Feed: My Life in Curry
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Russell Brown, in reply to
My 43 year old Roberton Rd, Avondale, flat recipe copied out into my 43 year old recipe book written in by my (at the time 40 year old Mum:
Beautiful. What an excellent discussion this is turning out to be.
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...omg Russell, the Monday Night Problem Drinkers Club and the love of jangly guitar bands, hahaha, oh the memories, not that any of us had drinking problems, hahaha, just could buy a drink anywhere on a Monday night back then - more so though [we] my family, did the first Indian restaurant in New Zealand 1978, the Aashiayana, which started life in KRoad, down stairs where the INK Bar is nowa days, then in 84 we did the upmarket version in Crummer Road, the brand was sold to Top Hat in 2001, now Wattie's owned and still available in supermarkets...
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Russell Brown, in reply to
[we] my family, did the first Indian restaurant in New Zealand 1978, the Aashiayana
Harv! I was planning to ask you about that on Facebook.
And I didn't realise Watties owned the brand now. It doesn't seem to be in Countdown supermarkets at all, but the quality has seemed good on the odd time I've got one at New World.
I have fond memories of you getting us frozen curry "seconds", which were usually really quite good.
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...Aashiayana is still the premium priced brand reduced range, great story too, we sold the real estate in about 95 and built a food processing plant in New Lynn doing frozen curries, sauces and marinades, leavened breads and pies, great story too - but the best stories are from the Aaash in Crummer Road, the parties, the bands, the agency lunches, the well!! hahaha, I lived upstairs in the Studio apartment when I was promoting and tour managing,..
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I'm pretty sure the Golden Curry is still there (it's on Google maps anyway...) - the inclusion on the Just Eat online ordering might explain the lack of a website - could this be the same place?
http://www.just-eat.co.uk/restaurants-goldencurry-sw4/menu
I used to have a copy of The New Zealand Indian cookbook by Linley Scott, probably still in Mum's garage in a box somewhere. I vaguely remember it had some suggestions for adjustments/replacements for ingredients that might prove harder to find in NZ.
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Sausage curry with sultanas and cubed apple was a staple when I was growing up whenever mum felt like cooking something "exotic". I seem to recall the curry powder always being Vencat Curry Powder in the little red plastic pot, but that might be just my memory making things up. Sausage curry and curried eggs (which I still have an enormous soft spot for) were my introduction to curry, but it was my OE in the UK in the late 80s that really fostered the love.
When I was living in Shepherd's Bush, there was a takeaway curry shop under the Metropolitan Line Shepherd's Bush tube station that had a huge board listing all its curries - one section was Chicken, one section was Lamb, and the last section was just "Meat".
There was also a wonderful Nepalese restaurant on Uxbridge Rd that I just about lived in - it was also open before lunchtime on Sundays, so Sunday morning was a trip to the newsagents to buy the Sunday papers (including the appalling tabloids for the lols), then a takeaway curry from the Nepalese place, then back to the flat for brunch/lunch.
I bought a copy of The Curry Club's "Indian Restaurant Cookbook" when I left the UK, and it's been well-used since.
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Terry Pratchett has quite a lot to say about curry in his Discworld books, in all variants from the searing Klatchian curry to the sad swede and raisin echoes. There is a recipe in Nanny Ogg's Cookbook which is classic Anglo inauthentic curry.
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Ben Chapman, in reply to
I remember that, and have been known to make it (usually with whole meat rather than sausages though). I was always under the impression it was a South African variant on curry although I have no idea why I think that.
Speaking of South African curry variants. During the World Cup, there was a South African food fair in central Wellington. One of the stalls was selling 'bunny chow', which although it was only described as curry with bread, I thought I would give it a try – probably because of the awesome name. The woman serving me took a small loaf of bread and cut a piece off. I was assuming then that I would get some curry with that piece of bread. But instead she hollowed out the loaf and poured the curry into that. So I left the stall with a loaf of bread brimful with curry. Nice enough, but big enough to feed a family.
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Che Tibby, in reply to
curried eggs (which I still have an enormous soft spot for) were my introduction to curry
BOOM. that was mine too. i had completely forgotten.
i very first job (1982) involved peeling and halving boiled eggs, scooping the yolk out, mixing it with powder and mayonaisse, and piping back into the whites for display with a wee sprig of parsley.
this was then placed on a tray for display with the rest of the smorgasbord.
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I have my mother’s recipe book – the one into which she stuck clippings or copied out recipes for things she really fancied. And I really wish it had dates in it, because it’s a fascinating culinary record from someone who grew up in a farming family in the thirties and could remember the first time she used garlic. It goes back to at least the seventies, but I’m pretty sure further than that too.
There’s a recipe for kedgeree that has no seasoning in it. It’s just rice, egg and fish. At the start of the meat section there’s a recipe for “curry”, which is the British “stew with curry powder in it” version, and cooks for hours with coconut, sultanas, an apple and a banana in the stew.
Several pages further on, though, there is this recipe for “Indian Curry”, where the spice is actually fried.
So there’s that change, right between Chicken a la King, and a daring recipe for Ke Si Ming that involves a tin of beans and peas and a packet of chicken noodle soup.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
At the start of the meat section there’s a recipe for “curry”, which is the British “stew with curry powder in it” version, and cooks for hours with coconut, sultanas, an apple and a banana in the stew.
