Indian The Best of British Takeaways

Us Brits love our fast food.

We spend a staggering £6 billion on takeaway every single year.

We have more places serving it up than anywhere else in Europe.

Over the series, from fish and chips to Chinese,

we'll be exploring our love affair with takeaway.

This week, we want to find out what makes the best Indian takeaway.

We're going behind the counters of Britain's top curry houses

to discover the secrets of their trade.

There's only three people that know the recipe of what's in this bag.

It's me, my mum and dad.

We'll be uncovering the history behind the British curry

and how it broke down cultural barriers.

Punjabis and Glaswegians have a lot in common.

We love a drink, they love a drink.

They love a fight at a wedding, we start fights at weddings.

So, a great deal of commonality.

Oh, my knife!

And we're inviting some award-winning curry chefs

to a contest to find out what makes the best Indian takeaway.

-That's what you call a naan bread!

-Wow, it's a naan-off!

We are celebrating the real food

that we eat and the people behind it.

Three pilau rice.

Whether it's a spicy jalfrezi or a creamy tikka masala,

Indian takeaway is one of the most loved foods on the British menu.

We order three million Indian takeaways

and eat four million poppadoms every week.

So we're searching the country

to find out what makes the best takeaway curry.

We often think of fast food to be bad food.

But I believe it can be great.

We've got some brilliant takeaways in this country.

So we've found three of the best independent

curry houses to take part in a contest.

They're all award-winning and they're all very different.

But they each believe that their food is the best.

Ahead of the contest,

chef Tom Kerridge is on his way to visit the first contender.

On the outskirts of Glasgow is Mushtaq's restaurant.

Hidden behind this ordinary shop front lies Britain's biggest

Indian takeaway kitchen.

OK, one veg pakora, chicken tikka masala, two pilau rice,

one naan straightaway for delivery!

This kitchen serves up curry on a giant scale.

Chicken pakora, lamb, roast beef, chicken tikka masala,

-pilau rice, boiled rice.

-Three naan bread straightaway, please.

Up to 1,000 takeaways are sent out every Friday.

That's one curry every three minutes.

This enormous operation is the brainchild of award-winning chef, Ajmal.

-So, this is the operation.

-OK.

Two salad, chicken tikka masala, chicken tikka korma, pilau rice,

chips, new order, please.

Well, we're in like an aircraft hangar of a kitchen, aren't we?

It's a massive operation, yes.

It could be any form of factory-led line that works to efficiency.

All those kind of processes,

you've put into a model that works for takeaway.

Absolutely.

This one's a korma.

-Chicken tikka korma.

-Chicken tikka korma.

Ajmal has won Scotland's Chef Of The Year at the Asian Food Awards.

Tom, can you do what you're doing, but just do it, like, three times faster, please?

His recipes have been handed down from his family.

My parents started out when they opened their very first restaurant

back in the '70s.

When they came over to this country,

the only thing they were good at was cooking a limited range

of Indian food, and that's exactly what we're doing here today.

OK, so even though it's a limited range,

you're trying to make sure that it's still high-quality?

It still is. And my mum and dad still come here every other day

-for their meal.

-You know,

that's testament to how hard you're working and how consistent

-your product is.

-Yeah.

Ajmal believes his parents' authentic Punjabi recipes

are what makes his takeaway curries so special.

It starts off here. This is the humble onion.

-Yeah.

-This is the foundation of every curry.

So these onions are going to get cooked and it takes

-about four and a half hours to cook a pot of gravy.

-So do you add anything else to that?

-Is that just onion?

-We add...

-Your magic mix.

-The magic mix.

There's only three people that know the recipe of what's in this bag.

-It's me, my mum and dad.

-OK.

-So, the spice will go in here.

-Yeah.

-It's going to be cooked for about another hour.

-Yeah.

-And then we're going to blend it.

And then the texture will be like that.

Is this the base for all of the curries?

This is probably 25% of the flavour at this point.

-And then we add different ingredients to make up the different sauces.

-Right.

Veg pakora, lamb, boiled rice!

I've just been witness to Ajmal's jaw-dropping operation.

He's certainly perfected speed and efficiency.

He's the biggest, but is he the best?

We're pitching him

against two outstanding but very different chefs in our contest.

Almost 500 miles away on the south coast is our second contestant.

New order, two momos followed by one mutton.

A chef with a very different vision for what he thinks makes the best Indian takeaway.

Another chilli chicken fry coming, yeah? OK, let's go.

Alun is the head chef of Chilli Pickle in Brighton.

And then this can go. We have some micro-leaf on here to finish.

The restaurant won best takeaway at the British Curry Awards two years running.

Thank you.

Well, we've always been innovative in what we do, I think.

You know, starting off with an English man running

an Indian restaurant in itself is quite unique.

And we always try to, I guess,

give an element of that real sort of food that you would get in India,

kind of unapologetic, spicy, full of strong flavours.

Alun gathers recipes from all over India.

Just come back. We went to Chennai and Goa.

There's a couple of dishes we tried there and we've actually brought it

to the menu. And that's, you know,

the kind of thing that we really look for in our travels.

Wow, it's amazing. The restaurant's really busy, really buzzy.

It's a great noise. There's nothing better than a full restaurant.

But this isn't actually what I want to see.

