- 2 weeks ago
Rick Stein's India - S01 - E01
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00:00There's something about a curry that's all pervading, just the thought of it ignites a
00:18longing deep inside us. It's the only food I can think of where the sense of smell works so
00:26wonderfully well with memory and imagination. At the mere mention of the word, I sense turmeric,
00:32coriander, garlic and cumin. No other food I know gives the taste buds such a rollercoaster ride.
00:40For nearly three months I travelled all over India, tasting curries and watching cooks,
00:49trying to find out their secrets because curry is full of complexities and it's
00:56taken very seriously here. And I wanted to show that there's more to curry than three
01:02pints of lager and a prawn vindaloo. Fourth-class curry, Ricky.
01:07That's a mind-blasting curry, Ricky.
01:37Well, this is where I'm going to be cooking all those lovely dishes I found on my travels
01:52in India. Good morning, Ashok. Good morning, Ray. I mean, it's so beautiful. I mean, it's
01:57teeming with life, it's a delight. This place, this lagoon is so Rudyard Kipling. There's a whole host of birds and animals I see every day. There's Bluey the kingfisher with a voracious appetite. Blacky the cormorant forever searching for eels and little fish. Krishna, the wise old kite keeping a
02:27beady eye on everything below. Marcus and Florence, the newlywed ducks. And of course, Cynthia, the water snake, who lives in the drain pipe coming from the kitchen. No morning swims for me. And then there's Kaiser, the boxer dog mixed with something else. No doubt I'll be adding more animals to my list as the series goes on.
02:52But this is my kitchen. It's lovely. It's just the sort of place I imagine when we're thinking of coming to India so many months ago. It's even got its own well. And it's a brilliant setting for cooking all those fabulous recipes I've come across on my travels all over India.
03:14Well, it's tradition here that to bless a new cooker, you have to boil some milk and let it overflow and then serve it to everybody in the house. That blesses the house, the cooker and ensures that everything you cook on it will be wonderful.
03:32Wonderful. Here's to cooking wonderful food. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
03:42A lot of people might say, I mean, with great respect that, you know, this is called a search for the perfect curry. You could be able to find it in your high street rather than coming all the way to India.
03:52You know something, David, when I hear you, I hear you say with great respect, you haven't got any respect at all. I get what you're saying. OK, I do understand you can have a good curry in the high street.
04:03But let me remind you, your favourite curry is, I believe, Prawn Vindaloo. King Prawn Vindaloo. OK, King Prawn Vindaloo.
04:12All you think King Prawn Vindaloo is something searingly hot that you can have with a couple of pints of beer. Am I right or am I right?
04:19Could be right. Vindaloo is this beautifully fragrant vinegary curry from Goa which has no resemblance to what you eat at all.
04:29As you know, I don't need to say unto thee that most of the restaurants back home came from Bangladesh anyway.
04:42These pictures of Silit's famous bridge will excite Bangladeshi cooks, restaurant owners and waiters all over the UK
04:49because the majority of the so-called Indian restaurants in Britain stem from this one town, Silit, in Bangladesh, known once upon a time as East Bengal.
04:59But it's in India's West Bengal in hot, steamy Calcutta, or should I say Kolkata, where my curry odyssey begins.
05:08Before I flew to Calcutta, my friends told me to start my curry odyssey right in the centre of the city at Nizam's, famous for its carty rolls.
05:25Basically, it's a fried pirata, a flatbread, filled with omelette and wonderful spicy meat, mutton or chicken, cooked with onions and chillies.
05:36The interpreter for this leg of the journey, Seema, thoroughly agreed with my suggestion to meet up here in the place that put carty rolls on the world map.
05:44Excuse me. That is unbelievable. I mean, I've only just got off the plane and I'm just thinking, I've had the idea in my mind of the perfect street food.
06:03I think I've found it. What's the origin of these?
06:06Well, they started here in Calcutta in the early 1900s. Right.
06:10And then we had the Britishers here who came to eat the food, but it's a little oily, as you can see it.
06:16Now, the Britishers who were here, they didn't like to touch it with their fingers.
06:19So, this guy, Mr. Riza, he came up with this lovely idea. He wrapped the entire paratha in a fine piece of paper.
06:26So, is that what you do then? You just tear the...
06:29Yeah, you just go on tearing it like this, go piece by piece, and there it is all open for you to eat, and you can just, you know, enjoy it.
06:38If the rest of the food here is going to be like this, I'm in heaven.
06:43You really started it at the right place, you know.
06:45Really?
06:46This is so popular. We've had PMs, and PMs meaning prime ministers, also have had food from here.
06:53How much does the food of Bengal mean to you and all your friends?
06:58We just love food. Bengalis are crazy about food. From morning to night, the only thing they can really talk very well is firstly food, secondly politics.
07:10So, you see how important food is for Bengalis, right?
07:13You can go anywhere in the world, but to have Nisam's rolls, you have to come to Calcutta.
07:18I'll have to open a Nisam's-type...
07:22Maybe.
07:23...cardi roll back in the UK somewhere.
07:25Yeah, I think so. I think so.
07:27Well, brilliant.
07:29I hope you really enjoy it.
07:31I find it very difficult in a seemingly ancient place to get to grips with the fact that the city's only 320 years old.
07:48Compared to Padstow, that's nothing.
07:50The history books tell us that before the East India Company came here, led by a determined young Lancastrian called Job Charnock,
07:58this was just a collection of ramshackle huts lining the muddy banks of the Hoobley River.
