An Indian love affair

I love food. I love everything about it. I love growing it, preparing it, cooking it, reading about it, experimenting with it, oh and of course consuming it. Emily will testify that often after finishing dinner I will ask, “what do you fancy for dinner tomorrow?” My mother was devastated when I left home because I ate twice as much as my little sisters combined (that makes my mum sound like a feeder...she is a feeder) and I am known in Emily's family for polishing off double and sometimes triple roast dinners of a Sunday. I love food, and when I realised that our trip to India would see us eating curry most days, if not every day, I was over the moon.

You might have guessed that this post is a tribute to my favourite subject, if you feel as I do about food, and especially curry, this post is dedicated to you

Curry was always been a staple growing up in our house. About once a month my mother would produce an Indian banquet for the family consisting of two different meat curries, sometimes a vegetable option, poppadoms, naans, yoghurts for burning tongues, chutneys, dals and of course, perfect fluffy rice. Hands down it was the best meal of the month, my dad and I would gorge ourselves. Obviously spice played a fairly major part in my culinary upbringing as well, with spicy Mexican meals and my father constantly daring me to eat his deadly pickled chillis. And Emily has always impressed me with her capacity for spicy dishes (very attractive in a woman) However we were not sure what to expect when we came here. We'd been regaled with stories from friends of burning mouths, streaming eyes and burgundy faces...how would we cope when faced with authentic Indian fare?

A beautiful meal that we enjoyed at a house-warming

It's difficult to know where to begin...other than to say the food here is absolutely fantastic. Every afternoon is spent with rumbling stomachs as the smells of garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, chapatis and mysterious spice mixes waft our way from the kitchen. The ladies of the house (various aunties and friends depending on who's in) will spend all afternoon chopping, frying and mixing these wonderful delights for the evening meal. They have been gracious enough to start with very little spice and increase the amount each day until we find our limit (I think we're just about there...as I type this my lips are all a tingle from lunch)

I could talk about this all day, instead, here are some highlights and tip's I have learned for making perfect Indian food. The best meals we have had have been birthday treats. First was chicken biryani, a sticky, sweet curry with tender pieces of chicken with a little spice but not enough to smother the ginger and garlic. Then came the beef curry (which I will dream of until the day I die as the ultimate curry). The beef was cooked in a pressure cooker and all the juices were included, red onions were cooked gently for over an hour until they were disintegrating and small flakes of coconut with a little turmeric were thrown in for texture. The result? Beef that melts in the mouth introducing a different flavour with every chew and enough spice to keep you on your toes. Most days we eat a basic chicken and potato masala with rice and chapatis which never fails to please. For lunch it's rice and a spicy dal (thick lentil soup) and whatever curry is left over from the previous night (there's no wastage in this house, the curries keep reappearing until they have been eaten and every edible part of the chicken will be thrown in)

A very spicy curry in the making

When it comes to spice I would liken a hot curry in an Indian restaurant in the UK to being punched in the mouth then having to pay for the pleasure. Too often the chillies are used as a weapon of mass destruction to defeat whatever macho moron decides to order a vindaloo. Not so here. Recently we've had quite a few hotter curries but the spice is more subtle. The burn is still there (together with its unwelcome reminder the following morning) but it has context. The spice element is like just another colour on the cooks palette of flavours, adding to and complimenting the other ingredients to create culinary perfection. So far I'm nowhere near sick of curry yet, and the thought of curry again tonight is still exciting!

I wish the same could be said about breakfast. I hate having breakfast at the best of times, unable to muster the motivation to make anything worth eating, but curry for breakfast has been a real test of my love for the spicy food. And spicy it is, usually something like iddly (small, dry parcels of mashed up, ground rice) or dosa (large, savoury, crispy pancakes) and a spicy chutney. First thing in the morning it's not quite the gentle wake up I'm used to! Also the tea is very different here. Em and I drink pal chai (white tea) with a spoon of sugar to bring out the flavour. Usually I wouldn't have any sugar (sweet enough for two I am) but my one spoon is rather conservative here. In my experience if something is going to be sweet it will be SWEET. We had pudding one day which looked like it was a very large lump of caramel. Turns out it was a very large lump of caramel, about the size of a deflated football...I hoped we didn't have to eat the whole thing, I could feel it rotting my teeth then and there. Emily on the other hand loved it!

Wonderful Vadai

We're also discovering the delights to be found in the Indian bakeries. Varaki (small and very addictive puff pastry mouthfuls) sweet biscuits (exactly what they sound like) and salted biscuits (ditto) as well as wonderful bags of 'mixture' (bombay mix to you and me) and my favourites, Vadai. Vadai are a combination of lentils, onion, garlic, ginger, coriander, chillis and flour, rolled into balls, squashed and deep fried. The result is a crispy, salty snack, bursting with flavour and revealing little secret tastes the longer you chew them. The first time I tried them I went a little catatonic, closed my eyes and mmmed my appreciation...much to Emily's embarrassment.

Of course we've been eating all these meals with our hands, scraping the rice into a little mound, scooping it up and flicking it into our mouths. This didn't take too long to master and now it's second nature, though we are slightly worried we'll forget how to use a knife and fork when we get back.

Emily making a batch of carrot cake

Tomorrow Emily and I are cooking for the family. We're making chicken pie, with as much added flavour and salt as we can bear to cater for more intense palettes. It has to be said we're missing English food; cheese, proper bread, pasta and sauce, roast dinner where the flavour of the meat is the main event rather then the spices it was cooked in. (We had a rather amusing conversation where we described a hog roast. P. Sam and family just didn't understand why there was no 'masala' on the meat...and we just ate the meat plain? Was it not really dull?) But our hosts are so generous with their food and the time and love that has gone into making it that we're never missing it for long.

I could go on about this all day, but I won't. All I will say is this, if you love food, and if you love curry, come to India. It is a foodies paradise with new adventures every day. I think my mother has it right, we will be rolling back to the UK come April.