TRUE STORIES FROM A BED & BREAKFAST HOST. I grew up in a B&B since the age of 4, after 20 plus years of having a constant stream of strangers come through the front door. You pick up a story or two....
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One of the best and tastiest curries I have ever eaten was thanks to a lovely Indian family. There were four of them, a husband and wife, their 2-year-old daughter and the grandmother. The husband was a lawyer and was on an exchange programme with a well-known London law practice, so the entire family was relocating to London and they were staying with us before moving into their new home.
It was a lovely two months, they spent a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and chatting, telling me all about their home back in Mumbai. The wife and mother would always make their food from scratch and the whole house was filled with the aroma of spices and chilli. It was intoxicating and a wonderful experience for me as a chef to watch and learn from the two of them.
They showed me how they made their own curry pastes and they brought back many ingredients from the local Tooting market. Many of which I had never noticed before or ever used in my own cooking.
I asked them if they would like to join myself and my two boys for dinner one evening before they departed. They were delighted to join us and even offered to prepare us a curry using an old family recipe for the occasion. I was very excited and quickly took them up on the offer. We agreed to do it on the last weekend before their departure.
The curry took two days to prepare and they sourced all the ingredients locally.
They started with the lamb, marinating it with lots of herbs and spices, in a huge pot that I usually used for jam making. It was then covered with cling film and left in our cellar over night.
The next afternoon we all sat around the kitchen table and helped with the chopping, peeling and preparing of the different elements that were involved in the meal. The whole table was covered in diced vegetables, off cuts, chopping boards and equipment. I was in heaven.
By that evening there was a whole feast of homemade delights; basmati rice, the lamb curry, yoghurt, mango chutney and a starter of lightly spiced nibbles. We sat down eager with anticipation to try the meal that we had all been waiting for.
The lamb curry was a wonderful fluorescent green/yellow colour and the sauce was thin. The first bite set my whole mouth alive from top to bottom. It was like an explosion of heat and taste that caused my lips to tingle well after I had eaten my fill.
Throughout the whole meal, the family did not touch their cutlery, instead, they used naan bread. After spooning small portions of each course onto their plate they would tear a piece of naan folding it above the curry and pinching, picking up a perfect bite size portion each time. My boys tried to give it ago but ended up getting more on their clothes than in their mouths. By the end of the meal, their plates were far cleaner than the rest of ours!
It's a shame that I didn't get any photographs of them or the meal that evening but I did get the recipe so here it is for you to enjoy...
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