An Australian eats Indian food in London

Some time in November 2008, there was an article in the Time Out newsletter about foodie walks in London. Some of them were extortionately expensive at around 80 pounds, but I noticed an Indian Food Walk for a bargain 10 pounds for two hours. I reserved a couple of places, but as the snow fell in London this week, wondered if wandering around outside for two hours was the wisest thing to be doing in February. That being said, it ended up being a cold but beautiful sunny day - perfect for journeying out to Southall in distant West London to meet with Monisha Bharadwaj, our guide for the day. Monisha has had a fabulous, envy-inspiring foodie career - she does cookery classes, has written books, been on TV - and she was a lovely host.

We started off by venturing into Quality Foods, a huge Indian supermarket, where we learnt about some interesting Indian vegetables, such as bitter Gourd and saw some things you rarely see, such as fresh turmeric. We spent some time in the spice aisle, where I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of these spices we can get at our local Finsbury Supermarket! Monisha advised us that for the majority of Indian cooking, we should only need seven spices - ground cumin, cumin seeds, ground coriander, chilli, turmeric, black mustard seeds and garam masala. Certainly makes it seem less intimidating! It was interesting to see the massive bulk quantities available at this supermarket - no 500g packets of Basmati here!

After spending some time in the supermarket, we continued on, stopping to watch naan being made in a tandoor (and sampling it - yum! Crispy and light, not heavy and oily like a lot of naan) and to sample some Punjabi Chai tea, which was pink (!) and very sweet and milky. We also sampled some Indian sweets (not sure about them) and had the opportunity to sample pan, which I wasn't really keen to try. Judging from the faces and comments of those who did, I don't think I missed out - this one definitely goes down as an 'acquired taste'.

It was a really interesting experience and a place I would otherwise never have visited. One of the things I really love about London are these pockets of different cultures. You can experience completely different ways of living without leaving the city.

After the tour, we wandered around for a while and eventually stopped at the Glassy Junction pub - the first pub in the UK to accept rupees - and apparently it still does! After a couple of Cobras, we headed to Madhu's Indian Restaurant. I had never heard of this restaurant, but it looked lovely and the menu looked good. Googling it now, it seems to be quite famous and I can definitely understand why. We started with some poppadums, which came with the UK Indian restaurant standard of condiments (a good one that we could adopt in Australian Indian restaurants!). These were the best condiments I had ever had - spicy and tasty mango chutney, a chilli type sauce reminiscent of property barbecue sauce and a green minty paste (I don't know what these were). Across the board, very good.

We shared a starter of Paneer Cheese patties with spinach - light and crispy, these were a reasonable starter, but not necessary in retrospect. Without these, we may have had more room for our mains of Chicken Makhni (Butter Chicken essentially) and Keema Mutter (lamb mince with peas) with rice, peshwari naan and raita. I often find that curries can tend to be either too oily or move past spice into just heat. These curries both had a small amount of heat, but actually had real spice flavour. The unadorned accompaniments of plain basmati rice and raita that was really just natural yoghurt were also a welcome change and helped to put the focus - rightly so - on the curries. While the curries were excellent, it was the naan that was the true star. Always the measure of an Indian restaurant for me, the peshwari naan here was like none I had had before. Sweet from the fruit and coconut, light and crispy bread texture . . . . my mouth is watering now just thinking about it! We washed all this down with a pleasant lemony Pouilly Fume from the Loire, quite similar to a Pinot Grigio.

While Madhu's was fractionally more expensive than most Indian restaurants, it was worth it in every way. Service was excellent - the staff actually talked to you! - and the food was outstanding. The only downside for us, is that it is such a long way away :(

Miss January - Sausages with lentils

My calendar this year is just a freebie that came with the December Delicious magazine. January's dish of Venison Sausages with Lentils enticed me all January, so with only a few days to go, I decided to give it ago. The lentils were rich and tasty from the beef stock but the Venison Sausages (I'm afraid these were from Sainsburys - my local butcher doesn't sell venison sausages) were quite dry. Mine didn't look quite as good as the picture, unfortunately.

The lovely fresh figs we had for dessert, simply cooked with brown sugar and served with cream, were as good as a picture though. Mmmmm.... figs .....

A new seafood shop in Finsbury Park

I absolutely love the food shopping in my immediate local area. I almost feel a bit smug at the moment - the TV is packed with famous chefs telling you to support your local businesses, shop local etc etc, and we do about 90% of our food shopping within about 800m of our flat! We do have some brilliant places - Highbury Butchers, Whites Fruit & Vegetables, Da Mario Italian Deli, La Fromagerie cheese shop, Highbury Vintners wine shop, Finsbury Supermarket (which has everything and more that a big supermarket would have except for liquid stock, crumpets and vegemite - so that is pretty much what I buy from Sainsburys). The service is so friendly, they know who we are, it is quick, pleasant, well-priced, plenty of choice and as an added bonus - local. The one thing we were missing was seafood.

