Quick Indian Cooking

There’s been an interesting development. We bought a house. A whole one. With a staircase and a roof. Excuse me if I sound a little shell-shocked at this outcome. Shoot me, however, if I populate it with more offspring, furry live animals or toys. (Shoes and clothes, on the other hand, are perfectly acceptable).

Now here I was thinking we would never be seduced by a patch of green and a few decent schools. What a change a few years makes.

A new house means a new kitchen everyone. And this alone calls for celebration! Quick Indian Cooking is about to get a new HQ. A space that is actually designed for Indian cooking. Shiny black floor tiles and glossy white units aren’t best matched with turmeric powder and lemon juice after all.

An architect is on the case, under my watchful gaze and a precariously-dangled wooden rolling pin. He has a tough job ahead. The brief: to create the most gorgeous, functional and special space for £2.75. Now there’s a challenge.

In the meantime, I am dreaming dreams about floral aprons, flour-dusted hands and perfectly-stacked rotis with two charming angels playing happily with plastic bricks. In reality, I’ll be in my heritage-look trousers and shoe boots, trying to feed them porridge and make the dash to work while they squeal “my don’t like it, my don’t want it”.

Still, they’ll have plenty of space to grow now. And eventually, they will listen to me and do as I say because I am the mother. Or so I think. On the threshold of our new home, I wanted to dedicate this post to all other deluded mothers and father out there, swapping their old lives for the uncharted.

This recipe for Dim Begun – a lightly spiced egg and aubergine saute – comes from no other than my little sister’s childhood friend and flatmate. It’s her mother’s recipe, which she sent to me in a series of bullet points starting with “ma said” and unsurprisingly ending with “but I didn’t listen to her”.

I loved it, all three times I made it. Even though I never did write the recipe down until the very last attempt. If change tastes this good, I’ll have a second helping, thanks.
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My social life has taken a battering. No surprise there. But when an invite appeared for a big 4-0 knees up, I could hardly pass it up.

There I was in my new 70s wooden platforms. Drinking Pimms on a boat. Dancing to Electronica. Smiling as I waited for a taxi in biting wind. Thrilled as I leapt into bed well past midnight.

And then the kids woke up at 5:30am.

The man and I valiantly took it in turns to nurse sore heads and play doting parents. As I lay starving stretched out on the once-pale cream rug being prodded with lego pieces, I remembered the glimmer of hope in the fridge.

Introducing my new secret weapon: K ji. Nanny extraordinaire. Superlative cook. This is the roti making, cumin seed/mustard seed loving soul I have been waiting for my whole life. (The kids love her too)

On Friday, I trialled her very own Capsicum Bhaji recipe – spicy bell peppers sauteed with gram flour, with just a hint of sweet and sour. It took 20 minutes to make. She expertly rolled the rotis and together we stashed the results into the fridge.

The keyword here being result! I slowly felt life return as I shoved warm rotis stuffed with K ji’s special into my parched mouth. A much needed lie-in or two and I’ll be ready for another big night. Maybe.

PS = Bheja means brain, and Bhaji means fry. Thank you Sandeepa, for inspiring this post’s title!
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It was a big day last week. My husband turned a year older. Except he hates birthdays. Can’t handle the attention.

Sorry. I don’t understand. If I could attract any more attention to myself, I totally would. But a blog, a book, two darling sprogs and several superfriends and family later, I am running out of ideas…

So every year I devise devious ways to totally embarrass him to shreds. Sooner or later, he will begin to love the attention, right?

Errm, work in progress. Last year, we did candle in dessert plus Happy Birthday sung in pitch darkness. In Thai. At a swanky restaurant. This year, I emailed 20 of his closest friends. Disclosed his real age as opposed to the one he’s been pretending to be. And requested them to make the man feel really special on his big day.

This was not a surprise birthday party, my sis observed. This was war!!

Suffice to say, I had a wonderful time. The expression on his face to find 20 over-sized adults spring out of a corner of his favourite pub paled in comparison to the total horror when the white chocolate fondant cake appeared.

All tried and tested ways for ultimate success. Speaking of tried and tested, QIC is in the spotlight for this interesting event, hosted by Sudeshna of Cook like a Bong (Bong is slang for Bengali). This is particularly poignant for me given that I have been missing in blog action for months. So I decided to crash the party and try one of my own recipes, which is vastly searched.

The Saag Aloo. British curry house favourite of two utterly bland ingredients thrown together for no particularly great reason. Cooked well, however, it is lip-smackingly yummy. A host of recent negativity was beginning to make me doubt my own recipe. So I retried it, with the addition of one extra green chilli, lemon juice and a small onion.

The result, my man happily declared, was a pleasant surprise. Soft potatoes nestled in this healthy spiced spinach clearly deserve every bit of the attention they attract.
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There’s always a first time. I bought my first ever five-inch heels to wear at a London Fashion Week last Saturday. Worked out what Twitter was. And announced with great gusto I was off to Shilpa Shetty’s party, which, in fact, was scheduled for the following day.

Our babysitter suggested I had finally lost it.

I also started using a great, big, proper grown up food processor.

Now you may think this is odd. Especially for someone who cooks and writes about food. The truth is I have been joined at the hip with my trusted hand held food processor for eons. It’s dinky, safe and and finger proof. What’s not to like?

Then my man bought me a monstrous Magimix for returning to work after maternity leave. I became desperate for one. If it’s good enough for the great and the good of the celebrity chef world, it’s good enough for me.

Except, it scared me witless for the first few months. The fittings looked like weapons of mass destruction. The base weighed a ton. The manual didn’t appeal in its cling film packaging. Then I decided to improvise, stuck the small blade into the large bowl, and wondered why the damn thing was more noise less action.

I have to say, three months of playing with the thing later, I can’t live without it. I’ve been slicing onions, shredding carrots, mixing stuffing/croquettes and cooking this addictive, fresh, green Dhaniya Palak Pulao (check out this Pudina Dhaniya Chicken too).

My nails are still intact! Now for that dishwasher, double oven, triple cooker, kitchen island and Global knife set…
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