sauce thickens. Remove from the heat and stir in the double cream. 

Chola Masala with Aloo Palak Methi Ka Tuk and Chapati

Recently I was sitting on the tube peregrinating through a paper, which one exactly escapes me, when I perused across an article about international tourism, and specifically a list of the 10 cities from around the world that are at the top of the tourist destination hit list. Sitting proudly at the top, and rightly so, was the city in who’s underbelly I found myself rattling around in a hot, overcrowded and smelly carriage, faced by the gloomy visage of ‘Joe Commuter’ and his copy of the Evening’s Standard. 

Up from 7^th place last annum it’s no surprise that Londinium (est. AD 43 by the Roman’s as a major imperial commercial centre) has climbed the echelons and arrived at its rightful position as the number one tourist spot on earth. The leg up was last years Royal Wedding wherein the world fell head over heels for former ‘girl next door’ Kate Middleton, now Katherine, and Duchess of Cambridge. Whilst the fashion industry took an estimated BILLION pound boost with any of the many houses designing McQueen-esque garms to sell to the gushing Middle-ton-class; it was a moment of national pride that was sorely needed during a pretty miserable period. The day before the wedding I had completed a 4-day hike to the lost city of the Inca’s in Peru’s ‘Sacred Valley’; the only thing I wanted to do after reaching Machu Picchu was sleep off the altitude for a few days, however when I turned on the TV in our hotel in Cusco and found out the wedding was due to kick off at 4:45am Peru time, I duly set my alarm and thought of England.

The second major event to rouse the popularity of London further still has only come to a close today, with a service of thanksgiving at Sir Christopher Wren’s Saint Paul’s Cathedral, to mark the end of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. This time I found myself a little closer to the action as I peered with great expectations through a pair of binoculars from my vantage point 11 floors above the South Bank; the usual drove of feckless and slow moving tourists below replaced by hoards of soaking patriots, but a pebbles flick from Blackfriars bridge. My grandmother’s flat had been decked out in a few hundred feet of the several thousand miles of overpriced bunting, which has been peddled to the masses over the past few weeks, whilst the smell of coleslaw and salubrious Coronation chicken wafted betwixt the guests as a regal reminder of why we were there, and what it is to be British. As Her Majesty bobbed past we all waved and cheered in a fit of proud Jubilee jubilation.

Each of the thousand boats involved in Sunday’s flotilla could boast a thousand stories; from the beaches of Dunkirk to the canals of Cornwall, canoes from remote archipelagos rowed alongside royal barges, and Italian gondolas punted beside Maori warriors. It was truly a sight to behold, in spite of the weather, and us Brits do a lot in spite of the weather. Beyond the marking of Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years at the helm and a lifetime of dedication and personal achievement, it was a celebration of a history long predating 1952 and her ascension to the throne. Clear of the shores of our island over nautical horizons to colonies turned common wealth, from subjects to citizens and the millions of people the world over who had chosen to come together to show their respect for a great woman, at the head of a great country. 

With the Olympics drawing in London is preparing for the biggest event in its history, people will be flocking in from around the world; groups of Spanish school children will be blocking the exits to tube stations, the South Bank will be crammed with tourists from the Orient viewing London through a three and a half inch screen, commuters will be inundated with requests by flustered foreigners trying to get to grips with Underground map, and woe betide the inevitable soul who stands on the left hand side of an escalator. However if you do get caught up in this madness, which I’m sure a great deal of you will, you must look past your frustration and focus on the pride that lies beyond. They are here not because they want to piss you off, but because they’ve come to see what all the fuss is about.

