Episode 6 Rick Stein's India

This lovely bungalow on a lagoon in Kerala has been my base

while I've been cooking dishes that come from all over India.

Dishes like this spicy Keralan pork curry.

And this dead-easy-to-do paneer jalfrezi.

And my very own British Raj curry from Madras.

Oh, and there's a lovely egg curry from Calcutta.

I mean Kolkata.

And these shami kebabs from Lucknow.

You'll probably gather from my tone that it'll soon be time to leave.

This will be my last programme in this fabulous country.

BIRDSONG

Good morning, Ashok.

Good morning, Rick.

'In short, this trip to India has been, I think,

'the best trip I've ever had in filming land.'

And the curries have been pretty good, too.

First-class curry, Ricky!

-MAN:

-That's a mind-blasting curry, Ricky!

There's a snake down there, in the water pipe.

I think it lives in there.

It's not poisonous...

I'm told.

I certainly ain't going for a swim.

Apart from worrying about where the snake - called Cynthia - was,

life at the bungalow was good, especially when we stopped for lunch.

We'd all sit outside, under the palm trees

and Malli would cook for us effortlessly.

She'd make about five or six curries, mostly vegetarian.

But this was our favourite, her prawn curry.

CAMERA CLICKS

Ashok, whose bungalow it is, can't stop taking photographs.

First of all, Malli, his cook, fries onions, green chillies and minced ginger.

It's very important to spend some time softening the onions

because this slow cooking brings out their sweetness.

And then she puts in chilli powder, turmeric and ground pepper.

Next, the prawns - freshwater prawns.

They're really plentiful here.

As, indeed, now they are in supermarkets back home.

Ashok, I just wonder if you could ask Mallika

if she knows what the word curry means, has it got any meaning to her?

ASHOK TRANSLATES QUESTION

REPLIES IN LOCAL DIALECT

Normally, when you say curry in the real sense,

it's like, you know, a little gravy with it.

Yes, yes.

And there are other methods of doing it, too, which is frying.

-Yeah.

-And?

MALLIKA SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT

Yeah, this particular dish is with gravy.

Yeah. So this is a proper curry.

It's a proper curry.

Interestingly, we've given them the word "gravy" in exchange for the word "curry".

Now she puts in fresh chopped tomatoes and a generous spoonful of salt.

It's her quantities, not mine, so please don't write in!

Then water and a generous handful of curry leaves,

one of the most important ingredients in South Indian curries.

I have to confess, I tried doing this with tinned tomatoes

and I'm sorry, it just doesn't work.

It turns out too sweet and gloopy, so fresh and astringent it is.

Before I came to India, people said,

"Well, they won't understand in India what you mean by curry,

"it's not a word they use." But they do.

-You do understand what I mean!

-Of course we do.

And there it is, looking every inch the film crew's favourite lunch.

And it's pretty obvious why.

So let's not hang around.

-Let me try that.

-Mmm!

It's...

very spicy!

I think the thing we get wrong in the West is we don't put enough spice in.

Isn't this too much? Or is it...?

No, not at all, it's lovely!

So will you ask her if she's happy with her own curry?

Happy? Sure.

It's very good!

LAUGHS

Well, I've been in India for quite a few weeks now

and, um, the more I'm here, the more confused I become about curry.

I started off with this determination

to find the perfect curry.

But now I find - what is curry?

Is it... Is it just a gravy, or is it a sort of way of life?

Because I used to think, in reading books,

that the Indians really didn't understand what we mean by curry, but they do!

They understand perfectly.

I think it's passed into the general vernacular

and, I must say, I've been very well helped

in my sort of attempts to find out what curry is

by this book by Lizzie Collingham, called Curry.

Basically, it encompasses everything about curry and I think it's an attitude.

I think... I'm not looking for lots of gravy and lots of spice,

I'm looking for a perfect spicy experience.

CAR HORNS BLARE

This is the town of Madurai, a day's drive from Kerala.

It's a famous merchants' town

and their ancestors traded with the ancient Greeks and the Romans.

But, over the centuries,

the merchants, more or less, traded with anybody interested in spice.

And out of it emerged their own cuisine.

They call it Chettinad cooking.

I felt I was in the India of my imagination,

from the days when I used to look at old sepia photographs

in encyclopaedias that were falling apart,

full of men with pith helmets and elephants carrying teak logs.

The ancient Meenakshi Temple here could and probably did feature in one of them.

There's a sign there that my guide told me said,

"Feed your soul first and then feed yourself."

I think, over here, that speaks reams, because the longer I spend in India,

the more I realise that food is intertwined with compassion

and caring for others, especially at the temples.

And it doesn't matter about caste or creed -

all are welcome to sit down, to eat and pray, if they wish, afterwards.

I'm told, without this system, provided by the various temples throughout India,

many inevitably would go without.

