“Can’t put into words how awful this recipe is!
My diners referred to it as sediment dredged from the River Thames!
Needless to say, as it wasn’t even edible for the dog, it went into the bin!!”

Ouch.

Saag Aloo is a British curry house favourite of the world’s two blandest vegetables combined in what can only just be rescued by the miracle of spices. The keyword here is just.

I felt a weak moment approaching. So I went straight to the man for sympathy. The resident photographer and food taster.

“Serves you right“, came the pat response, “I can’t think of a worse combination of things to make a recipe of.”

This, from a man brought up in the land where potatoes originated.

I didn’t make it up. It’s an actual recipe. It’s also one of the most requested recipes on my blog, I persisted, and one of the most common keywords for people to get here.

“Tell them they’re wrong. That’s what you do, isn’t it?!”

Not content with totally missing the point of this blogging business, he proceeded to refuse to photograph the next effort. Not ready to be outsmarted, I dished up try 3 with a full meal and held the feast back until the photo was taken.

If my gruesome intro and ghastly description hasn’t put you off, this recipe is actually quite lovely. The key is to cook the potato with the spices without parboiling and to use lots of salt, some green chilli and a squeeze of lemon juice at the end to lift the spinach. I always ate this back home with pureed spinach. But you could just use chopped, frozen spinach like I did here.

And here it is. If this is what you get when you put the world’s two blandest ingredients together, I’ll have a 2nd helping with an extra serving of abuse, thanks.

PS = That’s my lucky oven glove in the pic. Waiting for your verdict with bated breath…

Feeds 4:

• 225gm potato
• 225gm chopped spinach (I used freshly frozen)
• 1 green chilli
• 1 garlic clove
• Half tsp coriander powder
• Half tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp chopped coriander leaves
• Squeeze of lemon
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp oil

Dice the potatoes into small cubes and mince the garlic. In a medium pot or wok, bring the oil to heat on high. When it starts sizzling around a wooden spoon, gently drop in the garlic and potatoes. Toss them gently and mix in the spice powders.

You want to stir this until the potatoes are almost cooked – you will know because the outside will be translucent and a fork will go through a piece with some difficulty. If the potatoes start going brown or sticking to the bottom of the wok, add a tablespoon of water. You could even cover the wok to help cook the potatoes faster.

Next mix in the spinach and green chillies. Mix the ingredients together for another five minutes until the potatoes are cooked. Add salt to taste, stir through the fresh coriander and squeeze a little lemon before you serve this.

The post Surprise encounters appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

Yoga is always at the top of my list of after work exercise classes. After all, I did have about 12 years of relentless sun salutations under my belt.

Back in Calcutta, my mother signed us up to the local yoga centre. A stern lady resembling the love child of Indira Gandhi and Maggie Thatcher (God rest their souls) would give us home lessons. All I remember are the gruelling stretches and her rising blood pressure as we pleaded through every extra count for mercy.

On arriving in London, I discovered I was very much on trend. Years of yoga had already set me on the path to spiritual enlightenment. If I could do ujjayi breathing, I could pretty much do anything. Technically.

So through life’s ups and downs, my various half-hearted attempts to regain yoga supremacy this is what I have discovered about the different types of yoga in the West. From an Indian’s perspective:

• Hatha yoga: Proper yogi stuff. Wear white and be prepared to chant, stand still on one leg and sing in a strange language. Sanskrit, I think. More here
• Ashtanga yoga: If the poses don’t stretch your limits, the breathing techniques will. Wear spandex and cancel your gym membership
• Prana yoga: Not entirely sure, but I think its about meditation and controlled breathing. I did neither when I went thanks to the pounding house music straining through the exercise room’s double doors.
• Bikram yoga: This is what happens when you do yoga in the heat of summer, during a Calcutta power cut. The brainchild of a Bengali. No surprise there.
• Pregnancy yoga: Yoga to lull you into a false sense of security. It will hurt. Sorry.

Of course, I am no stranger to taking something old and giving it a new spin.

Like this mid-week Kofta Curry. I bought a pack of quality ready meatballs, sizzled up a curry sauce and let the meatballs simmer gently in them until they cooked. Not exactly the stuff from the courts of Mughal India but it tastes brilliant and is easy enough to knock up  after a busy day.

Inner peace next. Om.