08:11I love big rivers and they don't get any bigger than this.
08:14I'm reminded of the poem, The Waste Land, and running through it all the time is this image of water,
08:21and particularly images of rivers.
08:24And Eliot describes the river as being a brown god, and thinking of the Thames, I couldn't get it.
08:30This is a brown god.
08:32And I just imagine when Job Charnock came up the river here, a tough Lancastrian.
08:39There's a fabulous romantic story about this.
08:42He discovered a funeral pyre and a girl about to be burnt alive because her husband had died,
08:49and he rescued her and lived happily with her, married to her for 25 years.
08:54And when she died, he built a palace next to her grave.
09:05It might sound like an overstatement, but I think our love of curry stems from this plant, pepper,
09:12sometimes known as the king of spices.
09:15Europeans couldn't get enough of it.
09:17And then there's a queen of spices, cardamom.
09:20As a chef, I've been using this perfumed spice for years, but I hadn't a clue how it grew or how it was harvested.
09:30What the British wanted was spice.
09:32Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, but above all, pepper.
09:36Just imagine what it tasted like if you'd never tasted it before, if only a few people could afford it.
09:43I mean, that heat. There'd be nothing like it.
09:46You would absolutely think it would make you live longer, give you virility, whatever.
09:52It would make you a better person.
09:54It was literally worth its weight in gold.
09:59The trade here must have been phenomenal at the end of the 17th century.
10:03Young, ambitious men came here in their droves in the hope of making a fortune
10:08and having a grand estate back at home.
10:11But sadly, many of them died like flies because of the heat, the mosquitoes, the stagnant water
10:18and a whole host of unsavoury diseases.
10:21The Hooghly River takes no prisoners.
10:23I think this building, the writers' building, symbolises the astounding wealth the East India Company created here.
10:36This is the place that housed hundreds, if not thousands, of clerks or writers.
10:41And curiously, the food today in Kolkata still reflects what the office workers eat.
10:48I met one of the most passionate foodies ever, Kaniska Chakrabarty, who took me to his favourite place.
10:56So what's special about this place?
10:58This place is an age-old institution of Kolkata. This was not here to begin with.
11:03What?
11:04This place, believe it or not, started in 1879.
11:07Good Lord.
11:08Yeah, and it was way down that side.
11:12About 80-odd years back, they moved in here.
11:14And the inside hasn't changed ever since.
11:17So, yeah.
11:18It's not very big.
11:19It's not very big. It's not big at all.
11:21You can barely fit in, you know, ten people.
11:23Yeah.
11:24And the thing that we come here for is prawn cutlets.
11:26Right.
11:27Melt in the mouth, ethereal prawn cutlets, they're like pillowy, soft and all that fried in complete butter.
11:32So there is no noil nonsense.
11:34Butter?
11:35Yes.
11:36In ghee?
11:37No, in butter.
11:38Butter.
11:39Not ghee, but butter.
11:40So, Kolkata had a long-standing clerical culture.
11:43Right.
11:44Even during the day of the British Raj.
11:45There were a lot of clerks who were employed by the Raj to run the administration.
11:49They were always on the lookout for fast food.
11:52Therefore, this kind of tiffin took place.
11:54Tiffin is this little filler-up time between, let's say, lunch and by the time you get home.
12:00Have you ever thought of going on TV?
12:02You're doing a much better job than me.
12:03I must say.
12:04So enthusiastic.
12:05We better try something.
12:06We should try.
12:07We should try, yes.
12:08Far away.
12:11This is an exercise in how to get the most out of something relatively small.
12:16A freshwater prawn dipped in lime juice.
12:20Well, so far it doesn't set the world on fire.
12:24What he does is to take the gut track from the prawn and then split it open and flatten it.
12:31He uses the knife to very gently cut the flesh so it tenderizes it and it's also able to absorb the lime juice.
12:39And then it's dipped in batter.
12:44Now, he wouldn't tell me what the batter is made from.
12:47He said it was a secret.
12:48But if it was me, I'd make it like the Japanese tempura.
12:53That's corn flour, plain flour, a bit of baking soda mixed with ice soda water.
12:59Then what he does is to fry this plumptuous prawn in butter so it puffs up.
13:05Like Caniscus said, just like a soft pillow.
13:08Here they come.
13:09There you are.
13:10There you are.
13:11Fab.
13:12Well, I'm looking forward to this.
13:13Ta-da!
13:14I know you're going to be right.
13:15I know they're going to be...
13:16Let's try them.
13:17And we've got what?
13:18Mustard sauce here.
13:19This mustard sauce packs a punch.
13:20How do you like it, by the way?
13:21I love it.
13:22You're right about the butter.
13:23It just transforms it.
13:24Well, you know what, Caniscus, without you, I never would have come to this little hole in the wall to eat these delicious prawn cutlets.
13:31I wouldn't have known about them.
13:32I bet they're not in many food guides.
13:34They're not in many food guides, as you say, Rick, and I'm glad you liked them.
13:38I'm glad you could come here.
13:39Do you mind me asking this question?
13:41Because I don't know.
13:42I don't know.
13:43I don't know.
13:44I don't know.
13:45This question, because do you mind using the word curry?
13:49Because apparently it's a British name anyway.
13:53Curry doesn't exist, does it?
13:54I'm so glad you brought this up.
13:56And I was wondering how do I bring this up to you?
