Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Lamb Dhansak and Garlic Naan

19:32 / 29.10.03

Watched a wee BBC2 prograsmme on the history of the British fondness for curry tonight. All the way from my granny's mince with Vencat Madras curry powder and a few sultanas through Vesta packets via Bird's Eye Boil-in-the-bag to Masala Zone (the Indian Wagamama, they said).

Learned a few things.

Lager and curry. Better to drink Kingfisher or Cobra because they're flatter and complement the spiced food better. The custom of drinking lager with your curry derived from the King of Denmark's annual visit to Veeraswamy, first Indian restaurant in London (from 1927). He couldn't get a lager with it so her shipped over regular barrels of Carlsberg to ensure they could supply him. There must be wines that work with curry but I can't think of any.

With three monster pots of basic curry sauces on the boil in your kitchen, you can just add meats and garnishes at the last minute and advertise over fifty curries on the menu.

Only two London Indian restaurants have a Michelin star: Tamarind and Zaiga. Must try them. Anyone been?

Culinary technology has been defeated in all attempts to devise a method of preparing Indian takeaways that doesn't allow the sauce to leak and the foil container on the bottom to collapse and explode. Everybody throws away the little container of red onion garnish and you always order way too much. Fortunately there is nothing more delicious to eat for breakfast than cold, congealed curry, the morning after.

It is an urban myth that Chicken Tikka Masala was invented when a chef poured Campbell's tomato soup over a chicken cooked in yogurt.

Most authentic Indian food lacks the sauce we expect but is usually added so we can eat it with rice, which most Brits think is an obligatory component.

Most of the UK's 9000 "Indian" restaurants are in fact run by people whose families came from Bangladesh.

And why isn't she Dame Madhur Jaffrey by now? Her recipe for Shahi Korma works beautifully every time.

19:33 / 29.10.03

*drools*

20:07 / 29.10.03

I ride through Brick Lane on my way home every night and get tantalising whifts of spices that make me hungry. Brick Lane curries aren't exactly the best in the world (in my fairly limited experience) but they're cheap and taste pretty good.

Masala Zone - don't get me started. Grrr. The food is good but the service is so astoundingly rude that I won't go back. I've given it two goes, but that's me out of there for good.

The only 'posh' Indian I've tried was Soho Spice, which was a bit of a disappointment. I think that's probably because I'm veggie - I paid £30 for a thali I could have got anywhere else for a tenner. It was a work do, so I had to go, but it wasn't worth it.

My favourite type of Indian food is South Indian and I just adore the Rasa restaurants, especially the one in Stoke Newington. Mmmmmmmmm.

20:15 / 29.10.03

Yeah, South Indian food is fab and entirely vegeterian, no? Had lapsed into carnivorous carelessness by the time I finally got to Kerala but - the best food ever, anywhere - and no animal in it. Magical!

Would agree about Masala Zone by the way, particularly the surly, graceless service. Food is good but the starters are the best of it and you have to be judicious with their menu. Like their weirdly Australian-looking primitivist art on the walls though.

20:25 / 29.10.03

Now Im dying for indian food!!!! Thanks alot!

Barbelith: The place I go to hear about the food Im going to want to eat.

16:39 / 30.10.03

£30 for a curry! Ariadne, surely not? I mean, I'd expect a curry for a tenner to be really good, but £30!?

Maybe it'd be useful to perform some sort of national/international comparison [thunders downstairs in search of a menu].

For a sit down on Stirchley High Street, Birmingham
Chicken Tikka will cost you £4.20-£4.50
Plain naan - £0.90
A Chicken chef's special can vary between £4.75-£6.00

In the city centre, I'd expect that to go up to about £7 for the standard and £8-£9 for a special.

How does it work out elsewhere?

16:59 / 30.10.03

Xoc, I have decided you should write a book on food. Not a cookbook, just one of those lovely books which talk about taste and smell in a gentle rumbly tummy kind of way. A bit like Nigel Slater's Fast Food Guide, but with less recipes. I mean all you have to do to get started is go and find your previous threads like the fruit and veg one, or look in the W.I. thread...

On the subject of curry, I think you should read Brick Lane. It's a delightful book with lots of yummily descriptive passages about spices toasting and popping, and dal, and ghee on toast, and cauliflower curry made in the middle of the night.

17:04 / 30.10.03

That is a damn fine idea, olulabelle, but then I've always got a tandoori chicken wing in one hand and a buttered crumpet in the other, so it will have to wait until I learn to type with my toes or my penis.

17:06 / 30.10.03

What are you typing with now?

Oh...my god. I see. Sorry. [cough]