“He who is tired of London is tired of life” – Dr Samuel Johnson

Before the Jubilee weekend I had intended to cook Coronation chicken, now the weekend is over I never want to see a plate of it again. So in its place I’ve decided to make the most British of dishes: curry.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

For the Chola

2 tins chickpeas, salted

1 large red onion, roughly chopped

2 green chillies, finely chopped

Small handful of tamarind

4 large dry bay leaves

3cm piece of cinnamon

5 cloves

3 green cardamoms

4 black cardamoms

1 tspn whole black peppercorns

1 tspn ground tumeric

2 dried red chillies

Vegetable oil

Handful of freshly chopped coriander

Natural Yoghurt

For the Aloo Palak Methi Ka Tuk

1 large potato, cut into 2cm cubes

1 medium bag of spinach

1 tspn mustard seeds

20 curry leaves

1 tablespoon ginger paste

1½ tspns garlic paste

1 tspn of chilli powder

1 tspn amchoor powder (mango powder)

½ tspn cumin powder

½ tspn ground black pepper

Small handful of dried fenugreek leaves

Vegetable oil

For the Chapati

300g Chapati flour

Water

Salt

Vegetable oil

Method:

1. Start with the Chola: in a frying pan dry roast the bay leaves, cinnamon, black peppercorns, cloves and cardamoms – make sure the cardamoms are open to release the oils. Roast over a low heat for 10 minutes or until ready for grinding. Pour out into a pestle and mortar / small blender.

2. Rub a little oil over the 2 dried red chillies and roast in the frying pan to release the flavours, the air inside them should expand a pump them up from their flat dried state. Throw them into the pestle and mortar with the other roasted ingredients and grind everything into a fine masala powder. This is you Chola mix. Noice.

3. Meanwhile soak the tamarind (you can get this from any Indian food shop) in a bowl with enough boiling water to cover it, once the water is at a temperature where it is comfortable to put your hands in, squeeze the pulp out of the tamarind (it looks a bit like dog shit but tastes delicious, so don’t be put off) until the water is murky and thickened. Take out the lumps of tamarind so you’re just left with the pulp.

4. Blend the red onion and green chillies into a watery pulp.

5. In a wok/kadai heat 3 tablespoons of oil and chuck in the onion/chilli mix, fry over a high heat until the oil begins to separate. When the onion/chilli mix begins to dry out make a well in the middle, add another tspn or 2 of oil then pour in the whole of the crushed masala mix along with 1 tspn of ground tumeric, stir it thoroughly and lower the heat down to medium.

6. Now pour in the chickpeas and tamarind pulp and stir through. Continue to cook, and add ½ a cup of water, maybe more, as the liquids will be absorbed and evaporate. After 10 minutes the sauce will have thickened and the chickpeas will have sucked up all the flavours. Keep the pan on one side over a very low heat, stir occasionally.

7. While the chickpea curry is cooking boil the potato chunks until half cooked, this will take between 7-10 minutes depending on the size of your chunks.

8. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan and throw in the mustard seeds, after a minute they’ll start to splutter, now sling in the curry leaves and stir fry for a few seconds before adding the garlic and ginger pastes – in turn fry them for 1-2 minutes until they have dried out a little, then add the chilli powder and stir through. Add the potatoes to the pan and toss them in the mix, and a minute or so later add the spinach. Cook until completely wilted making sure to stir constantly.

9. Add the amchoor, cumin, pepper and dried fenugreek leaves and toss to coat.

10. To make the Chapati pour the Chapati flour into a bowl with a pinch of salt, make a well, pour in enough water to make it into firm dry dough and knead away. Once you’ve got it to the desired consistency add a tspn of oil and knead it through. Make the dough into flat 8” discs a few mm thick and cook them like pancakes in a dry frying pan over a high heat.

11. Serve up the curry with a dollop of natural yoghurt and a sprinkling of chopped coriander leaves. Bloody brilliant! 

Paneer Tikka

Finally! Some cold weather has come to our shores after a frankly mincing few months of clammy tepidness. Meteorologists have finally got something to do other than twiddle their thumbs, and I don’t know about you but I’m hugely excited to hear the first MET office warning to stay inside and turn the heating up to full so the pipes don’t crack.

This will of course result, as it does every year, in my mother insisting we must go to Tesco and buy an abnormal amount of food in case we’re snowed in for months. The hyperbolic nature of here outlook on life has got so extreme in some cases, that she resides in a state of perpetual embellishment.

“Augustus, there are clothes all over your bedroom floor” - 3 socks and a t-shirt. 

“The kitchen is under water” – The dog’s bowl spilt.

“The television’s broken” – The television, mother, isn’t turned on.

