Sunday 1 April 2007

o biryani
you steal time with rituals
and make me mad(hur)

'I've got a blog!' I shouted to the Ugly One who was in the kitchen making vegetable curry, who did not respond, up to his elbows no doubt, in fiendish spices and cinnamon sticks.
Yesterday I attempted to make one of Madhur Jaffrey's biryanis. Madhur makes the process seem very exciting, but neglects to emphasise that one is likely to spend the whole day marinating the dead animal of choice (Shaun the Sheep, in this instance) in yoghurt, (having already bashed some herbs to buggery to put in the yoghurt), frying crispy onions, steeping one’s saffron in rosewater and soaking basmati rice; time which one might argue would have been far better spent ringing a takeaway and drinking lots of beer.
However, it all turned out OK, although I missed the first five minutes of Dr Who waiting for the concoction to steam before I could stick it in the oven.
A bit too saffrony for me, and the UO pointed out that I should really have spent a further hour making a separate veggy curry to go with it as apparently ‘proper biryanis always have that’.
Maybe they do, but I’m trusting Madhur in this. She says nothing about a separate veggy curry. This is why my other half is now making a veggy curry to accompany the leftovers today.
I’m having a pork pie and a bottle of Lost Sheep from Marks and Spencer, which seems somehow appropriate.
I was also gratified to see that I was not the only person to complain to the BBC about the cancellation of ‘Life on Mars’ the other week for a football match. Actually, I also complained that they’d cancelled ‘Holby City’ too, but I think I was on my own on that one.