Every so often I like to get together with all my chefs to talk things
through, discuss suppliers, chat about what should and shouldn’t be on the
menus, that sort of thing. So once a month after service we all pile into
the nearest curry house for a Friday night supper.
We’re a bit spoilt, though, as our local just happens to be the
Michelin-starred Tamarind in Mayfair, and the food they turn out is a
million miles from standard chicken tikka masala fare. There aren’t many
Indian restaurants where you’ll see sea bass, scallops or squid on the menu,
and the spicing is so delicate that the individual flavours really come
through.
We share a bit of common history because the first time we went to Tamarind
was to celebrate our third Michelin star at Royal Hospital Road on the same
night they’d won their first. Now we’re such regulars they let us sit there
in our chefs’ whites and the head chef, Alfred Prasad, uses us as guinea
pigs, sending out new dishes for us to try.
Alfred deserves the widest recognition. A lot of people take Indian food for
granted, but this man is always pushing the boundaries, seeking out new
spices and combinations. I think we chefs trained in more classic cuisine
have a lot to learn, so I’m really
excited that Alfred has invited Mark Sergeant, my head chef at Claridge’s, and
me into his kitchen to help with a lunchtime service.
The first thing that strikes me walking into the tiny kitchen is how calm it
is. I know I’ve got a reputation for being a bit demanding, but this is so
laid-back it’s almost unreal. No raised voices, no argy-bargy, just Alfred
and three or four chefs calmly taking care of the orders as they come in.
Alfred tells me things get a bit busier in the evening, but even then they
have just eight chefs for 140 covers - we’d need double that. I guess the
main difference is that most Indian cooking doesn’t have to be so precise,
it’s not all about timing. You’re not trying to send out one lamb chop
medium and another one pink and rosy. And when timing is less important, you
can have a much more relaxed feel. They don’t have to start work until 10am
and then even get a couple of hours off in the afternoon. No wonder they all
look so ridiculously young and healthy. One chap looks 14, but he’s probably
nearer 50.
“Well, 36,” smiles Alfred.
So, time to interrupt the calm. Sarge and I get stuck in. Alfred wants to show
us his famous tandoori mushrooms, a dish he invented. Four types of mushroom
- oyster, portabella, cup and shiitake - each coated in a different
flavoured yoghurt dip, run on to a skewer and cooked in the tandoor oven. It
all sounds perfectly straightforward but Jesus, you should see the size of
the skewer - it must be 4ft long. Anyway, oyster mushroom first, in the mint
and coriander dip, on to the skewer; portabella into the plain dip, on to
the skewer, etc, and finished off with a cherry tomato to hold it all
together.
I’m obviously doing something right, because Alfred decides it is time to
introduce Sarge and me to the tandoor oven. The burning charcoal gets these
clay ovens up to 550C and they are not to be taken lightly. I’ve always been
fascinated by them since I had a job washing up at an Indian restaurant in
Stratford-upon-Avon, but I’d never seen something as delicate as those
mushrooms go into one. Alfred explains that because the heat is so intense,
he blanches all the mushrooms except the oysters first, as otherwise they
would burn before they were cooked through. He also glazes them with ghee
(clarified butter) during cooking to keep them soft.
While we are waiting for them to cook, Sarge and I have a go at making naan
breads, which are cooked clinging to the inside wall of the tandoor like
limpets. “For the dough we use self-raising flour, milk, eggs, salt and
oil,” explains Alfred, “although back in India, we’d use plain flour and add
some yeast.”
This will be great to see as it’s the complete opposite to the way we cook
bread. First, we add a little ghee and nigella seeds to the dough, then
start flipping it between our hands to make evenly thin rounds. You then
slap this on to a padded oven glove and whack, into the oven it goes. Ouch
that’s hot! No wonder the tandoor chef has burns all up his arm.
When the naans come out a minute later Alfred looks at Sarge’s effort
disparagingly. “Too thin in the middle, so it’s burnt before the edges were
cooked,” he says. Not so mine. A glorious ten out of ten. I’m liking Alfred
more and more. Just time to finish off the mushroom dish. They are now
nicely browned and crisped and just need to be plated up with some
coriander, tomatoes, baby onions (which have been soaked with beetroot in
white wine vinegar for a week) and drizzled with curry oil. What a fantastic
dish, and really light and easy for lunchtime. If every football ground in
Britain sold these stuffed inside a naan bread they’d go down a treat on the
terraces - I’m not sure I’d trust losing fans near the tandoor, though.
What I’m really looking forward to making is our favourite dish whenever we
eat here: the lamb chops, which are marinated in cloves, cinnamon, cardamom,
nutmeg (at home you could use garam masala powder instead of all these),
green papaya, garlic, malt vinegar, gram flour and vegetable oil. “The green
papaya breaks down the connective tissue and makes it very tender, so it
melts in the mouth,” says Alfred. It needs to marinate for at least six
hours, so in best Blue Peter tradition Alfred brings out one he’s prepared
earlier for us to thread on to skewers, as close to the bone as possible so
that it cooks evenly.
Six minutes later it comes out of the tandoor, the most delicious, tender meat
imaginable. It’s a phenomenal dish. Ten years ago you would never have seen
best end of lamb in that kind of marinade. They’d use cheap neck and leg
cuts but not the most amazing lamb cutlets. It’s a sign of how far Indian
cooking has come. It’s also interesting because, of course, it’s the
opposite to the way we treat lamb at our restaurants. We don’t cook it for
long to keep it pink and tender, but here it’s marinated and cooked right
through.
What an eye-opener it’s all been. Of course, the wonderful spices are the most
memorable things - every time you sniff your hands they’ve taken on a
different smell. Alfred is always bringing new, unheard of things over to
experiment with. One dish he’s keen on is lamb chettinad, which originates
from a small province of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It has a
pronounced peppery, bark-like taste, not surprising given that among the 12
spices in the unique blend is a rare tree lichen. “At Tamarind we claim to
change the perception of Indian food,” says Alfred. “Bangladeshi curry
houses have given the wrong impression, so we try to educate people on
different regions. Our food is primarily north Indian, but I have introduced
a few flavours from the south never tasted in any other restaurant here.”
Sarge and I come away with a few new ideas, too. We couldn’t use the same,
full-on raw spice or rustic approach, but we could certainly copy the
principles and adapt them to modern European dining, refine them and tailor
the execution. In fact, I haven’t christened my new kitchen at home yet, so
I might make my first dinner party a curry night.
