Fret's Kitchen Tips

[Fretless]

Working in the kitchen and blasting The Cure's 'Disintegration' at high volume.
Next up Simple Minds 'Sons and Fascination'

Doing Chicken Tikka for a wedding party of 30 - certainly goes easier with good music.

When I was for the first time in UK for work and asked about British specialties I was told that Brits have the best Indian curries. I'm sure your guests will be thrilled!

Me and curries go back a long way. When I was 6 or 7 years old my father would take me swimming every Saturday morning in Plymouth. Afterwards we would go to the same little Indian restaurant for a curry - I can remember being very fond of Chicken Biryani.

Later on, living in Huddersfield and Bradford, Curry was the cheapest food you could get. At the top of the street in Hudds was a tiny Indian takeaway with a friendly Hindustani mama cooking behind the counter. As I was in there pretty well every night, she started showing me how to make the various dishes that she did, the techniques involved, how you get specific flavours - everything except her secret family Garam Masala recipe!

Got quite good at knocking out Indian meals and there was a phase when all my mates would come around to my place on a Saturday evening for a dish of home-made curry and a stack of chapattis before we all went off to the pub.

So now I'm doing my bit to bring real English(!) cooking to continental Europe. Shepherd's Pie goes down a treat here and the Dutch don't really know what a 'proper' curry is as mostly the restaurants that call themselves Indian are actually Surinam-based, more a mix of Hindustani and Caribbean cuisine.

Chicken Tikka is a bit tricky as you marinate the chicken twice. Firstly in lime and chilli and then overnight in a spiced yoghurt mix. Then grill in a really hot oven and finish in a rich tomato sauce.

Yummy.

[Jammy Dodger]

Stovies.......

https://youtu.be/SrR9QPXXX-o

[Fretless]

Cool vid, Jammy.
The Dutch love their tatties.

[Lindsayt]

Fretless, can you tell us how to make curries?
Or would it take too long to type?
Could you provide links to any sites / youtube videos that'd say more less what you'd say on the subject?

[applemarc]

Great idea

[Hannes-Gregor]

Working in the kitchen and blasting The Cure's 'Disintegration' at high volume.
Next up Simple Minds 'Sons and Fascination'

Doing Chicken Tikka for a wedding party of 30 - certainly goes easier with good music.

When I was for the first time in UK for work and asked about British specialties I was told that Brits have the best Indian curries. I'm sure your guests will be thrilled!

Me and curries go back a long way. When I was 6 or 7 years old my father would take me swimming every Saturday morning in Plymouth. Afterwards we would go to the same little Indian restaurant for a curry - I can remember being very fond of Chicken Biryani.

Later on, living in Huddersfield and Bradford, Curry was the cheapest food you could get. At the top of the street in Hudds was a tiny Indian takeaway with a friendly Hindustani mama cooking behind the counter. As I was in there pretty well every night, she started showing me how to make the various dishes that she did, the techniques involved, how you get specific flavours - everything except her secret family Garam Masala recipe!

Got quite good at knocking out Indian meals and there was a phase when all my mates would come around to my place on a Saturday evening for a dish of home-made curry and a stack of chapattis before we all went off to the pub.

So now I'm doing my bit to bring real English(!) cooking to continental Europe. Shepherd's Pie goes down a treat here and the Dutch don't really know what a 'proper' curry is as mostly the restaurants that call themselves Indian are actually Surinam-based, more a mix of Hindustani and Caribbean cuisine.

Chicken Tikka is a bit tricky as you marinate the chicken twice. Firstly in lime and chilli and then overnight in a spiced yoghurt mix. Then grill in a really hot oven and finish in a rich tomato sauce.

Yummy.

That sounds delicious. Here it's the same with the curries. The Indian restaurants are lead by Indians, but I think they cook the curries like they think the Germans want them to be. Not bad, when you don't know anything else. I first recognized how delicious a curry could be when I ate in a restaurant called 'Naaz' in Nantwich. Such wonderful tastes! If anyone of you lives near it, it could highly recommend eating there. Maybe you say it's only good British standard, but for me it was the best curry I ever had (don't remember the name of the dish, but it was Lamb in a red tasty, light spicy sauce).

[Fretless]

Gradually returning to normal here after the big wedding-party last week. Only got to do breakfast for a weekend family-group of 20 and then I have a few days free.

Curry cookbooks are aplenty and there are two that I occasionally consult to make sure I'm doing it right:



Meera Sodha 'Made in India'

Great book with family recipes and handy tips. Easy to follow too.
If I have Vegans in for a meal then I often make the Cauliflower curry from this. Always a winner.

Making my Chicken Tikka / Butter Chicken last week, I followed the recipe in Rick Stein's 'India'



Another excellent cookbook with a wide variety a dishes. Accompanies an excellent TV series where he travels around India sampling various regional cuisines.

[Jammy Dodger]

Rick Stein one of the limited cooking progs I watch, I find him very entertaining.
I also liked the late Keith Floyd.

[CN211276]

I only watch the Gordon Ramsey programmes.