13:58Because, yeah, I mean, there are names for curries like we call that jhol.
14:03Jhol essentially means a light curry.
14:06So I'm sure every region had this little name for a curry.
14:09But curry, it helps us understand it better, I guess, to the international audience.
14:12So it's important.
14:13That name to me is important.
14:14But, yes, I do not think it correctly captures the sense of what we eat.
14:19I completely agree with you.
14:27So, back at the little house on the lagoon, it's time to cook a brilliant prawn curry I had at a restaurant in Kolkata.
14:34And as soon as I tasted it, I said, I've got to cook that.
14:40Gosh, it's really hot today.
14:41But I love where I'm cooking.
14:43Now, I've just added some mustard oil into this very lovely pan.
14:48When you first see the amount of mustard that goes into Bengali cooking, you think, that is far too much.
14:55And you have to get used to the flavour of mustard seed.
14:58It's not like the flavour of our hot English mustard.
15:01It's that really bitter, pungent flavour which comes when you whizz up the seeds.
15:07Because the seeds are little like cases that encase this wonderful, slightly moist but very, very vigorous flavour which is in all Bengali cooking.
15:17It's really important, I think, in all Indian cooking, cook your onions for a long time at a moderate heat.
15:27So they don't burn but they get this lovely brown colour.
15:33Then in a blender, grind up a couple of ounces of mustard seed into a coarse paste.
15:38That'll give this dish of prawns and coconut a real hot zing.
15:42You don't want to blend them too much because that becomes a very sort of smooth puree.
15:50You need a little bit of warp and weft in it, a bit of mustard husk in there.
15:54Good. Right, my onions are nearly done.
15:57Now turmeric, a teaspoonful.
16:00Experienced curry cooks never overdo the turmeric.
16:03It has a way of dominating the other flavours.
16:06Then coconut milk.
16:09And this is made fresh out here.
16:11But if I was at home, I wouldn't hesitate to use a tin from the supermarket.
16:18And next, of course, the mustard paste.
16:21So even from this far, it's sort of catching the back of my, back of my throat.
16:26And as I keep saying, that flavour that, you know, it's like so much in cooking.
16:31The first time you taste something, we're all a bit conservative.
16:34And you think, oh, I'm not going to like that.
16:36And then after a while you think, I can't have enough of it.
16:39That's the case with mustard.
16:41And next, the grated coconut.
16:43About a teaspoon of salt.
16:55Stir that in.
16:56And now the prawns.
16:57And while it's cooking, I'm just going to chop up some green chillies.
17:00The vexed question of whether you leave the seeds in or take them out.
17:05You know, I like spicy.
17:07But I must say, a couple of these recipes.
17:10I'm sort of sending the recipes home, back to Padstone.
17:13My son, Jack, is testing a lot of them.
17:16And this particular one, he sent me the email saying,
17:20delicious, Dad, but nobody could eat it.
17:22Too hot.
17:23I think the problem really is, so that's about three or four chillies.
17:28The problem really is that I've just got a bit immune to chilli.
17:33So, it's up to you.
17:37But for me, and for the guys that drink lots of beer
17:40and like our prawn vindaloo as hot as possible, leave them in.
17:53Even if I wasn't a cook, I'd come to Calcutta purely because of the street foods.
18:01There are hundreds of these little stalls here.
18:04Most of them can be loaded on a push bike,
18:06and each one serves its own tasty speciality.
18:10I know it's not very practical,
18:12but what I would love to do is bring all my aspiring young chefs here
18:17to see what can be achieved with so little in such a tiny space.
18:22Angus De Noon is a chef in the UK,
18:25but he fell in love with Calcutta,
18:27and the street food here is his passion.
18:30It's all quite organised because they've got a union.
18:33The street food guys have got a union.
18:34Have they?
18:35Every now and then they go on strike.
18:36And when they go on strike, all the office workers go on strike.
18:38Why, because there's nothing to eat.
18:39You know, we can't expect this to come to work.
18:40There's no way at lunch.
18:41This is a churra shop.
18:44Churra.
18:45Also a lassi shop.
18:46Basically, it's based around the curd.
18:48They have a fantastic curd in Calcutta.
18:49It comes from buffalo milk and it's very fatty.
18:51It's good fat.
18:52In England, we have low fat stuff, but low fat is not an option here.
18:55That's seen as a bad thing.
18:56It's never an option for me, I must say.
18:58Fat is good.
18:59What it is, the churra is basically rice that's been cooked,
19:03and it's flattened and then dried.
19:04And so now what we're going to do, he's going to reconstitute it,
19:07add a little bit of water to it, mash it around a bit.
19:09Then he makes basically a thin lassi.
19:11So you put some yoghurt in the pot, mix it up with a little bit of water,
19:14a little bit of sugar, and then pour it over the plate with the churra,
19:18and then put a little bit of sugar on top.
19:20This is like a morning time treat.
19:22Good for breakfast.
19:23Good for breakfast.
19:24Good for breakfast.
19:25Oh.
19:26It works, doesn't it?
19:27It's so subtle.
19:28Yeah.
19:29The rice is fab.
19:32It's got a bit of texture.
19:33Yeah.
19:34Crunchy sugar.
19:35Tart yoghurt.
19:36Really simple, but just on the button.
19:39This is a big kind of thing that when you mention street food,
19:42because, oh, you know, especially in India, you know,
19:43how's your tummy?
19:44You wouldn't touch that.
19:45But that's kind of wrong, but here in a big city, this is their life.