But no-one from my viewpoint in this particular batch seemed undernourished.

Virtually all the meals I had in Madurai were made with vegetables alone

and I realised I could easily be a vegetarian here.

I loved going to the not-so-Modern Restaurant

and seeing unfeasibly large pots of vegetable stew they call sambar,

made with yellow mung beans, tomatoes and a whole host of spices.

And the lovely tarka - fried in ghee - they put on the top is irresistible.

This is the only thing they serve here, but everybody loves it,

everybody has the same thing.

I imagine probably half of India eats like this, all vegetarian.

And, certainly in Southern India, everybody eats off a banana leaf.

It's the most perfect vehicle for eating off,

because, when you've finished, you just fold the banana leaf up

with anything that's left and throw it away.

But you don't throw it away into the garbage.

You throw it away for the cows.

And one of the things I've learned while being in India

is that home cooking is what everybody wants, and I mean everybody.

That's businessmen with fat wallets, down to the local chai wallah.

They all want the flavour of home.

And a local five-star hotel has employed a housewife from an outlying village

to create home-cooked dishes in their stainless-steel kitchens.

So, when Mrs Samundeswari has finished her morning chores at home,

she uses her skills, handed down from her grandmother,

to cook authentic food for the discerning customer.

CAR HORNS BLARE

I must say, I think this is a really good idea,

because to be able to actually get a seriously good home cook

and set her up in a kitchen like this, cooking her dishes from home,

I think is a tremendous bit of salesmanship.

Today's local speciality is Chettinad chicken.

Mrs Samundeswari starts off with oil, and that's flavoured with cinnamon bark,

then fennel seeds and now this, kalpasi.

It's a type of lichen.

They all flavour the oil.

And I suspect that it's the kalpasi that makes this dish unique.

Now onions, and where there are onions, the curry leaves are not far behind.

Next, garlic.

Bit of a stir...

..and then chicken. And she makes sure

every bit is coated with the flavoured oil.

Now, a paste that's made up with fennel, cumin, pepper,

garlic, chilli and coriander.

Followed by the powdered spices -

coriander, chilli, garam masala and pepper.

It's a bit complicated!

It's one of the most complex dishes I've come across over here.

And they call it home cooking?!

SPEAKS LOCAL DIALECT

Well, I must say, this looks really interesting.

I'm just amazed that she would cook such a complicated dish at home.

It sort of looks to me, I have to say, like hotel cooking.

But I'm assured that she does cook like this at home,

so who am I to say?

I'm also very intrigued to try this kalpasi,

because when I read about it, it's actually the lichen

that comes off stones around here. When I first tried it,

I thought I could probably get this off a stone off Bodmin Moor and dry it.

And when I tasted it, it tasted of nothing.

And then, this wonderful aroma came through.

And every time I taste dishes with it in now,

I think, "There's loads of cinnamon in that dish."

And then I think, "It's not quite cinnamon."

What it is is kalpasi.

Finally, some more garam masala and coriander leaf.

And I hope that's it.

Just the look of this curry pleases me enormously.

And I love it being served on a banana leaf.

With my cook's intuition,

I know this is going to be one of the best curries I've tasted so far.

But I think when I write it up, I'll simplify it a little.

Wow!

That is very spicy.

But incredibly good.

You can taste all the ingredients in it.

What I really like about it is it's quite dry.

I know that's the wrong word, but there's not a lot of gravy,

but what gravy there is is so pungent,

and the taste of that kalpasi, the lichen, is wonderful in it.

I'm going to crave that for ever more, I think. It's really good.

You're not going to believe this, but a guest who is staying here

saw a tweet of mine and realised we were both staying at the same hotel.

So you mean, you just saw me on Twitter?

Yes. And there is a tweet that you were in Chennai,

and then I see that you're in Madurai.

Well, I'm blowed. The power of Twitter!

'He turned out to be a serious foodie.

'He's called Gunjan.'

I follow you, Rick,

and one of the things I see is, "Rick's staying in Madurai."

And I sent a tweet to you immediately. And I must tell you,

Rick, I have been coming to this hotel for the last four or five months,

and the food that she cooks is better than the hotel management graduates,

and, you know, the cooks that have all these catering schools.

I think she cooks from the heart. And the food and the flavours

in that particular curry, or the Chettinad thing that she makes,

is completely different

-than what you get from hotels.

-Absolutely.

One thing I've picked up all along is how much Indians love home cooking.

So to have somebody cooking

-who cooks that sort of food...

-I agree with you.

I couldn't agree with you more, actually, because...

take my mother, for example.

-I have never seen her measure spices.

-Yeah.

Putting the spices the way she wants to.

-Not measuring them out or anything.

-Not measuring them out.

It's like, that's the way she cooks.

And that's the way most of the home cooks work.