I want to see what's going on downstairs in the takeaway.

Alun is a classically trained chef.

He believes his food will stand out in the contest,

because he's creating takeaway dishes

from high-quality restaurant cooking.

-Wow, hello, Alun.

-Hi, Tom.

-How are we doing, chief?

-Yeah, nice to see you.

-Amazing, OK, so this is the takeaway kitchen.

Yeah, indeed. It's a bit different to upstairs.

So upstairs in the restaurant, I mean, it's a beautiful,

well-designed menu that's quite restaurant focused.

-Sure.

-How many of those dishes can actually come from upstairs downstairs?

-How many transcend?

-Basically it's the main base of curry

is the wet dishes, all of the garnishes around it.

So these are the items that travel well.

Alun keeps ahead of the game by preparing

and packing batches of dishes in advance...

..so they're ready to go as soon as they're ordered.

We're just cooking, you know, anything up to ten portions of each curry.

-Lined up, mutton, adraki...

-So it means that everything can go at the same time,

nobody's waiting for anything.

Absolutely. You know, it's almost like a KFC or a McDonald's scenario.

-Yeah.

-Where you've got, you know, your cheeseburger, your fries.

You've got all the curries lined up, all the garnishes there,

and it just feeds from the other side.

Bang, bang, bang. And then they just fill the boxes.

Could I get a fish curry, please?

-Fish curry?

-Please.

-Coming right up!

-How many?

-Just one.

-Just one, there we go.

My work here is done.

The thing about Alun today that I've been so impressed with is...

I suppose it's his enthusiasm for knowledge,

the way that he wants to kind of absorb like a sponge

everything there is to know about Indian cookery.

But he's up against two others who have literally grown-up

in takeaways. And Indian food's in their blood. My question is,

will Alun's cooking feel authentic enough to win this contest?

Thank you very much.

For many of us, takeaways are now a regular part of our routine.

But how did this tradition start?

Back in the 1970s,

more than one million women left home

to start work in typing pools and offices around the country.

By the end of the decade,

nearly 60% of working age women were in employment.

As women have less time to spend in the kitchen, speed was of the essence.

-TV VOICEOVER:

-Microwave cooking units are indeed revolutionary.

And ready meals and convenience food took off.

It wasn't long before the curry houses

tapped into this new appetite for convenience,

and Indian was the perfect food to kick-start the takeaway revolution.

Curry could be batch cooked in advance and served quickly.

It was easily transportable and didn't spoil.

By the end of the decade,

enjoying Indian takeaway had become the norm for many people.

Since the '70s,

takeaway curry has become available in every corner of the UK.

To meet the final contestant taking part in our contest,

Tom is heading deep into the Welsh valleys.

I'm here in West Wales to visit one of our curry houses,

which is one of the best in the UK.

I've got to be honest with you,

this is one of the last places that I'd expect to find it.

People travel for miles to come to this small Welsh village for a taste

of curry from this award-winning takeaway.

Shaish is head chef and owner of Yasmin's.

One garlic fried rice, one mushroom fried rice.

He's won a string of prizes,

including one for best chef at the Welsh Curry Awards.

I don't believe I'm second-best.

I'm heading for the best thing a chef could do.

And what we have in plan for the future, it's exciting.

Like 85% of all Indian takeaways in this country,

Shaish's restaurant isn't Indian at all, but Bangladeshi.

Most of my family is magical with food.

My dad used to own a restaurant, my brother owns a restaurant,

my sister is a beautiful chef.

Nearly ready.

-Ah, Tom! Hey.

-Nice to meet you. You OK?

Good. Good.

What is it about you and your offering that makes you so unique?

-Produce.

-OK.

-Passion to now, you know,

grow and produce all the products that are used in the restaurant.

Shaish believes that the best Indian takeaway is all about the ingredients.

All this is grown from the garden. The radishes, the radish leaf.

These are going to be my signature spinach.

It's red spinach, Bengali spinach.

In Indian restaurants, you know, spinach is loved.

Shaish makes sure he has the freshest ingredients

by growing them himself on a 3.5 acre smallholding.

All the salads for the restaurant, forever, will be grown by us.

Great a space as this is, how's that going to cope all year round?

I'm doing staggered growth.

Pumpkins, butternut squashes and all the heavy things that I could

keep over winter will go into my mixed veg.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Shaish's plan is to become Britain's first self-sufficient

Indian takeaway. So he's decided to rear his own meat, too.

Oh, they're so cute!

You're not supposed to fall in love with them, this is produce!

So Shaish, we're building a chicken coop and pen here.

-Yeah.

-How many chickens are you going to have in here in total?

Ultimately, about 600 on the land.

Shaish, the last piece of your chicken shed. There we are, mate.

This is exactly like a jigsaw! Look at that.

I could live in here!

THEY LAUGH

To find somebody who works in the fast food industry with a takeaway

with that heart and that soul that's growing their own produce,

is something that's very rare.

And that is incredibly inspiring.

So, three completely different approaches to cooking curry.

And today,

we're going to find out which is the best with a contest

in the curry capital, Bradford.

And what better place to spark up the tandoor ovens

than in Lister Park, with its beautiful Indian inspired gardens?

Can we get some water?

Ajmal has travelled from Scotland...

