India
Warming spices, aromatic curries and a thousand regional traditions.
About Indian cuisine
There is no single Indian cuisine — there are dozens, each as distinct as the languages spoken alongside them. The cooking of the Punjab, with its tandoors, butter and cream, looks nothing like the coconut-and-curry-leaf food of Kerala, or the mustard-oil fish curries of Bengal. The north leans on wheat, dairy and slow-cooked meats; the south on rice, lentils, tamarind and seafood. What runs through all of it is the careful layering of spice.
The defining flavours come from whole spices toasted in hot oil — cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon — alongside ginger, garlic, fresh chilli and bunches of coriander stalks. The technique that matters most is the order. Build the base properly: onions cooked until truly brown, ginger-garlic paste fried until the raw smell goes, tomatoes broken down until the oil splits back out. Rush any of those steps and the curry tastes thin.
It rewards home cooks more than almost any cuisine. A handful of whole spices, a tin of tomatoes, an onion and some yoghurt will give you something deeper than most takeaways. Build a small spice pantry once and you can cook this food on any weeknight.
India and I have circled each other all my life. I was once considered for a job role there, though it never got off the ground — and I have never flown to or set foot in that great country. Yet I cook its food constantly: not the takeaway versions so popular in Britain, but attempts at something closer to what an Indian family might cook at home. Every Friday is curry night in our house, summer or winter. The humbling truth is that India is not one cuisine but many — region upon region of dishes, demanding an understanding that comes only from continuous improvement and refinement. But this much I have learned for certain: the most important step is cooking the onions properly.
Key ingredients
Stock these and you can cook Indian almost any night of the week.
Whole spicesCumin, coriander, mustard, cardamom — toasted in hot oil to start a curry.
Ginger & garlicPounded to a paste, fried until the raw edge cooks out.
OnionsCooked slowly to a deep golden brown — the base of most curries.
TomatoesTinned or fresh, broken down until the oil rises back to the surface.
Fresh corianderStalks chopped into the curry, leaves scattered at the end.
YoghurtStirred in for richness, used to marinate meat and tenderise it.
Recipes from my kitchen
A handful of Indian recipes I cook on rotation. All tested in a real kitchen.
Prawn Masala
Forget the takeaway and make your own with this straightforward, flavour-packed Prawn Masala.
Tandoori Chicken Burger
Forget about all those tandoori recipes in food magazines and blogs! This will be your favourite version: a tandoori chicken served burger style.
Prawn Jalfrezi with Pan Fried Cod
Satisfy a curry craving the healthy way with this Indian Prawn dish, complemented with a nice piece of freshly caught Cod.
