It seems ages since I’ve written anything that was not about various historical things, but I think it’s time to raise my eyes again, and mention one of my other favourite things: eating. I like cooking – it’s a bit like engineering with food. I particularly enjoy a good curry, and it’s an ongoing challenge is to actually make one.
I have a collection of various curry spices : cumin, cloves, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, etc, and every so often the family indulges me and lets me have a go. So I dry fry the spices, put them in my old coffee grinder and blitz them as per the recipe book. I then gently fry some onions, ginger and garlic and some chilli in oil, add the meat and veg, fry some more, add a tin of tomatoes and some of the spice mix, stock, and possibly some coconut milk and gently cook until it looks good. It generally sort of works, but is usually disappointing. Basically, I’m not really very good at it.

Now the other day I took a simple and rather nice stew made in the pressure cooker the previous day, and thought I’d convert it into a curry. I know that most Indians are Hindus and wouldn’t dream of making a curry with beef, but since I’m basically a lapsed Baptist, I thought I’d probably get away with it. I also got a bit lazy and thought I’d try a commercial curry powder – in this case, ‘Schwartz Medium Curry Powder’. I added a teaspoon, let it bubble for a few minutes and tried it. God, it was AWFUL!! A really unpleasant harsh flavour. I can’t describe it, or associate it with a particular spice, but it was really, really unpleasant. Nobody liked it at all – even me. most of it ended up in the bin.

So what’s the lesson here? Obviously avoid Schwartz curry powder, but more importantly, learn to understand what each spice actually does and keep on trying. Don’t flounder around anymore, get some proper lessons, and learn do it right.

Or more sensibly, let Mauli, Top Chef at the Turks Head, take the strain and do it for you. They’re re-opening soon…… 🙂