indian

Mitran da Dhaba

- Alex Leave a comment

date of visit: Saturday 16 March 2013

No picture today, I’m afraid. Mitran da Dhaba is a tiny, almost nondescript restaurant that sits on Anzac Highway, opposite the bright lights of the Highway Hotel. We’d been over at the Highway’s Craft Beer Festival (write up to come) and needed some dinner. The options were to head home and order pizza or to try out this vegetarian curry house.

When we walked in, the restaurant was empty. It only has a handful of tables and it’s all quite basic. The room is, rather unfortunately, dominated by a massive television (during our visit, we were able to watch a good chunk of Antiques Roadshow …). That’s about the shiniest thing there: a couple of specials were written on a blackboard and a small counter sits at the far end of the room.

The menus were a bit tatty and the selection of dishes is, unlike many curry houses, quite limited. All the dishes are vegetarian so you don’t get the endless permutations you do elsewhere (chicken madras, beef madras, lamb madras, prawn madras – yes, we do get the idea!). The descriptions aren’t particularly wordy but if you’re not overly familiar with Indian vegetarian food the woman who served us was lovely and I’m sure would be happy to offer more detailed explanations.

Despite being an avowed omnivore, one thing I could do is be a vegetarian in India. Indian vegetarian food is not vegetarian food that’s trying to taste like meat (something I never get) and it’s not trying to replicate meat based dishes without the meat. It’s all about singing the praises of the raw ingredients and, I guess over centuries, it’s a style of cooking that’s very comfortable in its own skin. It shows.

I didn’t really need to think about what I was ordering: dahl makhani, my favourite dahl dish ever was on the menu. One of those, a plain naan and a mango lassi and I could have been back in Bradford or Leeds. Mitran da Dhaba isn’t licensed (I’m not sure about BYO – if you’re that bothered, ring in advance on that point) but there was a selection of Indian drinks as well as water on the table.

The dahl makhani was very good: spicy, hot, tasty and creamy. It’s been a while since I’ve had Shabab‘s version but I’d say that this came very close and that Plympton is a lot handier than Leeds! The naan bread was also good, served with lashings of butter.

Andy ordered the malai kofta which I’m sure is a dish I’ve tried somewhere before and decided isn’t quite my thing. The kofta are potato based and they are served in a rich, creamy, nutty sauce. The sauce was redolent with cardamom and had a slight sweetness to it thanks to sultanas. This is not a dish I would ever eat (I have issues with sultanas in savoury food, to start with) and while Andy enjoyed it, he did say that he thought I’d won.

The portion sizes are not huge. I finished my dahl, lassi and naan and still felt able to move, which I think is a good thing. Too often with a curry the table groans with dishes and you end up rolling out of the restaurant feeling vaguely like you never want to see food again. However, I would say that if you arrive at Mitran da Dhaba absolutely famished, you should probably order a side dish.

But don’t worry – because ordering that side dish won’t break the bank. Our meal cost just $24.

That’s right: $24 for two people, for dinner.

My tip: don’t be put off by the fact the restaurant may be empty when you arrive, don’t worry about the TV (though it will compel you to gawp at it) and don’t be put off by the fact that Mitran da Dhaba isn’t licensed. Just dive in and try a few curries you don’t see on every menu.

Mitran Da Dhaba on Urbanspoon

Anjum Anand’s Punjabi Chicken Curry Recipe

- Alex 4 Comments

Punjabi Chicken Curry

A brief spate of cool weather saw us thinking about fitting in a curry. Andy initially wanted a lamb curry but we’d had arni souvlaki earlier in the the week so we ended up opting for chicken.

I chose this recipe, from Anjum’s New Indian, mainly because we had the ingredients all in house and ready to go. I’m not sure if Anjum Anand’s shows have made it on to Australian TV, but she did some fun programs in the UK where she showed curry enthusiasts that it was just as easy to cook a curry from scratch as it is to open a jar.

While this recipe doesn’t require a lot of cooking time for the meat, it does require time and it lends itself really well to being something you prep in the morning. Try throwing it together when you get home from work and you’re tired and hungry and I doubt it will turn out as well.

Begin by making a paste of about 1 tsp of crushed ginger, 5 cloves of garlic and a little water.

Next, take 2 black cardamom pods, give them a whack and put the seeds into a mortar. Add 2 cloves and grind and then mix in about ½ tsp of ground cinnamon. The black cardamom seeds smell amazing: they have the anise notes you’d expect but also a really strong menthol character. As in, really really strong. Make this curry if you have a cold!

In a large pan (in my case, the wok) heat some peanut oil, add about 20 curry leaves (washed and dried) and 1 onion, finely chopped. Anand uses a bay leaf but we have a curry leaf plant and I love the smell of them.