Feeds 4:

• 360gm meatballs (pack of 12)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2″ ginger
• 1 medium onion
• 2 tomatoes (I fished them out of a tin)
• 4 heaped tbsp natural yoghurt
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• Pinch Kasoori methi
• Whole spices: 1 Bay leaf, 1″ cinnamon, 4 cloves, 1 dry red chilli
• 1 tbsp oil
• Salt to taste

Soak the Kasoori methi in warm water, take the yoghurt out of the fridge and chop the onion roughly. Bring the oil to heat on high in a wide and deep pan. When it sizzle around a wooden spoon, toss in the whole spices and the onions. Saute for five minutes until the onions are translucent, then peel and grate the garlic and ginger directly into the pan.

Saute this for another five minutes. Next, mix in the coriander powder and chop the tomato and mix it in. If using tinned tomatoes, just drop two tomatoes into the pan and stab with the wooden spoon until disintegrated. Cook this masala well for 5 minutes stirring regularly to prevent the mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pan. If it does, mix in a little warm water and scrape off the bottom.

Then, lower the heat to a simmer and stir in the yoghurt. Don’t worry too much if it splits. Let the masala simmer for five minutes until oil starts oozing out of the pores. When this happens, fish out the whole spices and whizz some of the masala with a hand blender to get a smoother, curry house style finish.

Now drop in the meatballs and cook for five minutes on either side with the lid on until cooked through. Stir through with the garam masala, sprinkle the kasoori methi and its water, and add salt to taste.

Serve this with warm ready bought rotis and sliced cucumbers drenched in lemon juice and salt.

The post Quest for Karma appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

Now Patak’s and I have a long history together. Mostly involving my early days in England at university, when I first discovered housework, illegal substances and the horror that I would have to feed myself. I slowly made my way from Taj Mahal takeaway to boil-in-the-bag rice and yep, Patak’s curry sauce jars for sustenance.

Somewhere since then, I stumbled upon Jamie Oliver and mother’s very own chicken curry recipe. The rest as they say is history. But while the curry sauce jars fell off my weekly shopping list, I still reached for Patak’s Mango Pickle and shook my head dutifully at their “when I was a little boy” adverts.

What exactly did they want? Request no 1:  Would I like to be one of the faces of a new campaign for their curry pastes? A loaded question. Here I am, preaching the joys of cooking Indian food from scratch, savouring the pleasure of adding each spice lovingly to sizzling oil and watching oil ooze through pores on fresh masalas. Yes I would. Everyone needs a bloody night off. I need several.

Request no 2: Would I mind sharing a platform with my friend and professional chef, the better looking and far more sensible Maunika? Would I ever? I’m just hoping some of her eventually rubs off on me. (NOT like that, behave)

Request no 3: Please could I bring some bright coloured clothes to the shoot. That basically killed my entire wardrobe. And no, animal print did not qualify as a “vibrant pattern”.

So I settled on a denim shirt. Knocked back a glass of Lansons and went for it cooking three recipes, with two spoons of a jar of Patak’s masala paste. Or something. The resulting dishes were delicious: Crab Cakes, the perennial favourite Palak Paneer and Karwari Jhinga, a coconut prawn curry.

A jar of Patak’s masala paste will now join the lofty ranks of the Thai Green Curry Paste well by its use by date in my fridge. The video is here for your viewing pleasure. Poor mother has racked up 1,000 clicks on it alone. I’ll be standing against a fence waiting for the rotten tomatoes to land.

Do me a favour: try one of the jars to see what you make of it and tell me what you do on your night off. Will you?

The post Curry in a big hurry appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

In the meantime, I grew older happily embracing the tadka pan but quietly rejecting the notion of modern femininity that is, in my humble opinion, the cupcake.

The problem is this. I love eating the darn things. They are so pretty. They cost a bomb in the shops, for essentially, a bit of flour, sugar and eggs. I knew I was trapped into a dark hole with only a Wilton 1M and a muffin tray for company when Mini Basu, aged nearly four, requested cupcakes at one of our weekly cookery sessions.

No matter. I have done worse in the name of motherhood.

I snooped around my favourite baking blogs by Deeba and Jules. I just needed a moment to launch into action. The office Valentine’s Day Bake Off was it. With divisions pitted against each other, the stakes were high and someone found a photo of me stirring a curry online. I was soon labelled the “professional” in their midst.