And we go by standardised recipes - this much, this much, this one.

I do some amateur cooking at home,

and I just go exactly the way the ingredients go.

The great thing is that there is no method in the madness of their cooking.

I was sort of thinking, because she's just cooked me chicken Chettinad

in the kitchen, which was so spicy.

Really hot, with pepper as opposed to chilli,

which I think is quite common here, isn't it?

Around Madurai. And Chettinad.

But I was just thinking, it would be really good to,

actually in any hotel kitchen,

to get really good domestic cooking there.

Because chefs are a bit, they cook in sort of chef school ways, you know?

I know! And coming from you, Chef, it's slightly contradictory.

But having said that, I would still say that, yes.

I think it's an amazing concept, you know.

What I love about you Indians is you're so enthusiastic about your food.

It's just a joy, I must say.

My mouth is already watering, I'm sorry!

LAUGHTER

Good. Thanks.

I can't go long, really, without seafood.

And seeing a pretty plate of crabs in a local market

was the only excuse I needed to cook a famous Chettinad dish -

Chettinad crab.

This is good finger-picking food.

I wouldn't mind trying this back at home using our own brown crabs,

or even spider crabs, with that lovely, sweet leg meat.

First of all, to make a paste in my trusty blender,

I add some fennel seeds, cumin seeds...

some grated coconut and water.

A quick whizz in my powerful Indian blender that weighs a tonne,

and it comes out, thanks to the coconut, looking quite creamy.

Meanwhile, in the karahi, I heat up some oil

and temper it with a good teaspoonful of fennel and fenugreek seeds.

Next, some sliced onions and some chopped garlic.

Followed by the powdered spices - chilli powder, turmeric and coriander.

Now for the crab bits.

Give them a serious stir, coating every bit of the crab with the flavoured oil.

I love these curries.

I just like eating with my fingers.

There's nothing better than a pile of rice,

maybe some nice bread as well,

some naan bread, perhaps.

Maybe a glass of beer.

Lots of chat and lots of picking. It's what I like.

And, of course, you've got to have a nice bowl

to rinse your hands every now and then,

but it's leisurely eating, which I adore.

Next, curry leaves and fresh chopped tomato.

Tomatoes in Kerala are so good.

Now, the coconutty paste, and I'll stir that around.

And for a touch of tarty sourness, some tamarind,

and a new one, kokum.

That's a type of dried mangosteen, and it tastes beautifully smoky.

Finally, just a bit of sweetness.

Jaggery is the juice from the sugar cane, boiled down so it becomes like a fudge.

Then salt and water.

It's a dish of summer lunches, cooked in a wok on the beach, at home, in Padstow.

It's blinkin' hot.

Yet again.

How long before it's ready?

About three minutes and 15 seconds.

And here it is, in all its flaming glory.

It's what I call holiday food - food that goes with conversation,

and more importantly, it also goes very nicely with a cold beer.

I started this whole series in Calcutta - hot, steamy Calcutta.

It was quite a baptism, because my shirt stuck to me

seconds after I left the hotel.

It's quite extraordinary. How do people work?

How do they think in this heat?

I just felt I had to be by the river, and it was the river,

the River Hooghly, that spawned this famous city,

because this was where the East India Company sent back tonnes

and tonnes of spices, back to a world where they just couldn't get enough.

And I know our love of curry, and the very reason I'm here,

stems from this plant. Pepper.

What the British wanted was spice - nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves -

but, above all, pepper.

Just imagine what it tasted like if you'd never tasted it before,

if only a few people could afford it.

I mean, that heat - there would have been nothing like it.

You would absolutely think it would make you live longer,

give you virility, whatever.

It would make you a better person.

It was literally worth its weight in gold.

It's interesting how you come across little culinary jewels.

Research? Yes.

Reading guidebooks? OK.

Talking to local gourmets?

Well, that's a bit touch and go.

But on my very first night in the city,

I tasted a curry in the hotel that blew me away.

We don't actually tend to film dishes in my travels

that come from the hotel where I'm staying with the crew.

But this one, rogan josh, is so good that I just felt we should.

I think it's quite sort of similar to the rogan josh

that you get in Kashmir,

but unfortunately, we haven't been allowed to go to Kashmir, so I don't know.

But it is a deep red colour and it is absolutely fabulous.

And this is how it's made.

He is Chef Moshe.

And myself, Chef Vikas.

We're going to cook mutton rogan josh for you all today.

So, Chef Moshe, we start.

OK.

You have whole spices,

includes cinnamon, green cardamom, clove, bay leaf, mace...

-Chopped onion.

-Chopped onion into it.

With the spices.

Ginger and garlic paste.

And we keep stirring so that it doesn't stick to the pan.

That's very important. Now we're going to add tomato paste into it.

It gives a very good colour to your rogan josh.

And then we'll add all the spices into the mixture.

