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Curry in a cold climate

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It is a hunched cold, a day of heavy damp and dripping grey. Here, it hangs over wet brown leaves, puddles on the pavements. But I have felt it too in streets turned to mud, with ashy fires by the side mixing smoke into the mist, turning coolies bronchial. I have known it where whole mountain ranges huddle together as fog blanks out whole swathes of landscape and creeps into the crevices. There, I have envied softly-stamping cows the warmth of their calves and beds of straw, my own shawl growing damp with my breath inside it. But there is a smell that causes me to lift my nose up out of its swaddling and into the cold. Lobia. Rajma. Garlicky beans. And I love it that this smell has followed me all my autumns-turning-to-winters, from Garhwal to the Nilgiris, the Pennines to the Decembers of Delhi and Lahore, the Karakorum to just south of Surrey. I find myself unfurling to breathe it in more deeply and pick up the song of the pressure cooker. Though I cannot see her, I know there to b...
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Spiced chicken for the soul and something for the stomach

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I rise at dawn and before the coffee is brewed I have ground the spices for the day, picturing myself pounding each seed and root for the flavours I fancy. After coffee, back in bed, I consider dough for parathe; indeed, I consider spicing potato and mashing it for alu ke parathe. But we are hungry and cannot wait. I pour cornflakes and make porridge for the baby then load the dishwasher. I mentally unclip the tiffin box and fill each container with a little of many varied but perfectly balanced dishes: a little sabzi, a dal for gravy, rice, a folded roti with a dab of pickle, even a simple crunchy carrot one, fritters for a surprise. I know how it's all done; I've read the recipes a hundred times. The photos are gorgeous. After a sandwich lunch we collapse into naps. There, head on pillow, I hope that the afternoon stillness will be long: that the baby will sleep a little more and my son's playtime will be peaceful and that today, at last, I might make something specia...
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A better day for biriyani

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My neighbour has been round twice this week to give us ham with a teddy face that her grandson doesn't want to eat; it has not been a good week for curry. My family and I have grazed on summer party food aimed at children: wotsits, baps and fairy cakes. Even when Salim and his mum came for tea, the most cooking I could muster was fishfingers and I was pleased with myself for remembering not to serve his on the plate with the picture of the piggy and to have hidden the teddy ham on the top shelf of the fridge. 'Can't I have rice?' he asked. This afternoon, my body was asking the same thing. There had been one barbecued value burger too many. And so it was of immense relief to be asked to pop round to Sajida's for biriyani. 'The kids hate school dinners,' she said, 'so I always make rice for after school.' We used to have crackers with margarine in the same situation. I hadn't recognised her at first. We were trying to manoeuvre our buggies ro...
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5 hot tips to curry quicker without resorting to jars

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1. Use chips. If I had more money, I would go to the chippie most evenings to skip the tedium of peeling and chopping potatoes for a family. I fry onions, garlic, ginger (see point 5) and spices, add tomatoes and then chips. They are the ready fried alu in alu matar , alu gobhi,   alu baingan or in tomato and tamarind. Add the veg and continue to curry as you would, knowing the spices are being absorbed into those fat jackets each chip comes in. 2. Pressure cook everything. I laugh at recipes telling me to hang about while meat, dal or potatoes soften. I mentally quarter the time they recommend, but more thorough instructions on how to use a pressure cooker are available...if you have the time. I also love that pressure cookers save gas. 3. Discover hing*. A pinch of this added to cumin and mustard seeds sizzling in hot oil at the start of a curry goes some way to replacing the need for onion and garlic...and so a lot of chopping. I don't think it's intended as a time-...
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Suburban Spice

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We live in a town out of Ladybird Books: well planned, neat, and well- behaved. Houses are red-brick or painted white. They are cuboid and clean and accommodate nuclear families of 2.4 children in row upon orderly row. No one has rebelled and painted theirs pink; no youth done graffiti and no architect made a statement in brutalist concrete. No, instead, some of us fry up hot clouds of spice to surround our homes and scintillate passers by. While no one has built a Mahalaxmi temple in our suburbs, the curry leaf, mustard seed and coconut sizzle sometimes makes it smell like they have. A side door opens and a small lady in a sari shocks us with her razzmatazz chilli and cumin bursting onto the pavement. Wow, this town is on fire! There is so much going on. And that's even before she's added the ginger and garlic. Then round another corner and down a street without cobbles, with neither dreaming spires nor fabled domes, my heart melts as if at the sound of lutes and zithers...
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Baingan Bonfire

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A month ago these green trees were wet black branches and this blue sky was a mist weaving between them. It was the Easter holidays and I dressed the children in wool and joined some friends around a bonfire in Girlguide woodland (Crawley Division). There were sausages in pans the size of dustbin lids; a big tea kettle; marshmallows on sticks. When all of that was over and the children were lost in the woods, in a good way, I tried to be discreet as I pulled out two aubergines and asked Brown Owl for permission to roast them in the embers. Awkward, that transition from hot dog to baingan ka barta . I lay them in the pit and reminded myself that any degree of faux pas is worth making to get that smoke into that vegetable. The children were making a den, dragging branches through the trees. The mothers warmed their hands round mugs of tea. I was back in a Panjabi kitchen, watching BNS (I never learned his real name) hold aubergines, and his nerve, over naked flames while they black...
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Cumin for kids

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I am teaching my children curry. They don't go to nursery so I figure I should make their time at home count for something. Today Abijah, 3, holds the handle of a cheese knife and I press down on the tip as we cut through a block of paneer. He watches as I slice the onions and eats more than I had planned so I am glad I'm not following any written recipe. Grams carry no weight here. Then, to stop him and his little sister swinging on the pull-out spice shelves, I give them what they're interested in, the cumin seeds. "If you're going to spit them out, spit them in the bin." I turn on the spotlight over the hob. I want to see this in full colour. Oil, cumin seeds, chilis and onions on a big black pan start sizzling, singing. Most other stuff I do is coping but this quarter to five moment is me creating. This is perfume, this is memoir, this is travel, this is bollywood. This is why I don't talk much when the heat is high. Then mummy thinks about the onse...
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