Indian

Tasting India, by Christine Manfield

December 6, 2011 1

There was a piece in The Guardian this weekend that tried to divide cookbooks into two clear categories – ‘lifestyle’ books and ‘instructional’ books. Most of the celeb chef fodder falls clearly into the ‘lifestyle’ category, along with many more serious books, such as Jennifer McLagan’s book about offal. I wrote about that one the other [...]

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Moghul lamb with onions and raisins

June 4, 2011 Food & drink

Indian and Pakistani food is rich and varied. I’ve cooked countless lamb or mutton curries, each with the same basic method and ingredients, each of which have been vastly different because of subtle differences in spicing and small tweaks in ingredients. The length of the list of spices that go into most curries means that [...]

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Toor dhal, or tasty lentils, if that’s possible

April 17, 2011 Food & drink

Lentils! The world’s most underwhelming pulse. Universally cooked to near oblivion and ridiculed as sub-standard hippy/student fare, the humble lentil has a bad reputation, but cook them so that there’s still a tiny bite to them, and then hit them with a pile of spices and it’s a different story. If any food is a [...]

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Chana masala, or chickpea curry

March 27, 2011 Food & drink

Indian cookery doesn’t have to be complicated, and it needn’t take a long time. Here’s proof. If you’re good at chopping things up, you could have this chickpea curry on the table in about twenty-five minutes, for under about £3 for four servings. The building blocks of the curry go into the pan first. Heat [...]

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Goan-style pork vindaloo

March 13, 2011 Food & drink

This is it. This is the most abused, mistreated and misrepresented curry in the whole of the world. There isn’t another Asian dish that comes close to this one in terms of how people view it. Its reputation is right down there in the gutter. A vindaloo is nothing more than a macho challenge after [...]

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The International, Bradford

March 10, 2011 Eating out

I said the other week that the standard of Asian restaurants in Bradford was on the slide. It’s not that there aren’t good places out there, it’s just that some of them don’t seem to be trying very hard anymore. I forgot that whenever I say something like that, the opposite is normally proved right, [...]

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Shimla Kebab House, Bradford

February 6, 2011 Eating out

Bradford is rightly famous for it’s Asian restaurants. There are some very, very good places, ranging from the ambitious restaurant groups like the Aagrah or the Mumtaz, right through to tiny back street cafes. Some are outstanding, cooking exceptional food, but – whisper this very quietly – some are terrible, serving little more than vaguely [...]

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Madhur Jaffrey’s Royal Chicken Korma, or Shani Murgh Korma

February 2, 2011 Food & drink

The korma. The curry for people who don’t like curry. Normally bland, tasteless and swimming in cream, the average Asian restaurant korma is as far away from the real deal as it’s possible to get. I’d hesitate to say that the humble korma is the most abused of the curry house staples – that honour [...]

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Badami rogan josh, or lamb cooked in a dark almond sauce

May 12, 2010 Food & drink

This version of the classic rogan josh includes ground almonds to both thicken the sauce and give it texture and substance. The curry is made with lamb or mutton shoulder, cut into one inch chunks and browned in hot oil. Before you start to brown the meat, add ten whole cloves, twelve peppercorns, one or [...]

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