More onion. Green chillies.

..Shaish has come from Wales...

The rice on this one.

..and Alun has arrived from Brighton.

It is blending, then rice. Then cutting. And we're there.

The chefs will battle it out in three tests across the day

to help us decide who makes the finest Indian takeaway.

The best British takeaways deliver fantastic food fast.

And we expect them to be tasty and fresh every single time.

This first task is all about speed.

Which of you can cook and serve your bestselling dishes first?

Chefs, get cooking!

Get the gas on, we want to get the show on the road here.

Each chef will serve their dishes to a queue of customers.

It's a race to finish first.

But fast food shouldn't mean bad food.

We want to test that the quality is high even when they're pushing out

-all of those orders.

-Tom will be judging and he'll be helped by spice master Enam Ali.

What are you trying to do in here?

He's a man who knows his Indian cooking.

Enam founded the world-renowned British Curry Awards.

When I open the container, I'm looking for the aroma, the spices,

the fresh produce, the quality.

I put it in my mouth and all the spice starts singing a song.

And that is really for me.

This is more like it, isn't it?

Each chef is preparing two dishes from their takeaway menu,

which they'll serve up to the people of Bradford.

I'm making the famous chicken tikka masala.

It's a British favourite.

One in seven curries ordered in the UK is a chicken tikka masala.

A lot of restaurants use colouring and things like that.

I find beetroot perfect.

Gives that nice colour.

See, now it's coming to the chicken tikka masala colour.

You see?

He's also serving Welsh lamb dhansak.

Both will be garnished with his own home-grown produce.

All my garden, organic salads. Grown with love.

Look at this.

You need to watch out. Some of these are pretty sharp.

Ajmal is also making chicken tikka masala, along with lamb karahi.

What do you want to do?

Shall I cook these tikkas all in one go or five at a time?

Five at a time.

-Excuse me!

-He's the king of speed and scale,

so he should perform well, but will Ajmal be able to adapt

away from his production line?

Oh, my knife!

I dropped two bits of food, give me a break.

Coming through, very hot.

You know, we're cooking everything from scratch, I mean,

even the time it takes to skewer this,

it takes two or three minutes to skewer one of these and we need basically 30 of these.

Come on.

The chefs have no idea how much their customers will order

so Ajmal is doing what he does best, cooking large quantities.

-Nice.

-But not everyone is in a panic.

Chicken OK?

There is such focus and calm over here, compared to everyone else.

Coming through, very hot!

There's no running around.

We're keeping it on the inside, I think.

Organised and efficient...

Is it too wet?

Alun's classical training seems to be coming into its own,

but his dishes are complex.

This is green pea kebabs.

If there's too much water, it would just become very soft,

which is not what we want.

Alun's spiced green pea kebabs are his own invention,

filled with cheese and coated in crushed poppadoms.

-Who doesn't love a poppadom?

-He's also serving chicken xacuti,

a South Indian recipe using toasted coconut chips.

His variation of chicken tikka.

An English man with an Indian restaurant, you know,

someone that's come to it later in life,

whereas, possibly, they were always from day one.

We're up for it and we'll see how it goes.

Shaish, how you doing?

Good. Hopefully.

-OK, customers are on their way.

-Yes.

-Chop, chop, chop!

Ready or not, the people of Bradford have arrived,

hungry and armed with their orders.

Rice bags!

Where are they, where are they?

There's too much to do, there's simply not enough time.

Rice is done, salad is done, mixed vegetables are done.

-Talk to me. Rice ready?

-Yes.

Perfect. I think we're OK.

What can I get you?

Each chef has seven customers to serve.

Chicken tikka masala, lamb karahi, three pilau rice.

And each customer will order the same number of portions.

Take off the gloves, they're slowing me down.

Where's the rice?

The chefs who serves all their customers first wins.

But the food must be perfectly cooked.

First-order, nearly ready.

There you go, lovely.

Shaish is first to box and bag up.

Remember Yasmin's!

Oh, no, excuse me, I forgot your chicken tikka masala, sorry.

It's a good job I ain't got all the way home.

THEY LAUGH

I apologise.

-Ali's new to this business.

-That's fine, thank you very much.

-I've had to teach him.

Sorry, lovely, two chicken tikka masala?

One aubergine, one xacuti, one laal maas, one green pea kebabs.

Cool as a cucumber, Alun is working methodically.

OK, mate. Everything here labelled?

What's this?

-Laal maas.

-This is all the laal maas.

He's using his takeaway technique of boxing up dishes in advance

of knowing the orders.

-OK, thank you very much.

-OK, thank you.

Next, please.

Hi. Six pilau rice.

Six rice. Yeah, we're on a roll now.

I'm happy with the quality.

It's all looking good.

OK, thank you. Next, please.

Chicken tikka masala, lamb karahi, veg, three pilau rice.

Shabaz, what have we got here?

Chicken tikka masala?

-Yes.

-How many pieces of chicken?

One, two, three, four, five, six. Good, that's right.

Ajmal's rushing to keep up, but there's a problem.

Erm... Erm...

-Shabaz?

-Yeah?

-Which one's the karahi sauce?

They both look the same in this light.

I'll get a spoon and taste it.

TOM: Ajmal's getting confused about his sauces, which concerns me.

