The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
COOKING THE BOOKS
Putting new recipes to the test
“Immigrant cuisine” is how chef Ravinder Bhogal, born in Nairobi and raised in the UK by parents of Indian heritage, describes her cooking. Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen (Bloomsbury, £26), showcases the recipes created for her London restaurant of the same name, but also reveals the childhood experiences and memories that have inspired the dishes she makes at home.
THE APPROACH
Kimchi parathas, prawn toast scotch eggs and “sort of Indian fritto misto” sum up Bhogal’s approach to recipe construction: she takes the heady flavours of her heritage and those she loves from around the world, and splices them with the ingredients she sees around her.
The book is split into breakfasts, snacks, vegetables, fish, meat and desserts, and the photography (gorgeous) reflects the vibrant yet homely feel of her restaurant.
Not only do I want to make the recipes, but I’m also dying to know where her tablecloths and crockery come from.
THE RECIPES
The book is brimming with recipes to suit every season. I had been hoping to get the barbecue out for a few, but the Great British Weather had other plans, so I chose recipes suited to cooler, damper days.
Saffron fish pie
Though many argue you can’t tamper with a classic, this pie proves otherwise.
After preparing a saffron and turmeric-infused mash, I made a wonderfully flavourful cream sauce laced with curry powder, lemon juice and a generous handful of cheddar cheese, before layering with mixed fish and hard-boiled eggs.
Baked until bubbling, this dish was a fish pie like no other.
Comfort, and then some.
Duck rendang
A heady mix of ginger, garlic, fresh turmeric, lemon grass and a whopping 30 dried chillies went into the spice paste for this fragrant dry curry, which, after browning the duck legs and spice paste, was left to its own devices on the hob.
Though my version wasn’t quite as “dry” as the one pictured in the book, the duck was meltingly soft and, despite my reservations about all those chillies, it didn’t blow my head off.
Meringue roulade with poached stone-fruit and orange blossom cream Though I was tempted by Bhogal’s banana cake with miso butterscotch, the elegance of this dessert caught my eye. The roulade is simple enough to make, but small additions such as whisking orange blossom water into the cream filling and coating the meringue in pistachio sugar gave this pudding wonderful complexity – as did, of course, the stone fruit, poached in a whole bottle of dessert wine.
VERDICT
Intricate, unusual and packed with flavour. Bhogal’s style of cooking is the kind I could get fat on, one Pondicherry puff at a time.
The recipes, though seeming complex at first thanks to the range of ingredients used, are simple to follow and rarely use techniques or equipment out of reach of the eager home cook. “Fusion” doesn’t quite cover Jikoni – this is a messy, inventive, delicious cultural explosion.
Pip Sloan