I've been watching Rick Stein travelling around India, sampling curries, and I find myself increasingly concerned about the sheer number of ingredients involved.
Every dish seems to require a small agricultural holding, the contents of a spice merchant's warehouse and a degree in chemistry. Can't be good for the stomach.
Cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, fenugreek, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic, chillies. And just when you think they've finished, someone produces another little bowl containing something apparently essential to the entire enterprise.
What on earth is wrong with a bay leaf?
British cooking has managed perfectly well for centuries without requiring the cook to empty the botanical gardens into a saucepan.
Take a decent piece of beef. Add an onion, some carrots, a little stock and a bay leaf. There you are. Dinner. You can even taste the beef, which strikes me as rather the point of buying it in the first place.
And pepper? Well, that's where things start getting dangerously exotic. Before you know it, someone will be suggesting paprika, and civilisation will be on the slippery slope towards a chicken tikka masala.
I have nothing against Indian cooking, you understand. I'm sure it's all perfectly splendid, and Rick Stein certainly seems to be enjoying himself. But I do wonder whether anyone has considered the possibility that, beneath seventeen layers of seasoning, there might actually be a perfectly respectable chicken trying to make itself heard.
The British Empire may have departed India, but apparently we didn't leave before bringing home enough spices to confuse our national cuisine for the next hundred years.
Personally, I think there's something reassuring about a dish whose ingredients can be counted without taking your socks off.
And if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you can always put two bay leaves in.
Although I'd advise against making a habit of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment