Is there really a curry crisis?

All right, it's in Keighley!

This is Bradford, Britain’s undisputed curry capital and home to a bewildering range of restaurants serving Asian food. From Prasad’s exceptional vegetarian food through a range of decent quality mid-market curry houses to the classic providers of the mucky curry – the Sweet Centre on Lumb Lane, the Kashmir, the Karachi and the International all within a spit of each other and close to the University for that critical student market.

Yet some people suggest that the business is struggling:

Analyst Peter Backman, of Horizons FS, says that while the restaurant industry has just stopped growing, the Indian restaurant sector is doing even worse, with profits falling. Pat Chapman, founder of the Curry Club, and author of the Good Curry Guide, notes, "You just instinctively know they are struggling", while Backman adds that he is "increasingly gloomy" about the sector's outlook for the next few years, believing Indian restaurants will "continue to lose share to the rest of the eating out market" if the recession continues.

I’m going to take these guys at their word – after all they’re the experts in these matters. The problems, we’re told, are three-fold:

• The Indian restaurant business hasn’t innovated – everywhere we go there’s the same menu, a seemingly endless list of variations on rogan josh, CTM and balti this and that.
• The children of the industry don’t want to work there preferring other jobs with shorter hours and earlier nights
• The government’s immigration policies mean that the tradition of importing chefs from the sub-continent has broken down and there simply aren’t the chefs to fill the hole

It seems to me that there’s another part of the restaurant business that might provide a lesson for the curry house – the Italian. Just as you’re hard pushed to find a High street without an Indian, every place has its share of Italian restaurants. And these restaurants, on the whole, target exactly the same mid-market customers as do the curry houses. Moreover, the Italian developed a consistent offer (usually presented on a menu slightly bigger than a broadsheet newspaper) with a set of familiar dishes that crop up time and time again.

The secret wasn’t exceptional food but consistency, reliability, friendliness and value. And the good ones thrived and survived. Even in a place like Bradford where the curry house is king there are plenty of Italian restaurants. I don’t doubt that, in these tough times, these restaurants are struggling and that some may go to the wall.

For Bradford – curry central (although unlike most other places Bradford’s curry restaurants are mostly Kashmiri-run rather than Bengali-run) means even more of a challenge for restaurants. And the cannier restaurateurs have stopped trying to cram another sleekly-designed place onto Leeds Road. Instead they look to nearby towns – Omar Khan has opened a new restaurant in Skipton and Shipley’s Aagrah has places at Pudsey, on the A64 near York and at Thornbury.

As to innovation there is some – Jaldi Jaldi, Mumtaz’s fast food chain is interesting and creative, for example – but not in the menu. We are stuck with a false search for authenticity:

Ranjit Mathrani, the chief executive of Masala World, which employs 5,000 people and, among others, owns London's Veerasawamy, the country's oldest surviving Indian restaurant, claims the chef shortage has brought the group's expansion up short as surely as the recession.

The company, he points out, could not use "curry college" chefs, because they only allow chefs to cook dishes from their home regions, he says, so they can offer their customers authentic Indian food.

The proper answer to Ranjit’s problem is to remind him that the curry we eat in Britain is the result of an evolution in the dishes brought here from South Asia. What we need is for some more adventurous chefs and a willingness to cut the classic Asian menu down from its choice of fifty or sixty different main courses.

Perhaps a new generation of home grown chefs – needed because we can’t import them from Mirpur or Sylhet any more – will begin to change the menus again. Or maybe the best Asian family restaurants will take the Italian route and eschew innovation in favour of getting the basics right. And, in the end, success will come to the places that set out an offer people like at a price they can afford with service that makes you feel at home.

There isn't a crisis but a little home grown creativity might not go amiss!

....

Punt e mes - the bittersweet route to a Negroni (and what a web site!)

This arrived. I shall have a happy wife - after all what could be better than the makings for a negroni*, indeed for the classic negroni, one that was superceded by the blandishments of martini rosso.

And who could resist when Punt e mes - point and a half in Piedmontese - have such a truly awesome website. Go there and enjoy the music and the wonderful Italian cheesiness!

*We'll be needing some fine London Gin and a little Campari, of course to complete these makings!

...

Thoughts on comfort food and the making of meatloaf!

While we get excited about the miraculous creations and combinations of the great chefs, when it comes down to reminiscing about food our thoughts don’t turn to great restaurant meals but to those cheap supper dishes mum used to make. I could tell you about a recipe for “hostess supper” that came off the side of a macaroni packet or of ‘spaghetti muck’ a dish of cheese and tomato pasta. These dishes speak of more than taste – although they do taste great. The remind us of family, home, comfort and safety, of those lost days when we were young, happy and pretty carefree.