I recall a couple of years ago after a mammoth 4 inches of snow, when the panic of impending starvation loomed like a slim line Damocles, the women in my family trudged off to the supermarket, tennis rackets under foot, with the intention of stockpiling enough bacon to see us through till August and the big thaw. Of course had they checked the chest freezer they would have found a bounty of frozen stuffs so vast it could have seen the Legions of the North through even the harshest of winters. In fact there’s enough bacon in there from the previous few years ice famines to line a rasher from here to Denmark.

It was after last years ‘Big Chill’ that I decided to clear out the freezer in question because I was sure most of the contents would be out of date, I was right. At first I thought Waitrose was bringing back vintage packaging, but it turned out the Salmon filets half way down actually were made in 2001. As I delved further still I found quiches whose labels were written in Olde English, Smileys that looked indifferent, and even a couple of three bird roasts from times of old. I began to question the point of freezing so much stuff in there if it would never get eaten; the answer, I found, was because the freezer is so large that it doesn’t operate efficiently unless it is full. So no sooner had I cleared out the food of the previous millennia, I had to fill it up with fresh goods that would inevitably get thrown away in a decade or so. Including plenty of bacon.

I still get on at my mother for buying too much food, however I fear it may be a losing battle. The ‘buy one get one free’ offers are largely responsible, or worse ‘buy two get one free’, because lets be honest you only needed one in the first place but a deal is almost impossible to shy away from. My dad’s the same, he recently brought two Brompton bicycles off EBay, having had his original bike stolen from the train. His logic was that this way he wouldn’t get too attached to either of them, but really it was the fact the second bike was extremely cheap – a good deal.

Is it perhaps a time for downsizing then? Mum is still shopping for six people, but very rarely are there more than three sitting down to eat. I’m in London for most of the week and with any financial luck hope to move down permanently in a month or so, my two younger sisters are in Gloucestershire and Africa respectively, my elder sister is dieting, or at least she was, and even the old girl herself only has a blended shake for breakfast, a disgusting cereal bar for lunch, and a glass of water for tea. Time I think to bid farewell to the freezer.

Ingredients: (Serves 4) 

2 packs of paneer, cut into 1” cubes (hard cottage cheese, available in the supermarket)

2 large tomatoes, chopped into chunks

1 red pepper, chopped into 1” bits

1 courgette, sliced

2 red onions, quartered

Juice of 2 lemons

2 tspns chilli powder

2 tspns amchur powder (mango powder)

2 tspns cumin powder

1 tspn garam masala

Salt and Pepper

Rapeseed oil

 Method:

1. Marinate / cover the paneer cubes in the spices and seasoning.

2. Make kebab skewers with the paneer, tomatoes, courgettes, onions and peppers. Brush the kebabs with the rapeseed oil and grill them over/under a high heat for a few minutes so the spices cook into the cheese, take them out and drizzle the lemon juice over them before returning to the grill for 10 minutes or until the vegetables are browned nicely.

3. Serve with rice and mango chutney. A winter warmer. 

Butter Chicken

I was saddened yet unsurprised to hear that a friend of mine came face to fist this weekend past, as a group of heathen youths stripped him of his mobile phone whilst he entered a night club in Brixton. “Unsurprised” not because he is an easy target or an arsehole, he has his moments, but after watching Britain’s finest making off through the window of ‘Hatworld’ this August carrying, well, hats; I’d say he got off relatively lightly compared to some of the people affected by the mass rioting. Who knows, if he’s lucky his unsavoury assailants may upload a poorly planned viral and lead the fuzz straight to their door. But I doubt it.

My weekend didn’t pass without incident either you’ll be pleased to hear. As I sat on the central line from Ealing Broadway in my very own carriage, a drunken Indian man boarded at North Acton and sat opposite me, at once engaging me in slurred and uninvited conversation which I tried my very hardest to deflect. The solitude which I had walked so far down the platform for had come back to bite me in the behind, hypothetically speaking of course. Or so I thought.

