Around West Yorkshire, there are a couple of really very successful Asian restaurant empires.  The Mumtaz group are one of them, with two restaurants – a huge place in Bradford and an impressive new dining room on Clarence Dock in Leeds – and a reputation for first rate food.  Their bold claim to be ‘world famous’ probably isn’t far off the mark.

Companies like this often start to branch out a little.  The arrival of Mumtaz cook – chill curries in local supermarkets took nobody by surprise, but the introduction of a baby food range probably did.

With Jaldi Jaldi, a chain of franchised fast food outlets, Mumtaz is taking on the take away market from a slightly different direction.  Jaldi Jaldi carries a range of curries and main dishes -kormas, rogan josh, dopiaza,  matter paneer, daals, aloo palak and the like alongside the usual naans, bhajis and pakoras.  Food is packaged from a counter, much like at a supermarket deli, and sold to you either hot, ready to eat, or cold, for you to heat up later.

It’s a pretty good way of doing things.  There’s nothing worse than a lukewarm takeaway that’s been sat on the passenger seat of some bloke’s car for a bit too long…why not just take care of the heating up part yourself.

The food itself is fresh and vibrant – the chain is clearly taking advantage of Mumtaz’s significant production muscle – and it’s very good indeed.  We had a mixed starter of pakoras, onion bhajis, chicken wings and spicy seekh kebabs, loaded with chilli.  A lamb and spinach curry was packed with garlic, ginger and big pieces of meat and a karahi chicken curry, described as ‘medium’ was nothing of the sort, with it’s significant hit of flavour and heat but no worse for that.

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Every now and again, my freezer becomes so full that the door barely shuts.

Obviously, this is a sub-optimal condition for a freezer to be in, so something has to come out before something else goes in.

Yesterday, the thing that had to give was a shortcrust tart case – too bulky, too awkward and basically it was just getting in the way of the complicated packing sequence needed to stuff the maximum into my freezer.

So, some sort of tart or torte had to be made.  Fairly quickly.

I chanced on this particular recipe in Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook.  It’s a blessedly simple method of making a classic French apple tart, made even easier by the presence of the ready made pastry case in the freezer.

Now that’s planning ahead.

Bourdain’s recipes are proper kitchen recipes – they’ve got a paired down quality to them, trimmed of any superfluous steps or unnecessary messing about.  You’re getting the essence of the dish from Bourdain, and that’s a very good thing.

A tarte Alsacienne it is, then.

More this way….

A week or so ago, I wrote about a set of really quite good kitchen knives, part of the new Jamie Oliver range.

I was also sent a few more bits and pieces to try.

The knives were great.

Would the rest measure up?

Garlic slice & press

I question the need for garlic presses to even exist in the first place.

A hefty smack with the back of a knife and a bit of quick chopping will do the job better than any garlic press on the planet.

That aside, this is a fairly good example of the form – it crushes garlic, as you’d expect, and deals well enough with the skins, but it also has a second compartment that produces neat slices, which I must admit is quite ingenious.  Again, you could do this with a knife, and your slices would probably be thinner, but this press would definitely save plenty of time if you ever need a huge amount of garlic slices.

The press is made out of a solid piece of brushed zinc and it has a satisfying weight and solidity about it.

As with all garlic presses, it’s a bugger to wash up.

More Jamie Oliver stuff below…

I’ve skirted around the edges of this recipe for a while now.

It’s not really a recipe, as such…it’s more of a chemistry experiment that involves taking something a bit bland and mediocre, adding some other stuff to it and miraculously transforming it into something that’s way better than the sum of its parts.

It’s really a bit of kitchen alchemy.

Yes, I know I’m doing the mighty pork belly a disservice by describing it as ‘mediocre’, but add some salt, sodium nitrite, pepper and sugar, leave it for a while to cure and dry and you’ve got pancetta, which is a different beast entirely.

If pork belly is quite a smart little mid-range sports car, pancetta is a Ferrari.

More pancetta this way…