Chillichap's World

Hello! Let me start by saying I have thirty-five years of experience of trying to cook restaurant-quality Indian food. I say trying, because getting to the point where you can replicate the well-known British Indian Restaurant (B.I.R) dishes that you know and love is a labour of love. Sure, I've made great curries over the years, but things didn't really take off for me until I relaxed and understood the true marriage of garlic, ginger, herbs, and spices. I was also very fortunate to have a best friend who ran an Indian restaurant (which was actually Bangladeshi) and I think his wife eventually took pity on me and my culinary endeavors. She showed me the way with a dhal recipe-which was a secret family recipe (which is in my blog). In hindsight, it all seemed so simple. But cooking really great Indian food is like the golfer's elusive swing. You have to practice and practice until everything becomes second nature. Then you become master of the spices and not the other way a...

Hello! In the seventies and eighties, cooking shows on British television seemed to be taking a breather from the culinary antics of the highly successful, but erratic Fanny Cradock (whom I can just remember). This particular genre of programme seemed to be finding its feet again with the likes of Delia Smith and BBC Good Food popping onto our screens.  I can remember that as a young lad, I found these shows and the like a little boring-they weren’t quite spicy enough (in every sense of the word). Fortunately, one man changed that irrevocably-none other than Keith Flloyd. This was an exciting time for me culinary-wise. I had taken a part-time job in a large college kitchen to save up for a motorbike. I witnessed all the wonderful creations that the chefs created like Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska. Then I would go home and watch Keith Floyd whiz all over the world-showing me cuisines I'd never heard of in his own never-to-be-repeated style. Born on 28 December 1943, Keith Floyd g...

  Chilli Sauce Review: [Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wings Sauce] Introduction Hello! I normally have about a dozen bottles of different chilli sauces in my store cupboard living up to my name of Chillichap. I always try to vary my collection and like to think that I have different sauces for different types of food occasions. Sometimes I'll add chilli sauce into a dish while I'm cooking, or just drizzle it over a finished dish, or even mix the sauce with ketchup and spread it across a bun when I'm having hotdogs or burgers. I've got reasonably 'mild' chilli sauces (though some people might think they're hot) and some sauces that have to be handled with extreme care. Among all of my chilli sauces, there are a few staples that I can never do without. Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wings Sauce is one of these. Read on to find out why: Appearance Color : Orangey-red Consistency : Runny-be careful as it pours out very quickly! Bottle Design : Simple, but attractive. T...

Alright me old China plates?  I was going to try and write this whole blog in Cockney rhyming slang, but I thought it might give us both a headache and you'd want to get your German bands around my Gregory Peck (see what I did there?). I first remember encountering this unusual way of communicating while watching the UK TV series Minder starring acting legends George Cole and Dennis Waterman, The characters would suddenly come out with a turn of phrase that I didn't get. My uncle used to try and help decipher them for me, but he was a Geordie from up north, so that didn't always work. Later in 1998, there was a resurgence in the interest of Cockney rhyming slang following the bar scene in Guy Richie's excellent movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, so I've included a guide to the famous bar scene.  Normally when I write an A to Z guide, I pick one word for each letter, but you wouldn't believe your mince pies (eyes) at the variety of Cockney rhyming slang wo...

Hello! I was fifteen when I ventured into one of the takeaway restaurants along Oxford’s Cowley Road for some chips. The Cowley Road is an amazing place with restaurants, delis, and takeaways from most world cuisines. Anyway, I was in a small queue and saw to the left of the counter this giant grey slab of meat rotating on a spit. It looked like an elephant’s leg. The aroma was overwhelming and to be honest, at the time, I remember thinking I didn’t like the look of the large hunk of meat on the spit or the aroma.  One of the guys in front asked for a doner kebab and the man behind the counter slammed a pitta bread onto a hot plate and produced a very long slim carving knife and began delicately taking slices off the meat into what looked like a small frying pan, only one end of it had been cut off. The staff member asked what the man wanted with it, pointing below the counter. There in about ten different compartments were all sorts of salads including sliced onion, tomatoes, and ...

Hello! If you’ve read some of my other posts, you might be starting to wonder if I’m a curry-aholic (yes, I know the word doesn’t exist). Let me just say guilty as charged. About ten years ago, my world transformed, when a friend’s wife shared with me her family recipe for curried lentils. I’ve tweaked the recipe over the years, ending up cooking it in a slow cooker. Every time I make a batch of this, any colds we might have seem to disappear. Indeed, my wife and I had an amazing run of no colds whatsoever for about five years when I made this recipe weekly (it’s cheap to make and fills you up). Anyway, this is my gift to you, and I hope it gives you many, many hours of pleasure over the coming years. Fingers crossed-it keeps the colds at bay too! Tarka Dhal Recipe Preparation Time : Less than 10 mins Cooking Time : 30 mins to 4 hours (if using a slow cooker) Serves : 4 Ingredients: coconut oil, ghee or vegetable oil 1 onion, finely chopped 2 tablespoons crushed/grated ginger 4 tab...

Chillichap’s Review — Pride and Prejudice 1995 BBC TV Series Starring Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle & Alison Steadman Darcy and Elizabeth My heartiest greetings to you all! I’ve been itching to write a review of this BBC adaptation of the classic story Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I can remember watching the series on TV in the nineties and being utterly hooked. What made this event remarkable was that I was in my early twenties at the time and was on something of a hedonistic rampage. Most of my time then was either in pubs, restaurants or on the cricket pitch. In this era of my life, any TV programmes that I watched had to be blooming good to leave a lasting impression. This did. If I were to say to you that I’ve watched this adaptation twenty times, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration (my suspicion is that it’s at least twice that). These days, my youngest daughter is as hooked on this drama as I am, and we know many scenes by heart, word for word. When either or both of us n...

Hello! My first experience of curry was at the hands of my aunt who regimentally made a curry on Mondays with the Sunday Roast leftovers. Onions were fried with a big spoonful of Sainsbury's Madras curry powder. Stock was added and all the leftovers of the Sunday roast were put into the pan and simmered. Extra always included a chopped apple and sultanas. This was served on a large dish with perfectly cooked Uncle Ben's boil-in-the-bag rice. Fortunately, I loved it. At the time, the only way of adding heat was to cover the dish with ground white pepper. Which I did without hesitation. Occasionally I'd get a Vesta curry-which came dried and had to be rehydrated. This I liked too-I knew no better. It wasn't until the tender age of 18, that I ventured to my first ever Indian restaurant-The Moonlight Tandoori Restaurant, down Oxford's Cowley Road, with my wife-to-be. We were so naive that we didn't even know we had to order rice separately! I ordered the only thing ...