Red chilli powder.

Dry coriander seed powder.

Cumin powder.

Keep cooking the gravy, and in-between, you just feel the aroma.

And once the raw flavour has gone off, we add fennel powder and garam masala.

Now, we put the yoghurt into the gravy.

This is the colour we wanted for the gravy.

Now, where is the meat, I hear you ask?

It hasn't appeared yet.

I'll tell you the secret of the mutton rogan josh.

We cook the mutton beforehand, and we slow-cook it,

so it gives extra flavour to your mutton. Mutton rogan josh.

Rogan is the gravy, and josh is the juice.

The bone marrow - which gets dissolved along with the gravy -

that gives a very distinct flavour to your mutton rogan josh.

We'll finish it off with fresh cream.

That's called mutton rogan josh.

Thanks, Chefs!

Now, the reason this is so good -

and I keep wittering on about it - is because the meat is cooked on the bone

and you get all that gelatinous bone marrow into the gravy,

making it sweet and silky.

And, lastly, a flourish of ginger and coriander.

EAGLE SHRIEKS

Lucknow, as every curry aficionado knows, is very famous for its food.

Mainly because the people who ran the place in the 16th and 17th centuries -

the nawabs, the Muslim rulers -

were really interested in the arts, music, theatre,

architecture and food.

They wanted to outdo the people of Delhi with their fine dishes.

Even this shrine, the Imambara, has a culinary history.

Although its walls are six metres thick,

the mortar in them is mixed with peanuts, lentils, water chestnut flour and honey.

And they say you can even hear a whisper through the wall, up to 15 metres away.

Not a good place for secrets.

THEY LAUGH AND CHATTER

The culinary rivalry with the rest of India's towns and cities

is still alive and well.

The winner of the very first Indian MasterChef, Pankaj Bhadouria,

comes from Lucknow.

HORN BLARES

Lucknow famous for, of course, its kebabs, biryanis

and you'll be surprised to see fish motifs on our emblems in Lucknow.

We've seen it in the Imambara, the fish on the...

on the portals, on the doors.

TRAFFIC NOISE AND CHATTER

Lucknow is situated on the banks of the River Gomti,

so you have a lot of fish available here.

So what have we got, then?

Er, we've got some pomfret here, he's got mackerels.

-He's got shrimps as well.

-Good.

They get the sea fish from outside, but let's look at this one.

This one seems good.

What... What's it called?

SHE TRANSLATES INTO LOCAL DIALECT

-Rohu? He says rohu.

-Rohu.

And this one?

STALLHOLDER SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT

This is tengan. This is called tengan. It has only one bone inside.

So it's easier to make fillets out of this.

Oh, that would be good. A bit like...

So... So we'll buy this, right?

-Yeah, yeah, let's.

-Great.

SHE SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT

Now, will they fillet it for you, or are you going to do it at home?

-He'll do it for me.

-OK.

He'll clean it up nice and proper and then fillet it.

Can we watch him do it?

Yeah, sure.

-He'll do it right before us.

-OK.

You see, he'll remove the bone for me.

Such a different way of filleting...

We do it with a knife, he's got his own sickle to do it.

I've asked him to remove the skin.

I don't want the skin in my mouth when I eat the curry.

It has to be smooth on your tongue.

And many a time, the curries, after they've been cooked, they are strained

so that you do not get any spices in your mouth, you just get the flavours.

Since she won that competition, she's now quite famous here in Lucknow

and has opened her own cookery school,

where she's going to show me how to cook this well-known Lucknowi fish curry.

So here are the poppy seeds.

I'm going to roast them lightly.

So what's the importance of roasting things like the poppy seeds

and other spices?

When it comes in contact with the heat, the oils are released,

the flavours are released, they come out much better.

So here, I'm going to grind on this stone this poppy seed.

Take a little water...

Then I need to grind this.

So, um, why are you using a stone? Could you not use a processor?

No, Rick! No, I wouldn't.

Because the essential oils of all the spices are released -

they get ground, they are crushed.

So the taste is definitely better.

So it's much smoother and there's more flavour?

-Yes.

-Now what's next?

I'll just scoop this out and then I'm going to grind these whole spices here.

So we've got nutmeg,

cardamom, cloves, cumin seeds, black peppercorns, mace...

Yes.

..black cardamom, chilli powder?

Yes, chilli powder.

So add a little water as I go.

And you'll be surprised to know that, in days gone by,

people used to employ a man called a masalchi,

who would come in every morning and grind all the spices for the day.

So there was a special man assigned to do this job.

-A masalchi?

-Yes, a masalchi.

OK, so I'm going to take my curd here.

Yeah?

And, to this curd, I'm going to add the masala that I've just ground.

Good.

All of this.

I add the poppy seed that I've ground.

-Along with this goes red chilli powder.

