CURRY, CURRY, DIVINE CURRY

Rob and I decided we would cook a curry dinner for our partners Saturday night and it proved to be a popular choice.

We made Komale’s Potato & Bean Curry from Ray McVinnie’s column in last week’s Sunday Star Times “Sunday” magazine and teamed it up with Annabel Langbein’s Burmese Chicken Curry from her indispensable cook book, The Best of Annabel Langbein.

This was accompanied by Basmati rice with cinnamon and saffron from Madhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible




The Madhur Jaffrey book is appropriately named because it contains absolutely everything you could wish to know on the subject of curries. It is the definitive book on the subject by this multi-talented world authority on Indian cooking. I have the handsome hardback edition (Ebury Press) which Annie gave me in 2003, the year of its publication.
Beautifully designed, and illustrated with both photographs of dishes along with many appealing reproductions of old paintings, prints and photographs.

Be warned however that the recipes are often quite complex and time consuming in their preparation and one should read them through thoroughly before setting out or you may fall into the trap that we did where in her Basmati rice recipe it calls for saffron threads, hot milk, ground cardamom and sugar to be mixed and then set aside for three hours!!
We read this detail when we were about an hour away from dishing up! Oh well we proceeded anyway and it was delicious but obviously it would have been even more so had we let it rest for three hours rather than one.

Another book worth having on the shelf but in a different price and production bracket, (some of the photography is ordinary to say the least), is Meena Pathak’s INDIAN COOKING FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS. Pathak is the creative force behind PATAK”S (they dropped the ‘h’), the world’s number one brand in Indian foods.







Published by New Holland this book is much more accessible than the Jaffrey title and I found it a great introduction to Indian cooking. Start with “Chicken with Spring Onions” on page 86. You can’t go wrong, and the finished result is scrumptious. It took me an hour from beginning preparation to serving.

Open a bottle of chilled New Zealand Pinot Gris, Reisling or Gewurtztraminer and you’ll be one most popular host.