Word on the street

It may have taken a while, but finally the word gullible has officially been declared dictionary worthy word!

Of course that’s not true at all but simply a juvenile attempt at humour, and it does act as a rather silly segue into my main point, which is that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has just announced its latest update of the lexis of the global lingua franca.

That’s right, a whole gamut, a farrago, an array of new words have been added to the English language. What Chaat! readers may be interested to know however,  is that chief among those is the term street food. The OED defines street food as:

prepared or cooked food sold by vendors in a street or other public location for immediate consumption.

With as much foodie foresight as ever, in the last issue of the magazine we at Chaat! dedicated a whole section to these delightful outdoor delicacies (the August/September issue of the magazine available now). The 6-page feature includes a number of delectable street food recipes from acclaimed chefs, as well as interviews with those in the know, such as guardian columnist, Richard Johnson, Indian author and cook, Mridula Baljekar and street food vendors Horn Ok Please. The feature celebrates the immediacy and vitality of this most exciting of way of cooking, and shows how a style which is very traditional can also be bang on trend.

Aside from street food, the other thing on the tip of people’s tongues this week is course Miley Cyrus’ outlandish performance at the MTV VMA awards. The former child star had everybody talking with her provocative performance at the annual music bash. Overstepping the mark just a little the raunchy performance saw a skin-colour-bikini-clad Miley dancing sexually and generally making the whole world squirm with discomfort. However, the show did strangely coincide with another of the OED's recent entries. During the performance, Miley entertained the crowd (and perhaps freaked out duet partner Robin Thicke a little) with a dance move known as twerking, which the OED defines as a:

dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.

If you’d like to watch Miley’s strange and horrifying performance click the link below. But if you’re currently eating street food be careful, you may not be able to keep it down!

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/video/2013/aug/26/mtv-vma-miley-cyrus-criticism-video

Are the NHS Serving up a Plate of Lies? Chaat! Investigates...

The Campaign for Better Hospital Food claims that the NHS is deliberately hiding patient’s food dissatisfaction records in a ploy to conceal the truth!

The campaigners have been criticising the NHS, declaring that patient surveys have proven contradictory to statistics that the NHS have displayed. They say that over 98% of those admitted to hospital are happy with their food, this is greatly juxtaposed against research illustrating that around 50% are greatly unhappy with what food they are presented with. This suggests there may be some food for thought when it comes to the Government and the notion of honesty.

It is a well-known factor that amongst many fears of being admitted to hospital lays the dread of the inedible. Being in the 21^st Century we would have thought that we had come further than sloppy shepherd’s pie followed by jelly and ice-cream. With many celebrity chefs such as James Martin drawing up weekly meal plans for hospitals, addressing the need for change we were under the impression that changes had been made. However, we were greatly mistaken.

Following the recent horse meat scandal, society as a whole is becoming more sceptical about food brilliance. ‘Twenty years of hospital food failure’ is the title of a report, generating support from chefs such as Lloyd Grossman, Albert Roux, John Benson-Smith, Mark Hix, Anton Edelmann and Heston Blumenthal. These culinary pioneers formed a coalition, an army with an agenda to improve hospital meals. Unfortunately their efforts were not supported effectively due a “lack of political will” according to Loyd Grossman.

Alex Jackson, co-ordinator of The Campaign for Better Hospital Food, feels that mandatory standards are required throughout this health sector. This measuring of quality would see patient satisfaction figures on the rise. Establishments such as Schools and Prisons employ this criteria, so why shouldn’t the Hospitals? In 2009 researchers found that standards in UK prisons beat food in hospital.

"It is time for the government to come clean about the sorry state of hospital food in England and set mandatory standards for patient meals” says Alex Jackson.

These Campaigners have claimed that the UK government has wasted more than £54m of taxpayers' money since 1992 in an attempt to recover the standards of hospital food. When people are ill they can be really selective in regards to what they want to eat and even if they want to eat at all. Chaat! has constructed some enticing suggestions for hospital chefs in an attempt to satisfy!

Three Tips for the NHS:

•         Add a bit of spice to hospital meals. Chilli releases endorphins that make you feel energised. This could give the patient the kick start they needed to start on the journey back to recovery.

•        Serve fresh and local produce, this is what the people want!

• Cook up a curried soup! On the road to recovery we always need a hot bowl of soup. However, we do not want the same old tinned rubbish, a bit of spice is always nice!

Please share your thoughts with us on this!

The Cold, Hard Sell

Quail Marketing in Hajikabul, Azerbaijan

We’ve all been there, sat at home watching daytime television, when the ring of a telephone breaks the monotony. A barely detectable feeling of excitement wells up as you approach the phone, racking your brain as to who this mystery caller might be. Quickly, excitement is replaced with annoyance as you realise that the voice on the other end of the line is attempting to sell you insurance. It’s the dreaded cold call.

You aren't in the market for insurance, so you insist that Income Protection will not be necessary. That’s when the pitch changes. Now it is the job of the sales representative to suggest something that you are interested in, on the off chance that a sale can still be made. “We also provide cover for your home…” drones the battle-wearied voice in your ear. You don’t even consider it, and hang up.

Fruit vendor in Baku

The Azeri men and women took their cold calling much more literally than their UK counterparts, their yells almost freezing solid in the bitter Siberian crosswind. Rather than a phone line, the selling arena was the streets of rural Azerbaijan. Instead of insurance, quails were the product of choice.

The whole idea that you could sell quail to a person pedalling through the snow and ice twenty-five kilometres from the next town, Hajikabul, was as ridiculous as alien abduction insurance. But that wasn’t about to stop these eternal optimists.