19:48It's a very competitive market here.
19:50So it's perfect economy.
19:51So, like, you don't need the sort of the authorities to say,
19:54you've got to keep it clean, because they know they've got to keep it clean.
19:56You know, it's like, well, what are you going to tell me that?
19:58Yeah, because, you know, if I poison people, then they're not going to come,
20:00and I don't feed the family.
20:03You just can't look anywhere.
20:05That's not interesting.
20:06Okay.
20:07So do you ever get agro from anybody?
20:09Everybody seems very, very friendly.
20:11Very friendly.
20:12Very friendly.
20:13Very friendly.
20:14Now, this is the most popular street food here.
20:16It's called a puska.
20:18Little balls of deep-fried flour filled with spicy mashed potatoes
20:22and sour tamarind water.
20:24It's cheap as chips.
20:26So it's a puska when he crunches it with his thumb?
20:29That's a puska.
20:30But they're, like, just over a rupee each.
20:33They're strangely addictive.
20:35Oh, God!
20:37It's, um, adverse taste is...
20:41I don't like this because the black salt is very sulphury.
20:44Then you get the tamarind, then you get the chilli,
20:46then you get the crunch of the...
20:48What's the...
20:49The puri.
20:50The puri.
20:51And, um, the ultimate taste is very, very satisfying, I must say.
20:56Well, how do I tell him I've had enough?
20:59Calm.
21:00Or do I just walk away?
21:01Till you finish.
21:02What?
21:03One, one.
21:05LAUGHTER
21:06Angus talks like he's seen this sort of thing every day.
21:13He probably has, but I just marvel at scenes like this.
21:17Some of these men have been making these puskas for over 30 years
21:21and their fathers before them.
21:24They're made with plain flour, semolina, ghee and water.
21:28Ghee, of course, is clarified butter.
21:31To the western eye, this production line may look a little chaotic,
21:35makeshift even, but I think it's quite wonderful
21:39and it runs like clockwork.
21:42And everyone in Kolkata has got their favourite pulchicamola.
21:45Everyone's always, oh, yeah, over there, you know.
21:47That's so civilised, isn't it?
21:49So civilised, and also you think, well, it's just like a puri
21:51and then with mashed potato filling and a little tamarind water,
21:53but the more you learn about it and the more you taste it,
21:56there are many, many levels, many, many levels.
21:58So they've got something very, very basically simple,
22:00but they just kind of just break it right down.
22:02And the more you eat, the more you realise.
22:04I mean, I'm just a tourist for this stuff.
22:06I just, like, know a little bit, but these guys have got it in their blood.
22:08And the Mengolis, they just really understand these, like, little nuances,
22:11which people like this kind of continue.
22:13It's like history, you're just eating a bit of history.
22:15It's amazing.
22:17Bengal is sweets, desserts and puddings.
22:33Most of them far too sweet for me, I'm afraid.
22:36And the heart of many of them stems from the sweet, creamy milk of the buffalo.
22:41Other than fish, it's the thing they love most in the whole world.
22:50Angus was very keen to take me to a stall that sold fresh yoghurt.
22:55It's served in these lovely clay pots, which are thrown away afterwards.
23:00Like so many things here, this stems from the caste system,
23:04where the higher caste people wouldn't dream of eating out of a pot
23:08which was used by the lower castes, no matter how many times it was washed.
23:17Misty doi. Misty doi. Sweet yoghurt. Sweet yoghurt.
23:21Oh. Very good. Thank you. Oh.
23:31It reminds me the first time I went to Greece, funnily enough,
23:34when they used to do yoghurts.
23:36I don't know whether they still do them in little terracolor pots,
23:39but Angus was just saying it actually firms them up
23:42because they're porous and some of the moisture comes out.
23:44It is exquisite.
23:46I'm thinking when I'm writing recipes,
23:48because a lot of Indian recipes has yoghurt in,
23:51how am I going to match this?
23:53I don't think so with the average supermarket stuff.
23:55It's so beautifully tart, isn't it? It's totally different, yeah.
23:58And it tastes... It doesn't taste fatty. It tastes just very, very...
24:01Very clean. A natural one.
24:03Natural. It's lovely.
24:05Happy customer. Can I have one to try?
24:08It is so good.
24:10Hey.
24:16Well, this is the last of the snacks I'm having this morning.
24:31I mean, this morning started at 8 o'clock
24:33and I've been having snacks ever since.
24:35But this is probably the most famous in Kolkata,
24:39it's called Chalmari.
24:40I've never tasted anything like it.
24:42I thought when they were describing it it was a bit like Bombay mix
24:45because it's all dry.
24:46But then you've got lots of things like chopped tomatoes,
24:49coriander, fresh green chillies, coconut, onion in it as well.
24:53And a little bit of mustard oil.
24:55So it's really hot, but very satisfying.
24:59And the main thing is this puffed rice.
25:02It's a bit like sort of savoury rice crispies, if you like.
25:06You could be here for months and still find new things to eat.
25:24But I suppose like any tourist, I keep seeing things that perhaps
25:28they don't really want to see.
25:30And you do notice people living their private life out on the streets,
25:35which is a bit disconcerting.
25:37Probably best summed up by the novelist Ian Forster,
25:40who came here in the 40s on a lecture tour.
25:43And he said, he's obviously been here before,
25:46passage to India, that sort of thing.
25:48Externally, the place has not changed.
25:51There is still poverty.
