H is for... how am I nearly 30 and still don’t know the alphabet?

H is for… how am I nearly 30 and still don’t know the alphabet?

Well friends, it would appear that a degree in languages and good ol’ common sense is no guarantee for being able to successfully make your way through the alphabet week after week. After the double whammy of F and G last week, I was honestly absolutely convinced that the letter ‘I’ was next up. I is a real treat of a letter in terms of countries – especially in comparison to H, which is rather thin on the ground – so I think I just got way too excited and steamrollered ahead. And so it is that this week, we have an unscheduled early appearance from the letter I. H is having a haircut, or had to take the dog for a walk, or got stuck in traffic - whatever excuse people use for being late these days.

As I said, ‘I’ really packs a punch in culinary terms, with Italy, Indonesia, Iran, Israel and Ireland all contending for the dish this week. Having spent a few weeks on Bali a couple of years ago marvelling at the simply glorious food there, Indonesia was extremely tempting. As far as I could tell back then, basically everything involves peanuts, which is a good enough reason as any to make Indonesian food. I also have a deep, deep appreciation for Iranian cuisine – it speaks to my SOUL, man! The rice alone, with the crispy tahdig that forms on the bottom of the pan, is enough to make me feel weepy with joy. However, after much deliberation, I felt that there was no other way to go than India -  a country so incredibly vast and unknown, yet somehow also an inherent part of almost any Brit’s cultural fabric. Time to dial up the spice!

The variety in Indian cuisine is as overwhelming as the country itself, ranging from the rich and buttery flavours of Punjabi cuisine in the north, right down to the coconut-based dishes of Kerala in the south. The “in-between bit” in the middle (all 3,000,000 km² of it, give or take a km² or two) is a proper party of regional cuisines, many of which are unique enough to warrant their own little paragraph on the (LONGLONGLOOOOONG) Wikipedia entry for Indian cuisine. Of course, what else would you expect from a country whose climate, soil type, language, and religious and cultural diversity seems to know no bounds?

For many people, Indian food is a by-word for an absolute spice-fest, and may even get some people sweating at the mere thought of it. While the Indians I know are indeed extremely hardcore when it comes to spice in terms of “Gaaaaaaaaaaaah my mouth is on FIRE. THIS IS THE END – GOODBYE WORLD!!!”, that’s not to say it’s where Indian food begins and ends. Spice in Indian food is one heck of a broad church – or rather mandir (a Hindu temple), or perhaps gurdwara (a Sikh temple) – taking in almost every variety you could possibly imagine: warm and citrussy turmeric, aromatic ginger, perfumed cardamom, musky cumin and hot hot hot mustard seeds (plus about a trillion other types). Interestingly, chilli – for a lot of people the defining element of a curry – was actually introduced to India from Mexico by those European overachievers of the day, the Portuguese. They are also the ones to thank for bringing the potato to India: if you’ve ever had the good fortune of eating aloo gobi (Punjabi potato and cauliflower curry), you should probably send them a little postcard to say thanks. In fact, Indian spices really have shaped the history of international relations, especially with Europe: the spice trade that really heated up (lololololol) in the late 1400s was the kick up the backside Europe needed to launch into the so-called Age of Discovery, when every man and his dog was out there exploring the nooks and crannies of far-away lands. It was basically the beginnings of globalisation – something which, as we all know, is still very much a topic today (must…resist…rant!).

Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed when it came to choosing what to cook this week. I scoured my own cookbook collection for something which I thought was a real classic Indian dish, at least in British terms, and came up with a “short list” of about 25 things. Perfect. I was seriously considering cooking up a chicken tikka masala, famously heralded as Britain’s national dish back in 2001. However, given the vagueness surrounding the origins of this curry house favourite (rumour has it that it was invented by a Pakistani chef in Glasgow as recently as 1971), I decided to go for something which doesn’t potentially come from our pals just over the border. I also thought about paying homage to the spicy side of Indian cuisine – and to the 1998 Fat Les classic of the same name – by making a vindaloo, which comes from the Goa region. Once again, it was our Mediterranean friends from Portugal who are responsible for bringing this baby into the world: it began life as a dish of pork marinated in garlic and wine (in Portuguese carne de vinha d’alhos) and, after the locals added a whole heap of chilis to satisfy their own palette, the Portuguese pronunciation got kind of squished together, leaving us with the name vindaloo. Bloody good fact, eh?

Anyway, after umm-ing, ahh-ing and drooling over my choices, I chose the absolute smash of a dish, tandoori chicken with garlic naan: chicken marinated in a happy mix of spices and yogurt, then grilled until it’s tender enough to fall off the bone and into your greasy mitts. The name comes from the name of the oven it’s traditionally cooked in, the tandoor, which is a hefty cylindrical clay oven. This oven means business, and it sure isn’t for the faint-hearted: I’ve watched enough contestants on Masterchef break down – and Indian restauranteurs tear their hair out in frustration at said contestants- after trying to get to grips with one to know that much. For its part, naan comes from the Persian word for bread, nān, and comes in a vast array of manifestations across Central and South Asia; in India, it’s also cooked in the tandoor. Sadly, my kitchen did not come equipped with a giant clay cylinder, so I had to make do with my trusty oven and hob to do the job.

Like last week’s culinary exploits, this was a bit of a labour of love. The chicken has to be prepared the day before to get the maximum level of absolutemegadeliciousness, and of course the naan dough needs a bit of time to kick back and relax before it’s cooked. FYI, I used some big, meaty chicken legs (thighs and drumsticks) for this recipe – a chicken breast is just not acceptable AT ALL, as in most situations (it’s like the natural yogurt of the meat world – borrrrrring). Once you get down to the actual cooking, it’s pretty speedy. The chicken was thrown in the oven for about 40 minutes, and the naan were quickly rolled out and grilled, smoking out my flat in the process. Once it’s all cooked and the chicken really is falling off the bone, it’s given a final flourish of raw, sliced onion, coriander and a squeeze of lime juice. My guinea pig for the week and I admired the whole thing for about 3 seconds before getting stuck in with our hands and hoovering it up shamefully quickly. I mean, I knew I was going to like this dish from the start, - Indian food never fails to have me high 5-ing dining companions among cries of “INDIAAAAAAA, YEHHHHHH!” – and this was no different. Despite not being cooked in the right kind of oven, the chicken was fantastically tender and aromatic; the onion, coriander and lime cut through the rich marinade spectacularly, and the naan was The Business. Obviously, ‘cos it’s bread. Once again, my love of Indian cuisine has been affirmed and, as always, I finished the meal in a blissful state of food-induced narcosis.

See you next week for H… if it decides to turn up!