Quick Indian Cooking

We were at the Mirch Masala restaurant Sunday buffet. Two blonde, bearded uncles. Aunt Madge, fresh off a congested motorway. And me with my quasi Urdu and gora husband.

As we settled into our crisp onion bhajis, I let out a gasp. I had suddenly remembered my recent brush with international foodie fame and fortune.

I’m in Olive, I declared with a flourish.

Uncle one raised an eyebrow. Uncle two gave me a grunt. Aunt Madge just said: “Who’s Olive?”

Great. Only, like, the best food magazine published by the BBC. Read by a gazillion people, none of whom I actually know.

They asked me about my favourite cheap eat in London – the £6.95 eat as much as you want lunch buffet at Diwana Bhelpuri House in Euston. But if you’re not in London, this information is about as useful to you as your local weather to me.

So here are my top tips for spotting a really good Indian buffet instead:

1. Elderly Indians: No self respecting elderly Indian will pay money to eat poorly cooked version of the food they eat at home
2. Hot chapattis/rotis: There is little point in rotis that have languished on the buffet table, turning rock hard and stone cold
3. Wide selection: Surely, the whole point of the whole exercise is to eat until you can barely move, a huge meal that you would be nuts to cook at home?

There is sad news from Peru and I will be gone for two weeks. More recipes to follow…

It’s Friday the 13th. Call me superstitious, but I have already had a bust up at work, a tough client meeting and slipped on my trendy winklepickers and grazed my knee.

I now have a dinner party for 10 to look forward to, for which I have cooked an entirely Bengali meal of kosha mangsho, aloo kophir dalna, cholar dal and doi begun.

But I am afraid. Very afraid.

Will I forget the long-stemmed lilies at work?

Will I be exposed as a lying fake with a bleeding knee as I burn the food while trying to reheat it in the oven?

Will I get drunk before dinner’s served again this time as a result of an antihistamine overdose and not excessive alcohol consumption? 

This domestic goddess thing is way too stressful on a day like this. Wish me luck. Gulp!   

Wedged between a smelly armpit and a raving lunatic on the underground this morning, my eyes nearly popped out when I read news of the Best of Brit Blog 2007 awards.

An award? For Blogs? In Britain? How fantastic.

Not like I bet money on winning anything. I grew up winning consolation prizes for failing to win and progress prizes for not failing. Even a beauty contest entry ended in a third prize – something about my lackadaisical response to the malignant malaria outbreak at the time.

(I mean, God, I was 17. Not like I wasn’t worried enough about the boy who didn’t fancy me and the boy who did…)

It would be nice to win something. Once. If you think me worthy (or feel sorry for me) please nominate me. Nominations are welcome from the UK and beyond. Oh, and I loosely fit in the arts and entertainment categorythere isn’t one for food).

Whether from the UK and beyond, you may have heard of Atul Kochhar? The only Indian chef with a Michelin star honour? As it’s cooking from cookbooks week, I decided to try one of his lamb recipes from Delicious magazine here in the UK.

As I flicked through the article, I read about Atul being faithful to the origins of each recipe. Great. Lamb curry with chickpeas. Superb. Takes three hours to make, plus overnight soaking.

Gulp!

The last time I spent three hours making anything, it spent two and three quarters of an hour in the oven. Baking.

Anyway, undeterred by this small problem i rallied on soon noticing that he’d used dried chickpeas and cooked them before chucking them into the lamb.

See this is where we have to be smart. Life’s too short and busy and a tin of chick peas is a far superior choice. Here is the recipe, which I have tried to be faithful to (bar raw chick peas) and it was delicious:

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 cm fresh ginger, finely grated
1 tin of chickpeas
4 bay leaves
4 green cardamom pods
7 cloves
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp garam masala
2 large tomatoes, chopped
6 lamb chops
Fresh coriander, to garnish (optional)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt to taste

Heat the oil in a deep pot and when hot, add the bay leaves, cardamoms and cloves. When they sizzle, add the onion and cook until translucent and soft. Stir in the  ginger and garlic and fry for two minutes.

Add the spices, the tomatoes and lamb. Cover the lamb with hot water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the chickpeas and simmer until the lamb is cooked (approximately another 30 minutes).To finish, stir in the garam masala and salt and garnish with coriander before serving.