The men were stationed at 100m intervals along the road. The first man, a heavy-set middle-aged campaigner, tried to sell me one of his finest dead quail using vociferous persuasive techniques, running to keep pace with me as long as he possibly could and enthusiastically shouting prices that rapidly descended the further I managed to cycle away from him. I chuckled; in my experience as far as sales goes, nothing scares a person off like being chased by a man clutching a bird corpse.

Before long, I was in the realm of the second salesman, a skinny teenage boy, who had an alternative approach. He calmly tried to point out the benefits of buying a dead quail from him, namely, that it was already dead, ready for consumption, and would fit in one of the bags I had attached to my bicycle. Given that the young fellow didn’t speak a word of English, this was quite an achievement.

I turned my gaze up the road, attempting to suss out my next adversary. It was a younger guy, maybe mid-twenties, and he was so slight that he almost looked like a dark wisp against the white snow bank. He froze, pondering his approach in light of his colleagues’ failed efforts moments earlier. As I closed to within earshot, I swore I could hear the light bulb go on inside his head. Abruptly, he dropped the lifeless bird in his hand to the tarmac and crouched, eagerly rummaging through the white potato sack behind him. A broad, cheeky smile spread across the man’s face as he locked eyes with me. Standing up, with a glint in his eye, the man dragged a live quail, still thrashing around, out of the sack and held it aloft triumphantly.

Meat vendor in Ganja

Still beaming, the charismatic seller mischievously hinted that the freshness of his produce surpassed that of his competitors by nodding in the direction I had just come and disapprovingly wagging his finger, before nodding towards the live bounty in his grip and giving it the all-conquering, thumbs-up seal of approval.  He did, after all, have a point. The freshness of a dinner cannot be questioned if it is still trying to fly away.

I am not ashamed to say I was actually temped. I wanted to reward the sheer audacity and likeability of my new friend but, other than a handlebar trophy, I had no use for a quail, not dead and absolutely not alive. Likewise, I had no use for insurance, neither income protection nor home insurance. I am still being called with regard to insurance back here in the UK, and I am certain that those men are still out there on that stretch of road in Azerbaijan, trying to sell quails. I have come to learn that common ground is often found in the most unfamiliar places.

Now, I am aware that there is a big difference between selling birds on the roadside and selling insurance on the phone, but often-times there is a lack of genuine enthusiasm on the part of many salespeople in the UK. To be slightly melodramatic, our culture, with all its perceived politeness and guards against social discomfort, occasionally strips salespeople of their charisma. The shamelessness, cheek and bravado of those Azeri salesmen were brazenly endearing, and I for one would be thrilled to see more of it.

WORDS BY DANNY GORDON

Have We Always Been Hot For Spicy Food?

We can’t deny it: the world is pretty nuts about spicy food. Chillis, curries, Indian, Chinese – if it’s spicy, we just love it! A fascinating scientific discovery has proved that perhaps this spicy phenomenon is significantly more deep-rooted in our culture than we could ever have imagined.

Last week it was revealedthat prehistoric Denmark had cottoned on to the glory spice can add to your life a very long time ago, as residues which had been scraped from the inside pots found in the Baltic which were believed to be 6000 years old, show they were used to cook meat and fish that was seasoned with a peppery, mustard-like spice…so it looks like the Danes had it spot on!

Scientists have yet to discover how long humans have been using spices to flavour food, because though there have been traces of coriander seeds found at a 23,000-year-old site in Israel, we cannot be sure that they were used specifically to flavour food this early on. The earliest clear evidence that spices were intentionally added to food is from historic residue from northern Europe dating around 6100 years ago – the earliest known evidence of spices used for seasoning in Europe, and perhaps anywhere in the world. This scientific discovery adds a remarkable angle to the history of the hunter-gatherers, and hopefully there are more exciting discoveries yet to come! 

Chat with Jon Culshaw

CHAAT: Who was the first person you recall doing an impression of?
Jon Culshaw: Well, the first character to my parent’s delight was Woody the Woodpecker when I was about five. The second one was Patrick Moore after I’d watched an episode of The Sky at Night. [In the voice of Patrick Moore]Stars! Veryyy, veryyy interesting.

C: You’ve recently become a member of The Sky at Night; you must be excited about that!
JC: Yes! They’ve kind of adopted me into The Sky at Night team. It’s wonderful because as an amateur astronomer I can ask the kind of questions that the viewers might have. There are some fabulous experts on the programme; it’s the best job on earth!

C: You’ve impersonated the Doctors of Doctor Who. What are your thoughts on time travelling?
JC: Travelling into the past…I don’t know. It might be wrapped up in some dimensional science that we don’t know yet. We can’t yet work it out…I mean, how do you explain the fax machine to Henry the 8^th?

C: We’re a spicy food magazine, so as a Chaat! challenge could you do an impression of a Chicken Jalfrezi?
JC: An impression of a chicken jalfrezi…That’s perhaps more baffling than the concept of time travel. Let me just travel into the future to see what that looks like. [pause] Yes, apparently I can, but it was very messy. Took three hours to wash off. When I’m next in my local Tandoori I’ll go in and listen to the sound of it cooking and sizzling, then I’ll get back to you.

C: You hosted the British Curry Awards in 2008, so why was this something you wanted to take part in?
JC: I didn’t realise before that there was a British Curry Award, what an absolute extravaganza it was. I did the chef interviews for the awards, sampled some of the food and got to know a few curry houses on the list. I like a korma, but I admire my friends because they eat curries at the level of molten lava. I prefer the overall taste experience you get when it’s a little bit milder.