And it’s not just me who feels this way – I’ve joked often and found agreement that nursery food and food you eat with your hands is the best. We don’t turn to fancy dishes when we’re down but to pizza, to stews, to casseroles and to curry. Frankly we’d rather an egg sarnie or tomatoes on toast. Here’s Antonio Carluccio talking about his mum’s meatloaf:

“I distinctly remember the tremendous satisfaction with which this dish used to appease our appetites when my brothers and I were young. It had two advantages: the sauce in which it was cooked provided an excellent dressing for the pasta which was served up as a first course. Then the meatloaf – cut into slices – appeared as a tasty main course accompanies by peas with ham.”

Your mouth’s watering isn’t it? And you’re thinking of that special dish – whatever it may be! I’ve been making Carluccio’s meatloaf for so long now it has become something of a family special. And how flexible can you get – not just that great tomato sauce but a loaf you can serve hot on a cold winter’s evening or cold with salad in the sunshine of a Summer garden party!

For the meatloaf:

2lb Minced beef
6oz Bread crumbs made from stale bread
2 tablespoons chopped, fresh parsley
2 oz freshly grated parmesan
Salt and black pepper
4 eggs (maybe fewer)
Oil for frying

For the sauce:

1 medium onion, finely chopped
Olive oil
1 Clove garlic
2 cans tomatoes
10 fresh basil leaves
Salt & black pepper

In a large bowl mix the beef, breadcrumbs, parsley and parmesan thoroughly. Add seasoning. Beat the eggs lightly and add to the mixture which should stick together so you can form it into a large oval loaf – a bit like a bread bloomer. In my experience you seldom need all four eggs – the amount depends on how damp the mince is and how dry the breadcrumbs are. I add one egg at a time until the mixture is sticky enough to form a loaf. It’s always an idea to have some extra breadcrumbs to hand in case the mixture gets too sloppy!

In a heavy casserole heat the oil and fry the loaf until it is golden-brown on the outside – take care turning it to avoid it breaking! Set this aside to make the tomato sauce.

In a separate pan, fry the onion and garlic and then add the tomatoes. Cook for 5-10 minutes breaking up the tomatoes and then season and add the basil. Pour this sauce over the meatloaf in the casserole and bring back to the boil. Turn the heat right down and simmer for an hour – it’s best to turn the loaf occasionally during this process to ensure it’s evenly cooked and doesn’t stick. It the sauce is a bit thin, take the lid off the pan for the last 15 minutes to thicken it. Alternatively, the casserole can be cooked in a moderately hot oven for about an hour. There’s no need to turn the meatloaf if it’s cooked this way but you may have to reduce the sauce a little after removing the loaf!

Serve the tomato sauce with good short pasta as a first course Italian-style followed by the loaf – either with peas and ham or any other vegetable! Or refrigerate the loaf and have cold for a great lunch with pickles and salad!

Enjoy!

...

Friday Fungus: The Italian Pasta Rule

Not sure this has an awful lot to do with mushrooms but one of my less embarrassing dark secrets is a youth spent playing simulation wargames - in the days before all this computer malarkey. And the daddy of the WWII games was, of course, Campaign for North Africa - this was the wargame anorak's delight, the single most complex and involved paper wargame ever devised. Let's set aside that it was almost impossible to play - SPI, the designers, said 1,800 hours to complete and I reckon this was an underestimate! The game did detail and without doubt the most important bit of detail - the rule to beat all rules - was the Italian Pasta Rule. Meant as something of a joke (according to dear old Wikipedia) this rule decreed that Italian troops moved slower because they had to carry extra water supplies in order to cook the pasta! Brilliant! Which I guess brings us to spaghetti carbonara - and in this case a version with a mushroom of two added! Carbonara is one of the really classic pasta sauces - simplicity itself: spaghetti, pancetta, garlic, egg. The sort of sauce the charcoal burner could cook in the woods (assuming he'd complied with the pasta rule, of course). I add chestnut mushrooms because they add so much to the woody, smoky bacon sauce. To make carbonara you'll need: Spaghetti (about half a typical pack will stuff two folk) Pancetta (the little cubes are good if you can't find a deli with the real stuff to slice) Clove of garlic 2 eggs Salt & black pepper Half a dozen small chestnut mushrooms Boil salted water and cook the spaghetti (for one minute less than it says on the packet or else it will go all sticky and horrid). While this is happening chop up the pancetta and mushrooms into small cubes and mince the garlic, heat a heavy skillet. Add the pancetta and fry until the fat starts to bleed off then add the garlic and mushrooms, mix thoroughly, turn the heat right down and cover - cook for about five minutes. Beat the eggs with some salt and black pepper. When the pasta is cooked, drain and put back in the hot saucepan immediately. Add the bacom and mushroom sauce and mix thoroughly. Then add the egg and stir with a wooden spoon making sure the egg coats the spaghetti. Serve immediately into very warm (only just hand hot) dishes and eat. ....

Friday Fungus: Tagliatelle con funghi e panchetta

Most of the pasta sauces you get involve mince or some sort plus tomatoes. Now don’t get me wrong I like a nice ragu but you will agree that a change is necessary. So I give you bacon and wild mushroom pasta sauce:

You’ll need:

A load of wild mushrooms (or ordinary ones if you can’t get ‘em wild, we’re not really that fussy)
Cubed pancetta (or bacon lardons which are – whatever the Italians might say – essentially the same thing)
One small red onion (or a couple of those nice red shallots)
Herbs (dried sage is best)
Two glasses of Marsala (one for the sauce and one to drink)
Olive oil
Salt & black pepper

Chop the onion and fry with the pancetta in a heavy bottomed frying pan (with a lid) until the onion is softened and the bacon is just starting to curl. Add the roughly chopped mushrooms (how many times have I told you not to chop them too small), the herbs, salt and pepper. Fry a minute or two and then cover – turn the heat right down and cook for about 5 minutes (while you waiting drink the spare glass of Marsala). Add the other glass of Marsala, turn the heat up and mix thoroughly as the alcohol boils off. Remove from the heat and cover again to keep warm.

You will of course have forgotten to boil some salted water for the pasta, so do this now (and have another glass while you’re waiting or maybe a beer). Cook the pasta – I don’t need to tell you have to do that do I? Mix the sauce into the pasta. If you really, really must add some grated Parmesan or mature pecorino.

Note: On making your own pasta

You’ll need:

Bag of 00 Flour
2 eggs
Olive oil
Salt
A large clean surface (some use marble but I use a large wooden board)
A fork
A sieve

Tip the bag of flour onto the centre of the board and make a dent in the top of the pile (like a volcano).

Break the eggs into the dent and add a little oil, salt & pepper. Swirl the fork round and round in the eggs and flour starting from the middle. Soon you will have gooey lump. Remove this from the pile of flour and set to one side. Sieve the flour back into the bag (adding any stray lumps of goo to the main lump).

Imagine the gooey lump is your worst enemy and treat accordingly (i.e. knead it vigorously). You may want to add a little more flour if it gets too sticky. After about 15-20 mins you should have a smooth dough.

Clean the board & then dust it with flour. Get your long rolling pin and roll out the dough pretty thin (OK if you must you can use that pasta machine at the back of the cupboard). Then roll this gently into a long tube. Slice cross wise at ¼ inch intervals.

Unrolled this is your tagliatelle! Takes about 3 or 4 mins in salted boiling water. Enjoy!

Some thoughts on risotto – and the odd mushroom!

Risotto is one of the most abused dishes in Italian cooking. We use the wrong rice, we bake it rather than cook on the top, we boil it to death and – the worst crime of all – we shove cream or creamy sauces in with the rice.

The secret of good risotto is in the stock. And in the patience to make that stock do its job – soaking into the rice, bringing out the stickiness and creaminess from the grains to make a smooth, filling and flavoursome dish. The meat, vegetables – or even mushrooms – are the added flourish to the main event.

To make a risotto with mushrooms, we start with a mushroom stock:

Dried porcini mushrooms (a small handful)
Chopped shallots (just a couple)
Herbs – whatever you’ve got: parsley, thyme, sage…
Dash of Worcester sauce (soy sauce for veggies)
Salt & pepper

Shove all this in two litres of water and boil for about 15-20 minutes – that’s your stock done – keep it simmering. Now for the cooking bit!

Take a good heavy based saucepan and heat about two tablespoons of olive oil (don’t use the posh stuff – the ordinary late season oil is fine).
Chop a shallot & a clove of garlic and fry with some allspice berries or juniper berries (the soffrito).
Add about 4oz of Arborio rice and mix until the rice is covered with the oil.
Soften with a half glass of marsala (use white wine for chicken risotto).

Now the boring bit! You add the stock one ladleful at a time – keep stirring and letting the stock soak into the rice. When it begins to stick add another ladle of stock and repeat. This takes about 20-25 minutes until the rice is al dente – cooked but retaining some bite, not sloppy (it’s not a rice pudding we’re making).

While you’re cooking the rice prepare the mushrooms – they’re best fresh, roughly chopped and salted before cooking. Heat up a heavy skillet or similar with some oil. Add the mushrooms to the hot oil and fry for a minute or two then remove from the heat and cover. The mushrooms will continue to cook without going slimy.

When the rice is all but cooked add the mushrooms and another small dash of marsala – serve into a warm dish and shave some parmesan onto the top. Serve with a big, bold bottle (or three) of red wine.