I hope that, in his rush to get ahead,

he's taking his time to adapt his one base curry sauce

to make the two curries taste different.

-Karahi, this one here?

-Yeah.

SHABAZ: You feeling the pressure, my friend?

Shaish, let your... Let your food do the talking.

I'll do my orders and come and help you.

Shabaz, I tell you what, you start the naan breads.

Seven naan breads.

Come on, you're going to have to make the naans a bit longer than that.

Shaish, so much activity and so much happening.

'Naan has been eaten in India for nearly 700 years.'

Come on, Shaish, you're doing baby naans there. Come on.

Cooking it is a test of speed and skill.

The oven reaches over 400 centigrade

and it's an art to get the naan cooked perfectly

inside and out without burning.

Shaish, come on, look, that's what you call a naan bread.

Oh, wow, it's a naan-off!

-Get with it, Shaish.

-That's tiny.

-Ignore him. Ignore him.

We're good to go.

-Enjoy your meal...

-Will do.

-..and the lovely weather.

-See you later.

-Thank you.

-Next, please.

-Are you feeling the heat?

-I certainly am.

-Not just of the cooking?

No, actual pressure.

Are you taking the next order, please?

Come on!

One aubergine, eight xacuti.

Instead of naan, Alun is frying roti,

which he'll serve with additional side dishes.

He's given tandoor duties to his assistant

and he's nearly through his fourth customer.

I think we've measured it out quite well.

So let's see.

OK, next order ready.

Both Shaish and Ajmal are now just one order behind Alun.

Four masalas, two veg kormas, ten lamb we need.

Ten lamb?

Ten portions of lamb? Oh, my lord.

I think I'm not going to have enough lamb.

I don't know if I've put too much.

Oh, my God, I'm going to have a heart attack.

Shaish? What's going on?

I was thinking the first order was such a small order...

You were giving big portions away at the beginning?

Four masalas?

OK, there is no masala.

-You've run out of masala?

-I've run out of masala.

I think I maybe put a little bit too much in each container,

I was rushing, most probably.

-CHERRY:

-With four customers left to serve...

Stop looking beautiful and do something.

-CHERRY:

-..Shaish must now cook new curries.

HE GROANS

I've heard the other team's run out of food - that might work in our favour.

Right. Listen, darling, you come over here, we'll sort you out.

Boo!

I'm going to phone the local takeaway.

Where's my spoon?

Two chicken tikka masala, I'll do the portion control.

Come on. Need a bit more gas.

Ajmal's finally found his rhythm...

Right, next person I'm going to take your order just in a minute.

..and he's starting to close the gap on Alun.

You're going to love this. Hi, there. Next, please.

OK, let's go, ten laal maas.

Shabaz, just up the pace.

Just a little bit more.

We're nearly there, we can see the finish line.

I need two guys round here just to hold me up. I'm about to collapse.

Alun and Ajmal are both on their final customer...

Pick up the speed just ever so slightly - it's our last order.

..and its a race to see who can finish serving them first.

You got two more lids, please?

Have we got enough? We've just got enough.

I need a hand counting.

Coming to the end.

-OK, sir?

-No, thanks.

Is it all for you?

Yeah! No.

Gentlemen, the last order has been packed and served.

Please stop what you are doing.

You could have given us a countdown!

You lost!

Shame!

How do you feel?

Alun's served all his customers first,

but the judges will taste all the cook's dishes to see

if anyone sacrificed quality in the rush to win.

-How're we doing, Shaish?

-Good, thank you.

What happened there, chief?

You ran out of stuff?

I think we gave a bit too much in the first place,

when we were rushing around.

Have you got any lamb to taste?

Yes, of course. Still lamb to taste.

So, what cut of lamb is it?

A leg of lamb.

A bit dry.

So this is the one you ran out of?

This is the bits you've put together for us, so shall we just move on?

-Carry on.

-We'll forget about the lamb.

Let's go on to something else.

Chicken tikka masala.

So flavoursome, really earthy.

I think that dish tastes incredible.

-Thank you. Thank you very much.

-How you doing, Ajmal?

I'm very well, thanks.

Shall we get in there and taste?

'Ajmal was a very close second on this test.

'But did he maintain quality in his cooking?'

OK, that is lamb karahi.

Lamb has actually absorbed the sauce very well, sour and a bit sweet.

A little bit salt, a bit hot and it's got a multi flavour.

-I think it's a great dish.

-Thank you.

And then we've got the chicken tikka masala.

I think it's a good dish.

I think it's quite one-dimensional.

I would say it's similar to the lamb.

If I had that, the lamb and a rice dish,

I wouldn't feel there's too much in the way of it being different.

-Alun, well done. Congratulations.

-Thanks, chef.

'Alun served his customers first, but he will only win this round

'if his food is perfectly cooked.'

Chicken xacuti, so a Goan chicken curry.

Those flavours coming through there give it a real depth.

Wonderful warmth. That's a stunning, stunning dish.

Let's look at the kebab.

This is really crispy. Beautiful taste.

Poppadom coating.

And you've got the peas inside.

I think you've done very well on this one. Very good.

Well done. Thank you very much.

Alun not only won the race, but he retained high quality throughout,

winning him the task.

I think we pulled it together.

Overall, very happy, absolutely.