C: How do you cook your own spicy dishes at home?
JC: I add water and stir. I’m blessed to live very near a curry house so I go there instead. I can cook the basics like a Sunday roast or a lasagne but I’d like to learn more.

C: Do you do any impressions of culinary experts while you’re in the kitchen? Maybe wander around shouting like Gordon Ramsay?
JC: [laughs] Yes I’ll try to chop things up at lightning speed like Jamie Oliver. But rather than a knife I’ll use a wooden spoon and try to transfer this chopping enthusiasm to dramatic stirring. I do a take of Gregg Wallace while he’s sampling his puddings. He takes a quarter of a metric ton on a spoon and just shovels it down.

C: What new adventures are you embarking on now?
JC: I’m in the process of writing the Impressions Show which we’re hoping to start later this year and I’ve been having a lot of fun with the contradictions of Nick Clegg. He’s a bit like a bewildered, supply geography teacher trying to stay afloat. Then you’ve got big characters like Boris Johnson, so it’s not a bad time for taking on politicians. [In the voice of Boris Johnson] It’s Boris going on a spiffing holiday to Brazil…brahh brrahhh.

C: That sounded a bit like a Dalek towards the end there…a strange resemblance.
JC: I like that idea. Maybe the transformation is only halfway through? I can imagine Boris as a Dalek; a mop of blonde hair on top of a dome. [In Dalek voice] exuberate, exuberate! 

Full interview in Chaat! Magazine issue 13

Chat with Tim Vine

He once broke the record for the most
jokes told in an hour, he also likes to break the odd poppadom. We call the Punslinger himself - aka Chaat’s very
first comedy curry lover of the month!

How’s the tour going?
“It’s quite civilised, we started with three gigs
then took three nights off. We’re gradually
building up to 15 in row. And when you’re
hitting that you know you’re on the final
straight. I’d never call it work!”

I bet you see a few curry houses on
the road, right?
“Well I’ve seen a few over the years! There’s
a great one near me in Epsom called La Raj. I
don’t know if it’s true or not, but rumour has
it their food is so good, someone has ordered
one of their meals from abroad. It was put on
its own seat on Concorde! I don’t know if that’s
true or not, but it’s a great way of advertising
your restaurant!”

Would you ever be that decadent?
“I’m not so hard to please! If you book a meal
to fly it’s going to get a little manky in transit.”
Passport control would be a nightmare.
How long does it take you to write a
whole show’s worth of material?
“About six months or so. I get into a rhythm
of about 15 jokes a day and try them out on a
Monday night. Try them out and cross them
out, usually!”

How do you know the joke hasn’t been
thought of before?
“You don’t! I think when people start to write
wordplay jokes they go down the more
obvious routes. It’s knowing if you’ve heard it
before and digging around a bit. For example,
do you know if you chop a horse in half and
bang the two halves together it sounds like
someone riding a coconut? You have to
assume that no one else has thought of that
idea. It would be highly unlikely if they had,
and if it has been done before then someone
will tell you pretty quickly!”


“Well I have got a few curry
jokes. I went to an Indian restaurant
the other day. He said ‘curry okay?’ I said ‘I
might get up and sing one once I’ve finished
this...’ I also do another thing called poppadom
jigsaw where I get out a poppadom and take
a picture of it with a Polaroid. Then I smash
it up and, working from the picture, I try and
assemble it.”

See Full Interview Chaat! issue 1

Fit For Purpose

Somewhere Between Mekhnatabad and Shurobod

“Your tubes”, he mimed. “Give them to me”. I had heard of thriftiness, but this Tajik child was intimidatingly entrepreneurial. 

I had been cycling for months, and the latest lung-busting climb had left me somewhere between Mekhnatabad and Shurobod in the blazing midday heat on my way into the imperious Pamir mountain range in central Asia.

The boy’s brown eyes emerged from beneath his shaggy, black hair and bore into mine. A loose, grubby grey T-shirt hung from the boy’s wiry frame and was tucked professionally into his threadbare black shorts. The boy stood defiantly and his striking, angular features added to the almost inappropriate authority he commanded. His left arm stretched out, pointing towards the deflated tyre mounted on the rear rim of his outgrown, rickety bicycle, and his right hand had uncurled into an expectant, open grasp. He couldn’t have been older than ten, and as I congratulated myself on having found my way into a stand-off with a small child in the Tajik mountains, a threatening smile spread across his muddied face, revealing both his greying teeth and the demeanour of an individual who would be willing to take my tubes by force.

I came to realise, with help from that charming episode out there in the dust, that there is an interesting difference in attitude to recycling between the haves and have-nots. Let me explain. By the time Eastern Europe rolled into view, it was apparent that the litter was becoming less well managed the further East I pushed. In parts of Bulgaria, rubbish laboured across the road in the gentle breeze like tumbleweed in an old Western, and the situation was occasionally so bad in Turkey that even the helpful crows had come out to litter-pick.

Two children using a polystyrene box as a boat in Manado, Indonesia

But communities in many developing nations had also taught me that it was possible to smite three birds with

one innovatively functional stone. And no, I’m not talking about the crows this time. Bird number one is the issue of waste disposal, and bird number two is the expenditure on materials. Our friend, bird number three, is the need for creative expression.

Every day people in the world’s poorer countries do this real life impression of Rumplestiltskin’s miraculous gold-spinning act of turning straw into gold; the useless into a utility. Tyres became flip flops in Indonesia, gutter rainwater became a cheap car wash in Uzbekistan, and road-kill became a beautiful stew in Azerbaijan. Tat was being used, and a need for something or other was being fulfilled, but most of all, people had pride in their creations. They had used their imaginations to produce something for themselves that was not only free, but truly theirs, all the way from conception to execution.