Having originally sat opposite me for his first few questions, the answers to which were: “No, I’m not married”, “Yes, I do have a girlfriend”, and “No, I do not want a sip of your beer”, he moved over and sat beside me, placed his hand on the small of my back and asked for “just one kiss”. As you can imagine my answer was a resounding “NO”, at least, it would have been had I not first jumped up and threatened to knock his fucking lights out if he didn’t get off at the next stop. The portly fellow who had since boarded at the other end of the carriage remained silent, a few more stops down the line and I moved to the next carriage feeling dirty and used, the ambience had been affected.

By the time I reached Old Street I was in reasonable spirits and ready to divulge my experience to my friends, I left the station with the spring back in my step and came across ‘young professional’ who was giving his phone a whack on the metal railing outside. I misread his facial expression and made a jovial remark in passing and was met with at least four fingers and a barrage of abuse laced with pure hatred.

They say that bad things happen in threes, so far I had been both sexually and verbally abused, my guard was up.

Strike three came at around 1am when after disembarking the tube with a friend I had bumped into to go to a party that didn’t exist, Natwest decided once again to cancel my card, something I wasn’t banking on. The tubes were shut and I had not a penny to my name, the ensuing phone call to my to my sleeping girlfriend and her piggy bank were received surprisingly well and I managed to make it home for £30 of her money.

I would like to dedicate this dish to Lachie, who took one on the chin for the rest of us. To my girlfriend, for having cash and patience. To the people at ‘Hatworld’, just because. And finally, to myself, for being felt up and talking about it.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

5 chicken breasts cut into 2” chunks

1 large red onion, very finely sliced

2 cans chopped tomatoes

2 large cloves garlic, crushed into paste

2cm fresh root ginger, crushed into paste

½ cup of water

40g salted butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tspn cumin seeds

1 tspn medium chilli powder

1 tspn cinnamon powder

1 tspn turmeric powder

1 tspn dried fenugreek leaves

1 tspn of curry leaves

2 tspns garam masala

4 green cardamoms, crushed

2 black cardamoms, crushed

1 bay leaf

Salt

Rice to serve

Method:

1. Poach the chicken for 10 minutes in boiling water, or until cooked through, strain and set aside.

2. In a thick-bottomed frying pan/skillet heat the vegetable oil and fry the cumin seeds and curry leaves till brown and aromatic, add the ginger and garlic, the turmeric, chilli powder, ½ cup of water, pinch of salt and garam masala, stir over a high heat. After a minute throw in the cardamoms, cinnamon, fenugreek leaves, bay leaf and butter, melt it in and stir continuously, throw in the onions and toss to coat.

3. After a couple more minutes of stirring you should have a thick brown and seriously smelly sauce, in a good way. Now pour in the chopped tomatoes and stir thoroughly, turn down the heat and simmer for another 5 minutes so all the flavours get right into the tomato. Finally put the cooked chicken in and cover it in tastiness, simmer for another 5 minutes and serve piping hot with rice.

Spicy Chapatti Flour Chicken Goujons with Sweet Potato Pakora in an Indian Red Pepper Salsa

It was a scary weekend for several reasons; on Saturday I endured a full seven hours of relentless children’s games in the kids chain of Ralph Lauren on New Bond Street, I hasten to add that I am gainfully employed by a legitimate company to do so and wasn’t simply hanging around. Usually the parties only last two hours and leave you bordering delirium through onset of fatigue, so you can imagine that keeping a hoard of six year olds on a sugar rush engaged and enthused from midday to soirée was somewhat draining. I left at 7pm half the man I was earlier on in the day, my head battered and bruised from a game of “catch the big smelly rat” (me) that turned violent, my wrist nigh on fractured having executed an imperfect “worm”, and my face painted like an evil skeleton for the second time that day having lost the first coat in a round of unsuccessful apple bobbing. I needed a drink.

Picking up a bottle of Vodka en route to a friends I became hot and flustered, this meant disrobing on the tube to a point of public acceptability whilst preventing my face paint from sweating off, I managed this with some dignity and made it to my destination visage intact. That particular bit wasn’t scary, just a contextual precursor as to the geography of the developing yarn, what happened next though was frankly spine chilling. My girlfriend came over to talk to me as I was sifting through music on itunes and completely by accident knocked a glass of the host’s lethal and sticky “Booger” punch all over the host’s laptop, and we’re not talking a £300 colourful little Dell, oh no, it was a brand spanking new 17” Macbook Pro specced up to the nines worth in excess of £2000. It turned itself off. Gulp.