The task carried on and then the orders kept on coming in

and how big the orders were.

You know, it did get hectic, but I enjoyed it.

The Indian food we eat today

is as much influenced by the British palate

as it is by Indian spices.

The bestselling curries in our Indian takeaways

weren't actually invented anywhere near India.

The origins of these dishes that we know and love

rest much closer to home,

in the industrial heartlands of the UK.

In the booming '50s and '60s,

workers from the Commonwealth were invited to Britain

to fill gaps in the labour force.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Indian subcontinent

arrived in the UK to take up jobs in manufacturing and services.

They were drawn to big industrial centres in the Midlands,

the North and in Scotland.

Here on Glasgow's docks,

I've come to meet writer and broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli.

If I took you back 50 years, none of this was here.

This was all shipyards,

factories and the housing built around it

to serve the manufacturing.

Hardeep's father arrived here back in the mid '60s.

But it wasn't the dream many of the immigrants had hoped for.

It was hard work, it was demanding work, and also

when you're incoming, you're at the bottom of the pile,

so you do all the jobs nobody else really wants to do.

And it was about to get worse.

'Another sharp rise in unemployment.'

The late 1970s saw Britain

slide into decline.

'There's a forecast that three million people will be unemployed.'

With factory closures,

industrial action and hundreds of thousands of workers laid off

in the manufacturing industries alone.

# This town's becoming like a ghost town... #

Despite the collapse of the economy,

the Indian immigrants spotted an opportunity.

Pubs would shut at 10, 10.30,

and people would still want a drink,

so if you opened a restaurant, you can extend the licensing hours,

effectively, so you became a glorified pub with food.

Curry and lager were bound together for decades to come.

And for Hagar The Horrible,

our house speciality.

Arctic moose vindaloo,

extra hot.

Punjabis and the Glaswegians have a lot in common.

We're big meat eaters, a lot of the Punjabis.

Glaswegians love meat. We love a drink, they love a drink.

They love a fight at a wedding, we start fights at weddings,

so a great deal of commonality.

The interesting thing is, as these immigrants set up these restaurants,

they stopped being immigrants.

They started becoming Mr Singh. They had names.

The humanisation of the immigrants happened through restaurants.

By the mid 1970s,

there were more than 1,200 curry houses across the UK.

Here in Glasgow, Gibson Street was nicknamed Vindaloo Valley.

This was the place that you came if you needed a hit of spice.

I'm going to meet one of the early pioneers,

Glasgow curry king Balbir Sumal.

He's still cooking up curry today.

-Hello.

-Nice to meet you!

What was Indian food like when you arrived here?

It was very basic. We couldn't get the proper ingredients like my mother used in India.

This was the one that everybody used.

It was an all-in-one spice called madras curry powder.

So for every different type of curry, really it was the same curry?

-Exactly.

-It was that powder, a bit of salt, a bit of chilli.

-In different ratios!

-Different ratios!

What they lacked in ingredients,

the chefs made up for in imagination,

and they looked to British dishes for inspiration.

We'd take advantage of some local produce like tomato ketchup, creams,

condensed milk.

-Just a bit of improvisation?

-That's right.

People want to please their clientele.

Chefs adapted their dishes to appeal to our love of sauces and gravies,

fusing Indian and British cooking.

From tikka masalas to baltis, they were inventing a whole new cuisine.

So those Indian dishes which to me are quintessentially Indian

-are in fact not?

-I would say so.

Because we are from the north of India and I've travelled

to the south and back again,

but they don't have those dishes there.

So if I went to India and asked for a chicken tikka masala...

I think they would probably ask what kind of a masala.

It may not have been authentic, but for most Brits,

it was their first taste of curry.

Are you going to have a pint of lager with this?

Do you remember the first time you had curry?

I adored it, utterly adored it.

Because it was like nothing else I'd ever had.

People went out, had a drink, they were drunk, so they said,

"I can eat curry hotter than you."

"No, you can't." "Yes, I can."

Back in the '70s,

Indian produce was hard to come by in Britain.

But today, our chefs have authentic ingredients at their fingertips.

So we're testing their knowledge on the most vital element of them all.

Spices are at the heart of Indian cooking

and we want to see your understanding

of these fundamental ingredients.

Are you ready?

-ALL:

-Yes.

The majority of Indian takeaways create a secret spice blend...

..and today, we want our chefs to make their own masala mix.

I'm in heaven, here.

Nice!

They have 40 spices to pick from.

-What are you picking up there?

-A bit of heat.

They'll be judged by Enam Ali,

restaurateur and founder of the British Curry Awards.

So what are you looking out for, here?

I'm looking for their knowledge,

and their ability and what they're picking up from this spice rack.

Enam has deliberately included some stale spices.

It's so important for any chef.

If you pick up ingredients that are already off and you put them

in the blend, you could jeopardise your whole cooking

for the whole evening.

And what's best to use, whole or ground spices,

because there's a huge array on the table?

Is there a right or wrong way?

The ready-made ground ones, of course it is good, but the best one,

if you can get the whole one and blend it to your own,

put it in the blender.

It's like a coffee bean.

Having coffee beans in the blender and having a coffee.

Imagine how tasty it is.

After losing to Alun in the speed test,

Ajmal and Shaish have everything to prove.