I frogmarched the team to the local supermarket to source supplies. Co-ordinated the team entry assigning tasks all round. Then came home, drank half a bottle of wine and merrily baked a batch of by far the most deeply unattractive cupcake-muffin hybrids I have ever seen.

We were commended for taste. I should have taken a stash of Handvo with me instead.

This is a spicy, savoury lentil cake from Gujarat, baked in a hot oven, that makes a healthy and very moreish snack. Nanny K kept bringing me boxes full and I got her to share the recipe with me. The only trick part to this is sourcing Ondhwa flour (also Handvo flour), which is a powdered lentil and rice flour, readily available in ethnic stores.

It took just the first go to get it right, and the results were reassuring. They disappeared nearly as quickly as a batch of cupcakes. Next stop: oven baked dhokla. And if that goes well, I’ll try my hand at a Black Forest Gateau. Or something.

Makes 16 bites:

For the batter

• 2 cups Ondhwa flour
• 100 gm natural yoghurt
• 1 tsp Ajwain
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tbsp minced green chillies
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp Gur or Dark brown Muscovado Sugar
• 1 bunch fresh Fenugreek leaves, chopped fine
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 inch ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp oil

For the Tadka

• Half tsp mustard seeds
• Half tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp kasoori methi
• 2 red chillies
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• Pinch hing
• 1 tbsp oil

Mix all the batter ingredients together in a large bowl, bar the oil. Leave this to sit for about three hours.

When the time is up, turn the oven to 200C (400F, gas mark 6) to preheat. Rub the oil all over a square oven proof dish. Then pour the batter in and bake in the hot oven for 30-40 minutes until the top is golden brown and crusty.

Take the dish out of the oven and leave to cool, while you make the tadka. In a small pan, bring the oil to heat on high then add, in quick succession, the hing, cumin and mustard seeds, red chillies and finally the sesame seeds. take off the heat and carefully drizzle it over the handvo.

When dish is cool enough to handle, cut into squares and enjoy hot or cold, but definitely with a nice cuppa.

The post Bake off appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

The first two nights were hideous. Armed with the three-pronged strategy of disobey, defeat and destroy, the toddlers wreaked havoc at bedtimes. The third night, I took a glass of ice-cold vino to their bath time and Charlie Taylor’s Divas and Dictators to my bed. By the fourth night, the bottle was complete. And so was I.

The second week was not much better. A long work day, followed by a meeting in Brussels and a colleague’s farewell do, meant three consecutive nights of missed bedtime. Ably filling in, the pint-sized princess declared: “I have had a taste of your life. And I don’t want it.” Lovely. Thanks.

But there was no going back now. I gave my new avatar one last push last Friday, my day off work. By 10:00am, I had trialled pancakes ahead of Shrove Tuesday with the toddlers, played make-believe jungle, dressed 2.5 not so little people, done the laundry, handed over to the nanny and made my way to the hairdresser for some much-needed R&R.

Just when I thought I had achieved near super mum status, I set off my rape alarm in front of our home. Only to be caught trying to piece the darn thing together by my neighbour and her dog.

I should just stick to what I do best. So this Pancake Day, I will first make my man pay a heavy price for his disappearance and then whip up Pudla instead of pancake.

These spicy savoury pancakes made from chick pea (gram) flour hail from Gujarat in India. But a version of it with onions and tomatoes is also cooked like an omelette in North India called Chilla. It makes a quick and easy brunch centrepiece or even tea time snack. In case you get the bug for an alternative life!

Makes 8:

• 150gm besan (gram flour)
• Half pint water
• 1 green finger chilli
• Handful of fresh coriander
• 1 inch ginger
• 1 tablespoon salt
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Oil (I use a can of light oil spray)

In a large mixing bowl, place the besan, salt, chilli powder. Chop finely the chilli and coriander and toss in and grate in the ginger. Mix in the water removing any lumps that may have formed. Tactile is best – I just do this with my fingers!

When you have an even smooth mixture, leave it to sit for at least half an hour or if you can for up to two hours. When you’re ready to eat, get a tawa or frying pan to a very high heat with a drizzle of oil or a spray, then reduce the heat to medium high. Using a ladle, spoon one helping of the batter into the centre of the tawa, swirling it round gently with the handle to get it to spread as evenly as possible in a circle.

