- 2 days ago
Rick Stein's India - S01 - E06
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00:01This lovely bungalow on the lagoon in Kerala has been my base while I've been
00:06cooking dishes that come from all over India. Dishes like this spicy Keralan
00:12pork curry and this dead easy to do paneer jalfrezi and my very own British
00:20Raj curry from Madras. Oh and there's a lovely egg curry from Kolkata, I mean Kolkata
00:27and these shammy kebabs from Lucknow. You'll probably gather from my tone that
00:35it'll soon be time to leave. This will be my last program in this fabulous country.
00:40Good morning Ashok, good morning mate. In short this trip to India has been I think the best trip I've
00:51ever had in filming land and the curries have been pretty good too. Fourth class curry, Ricky.
00:59That's a mind blasting curry curry.
01:06Now the curries have been pretty good too.
01:11The curries have been pretty good too.
01:18The curries have been pretty good too.
01:26That's a mind-blasting curry, Rikki.
01:36There's a snake down there in the water pipe.
01:40I think it lives in there. It's not poisonous, I'm told.
01:45It certainly ain't going for a swim.
01:51Apart from worrying about where the snake called Cynthia was,
01:55life at the bungalow was good, especially when we stopped for lunch.
01:59We'd all sit outside under the palm trees
02:02and Marley would cook for us effortlessly.
02:04She'd make about five or six curries, mostly vegetarian,
02:08but this was our favourite, her prawn curry.
02:17Ashok, whose bungalow it is, can't stop taking photographs.
02:21First of all, Marley has cooked fries, onions, green chillies
02:24and minced ginger.
02:29It's very important to spend some time softening the onions
02:32because this slow cooking brings out their sweetness.
02:35And then she puts in chilli powder, turmeric and ground pepper.
02:49Next, the prawns, fresh water prawns.
02:52They're really plentiful here, as indeed now they are in supermarkets back home.
02:56Ashok, I just wondered if you could ask Malika if she knows what the word curry means.
03:06Has it got any meaning to her?
03:08.
03:15.
03:18.
03:20Normally, when you say curry, in the real sense like, you know,
03:22a little gravy with it.
03:23Yes, yes.
03:25of doing it too which is a fly yeah yeah this is this particular dishes with gravy yeah so this is
03:35a proper character interestingly we've given them the word gravy in exchange for the word curry now
03:43she puts in fresh chopped tomatoes and a generous spoonful of salt it's her quantities not mine so
03:49please don't write in then water and a generous handful of curry leaves one of the most important
03:56ingredients in south indian curries i have to confess i tried doing this with tinned tomatoes
04:03and i'm sorry it just doesn't work it turns out too sweet and gloopy so fresh and astringent it is
04:13before i came to india yeah people said well they won't understand in india what you mean by curry
04:18it's not a word they use but they do you do understand what i mean of course we do and there
04:23it is looking every inch the film crew's favorite lunch and it's pretty obvious why so let's not hang
04:30around let me try that very spicy i think the thing we get wrong in the west is we don't put enough
04:43spices isn't it too much no not at all it's lovely so will you will you ask her if she's happy with
04:49her own curry hey happy sure it's very good
05:00well i've been in india for quite a few weeks now and um the more i'm here the more confused i become
05:07about curry i started off with this determination to find the perfect curry but now i find what is
05:16curry is it is it just a gravy or is it a sort of way of life because i used to think and reading books
05:25that the indians really didn't understand what we mean by curry but they do they understand perfectly
05:32i think it's passed into the sort of general vernacular and that i must say i've been very
05:38well helped in my sort of attempts to find out what curry is by this book by lizzie callingham called curry
05:45and basically it encompasses everything about curry and i think it's an attitude i think
05:51i'm not i'm not looking for lots of gravy and lots of spice i'm looking for a perfect spicy experience
06:01this is the town of madurai a day's drive from kerala it's a famous merchant's town and their
06:12ancestors traded with the ancient greeks and the romans but over the centuries the merchants more or less
06:19traded with anybody interested in spice and out of it emerged their own cuisine they call it chetanad
06:26cooking i felt i was in the india of my imagination from the days when i used to look at old sepia
06:35photographs in encyclopedias that were falling apart full of men with pith helmets and elephants
06:41carrying teat logs the ancient meenapshi temple here could and probably did feature in one of them
06:47there's a sign there that my guide told me said feed yourself first and then feed your soul
06:56i think over here that speaks reams because the longer i spend in india the more i realize that food
07:03is intertwined with compassion and caring for others especially at the temples and it doesn't matter
07:09about caste or creed all are welcome to sit down to eat and pray if they wish afterwards
07:18i'm told without the system provided by the various temples throughout india many inevitably would go