This resourcefulness is something that seems to be eroding in the West as a result decreasing necessity, yet is so prevalent in some of our poorer societies that I had a boy standing in front of me demanding an organ transplant, bike-to-bike.

Back-pedalling a little, we should realise that there is a lesson to be learnt here. Given the environmental imperative these days, we should use all the methods of recycling at our disposal. The kind of sterile, institutionalised recycling we have, with organised boxes and reward schemes is all well and good (and, I accept, highly necessary), but we should turn our everyday lives back into artistic medium, and actually ask ourselves whether we could re-purpose any of our “useless stuff” before tossing it in the appropriately coloured bin. After proudly proclaiming “I made that!” we might just cut the electricity bills at the recycling plants. In fact, my granny used to do just this, carefully re-using envelopes and enthusiastically collecting old buttons. I thought it was kooky, but I've since upgraded my opinion.

The whole thing made me wonder what I would do with my bicycle when I finally brought the curtain down on my cycling act. Create a sculpture from its melted frame perhaps? And use the spokes to craft chicken coop for a local farm? Whatever I decided to do, a more pressing issue was at hand: the expectant boy that stood before me. The problem was, while his thuggish exuberance was admirable, the boy wasn't planning to make a creative offering to the world and turn straw into gold; he was planning to simply turn my gold into his gold. No innovative recycling this time, just theft.

I helped to patch his tube up, and ruffled his hair as I wheeled my bike away. I guess he had turned me, something useless, into something useful after all. He laughed. His plan had worked.


WORDS BY DANNY GORDON

The Crème de la Crème of the Curry World

As Curry lovers, we are divided. On one side, we have the hot headed chilli chancellors who love to take the mick out of those mild in nature and curry preference.

However, the mild and meek characters among us should not be underestimated in the culinary division. The creamy textures to dishes such as Korma, Masala and Pasanda makes them strong competitors in a war over the best curry. Chaat!'s Top of The Poppadoms poll has seen these mild classics triumph time and time again!

The sad thing is that there are people in this world that simply cannot have cream. Those who are lactose intolerant find it almost impossible to find good a creamy curry, frequently having to settle for second best.  We at Chaat! will not leave anyone out on the chance of a good curry! We have found these people the answer with the Lactofree products range.

Lactofree is not a dairy free product - it is real dairy, but it is skimmed of the lactose (the sugars in dairy) which makes it  suitable for people with a lactose intolerance. Up to 15% (1 in 7) of the UK population are thought to be lactose intolerant which, before Lactofree, meant that they had to avoid dairy altogether and switch to Soya and other alternatives. The problem  was that they were missing out on the essential vitamins and nutrients as well as the good curries! Lactofree allows people with a lactose intolerance to enjoy real dairy in their meals which we at Chaat! support 100%.

The food pioneers Lactofree have teamed up with London restaurant L'atelier des chefs in an attempt to teach the masses how cook lacto free foods. From cupcakes to scallops these classes teach a plethora of delicacies. Chaat! were invited along to try out the Pasanda which was delicious!

 

Chicken Pasanda with Pilau rice

Serves: 6 Persons

Prep time: 15 min

Cooking time: 25 min

Rest time: 30 min

                

Ingredients for the curry:
 

Chicken thighs:                                    12 Whole

Lactofree cream:                                  250 ml

Onions:                                                 1 Whole

Fresh ginger:                                        3 grams

Ground coriander:                                2 Teaspoons

Red chilli powder:                                 1 Teaspoons

Garlic cloves:                                        2 Whole

Green cardamom pods:                        4 Whole

Ground almonds:                                  90 grams

Cashew nuts:                                        20 grams

Water:                                                   80 ml

Fresh coriander:                                    0.25 bunches

Sunflower oil:                                        30 ml

Saffron threads:                                    2 pinches
 

For the rice:

Water:                                                   450 ml

Green cardamom pods:                        3 Whole

Red chillies:                                          1 Whole

Lactofree spreadable:                           50 grams

Basmati rice:                                         300 grams

Cinnamon sticks:                                  1 Whole

Maldon salt:                                          3 pinches

Description:

For the curry:

Peel and slice the onion, peel and thinly slice the garlic, peel and grate the ginger.

Crush the cardamom and remove the seeds. Cut the chicken into pieces and rub the ground coriander, chilli powder and cardamom seeds into it.

Leave to marinade for 30 minutes, longer if possible. Heat a saucepan, add the oil and when hot add the onion and saffron and cook gently for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, a pinch of salt and ground almonds, cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes the add the chicken and Lactofree cream.

Simmer gently for 15 minutes. Roughly chop the cashews and coriander and top the finished dish with them when serving.

For the rice:

Wash the rice well. Crack the cardamom and slice the chilli thinly. Place the rice in a saucepan and cover with the water (1 and a half times the quantity of rice).

Add the cinnamon stick, cracked cardamom pods, spreadable, saffron and salt. Bring the saucepan to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and cover with a lid. Cook the rice for 10-12 minutes or until all of the liquid has been absorbed.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow the rice to finish cooking away from the heat. Break the rice up with a fork just before serving with the curry. Serve with the sliced chilli on top.

Chefs Tip:

Try stuffing your chicken thighs with sultanas, chopped coriander and some pistachios. Roll them up and close with a toothpick before cooking the same way.

