indian

Naan Bread

- Alex 1 Comment

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This is my go-to naan bread recipe that I use whenever I need a flatbread.  It doesn’t have to go with a curry and they’re quick enough to put together for any mid-week meal.  This recipe comes from The Big Book of Bread which I won a few years ago through the excellent Baking Mad website. This is an English site run by the Allinson flour people but it’s a great resource and worth checking out wherever you are.

Take 300g of strong white flour and add 1½ tsp of dried yeast and 1 tsp of salt. If making this by hand, make a well in the centre and add the wet ingredients. If you’re using a stand mixer, you can get away with just dumping everything in the bowl! Add 4 tbsp of natural yoghurt, 1 tbsp of neutral vegetable oil (the recipe specifies sunflower but we rarely have this at home so I often use peanut oil – you just don’t want anything with a strong flavour so leave your best extra virgin olive oil in the cupboard …). Mix this together and blend in 125mL of warm milk to make a soft dough.

I usually add a 1 tsp of nigella (kalonji) seeds to the mix too. Or you can sprinkle them over the naan before baking. Or you can add a clove of crushed garlic, a teaspoon of ground coriander … you get the idea.

When the dough has come together and been kneaded (by either you or the machine) leave the dough for an hour or so to rise.

Preheat your oven and your baking trays to HOT (I usually go for 220°C fan, the recipe specifies 230°C convection). Make sure you preheat the baking trays – it helps the naan cook more quickly and prevents them from sticking.

Punch down the risen dough, knead it and divide it in to four. Roll out and stretch each quarter into a tear drop shape. The recipe specifies leaving the naan, covered, for 15 minutes. I rarely do that because by the time I finish rolling them out and getting them on trays I figure that’s rest enough. If you’re organised enough, brush the naan with melted butter or ghee before baking.

Baking for 10 minutes – the naan will be puffed up and golden. Wrap them in a clean tea towel and serve.

The naan will keep til the next day but they are better eaten straight away. They are just such an improvement on the shop bought ones that you’ll never go back!

Pride of India, Glenelg

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date of visit:  Sat 28 Aug 2010

With our dinner at the Yakumi well and truly stymied, our group of six was left to wander the streets of Glenelg looking for food.  At around 8pm on a Saturday night.  The Glenelg BBQ Inn, which would have been our natural fall back, was packed. Everyone was grumpy (some more than others) and people were getting thirsty.

As curry usually keeps everyone happy we headed down the road to the Pride of India to try our luck. We were lucky, in that they could accommodate six – taking the restaurant to approximately half full. Frankly, that’s about where the luck ran out …

It soon became apparent there was something wrong … I’m going to be kind and suggest that the restaurant had been left in the lurch by staff calling in sick. There appeared to be two ‘proper’ waiters – a man and a woman who were both wearing a uniform, and one of whom clearly knew what was going on. There seemed to be two other ‘waiters’ who had been drafted in. I suspect they may have been delivery drivers, given their very casual dress, and, in the case of one, absolute cluelessness about front of house restaurant service.

I do genuinely feel sorry for those dropped in a professional situation for which they are ill-equipped. However, I also feel sorry for me, when I’m at a restaurant and my waiter REALLY is Manuel of Fawlty Towers fame. So, drinks were ordered by pointing to pictures of beers on the menu. Our bottle of sparkling wine arrived and was placed on the table unopened. In some circumstances we’d have been worried about the grubby fingerprints all over our glasses, but we had to get that bottle open first …

As you might expect, the food ordering process was pretty shambolic. Our group tried to keep it as simple as possible but moments later the waitress (who knew what was going on) had to return to our table to clarify our meal: clearly the delivery driver cum waiter hadn’t been briefed on how to take an order.

So – service-wise, I’m sure you get the picture. Things did improve slightly as the meal progressed but there are obviously some very serious staffing issues at the Pride of India.

All of our food did arrive, and as ordered. The main courses were far superior to the entrées, which we mostly found to be a little unexciting. My mixed pakora was OK, but a touch salty and certainly nothing to rave about. Salty seemed to be a common complaint around the table.

