Let me talk you through a couple of days of food ---feasting and observations.

Now Thursday was my birthday. I am not telling you how old I was, save to say that I have more energy now --and of a sustained and, well, productive sort than I did when I was eighteen. Read on. Lunch was a superlative jacket potato -- as follows. I cooked this just for me because, while I had been wined and dined ant breakfast and elevenses (well, hot chocolated), I wanted time alone. I know not everyone wants this, but, for me, it's nice to dine alone.

Right the potato served one, everything else two BUT with copious leftovers because, as you'll see, I cooked double. Give it a try?

First: your best jacket potato.

Take a good sized jacket potato. A proper floury job. Having pre-heated your oven to 200, rinse the potato gently and then pat it dry. Now, massage it liberally with some Maldon sea salt and stick it in the oven. That's the secret to the best jacket potato you will ever have eaten. When it's done, you will find that the skin is delectably crisp and the inside fluffy.

I've told you before of the habit in my household, copied some years ago from Nigel Slater, of attacking the potato with a neat karate chop. Try it. Some people --my husband now included-- do say that it ensures am appealing and not too neat potato. Anyway, now put in a little butter and some grated mature cheddar and then -- keep your eyes peeled this time of year-- any ittle green shoots you may find in your garden or someone else's. Or round and about, but know what and where you are picking. In my case, this consisted of some tiny sorrel leaves just pushing up, some little mint leaves (ditto) and some wild onions. You will see them here, there and everywhere. They look like chives and grow in abundance, I notice, in my nearest churchyard. But no foraging there. All the green shoots were finely chopped and added to the cheese.

See how simple this is and how it will make you happy?

Now, birthday dinner postponed until next week (suhsi -- I'm afraid I go into a sort of feeding frenzy and end up with teetering plates), here is what we had instead.

Superlative chicken and spinach curry in the oven. All you do is this.

Take as many free range chicken thighs (boned or not: mine are invariably on the bone) as you and a beloved might eat and put them into a nice big oven dish, having pre-heated the oven to around 200. Now, add a tablespoon of ground coriander, two of ground cumin, half a tablespoon of turmeric, five or six unpeeled cloves of garlic, a slosh of sunflower oil if the chicken is skinned (mine happened to be, that day), ten cherry tomatoes, a teaspoon or two of red chilli flakes, a fat pinch of asafoetida (which isn't essential, but it does give this a sort of musky, savoury depth) and five or six pieces of chopped, frozen spinach. Mix this all up well, add a little salt and pepper and just shove it in the oven. You will need to watch it closely to begin with, stirring it carefully as the spinach melts into the spices. Then you can leave it to do its thing for a good forty five minutes. At this point, it's done and you will have sweetly spiced chicken and you can squeeze out the lovely golden paste from the whole garlic cloves into your dinner. We had this with...


A straightforward Masoor (red lentil) dhal.

I took --let's say-- four tea cups of red lentils and added a couple of teaspoons of turmeric to them. Then, I covered them with water, plus almost as much water in volume again and brought them to the boil. Simmer very gently for about thirty minutes --really, you should skim off any froth that accumulates on the surface-- and then it should be done. I know it's traditional to simmer for a bit more, but for me, this is about right.

Now, you want to do what in South Indian cooking would be the tempering. In a frying pan, heat up some sunflower oil. Just a shallow film. To this, add a dessertspoon of brown mustard seeds. Hear them pop, and then add the same of whole cumin seeds and --because I fancied it-- onion seed (that is, Nigella seed or kalonji). Fry these off gently and just add them to the dhal with the oil. Mix in gently, check for salt  --which I always add at the end-- and serve with the chicken.

Also...spiced roast potatoes in the oven (can you improve on my word order here?)

Take, say, six medium potatoes, scrub but don't bother to peel. Make sure they are dry, though. Just put them into hot oil and sprinkle in teaspoons of dried red chilli flakes and cumin seeds and, if you like, a little turmeric. Sea salt, too. Cook them at about 200 for about 40 minutes. If you like, mix them with fresh coriander leaf, finely chopped, at the end. I also added some whole cloves of garlic, unpeeled, which I tend to munch whole.

Now, that chicken....did I mention that I cooked enough for two days? I often cook for an anticipated predicament the following day. This time, I was prescient -- and this thankful for the chicken. Here is what I did.

