Are you struggling to get the consistency and taste of the restaurant curries when you cook your own at home? Take a step closer to that delicious restaurant taste by using butter Ghee rather than vegetable or cooking oil. You’ll notice the taste difference immediately. As well as the taste, ghee, a type of clarified butter, has a high smoke point, which makes it ideal for cooking spices.
Tag: Indian food
Curry tip 1
Are you fed up with the same old menu choices when you go out for a curry? Ask the waiter if you can try the Kitchen Curry (the curry the chef will have cooked for the staff to eat when the night’s work is over). This is unlikely to be a dish you will find on the menu; it’s most probably a dish from the home region of the chef and it will be different every day. There’s not always some spare but if there is then most restaurants are usually more than happy for you to try the dish.
Lightly spiced
Lee Raj, Blackpool
There are so many food options in Blackpool town centre and along the Golden Mile that when a local recommends somewhere beyond the lights it’s worth taking note.
Lee Raj is only just beyond the lights in fact, only a short walk from Starrs Gate, the last tram stop on the south shore. It’s quite disconcerting leaving the flashing lights behind after a couple of days, like you’re heading into no-man’s land, but it’s a welcome relief too, to get back to some sort of normality.
This is a neighbourhood restaurant serving locals very good food. It’s under new management and the service is efficient and very friendly. It’s got a long and comprehensive list of choices, many of which were new to me so the waiter received more than the usual amount of queries about how dishes are cooked and their origins. It’s Bangladeshi run so there are some nice specialities from there, such as Biran Mas (£8.50) a dish of lightly spiced fish, but there is food from many regions, including Sri Lanka, which is forgotten on many menus.
Shatkora is a citrus fruit that is used in Bangladeshi cooking. If you like lime pickle you’ll like this, although it has a sharper and cleaner bite on the tongue than the pickle tray favourite. Shathkora Torkar (chicken at £7.40) it was then. Fantastically sharp, the chef used nice big chunks in the dish. Other times I’ve tried this dish chefs seemed a bit afraid of the fruit and its taste was hard to discern. I was delighted that this chef pushed the use of the fruit to the limit. If you order something you want to taste it, not go searching about in the sauce.
Because of the distinctive taste of shathkora I went for plain pilau rice (£2.30) to avoid a taste clash, but a couple of chapatis (£1.30 each) or a plain nan (£2.30) would work equally as well.
Lee Raj, 23 Squires gate, Blackpool, FY4 1SN. Tel: 01253 401800/406300
Scores on the tandoors
Food 9
Decor 8
Service and friendliness 9
Atmosphere 7 (Friday evening)
Value 8
Kofta smofta
Clifton, London, E14
It’s a famous name but sadly this attractive looking restaurant just outside Canary Wharf rarely seems to have more than a handful of people in it. The times when it does have customers it’s rammed to the brim for parties and this appears to be how it thrives.
The original Clifton Café opened in the 1950s in Brick Lane and became famous for continuing to serve authentic curries as others around it pandered to the tastes of Western palates. Its current incarnation opened nearby in 2005. The E14 branch is large, and together with its sister shop next door, which sells everything a curry lover wants, creates a significant Clifton footprint in the Westferry Road.
The two restaurants continue to fly the flag of authenticity so it seemed the decent thing to order one of the regional specialities of Bangladesh. The Tetul Tanga Bujon (£7.95) promised koftas in a sweet and sour sauce and I went for the chicken version on the waiter’s recommendation. It was the most sweet sour sauce I have ever had in an Indian restaurant that’s for sure and pretty tasty. But where were the koftas? The chicken was nice enough but they were chunks not meatballs.
“That’s the way we do that dish,” I was told with a smile. “But it’s cooked in kofta sauce.” Kofta sauce? Authentic I hope.
The starters were served on round thali trays, which was a nice touch. The Cauliflower Pakora (£2.25) came with salad and sauces, as did the Lamb Chops (£4.95). Oh, the Lamb Chops. Huge, beautifully spiced and tender lamb, with edges slightly charred in the tandoor.
Clifton, 32 Westferry Road, London E14 8LW. Tel: 020 7987 0600 or 020 7001 2999. E-mail: info@cliftonrestaurant.co.uk
Scores on the tandoors
Food 6.5
Decor 8
Service and friendliness 8.5
Atmosphere 6 (Monday evening)
Value 7
We cook curry!
Lahore, SE10
Spice World at 101 Trafalgar Road in Greenwich, the on-the-face-of-it chicken shop, has rebranded itself as Lahore so people realise it makes decent curry (it really does). There is the full range of curries from the classic favourites to a good selection of specials (including Green Curry and Chicken Rajeshwani) but the lunch specials catch the eye. A ready-made selection of three curries (Lamb, Chicken or Meatball when I visited) comes with rice for just £4.50. There is also dal and a vegetable curry available. Fried chicken, pizzas and kebabs are still on the menu but this is now firmly in the curry camp.
The world’s best curry
McCain’s, Goa, India
This is it. This is the best curry I have ever tastest.
The narrow-fronted McCain’s can be found wedged between bars and shops in the busy Tito’s Lane in Baga, north Goa. It’s so unassuming it would be easy to miss (one person who’s been visiting the area for years and was staying within metres of McCain’s had never heard of it). It’s a simple fast-food style joint with benches and stools along both walls, while at the back, behind a glass screen, hang skewers of bright red, marinated tandoori, while other staff beaver away over the tawas. It’s always packed.
Service is superb and no matter how full it seems to be a bit of space and seats appear magically as soon as the staff see you enter. Why a swankier restaurant has not snapped up the staff, some of whom have been here a fair while, is a mystery.
Kolhapuri is a dish that comes from the city of Kolhapur to the north of Goa in Maharashtra, so it’s not a local dish, but it’s certainly a favourite in this tiny Indian state. Most recipes include coconut and there is often a giant chilli glistening away in the sauce. It’s a rich, hot and vibrantly coloured dish that is hard to stop eating, even when your stomach has had enough.
The Chicken Kolhapuri (Rs 120) certainly can’t be faulted, with the perfectly cooked chunks of off-the-bone meat, but this is really best as a vegetable dish. People of a certain age would text their friends ‘OMG’ at the first mouthful. As hot as a Vindaloo, as moreish as Tikka Masala, and as fresh as a Balti, the Vegetable Kolhapuri (Rs 100) is a dish that has it all. Packed with potato, cauliflower, carrots, beans and paneer, I was soon piling up huge spoonfuls of the tasty, onion and tomato gravy onto the Mushroom rice (Rs 100) and tucking in. If you’re a mopper-upper type of eater then rotis come in at Rs 10. Either way, you will eat it and want more.
* At the time of the visit £1 = Rs 85, $1 = Rs 54.
McCain’s Fast Food, Tito’s Lane, Baga, Goa 403 516, India. Tel: +91 9823 196848. Open: till 7am in season.
McCain’s snapshot
Food 🔟
Decor 3⃣
Value 🔟
Atmosphere (late weekday) 7⃣
Service and friendliness 9⃣
The Royal Curry Club 