07:25without but no one from my viewpoint in this particular batch seemed undernourished
07:30virtually all the meals i had in madurai were made with vegetables alone and i realized i could easily
07:42be a vegetarian here i love to go into the not so modern restaurant and seeing unfeasibly large pots of
07:52vegetable stew they call sambar made with yellow mung beans tomatoes and a whole host of spices
08:01and the lovely tarka fried in ghee they put on the top is irresistible
08:10this is the only thing they serve here but everybody loves it everybody has the same thing
08:16i imagine probably half of india eats like this all vegetarian and certainly in southern india
08:24everybody eats off a banana leaf it's the most perfect vehicle for eating off because when you've
08:31finished you just fold the banana leaf up with anything that's left and throw it away but you
08:37don't throw it away into the garbage you throw it away for the cows
08:44and one of the things i've learned while being in india is that home cooking is what everybody wants and i mean
08:50everybody that's businessmen with fat wallets down to the local chai waller they all want the flavor of home
09:02and a local five-star hotel is employed a housewife from an outlying village to create home-cooked dishes
09:09in their stainless steel kitchens so when mrs samundis worry has finished her morning chores at home
09:17she uses her skills handed down from her grandmother to cook authentic food for the
09:22discerning customer i must say i think this is a really good idea because to be able to actually
09:30get a seriously good home cook and and set her up in the kitchen like this cooking her dishes from home
09:37i think it's is a tremendous bit of salesmanship today's local speciality is chetanad chicken
09:45mrs samundis worry starts off with oil and that's flavored with cinnamon bark
09:49and then fennel seeds and now this calpese it's a type of lichen they all flavor the oil
09:59and i suspect that it's the calpese that makes this dish unique
10:06now onions and where there are onions the curry leaves are not far behind
10:11next garlic bit of a stir
10:18and then chicken and she makes sure every bit is coated with the flavored oil
10:24now a paste that's made up with fennel cumin pepper garlic chili and coriander
10:32followed by the powdered spices coriander chili garam masala and pepper it's a bit complicated
10:39it's one of the most complex dishes i've come across over here and they call it home cooking
10:56well i must say this looks really interesting i'm just amazed that she would cook
11:03such a complicated dish at home it it sort of looks to me i have to say like hotel cooking but
11:09i'm assured that she does cook like this at home so who am i to say
11:17i'm also very intrigued to um to try this calpese because when i read about it it's actually the
11:24lichen that comes off stones around here when i first tried it i thought well i could probably get this
11:29off a stone off board me more and dry it and when i tasted it it tasted of nothing and then
11:37this wonderful aroma came through and every time i taste dishes with it in now i think there's loads of
11:45cinnamon in that dish and then i think it's not quite cinnamon what it is is palpese
11:50finally some more garam masala and coriander leaf and i hope that's it
12:06just the look of this curry pleases me enormously and i love it being served on a banana leaf
12:13with my cook's intuition i know this is going to be one of the best curries i've tasted so far
12:18but i think when i write it up i'll simplify it a little wow that is very spicy but incredibly good
12:29you can taste all the ingredients in it what i really like about it is it's quite dry i know
12:34that's the wrong word but there's not a lot of gravy but what gravy there is it's so
12:40so pungent so and the taste of that palpese the uh the lichen is wonderful in it i'm going to crave
12:48that forever more i think it's really good
12:56you're not going to believe this but a guest who's staying here saw a tweet of mine and realized we're
13:01both staying at the same hotel so you mean you just saw me on on twitter then yes and uh there's a
13:09tweet that you're in chennai and then i see that you're in madurai well i'm below the power of
13:13twitter he turned out to be a serious foodie he's called gunjan i follow you rick and one of the
13:20things i see is rick's staying in madurai and i sent a tweet to you immediately and you know i must tell
13:25you rick i've been coming to this hotel for the last four or five months and the food that she cooks
13:31is better than the hotel management graduation you know the cooks that you have all these catering
13:35schools which i think she cooks from the heart and the food and the flavors in that particular
13:40curry or the chatty nothing that she makes is completely different than what you get one thing
13:45i've picked up all along is how much indians love home cooking so to have somebody cooking who cooks that
13:52sort of food and i agree with you and i think uh i couldn't agree with you more actually because
13:58did the site my mother for example i've never seen her measure spices and you know putting the
14:03spices the way she wants to do it and then measuring them out and not measuring it out to
14:06them it's like that's the way she cooks yeah and that's the way most of the home cooks cook