But a few weeks ago, a seafood shop opened up on Seven Sisters Road, so the area is now complete. Despite being from Queensland, I've never cooked a huge amount with seafood and am defnitely not confident with whole fish. Most of the fish at this shop is displayed whole and while I'm certain the lovely man there would fillet it for me, I decided it was time to branch out and try a whole fish. He gave us two whole trout for 5 pounds, which I thought was pretty good and I decided to make Pancetta-wrapped trout (although I used the excellent smoked streaky bacon from Highbury Butchers instead of pancetta) served with beans and almonds - pretty classic combination. I think it looked quite impressive, but I do find whole fish difficult to eat and somehow a bit dissatisfying in the end.

Completely satisfying though was the Spicy Prawns with Chickpeas served with flatbread, lime wedges and natural yoghurt. We had also bought a 1 kg bag of frozen raw prawns for 8 pounds, which we divided into three lots. We used the first lot to make this delcious spicy tomato prawn meal, which made enough for dinner for 2 and lunch for me the next day. Pretty good value, I think!

So thanks to the lovely fish man for opening his fish shop - the local shopping here is complete and I'm looking forward to experimenting with more seafood dishes.

Homemade chutney

One of the things I love about being in London in Winter is that the cold weather does inspire you to cook things that take a long time. Having the stove on for hours helps to heat the flat and as we are spending so much time in the flat, you can afford to hang around while a big pot bubbles on the stove for 2 or 3 hours.

So I've been thinking about making a chutney now for a few weeks. It does sound terribly English, doesn't it! I've been collecting jars as we finish using them and finally a couple of weeks ago, started looking for a recipe. There are a lot of different variations, so the choice was tricky. In the end, I chose one that suggested you could eat the chutney pretty much straight away, but it would also keep. A lot of them recommended storing the chutney for 1-3 months before eating it. I couldn't wait that long!

So on that basis - and because it did sound good - I chose this Pear and Apple chutney from the UKTV food website. Spread out on the bench, it did seem to be quite a lot of ingredients and had probably added up to 10 pounds, so I was hoping it turned out okay! A lot of chopping later, my biggest pot was full to the brim with lovely looking ingredients - how could all these ingredients result in something that wasn't good?? It took about an hour to come to a simmer (and we gave up and turned up the heat and put on a lid to get it there!) and then let it simmer for an hour and a half. It was still quite liquid-y after this time, but otherwise tasted good. The chutney made six jars full of varying sizes as well as a good-sized portion that we had for dinner with some honey-roasted ham, provolone cheese, Poilane sourdough bread, grapes and red wine. A delicious version of a ploughmans. Lucky we liked it, because it made a lot! I think there is something to the bitey cheddar with chutney, so along with smoked ham, I think that will be the next ploughmans . . . and the one after . . . and the one after . . .

An un-Australian Australia Day

So the plan was to meet at the Temple Walkabout for a few Aussie beverages to celebrate Australia Day. For the record, I'm really not a fan of the Walkabout - it is either only attractive to yahoos or brings out the yahoo in people who go there. But we didn't have any other plans, so on a cold, rainy London Sunday (particularly un-Australian weather!), we made our way to Temple only to find that the people we were supposed to meet weren't there. But I did enjoy my TED (Toohey's Extra Dry - we do have good lager in Australia (except for Fosters, which no Australian in Australia would ever drink. Do they even sell it there?)).

So as the Australia Day plans were aborted, we decided to seek alternative entertainments. Only the previous day, I had been reading about Gordon's Wine Bar - apparently the oldest wine bar in London (established in 1890) and a London institution, but one I hadn't heard of. I was not entirely sure where it was, but recalled it being somewhere in the neighbourhood of Temple/Charing Cross. We did finally happen across it and very tentatively entered a more than slightly dodgy looking doorway just next to Charing Cross station. If I hadn't read about it, I certainly would never have gone in! But through the tiny doorway and down the steep and narrow staircase were the underground caves of Gordon's Wine Bar. Awesome! The focus is on sherrys and ports in barrels, but they also have quite a good wine list (an Indian Cab Sav anyone?). By sheer luck, we managed to get a table in the candlelit cave (it was very dark, so unfortunately, the photos are quite dark) and started with a glass of Concha y Toro Cab Sav from Chile and a Hazy View South African Pinotage. Both were quite similar and perhaps less gutsy than anticipated. Gordons also has an impressive cheese selection and for a reasonable 7.60 we got a beautifully ripe Camembert and a stinky washed rind Irish cheese (not sure what it was called), along with half a baguette and some pickles. The cheeses were exactly the right temperature and the whole experience was very rustic and authentic feeling! Not wanting to leave so soon, we also enjoyed a glass of Bordeaux (just gutsy enough) and a Fat Bastard Bourgogne (very mild even for a Pinot, despite the name!).

The whole experience was fantastic - I will definitely be going back and would take anyone who came to visit London. It was probably the least Australian, but most 'London' thing we could have done on Australia Day in London.