KINGS & QUEENS BRITISH RAJ DINNER
I love that the British have embraced once of their colonies in such a spectacular way that the colony have managed to do their little conquering back in the British isles. A vast majority of Indians own corner shops, little groceries, post offices and accounting businesses. They also have made Indian food, the number one food that is eaten in the UK. The national dish of the UK is not fish and chips, nor the Cornish pasty, it's Chicken Tikka Masala.
The dinner contained some fusion, some invention and some classics. We started with an invention that I have to tell you was so powerfully good it should be in menus worldwide. Coronation chicken pasty. I used samosa oil dough and filled it with chicken smothered in apricot mayonnaise, curry powder and onions. The trick is to make these and freeze them before frying, so that the outer crust cooks and turns golden while the filling only reaches room temperature. This was served with a tomato, cucumber and onion salsa with a pinch of black salt and mango powder.
CORONATION CHICKEN PASTY.
Mulligatawny soup is a fusion invention. Soup does not exist in Indian cooking, Rasam (usually made from lentils) does and used as a breakfast food to dip a chapati into. when the British came they missed their soup and mulligatawny was born. I made this one with beef stock and it contained almonds, raisins, burnt onions and garlic. I served this up with roti from my new roti machine.
3 accompaniments made it to the table for the main course.
FRESH COCONUT CHUTNEY, MANGO CHUTNEY & FRESH CHILLI
The avalanche of curries for the main course
BEEF RAJ CURRY
MUSTARD POTATO WITH JEWEL RICE
LAMB KORMA
CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA
SRI LANKAN AUBERGINE
SRI LANKAN PRAWN CURRY WITH TOMATO
NAAN BREAD WITH NIGELLA SEEDS
RED PEPPER AND COURGETTE CURRY
Dessert is in the Punjab cookbook. A divine strawberry and mint white chocolate water ganache tart with pink peppercorns. The original recipe is by Aeensh Popat. He makes water ganache chocolate like no man can. It goes against the laws of science to incorporate water into chocolate (cream or milk is added) but Aeensh is an alchemist and with alchemy you can do everything. And so he has produced a lighter, yet decadent answer to desserts. My addition to his tart is only the pink peppercorns that are present in the biscuit crust and as a topping.