Cook it for 10 seconds on one side, then flip it over with a spatula and cook on the other. Remove the Pudla and start again with another one. The key is to drizzle oil on the edges of the pan before you cook the next Pudla. It can become a greasy affair, hence I prefer to use an oil spray.

Eat hot, hot, hot dunked in coriander chutney.

The post Alternative Life appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

Every year, I go through the same old emotional rollercoaster. First I fret: A year has passed. What have I achieved? How many new wrinkles/grey hairs have I grown? How much more have I got to read/learn/do?

Then I recover just in time to discover the man and pint-sized princess (i.e. the little sis) have NOT planned the biggest, almightiest of parties for me. I throw my toys out of the pram. Cue: a spontaneous celebration, where I pretend I had no idea about the crate of booze and oversize cake that had been sourced last minute.

You’d think 35 was a good age to start growing up.

This year, the family took no chances. All my ridiculous bleating was met with glazed eyes and pseuodo-sympathy. On the big day, I got whisked off for a spot of karaoke with the nearest and dearest of friends, followed by a Mexican feast and the best hangover yet for 2013.

To celebrate being a year older, none the better or the wiser, I want to raise a glass to two fabulous fellow bloggers who have been busy achieving in the last year:

• Kathryn Elliott, my go to source for no nonsense and highly practical nutrition advice, and author of the Limes and Lycopene blog has been writing a series of seasonally based e-Magazines. The latest one is on desserts and the photography by Lucinda Dodds and recipes are to die for.
• Rinku Bhattacharya, who writes the Cooking in Westchester blog, published The Bengali Five Spice Chronicles, a book on Bengali recipes that you can easily make at home. The title of the book is, of course, inspired by Panch Phoron, which no self respecting Bengali’s kitchen can be without!

The recipe I want to share today is a simple meat curry, Mangshor Jhol, cooked with goat meat at my home in Kolkata.  Near impossible for me to source on work days, I use stewing beef or lamb neck fillet  instead. A brilliant mid-week curry, this just stews in its own juices, while you have a breather from the day’s chaos. Wear that shower cap and prepare to shower afterwards though, as the taste and aroma of this little beauty will linger.

Unlike bad thoughts before birthdays!

Feeds 2:

• 400gm Stewing beef/lamb/goat
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 inch stick cinnamon
• Half tsp sugar
• 1 large onion
• 1 inch ginger
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 medium potato
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Half tsp garam masala powder
• 2 tbsp yoghurt
• 2 tbsp oil (mustard oil if you have it)
• Salt to taste

Roughly chop and puree the ginger and garlic with the yoghurt. Cut the meat into large chunks and coat well with the paste. Leave it to sit.

Now peel and quarter the potatoes, and toss well with the turmeric and chilli powders until bright yellow and evenly coated. Next, peel and roughly chop the onion.

Then, bring the oil to heat on high in a medium pot. When the oil is sizzling, toss in the potatoes and seal them quickly for about a minute. Then remove them with a slotted spoon and toss in the bay leaf, cinnamon and sugar. As they sizzle up, throw in the chopped onions. Saute for about five minutes until they start taking colour. When this happens, spoon in the marinated meat and add the cumin powder.

Mix the meat well until it browns for another five minutes. Then pour in half a pint of hot water, bring the mixture to boil, then lower the heat to medium and cook covered stirring from time to time. When the half an hour is up, mix in the masala potato quarters, and cook for another 2o minutes uncovered to cook the potatoes.

The dish should be moist but without curry. Finish with salt to your taste and the garam masala powder. Roll into roti or pitta bread for best impact!

The post Older not wiser appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

I got ready in near darkness, pulling last night’s dinner out of the fridge for the kids lunch, before the mad work dash. In my infinite wisdom, I tasked the man with control of the weekday meals.

If there is a Peruvian food trend sweeping the world, it certainly hasn’t affected my half-Peruvian man. He is, singlehandedly, the prime customer for Sacla Pesto Pasta.

Cooking, for him, is the brave attempt to stir a jar of the sauce into overcooked pasta. He sent ripples of disgust through the Italian countryside, when he shared his penchant for stirring bacon and onions into pesto pasta on one of our holidays.

When he’s feeling less adventurous, he shoves a pizza into a hot oven. In between his special brand of creative cookery, and my rejection of the kitchen, the festive season came and went. And then, mierda, our food went stale.

