Upper Crust

As we’ve been working on our new specials for the month, the latest copy of Upper Crust magazine arrived from India. I like to keep up with new developments in Indian cooking and it helps with ideas for the menu. It seems that new recipes coming from India are using local ingredients in new ways. I was glad to see this because this is the way our menu is developing.

We introduced our new specials from Monday; the last month’s specials were on for more than four weeks so we changed them on Monday instead of Thursday as we would usually do. (That also explains why I was late with this posting – sorry.)

As I was saying last time, we’ve got some interesting summer dishes and what surprised me the most was how much I enjoyed one of the salad starters, our Sikandari salad. Our head chef, Jiwan, started with the idea of a Caesar salad, but made with missi roti instead of croutons, roasted paneer, pomegranate seeds, tomato and mustard cress, dressed with mint/coriander and pomegranate extract. And, like I said before, I was glad to see that we’re using Indian ingredients in new ways, just like they are in India. I also liked another new starter, crispy-fried soft shell crab with green papaya and mango salsa; the cool, sweet, acid fruit is spiked with a little green chilli and it’s so refreshing with the crispy crab.

For the main courses we have a Raj-style lamb knuckle curry; a masala pan-seared organic chicken breast (which is coated with dark-meat chicken mince) which we serve with parwal rice (parwal is also called potol) and that’s been popular so far. Being Bengali, I’m glad that the seafood biryani is selling well – it’s made with tiger prawns, monkfish and mussels cooked with shell on and it’s served with boondi raita (a crunchy gram flour savoury); customers seem to like the masala baked beans with it to have a wet dish along with the biryani – it’s a bit like dal makhni but without cream and it has wild mushroom in it.

When Jiwan served me the new vegetarian main, I thought the portion of spicy apricot-stuffed jackfruit was a bit small, but the gram flour pancake it was really very filling and I don’t think I could have had any more. This dish has been really popular with our customers from West Indian backgrounds because both the West and the East Indies like jackfruit. But I have to say that in Sylhet we never had jackfruit as a savoury dish but as a sweet only.

I was working on the bank holiday weekend and one of our customers walked in with a copy of the Independent on Sunday and asked if I knew we were mentioned in Terry Durack’s Second Helpings column from his mailbag. Jane Savage wrote in to him saying very nice things about us and particularly about our beef xacutti. Thank you, Jane. And just for you, we’re going to post the recipe in the next blog. But for now we already had our first-ever dessert recipe and it’s from our new main menu, Beetroot samosas with banana compote. Our head chef, Jiwan, is very fond of beetroot (he also makes them into Bengali-style cutlets) and has been using them in a few sweet things to go with desserts. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for stopping by.




BEET ROOT SAMOSAS WITH BANANA COMPOTE


INGRIDIENTS

800g beetroot
1L milk
200g khoya
200g sugar
1 tsp green cardamom powder
20g sultanas
6 Tbsps ghee
4 spring roll sheets
Oil for deep frying



METHOD

Wash, scrape and grate the beetroot. Clean and soak the raisins for 20 minutes. Grate the khoya in granules. Heat the ghee in a karahi fry the raisins and take out. Stir in the grated beetroot. Cook, stirring, till they become a darker colour. Add the milk and cook till milk evaporates and the mixture is thick. Keep stirring. Halfway through, return raisins to the karahi. Add the khoya and mix thoroughly. Sprinkle green cardamom powder; spread the mixture out on a baking tray and leave to cool. This is beetroot halwa.

Take a spring roll sheet and cut into 2 strips 3 inches wide. Place a spoonful of beetroot halwa near the top of each one, then take one corner of the sheet and fold it over the beetroot mixture in a triangular shape. Continue folding until you reach the end of the strip and have a neat triangle. Brush the edges with a little water to seal. Repeat with the remaining mixture and sheet to make 8 samosas.

Deep fry the samosas in hot oil for about 3 minutes until golden brown, then drain on kitchen paper. Serve 2 samosas per person with banana compote.




BANANA COMPOTE

2 Tbsps sugar
100 ml double cream
1 sliced, ripe banana

METHOD

Melt the sugar in a pan.

When it is little white in colour but all the sugar grains melt then add sliced banana and double cream, cook, stirring until the banana dissolves into the liquid, giving a consistency like clotted cream.

Remove from heat and allow to cool.