25:53And it's the poverty, the malnutrition,
25:56which persists like a groundswell beneath the pleasant froth
26:00of my immediate experience.
26:03And the immediate experience is a pleasant froth.
26:06People on the street smile at you.
26:09They're happy.
26:10They're kind to you.
26:12And I think, above all, it's that persistent feeling for me
26:16of human resilience, the resilience of all us human beings,
26:20which so impresses me about Kolkata.
26:29This is the All Bengal Women's Union, formed in 1932,
26:33to protect and rehabilitate destitute women and girls
26:37here in Kolkata.
26:39They run a restaurant called Suruchi's
26:41that serves really good Bengali food.
26:44I know this because I have friends who have eaten there
26:47and loved it.
26:48And Jana Chatterjee is one of the organisers
26:51who helps teach the girls the gentle art of cooking.
26:55You know, I have these lovely girls.
26:58They are working every day.
27:00They have very few leaves.
27:02They're always working, but they're very happy.
27:05They are lovely girls.
27:06Very lovely girls.
27:07And what sort of backgrounds do they come from?
27:10Mostly they're abandoned by their parents.
27:14Sometimes they're lost, you know, on the road.
27:17Neither the parents can find them, not the girls.
27:20Sometimes they're so small that they don't know,
27:23I mean, they don't know the address,
27:24they don't know the locality.
27:26They have nowhere to go.
27:28But they don't want to be reminded of that, you see.
27:31Because they get all the love here.
27:33We love them very much.
27:34And they also like us very much.
27:38They all like to work here.
27:40So...
27:41Happy, happy.
27:42They're happy, happy.
27:43So, I mean, when they leave,
27:45will they go and find jobs somewhere, or...?
27:48They don't usually, because I told you,
27:49they don't have nowhere to go.
27:51So they can't find jobs, so...?
27:53No.
27:54They can when they're very old.
27:55We have an old age home.
27:56Oh, OK.
27:57They have so much of love, you know, and affection,
28:00that you're sort of compelled to love them.
28:03Yeah.
28:04They're so nice.
28:05Well, it must be very nice for you to see them blossom
28:07and...
28:08That's right.
28:09...very rewarding.
28:10What I'm learning here, and I really enjoy watching
28:18people cook their own food,
28:20because you just pick up so much from doing it,
28:22is the absolute importance of keeping the garlic,
28:25the onion, the ginger paste,
28:27and all those spices from sticking to the pan.
28:32And this is a very simple egg curry.
28:35She's boiled the eggs and then fried them,
28:37probably in a bit of ghee.
28:40Finished.
28:41Finished?
28:42Finished.
28:43Is there any potatoes in it, or just...?
28:45I'm having to get used to the way...
28:49what a head nod means.
28:51Is it yes or no?
28:52Sometimes it's yes,
28:53and if they go like that, that is yes, emphatically yes.
28:57Sometimes that means no,
28:59sometimes it means yes, but I'm getting it.
29:01Vinegar.
29:03Vinegar?
29:04Vinegar.
29:05I don't believe that.
29:07It's very unusual, this part of...
29:09Tasty.
29:10It brings a bit of acidity.
29:15Normally they use tamarind, but this is the Portuguese influence.
29:24Lovely.
29:25What I really like is there's a few whole spices in there.
29:30Now, back in UK, if you put whole spices in a curry,
29:34people say, there's something wrong with this, these whole spices,
29:37but biting into a bit of cinnamon like that, I really like it.
29:41And it's fresh, it's got...
29:43It's very, very...
29:44Good.
29:45Good.
29:46It's very good.
29:47You see, our Bengali cooking, most important thing that we add is our love.
29:53Oh!
29:54That's how I suppose it tastes so good.
29:56It's nice.
29:58If you're interested, this is my step-by-step guide to cooking the all-Bengal Women's Union first-class egg curry.
30:11And now I'm adding, first of all, some chilli powder and then some turmeric.
30:20Now, here's the interesting thing.
30:21I'm adding my boiled eggs now.
30:23And the reason for that is I want them to pick up the colour as well as the flavour from the chilli and the turmeric.
30:32Now I'm just going to add some onions and cook them out a little bit.
30:35And now some ginger and some chilli.
30:43Now some liquid in the form of coconut milk.
30:50To flavour that, a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt.
30:55Let it bubble away for about three to five minutes just to thicken.
30:59And then I'm just going to finish the dish off with a sprinkling of garam masala and some coriander.
31:07And that's it.
31:10This takes no preparation, of course, apart from boiling a few eggs.
31:14So I sort of think it's almost like, shall I have scrambled eggs tonight or shall I have curried eggs?
31:20Well, thanks.
31:39Because India believes in the old adage, waste not, want not, one of the people helping us make this programme suggested we come to this place.
31:48It's a rubbish tip where they recycle practically everything.
31:52He said that once we'd been there, we'd be seriously impressed because this place is a real success story providing loads of work and food for the villages that surround it.
32:04Every time I come to India, I just love watching people at work because they just get on with each other so well.
32:10And actually, everybody's very nice to us. You know, you never feel sort of threatened in India because everybody's just getting on with their life.
32:18And it's a bit sort of ironic because right at the back of them, if you can see, there's a massive garbage tip, but everything's been recycled, including the food waste which is turned into compost, which is used to grow these green leafy vegetables that you eat and see everywhere in the market.
