Curry For Change Khaadraas Club

Cafe Spice Namaste, the iconic restaurant run by "Incredible Spiceman" Cyrus Todiwala and "Keema Nan" Pervin Todiwala has, for several years run the Khaadraas Club. A monthly celebration of their Parsi Indian culinary heritage, the usual menu is suspended for one night and replaced by a variety of dishes loved and cooked by the Zoroastrian community of India, all for a fixed price per head with drinks extra. Tables are shared between parties, to encourage people to talk to others for an informal and friendly feel. I had been meaning to go for a while, but never quite gotten round to it. But when I heard that September's Khaadraas Club would be a fundraiser for my favourite little charity with a big impact, Find Your Feet, I was sold! I have long supported Find Your Feet's Curry For Change fundraising campaign, as regular readers will know.

Cyrus, for this Khaadraas Club drafted in another Curry For Change champion, Romy Gill, whose restaurant Romy's Kitchen near Bristol, serves food reflecting her Punjabi family heritage and experience of living in West Bengal. The menu, shared between Cyrus and Romy sounded like a wonderful variety of Indian regional food. 

In case you are wondering, "Khaadraas" is a Parsi word, used affectionately to refer to a food lover of great enthusiasm. It translates literally as "greedy pig" but isn't quite as nasty a phrase as in the English language. The Parsis do not believe in fasting, and have a strong belief of enjoying life, but in a spirit of generosity and joy. Being a "greedy pig" is part of that enjoyment of life. 

Cafe Spice Namaste agreed to donate a proportion of the money received from each diner to Find Your Feet. But that wasn't all, a charity raffle was operated by those lovely people at Find Your Feet with some wonderful prized donated by some of their kind, generous supporters.

The prizes were:

The Sirocco cookbook of Persian recipes by Sabrina Ghayour

A food hamper from Natco foods including several spices, rice and dal to get you making your own curry creations

A 1960s vintage silver plated serving tray, fabulous for tea and cakes

A handmade cashmere pashmina from Nepal in midnight blue

A Cocoa Hernando luxury chocolate selection box

A Chin’s Kitchen Nankhati (Indian shortbread) box

A spirits set of Pickerings Gin and Zubrowka vodka

Dinner for two at Chit Chaat Chai

To begin with, we had Saria and Achar, Parsi corn (maize) poppadoms with homemade chutney and spicy pickle. 
 

The poppadoms were crispy, crunchy, cracky and complimented the tangy tamarindy flavoured chutney and darky hot spicy pickle very well. Sweet, sour, heat and spice made this pre-dinner snack moreish and tempting. 

The starters were next.... Chollar Dal, keema breaded kofte and Bombay style bread roll. 

 
Chollar dal is a lentil soup of chana dal (Bengal gram) cooked in Bengali style with coconut and spices. Like true Bengali cooking, it has a hint of heat, derived from chilli, warmth from spices and a touch of sweetness. It was authentic and delicious. The cute little lamb kofte was crumbly, meaty with a touch of crumb-filled crunch. The Bombay style bread roll is the kind of bread made famous in the iconic Chowpatty beach dish Vada Pau, a soft and slightly sweet sourdough bread. All the facets come together beautifully.

The second course; Kolmi Purr Eedu and Mung Bean Noodle Salad.

Kolmi Purr Eedu is a Parsi dish requiring a little bit of explanation. The base is made from chopped prawns cooked in chopped red onions, spices and crushed tomatoes. On top of this is a whole egg which is cooked in a very interesting way. It is initially fried, but in an ingenious twist, it is deep fried in eight inches of oil. The egg is dropped in the hot oil, and immediately, sticks are used to spin the egg in the oil. As a result, the egg keeps a spherical shape, with the yolk in the heart of the egg. This means the outer part of the egg coagulates, but the inside remains soft. I'm slowly getting used to eating eggs, having discovered I no longer react badly to them (mild allergy), and so perhaps I am not the best person to review this dish. I prefer soft eggs to hard ones, so I enjoyed the rich, liquidy yolk with the prawn base and the less cooked part of the white. Everyone on my table scoffed the entire egg, so my reluctance to eat the fully cooked parts of the egg white is just my own personal vagary. Please forgive me, Cyrus. I am sure as time goes by I will become more used to eating eggs. 

The Mung Bean Noodle salad is a recipe taken on by Parsis living in Myanmar (Burma); mung bean lentils, ground into flour and extruded into noodles, cooked until tender, then tossed in finely chopped ingredients: fried garlic, chili, onion, cucumber, spring onions, coriander leaf, fresh mint, dressed in a curry leaf lime dressing and topped with chopped roasted peanuts. I want this recipe. Seriously. It would make a fantastic noodle salad for taking to work for lunch. It lasted seconds, I scoffed it so quickly!