Now, boring part number one. Cook unti the onion browns. This takes ages. Don’t make the mistake of whacking up the temperature, because all that does is burn the onion. You need a medium temperature and you need to hang around and stir the onion so that it browns evenly. This part of making a curry bores me to tears but it is also well worth it.

When the onions are brown, add the garlic and ginger paste and, in my case, one dried Kashmiri chilli. Anand uses fresh, whole green chillis that you prick all over. But, as with the curry leaves, we have the dried chillis coming out of our ears so that’s what got used!

Cook this for a few minutes and then add your chicken. I used chicken thigh fillets (about 400g), cut into generous mouthful sized pieces. Anand always recommends using joints. Yes, the bones do mean flavour but generally I’m pretty lazy and thighs at least have more flavour than breast fillets. They’re also less likely to dry out.

Brown the chicken and then add the spices: 2½ tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, a pinch of red chilli powder (to taste, really), some turmeric and about 1 tsp of garam masala. And, of course, the cardamom, clove and cinnamon mix. Also add a good pinch of salt. Stir, and add three smallish tomatoes, cut into wedges. Top up the pan with some water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Uncover the pan and increase the heat to high to brown and reduce your sauce. This is boring bit number two, but not as bad as the first as you don’t have to hang around quite as much. But you do really need to let it cook slowly for a while with the occasional stir. Suddenly you’ll notice the sauce has thickened and darkened.

When you’re ready to serve, mix through a generous handful of chopped coriander. Instead of rice, we had homemade naan bread. Delicious, and absolutely worth the hanging around and stirring!

Hazara Indian Restaurant Norwood

- Alex Leave a comment

Untitled

date of visit: Monday 17 September 2012

Heading out after ‘work’ (which, in this case, was a Pinot Noir tasting) for a meal and movie is not something that happens too often. I have a tendency to fall asleep in the cinema (I have been doing this for years – it’s because it’s warm and dark) and have you seen the price of a movie ticket? I’d rather just eat dinner!

However, I’d been given some movie tickets, Kath and Kimderella was showing and it was time to do something noice, different and unusual. Andy was not interested (surprise) so a friend and I left our other halves at home with toddlers and headed out with a couple of hours to spare to eat before the film.

The Parade is a bit weird in that it’s one of those places that seems to have tons of restaurants/eateries but, when I think about it, there’s not that many places I’m desperate to try. We’d both done Grace and I’m always keen to try somewhere new. I asked Twitter and, being a Monday night, our choices were a bit limited, so we ended up at Hazara.

Hazara bills itself as an Indian and Singaporean restaurant but we were both there for curry – and, honestly, Singaporean dishes are few and far between on the menu.

We began with pappadums and shared vegetable samosas, which we followed with Hazara chicken curry (me – I figured this was the house specialty*) and rogan josh (my mate). The Hazara chicken curry is described vaguely as being cooked in “a flavoursome gravy with freshly ground spices”. That could pretty much describe a random mid-week curry by me.

I’d describe all the food as above average. The samosas were definitely good – if I wanted to be picky I’d complain that the pastry was a little thick, but it certainly wasn’t stodgy or pasty.

The main courses were very good. The lamb was really tender and had obviously had a long, slow cook. The chicken was still moist. While the sauces were tasty you could argue they were a little homogenous in texture. We ordered some coconut rice and dahl makhani to go with our main courses. Dahl makhani is one of my favourite things to eat so I’m quite picky about it. This dahl makhani was made exclusively with black lentils which is definitely a good thing – some have kidney beans which I don’t rate at all. It wasn’t as spicy as it could have been but I also appreciate the need to keep accompaniments more universally appealing.

At some points service was a little intrusive. If, as a waiter, you’re going to apologise for interrupting (to ask if the food is OK) then don’t interrupt. It was a Monday night and the restaurant was nearly empty so the waiting staff weren’t pushed for time – they could have waited. I guess had they done that I’d be complaining they asked me when my mouth was full …

The real sting in the tail at Hazara is the cost. Our dinner, including an alcoholic drink each and a small tip, came to $40 a head. Whichever way I look at it, that’s quite a lot of money for a curry. I feel like I am always saying this about curries – but they are something that is easy to cook well, and in bulk, at home.

While I’d definitely go back to Hazara, I would also be mindful of the cost. In a group, or if I were hungry – I’d expect to spend $50 a head easily. You have to chalk some of that money up to a pleasant environment and friendly, efficient service.

* Hazara is both a place in Pakistan and a Persian speaking people of Afghanistan (the third largest ethnic group after Pasthuns and Tajiks) and central Pakistan. I have no idea whether the name of the restaurant (and this dish) refers to either of these or something else.

Hazara on Urbanspoon