-Red chilli powder.

Next?

-Then some salt, of course.

-Yeah, about half a teaspoon?

Er, yes, I'll have to check it later.

It's OK to taste things?

-For me, it is.

-OK.

-But in most families, yes, it is not.

-That's very interesting.

There's a term called "chuta" - it's not good enough to be served.

-Because you've tasted it, you can't serve it to anybody.

-Wow.

So after I've added the salt,

I'm going to add some ginger-garlic paste.

This is also fresh-ground.

This is some screw pine water.

And...

What is that?

That's a sweet perfume.

It's called "nita ithru".

Nita is sweet.

That's it.

And I am going to add some roast gram flour to this.

Chickpea flour?

-Yes, it is.

-OK.

And now let me give it a good mix.

-Can I taste it?

-Yeah, sure.

Thank you very much.

-Mm.

-Seasoning OK?

-Seasoning, really good.

-OK.

Cos I like salt and it's really nicely seasoned

cos you've got all that fish that you're going to cook that with.

-But the spices are lovely.

-Thank you.

-I mean, this is raw but it tastes delicious already.

-Thank you.

This is clarified butter.

-Ghee.

-Or ghee.

I am going to cover this ghee with some...fried onion.

Add my fish pieces over this.

I don't need to marinate it for too long.

-No.

-I just need to mix it in.

So I cover it up with this lid

and I am going to seal this with some dough.

Oh, right. So this is a dum pukht?

Yes, this is dum machli I am doing.

-Dum?

-Dum, yes.

Cooking in steam.

Cooking in its own steam.

So this method of cooking is called dum pukht,

and it's really common here.

It means, as I've just said, "cooked in steam".

And Pankaj said that even the charcoal flavours penetrate the cooking pot.

I can't see it myself, but she assures me it's true.

So how long will that take now then?

Should take at least 40 minutes.

OK. Fine.

She's also made a dhal.

It's a pigeon pea dhal, flavoured with cloves, cardamoms and yogurt.

On a betel leaf, she puts a hot lump of charcoal

and smothers it with ghee.

Again, she is trying to create a hint of smokiness in amongst the lentils.

She will remove it after a minute or so.

Now for the tarka,

the hot fried spices that give the dhal a real zing.

That's made with ghee, cumin seeds and garlic.

And that's the final flourish.

It's sprinkled with chopped green chillies and mint and that's it.

And then the fish.

She calls it tengan. It's a catfish as far as I can tell.

Very firm flesh, a good clean taste,

and I think I can smell a sort of barbecuey smokiness coming from the pot.

This woman really knows her stuff.

Mm-hmm.

-That's fabulous.

-Thank you.

You know what you were saying earlier about Lucknowis love soft?

-Yes.

-That's very, very refined.

-Yeah.

-I mean, this is so good.

How come we don't have more Lucknowi dishes in the world at large then?

The reason, Rick, is that

every recipe here is very secretly guarded.

It's passed on only to the family members.

And because of that, it is unable to spread to the world.

Well, I am beginning...

I tell you what, so far on our trip,

this is the finest cooking we've come across.

-Thank you.

-And you are a very good cook.

Thank you.

-I've just been watching you, you're very deft.

-Thank you.

Well, I think the overall impression from a few months in India

travelling and tasting everything is,

the more I know about Indian cooking the more I need to know.

But that's not saying I haven't learnt a great deal in the time.

I think, above all, it's the value of freshly ground spice.

I remember, for example, when we were in Bombay,

watching these pistons grinding the spice.

Of course, we named them the "spice pistons",

rather a good name for a band, don't you think?

But when you took the red chilli powder from out of that machine and smelled it,

there was just the most glorious chilli aromas.

A spice grinder is absolutely essential.

And one of the things that I sadly miss in the UK is a machine

that will grind wet and dry spices.

I remember the first time I came to India,

I left with a spice grinder about this big.

I actually bought this in India, this little baby here,

which works by just grinding the spice

that we are going to put there between two stones.

But it's just such a wonderful machine.

It is what I consider Royal Enfield or an old Roberts radio or something like that.

Reliable, '60s stuff.

First of all, some red onions for colour as well as the flavour of onions.

Don't worry about the fact that one of the wheels isn't going,

it doesn't work perfectly.

But indeed it does a wonderful job.

Nothing's perfect, least of all a Royal Enfield.

There we go. Now the ginger.

I promise you, this turns out impeccable masalas.

Look at it going.

I wanted the bigger one but I couldn't get it on the plane.

Oh, my gosh!

Going like a Trojan.

WHIRS LOUDLY

WHIRRING ECHOES

DUCK QUACKS

So now we're just going to transfer...

If I can find a cloth, this is a bit hot.

..my fried masala into this wonderful...

mixer/blender/liquidiser.

There we go, in it goes.