Chicken curry even better the next day, isn't it? (For Uncle Jamall xx)

So, you gently re-heat the chicken with some extra spinach in the oven and make sure you have added plenty of freshly-ground black pepper. While you are doing this, you can make a wonderful potato salad with Indian spices. In Northern India you might have this as aloo achaar -- a tart potato salad served as snack food. Splendid. So, boil four large potatoes with a dessertspoon of turmeric (and water, obviously) and, when done, slip off their peel and cut them into little cubes. Cool (you can make this a little ahead) or rinse gently under cold water and allow to dry. Now, snip five or so spring onions into little pieces and cut up a handful of cherry tomaties and a fat chunk of cucumber into tiny bits, too. Or, well, little pieces, because fiddly chopping might put you off when you just cannot be bothered at dinner time. Mix this in with the potato along with a teaspoon of cumin seeds, sea salt and pepper to taste and a couple of pinches of 'chaat' powder. Other possibilities, as you may well not have this addictive seasoning for snack foods knocking about the house: lemon juice, a little vinegar, green mango powder (amchoor --easier to get than you think) or anardhana --pomegranate powder. Tart and fragrant.

So, you serve the chicken with this cold and spicy salad and that's that.

But I'm not done yet. Oh no. Aha! I also made double of the potato salad. The cucmber and tomato could, I thought, just about handle it. And it did this. How clever of it.

Breakfast for a king (or Mehta, or Maharajah, or  our Uncle Mansoor in Karachi....)

Take a chapati or a pitta bread and warm it through. Stuff each bread you have with grated cheese and some of this superlative potato mixture. Really, you should have brought the salad to room temperature, I think. Dollop of decent pickle. I mean, a fragrant and slightly oliagenous mango or lime pickle, not a syrupy number.

And then for lunch or dinner...OH LOOK! I'm roasting another chicken! When it's cooked, tear up the breast meat and serve it as a salad with the rest of the potato salad, a little Greek yoghurt and some finely minced carrots. Here, a little Indian pickle added to the Greek yoghurt adds piquancy.

Fudco: tends to be my spice company of choice. Here we have turmeric in a nice big bag.

Curry: an idignant response and some other informative points

Indignant? Why so. Not for the first time, I see a leading British supermarket insidiously suggesting that curry is fat laden and not to be eaten in its normal state by those who care about the size of their thighs. Hmmmm. "Who would have thought it was possible to eat curry on a healthy diet?" This also inadvertently insults rather a lot of people worldwide. At least one billion people in India for example.

So I am here to set the record straight and give you some things to cook that will not make your bottom --to quote a phrase I particularly like-- "as big as Dallas." Hell: you can even eat them every day! And also, don't get fat phobic. I have reliable statistics which inform us that, if you chop wood rather than sticking on the central heating, do your own DIY, walk everywhere, break into a run now and then, have sex, say, a couple of times a week (if my mother in law reads this, I have in fact just died of embarrassment) and get into being, rather generally, as manual as your forefathers, you can eat a bit more fat. I speak, clearly, of developed countries here. Being fey about fat --when you are healthy, I mean-- may sometimes be an interest of he who has plenty of leisure. And I just turned into my mother with that little lecture! ON WITH THE DISHES.


Right, curry may be derived from the Tamil word for sauce -- kari. Madhur Jaffrey, in The Curry Bible (go get it: it's all you need) defines it, moreorless, as a dish with a sauce and boy is it different the world over. But we'll leave all scholarly discussion for another day and make a simple MASOOR DHAL. This is a red lentil curry; dhal (dhal being the legume and masoor being the type). I refer to split red lentils. Cheap, nutritious and ubiquitous.

Take1 kg of red lentils and pick them over carefull, having rinsed them in a colander. Leave to drain. Meanwhile, fry off  (I used sunflower oil) 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic, half a finely chopped red chilli and a little nut of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped. Now add 1 flat dessertspoon of brown mustard seeds, letting them pop first, a tablespoon of ground cumin, one or coriander (lets's use ground again) and a dessertspoon of turmeric. Make sure you do not let these burn, as they will turn bitter. So keep the heat down low. Stir for a minute or so and then add the lentils, stirring carefully to coat with the spice mixture. Now, cover the lost with water plus about half as much water again, bring to the boil, skim off the froth and then simmer for about forty minutes.  You could then add a tablespoon of garam masala for extra piquancy and, at this point, salt to taste. I would also add a large handful of chopped fresh coriander.

There are endless variations on this, of course. You might want to add some chopped tomato about half-way through cooking or, perhaps, some fresh or frozen spinach. I like to make my dhal a little tart with the addition of tamarind paste or amchoor -- green mango powder, both of which I would probably add about half way through. Or -- and this is really more authentic, just cook the dhal with salt and some turmeric and then, when it's nearly done, finish it off by adding the spices which you popped into hot oil and cooked off. Just swirl them in. You could just use the brown mustard seeds -- or try yellow mustard seeds-- and a fat bunch of coriander.

Whichever way you cook this dhal --and you may want it thicker or thinner than the recipe I have given you-- you will find it spicy, satisfying and creamy to boot. It's low in fat, full of fibre and B vitamins, it's cheap and filling and it re-heats well. Also, one could argue for the digestive properties of the spices --cumin for anti flatulence and turmeric as a digestive, general tonic and antiseptic. Garlic --well, you know all about that-- and the chilli is high in vitamin C. Add more than half a fresh one -- I would-- and watch your endorphin levels rise. Capascin (that's the active ingredient) is also an expectorant, which is good if you are suffering from winter snuffles and, because of those endorphon-inducing qualities, it'll give your mood a boost. Actually, if I have a cold or even when I am feeling jaded (and reader, I am a melancholy type), I swear by the effects of chillis -- of all sorts.

So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, cheeky conglomerates! I have eaten dhal like this pretty much every week of my life since I was knee high to a grasshopper, by the way.

Do you want more healthy, err, curry?

A simple, lovely and quite unexpected carrot (gajar) curry

O.K. Take a bunch of carrots. (Well, about ten) Peel them and cut them into batons along the whole length of the carrot. Put them to one side. In a big saute pan or a wok, get a film of oil really hot and then add three chopped cloves of garlic and three or four chopped spring onions. Sweat them until you get that lovely roasted smell. Add some red chilli flakes, a teaspoon or so of turmeric and a dessertpoon of caraway seeds. Maybe you didn't know that they were sometimes used in food like this? Swirl the lot around, add the carrots and toss well. Add a cup of water, raise the heat, then turn it down until the carrots are only just tender. Salt and pepper to taste. But I suppose I ought to say "keep the salt levels down"? Now, this is really easy and it's very good for you.

How about a roast spiced whole chicken? I suppose there are folks out there who must think this is an unhealthy thing? Well, I love the skin of a roast chicken, but if I'm going to go the whole murgh (sorry: that was a rubbish joke. Hindi for chicken), I'll have to skin the chicken. You can do this yourself or ask the butcher to do it. Actually, you'll be lucky if you go to most supermarkets. So, just make a slit along the backbone of the chicken and pull, easing the skin away and using the knife to get between skin and flesh as you go. Use a small paring knife rather than a carving knife here. Otherwise you might have a nasty accident. This, by the way, is just one way of skinning. Find your own way and don't worry if it's ramshackle. I wouldn't fuss over a little skin left on the wingtips, either. If you're squeamish, I'll come over and do it for you.

Right, rinse the chicken and pat it dry (no --not with the hand towel!) and then, having preheated the oven to about 200, rub this into your chicken. Oh -- mix the dry spices with a little oil first.

1 tablespoon of powdered cumin and half of coriander
1 teaspoon of sea salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper
Rub it in well, both inside and outside the chicken. Now, put several garlic cloves inside the chicken and then, on its outside, press in some cloves at regular intervals. Put on a few star anise and lay some cinnamon or cassia quills on top.

Put it into the oven. Upside down for the first half an hour at least. That's to allow the fat to trickle down from the base --especially important when the meat is skinned. And, when you turn the chicken right side up, you may want to replace the star anise and cinnamon on this side. Allow about  20 minutes for every 500 g plus 20 minutes to half an hour extra. But then, I never even think about this. Practise often and your instrinct will tell you soon enough. If you relax. For the last twenty minutes or so, turn the oven up to 230. And do bear in mind that I have cooked the chicken at a slightly lower heat than I would ordinarily because we don't want the spices to burn. While the chicken is cooking, don't forget to baste it.  When it's done, let it rest for a food few minutes before you carve it and when you do so, make those generous slices of breast. The leftover chocken plus the carcass will make a wonderful soup with a few tomatoes, finely chopped spinach and diced potato.Water to cover, bring to the boil, simmer for an hour and then remove the bones! Season to taste.