Main courses were much better. I chose the dal gosht – lamb and lentils, along with a bhatura (deep fried bread … how can you go wrong? While I definitely enjoyed my main more than my entrée, I’m not such a fan of the use of kidney beans in dal and a hungry eater might complain that the portion was a little light on meat. For me, it was pretty much the perfect size.

Other main courses ordered included the tandoori lamb chops, the hot Malayalee prawns and the lamb nawabi. Everyone was in agreement that their main courses were superior to the starters … but no one was convinced that the experience was worth the effort. As I’ve mentioned of the Taj Tandoor, curry in a restaurant just can’t be ho-hum. While I can’t vouch for the authenticity of any curries made in our household, I do know that they’ll be tasty, the meat will be tender and the meal will be cheap. If I’m paying $20 for a main course, I need to feel that somewhere along the way, something is being value added. And I’m not talking about comedy service.

The evening wrapped up, costing just under $50 a head. Unsurprisingly, we were in the restaurant quite a while, so I wouldn’t recommend Pride of India for a quick meal. In fact, I’d only recommend it for potential comedy value …

Pride of India

Comedy service, average curry

The food just wasn’t good enough to make up for the amateur service …

Rating:2.0 stars
**

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Taj Tandoor, Adelaide

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date of visit:  Friday 20 August 2010

Our previous trip to the Taj Tandoor, on Rundle Street, was towards the end of last year, quite late on a busy Saturday night. On that occasion we enjoyed our food but were left underwhelmed by the service.

We headed for a return visit on Friday night – this time very early in the piece (around 6:30pm) and the restaurant was easily half empty. It filled up rapidly in the hour or so we were there, so if you want to eat slightly later on a Friday night then booking is recommended.

Actually, booking isn’t recommended (by me, at least) – because the sloppy service we experienced last year hasn’t improved and our experience on Friday night was (and I’m being kind here) laughable.

We arrived without a booking and, despite the large number of empty spaces, finding us a table turned in to a two man operation. This kind of redundancy was evident throughout our meal … if a job could be done by one person you could pretty much guarantee it would be done by two or more. There appeared to be a clear hierarchy which meant that staff wasted time deferring to at least one other person before making decisions.

This is particularly frustrating when you’re waiting for a drink and pappadums! We were actually given menus while waiting for a table but, when seated, had to wait a surprisingly long time for a drinks order to be taken. Naturally, we weren’t surprised when our drinks took a while to turn up …

The icing on the bad service cake was that, at the point we were about two thirds of the way through our entrées, literally, still with knives and forks in hand, we were approached by a waitress who asked if we were ready for our main courses. What? Mid mouthful am I really expected to answer that? What made her think that we would be ready?

It struck me as odd that, in a restaurant so eager to turn tables we would have to wait to pay our bill. But wait we did … as two people doubled up on register work, sorting bills, dockets, receipts … This meant that neither paid very much attention to us as the restaurant took our money. What an excellent way to make your customers feel valued.

You’ve probably realised that we won’t be rushing back, but clearly this is a popular Adelaide eatery, and if you can forgive bad service you might be interested in the food, which we feels falls in the ‘pretty good’ category.

I started with a very nice mango lassi, which I scoffed before almost any food arrived. I began my meal with the vegetable pakoras and Andy with the fish tikka. Both of these dishes suffered from being reheated – in the case of the fish, very much so, as it was really quite rubbery – the knife was keen on bouncing off the flesh than separating the flakes. The pakoras were in a lot better shape – a little tough but tasty nonetheless.

For main course I had a plate of the dahl with a buttery, buttery naan and Andy had the lamb rogan josh with pulao rice. The dahl had a good heat to it and was rich and creamy (and was perfectly mopped up by the naan) and Andy really enjoyed his lamb – it was tender and the sauce was rich, redolent with cloves and finished with a lovely sour tang.

But that’s not enough for me to put myself through the sloppy service mill again.T here are many good curry restaurants in Adelaide with service several notches above that at the Taj Tandoor. And, of course, there’s always the problem that an excellent curry can be produced at home – a restaurant really does need to offer something a bit extra whether it sits on Rundle Street or not.

I doubt we’ll be giving the Taj Tandoor the opportunity for third time lucky for a while …

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