SPLASHES

BLEEP!

Just make sure the lid of your liquidiser is securely on,

otherwise hot oil could go over your shirt and your face,

or in my case, WILL go over your shirt and your face.

So, in nearly 20 years, what's changed?

The hair.

-Yeah.

-Teeth.

-Yeah.

-Erm, the weight.

OK, OK, thank you, thank you, Dave!

In Lucknow, I had the best chicken korma ever.

Very delicate and creamy.

It was made by Rocky Mohan,

a passionate cook who's written many cookery books.

However, he and his wife, Raka,

have some misgivings about the word curry.

-Now, I just want to ask you something.

-Tell me.

-With my mouth full.

-Yes.

I'm sure it's as bad manners here as it is back home, but...

what...what do you take by the word curry?

We don't have the word curry in our language at all.

It's unfair to call our variety as under one major head as curry.

I think the word curry is coined by the British themselves.

I think that when they lived in India

and they were eating at various parts of India,

so the one single word that they thought would carry the message

to the kind of food

they wanted to have, which had gravy, so they called it curry.

And one thing that I must point out,

the worst thing that ever happened to Indian food

is the madras curry powder.

Absolutely horrendous stuff,

and you go and add it to just about everything,

they all taste the same.

And it was turmeric,

lots of turmeric, lots of coriander seed powder,

some cumin and all dumped together and tasted horrible.

Oh, dear! I can't agree with that!

I think I'm right in saying that we British fell madly,

deeply in love with curry.

First through curry powder

and then through the thousands of so-called Indian restaurants

that spread to virtually every high street in the land.

It's one of those curious things

but although India got her independence in 1947,

they wouldn't allow any Indians

to join the Madras Club until the early '60s.

It's unbelievable.

I'm here because of the most famous soup in India,

the one created in the heyday of the Raj by the British.

It's not often that strangers

get invited into these hallowed, erm, grounds.

So I feel, you know, very, very lucky.

But more so that they're actually making mulligatawny soup for me

because, as I understand it, this is where it came from.

He's starting off by making a paste.

We've got some coriander seeds, cumin seeds, black pepper seeds,

ginger, garlic, mint, turmeric, water going in here.

-Is that garam masala or...

-It's a curry powder.

Curry powder. Curry powder? Wow.

Curry powder!

Madras!

BLENDER WHIRS

How popular is mulligatawny soup in the club?

It's very popular. It is our signature dish.

However, the most popular dish is the roast lamb,

grilled chicken, and we have shepherd's pie.

-These are the very most popular dish.

-Wow!

I would certainly feel at home.

So that pungent green chloroformy paste goes into a saucepan with carrots, leeks,

celery, onions, cardamom and tomatoes.

They've already been fried with cloves and cinnamon.

And now the chicken.

Add a tablespoon of flour and turmeric.

Chicken stock, water.

A tadge more turmeric.

And then simmer for at least half an hour,

until the chicken is cooked.

Coconut milk.

And now two teaspoonfuls of salt.

And then sieve.

A squeeze of fresh lime.

I know they look like lemons, but they're limes.

And then rice.

And voila.

The first mulligatawny I've tasted for 20 years.

That is very nice indeed.

It's really intense in flavour.

And what's interesting, it's really hot, but there's no chilli in it.

It's just hot with black pepper.

I'm rather saddened, really, because you used to be able buy

tins of mulligatawny soup

very easily in the UK,

but I guess the taste for it has just...has gone.

Partly, I suspect,

because the tinned soup tasted nothing like this.

This is thick and absolutely full of lovely green, spicy flavour.

CAR HORN BEEPS

This is my daily journey

from the bungalow where I'm cooking to the market.

Looking out of the window is far better than watching the telly.

Everywhere a picture

and every picture a clue to what India is all about.

I keep seeing all this different-coloured bunting everywhere.

I've just passed through an area of silver bunting.

And I asked a local and he said,

"Well, if it's silver and white, it's for the Christians.

"If it's yellow, it's for the Hindus.

"If it's green, it's for the Muslims.

"And if it's red, it's for the Communists."

I think that says quite a lot about Kerala, really.

I like coming here.

This is a great little market.

The vegetables are so cheap.

You know, I could easily buy enough to feed a couple of dozen people

for just a few pounds.

It's a good place to think about food and decide what I'm about to cook.

I never feel like a tourist in a market.

I may not know every vegetable and spice but I feel I'm part of it.

They're making poppadoms here.

They're made with gram flour. That's chickpea flour.

When they're fried, they give so much enjoyment with chutneys,

pickles, fruit mixed with onions and accompanied by a cold beer,

in anticipation of a really good curry to come.

I think it was the poppadom that was the spur that made us

all go to Indian restaurants in the '50s and '60s.

Because although you could get a curry of sorts back at home,

you'd never get a poppadom.