14:11and we go by standardized recipe you know this much this much this one i i do some kind of a major
14:16cooking at home i do something and i i just go exactly by the way the ingredients go yeah the great
14:20thing is that there is no method in the madness of their cooking i was sort of thinking because i've just
14:25she's just cooked me chicken chatty night in the kitchen which was so spicy really hot with pepper
14:31as opposed to chili which i think is quite quite um common here isn't it yes around major i am
14:37chatting ad but i was just thinking it'd be really good to actually in any hotel kitchen to get domestic
14:43really good domestic cook in there because chefs a bit sort of they cook into the chef school way you
14:49know i know i mean and coming from you chef it's a it's a slightly contradictory but having said that i
14:54would still say that yes i think it's a an amazing concept you know i mean i what i love about you indians
15:00you're so enthusiastic about your food it's just a joy i must say my mouth is already watering i'm sorry
15:10good thanks i can't go long really without seafood and seeing a pretty plate of crabs in the local
15:17market was the only excuse i needed to cook a famous chetanad dish chetanad crab
15:24this is good finger picking food i wouldn't mind trying this back at home using our own brown crabs
15:33or even spider crabs with that lovely sweet leg meat
15:41first of all to make a paste in my trusty blender i add some fennel seeds cumin seeds
15:47some grated coconut and water a quick whiz in my powerful indian blender it weighs a ton and it comes
16:01out thanks to the coconut looking quite creamy meanwhile in the karai i heat up some oil and temper it
16:11with a good teaspoonful of fennel and fenugreek seeds next some sliced onions and some chopped garlic
16:20followed by the powdered spices chili powder turmeric and coriander
16:28now for the crab bits give them a serious stir coating every bit of the crab with the flavoured oil
16:34i love these colors i just like eating with my fingers and there's nothing better than a pile of rice
16:43maybe some nice bread as well some naan bread perhaps maybe a glass of beer lots of chat and lots of picking
16:51it's what i like and of course you've got to have a a nice bowl to rinse your hands every now and then
16:56but it's leisurely eating which i adore next curry leaves and fresh chopped tomato tomatoes in kerala are
17:09so good now the coconutty paste and i stir that around and for a touch of tarty sourness some tamarind
17:20and a new one kokum that's a type of dried mangosteen and it tastes beautifully smoky
17:28finally just a bit of sweetness jaggery it's the juice from the sugarcane boiled down so it becomes
17:35like a fudge then salt and water it's a dish of summer lunches cooked in a wok on the beach at home
17:46in padstow it's blinking hot yet again
17:55how long the port's ready about three minutes and 15 seconds
18:05and here it is in all its flaming glory it's what i call holiday food food that goes with conversation
18:12and more importantly it also goes very nicely with a cold beer
18:23i started this whole series in calcutta hot steamy calcutta it was quite a baptism
18:30because my shirt stuck to me seconds after i left the hotel
18:34it's quite extraordinary how do people work how do they think in this heat
18:44i just felt i had to be by the river and it was the river the river huli that spawned this famous city
18:51because this was where the east india company sent back tons and tons of spices
18:57back to a world where they just couldn't get enough
19:06and i know our love of curry and the very reason i'm here stems from this plant pepper
19:16what the british wanted was spice nutmeg cinnamon clothes but above all pepper
19:22just imagine what it tasted like if you'd never tasted it before if only a few people could afford it
19:29i mean that heat there'd be nothing like it you would absolutely think it would make you live
19:35longer give you virility whatever it would make you a better person it was literally worth its weight in
19:42gold
19:57it's interesting how you come across little culinary jewels
20:02research yes reading guidebooks okay
20:06talking to local gourmets well that's a bit touch and go
20:15but on my very first night in the city i tasted a curry in the hotel that blew me away
20:24we don't actually tend to film dishes in my travels that come from the hotel where i'm staying with the
20:30crew but this one rogan josh is so good that i just felt we should i think it's quite sort of
20:38similar to the rogan josh that you get in cashmere but unfortunately we haven't been allowed to go to
20:42cashmere so i don't know but it is a deep red color and it is absolutely fabulous and this is how it's made
20:49it is chef mossi and myself chef vikas are we gonna cook uh mutton rogan josh for you all today so chef
20:59mossi please start okay your whole spices includes cinnamon green cardamom club bay leaf maize chopped
21:09onion chopped onion into it with the spices ginger garlic paste and we keep stirring so that it doesn't
21:16stick to the pan that's very important now we're going to add tomato paste into it it gives a very
21:22good color to your rogan juice and then we'll add powder spices into the mixture red chili powder dry