If you would like to have a go at cooking with professional Chef's visit  L'atelier des chefs website to book a place.

Weed 'em and reap!

Our friends at The Organic Gardening Catalogue are alongside a fascinating interview with Kate Humble in our latest issue (out now in WH Smiths).

They're currently gearing up for next year's growing season, and in the meantime have been cooking up some tasty treats with their home grown crop. The catalogue is joint venture between the Garden Organic Society and Chase Organics, who have been advising and supplying organic seeds to gardeners for decades.

From a choice of hundreds of organically produced seeds and chemical free pest control, to innovative garden tools and ways to help save the bees, The Organic Gardening Catalogue is full of good things for your garden.

If you're an organically minded gardener, or would like to be, take a look around their website -  http://www.organiccatalogue.com  - for some inspiration and great chemical free gardening ideas, and be sure to follow them on their Facebook page for regular updates, and organic recipe suggestions - this week they've made a Dwarf Green Bean Curry!

Devilishly Hot Sauces...

Crazy Fred has always been the nomadic type. Originally born in Perth, Australia to parents who simply loved to travel, “Crazy” Fred Pole spent much of his early life globe-trotting. After buying a Land Rover which they drove across South East Asia and Africa, Fred and family lived in Ghana, Sweden, Granada and many other places until he eventually settled in the UK.

Nowadays, Fred has traded in his globe-gallivanting ways in favour of a life spent roaming the length and breadth of the country, espousing his new love, a love of chillies. Based in Newcastle with partner Sally, Fred has collected this unique global culinary knowledge and applied it to his chilli sauces.

His business, Crazy Fred’s Chilli Emporium sells a unique range of products all using completely fresh ingredients. One of Fred’s newest products, the fiery ‘Embalmer’ has proven a hit with many online customers and folks around the nation’s food festivals. The devilishly hot sauce may be loved by adventurous foodies but Fred warns, ‘this stuff is worse than paint remover. If you ingest it, you suffer for around 25 minutes. There is no cure’.  Yikes.

Some of his other best sellers are a little lighter on the side of spice, but full on with fantastic flavour. These include the tantalisingly tasty Lime and Coconut and Red Caramelised Onion Chutneys, his award winning mild salsa, and a range of flavoured salts and fresh chillies. Fred explained to Chaat! that he is constantly finding bigger and better suppliers, and will be gearing soon be gearing product range toward suggestions and demands.  

You can buy Crazy Fred’s delicious products via his website http://www.crazy-freds.co.uk/ or by catching him at one of the many food shows he attends nationwide.

Find a full feature on Fred and his home town of Newcastle in Chaat! issue 14.

Curry Curriculum...?

Birmingham is the first city to attempt to tackle the unemployment crisis with our favourite topic: spicy food. On the surface, this might seem like a slightly strange solution to the credit crunch, however – there is method in the madness!

Birmingham has a wealthy spicy food culture, and is famous for the first British take on the now increasingly popular ‘Balti’ cooking style. This method of fusion cooking was introduced to the UK by a Pakistani restaurateur in Birmingham almost thirty years ago, now the city hosts a ‘Balti Triangle’ – a region within the city which boasts an abundance of spicy food restaurants and takeaways, and consequently, a region which is rife with employment opportunities.

The Birmingham Baccalaureate, a course which runs alongside GCSEs, is designed to bridge the gaps in the employment skills of young people, and spotting an employment opportunity in Asian cooking within Birmingham, it has been implemented into the curriculum. Teenagers taking the Baccalaureate at school will be taught to cook the home-grown Balti dish in an attempt to increase their job opportunities in the city.

With help from the Birmingham Balti Association, from September this year 10 schools will be teaching skills around life sciences, hospitality, engineering, digital data storage and now Balti cooking as part of the Birmingham Baccalaureate, hopefully providing further career opportunities for teenagers in the city.  

This idea is said to have been met with many positive comments, meaning we could see more schools joining the scheme in coming years. Could Birmingham turn out to be the curry capital of the UK? We’ll have to wait and see!

To learn more about the “Curry Curriculum”, see Chaat! issue 11

CHAT WITH THE URBAN RAJAH

INTERVIEW BY MARIANNE VOYLE

Having grown up in Britain with a rich family history of food and travel, author and traveller Ivor Peters wants not only to share his precious recipes and skills for authentic Indian dishes, but to inspire the sense of adventure, community and good deeds that come hand-in-hand with great food. With his infectious laugh, great stories and passion for all things spicy, we’re big fans of The Urban Rajah, and you will be too.

After working in publishing and running a PR agency, Ivor guided his career path towards his passion for food, which would have been “a life of Pot Noodles” had he not learned to re-create the food he grew up on. He has now been cooking for 20 years, and his new book, The Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs, is an almost edible scrapbook that will engross you in hilarious and touching family stories laced with the recipes - even religious experiences relating to lamb chops. “My dad and his brothers were raised in Karachi, but they left and travelled through the Middle East and Europe. I was interested in understanding their journey and the food that followed them, and I knew that unless I wrote their stories, as in most Asian households, it would only be passed on verbally.”

Did he have to conduct some intense, family interviews for book research? I asked. “I had to really work on them!” he laughs, and tells me how casually telling his father about a masala dish he’d made would spark a story about his grandmother and her own masala recipes. “I think that recipes definitely taste better when they've got a story attached to it.”

Being such a personal account of his family history, I wanted to know why he chose to divulge his secrets. “Indian food is such a sociable cuisine and it’s something that you share” he said. “If you cross the threshold of the home of an Asian family you cannot leave without being fed. I’d pop over to see my mum for a quick cup of tea and leave with a huge box of Carte D’or Curry. Not even tupperware, just ice-cream boxes full of food. I wanted to share this heritage and take some of the mystique out of Indian food by equipping people with a bit of confidence and making recipes accessible.”