32:35Fish, vegetables, rice paddies. This was an old rice paddy. That is a staple diet of Bengalis. And what I would call the climate and the terrain of Bengal is very fertile. I call it very fecund.
32:53I've been here in Calcutta for about four days now and I haven't eaten much meat. In fact, I've nearly forgotten about it. The fish is so good here. They cost very little compared to chicken or mutton.
33:10I knew I should have pat my observer's guide to Indian freshwater fish. It's a really vital piece of kit because I don't know the names of many of these. I'd be tempted to call these dace which swim in our rivers back at home. Not that we'd ever think of eating them.
33:28Now, these, I think they're called karameen and they're very popular over here. The locals bake them in banana leaves after skinning them and plastering them in masala and onions and they're lovely.
33:44It's amazing what preconceptions one has because obviously coming from a small island like Great Britain and what I do, I love sea fish. I love the taste of saltwater fish.
34:04But I've been asking around here and everybody says, sweet water, sweet water, that's what we like. And of course it's what I like. It's because where they come from.
34:14Now, I sort of can't get it out of my head that this fish to them is far better than sea fish.
34:27I'd like to know what they'd like to eat every day. What do they really like to eat? Would you ask them?
34:32Yeah, yeah, surely. Yeah, good, thanks.
34:34Yeah, good, thanks.
34:35Yeah, good, thanks.
34:36We all want to eat every day. What do we eat every day? What do we eat every day? What do we eat every day?
34:41Fish rice?
34:42Fish rice?
34:43Fish rice?
34:44So I like fish, illis, hilsa, hilsa, rui, and bhetki.
34:51Bhetki, that's good fish.
34:52I like vegetables, any vegetables.
34:55And how do you like to eat rui?
34:58In rui, what do we eat every day?
35:00Soup.
35:01Soup, soup, soup.
35:02In a soup?
35:03In a soup.
35:04I mean, it's a Bengali type of soup with a lot of spices, with mustard oil.
35:10Good.
35:11Thank you very much.
35:13Sorry!
35:14Let's go.
35:15Let's go.
35:16Remember this for a long, healthy life, rice, vegetables and fish. I really think so. I'm
35:24going to a restaurant that specialises in Bengali cuisine. In fact, it was one of the first restaurants
35:30to specialise. It's called Qp's, and anyone who's been to Kolkata more than once will know
35:36will know about it it's fairly up market and the rui fish will be one of the top things on the menu
35:43the owner is raki dasgupta this is rui and it's dressed like this when it goes from the girl's
35:50family to the groom's family it's called boba she is going to cook for her in-laws so it's very
35:56symbolic that she is a good cook good idea yeah very good idea so raki i'm told that we start
36:04with turmeric with all fish in bengal we normally put turmeric and salt it's like an antiseptic yes
36:12so it's like a sort of marinade yes it is and then i rub it nicely into the fish
36:18i'm going to now heat some oil yeah in a pan what sort of oil it's mustard oil just season
36:25this is the heart of bengali cuisine making these mustard seeds into a paste with the chili
36:37and this is called a shill nora it's like a mortar and pestle shill is the flat stone nora is the roller
36:45i wish i could take one home with me but it's far too heavy
36:52the process just adding water is very gentle and eventually you end up with this a creamy pungent paste
37:02that's really interesting it's like i've never seen that sort of frying a liquid before but
37:07presumably they've thickened up now yeah
37:18and i redone my fish well that is fascinating i've never seen a good a dish cooked like that before
37:25twice cooked like that
37:26wow
37:39how do you like it
37:43i like it well it's very it's got a lot of flavor
37:47and the sauce love the coriander in it love the lemon
37:51like the mustard and i used to make it in london with coleman's mustard with coleman's mustard yes
37:56and what we would do is put a little water and put milk
38:00so get the consistency or we would use a bit of coconut milk well i'm glad were you happy with it
38:06yes it tastes great well i'm glad well straight in my book absolutely
38:12it goes without saying that not everyone from the east india company was liked by the bengalis
38:24but job charnock was
38:26i love this story because it's the sort of thing that can happen to any traveler
38:31apparently when job charnock dropped anchor here he asked a local farmer what this place was called
38:38the farmer misunderstood the question and thought job had said when was the last time he harvested
38:45to which he replied cow cutter meaning i cut it yesterday i love it
39:07i suppose it's a bit arbitrary to come up with a place where our love of curry began but for me i
39:17think madras is as good a place as any simply because i can remember as a child those little tins
39:22of madras curry powder with the medals all over them and i remember my mother's curries with great
39:28affection they had things like desiccated coconut apple banana but above all for me with the raisins that
39:34you found it right in the middle of the stew i suppose of course it's fashionable now to look
39:40down on those early curries and probably quite rightly too but i have a little fond memory of them
39:45and why i'm here of course is to find the real thing find the proper courage but either way for me
39:52the biggest influence in my life from india first second and last is curry
40:02i thought i'd cook a curry similar in style and taste to the one my mother made all those years ago
40:10that anglo-indian cooking is a bit sort of looked down on these days but those curries were a great
40:16source of affection to me and lots of people and of course during the british raj period you couldn't
40:22go on a railway journey or you couldn't go into an officer's mess without getting a menu that contained
40:28dishes like this but as i said i'm going to make my own so i thought well like it had to be beef and it
40:36had to have onions in it but then i would make up my own madras curry powder so first of all i'm going
40:43to put some butter ordinary butter in a very hot pan i'm browning this braising steak which is how
40:51we start a stew back home but not the way indians would start a curry they wouldn't bother browning
