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Pink turbans and rose petals

May 24, 2009 12 Comments Filed Under: Food, Indian, Indian food, London, Recipes, Supper clubs

Hardeep Singh Koli Hardeep Singh Koli
TV and radio presenter Hardeep Singh Kholi arrived in his Jag on Friday morning, smelling of musk, jasmine…something exotic.

“You smell great” I say “What is it?”

“Very expensive Tom Ford aftershave”

Just like on TV, Hardeep has a warmth about him and a certain amount of bravery. He has the balls to turn up at a strange woman’s house and get stuck into cooking.

“This feels….sexy” he says.

He works quickly and efficiently, all the while juggling constant phone calls from agents, friends, business contacts.

“It’s always better to make curry the day before. This way the spices are really infused into the dish”

His curry secret?

“Use whole spices first of all then add ground spices later. You need both to get that authentic flavour”.

Hardeep negotiating while cooking a curry
Fry onions and whole spices in vegetable oil. Afterwards add plum tomatoes quartered.
To smoke your aubergines, put them in the oven until the skins are crispy. Then strip off the skins and whizz them up in the food processor. You will end up with the ‘caviar’ of the aubergine. You add this to your base sauce and leave overnight. Thirty minutes before you serve the curry, add frozen petit pois and chopped coriander.
Hardeep also, in double quick time, made a tomato, onion, green chilli and coriander salad as well as a green apple chutney
The tomato salad, almost a salsa, Hardeep described as

“It’s more of a room temperature type salad in which the tomatoes meld with the rest of the ingredients.”

He marinated the red onions and green chillis in an entire bottle of red wine vinegar which gave it a lovely rosy hue. This was left overnight. Just before service, we garnished this salad with petals from chrysanthemums and calendulas, bestowing the final dish with a rich deep saffron and ochre colour scheme, so popular in India.
Print

 Green Apple Chutney Recipe

Course Fresh chutney, Salads
Cuisine Indian, Sikh
Keyword Green apple

Ingredients

  • White wine or cider vinegar
  • Fresh coriander
  • Granny Smith apples
  • Green chillies

Instructions

  • Core the apples, then whizz all the ingredients up in a food processor, leave overnight. It couldn't have been easier or it emerged, tastier. This was served in the rose icebowls. The green complemented the colour of the iced roses perfectly.
  • We decorated with Rose geranium leaves and Borage flowers.

Print

 Bombay Mix Recipe 

The authentic version contains 'sev' a mix of gram flour and water pushed through a ricer to make small vermicelli strands which are then deep fried. I omitted the 'sev' not having the equipment. However you can make a very tasty Bombay mix without the 'sev'.  Use all or some of the following ingredients.
Course Snack
Cuisine Anglo-Indian
Keyword Bombay mix

Ingredients

  • Handful cashews
  • Handful peanuts
  • Handful almonds
  • big pinch pine nuts
  • Handful pistachios
  • Handful pumpkin seeds
  • 1/2 green chillis
  • Handful curry leaves
  • Handful fresh coriander leaves
  • Handful dates
  • Handful green sultanas
  • 1 or 1 tbsp turmeric
  • 1 tbsp fennel seeds,
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper,
  • 1 tbsp date/palm sugar
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground cumin

Instructions

  • Fry separately in ghee or vegetable oil, absorbing the excess on kitchen roll, the following ingredients:
  • cashews
  • peanuts
  • almonds
  • pine nuts
  • pistachios
  • pumpkin seeds
  • green chillis
  • curry leaves
  • fresh coriander leaves...until they are crispy.
  • Then chop up dates, add to the mix with green sultanas, turmeric, fennel seeds, salt, pepper, date sugar, ground coriander, cumin.
  • Mix together, season to taste.
Asparagus mimosa, served with chives and sage butter, decorated with violas
Asparagus mimosa, served with chives and sage butter, decorated with violas
Crystallised roses dryingCrystallised roses drying
The edible flowers from FirstLeaf in Wales. The edible flowers from FirstLeaf in Wales. The flowers came with an explanatory sheet.
The flower and herb butter
The flower and herb butter
Bombay mix, salt and pink peppercorns, flower butter
Smoked aubergine and pea curry and saffron basmati rice
Smoked aubergine and pea curry and saffron basmati rice
Baby plum tomatoes, red onions pickled in green chilli and red wine vinegar, calendula petals and geranium leaves
Baby plum tomatoes, red onions pickled in green chilli and red wine vinegar, calendula petals and geranium leaves
Rosewater kulfi, crystallised rose petals, violet and lavender shortbread, gold leaf
Rosewater kulfi, crystallised rose petals, violet and lavender shortbread, gold leaf
Paul. A. Young's Indian coriander chocolates.
Paul. A. Young’s Indian coriander chocolates.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sara Bradshaw

    May 24, 2009 at 6:30 am

    looks delicious

    Reply
  2. Kavey

    May 24, 2009 at 10:04 am

    Looks wonderful, am most envious of the kulfi and the chocs! 🙂

    Reply
  3. MsMarmitelover

    May 24, 2009 at 1:44 pm

    Thanks Sara, I see you live local.
    The kulfi is soo easy Kavey. Always a winner.

    Reply
  4. Alex

    May 24, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    So pretty!

    And re: ‘Rosie’s Pop-up’ post below… Bloggers are definitely sniffed upon by the meejah (“they’re amateurs!” etc) but in several cases they have more knowledge that the current crop of people on mags and papers because it’s their passion, not paycheque.

    Also, it’s fashion, not food, but Wee Birdy is now working at Time Out and Susie Bubble is at Dazed… Part of your nouveau punk counter-revolution perhaps?

    Reply
  5. The Curious Cat

    May 24, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    Once again lush looking and inspiring!

    Reply
  6. Scarlett the Heavenly Healer

    May 24, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    Oh my word – that kulfi looks just beautiful.

    Hope to catch up with you soon…X

    Reply
  7. MsMarmitelover

    May 24, 2009 at 10:38 pm

    Thank you everyone.
    Alex, yes things are changing. People are talking out loud about newspapers dying.
    Bloggers/blogging/the internet is the future. I never watch TV. I get my news from the internet.
    At least bloggers don’t “phone it in” which has been my experience with some journalists. They do actually get off their arses and investigate.

    Reply
  8. Helen

    May 25, 2009 at 11:35 am

    This has got to be my favourite underground menu so far, I wish I had been there! I am definitely going to try making the aubergine curry.

    Reply
  9. eatmynels

    May 26, 2009 at 11:02 am

    amazing!! that would have been a massive stroke of luck having Hardeep! Nice one!

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    May 27, 2009 at 11:43 am

    This looks AMAZING! I cannot believe you actually made your own Sev – really impressive and what a mission. Hardeep is clearly a legend. I am definitely going to have a go at making that pea and aubergine curry this weekend.

    Reply
  11. Helen Yuet Ling Pang

    May 31, 2009 at 6:52 am

    This must have been an amazing evening! I’ve made kulfi before, so this has inspired me to make some more this year!

    Reply
  12. Samantha

    June 5, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Your blog is great – just heard you on Radio 2 with Chris Evans. I'm definitely a Marmite Lover, so had to check you out.

    It's exciting to see an underground movement gaining ground like this ….

    Bright Blessings.

    visit my blog at http://www.everydaywitch.com

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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