Ivor’s book, The Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs, is out now. You can book your Indian Street Food Workshop at www.hobbshousebakery.co.uk . And if you can’t wait that long, Ivor has some tasty recipes on his website www.urbanrajah.com.

Full interview in Chaat! issue 13

Everyday Lebanese Cooking by Mona Hamadeh

In the historically conflict-troubled country of Lebanon, one thing that unites the nation is its passion for food. In Everyday Lebanese Cuisine, author Mona Hamadeh introduces us to the simple and healthy food of the middle-eastern country, delving into the culinary delights of a nation that was initially inspired by that of the Ottoman Empire.

Born in the Shouf Mountains to the South-East of Beirut, then moving to the city at a young age, the highlight of Mona’s early life was always returning to the countryside. A trip to her rural birthplace meant that she would be greeted by happy smiles, generous hospitality and a plethora of home-grown healthy food.

Community is a huge part of Lebanese life, and Mona gives us a taster of the country’s sharing culture by introducing us to Maza. To be eaten at the beginning of a meal, these tasty treats share more of an affinity with Spanish tapas than regular starters. Mona lists some fantastic snacks for dipping and picking, spooning and sharing, all of which easy to prepare.

In this beautifully photographed and simply arranged cookbook there is a strong emphasis on vegetables and pulses, meaning that many dishes are vegetarian friendly. In fact, there is an entire section dedicated to using these alone as a basis for main dishes and the suggestions are surprisingly varied. There are many exciting dishes that incorporate all sorts of meat, fish and poultry too, and the unconventional heavy use of garlic and onions may at first seem a little heavy handed, but the way they are incorporated into the recipes is with deftest of touches.

Mona has shown us through creating this book that despite its political instability, at its heart Lebanon is simply a country bathed in sunlight, with beautiful terrain, blessed with loving people and most importantly filled with delicious, light and fresh recipes.

Sprinkles! by Jackie Alpers

Here at Chaat! we’d like to consider ourselves quite the spice connoisseurs. We regularly deal with all things Asian inspired and spice infused, meaning that it’s quite rare we get our hands on something sweet. When Sprinkles! entered the office we literally couldn’t wait to get home and try out some of the recipes printed on these colourful pages.

The book itself is extremely aesthetically pleasing, full of colours and glossy pictures of cakes which set your mouth watering with just one look. Jackie Alpers claims in her introduction that “sprinkles are all about delight”, and delight is exactly what this book can bring. Be it baking for a girly night in, a Sunday afternoon with the kids or quite simply for your own pleasure, indulging in some serious baking with a Sprinkles! recipe is guaranteed to brighten up your day. From the more simplistic ‘fairy bread sandwiches’  style treats, to the gorgeous ‘meringue kisses’ which would be perfect to serve at dinner parties, Jackie Alpers has provided a colourful recipe for all manner of occasions.

As soon as we received the book we knew we wanted to try our hand at the amazing rainbow layer cake pictures on the cover, but we insisted on examining every page and every recipe, before finally deciding that it was in fact the rainbow layer cake we were going to attempt – of course. Though the result wasn’t quite as beautiful as the featured image, the recipe was extremely easy to follow and the cake tasted great!

Sprinkles! comes highly recommended to bakers of all levels of expertise; those looking for fun or professional purposes, and anyone who want to add a bit of fun to their baking. 

Indulge in a Chaat! Recipe, you know it makes sense.

When we embark on a culinary journey we offer all of our senses to be tampered with. The five senses are tickled, shaken and intruded upon through no fault but our own; if we love curry then this is the price we have to pay.

Sometimes we feel that completing a recipe is strenuous work, having to stay focused and attentive throughout the whole preparation, cooking and serving process. With family members interfering, phones ringing and door bells buzzing the notion of constructing this authentic curry appears a million miles away from the kitchen you are stood in.

It is for this reason that we as westerners are so used to simply contacting our local BCC curry house and ordering what we want. But stay with it! Recreating a dish is so much more than simply cooking up a curry, it is the experience of seeing the recipe through to the end that Chaat! encourages you to experience.

Sight – When you first set eyes on the picture of that beautiful dish in Chaat! Magazine you wonder if you are equipped with the right tools and admonition to conquer the curry! It looks beautiful but you  cant help but second guess your ability.

Sound – The sound of the boiling veg of sizzling meat makes your stomach rumble and engages you with a want to continue and be a success at the chosen culinary delight.

Touch- You prod the meat and veg to see if its cooked, always being surprised that the food that has been cooking in boiling water is hot!

Smell – We may sneeze uncontrollably when adding pepper into the mix but it is all worth it in the end. The beautiful aromas that fill the kitchen entice other members of the family, leaving them slightly hypnotised as they begin to make their way to the kitchen for a snoop.

Taste – Sit down with your family or alone with a Kingfisher and immerse in the glories of your dish. The outcome is a product of your capability and enables you to showcase your curry cookery talents.

What We Learnt at Holi One Festival

Holi: one of India's oldest festivals. This religious Hindu festival takes place in March and marks the beginning of Spring, as well as the triumph of 'good' over 'evil'. Inspired by this this tradition, the creators of Holi One introduced Europe to colour festivals. Communicating the message that "we are all one", the act of covering people of all backgrounds in paint is a symbol of mass equality. This month, London held its first Holi One Colour Festival at Battersea Power Station, drowning the grounds in clouds of fluorescent powder. The top DJs, dancers and beautiful-smelling pulled pork trucks all contribute to the amazing atmosphere of this celebration. Here's some Chaat! advice for those planning to go in 2014...