I did some online trouble shooting and learnt that spillages are not covered by the Apple warranty, and not only that but there is no way you can feign ignorance or bend the truth of circumstance, as of 2008 Macpro laptops are all fitted with liquid strips below the keyboard that change colour as soon as they come into contact with said substances. Financially this could quite possibly be disaster falling halfway between Greece and Enron, fingers crossed.

The 305^th day of the Gregorian calendar chilled the marrow in my bones further still, as I embarked on a journey to darkest Gloucestershire to conduct another two hour stint of juvenile revelry at the back end of beyond. The party was actually a huge success, the bulk of which I owe to my valiant cohort Tamara and her un-quashable enthusiasm. It was the following trip to Cirencester’s Royal Agricultural College to visit my fresher little sister (see lemon posset and pana cotta) that really sealed the weekends infamy with a big, sloppy, sambuca flavoured kiss. Tunnel vision.

You may fail to see where I am going with this, and to be quite honest so am I, my only logic then is to say that I have been hanging out of my arse all day and desperately needed some comfort food after the two and a half hour journey home. This is what conspired.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)

For the chicken:

2 chicken breasts, cut into strips lengthways

1 bowl breadcrumbs

6 heaped tablespoons of chapatti flour

Semi skimmed milk

3 tspns hot chilli powder

Salt and pepper

1 litre of rapeseed oil for deep frying

For the red pepper salsa:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon chilli oil

1 large red pepper, chopped

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

3 tomatoes, chopped

2cm root ginger, peeled and chopped

2 tablespoons of tomato purée

6 curry leaves

1 tspn ground mace

3 tspns medium chilli powder

1 litre of water

For the sweet potato pakora:

1 sweet potato, peeled and grated

1 flat tablespoon of corn flour

1 flat tablespoon of plain flour

3 tspns garam masala powder

A slug of semi skimmed milk

Enough rapeseed oil for shallow frying

Chopped spring onions and cherry tomatoes for garnishing

Handful freshly chopped coriander leaves

Method:

1. Start with the red pepper salsa – heat the olive and chilli oil in a pan and add the onion, pepper and tomato and fry for 5 minutes until softened but not browned. Add the garlic, ginger and tomato purée and stir through for a couple of minutes. Now add the mace, chilli powder and curry leaves, along with the water. Simmer uncovered for 15 – 20 minutes over a low/medium heat, stirring occasionally. Take it off the heat and blend it into a smooth salsa, season to taste and keep warm.

2. Whilst the salsa is simmering mix the grated sweet potato in a bowl with the corn flour, plain flour, garam masala powder, and enough milk to make the mixture sloppy but NOT gooey like dough. Do this by adding a little bit at first and then add more, if the mixture is too thick it will turn out like bread and if it’s too thin it wont hold. Heat 2cm of rapeseed oil in a thick bottomed frying pan till it is very hot (test with a breadcrumb), then add small patties of the mix carefully to the pan. They may feel like they’ll fall apart in your hands but as soon as they hit the oil they will hold. Fry and turn until crispy and brown, remove and drain on kitchen towel, keep warm.

3. Heat 1 litre of rapeseed oil in a deep saucepan until very hot. Whilst the oil heats up mix the flour in a bowl with enough milk to give it the consistency of double cream, then add the chilli powder and mix through. Bring the batter mix and the breadcrumbs up to the cooker and set up a production line, we’re going Henry Ford. Batter – Breadcrumbs – Oil – Draining Plate. Dunk the chicken strips in the batter, coat with breadcrumbs, carefully drop into the oil and deep fry for a few minutes until golden brown and crispy, remove and drain on the plate. When you are done take the oil off the heat, put a lid on it and leave it cool overnight, you can then pick out any bits and return it to the bottle to re-use a couple of times.

4. Mix the salsa in a bowl with the pakora and the chopped coriander and plate up, place the spicy chicken goujons on top and drop some chopped spring onions and cherry tomatoes over the top. Warm and filling.