OIL SIZZLES

Note in the margin.

If your poppadoms are soggy, leave the restaurant immediately

because the curry won't be very good. You've been warned!

Well, this is the most popular vegetable dish in Kerala,

I would suggest. It's called thoran.

You find it everywhere and the great thing about it is it's an easy way

of using whatever's fresh and beautiful

in the market on a daily basis.

Now, I've just got some coconut oil in the pan there.

I'm just going to add about a teaspoon of mustard seeds,

a teaspoon of cumin seeds

and a handful of curry leaves.

OIL SIZZLES

Now I'm going to just break a couple of dried red chillies in there.

Just stir that round a little bit.

And now, through the wonders of modern kitchen equipment,

I'm going to grate some ginger, whole fresh ginger to add that to.

It's just a little bit hot and I've done the ginger.

I might just add a little bit of water just to bring the temperature down a bit.

I'm doing this because I've seen them do it all over India

and that's before I add the turmeric,

because I don't want the turmeric to burn at all.

Just get the rest of the ginger off there.

Now then.

There we go.

And now for my turmeric.

I mean, I just...love this vegetable dish.

What I think is really good about it

is that it's flavoured with coconuts,

first, obviously, with the coconut oil,

but at the end I'm going to put in some grated fresh coconut.

And there's virtually no water in it so it's very, very concentrated.

There we go, just add in the turmeric

and now some freshly-ground black pepper,

about a teaspoon, I suppose.

And them some salt.

Just under a teaspoon.

And now for my vegetables.

Now, you make thoran, as I've said,

with whatever comes out of the market -

spinach, cabbage and, in this case, carrots.

They call these English vegetables

because they're not originally from Kerala.

I must say, the carrots here are absolutely wonderful.

And then cabbage. Very finely chopped up.

Everything in a thoran is very finely chopped up.

Stir that around, until it is thoroughly amalgamated

and then I'm just going to

put a lid on and leave it to cook very gently for about five minutes,

just to cook the vegetables.

But what I really like to do with the carrot is just leave it

with a little bit of crunch when I serve up the dish.

I just put on the lid and wait for about five minutes.

Have you thought of bringing another shirt with you?

I know, Dave, but it's so hot

I don't even think the dog likes being around me!

So, now that should be ready

for the final addition, which is first of all some freshly-grated coconut.

That is so important in there,

it just gives it a real sort of lightness.

It just goes in at the last minute.

In fact, some people don't even stir it in,

they just leave it on the top.

And finally, some sliced green chillies.

So it is quite hot, no doubt about that.

But, erm, everyone loves chillies in Kerala.

Now, I just sort of thought it might be tempting fate, but Ashok,

whose house this is we're filming, is just nearby.

I might just ask him if he'd like to come and try one of his

traditional Keralan dishes cooked by an Englishman.

Would you mind?

Of course, Rick, I'd like to taste your dish.

It looks really original.

-Does it?

-Yeah, it does.

Just like how Malli serves it at home.

-Let's see if it tastes the same.

-Oh, gosh! Here we go!

-OK. A little taste, OK?

-It might be a bit hot.

-You've got it, Rick.

-Oh, gosh, Ashok! You are nice!

You've got the taste!

It's really nice.

I'm going to take one more.

-Thank you.

-Thank you!

-You've made my day.

-Lovely.

-Good.

-Thank you, Rick.

-Thank you!

FISHERMEN CHANT

These fishermen have been out all night.

There's about seven or eight in each crew and what impresses me

is how strong they are, getting these boats up.

I love the chant as they're pulling,

trying to get themselves the strength to pull the boat up the beach.

MEN CHANT

Sometimes when we're bumping along in our minibus from one dusty town to another,

I think people think everything about filming is fun, but it's not, to be honest.

A lot of the time you're hot, you're sweaty,

you're trying to think of something yet again wonderful to say

about another mutton curry,

but this morning, it's really turned up trumps.

I mean, this is seriously what filming is all about for me.

I'm coming to the end of my stay here now.

And I'm going to cook the best fish curry ever,

for all the people who've made my time here so enormously pleasurable.

As it's such a special day,

I thought I'd get a really special fish for the curry, snapper -

firm and fresh tasting.

Truth to tell, I first tasted this many weeks ago

on the Coromandel Coast.

Where the early pumpkins blow.

I wasn't expecting very much from a cafe on the beach,

but when it was served to me, in all its gold and red glory,

I thought, "Blimey, this is the one."

That is just simply perfect.

I mean, the fish is so fresh, it's... You can taste the sea.

You know, when it's dead fresh fish like that.

Nobody ever gets it wrong when it's fresh like that.

So would you put that on your list of best curries?

Would I?!

I mean, seriously, for me, and I think I'm a bit biased, I have to say,

but fish curry like this...

..could be...could be the one.