21:31coriander seed powder cumin powder keep cooking the gravy and in between you just feel the aroma
21:37and once the raw flavor is gone off we add fennel powder and garam masala
21:46now we put the yogurt into the gravy this is the color we wanted for the gravy
21:54now where's the meat i hear you ask it hasn't appeared yet now i'll tell you the secret of the mutton
21:59rogan juice we cook the mutton beforehand and we slow cook it so it gives extra flavor to your mutton
22:05mutton rogan juice and rogan is the gravy and joe's is the juice the bone marrow which gets dissolved
22:13along with the gravy that gives a very distinct flavor to your mutton rogan juice we'll finish it off
22:19with uh fresh cream that's called mutton rogan juice thanks chefs
22:29now the reason this is so good and i keep wittering on about it is because the meat is cooked on the bone
22:36and you get all that gelatinous bone marrow into the gravy making it sweet and silky
22:42and lastly a flourish of ginger and coriander
22:59luck now as every curry aficionado knows is very famous for its food mainly because the people who
23:06ran the place in the 16th and 17th centuries the nawobs the muslim rulers were really interested in the
23:14arts music theater architecture and food they wanted to outdo the people of delhi with their fine dishes
23:23even this shrine the imambara has a culinary history although its walls are six meters thick
23:30the mortar in them is mixed with peanuts lentils water chestnut flour and honey and they say
23:38you can even hear a whisper through the wall up to 15 meters away not a good place for secrets
23:44the culinary rivalry with the rest of india's towns and cities is still alive and well the winner the very
23:59first indian master chef pankaj baduria comes from luck now uh luck now famous for of course it's kebabs
24:08biryani's and you'll be surprised to see fish mortis on our emblems in luck now we've seen it in the
24:15imambara the fish on the on the portals on the luck now is situated on the banks of river gonti
24:26so you have a lot of uh fish available here so what have we got then uh we've got some pomfet here he's
24:34got mackerels he's got shrimps as well good uh they get the sea fish from outside but let's look at
24:40this one this one seems good what what's it called what's it called and this one this is called
24:54tangan it has only one bone inside so it's easier to make fillets out of this oh well that would be
25:00good so yeah so we'll buy this yeah yeah let's right now will they fillet it for you or are you
25:09going to do it at home he'll do it for me okay he'll clean it up nice and proper and then fill it
25:14can we watch him do it yeah sure he'll do it right before us okay so you see he'll remove the
25:21bone for me such a different way of filleting too we do it with it yeah yeah if he's got his own sickle
25:27to do it i've asked him to remove the skin i don't want the skin in my mouth when i eat the curry
25:33it has to be smooth on your tongue and many a times the curries after they've been cooked they are
25:39strained so that you do not get any spices in your mouth you just get the flavors
25:46since she won that competition she's now quite famous here in luck now and has opened her own cookery
25:52score where she's going to show me how to cook this well-known luck navi fish curry so here are the
25:58poppy seeds i'm going to roast them lightly so what's the importance of roasting um things like
26:04the poppy seeds and other spices when it comes in contact with the heat the oils are released the
26:09flavors are released they come up much better so here i'm going to grind on the stone
26:14seeds take a little water and then i need to grind this so um why are you using a stone could you not
26:22use a processor no rip no i wouldn't because the essential oils of all the spices are released they
26:30get the ground they are crushed so the taste is definitely better so it's much smoother and there's
26:35more flavor now what's next i just scoop this out and then i'm going to grind these whole spices here so
26:41we've got nutmeg cardamom cloves yes cumin seeds yes black peppercorns nice yes black cardamom yes
26:50chili powder yes chili powder add little water as i go and you'll be surprised to know that in days
26:59gone by people used to employ a man called a massage chi who would come in every morning and grind all the
27:06spices for the spices for the day so there was a special man assigned to do the massage chi yes the
27:11massage chi okay so i'm going to take my um curd here yeah and to this curd i'm going to add the masala
27:18that i've just crowned good all of this i add the poppy seed that i've crowned along with this
27:28goes red chili next then some salt of course yeah about half a teaspoon uh yes i'll have to check
27:35it later it's okay to taste things for me it is okay but in most families yes it is not so there's
27:43a term called jhuta it's not good enough to be served because you've tested it you can't serve it to
27:48anybody wow so after i've added the salt i'm going to add some ginger garlic paste this is also fresh ground
27:56this is some screw pine water and what is that that's a sweet perfume it's called meter it through
28:05meter is sweet that's it and i am going to add some roast graham flower to this chickpea flower yes it
28:12is okay and now let me give it a good mix can i taste it yeah sure thank you very much