Shaish learned his craft working in kitchens from the age of 13

in his family-run curry house.

Cardamom. Roasted like garam masala.

Coriander seeds.

They're very fragrant and that's going to go nicely with the fish.

Ajmal's secret spice recipes have been passed down from his parents.

I'm going to keep the mix to a minimum, I think.

Six, seven ingredients maximum and we'll be able to get a great flavour

-with that.

-Alun's knowledge of spices is self-taught,

learnt by trips to India and hard study.

Black pepper,

-fennel, then the chilli powder with some garlic paste.

-Yep.

Once they've chosen the spices,

the chefs need to dry roast them in a pan and grind them finely.

Relieve the natural oil and give us a deep flavour and aroma.

First up is Alun.

-Here we've got south Indian masala.

-Yep.

Enam will judge the chef's blend

by coating a fillet of cod in the spices.

-What I'd normally do is add some rice flour...

-Yep.

..to kind of give that south Indian fish fry,

but I've just taken a little bit of plain flour instead

with a little bit more turmeric and chilli powder.

What flour did you use?

I'm not sure that there was flour on the table.

-Yes.

-What could that have been?

Normally when you see the colour of the flour,

you can easily tell that it is not a flour.

-Sure.

-You picked the garlic flour.

That's a bit of a silly mistake!

Let's look at it and see what happened.

-Into the pan.

-Yes.

Because of the spice, it's garlic too much here,

-it's burning quicker.

-That's a shame.

Let's try the flavour on this.

Very, very strong. And you made a mistake on putting the garlic powder in there. I see that.

That's also making it less interesting than I expected.

I was a bit mortified with the garlic flour incident.

It was a silly mistake, really.

'Ajmal's masala mix is next.'

The moment of truth.

The fish is singing, the smell is coming to me.

-Something is saying it's not right.

-What's wrong?

Let's try this.

Well,

the cumin, I think, is off.

-Thank you, Ajmal.

-Thank you, thank you. Cheers.

It was an error on my part.

I tasted every single spice I put onto my plate

apart from the cumin seeds

and that was the one that was stale.

Shaish, it's your turn now.

-Come and show your spice blend.

-No problem at all.

Are you happy with this so far?

It sounds good, it smells good, it looks good.

Look at the colour.

Mm. You can see that it's gone into the fish.

-OK, are you nervous?

-No.

Looking at the fish, I think it looks very tempted.

It looks good.

And colour, look at this, it's equal. That's important.

-Oh!

-That is a happy noise!

Happy noise. Thank you very much.

Well done, chef. Brilliant.

You've done fantastic.

Enam, have you made your decision of who made the best blend?

Yes, I have. Shaish, you've done amazingly well.

Your combination is remarkable.

The colour, the aroma, the flavour.

It goes on very well and I really feel that you are the winner for this challenge.

Thank you.

-Well done. Congratulations.

-Thank you. Thanks very much.

I'm feeling very good.

Very, very good.

But of course the chefs are both very skilful, very good,

so I'll keep my wits about me and at the end of all the competitions,

then we'll know, really.

But for now, I feel good.

Spice plays a big part in our national diet

and that's in part down to our love of Indian food.

So how did a subcontinent over 4,000 miles away have such a big impact

on the British menu?

I've come to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight,

Queen Victoria's summer residence.

In a corner of this very British palace

lies a clue to where our love of Indian food began.

Oh, that is...so beautiful.

So this is the India room.

Food historian Polly Russell has brought me here to understand

Queen Victoria's fascination with India.

This room was commissioned as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations.

Victoria brought over here Indian craftsmen to be able to produce

this real replica of India in the Isle of Wight.

This is a very passionate room.

It's almost like a love letter to India.

Although Queen Victoria was the Empress of India,

it was never possible for her to travel there.

In this room,

she's able to sort of experience a bit of India in the Isle of Wight.

For her Golden Jubilee, she was gifted some Indian servants.

One of them became her favourite.

Here is the picture of Abdul Karim and he came over when he was 24.

You can see a very attractive, handsome man.

-He was about 6'2" and he looks very appealing, I think.

-Mm.

I can imagine if she was interested in the culture

and he's this tall,

-beautiful...

-Educated.

Educated man, why she took to him so much.

Abdul Karim was quickly promoted to Munshi,

or teacher, and he introduced the Queen to curry,

which she quickly acquired a taste for.

Instead of the corridors smelling of boiled cabbage and stewed mutton,

you've got coriander and turmeric

and beautiful spices.

"Dinner is served!"

It is so exciting to be eating curry

in the same room that Queen Victoria ate her curry.

Yes. And a very similar recipe to one that she would have eaten.

How often did Queen Victoria eat curry?

-Was it just for special occasions?

-No, she really liked curry.

We know that she had curry for lunch most days,

despite suffering from indigestion.

She suffered from indigestion?

-She did.

-This can't have helped.

She must have REALLY loved it.

In the 100 years

since Queen Victoria grappled with her indigestion,

we've all come to share her passion for curry.

For the final task, we don't want our chefs to look to the past,

but to invent new dishes to suit the modern palate.

We want you, chefs, to come up with a completely new set meal.

I want to see an impressive use of spices

-and an inventive use of ingredients.