So while I had great plans to start the year with a suitably decadent recipe, instead, I give you stale bread. And funnily, this post has been simmering long before this article on food wastage hit the headlines.

Honestly, I’m no stranger to the odd bit of food wastage. But over the years, I have found that a generous helping of spices can help rescue many ingredients beyond their prime. My top faves are:

• Navratan Korma, a spiced coconut curry with nine vegetables, served with steaming hot Basmati rice
• Pulao, of any sort really. Quick, and delicious, with a bowl of thick yoghurt and pickle
• Jhalfrezi, of chicken, beef or prawn, a quick stir fry with easy to source ingredients that can be bought on the way home

More recently, I’ve even turned 2 pints of milk into paneer. Something that I would have never considered in the not too distant past!

The recipe here is one that I grew up with in India. I suspect it had something to do with leftovers back then too. Bread Upma is a simple saute with fresh tomatoes and onions that doubles up as a lovely brunch or kid-friendly snack.

I have only one New Year’s Resolution this year, to get better at preventing perfectly good ingredients from making the dustbin heap! So please share your favourite recipes for leftovers, and let’s all have a less wasteful year ahead.

 

Feeds 2:

• 4-5 slices of stale bread (I used wholemeal as that’s what I buy)
• 1 medium tomato
• 1 medium onion
• Half tsp turmeric
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Half tsp mustard seeds
• Half tsp cumin seeds
• 10 curry leaves
• Fresh coriander
• Half tsp salt
• 2 tbsp oil

Chop the tomato and onion roughly. Slice the bread into large bite-sized pieces. You don’t want them too small as they’ll just crumble.

In a frying pan, bring the oil to heat on high. When it’s hot, toss in the curry leaves, mustard seeds and cumin seeds and as they sizzle up, mix in the onions. Reduce the heat to medium and saute the onion for five minutes until they start to soften and take on colour.

Next, toss in the tomatoes and the powdered spices along with the salt. Stir well for two minutes and as the tomatoes start to disintegrate, gently mix in the bread cubes. Fold the masala into the bread, warming it up in the process. When the bread is well coated, serve hot with a sprinkling of the fresh coriander if you have it.

The post Waste Not Want Not appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

Two weeks ago, I had it all sussed. I was going to write a mega post. The one in which I regale you with tales about my office Christmas Party, the tots Nativity play and my “bad mother” hunt for a giant reindeer poster in pouring rain with a stonking hangover for an ill-fated festive pin-the-nose game at the Montessori Christmas Party.

The truth is, I have been distracted. First by innocent children not much older than Mini Basu in Sandy Hook. Then by a tragic incident involving a student in New Delhi.

I’m no stranger to the odd bit of ranting here. But I’m not going to launch into any political diatribes. Or literary essays. Far more eloquent writers have done a much better job than I could have dreamed of. Besides, this is a food blog. And, apparently, God help any food bloggers who who get ideas above (or below) their station.

The point I want to make, with a very heavy heart, is that while the world didn’t end like the Mayans predicted perhaps it is time for the world as we know it to end. Within every cruel, painful, tragic moment in history, there must be an important lesson for all of us.

At the turn of the New Year, I am holding on for dear life to my reserve of hope. Here it is, served with a platter of Chocolate Sandesh, a little twist on a Bengali favourite sweet. It’s taken me three goes to get this right, and I have to reluctantly admit that I made my very own paneer for the first time as store bought just doesn’t cut the mustard for that smooth melting texture.

One for rainy days, crafty moments with loved ones or if you fancy doing something a little different in the year to come. Wishing you and yours a bright 2013 full of happy new beginnings.

Makes 12:

Fresh Paneer from 2 pints milk (I used white vinegar)

100gm Belgian chocolate (or any other quality chocolate)

Quarter cup caster sugar

12 raisins

When most of the liquid has been drained out of the paneer, grind it to a fine paste in the food processor with the sugar.

Then gently warm a frying pan and cook the paneer and sugar mix for five minutes stirring well. Don’t cook for too long or it will go grainy. Melt the chocolate by placing in a glass bowl that sits in a larger pan of boiling water. Mix the chocolate into the paneer paste and give it a taste to check its texture.

