Can you advise on some Bengali specialities that we might try in Bangladeshi/Indian restaurants?
What is a Thali? Is it the same thing as a set meal?
I am not allowed to eat nuts / gluten / milk products. Which dishes should I avoid?
Could you give me any information on the curry industry in Britain and suggest some organisations to contact? It's for my GCSE Home Economics coursework.
The UK Indian food industry (that's not just restaurants but includes supermarket ready-meals, frozen meals, chutney manufacturers etc etc) has an annual turnover of £1.8 billion (yes, billion) and employs over 60,000 people. So the industry makes an important contribution to the economy of the UK.
[source : "FoodService Intelligence"]
There are 9800 "Indian" restaurants in this country and about 85% of them are run by people of Bangladeshi, not Indian, heritage.
As far as organisations go, try The Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs [website offline at the moment]. They tell us that South Asian restaurants in the UK serve over three million meals a week. Alternatively, try The Bangladesh Caterers Association.
Can you advise on some Bengali specialities that we might try in Bangladeshi/Indian restaurants?
There must be thousands of Bengali dishes, but only a few of them make it on to the menu of most Bangladeshi-run High Street restaurants. One of the most common is Shatcora or Satkara which is a curry made with a Bangladeshi wild lemon (the shatcora of the name - see Glossary). Made well, it is a refreshing dish with a sweet and sour flavour. If you want to make it yourself at home, there's an excellent recipe here which is made with beef.
If you like fish curries, then the Bengali speciality Macher Jhol is for you. The fish is cooked in a tomato-rich sauce and is liberally spiced. Asma Khan's recipe can be found here if you enjoyed it at a restaurant and want to make the recipe yourself.
Rezala is a type of Bengali korma (braised dish) with its origins in Mughal cuisine. Traditionally made with mutton/lamb and yoghurt, Rezala is fragrantly spiced and is often thickened with a paste made from ground nuts and white poppy seeds.
My final suggestion is to try Bhorta which Dina Begum describes as "a hearty mess of vegetables with chillies, onions and mustard oil" - you'll never think of mashed vegetables in the same way again.
What is a Thali? Is it the same thing as a set meal?
A Thali is not the same as a set meal (or at least it shouldn't be). In restaurants, a set meal will consist of a limited number of standard-sized dishes from the à la carte menu which together make up a complete meal: starter, main, vegetable side, rice/bread and dessert. A Thali is more like a tasting menu where you are served smaller portions of a large selection of dishes.
Thali is another of those culinary terms which can mean both the dish itself and the utensil in which it is cooked or served (in the same way as, for example, casserole, karahi and tagine). For a Thali, each dish comes in its own individual bowl or plate and the bowls and plates are brought to the table on a large circular tray: the thali of the name.
|
The picture to the left shows an excellent Thali for two that we enjoyed at the Tandoor Chop House in London's Covent Garden. Their selection changes from time to time, but the current menu for their "Mighty Thali" is:
chickpea chaat, Punjabi chole, keema masala, potato panch phoran, carrot halwa, black dahl, seekh kebab roll, bhaji onion rings, nimbu masala fries, black pepper chicken tikka, lasooni paneer, cauliflower, Amritsari lamb chops, tandoor roti, butter naan, a selection of dips and chutneys |
If a restaurant specialises in regional cuisine, ordering the Thali is a great way to discover new dishes and experience new tastes. The Tandoor Chop House, for example, focuses on Punjabi cuisine and their Amritsari Lamb Chops are are well worth a visit on their own.
I am not allowed to eat nuts / gluten / milk products. Which dishes should I avoid?
I regularly get asked one or other variation of this question. It is also very difficult to give a universal answer. I can offer some guidelines but the only safe answer is to ask the restaurant manager. The manager should know whether any product to which you are allergic is contained in the meals served at that particular restaurant. Remember too that the situation will vary from restaurant to restaurant. Recipes are not set in stone for all restaurants to follow. Each chef will have their own variations on the theme.
My guidelines are as follows :
- nuts
Avoid all the creamy curries e.g. korma, tikka masala, pasanda. They all contain ground almonds or cashew nuts. Biryanis can contain almond flakes. Peshawari nan contains chopped nuts. You should be safe with the brown-sauced curries, but even some of those may contain ground nuts so it is essential to ask. Tandoori dishes should be fine (but ask anyway). - gluten/wheat products
Obviously avoid all of the breads. Avoid samosas as the pastry is made from wheat flour. Most restaurants use ground nuts for extra thickening so you should be safe with most dishes on the menu. Onion bhajees and pakoras should be OK as they are usually made with gram (chana dal) flour. Similarly, poppadoms are made with lentil flour. - milk products
Avoid the creamy curries e.g. korma, tikka masala, pasanda and anything containing yoghurt e.g the mint sauce that comes with poppadoms. Most tandoori dishes are marinated in yoghurt although you might be safe with shashlik which can be marinated in oil (ask anyway). Avoid paneer which is a type of cheese. The use of butter, in its clarified form: ghee, is common especially in the breads. Ghee, though, is comparatively expensive so many restaurants will use ghee only for their special curries and use vegetable oil the rest of the time. You will need to check whether ghee has been used in the dish you want to order.
Why do you perpetuate the use of this umbrella term "curry" as a description of the diverse cuisine of an entire sub-continent?
Steady on!
When I started this website in 1996 it was intended to be a celebration of the food you found in ordinary, everyday Indian restaurants. These restaurants are colloquially known in Britain as "curry houses" hence our name. Over the years I have expanded the scope of the site to include the new breed of South Asian restaurants proudly serving authentic regional dishes alongside the old favourite curries.
I make every effort to differentiate between regional Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi dishes and the sort of curries, like that restaurant invention the Madras, you find in high-street curry houses. Mind you, when even a Michelin starred restaurant like Tamarind has a section on its menu entitled "CURRIES" it does make life quite complicated.
We regularly report on initiatives by restaurants to introduce regional dishes to their menus and on competitions such as Tommy Miah's International Indian Chef of the Year which encourage talented young chefs to demonstrate their skills. We never describe such dishes as curries.
And what should I change the name of this website to? "The restaurant which serves South Asian food which has been tailored to suit British tastes, Punjabi specialities cooked in a tandoor and a selection of authentic Bangladeshi dishes"? That's a bit of a mouthful despite being pretty accurate. I think I'll stick to The Curry House.