40:57the meat first just thinking how curry caught on back home in britain it took a while because in the
41:0418th century stews were regarded as lower orders uh dishes and therefore a curry which was
41:12seen as a stew didn't really catch on until the 19th century and there's a very i think quite
41:21amusing um piece in vanity fair where the infamous heroine becky sharp tries to ingratiate herself with
41:28an anglo-indian family by saying yes i like curry and then it describes how she suffered the tortures of
41:36cayenne pepper of course she knew nothing about curries so they give her a chili to cool her down
41:42and because it's called a chili she thinks it is a cooling vegetable which of course it's not
41:50well there was much laughter around the table at poor becky's expense and let's face it we've all
41:55done it in indian restaurants suffered from too much chili now onions and all the onions over here are
42:03red unless anyone tells me otherwise garlic three to four cloves roughly chopped
42:12so now the spices and here it gets interesting because of course i'm not using a rather old curry
42:17powder first of all some lovely bright ready orange chili about a teaspoon of that
42:22and now some also lovely bright yellow turmeric teaspoon of that and now i'm going to put a lot
42:30of garam masala in about a tablespoon and a half this is my own garam masala we've got black pepper we've
42:37got coriander we've got cumin we've got cloves we've got cardamom and we've also got let me remember
42:46nutmeg and cinnamon smells delicious that this is the difference this is what makes
42:52my british raj curry a bit better than i suspect you might have had in the 19th or indeed early 20th
42:59century salt two teaspoonfuls and then water
43:07and now we're going to add two very important ingredients which really bring it back to my
43:13mother's curry first of all not desiccated coconut that she would have used but freshly grated coconut
43:22and secondly some lovely plumptuous sultanas
43:30but this is now going to have to cook for an hour and a half
43:34so see you later if i can find the lid i'll put that on
43:45all those years the british were in india played a big part in our gastronomic life at home
43:51kedgeri is still a great breakfast dish and there wouldn't be worcester sauce without the raj or chutney for
43:57that matter mollica tawny soup or piccolini christmas without piccolini meanwhile back to my curry
44:07that is lovely wow i'm very happy with that
44:11and this sort of reminds me of going out to pubs in the 60s and 70s and ordering it and you'd always
44:17get desiccated coconut very important slices of banana but most important most exotic your popper dumps
44:26the british had learnt a few things about the art of building forts when the east india company
44:41erected this low and lethal fortress to establish the trading posts of madras in 1640 the first real
44:49british settlement on the subcontinent the flagpole was 150 feet high and flew the union jack probably
44:57to remind any french frigates that might have been sniffing around the coromandel coast that this was
45:03indeed british territory try and take it at your peril
45:13it's one of those curious things but although india got her independence in 1947 they wouldn't allow
45:20any indians to join the madras club until the early 60s it's unbelievable hello well welcome
45:28wow madras club is honored to have you it's very nice to be here i've been imagining what it looked
45:33like all day and we're all looking forward to you cooking for us i'm not i'm not cooking i was i
45:39thought the chef was cooking oh okay all right the chef is there all right no i just want to watch him
45:44i'm here because of the most famous soup in india the one created in the heyday of the raj
45:50by the british it's not often that strangers get invited into these hallowed grounds so i feel you
46:00know very very lucky but more so that they're actually making malaga tawny soup for me because
46:06as i understand it this is where it came from we're starting off by making a paste we've got some
46:13coriander seeds cumin seeds black pepper seeds ginger garlic mint turmeric water going
46:19in here is that garam masala or curry powder curry powder curry powder wow curry powder madras
46:33how popular is um malaga tawny soup in that club it's very popular it is our signature dish
46:39what turned out most popular dish is the roast lamb grilled chicken and we have shepherd's pie
46:45these are the very most popular dish wow i would i would certainly feel at home
46:53so that pungent green chloroformy paste goes into a saucepan with carrots leeks celery onions cardamom
47:01and tomatoes they've already been fried with cloves and cinnamon and now the chicken
47:09add a tablespoon of flour and turmeric
47:16chicken stock
47:17chicken stock
47:20water
47:20water
47:20a tadj more turmeric
47:24and then simmer for at least half an hour until the chicken is cooked
47:30coconut milk
47:33and now two teaspoonfuls of salt
47:37and then sieve
47:38a squeeze of a squeeze of fresh lime i know they look like lemons but they're limes
47:45and then rice and voila the first malaga tawny i've tasted for 20 years
47:55that is very nice indeed it's really intense in flavor
47:59and what's interesting it's really hot but there's no chili in it it's just hot with black pepper
48:05i'm rather saddened really because you used to be able to buy tins of malaga tawny soup very easily
48:10in the uk but i guess the taste for it is just has gone partly i suspect because the tin soup tasted
48:17nothing like this this is thick and absolutely full of lovely green spicy flavor
48:24there's no such thing as a free lunch we all know that one
48:35and so the nice people at the madras club asked me if i'd give a chat which i did but i thought i'd
48:41use the opportunity to find out how they regarded the word curry
48:45if you said to me what do you think of a is a curry i'd say probably a meat dish with a gravy
48:54but i think what we really mean is it's spicy food a curry when you say curry in tamil it is
49:02meat mutton in very traditional brahman households you have what is called a curry
49:10which is basically vegetables when you went to a store you wanted either meat you said curry
49:16you wanted vegetables you say kai curry so it could have been confusing for the british so they