And PLEASE buy a free range chicken, regarding an label which does not explicitly state free range with care. Freedom food, or freedom food endorsed or welfare checked or....you get my drift here. It isn't quite the same, but a quick survey of my immediate neighbourhood (well, my husband --who is generally otherwise well informed) suggests that folks may not know that.

O.K. So, if you wanted to present all this together, you'd have a succulent, spiced roast chicken, a mild and creamy dhal, a crunchy hot and spicy carrot dish. All very healthy and very easy to do, Why not make some accompaniments, too?
1. Stir a little garam masala or some chaat powder (google it, baby -- I'm addicted: not to Google, to Chaat powder) into some Greek yoghurt (reduced fat, if you must). Done.
2. Chop some cherry tomatoes finely and add some diced spring onion and perhaps a large chunk of cucumber, finely chopped. Add a teaspoon of amchoor (green mango powder) or anardhana (pomegranate powder) plus salt to taste. A little lightly roasted cumin seed (just dry fry it in a frying pan for a few seconds) would be good, too.

A banquet. Whoever would  have thought you could eat curry on a healthy diet? Nope: they don't know if it's New York or New Year. But we do, don't we?

Oh, in another dhal I cooked --here it is below -- I was after a thich and hearty concoction, so I added less water and kept a close eye on it so that it did not stick. The little black seeds you see in the lentils are kalonji -- onion seed or nigella; the fresh relish (achaar) on top is made from chopped onion, fresh mint and both red and green tomato. The predominant flavouring is the aniseed hit of fennel seed (saunf).



And the other photo of spices from my cupboard is by Giles Turnbull! Thank you.x

A speedy supper: chicken curry in a hurry.

Hmmm..It's not that it cooks quickly; more that you'll have it prepared in five minutes and it can then sit happily on the hob for forty minutes or so. That tends to be how I define a quick dinner -- at least sometimes. So...

Tonight, I have taken 8 chicken thighs. I had Halal meat and the meat came already skinned. Now, just slice a big onion into rings and then slice the rings in two. Sweat them in a film of hot oil in a big pan. Then, add a tablespoon of ground cumin, a fat pinch of red chilli flakes, a dessertspoon of ground turmeric, a tablespoon of ground coriander and a large pinch of asafoetida. I guess you are less likely to have this, so you could miss it out, but it does add a deep savoury note to what you are cooking.

Right, continue to sweat the onion with the spices and then add the chicken to the pan. Stir it around well -- the vital thing being that you keep the heat quite low, as spices can turn bitter if they catch. Now add four potatoes, peeled (or not, if you're really lazy) and chopped into pieces (imagine a medium-sized potato cut into four) and --this is one of my most useful store cupboard ingredients-- 8 chunks of frozen spinach, either leaf or chopped. Tonight I used frozen chopped spinach and must say that it melded well with the sauce.

Stir the lot around for a minute, add a cup of water and bring it all to a high heat. Now stir again and simmer very gently for forty minutes or so. You will most likely have to add more water during this time. Check for seasoning and serve with basmati rice.

A Top Tip

Now, I am devoted to Patak's pickles, particularly their hot mango one. Just sometimes, I like to add a good tablespoon of it to a dish -- such as a meat biryani. It worked well with this chicken dish, too, adding an appealing piquancy. You could give it a go, but move slowly as you don't want to overpower the flavours already in the dish. Add it towards the end of cooking and the mango pieces in the pickle will retain a bit of  bite. This is not, by the way, one of the syrupy things it is supposed we like. It is a proper substantial pickle, with discrete chunks that will also do you proud in a cheese sandwich. Or, in fact, under the cheese on cheese or toast. I hope Meena Patak is reading this, actually......

Now put your feet up! See opposite! The picture on the right is courtesy of Subhodev at Flickr. It's part of a series he has on old Calcutta (oops Kolkata) and I adore these pictures. The picture before that is of some whole spices from my cupboard: pretty aren't they?