28:19seasoning okay seasoning really good okay because i like salt it's really nicely seasoned because you've
28:28got all that fish that you're going to cook that with right the spices are lovely i mean this is raw
28:33but it tastes delicious already yeah this is clarified butter ghee i am going to cover this key with some
28:42fried onion add my fish pieces over this i don't need to marinate it for too long i just need to mix it
28:52in so i cover it with this lid and then i'm going to seal this with some dough ah right so this is a
28:59damn pot yes this is dumb muchly i am doing some dumb cooking in steam cooking in its own steam
29:06so this method of cooking is called damn pot and it's really common here it means as i've just said
29:14cooked in steam and pankaj said that even the charcoal flavors penetrate the cooking pot i can't see it
29:21myself but she assures me it's true so how long will that take now then should take at least 40 minutes okay
29:28fine she's also made a dal it's a pigeon pea dal flavored with cloves cardamons and yogurt on a beetle leaf
29:40she puts a hot lump of charcoal and smothers it with ghee again she's trying to create a hint of smokiness
29:48in amongst the lentils she'll remove it after a minute or so now for the tarker the hot fried spices
29:56that give the dal a real zing that's made with ghee cumin seeds and garlic and that's the final flourish
30:05it's sprinkled with chopped green chilies and mint and that's it
30:13and then the fish she calls it tengen it's a catfish as far as i can tell very firm flesh a good clean
30:21taste and i think i can smell a sort of barbecue smokiness coming from the pot this woman really knows her stuff
30:39it's fabulous thank you you know what you're saying earlier about
30:42you luck navis love soft you love soft yes that's very very refined yeah i mean this is so good i mean
30:50how come we don't have more luck navi dishes in the world at large then the reason rick is that
30:58every recipe here is very secretly guarded you know it's passed on only to the family members
31:04and because of that it's unable to spread to the world well i'm beginning i tell you what this is so
31:10far on our trip this is the finest cooking we've we've come across thank you and you are very good
31:16cook thank you thank you watching you very deft thank you
31:26well i think the overall impression from a few months in in india traveling and tasting everything
31:33is the more i know about indian cooking the more i need to know but that's not saying that i haven't
31:38learned a great deal in the time i think above all it's the value of freshly ground spice
31:52i remember for example when we were in bombay watching these pistons grinding the spice
31:58of course we named them the spice pistons rather a good name for a band don't you think
32:02but when you took the red chili powder from out of that machine and smelt it it was just the most
32:10glorious chili aromas
32:15a spice grinder is absolutely essential and one of the things that i sadly miss in the uk is is a
32:22machine that will grind wet and dry spices i remember the first time i came to india i
32:27will i left with a spice grinder about this big i've actually bought this in india this little baby
32:36here which works by just grinding the spice that we're going to put there between two stones but
32:42it's just such a wonderful machine it's like a sort of royal enfield or an old roberts radio or
32:47something like that reliable 60s stuff first of all some red onions for color as well as the flavor of
32:54onions don't worry about the fact that the one of the wheels isn't going it doesn't work perfectly
33:00but indeed it does a wonderful job that makes perfectly at least of all the royal enfield there
33:06we go there we go now that now that now the ginger i promise you this turns out impeccable masalas
33:14look at it going i wanted the bigger one but i couldn't get it on the plane oh my gosh
33:20oh my gosh go in like a trojan
33:34so now we're just going to transfer if i can find a course because it's a bit hot
33:50my fried masala into this wonderful mixer blender liquidizer there we go in it goes
34:04just make sure the lid of your liquidizer is securely on otherwise hot oil could go over your
34:20shirt and your face or in my case will go over your shirt and your face
34:26so in nearly 20 years what's changed the hair yeah teeth yeah um the weight okay okay thank you thank
34:42you dave in luck now i had the best chicken korma ever very delicate and creamy
34:49it was made by rocky mohan a passionate cook who's written many cookery books
34:56however he and his wife wrecker have some misgivings about the word curry now i just want to ask you
35:03something tell me with my mouthful yeah i'm sure it's just bad manners here as it is back home but
35:10what what do you take by the word curry but we don't have the word curry in our language at all
35:16it's unfair to call our variety as under one major head as curry i think the word curry
35:24is coined by the british themselves i think that when they lived in india and they they were eating
35:31in various parts of india so the the one single word that they thought would carry the message either
35:38to the kind of food they wanted to have which had gravy so they called it curry and and and one thing