Main course; Cauliflower and cabbage stir fry and Butter chicken with pilau rice

The vegetables were cooked lightly with a touch of whole spice. This would make a great accompaniment to a Sunday roast, if only I could manage to re-create this at home. This dish reminded me of the South Indian vegetable dish Thoran, as the veggies retain their texture and nutrients with the wonderful spices bringing flavour rather than heat.

Butter chicken is a traditionally Punjabi dish many of us have had the good luck of encountering in the UK. Southall in West London in particular, is a great place to get good butter chicken. Romy's butter chicken was marinaded in garlic, ginger, Kashmiri chili and spices before being cooked in the Tandoor oven. It was then served up in a rich tomato and cashew nut sauce with methi. It was indulgent, velvety, spicy and gorgeous. 

Desserts: Paav Maakhaan Nu Pudding and Kesarwali Chawal Ni Kheer

On the right is a Parsi bread and butter pudding with pistachio and a little bit of spice. Bread and butter pudding is too often seen as a old fashioned dessert, out of favour compared to macarons and panna cottas of this world. It may be honest and frugal, having been made of leftover bread, but this is a tasty contradiction of sumptuousness and lightness, indulgence without heaviness. Whilst the bread and butter pudding is a fusion of east and west, the kheer is a traditional Indian pudding. English rice pudding originated in India, but the original Indian dish is more generous on the thickened, home condensed milk in comparison to the rice. Here the rice has been broken to make smaller pieces cooked with a little "bite" remaining, just a little over al dente. The milk is sweet, scented and gently flavoured with saffron. Topped with chopped almonds and chopped pistachios, the dessert is fragrant, sweet, flavourful and reminiscent of my childhood. Just wonderful.

Turns out I didn't win anything in the raffle. Not a sausage. But I don't mind one bit. I had a superb meal, met great new people with interesting stories to tell and had a great night. Not only that, but the raffle and donations raised £567.81 in all, which will be doubled by a matched donation by the key Curry For Change sponsor, Natco foods. This makes a grand total of £1135.62. Not bad work for a bunch of greedy pigs!

If you want to find out more about Curry For Change 2016, which will be continued to the end of the year, please check this: http://www.curryforchange.org.uk/

Snigdha and Him Indoors paid via the plastic fantastic for their meal and drinks. Snigdha mugged Him Indoors for cash for her raffle tickets. This review represents Snigdha's honest views. Snigdha has received no incentive for writing this review. It's for charity, readers. I'm not shabby like that!

Cyrus Todiwala Talks Turkey: Turkey Tikka recipe by the Incredible Spice Man

Have you been watching BBC TV’s current cooking programme “The Incredible Spice Men”? I certainly have! It’s been wonderful watching Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL, the renowned chef at London’s Café Spice Namaste and Tony Singh, the kilt wearing Chef-Director of Oloroso and Tony’s Table in Edinburgh, travel round the country doing what they do best: cook. Their mission is simply to enhance and bring a modern twist to classic British dishes by adding spice. The recipes have been innovative, look fantastic and are both achievable and simple, the different landscapes of Britain have been delightful… And then there is the interaction between Cyrus and Tony; jocular, fun, warm and genuinely friendly. 

I have seen Cyrus give a cooking demonstration before at the Real Food Festival on London’s South Bank (writeup can be found here: http://snigskitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/real-food-festival-2012-28th-30th-sept.html) So it will be no surprise that I was delighted when I was invited to Café Spice Namaste to a British Turkey Masterclass. Cyrus’ love of great British produce has been evident during the Spice Men series, and his mission for the evening was to convince us that turkey is for more than just Christmas dinner.

I was sceptical, but happy to put myself in the hands of such a talented chef and show a little trust. My experiences of dry and bland turkey at Christmas had put me off using turkey in my home cooking. Cyrus was going to have an uphill task convincing me that I could make fabulous, spicy, flavourful meals with turkey!

Snigdha meets Cyrus

Cyrus prepared a number of ingenious creations combining spicing, marinading and currying techniques. He showed us how to make several dishes during the course of the evening, ranging from slow cooked curries, omelettes, and masalas.