-Chefs, you have 90 minutes to cook up a storm.

Off you go!

Where's that big bowl? There you go.

The chefs need to prepare two innovative dishes

in an hour and a half.

Where's the pomegranate? Oh, I've got it.

It's hot.

I'm looking for great-tasting food here

with surprising new combinations of flavours.

I'm looking for creativity and imagination,

while staying true to the spirit of the Indian takeaway

that we all love.

-Flavour.

-These are massive!

Shaish lost the speed test, but now he's won the spice round,

he'll need to keep focused if he's going to win the contest.

-How are we doing, Shaish?

-Not too bad.

-You OK?

-I'm good, thank you.

-Not going to run out of stuff this time?

-No!

-Got enough of everything?

-Got enough.

-I can see there's a little bit of fish happening.

-Is that right?

-Yes. I'm going to make a tuna steak

grilled with red spinach.

So, the tuna, you're cooking it for a long time?

Is it not going to be served rare?

No. With Indian food, we love having

well done food.

Shaish is also cooking mackerel marinated in turmeric.

I'm going to make a mackerel bhaji with a radish leaf.

-I caught the mackerel myself.

-You actually went out on a boat

-and caught it?

-I actually went out on a boat.

This time of the year, I am very lucky to actually catch a mackerel.

Perfect.

Ajmal hasn't won any of the tasks so far,

so this is his last chance to catch up.

-Ajmal.

-Hi.

-You look very prepared.

This is a good task for us.

We had a couple of blips earlier on in the earlier tasks,

but I think we got our game together and I think this is our A game here.

He's also using fish to create a Scottish-inspired dish.

You don't often see salmon getting turned into pakora,

but it's beautiful, beautiful for pakora.

It's succulent, delicate,

and the batter just encloses or encases all of that moisture.

Pakora is a fried snack that originates in northern India.

The filling is dipped into batter made with gram,

a flour made from chickpeas.

Alongside his salmon pakora,

Ajmal is serving chicken tez.

It's made without one key ingredient

that gives most curries their distinctive taste.

It doesn't use any onions.

-Yoghurt and tomato.

-Really? It looks really colourful.

This task is the kind of cooking we love to do.

An opportunity to be creative and, you know,

create something great.

Alun has devised an ambitious menu.

He's making tandoori quails' legs

which are first marinated in garlic and saffron.

He'll serve them alongside tandoori guinea fowl,

marinated in basil and coriander.

-How we doing, Alun?

-Hello, Tom.

-Very well.

-You OK?

-Very well.

Skate in Indian food, is that something that happens quite a lot?

No, not at all. But the fact is, it's got that lovely almost gelatine

fattiness to it which lends itself

really well to the aromatic gravy which is sort of hot/sour,

-where more delicate fishes wouldn't hold up to the gravy.

-Right, OK.

Skate is the wings or fins of a flat fish.

It has a distinctive taste and meaty texture.

I would say that skate,

guinea fowl and quail are three dishes that you wouldn't normally

associate with a takeaway menu, would you?

No, we wanted to do something special, innovative,

and I think these kind of ingredients

lay themselves up for it very well.

OK. Are they pushing the boat out a little bit too far?

We'll see.

-Shaish?

-Yes?

-You're shaking your potatoes.

-Yeah! Just a bit.

-You're halfway through.

-Halfway through?

-Is that OK?

-Yes.

-Yes?

Ali!

Can you debone the mackerel for me?

-Yes?

-What's that?

Debone the mackerel.

Yeah.

The filleted mackerel will be added

to a sauce made with home-grown radish leaves

and fresh coriander.

Can I have some more coriander, please?

Shabaz, are you really ready?

-Yes.

-Thank God somebody is.

With the fresh tomatoes now reduced down,

Ajmal can finish his chicken tez

with spices and poached chicken breast.

I think we're all set, just about.

We've just got a couple of tiny things to go.

It's too much pressure.

-How long have we got left?

-Chefs, you have 15 minutes left.

Just get the kebabs now.

Alun won the speed test, but his knowledge of spices let him down.

He can't afford to mess up this round if he's to win the overall contest.

Time is of the essence.

I've really sandwiched all the elements in,

so hopefully nothing is going to go wrong and we'll meet the target.

Shaish is now assembling his tuna saag.

Tuna and red saag.

This is done, my friend.

Ali, pack this.

HE RECITES DISHES

Just one more dish left, is it?

Usain Bolt would be jealous, the way I was going early on.

Five minutes left, chefs.

Just five minutes.

Alun still needs to cook and prepare his skate dish.

-Ooh!

-In the rush to finish, he's made a simple chef mistake.

Yeah, is that all right? Can I have a glove, quickly?

Is that all right? Has he cut his hand?

-Yeah, I'm happy, but I'd rather be on it, if possible.

-I understand.

Because it's bleeding quite badly, we just need to get it plastered up, mate, all right?

We're nearly done.

Right, put the lid on. That's us finished.

Rubbish!

Boo!

Surface a little wipe...

Let's go home now.

What cooking?

Chefs, one minute remaining now.

You have one minute only.

Can we go and help him?

It's too late, bring the lids up.

-I'll start placing here, yeah?

-Yeah.

The chefs need to plate up their dishes within the time limit.

BLEEP!