Kashmiri Baingan Tikka

 I had a couple of aubergines to use up today and went in search of a recipe, first I had a quick look on the web, I found a website entirely dedicated to the ‘Solanum Melongena’ (Wikipedia) named http://www.aubergines.org/ that has “3116 recipes and counting”. Many of the recipes are questionable, some are quite good, and others are frankly disgusting, although before long I was side tract reading the heated comment wars going on about the MSG content in the ‘Aubergine in Garlic Sauce’ recipe, and in particular the sweeping and ill educated opinions of a pillock named JJ from Hoboken. Inspiration would have to be found elsewhere.

I recalled then looking through the instruction manual of a 1980s blender whilst staying with my adopted Indian mother a few months ago, there were a selection of poorly edited recipes at the back of the book which I copied down into my notepad with the hope of recreating them on my return home. One of them included the Ouef Plant as its focal point, and although I have had to change a few of the ingredients through necessity, the basic format remains integral. (I added the tamarind which may well make it less Kasmiri and more Punjabi).

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

2 large black aubergines

1 large white onion, finely chopped

1 cup green peas, fresh or frozen

1 carrot, chopped

1 bird eye chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

2 potatoes

2 medium tomatoes

Handful coriander leaves, finely chopped

Handful mint leaves, chopped

4 cloves garlic

2cm ginger, chopped

100g tamarind soaked in 100ml of warm water

Juice of 1 lime

½ tspn cumin powder

½ tspn coriander powder

½ tspn turmeric powder

1 tspn garam masala

Oil/ghee for frying

Salt and pepper

8 spring onions, finely shredded

Vegetable oil for deep-frying

Yoghurt for garnishing

1 dry red chilli

Method:

1. Soak the tamarind in enough warm water to cover for 1 hour, squeeze out juices and strain into another bowl through a sieve.

2. While the tamarind is soaking peel and the boil the potatoes, drain and mash them with a little butter.

3. Put the ginger, garlic, coriander leaves, mint leaves, tamarind juice, lime juice and salt in a blender and whizz into a paste, set aside.

4. Cut the aubergines in half lengthways and brush with olive oil before grilling them in the oven until they are soft, around 20 minutes should do it. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and add it to the potato, mash it together and save the aubergine skins, keeping them warm.

5. Cut the hard stem section from the tomatoes, cover them with water and boil for 5 minutes over a high heat, remove, strain, and run under cold water before removing their skins.

6. In a pan heat a little oil and add the onions and carrots, fry until browning and add the paste, after a few minutes the oil will separate, add the potato and aubergine pulp and the tomatoes and stir through thoroughly, making sure the tomatoes break up in the mix. Add the peas and stir.

Then sprinkle over the cumin, turmeric, coriander and garam masala powders and mix them in. Cook for a few more minutes, set aside and keep warm.

7. In a small pan pour in a couple of inches of vegetable oil and bring it up to extra hot, drop the shredded spring onion in and deep-fry for a few minutes, drain on kitchen towl.

8. Put the aubergine shell on a plate and add a healthy spoon load of the mix, garnish with a small dollop of yoghurt, a red chilli and a sprinkling of the fried spring onion. Vegetarian stodge.

Chicken Do Pyaza with Okra, Cucumber Raita and Naan

Sunday is curry night at home and usually we go for a takeaway from the local ‘Tandoori Cottage’, yesterday however I decided that I would have a go at rustling up my own creation with a little help from Pushpesh Pant’s ‘India’ cookbook, the invaluable instruction I received when staying with an Indian lady and her daughter in Pune (near Mumbai, thank you Sushma and Shriya), and a little experimentation of my own.

The issue then became the lack of almost all the key ingredients in the house to even contemplate any form of preparation, Tesco was open but there were some pretty niche elements on my shopping list to consider that could only really be bought in the one place I could think of, Brick Lane.

So at 10:30am my father and I set off on our bikes, at his suggestion, and cycled all the way to E1 to do a spot of shopping and earn our curry by means of exertion. I will add that our house is in East Hertfordshire and after navigating several canal towpaths in the pouring rain, falling off my bike in front of a trendy café packed with patrons, and taking in Dad’s mandatory ‘City of London Tour’, the whole excursion took in 44 miles and 8 hours. The pressure was on to make the most of the fruits of our labour. Spicy.