If it feels grainy, give the mixture another good mix in a food processor. Then line a small square baking dish with parchment paper, spoon the sandesh mixture into it and shove in the fridge to set for two-three hours. If you have silicon bakeware, no need for lining of any sort! This on my birthday present wish list btw.

When the sandesh mix feels hard to the touch, run a sharp knife around the edges and tip the mix over. Cut into equal pieces and roll in your palms to shape, sticking a raisin into each piece at the end. The mix will be soft so you’ll have to handle gently. Enjoy with a cup of masala tea on a special occasion.

The post Out with the old appeared first on Quick Indian Cooking.

The thing had been on the telly, so on it went.

Frankly, I couldn’t believe the whole thing. Film editing is clearly a finer art than self promotion. The sprogs look like they’ve been dip-dyed in gold dust. My hair looks like something out of a Pantene ad. And the kitchen worktop is far from the oil-stained chipboard reality it was back then, painted a dusky grey in haste the day before filming. Not to mention me bossing none other than Madhur Jaffrey in my own home.

The sad truth is that none of us are that spectacular. Most days are a blur of relentless meetings, the caffeine kicks to get the day started and the dash home to make sure I get to see the bundles before they crash for the night. To get through it all, I cook and eat good food. That means a bit of everything: Oriental, lots of pasta, British comfort cooking and, best of all for me, authentic Indian food.

The trick, to cooking Indian food, I have learnt is in a bit of planning and a bit of common sense. Both of which I generally struggle with. So on busy days, I:

1. Marinade meats to be cooked in the evening before I leave for work (or the night before). Takes minutes and means that you will get really succulent curry even if you speed things up by using a pressure cooker later or cook wok-style
2. Fish clothes out of the laundry basket to cook in. Why soil new clothes and increase the dirty laundry stash?
3. One for the ladies: Wear a shower cap. If you cook Indian food, you will smell of spices afterwards. If you’re not blessed with naturally gorgeous locks, you can have a quick shower later without the need for a full hair wash/blow dry
4. Spend one evening mincing ginger and garlic separately in my food processor/hand blender. Then spoon the stash into silicon ice cube trays , cover with cling film and freeze. This way I don’t need to get your fingers/grater dirty every time I cook and it’ll cut down cooking times. Pop the cubes out at the start of cooking so that they can defrost while you get everything else ready
5. Cook extra. If you’re not calling the takeaway, you might as well get a second meal out of your effort. Freeze for a rainy day or save in the fridge for the next day
6. Stick to readily-available ingredients. I tend to do weekly bulk shops for every day food, delivered from my local supermarket. Everything else I source during weekend trips, like frozen, fresh grated coconut from Oriental shops near our favourite Dim Sum haunt and Indian spices from the local sweet shop. Online shopping is good too, only if there are enough products in the basket to warrant the delivery charges and someone is home to collect

I often find inspiration at the end of a long day with a quick look on the blogosphere on my way home. That’s how I found this sublime, tangy and spicy mushroom stir fry recipe from Divya’s Easy Cooking and Vee’s Past, Present and Me that I chanced upon while searching for a decent way to use up some mushrooms and a bag of frozen shredded coconut. A quick stir fry, we scooped them up into torn chunks of readymade rotis for a mid week supper. With less chilli, it would have been great for the kids too.

So what are your tips to share for mid-week meals on busy days?

Feeds 4:

• 150-200gm baby button mushrooms
• Half inch ginger
• 1 small onion
• 1 cup grated coconut
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 4 whole red chillies
• Half tsp tamarind paste
• 1 tbsp colourless, flavourless oil
• 2 tsp coconut oil (optional)

Wash the baby button mushrooms under a cold tap in a sieve and leave to drain. Peel and grate the ginger (unless you have a ready stash) and chop the onion into small pieces.

In a small food processor, mince the coconut, coriander seeds and whole red chillies. The coconut will have enough moisture for this to be a coarse masala.

Next, bring the flavourless oil to heat on high in a medium sized pan. Saute the onion and ginger for five minutes until golden, then add the mushrooms. Stir for another two to five minutes until they start taking on colour and releasing moisture. Then mix in the coconut masala. Fry well for another five minutes, you will notice the sharp aroma changing to a more mellow one.

Then mix in the tamarind paste, salt to taste and coconut oil if you have it. Serve immediately with toasted pitta bread, naan or rotis.

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