Did we forget something?

Done, done, done, done, done, done!

Chefs, that is all the time you have.

Please stop what you're doing.

-BLEEP!

-Your time is up.

I'm not allowed to finish it?

Please stop innovating.

I think I'm going to leave the restaurant business.

Start minicabbing.

Tom and Enam will be looking for great taste, skill and creativity.

-How we doing, Shaish?

-Not too bad at all.

-Happy?

-Very happy.

-First to be judged is Shaish's tuna saag,

using his Welsh home-grown vegetables.

Now, this looks new.

OK, this looks like something that you would not expect from a takeaway, OK.

I've never seen anything like this.

Mm.

Yeah. This is really good. This is real invention.

-Do you know what? I thought this was going to be dry.

-Yeah.

I was worried that the tuna dries out too much,

but what's happened is that that beautiful spinach,

the moisture that's come from that, works so well with that tuna.

That's a beautiful dish.

That's great cooking. It's new, it's inventive. It's fantastic.

Next, Shaish's mackerel bhaji,

made with fish he caught himself.

Visually? Wow.

Looks amazing. Makes you want to get straight in there.

It looks really green, really vibrant.

Do you know the thing that's disappointing for me?

There's some fish bones in there.

-There is, I can see, yes.

-And do you see those fishbones?

The last thing that you'd want is a takeaway...

-The customer to have it, yeah.

-For the customer to have a fish bone.

A mackerel's the easiest fish to fillet in the world because you just slice the bones out.

So this... Oh, mate.

Tastes amazing, brilliant idea, fantastic.

You just need to get the bones out.

OK, Ajmal, how did you get on?

Really well. I think it went really, really well.

Ajmal's first invention is an onion-free curry.

It's called a chicken tez, which translated in English means sharp.

-That's fantastic.

-Thank you very much.

And not an onion in sight.

It's very sharp. Something completely new.

-Yeah. Thank you very much.

-A new gravy, a new idea, full of flavour.

Without onion, which is really fantastic.

-This is some of the best cooking I think you've done all day.

-Thank you very much.

Bringing a Scottish flavour from home to the contest,

Ajmal's salmon pakora.

So that batter that goes on it.

-Yeah.

-Is that supposed to be crispy?

You know, when it came out the fryer, it was crispy.

See, when you put a lid on it, you know, the steam softens up the batter.

A piece of fish, deep-fried in batter, for me, should be crispy.

-Should be crispy. OK, got it.

-Should be crispy.

OK, Alun. What's happened?

-What's gone wrong?

-Yeah.

Just a tiny little nick on the finger with one of the knives and it just kept bleeding. It was a...

Have you got everything cooked, though? That's the thing.

Yeah, everything was cooked. It just wasn't plated.

And what a shame, because those boxes are beautiful.

What an impact they would have had.

First up is Alun's sour, spicy skate,

a southern Indian inspired dish from Goa.

Delicious. I mean,

skate takes to that kind of cooking very well because it's so robust

and so meaty. The flavours that go there with it,

it's absolutely stunning.

Alun's tandoori quail's legs and guinea fowl are both marinated

in different spices and served with a selection of side dishes.

Those three pieces of meat?

All very defined, different marinades.

Different flavours going on.

I think that is some great cooking.

You've done a great job, Alun, honestly.

-This is very innovative.

-Right, we're going to go away

and have a little chat.

There's been some incredible cooking today,

but there's no clear winner from this final round.

Shaish left bones in his mackerel,

Ajmal's batter wasn't crispy and Alun just didn't serve up in time.

So, it's down to the judges to decide

who is the overall winner today.

Ajmal, I think let himself down in the speed test,

which is the one I thought he would do really well at.

But then, my God, this afternoon he really picked it up.

When he's not thinking of doing a factory-style number, what a cook.

Yes, I think so. I think he's done extremely well.

And then Shaish, if you just concentrated a bit more,

just those tiny little refinement skills,

just don't want to serve fishbones.

-What about Alun?

-Alun has really absolutely done a remarkable job.

Unquestionably great food,

but I just wish we'd seen it all in the box,

and that's the biggest downside.

All of the chefs have really shone in such different ways,

but you have got to make a decision.

Chefs, you have cooked with such passion

and given us some extraordinary dishes.

But as you know, there can only be one winner.

All three of you have done a phenomenal job.

For us as judges,

there is one chef that has just pushed themselves out front.

Today's winner...

..is Alun.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

-Absolutely phenomenal.

-Absolutely incredible.

I mean, what an accolade to be recognised.

Not only to be picked in the first place as a short list of three of the best takeaways in the country,

but to actually go ahead and win is phenomenal.

The food today was just amazing.

Started off a bit rocky,

but we found our feet and we found our flow.

I still think my parents would be very proud, regardless.

It's part of life - you win one, you lose one.

And what we came out of it with is more than even winning.

Honestly, well done.

All the chefs have shown amazing skill today.

Alun didn't finish his boxing up on his last pass,

but he did win the speed test,

proving he is quick, as well as he is an outstanding cook.

So much energy...

This contest has all been about proving that fast food

doesn't have to mean bad food.

And Alun's food has been a perfect example of how takeaway can be

exciting, surprising and just brilliant.

Well done, everyone, really!

Amazing job.