Ingredients: (Serves 6)

Note - The naan bread dough needs to rest for 2 hours prior to rolling out.

Note 2 – The chicken should be left to marinate for 2 hours prior to cooking.

Chicken Do Pyaza:

4 chicken breasts, cut into chunks

5 white onions, roughly chopped

½ head of cauliflower

1 cup of vegetable oil (ghee can be used to enhance the flavour, and calories)

8 cloves

8 green cardamoms, crushed

3 tspns cumin seeds

4 tspns medium chilli powder

5 tspns garam masala

2 inch piece of ginger, crushed into paste

3 tablespoons fresh chopped coriander

300ml natural yoghurt, briefly whisked

Water

Salt

Okra:

14 pieces of Okra (ladies’ fingers)

1 medium red chilli, cut into wheels

1 onion, finely chopped

4 tomatoes, cut into 8 wedges each

Water

Okra Masala:

2 inch piece of cinnamon

1 dried red chilli

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

2 black cardamoms, crushed

4 green cardamoms, crushed

Cucumber Raita:

300ml natural yoghurt

½ cucumber, diced

Naan Bread:

1 cup of plain flour

1 cup of water

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 teaspoon of natural yoghurt

Salt

Method:

1. For the naan dough put the flour into a bowl and add the water slowly, stirring firstly with a spoon and then using your hands until it becomes a thick doughy consistency, add the yoghurt and a little salt and knead well on a surface dusted with a little flour. The dough should not stick to your hands and should become thick and elastic, at this point add the oil and knead again for between 5 and 10 minutes into a big round lump. Transfer to a bowl and cover with a damp tea towel for 2 hours.

2. To marinate the chicken put the breasts in a bowl, add 2 tspns of garam masala, 2 tspns of chilli powder and a tablespoon of yoghurt, smother it and transfer it to the fridge for 2 hours.

3. Put three of the chopped onions into a pan, cover with a little water and boil until they have absorbed almost all the liquid, transfer to a blender and whizz into a smooth paste.

4. Pour the whole cup of vegetable oil into a thick bottomed pan and fry the remaining onions over a high heat until they brown, remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

5. Add the cloves, chilli powder, cardamoms, cumin seeds, onion and ginger pastes and 3 tspns of garam masala and fry for 2 minutes over a high heat, then add the yoghurt. Turn down the heat to medium and fry for around 25 minutes until the sauce reduces and thickens, take care to stir frequently to prevent the sauce burning and add a little water if needed.

6. Whilst the curry cooks soak the okra in salted water for five minutes. While it soaks get out a frying pan and put it over a high heat, brush a little oil over the dried red chilli, add all the ingredients and spices to the pan and dry roast them for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Transfer them to a pestle and mortar/blender and grind into a masala powder.

7. Put the chicken breasts on a baking tray and cook in the oven at 220°C for 10 minutes.

8. Drain the Okra and chop the heads and tails off, then slice them into ½ cm wheels. In the pan used to dry roast the spices add 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil and fry the masala powder for 1 minute, add the onions, chilli, okra and chopped tomatoes and fry for 5 minutes till they begin to soften, at this point you should add a little water and fry for a further 8 minutes until nice and thick, the smell should be pretty sexy by this point. Take off the heat and keep warm.

9. Now back to the curry: when the sauce is reduced add the fried onions you set aside earlier, the remaining 2 tspns of garam masala along with the chopped coriander and ½ a cup of water. Take the chicken breasts out of the oven and chop them into cubes before adding them to the pan and coating them in the sauce, cook for a further 10 minutes until the chicken is completely done and the sauce thickens up.

10. Raita - dice the cucumber and mix with the yoghurt.

11. Finally, take the naan dough from the bowl and mould it into small ovals of about 80g each, roll it out so it’s a few millimetres thick, place on a baking tray and grill for a few minutes till browning on top. Spread a little butter over it and serve with the curry. Spice as nice.