Sunday 6 April 2008

lamb korma pilaf
is like a potion brewed as
radio four chants

The next time I cook Lamb Korma Pilaf (if indeed, this is not the last) I shall set aside more time. Doing things like this is a bit of an extended ritual, and I take my hat off, or at least I would if I were wearing a hat in the kitchen, to generations of Indian women and men who have gone through all this palava just for a bit of dinner.
The main element of time consumption is the onions. Indian food requires that onions be fried until they are a deep golden brown and smell so good you want to marry them. For some reason the onions on this occasion chose to be stubborn and remained a contented shade of green for a goodly time. I have seen packets of onions, conveniently fried for my convenience, down at my local Indian Food supplies shop, but I always feel that using them would be the thin end of the Cook-In Sauce Wedge.
Anyway, after about four hours, I sandwiched a layer of curried lamb between two layers of basmati rice and stuck it in the oven.
It was fab.
I think I upset my mate Anthony from the US the other day. He rang me up after I’d sent him a recipe for Welsh Chili Baked Risotto.
‘Can you get rice cookers over there?’ he asked.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I want to cook rice.’
‘You have a cooker, water and a saucepan. Why do you need a rice cooker?’
‘It’s easier.’
‘Not the point!’ I shout, down the phone. ‘Cook the rice properly. You’re just Lazy!’
Americans, as I have discovered, think things are better if you have to do less work to produce them.