35:44that i must point out the worst thing that ever happened to indian food is the madras curry powder
35:50absolutely horrendous stuff and you go and add it to just about everything they all taste the same
35:56and it was turmeric and lots lots of turmeric lots of coriander seed powder some cumin and all dunked
36:03together and tasted horrible oh dear i can't agree with that i think i'm right in saying that we british
36:12fell madly deeply in love with curry first through curry powder and then through the thousands of
36:18so-called indian restaurants that spread to virtually every high street in the land
36:28it's one of those curious things but although india got her independence in 1947
36:34they wouldn't allow any indians to join the madras club until the early 60s it's unbelievable
36:41i'm here because of the most famous soup in india the one created in the heyday of the raj
36:47by the british it's not often that strangers get invited into these hallowed
36:54grounds so i feel you know very very lucky but more so that they're actually making malaga tawny soup
37:01for me because as i understand it this is where it came from we're starting off by making a paste
37:08we've got some coriander seeds cumin seeds black pepper seeds ginger garlic mint turmeric water going
37:16in here is that garam masala or curry powder curry powder curry powder wow curry powder madras
37:24how popular is um malaga tawny soup in that club it's very popular it is our signature dish but then
37:36our most popular dish is the roast lamb grilled chicken and we have shepherd's pie these are the
37:42very most popular dish wow i would i would certainly feel at home
37:46so that pungent green chloroform paste goes into a saucepan with carrots leeks celery onions cardamom and
37:57tomatoes they've already been fried with cloves and cinnamon and now the chicken
38:06add a tablespoon of flour and turmeric
38:09and then simmer for at least half an hour until the chicken is cooked
38:27coconut milk
38:31and now two teaspoonfuls of salt and then sieve
38:35a squeeze of fresh lime i know they look like lemons but they're limes and then rice
38:44and voila the first malaga tawny i've tasted for 20 years
38:51that is very nice indeed it's really intense in flavor
38:55and what's interesting it's really hot but there's no chili in it it's just hot with black pepper
39:01i'm rather saddened really because you used to be able to buy tins of malaga tawny soup very easily
39:06in the uk but i guess the the taste for it is just has gone partly i suspect because the tin
39:12soup tasted nothing like this this is thick and absolutely full of lovely green spicy flavor
39:30this is my daily journey from the bungalow where i'm cooking to the market looking out of the window
39:39is far better than watching the telly everywhere a picture and every picture a clue to what india is all
39:46about
40:04i keep seeing all this different colored bunting everywhere just passed through an area of silver
40:09bunting and i asked the local he said well if it's silver and white it's for the christians
40:15if it's yellow it's for the hindus if it's green it's for the muslims and if it's red
40:20it's for the communists i think that says quite a lot about kerala really
40:33i like coming here this is a great little market the vegetables are so cheap you know i could easily
40:40buy enough to feed a couple of dozen people for just a few pounds it's a good place to think about
40:45food and decide what i'm about to cook i never feel like a tourist in a market i may not know every
40:53vegetable and spice but i feel i'm part of it they're making poppadums here they're made with gram flour
41:02that's chickpea flour and when they're fried they give so much enjoyment with chutneys pickles fruit
41:09mixed with onions and accompanied by a cold beer in anticipation of a really good curry to come
41:19i think it was the poppadum that was the spur that made us all go to indian restaurants in the 50s
41:24and 60s because although you could get a curry of sorts back at home you'd never get a poppadum
41:33note in the margin if your poppadums are soggy leave the restaurant immediately
41:38because the curry won't be very good you've been warned
41:42well this is the most popular vegetable dish in kerala i would suggest it's called thuren you find
41:52it everywhere and the great thing about it is it's an easy way of using what's ever fresh and beautiful
41:59in the market on a daily basis now i've just got some coconut oil in the pan there and i'm just going
42:04to add about a teaspoon of mustard seeds a teaspoon of cumin seeds and a handful of curry leaves
42:15now i'm going to just break a couple of dried red chillies in there
42:20just stir that around a little bit and now through the wonders of modern kitchen equipment i'm going to
42:28grate some ginger whole fresh ginger to add that too it's just a little bit hot when i've done the
42:35ginger i might just add a little bit of water just to bring the temperature down a bit and i'm doing
42:40this because i've seen him do it all over india and that's before i add the turmeric because i don't
42:45want the turmeric to burn at all just get the rest of the um ginger off there now then there we go
42:54and now for my turmeric i mean i just um love this vegetable dish um what i think is really good
43:04about it is that it's flavored with coconut first obviously with the coconut oil but at the end i'm
43:10going to put in some grated fresh coconut and there's virtually no water in it so it's very very concentrated
43:18there we go just added my turmeric and now some
43:20little uh freshly ground black pepper about a teaspoon i suppose and then some salt just under
43:28a teaspoon and now for my vegetables now they you make foreign as i said with whatever comes out
43:36of the market spinach cabbage and in this case carrots they call these english vegetables because
43:44they're not originally from kerala i must say the carrots here are absolutely wonderful and then
43:51cabbage very finely chopped up everything in the foreign is very finely chopped up stir that around
43:58until it's thoroughly amalgamated and then i'm just going to put a lid on and leave it to
44:05cook very gently for about five minutes just just to cook the vegetables but what i really like to do with
44:12the carrot i just leave it with a little bit of crunch when i serve up the dish so i just put on
44:18the lid and wait for that five minutes have you thought of bringing another shirt with you i know dade but
44:26it's so hot i don't even think the dog likes being around me so now that should be ready for the final
44:33addition which is first of all some freshly grated coconut that is so important in there it just
44:41gives it a real sort of lightness and just goes in at the last minute in fact some people don't even
44:46stir it in they just sort of leave it on the top and finally some some sliced green chilies
44:52so it is quite hot no doubt about that but um everyone loves chilies in kerala
45:04now i just sort of thought it might be um tempting fate but um ashok whose house this is where i'm
45:11filming is just nearby i might just ask him if he'd like to come and try one of his um traditional
45:19carol and dish is cooked by an englishman would you would you mind of course i'd like to taste
45:23your good it looks really original does it yeah it's just like how money serves at home
45:30and let me see if it tastes the same oh gosh here we go okay a little taste it can be a bit hot
45:35you got it oh gosh you've got you are nice yeah it's really nice i'm gonna take one more thank you
45:47thank you you've made my day lovely good thank you rick thank you thank you
46:05these fishermen have been out all night there's about seven or eight in each crew
46:13what impresses me is how strong they are getting these boats up i love that there's
46:19the chance as they're pulling of trying to get themselves the strength to pull a boat up the beach
46:25sometimes when we're bumping along in our mini bus from one dusty town to another i think people
46:39think everything about filming is fun but but it's not to be honest a lot of the time you're hot
46:44you're sweaty you're trying to think of something yet again wonderful to say about another mutton curry
46:50but this morning it's really turned up trumps i mean this is seriously what filming is all about for me
47:02i'm coming to the end of my stay here now and i'm going to cook the best
47:06fish curry ever for all the people who have made my time here so enormously pleasurable
47:12as it's such a special day i thought i'd get a really special fish for the curry snapper firm and fresh tasting
47:24truth to tell i first tasted this many weeks ago on the coromandel coast where the early pumpkins blow
47:33i wasn't expecting very much from a cafe on the beach
47:36but when it was served to me in all its gold and red glory i thought blimey this is the one
47:48that is just simply perfect i mean the fish is so fresh it's you can taste the sea you know when
47:53it's dead fresh fish like that nobody ever gets it wrong when it's fresh like that
47:59so would you put that on your list of best curries would i i mean seriously for me and i think i'm a
48:05bit biased have to say but fish curry like this
48:12could be could be the one
48:18and so this is it the final countdown some of the guests have arrived already
48:23ashock's busy with his flute and it'll take about 30 minutes from now to make this perfect curry
48:33this is local snapper and i must say it is lovely steaky fish ideal for a curry i'm keeping the skin on
48:41to keep it together but i suspect there's going to be some really nice sort of fattiness which i
48:46adore just under the skin so i'm really looking forward to cooking this
48:52now then just nip it and wash my hands
48:58it's so very pleasant this kitchen it's got everything you need an outdoor field running cold
49:04water and a pet snake
49:08now then into making the curry
49:12triple batch so lots and lots of vegetable in the bottom of my um carai i hope it's going to be
49:18big enough for all this and then two to three teaspoons for the yellow mustard seeds
49:24i'm just going to let them brown slightly
49:32so in they go
49:35can't tell you how important it is to cook the onions for a good long time this is going to be
49:41about 10 minutes but i'm rewarded by a wonderful aroma of cooking onions and the mustard seeds
49:48are adding immeasurably to that and now i've got about 10 cloves of garlic indian cloves i'm going
49:56to miss this i know i'm a bit pathetic about my pants but this has been my friend all through
50:03these cooking sequences it's perfect it's got real thickness and therefore it holds the heat once
50:11it's up to heat nothing seems to burn too much okay now curry leaves sometimes you put curry leaves in
50:19at the end but in a lot of dishes you put them in right at the beginning and fry them when i think
50:25when the curry leaves first got to the uk and you had them in little jars and they were dried a bit like parsley
50:32you can't be using those you've got to use the fresh ones and if you can't get them or frozen they're good
50:39leave them out okay now some turmeric about a heat teaspoon for this large portion of madras fish curry
50:47but i am going to be quite serious with my chili probably about four teaspoons kashmiri let's make
50:55it five just kashmiri chili it's not too hot i tend to prefer that to any other because you get that
51:03lovely red colour and you don't get searing heat there we go in that goes and now a lot of freshly ground
51:10coriander one two three four good stir that around not too long about 30 seconds i don't want it to burn
51:24and now i'm going to put some tomato in a lot of tomato because there's a lot of curry
51:33now the most apart from the snapper apart from the fish the most important ingredient
51:41is tamarind water or tamarind liquor because it's really thick i'm going to put all that in there
51:48a very lovely souring agent used all over southern india look at that now and what i love about this
51:57curry is it's got very few ingredients everything is cooked at the last minute
52:02as it should be with fish and now some chilies about four or five green chilies stir that in beautiful
52:16and now some salt
52:19this is the sort of dish i like in goes the salt a couple of teaspoons stir that in
52:25and next the fish and then it's done so wonderful about fish dishes so easy so simple to cook look at
52:39that beautiful firm snapper now then just stir that in carefully it won't break up very easily but once
52:51i've got the heat going again and it's starting to cook i won't stir it anymore because i don't want
52:58those lovely chunks to break up now then i'm just going to have a little taste of this make sure i've
53:06got the seasoning right that's my sort of dish it's just so fresh with all that tamarind and tomato
53:18and sort of green flavors and it'll just suit this fish perfectly so there it is my perfect madras fish
53:28curry um excuse me shouldn't it be more correct in saying um chennai uh fish curry chennai fish curry
53:37do you want me to get a bit grumpy because i'm perfectly capable of it but what does chennai mean to me
53:43you know i mean i was born and brought up in madras curry powder the the the indian restaurants with
53:49hot madras curries no way i'm sorry i know it's politically perfectly correct but not for me no
53:58that's a proper indian curry
54:13i really did enjoy cooking that and it's funny how cooking certain dishes really makes you come alive
54:20mali made a dal to go with the fish and i just hope that people are hungry
54:28i'm not too worried about what they think because i know being a cook or a fish cook for nearly 40 years
54:35it's going to be absolutely spot on i hope there's enough to go around well i hope there's enough to
54:41go around too rick is delicious oh and i love the spin of the tomatoes and the fish curry
54:50i always think they're really they're only saying it to be nice but it's a very good fish i must say
54:56really nice it's an indian curry good curry fish curry very very yeah i like it i'm not
55:16we love our fish nice and tart and spicy and got it it was very rich very good oh it's actually
55:24fabulous it tastes very very good very good well this is my darling wife sarah sassy what do you
55:30think of the fish curry ricky i think it's kalam kalam what's that mean bloody good
55:35so rick finally goodbye and i'm really going to miss you there same here bye
55:55thank you india for a mind-blasting curry extravaganza
56:05people said to me before i came here that i wouldn't get such a nice curry as we get back
56:14at home to those people i say unto them try and get out a bit more it broadens your horizons the
56:22generosity i received was overwhelming the dishes i tasted not all of them but most were full of beautiful
56:30spice and it was the sort of food that made you think much in the same way that a book or a painting
56:37can stimulate the little gray cells i've said this before but once the thought of a curry enters your
56:43head then nothing else will do not a chinese not a pizza not a burger it has to be a curry the curries
56:53in the north eaten with bread were full of ghee and cream and chilies of course so different from those
56:58in the south made with tamarind and curry leaf
57:22i love the fish curries cooked in mustard oil and coconut from calcutta they were really deep and
57:28satisfying and the palau's from luck now would you say this was perfect
57:39i like going into the kitchens of the fishing families to see how they made something really
57:44special from that day's catch oh this was really special the best known street food in bombay
57:52the kitchens of the sea wow what do you think paba ji once eaten never forgotten what brilliant mind said
58:01it but i think it's so true that to understand a country first of all you have to eat it and i just did
58:09and it was delicious
58:21i think it's so
58:30i think it's so
58:34i think it's so
58:40That's a mind-blasting curry, Ricky.
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