• Wear white if you want to look extra colourful. Don't take any items of clothing you love - everything will adopt a pink tint in the wash.
• Print your ticket. There's a much longer entry queue for people with tickets on mobile devices.
• Fill your paint bags with half a bottle of water if you want the it to stick and stand-out.
• Be prepared for spontaneous hugging. There's no room for social awkwardness - new friends will want your paint to rub off on them.
• It's probably best not to take a drink in with you during a colour countdown. The mist of multicoloured paint may look pretty but it's not a great cider accompaniment.
• Invest in a phone or camera cover. Still experiencing a slight charging malfunction from the amount of paint embedded in the charger socket.
• Throwing paint at strangers is therapeutic. We want more paint in our lives.
• Does what it says on the (paint) tin; this chaotic but peaceful festival brings people together. It's definitely one for the bucket list.

The Rise in Spicy Fast Food

The Spice is Right

Sometimes fast food is the simplest option. Quick, easy and cheap it is the perfect solution to fill that gap when you’re on the move. Plus, though we hate to admit it, it’s pretty tasty too. In the past few years, however, the development in fast food culture has seen a move away from your traditional McDonald’s and Burger Kings and the increase of spicy outlets. Swapping the burgers for biryanis, Britain has gone a little spice mad – and Chaat! are completely supporting this.

Not only is spicy food more nutritious, more filling and more diverse in its offerings than your standard greasy get up – but a creamy curry or some spicy noodles served up in minutes is far more satisfying than some soggy chips and a floppy burger.

In the latest issue of Chaat! we ran a feature on Indian street food and its demand and popularity has increased tenfold in recent years – we’ve literally gone curry crazy!

Food courts in shopping centres are being transformed to Asian havens filled with noodles, rice, curries and bhajis -Westfield in London having nearly 10 different types of Asian fast food outlets for you to have a little nibble on your shopping break! A lot of these fast food places are focused on the notion of Indian street food – simple, tasty and fast traditional Indian delicacies. IndiGo in Westfield is the prime example – a successful fast food joint bringing Indian Street Food to life in one of London’s busiest shopping centres. Chaat! predicts a rise in these fast food outlets which bring an authentic taste of India to your shopping experience, and we’re sure soon enough the masses will start swapping their chicken nuggets for chicken tikka!

We’ve certainly come a long way since the first curry house opened in Britain around 200 years ago, and hopefully the availability of spicy food in all shapes and sizes will continue to increase. 

Charlie Dimmock

Chaat rings Dimmock HQ to find out about her taste in curry

So then, curries. Do they play a
significant role in your life?

“Of course! My dad used to be at sea and a
lot of the crew were Bangladeshi. He’d come
home with big bags of spices which he’d
keep under the stairs. He’d grind them all
up when he was making a curry for friends. I
really wanted to stay up but my parents said I
couldn’t stay up until I could eat curry. I forced
myself to eat it even though they were far too
hot! Now I absolutely love them.”

So your dad was taught by the masters!

“Very much so! He’s had a lot of work done on
the house now but up until recently you’d still
get that waft of curry whenever you opened
the cupboard under the stairs!”

What’s your favourite?

“I do love a spicy one, but there’s this one dish
our local restaurant does where the lamb is
marinated for 24 hours and it’s gorgeous!
Curry is such a huge area; I love green Thai
curries, I love dhansaks, I enjoy the occasional
korma and I love all my side dishes. That’s what
dad taught me from a very early age. We’d
have chick peas with spinach and Bombay
potatoes and of course yoghurt, which is
essential with any curry!”

You can read the full interview in issue 1 of Chaat! Magazine

Our Chat With The Fabulous Baker Brothers

BATTLE OF THE BROTHERS
The Fabulous Baker Brothers share their thoughts on bread, beards, and Bruce Springsteen.

Interview by Marianne Voyle

Tom and Henry Herbert first burst on to our screens as a duo in 2012, bringing with them nostalgia for the traditional, British bakeries. With their delicious breads in Harrods’ food halls, the launch of a new cookery school, and the popular second series of The Fabulous Baker Brothers, the brothers have their flour-covered hands full.

As the 5^th generation of butchers and bakers in their family, the brothers are battling to develop a love for the incomparable taste of ‘real bread’ over the manufactured loaf.  Their presence also breaks the usual, idealistic baking stereotypes. “We don’t pretend to be anything we’re not” Henry told Chaat!, and he would be right. Their dishes aren’t prettied or poked, and perhaps this straightforwardness is the reason why they’re driving people to their kitchens. After the success of their first series where the two competed for title of ‘best pie maker’ with lots of playful nudges and banter, they are now embarking on a challenging road trip to add one fabulous dish to some British menus. There may seem like a lot of rivalry, but really, it’s just a lot of brotherly love.


Chaat!: Henry; in the last series of the Fabulous Baker Brothers, you used a large cleaver to dramatically chop some bread in half. Would you say that your mission is to make baking ‘manly’?
Henry Herbert: I think we’re quite big, bold and full of flavour. We’re in your face rather than pretty. In that way, it could seem that we’re trying to appeal to young males, but in reality, having met people who enjoy the show, they range from rugby players to grannies to young kids. We’re not trying to be exclusive here, but we do what we do without trying to be anything other than us. Nobody is telling us to act a certain way or putting words in our mouths. We’ll do it, film it, and that’s what happens!

