Love is...

Love is... buying a pressure cooker for a loved one’s birthday, so that they can enjoy quick Indian cooking again.

Love is... making their favourite channa pindi, because the return to London has been pretty tough.

Love is... paying attention when dry roasting the spices for said channa pindi as you are meant to, and not taking short cuts.

Love is... grinding the spices by hand in the pestle and mortar when not one of the electrical gadgets in the kitchen does the grinding sufficiently

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Love is... washing up, drying and putting away all the trialled electrical gadgets, plus the pestle and mortar in the absence of a dishwasher.

Love is...collecting hand ground spices which “poofed” all over the counter top.

Love is... cooking channa pindi in advance to allow for the flavours to soak into the chickpeas, just as he likes.

Love is...then baking frangipani cakes, and making sure some are left for him after checking they taste ok.

Gluten free in-flight meals

It has to be noted that Indian airlines are a dream for those with Coeliac Disease... I have taken far too many carbon spewing flights this year (and have another two in October... ouch) than I would have liked, largely for the impact on my carbon footprint which otherwise is quite respectable, but also for the “challenges” around the dreaded in-flight meals.

Our flight to Adelaide was via Singapore with Qantas, the first leg operated by Jet Airways. The online booking system lacked the facility to book a gluten free meal – only diabetic and vegetarian. Slightly anxious about when and what I will get to eat over our 20hour journey, I armed myself with the usual snacks and fruit, but I needn’t have worried.
Probably because Jet is an Indian airline, but the breakfast I was given was completely gluten free... and breakfast is the most gluten-ous of in-flight meals.

A choice of veg or non veg, I opted for the veg south Indian utappams, which came with a pot of yoghurt, a large and actually tasty fruit salad and fresh orange juice. It was by far the best breakfast I have ever had on a flight, and even the non veg option of omelette and chicken sausages would have been an option with the snags removed (assuming you aren’t that sensitive like I fortunately am).

Returning from Australia, on the Qantas leg, I wasn’t so fortunate, and expecting lunch to involve lots of gluten, I spoke to the air stewardess before we took off to see what they could arrange. After much debate about being able to book a gluten free meal, she kindly said that she would see what she could arrange. I was right to get ahead, as lunch was either ravioli or Singapore noodles (with soy sauce) so neither would be a possible lunch, but I needn’t have worried. Before anyone else got their lunch, the stewardess delivered a huge selection of goodies to eat including a cheese and ham salad that she raided First Class for. Snacks and desserts were included, and if anything I ate too much.

So, if you can’t book a gluten free meal, get yourself on Jet airline... but if travelling with someone else, have a quiet word with the in-flight staff. Who knows what goodies you may get.

RELATED POSTS:

Gluten free Indian food

Gluten free airline meals

Foodie Fashionista

"Mum you are in fashion!” I laughed down the phone as we planned our blackberry picking fest for the weekend. “Very funny” she says when I tell her that foraging is the fashionable thing to do these days. After returning home from India our second weekend in the UK was to be spent with my family in Arundel. As is often the case, it revolves around food and a fix of country fresh air, and this time was no different. After having a quick rummage in our sprawling and over grown unofficial London garden, I returned to the kitchen triumphant with a bowl of blackberries and a jumper full of pears. Next door has a pear tree groaning with ready to pick fruit (and given it’s a Peckham School reform centre, I don’t think they have grand plans for preserving and baking), so I went scrumping!

Before my Indian adventure, I would have been far too prudish to scale the wall and nick the pears, but feeling the need for adventure I climbed the tree, leaned over the wall and stuffed as many pears into my jumper as it could hold.

So, with my renewed passion for seasonal and free English food, I suggested a little blackberry-ing... Mum’s always up for it. As a child we used to be lured to the park, to be told that we could play with the other kids once only when we had filled up a container with the finger staining bramble fruits from around the edge of the playing field. As much as we groaned, it was “one for me...one for the pot”... and fifteen years later, I am back in the field stretching to reach that perfect plump berry surrounded by thorns that is just out of reach.

Down at mums, her garden hedges were loaded with blackberries. I have never seen so many, so firm and so juicy, to the point where Jack even risked scratches from the thorns for a huge bowl of them. We barely left the front or back doors to pick at least a couple of kilos of blackberries. But now I have to think of more adventurous ways to serve them than as a breakfast of yoghurt and toasted almonds... or popping them like sweets, simply as they are.

Whilst blackberries will never be as good as my daily Indian mangoes, they score pretty highly and are free (unless you’re the mug who buys them in the supermarket... in season?)... So get picking, it is the fashion after all!

Related links:

Mango juice

Mango varieties

All about cherries

Last years bounty from the garden

Returning home...

Curled up on the sofa, snuggled in my block print Fab India quilt, wearing my hot pink pashmina, eating a bowl of homemade dal, rice and ratita I listened to the rain lashing the window. No, the monsoon has not arrived in Delhi. I am home.

I returned to London over a week ago, with a two week detour via friends in Australia, but have so far been in denial that our Indian adventure has come to an end. I couldn’t bring myself to post on here... Only tonight as I ate a late supper to the sound of the rain did it sink in - I am in London for the foreseeable future.

Don’t get me wrong, London will always have a place in my heart. However living in Delhi was the most incredible, laughter, adventure and food filled six months of my life and I actually got kind of used to life Indian style. By comparison, England seems seriously tame. Memories of driving up the road the wrong way in a disco rickshaw, random people asking me the most personal questions whilst grocery shopping, the man who nearly fell off his bike cause he was staring at us so much, taking local cycle rickshaws and getting lost, getting lost a lot, and trying to speak Hindi all made the experience so unique. I got used to anything happening at any moment, learned to go with the flow and slow down. You cannot rush in India.

So I do apologise to any Londoners who get really hacked off walking behind me... I have still yet to get my London pace back. Although I’m not sure I really want to. I like a slower life. I like batch cooking too... knowing that after a night on the town with friends, a bowl of mellowing dal is waiting to be devoured – my ultimate comfort food.

The dal I have made in London is a little different from what I would have cooked in Delhi, using more store cupboard ingredients and without the beloved pressure cooker. Unfortunately, the pressure cooker never made it back to London. My maid had her eye on it, so I gave it to her as a leaving present, along with the contents of my fridge and larder. A new, larger and hopefully calmer vessel is on the birthday list... but until then I am cooking my dal British stylee with quick cooking red lentils, tinned tomatoes and a simple tarka.

Store cupboard Dal

1 cup of red split lentils

2 cups of water

½ tsp turmeric

1 dried red chilli

2 tbsp vegetable oil or ghee

1 onion finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic crushed

½ a tin of chopped tomatoes

2 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp chilli

Salt to taste

Method

Rinse the lentils thoroughly in cold water and boil in the 2 cups of water, with the turmeric and dried red chilli until soft.

In a separate pan, heat the oil and crackle the cumin until it splutters, then add the onion and garlic.

Fry until the onion starts to brown, then add the tomatoes, coriander, chilli and salt to taste.

Cook until the oil separates from the tomatoes and onion, and add to the cook lentils.

Best served the day after, with plan rice and raita.