49:21just took the curry and left everything else for me curry is something minus lentils any kind of gravy
49:29in india is a curry basically the way we look at it it goes with rice it goes with uh chapatis or it goes
49:36with any kind of staple that we eat eat with as long as it has a little gravy to it we call it a curry
49:43in that case rick stein's india in search of the perfect gravy yeah i think gravy would be better
50:06i've always had a romantic notion to come to the coromandel coast ever since my mother used to read me
50:12edward lear's the courtship of the yongi bongi bow
50:19it tells the tale of the unrequited love of the tamil yongi bongi bow for the english rose lady jingly
50:27on the coast of coromandel where the early pumpkins blow in the middle of the woods
50:36live the yongi bongi bow two old chairs and half a candle one old jug without a handle these were all
50:44his worldly goods in the middle of the woods these were all the worldly goods of the yongi bongi bow of the
50:51yongi bongi bow so he's saying to lady jingly these are the things i offer you if you come back to
51:00the coromandel and be my love this is mr money my exceedingly good interpreter who was surprised
51:15that i a foreigner wanted to go to a fishing village it's very rarely tourists are interested in uh
51:22coming to the fisherman's village and you you have noticed nobody come near us and ask for anything
51:28because it is unknown yeah yeah it's not a tourist place no if i was by the sea i'd always want to find
51:35fishing where the fishing is because i come from by the sea right so i love my fish
52:05i just picked up these are fetching 900 rupees a kilo which is about
52:3510 quid um and the the reason for that is it's really rough out there there's no more fishing
52:40today and it's diwali tomorrow the hindus festival so obviously fishes fell in fetching really good
52:46prices just like at home well the women have patched up their argument and are off to the main market
52:56i suppose to ponder cherry while not at sea the men are sure mend their nets and like many other fishing
53:03communities it's a hard life and can be a short one and the perils are not just those at sea
53:12i've just been talking to this guy he's actually speaks very good english and he asked me how old
53:16i was and i said well i'm well over 60. they said well over here you won't have much long to live
53:21then because they all drink cheap brandy and over 60. but some people after 50 they don't want to go to
53:28the fishing or nothing they only drink uh raw raw spirit so it kills them off quick yeah yeah how how
53:36hard is the life being a fisherman here on this coast no fisherman if a hard worker their life is
53:43up to 70 also they are still going to fishing still working at 70 yeah wow strong man strong man yeah
53:50because normally the fishing work is very hard yeah saying the whole world over yeah
54:02it's quite funny really because when we were trying to find out what the coast of tamil nadu was like
54:06we were told there's nothing really to see it's all dirty and a bit derelict would you call this
54:12nothing i'm sorry but um it's everything to me i mean it's enchanting i mean everybody's really happy
54:18the fishermen are you know there's fishermen everywhere hard working but cheerful and just
54:23looking at this scene i was sort of thinking about really the first time i ever went to spain in the
54:2850s it's a bit like that there then i mean obviously the boats are a bit different but um everybody was
54:33really poor and really but really happy and you look at this scene and you just think some hotelier maybe
54:41even watching this program says what i wouldn't give for a piece of action there and you can imagine in
54:48another 20 30 years no fishermen plenty of hotels i consider myself very privileged because i've been
55:06invited to lunch here with a fisherman's family and of course it's going to be a fish curry made with
55:12kingfish which has just been landed so she's grated up fresh coconut in the mixer followed by a dozen yes
55:20a dozen really hot chilies loads of garlic and then peppercorns a good handful of freshly chopped tomatoes
55:31onion quite a bit of salt and that's it
55:35they all have these wet and dry very powerful blenders i predict a lot of people will be getting
55:44one of these
55:48we don't tend to blend vegetables together like that in a sauce but she just says it has more flavor
55:55and also you get a lot of texture from all those blended vegetables interestingly i don't think we have a
56:01a contraption to do that in the uk a small container with lots of power that will blend dry and wet things together
56:11so you should have fishing in the maripon
56:13you get more taste thank you thank you
56:28this is unusual she's frying up mustard seeds and white dal or lentils not many of them but she says
56:35they add texture now the paste it looks lovely made with all those chilies tomatoes and onions
56:44actually it reminds me of an indonesian curry i wonder if fishermen or traders from the coromandel
56:50coast traveled there years ago
56:55she doesn't want to turn it over with us with a fish slice or something like that because it's
56:59obviously very delicate fish and they'll break up so she's just shaking it you learn something every
57:06day in cooking
57:09now curry leaves oh how much i love fresh curry leaves i think it should be the curry symbol
57:17for southern indian dishes and then coriander the two together perfect
57:23can i try some thank you thank you very much just have a bit of the fish
57:34and a bit of the masala
57:39that is delicious that is so good you're very good cook and what i was thinking was the first time i came
57:47to india when i first tasted the fish curry i thought if we had fish curries like this back
57:53in the uk we'd all love fish
57:59and so my search for the perfect curry continues are the kitchens getting even hotter is that possible
58:06can you overdose on too much chili and this wonderful thing the ultimate spice grinder a work of art
58:14and a tribute to the ingenious indian mind and will the driving standards improve because there's an
58:20awful long way to go in my search for the perfect curry
58:35that's a mind-blasting curry ricky
58:53that's a mind-blasting curry ricky
58:59you
59:01you
59:03you
59:05you
59:07you
59:09you
59:11you
59:13you
59:15you
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