C: What do you have as background noise while you’re cooking?
Tom Herbert: When I started baking for living 15 years ago, the head baker could choose what music to put on. At the time it was my Uncle Sam and he’s a massive Bruce Springsteen fan. I listen to my fair share of Bruce Springsteen. I’ve actually made a Baker Brothers playlist with my favourite tunes to bake to. Anyone can download it…if you Google it it’s called ‘Hot Tunes from the Oven from the Fabulous Baker Brothers’!
HH: I really like Bastille and dodgy, reggae pop from the 90s for a couple of hours of baking in the kitchen!

C: How’s everything going at Hobb’s House Bakery?
HH: It’s going really well. We’re working on a cookery school which is coming up [in March] and Tom and I are mainly working on that. It’s upstairs in the house we grew up in and we’re slowly converting it into a cookery school. We’ll be teaching people how to make sausages and chop up their meats. It’s one thing having your own cookery show, but it’s another thing to have an intimate group where you really delve into detail and get to know people. I’m really looking forward to that.
TH: It’s a tricky time because it’s January and things aren’t great on the high-street, but we’ve got so much going on with the new book, the new show and launching our cookery school. We’ve recently started supplying bread to Harrods in London too.

C: You’re fairly new to the public eye. Tell me about your best and worst fan experiences so far.
TH: I think the best ones are getting feedback from people where our recipes have really been a part of their lives. To hear from a lady saying her husband has never been in the kitchen and since he’s become a fan of the Baker Brothers, she can hardly get him out of there and it’s added a new lease of life to their marriage, well, you’d never guess would you! It gives me a huge amount of satisfaction knowing that something that we’ve tested in our kitchen has become a part of someone else’s life. The most alarming experience was after I filmed In Search of a Perfect Loaf on BBC 4 which was a documentary about my quest to make the perfect bread. They’d shown it a few times on TV. When I was at Glastonbury with my wife, this man-giant with a beard came towards me in a slightly possessed way and shouted ‘You’re the baker off the telly!’ and picked me up and kind of swung me around like I was a small child. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time.

C: Was it Hagrid?
TH: Yes! A ginger Hagrid.

C: As you know, Chaat! readers love their spice,  so what curries have you been cooking up recently?
HH: I went to India for two and a half months just after I got married and realised how diverse curry dishes were. I really like having a curry and making some chapattis to go with it. That, for me, is perfection. My favourite is a fish curry, just because it’s really quick!  You can make it delicious easily just with some curry leaves, a bit of shellfish and some fresh spices.
TH: The quick fish curry has been a great one. It’s cooked really quickly in a home-blend of spices. My favourite spicy dish? That’s like choosing between your children...


Full interview in Chaat! Magazine issue 12

Artificial meat in a-bun-dance

Tabloids have branded it the Frankenburger, but there is nothing scary about the new chem-lab crafted patty that could potentially solve all of the world’s hunger problems – except of course the cost. Bankrolled by billionaire Sergey Brin, co-founder of website Google, the ultra-gourmet beef burger will set you back a super-sized £250,000, a whopper of a price tag!

The theoretical idea for synthetic (or in vitro meat as it’s known) goes way back. Winston Churchill as far back as 1936 stated: 

“We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium”. 

That’s one heck of a preparation time....

Dutch scientists created the 142g burger in a lengthy process straight out of science fiction. Stem cells taken from cows were cultivated in a nutrient broth inside a petri dish.  Next they were combined with elastic collagen and attached to velcro 'anchor points’ and bulked up using electrical stimuli. Finally the 20,000 tiny meat strips were minced together with 200 pieces of lab grown animal fat and the hamburger was ready for cooking and consumption.

Red beetroot juice and saffron were also added to the mix to create that authentic burger taste. However, elected taster Ms Ruetzler still stated 

“It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect (but) I miss salt and pepper!” 

We at Chaat! think that adding a little spice to the mix may have given it that extra kick to turn it from a labby meal into a happy meal (yes that’s a terrible pun, we know.)

Scientists say the next step may be manufacturing artificial chicken or fish. So with that in mind maybe we’re not too far away from creating a man-made madras or a test-tube tikka masala!

Celebrating Eid with a little chilli seed!

Eid is one of the greatest Muslim celebrations, all centred on the subject of food and the family construct. Marking the end of Ramadan The Feast of Breaking the Fast has to be a pretty spectacular culinary occasion!

Participants of Ramadan all come together in unity with one enthusiasm, to revel in beautifully flavoursome foods! With taste buds feeling slightly neglected, the banquet must really employ some kick and excitement to remind Muslims what they have been missing out on. The sacrifices they have made throughout the month seem a million miles away on the first taste of that spicy dish.  

Chillies are an essential component to the feast with an attempt to put the spice back into life and return to a normal eating and sleeping patterns. Chillies reboot the system, releases endorphins that leave you feeling energised and fulfilled.

They say that chillies stimulate the circulation as well as the appetite, kindling the flow of saliva. The body illustrates its own love for chillies and possess a craving that doesn’t solely intrigue the taste buds but the whole body.



A friend of Chaat!, Joanna Plumb, had dedicated her life to the chilli plant. Her guest appearance on the cookery show Sunday Brunch last week illustrated just how much we all love chilli! Joanna owns the UK’s first ‘Pick Your Own’ chilli farm and thrives off of our daring streak to taste the hottest of the hottest. Her Chilli Nursery in Bedfordshire hosts a plethora of chillies, all ready and waiting to blow the palate away!

If you are putting on a spicy spread take a look at Joanna’s advice: