We seem to have changed our Saturday evening meal from pasta-based low meat content dishes to low meat curry. Real curry. The kind of hot curry that makes you feel your ears are bleeding.
I was doubtful at first because for years and years I’ve avoided chilli and such like spices, comparing them to the taste and smell of very old, unwashed woollen socks. Back then we lived in Brighton and were strict vegetarians, and one day Graham became tired of the kind of Euro-pap vegetarian recipes that were around then and asked about Indian food. I wasn’t too well-informed about Indian vegetarian dishes so I went to a high-class Indian restaurant in Hove, explained our dilemma and our innocence, and asked them to do a special menu for the two of us, introducing the very best of Indian cuisine to our under-educated palettes.
It was a memorable event. We were attended to in a small, private booth, and waited upon with the greatest care. With each new dish the proprietor came along and explained the making and the history of it. If I remember right the feast came in something like fourteen courses and by the time we were finished our little tummies were full to bursting, and very, very content.
Even so, as we wandered home through the dark streets of Brighton to our nice little villa in Poet’s Corner (yes, really) Graham decided that Indian food wasn’t for him. Too foreign, he said, and far too hot. I sighed, put aside my own tastes and stuck to him like very loyal glue. English was good. Italian was better. French was the best. Asian food, no, it was not part of our world, and hasn’t been for nigh-on thirty years since.
And now we’re tucking into sizzling hot curries at least once a week.
Last night was a chicken Balti recipe, with extra turmeric and garlic.
“That was totally, ridiculously delicious,” I said.
“Not bad,” said Graham, “but I could do with being a bit hotter.”
“You’ll have to study nuclear physics to get it hotter than that.”
“Fair enough.”
So, next Saturday, if you observe what appears to be a miniature nuclear cloud hovering over West Wales, don’t worry about it. It won’t really be nuclear. It’ll just be an extra hot curry sauce. With extra hotness.
I have never tasted curry but now you have aroused my curiosity. I will have to Google to find an Indian restaurant.
Ahhhh, yes! My human speaks of his trips to Singapore and a place called Raffles and the curry dishes served there. He says it’s an “acquired” taste, but one worth the effort. I like your WS. visit me at http://www.sandysays1.wordpress.com for a great breakfast recipe sandwiched in between some laughs.
Raffles curry.lovely.Singapore was great and well worth the visit.
Curry is lovely stuff. My daughter and her sweetie cook it so often that their house has a deeply penetrated perfume of curry spices. I love turmeric for it’s anti-cholesterol properties and have a cup of turmeric tea nearly every day.
I do love curry’s, but not extra hot for me. I need to learn how to make them properly too.
Aha! Good ON you, John. You know how I feel about chili peppers, although I usually lean more in the Thai, Caribbean, Latin American direction than Indian. However, now you’ve inspired me and I’m mulling over assorted recipes for Indian Butter Chicken. Oh my.
Oh my when you come to visit me I will have to hunt for this type of food places. I know they are here but I’d just have to duck out to oriental.
Oh, sob! Our one and only, but very excellent, Indian food provider, northern Indian style, just suddenl pullled up stakes and disappeared from one day to the next. And I’ll never forget my embarrassment one night after serving two complete servings of a ’13 boy’ curry to a party of 8 to be forced to admit that there WAS not more. I was highly pleased as well as embarrassed that it was such a great success that I’d run out. I reallythought I’d fixed enough to have leftovers for another meal of it. Thai food is awfully good, too, if you’re lucky enough to have a Thai restaurant. Can you tell I love foods?
When I’m in London I love to alternate meals — one night Indian, the next night Chinese, the next night English (i.e., fish & chips in a pub), and then repeat the cycle.
Friends in Birmingham introduced me to Balti and I am eternally grateful.
I have learned how to make a reasonably decent curry at home, but I do love a chance to eat in an Indian restaurant.
This, I presume, was not the Homepride variety, John. On one excursion for an Indian meal I chose vindaloo. Well, I tried to get it down. As the manager removed my still-full plate and brought cold raita to soothe my burning palate, he assured me his family and staff never touched very hot (tasting) curries! His look said it all. I felt very silly, I can tell you…
I think Graham must be getting old… As you age you lose your sense of taste and require more and more stimulus to get the brain going.
There are lots of things like that…
Curry – yum. But it doesn’t have to be hot, it’s the subtle blending of all the spices that make a good curry. My favorite ever is my husband’s lamb jalfrezi. Only mild, but the combination of ginger, garlic, cumin, chili and everything else requires a minute’s silence for each eating. Sometimes when it’s too hot you can’t taste all the flavours.
Oh man, ridiculously delicious and you forgot to invite me????
Ah, fish vindaloo, it is good if the heat is not terrible. The local Indian restaurant changed managment, I wonder if they are any good? I miss that fish vindaloo, the Bengan Bartha, the spinach dish, what’s its name and…
Maybe so on that getting older and losing taste. When I first got to Arizona, I couldn’t even manage mild salsa. When I am eighty, I might be drinking salsa!
Our city has just acquired a Japanese/Thai restaurant. It’s been very busy since day one. It’s to die for.