Quick Indian Cooking

It’s official. Home cooked Indian equals free babysitting volunteers.

Front row London Fashion Week: Curry.

Birthday party in neighbourhood local: Curry.

When sis offered her services for an old friend’s shock wedding I knew I had to pull the stops out.

I made for the farmer’s market. Followed by lunch in a Polish caf with mini Basu, the man, his crazy younger bro and friends.  Then made a pit stop into a boutique to buy an entire outfit for the evening. While mini Basu slobbered on the season’s latest polyester offerings. The bro offered unsolicited fashion advice and the man faked a fainting spell.

Luckily, the recipe wasn’t going to finish me off altogether. Durga Puja, the annual Bengali religious calendar event was on. The dish was going to an old family favourite – Maacher Jhol – the famous Bengali fish curry.

Aromatic and light, it didn’t render me fishy. Sis said it made her teary – with happiness. Bro declared it was the best fish he had ever tasted. Both offered endless nights of babysitting.

It pays to cook Indian. Quite.
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Thanks for the lovely wishes. But I am not going all Earth Mother yet people!

Life hasn’t changed very much since the big discovery. The first three things that came to mind were stretch marks, weight gain and childcare (in no particular order).

I immediately invited hubby and and myself over to our Parsi neighbour’s for dinner. A shoe entrepreneur and mother of two tiny tearaways, she is grand dame of the great art of parenting delegation.

While we talked shoes and nannies, her daughter clambered all over me. As we moved on to discussing Parsi recipes I started being pelted with cashewnut missiles, which landed all over my freshly-washed hair.

My neighbour carried on unnerved. This is war, I wanted to scream and hurl a few almonds myself.

Instead, I turned and gave hubby a nervous look, is it too late?

He responded with a pale smile, I told you so.

Thankfully bedtime arrived and we were left in wonderful silence to enjoy dinner. My neighbour kindly lent me her mother’s 101 Parsi Cookbook. I recreated the oil free Patra Ni Macchi we ate – fish marinated in coconut and herbs steamed in banana leaf parcels – for a raucous dinner with friends at home later.

That, thankfully, I could cope with. 
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The weekend started with an elaborate dinner party. Not my own, this time.

I sat around doing nothing. Feasting on Ostrich steak and home made apple strudel. Every offer of washing up, cooking and tidying being brutally rejected.

I felt stuffed. Indulged. Empty.

Three further consecutive meals out and I simply had to reinstate myself in the kitchen with a reassuringly fiddly though easy recipe.

Fish fry is what I settled on – a traditionally deep fried, spicy, breaded fish fillet. In my kitchen, they would be grilled.

So I changed into a comfy pair of shorts, took one last look at my fluorescent manicured fingernails and plunged into an assembly line of fish marinade and coatings.

Ten minutes of dipping, patting and 20 minutes of grilling and felt complete again. Now, when’s my next dinner party?
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I was second in line. Standing behind a blonde, 20-something at the farmer’s market fish stall.

Buying fish does not come naturally to me. As a little girl, I had bad eyesight and thick pink spectacles aged barely eight.

The cure, according to the local optician, was to eat fish. Lots of it. This was a sign from above by my Bengali fish-loving family, who proceeded to force feed me the stuff. Little bones and all.

22 years later, I see the sense in eating fish occasionally. But the familiar quiver in my knee-high boots returns at every fish counter.

“I want to buy fish,” the blonde began. “But I don’t want anything that smells fishy. Or has bones. Or tastes too fishy either. Actually, I’m a salmon kinda gal.”

Great, I thought. This was going to be really simple. I’ll have what she’s having, as long as it won’t fall apart in a curry.

I think the guy shot me an evil. But I scurried off, like a true Bengali all set to make doi maach or yoghurt fish curry. This was a must-have at weddings and social functions at home and cooked traditionally with Rui or carp. I used skate, which worked beautifully in this sweet and spicy curry and had all the above plus a meaty texture.

If you can’t beat them, you gotta join them right?
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