Snigdha meets Mrs Todiwala - the lovely Pervin

The Khari Gurdun dish demonstrated how the neck of the turkey can be slow cooked in a casserole or curry sauce base to become tender and tasty. Because the neck has such well developed muscle, it is seen as being tough and chewy, meaning it is often discarded. This was an eye-opener for me, since as we head into Autumn and Winter, I like to change my cooking style to more comforting braised and slow cooked dishes, and Khari Gurdun is just the sort of food I crave in the grey cold weather.

Khari Gurdun

Cyrus made a very quick turkey liver spicy stir fry, a sort of dry curry. The turkey livers themselves are quite strong flavoured, so this would be a good dish to serve in small quantity to give a different texture and mood to an overall meal.

Cyrus demonstrated two types of dish using turkey eggs. One was a simple omelette with lots of coriander, tomato, spring onion and spice, the other more substantial type of scrambled egg dish, containing marinaded strips of turkey.

 

Here is the simple omelette:

Here is Cyrus making the turkey strip scrambled egg stir fry:

The finished dish:

We had some minced turkey koftas:

Trio of turkey starters

The three dishes were:

A turkey sheek kavaab omelette roll (turkey minced with fresh ginger, garlic, chillies and spices formed over a skewer, chargrilled and served rolled in a turkey egg omelette)

Mini turkey masala pie (diced turkey cooked with chopped shallots, tomato and spices, filled in mini pastry cases)

Bhuna turkey dosa (rice and lentil pancake filled with diced turkey cooked in a traditional Bhuna masala)

Turkey chilli fry

Turkey strips, tossed in typical Goan style with sliced shallot, spring onion, chilli, ginger and garlic with cumin in a light sauce

 

Potato dosa bhajee

A simple South Indian style potato preparation flavoured with cracked mustard seeds, white lentils and curry leaves. 

Gently spiced but not bland, this would be a wonderful filling in a masala dosa. It would also be a colourful accompaniment to sausages if you wanted to serve an Indianised Bangers N Mash!

Leeli Kolmi Ni Curry

Light green curry with fresh coconut and cashew nuts simmered with sustainably sourced Red Sea king prawns.

Saffron ginger and cardamom crème brulee and fresh fruit salad cup

Just as the Incredible Spice Men have spiced up British classics, here Cyrus has spiced up a typically French dessert. Simply delicious!

The dishes I had were all so tasty, that I left Café Spice Namaste completely stuffed. Some dishes were ones that I had to have second helpings of…. Cyrus was only too pleased to let me have some more. Although he did have the audacity to comment with a cheeky “Madam, your size is somewhat misleading, it belies your appetite!”

One of the treats we sampled was a trio of “turkey tikkas” – marinaded and grilled cubes of turkey. Cyrus was kind enough to allow me to share the recipe of one of them with you. 

You will want to try this recipe, it was moist, flavourful and delightful. It is simple and nothing about it is difficult – you just have to remember to marinade the turkey overnight.

Cyrus Todiwala’s Turkey Tikka

Ingredients

800g British turkey breast                          

¼ tsp Turmeric Powder

Salt & Pepper to taste (white pepper powder is best)

                       

150g Plain yoghurt                                                 

40g Ginger                                       

4-5 cloves Garlic                                         

½ tsp Cumin Powder                                  

½ tsp Coriander Powder                

½ tsp Red Chilli Powder                

2 tbsp Lime Juice                            

½ tsp Garam Masala Powder                    

2 tbsp Sunflower Oil           

Knob of Butter for basting 

Method

1. Cut the turkey breast into “Tikka’s” or cubes large enough to be skewered roughly 1 ½” X 1 ½”.

2. Rub salt, pepper and turmeric into the meat and set aside in the refrigerator.

3. In a blender add all the other ingredients and half the yoghurt and blend to a smooth paste.

4. When all the spices are mixed in well, remove to a bowl and whisk in the remaining yoghurt.

5. Check here for spice levels to suit your requirements. Add more chilli only if you so desire.

6. Mix in the turkey well.

7. The marinated turkey is best set aside overnight in the refrigerator or at least four to five hours.

8. The cooking process now can be two fold.  The tikka can either be chargrilled on the barbecue or under the grill and finished in the oven.

9. Either way it needs to be basted for that juicy appearance.

10. Under the grill if wishing to cook right through ensure that the grill is not too high and that the meat is on a wire mesh with a drip tray below.

11. Only if there is no option use a very hot oven at around 190 to 200 degrees C

12. The Tikka’s will cook well in approximately in eight to ten minutes. Turn them once over if you like for an all-round colour.

I would like to thank Café Spice Namaste and British Turkey for inviting me to the British Turkey Masterclass with Cyrus Todiwala.