Fruit in curries was quite clearly a thing. Like Susannah, I wonder if there’s some connection with the sweet, fruity curries of the South African Cape.
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Deborah, in reply to
All of those recipes are pure gold, Ross.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Fruit in curries was quite clearly a thing.
It's the consistency of the banana after being cooked for long enough to tenderise stewing steak that freaks me out. It might not be as bad as I imagine. Sometimes I contemplate cooking my way through this book, but I'm just too damn scared.
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It occurs to me that I've really just made up my own sausage curry recipe.
It goes like this:
Barbecue or fry your sausages (preferably good-quality chicken ones) and leave to cool enough to slice up into bite-size pieces.
Fry onions, garlic and a little fresh ginger with some curry powder (the curry powder you can buy from the dry-goods shelves of a vege story will be fresher and better than what you get at the supermarket).
Gradually add canned tomatoes or passata while stirring the onions. Keep stirring and top up with boiling water or stock, which should bring up the sauce nicely. Tip in the sliced sausages.
Add sliced carrot, chickpeas or more tomato as you see fit. Cook slowly for a while. Serve and eat with rice or over potatoes. Nom.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Fruit in curries was quite clearly a thing. Like Susannah, I wonder if there’s some connection with the sweet, fruity curries of the South African Cape.
Or with the various raitas one eats with curry? I've had banana and coconut raita with various types of curry and it's pretty seriously tasty - the sweetness of the banana and creaminess of the yoghurt cut the intense curry flavour in a great way. C.f. also mango and lime chutneys and pickles. Eating fruit *with* curry is widespread in South Asian cuisine; apparently the British just missed the step where you don't cook it *in* the main meal...
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Ok I'm going to do it. I can't believe no one else knows about it, but I can't let this thread go by without mentioning Shubh in sandringham road. It's a curry kitchen. Sell punnets and trays of the best vegetarian Indian curry for the tiniest amount of money. Also amazing chapati and other breads.
They've now got a kitchen in Onehunga too, I think.
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Ben Chapman, in reply to
Eating fruit *with* curry is widespread in South Asian cuisine; apparently the British just missed the step where you don’t cook it *in* the main meal…
Putting fruit in curry is perhaps not all that common in South Asian food, but it certainly isn't unknown. Both mango and banana are used in curries. Admittedly, they are likely to be unripe, which perhaps puts them on the other side of the culinary fruit–vegetable divide.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Ok I’m going to do it. I can’t believe no one else knows about it, but I can’t let this thread go by without mentioning Shubh in sandringham road. It’s a curry kitchen. Sell punnets and trays of the best vegetarian Indian curry for the tiniest amount of money. Also amazing chapati and other breads.
Yes. Owned by the same people as the excellent Khyber Spice a few doors along, I think.
Excellent value, but I don't shop there as often as I used to. We started to find the curries a bit too salty and sometimes oily.
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Lachlan Forsyth, in reply to
This really is an excellent post, thanks Russell. Greatly enjoying it!
You’re bang on, Rebecca. Shubh has lovely samosas, which used to make for a most satisfying walk home after jumping off at the bus stop immediately outside the shop. The curried carrot, pea and potato, wrapped up in a warm chappati, is delicious too.
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Sacha, in reply to
and a damn nice palak paneer
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Admittedly, they are likely to be unripe, which perhaps puts them on the other side of the culinary fruit–vegetable divide.
Yeah, it's not quite the same thing as sultanas or ripe banana - different flavour profile entirely.
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Lachlan Forsyth, in reply to
I'm glad Russell also mentioned Satya. I previously lived just around the corner from the Sandringham Rd joint and would regularly take out of town visitors there.
They'd wander past the kitchens and look at the hangings on the ceiling and wonder what strange little cavern I'd dragged them into.
Then they'd pop a dahi puri in their mouths, the flavours would hit their palate, their eyes would glaze over a little, then they'd silently nod and reach for the next delicious morsel...
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I've just had the most intense memory/craving for the curry my Dad used to make when I was small and we were hippies. Hard boiled eggs and a mildish tomato and onion curry sauce atop a pile of brown rice.
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Geoff Lealand, in reply to
It wasn't No. 58 by chance? Our friends Deb and Andrew live there.
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Whew just got back from holiday in time for this thread.
You can buy goat at the Aussie butcher opposite Mt Roskill Grammar, the section is bigger than the lamb section.
As for curries, I grew up eating my mother's version of the Indonesian foods she grew up on - none of them strictly curries but I got used to hot food. We love butter chicken, yes it is anything but authentic but it is possible to make a good one and it's a good measure of a curry house. If they take the time to make the butter chicken good then chances are their own house specialty curries will be good too.
We make our own version following Heston Blumenthal's "perfect chicken tikka" recipe. He went to India to figure how it should be made and yeah there isn't anything like it in India but it is based on some real themes. The recipe takes 3 full days of cooking and requires you to turn your BBQ into a tandoor-like oven. The chicken gets marinated twice before cooking in your "tandoor" followed by the assembling of the curry using spice mixes you grind and prepare yourself. The recipe usually requires a trip to Sandringham. The last batch we shared with friends but the ate so much of it we hardly had any to freeze away :(.
One thing cooking like that taught me is the value of time in curries. They always taste better the next day, the flavours just need time to meld together and nothing can replace that.
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