And, so, this is it, the final countdown.

Some of the guests have arrived already.

Ashok's busy with his flute,

and it'll take about 30 minutes from now to make this perfect curry.

This is local snapper and I must say it is lovely, steaky fish,

ideal for a curry.

I'm keeping the skin on to keep it together

but I suspect there's going to be some really nice sort of fattiness,

which I adore, just under the skin.

So I'm really looking forward to cooking this.

Now then...just nip...and wash my hands.

It's so very pleasant, this kitchen.

It's got everything you need -

an outdoor field, running cold water and a pet snake.

Now then.

Into...making the curry.

Triple batch, so lots and lots of vegetable oil

in the bottom of my karahi.

Hope it's going to be big enough for all this.

And then two to three teaspoons of yellow mustard seeds.

I'm just going to let them brown slightly.

Fab.

So, in they go.

Can't tell you how important it is

to cook the onions for a good long time.

This is going to be about ten minutes.

But I'm rewarded by a wonderful aroma of cooking onions.

And the mustard seeds are adding immeasurably to that.

Now, we've got about ten cloves of garlic, Indian cloves.

-I'm going to miss this.

-BANGS PAN

I know I'm a bit pathetic about my pans,

but this has been my friend all through these cooking sequences.

It's perfect, it's got real thickness

and therefore, it holds the heat.

Once it's up to heat, nothing seems to burn too much.

OK, now curry leaves.

Sometimes you put curry leaves in at the end,

but in a lot of dishes

you put them in right at the beginning and fry them.

When I think, when the curry leaves first got to the UK

and you had them in little jars and they were dried, a bit like parsley,

you can't be using those.

Got to use the fresh ones, and if you can't get 'em -

or frozen, they're good - leave 'em out.

OK, now some turmeric.

About a heaped teaspoon for this large portion of madras fish curry.

But I am going to be quite serious with my chilli.

Probably about four teaspoons.

Kashmiri chilli... Let's make it five.

Just Kashmiri chilli, it's not too hot.

I tend to prefer that to any other,

because you get that lovely red colour

and you don't get searing heat.

There we go, in that goes, and now a lot of freshly ground coriander.

One, two, three, four.

Good. Stir that around.

Not too long, about 30 seconds. I don't want it to burn.

And now I'm going to put some tomato in.

A lot of tomato, cos there's a lot of curry.

Now, the most...apart from the snapper, apart from the fish...

the most important ingredient...

is tamarind water, or tamarind liquor, cos it's really thick.

I'm going to put all that in there.

A very lovely souring agent used all over Southern India.

Look at that now.

What I love about this curry is it's got very few ingredients,

everything is cooked at the last minute, as it should be with fish.

And now some chillies.

About four or five green chillies.

Stir that in.

Beautiful.

And now some salt.

This is the sort of dish I like.

In goes the salt, couple of teaspoons.

Stir that in.

And, next, the fish.

And then it's done.

So wonderful about fish dishes,

so easy, so simple to cook.

Look at that. Beautiful, firm snapper.

Now, then. Just stir that in,

carefully.

It won't break up very easily but once

I've got the heat going again

and it's starting to cook, I won't stir it any more

cos I don't want those lovely chunks to break up.

Now, then, just going to have a little taste of this,

to make sure I've got the seasoning right.

Oh!

That's my sort of dish.

It's just so fresh with all that tamarind and tomato,

the sort of green flavours,

and it'll just suit this fish perfectly.

So, there it is, my perfect madras fish curry.

Erm, excuse me.

Shouldn't it be more correct in saying, erm, Chennai fish curry?

Chennai fish curry?

Do you want me to get a bit grumpy?

Because I'm perfectly capable of it, but...

what does Chennai mean to me, you know?

I mean, I was born and brought up on madras curry powder,

the Indian restaurants with hot madras curries.

No way!

I'm sorry!

I know it's politically, perfectly correct, but not for me, no.

That's a proper Indian curry.

MELODIC FLUTE

I really did enjoy cooking that.

And it's funny how cooking certain dishes really makes you come alive.

Malli made a dhal to go with the fish,

and I just hope that people are hungry.

I'm not too worried about what they think because I know, being a cook,

or a fish cook, for nearly 40 years, it's going to be absolutely spot-on.

I hope there's enough to go around.

Well, I hope there's enough to go around, too.

-Rick, it's delicious.

-Oh!

And I love the spin of the tomatoes on the fish curry.

-LAUGHS

-See?

-Ooh, sorry.

-Are you going to have some?

I always think they're only saying it to be nice.

But...it's very good fish, I must say.

Really nice.

It's an Indian curry, a good curry, fish curry.

Very, very... Yeah, I like it a lot.

We love our fish nice and tart and spicy - and got it.

It was very rich, very good.

Oh, it's actually fabulous.

It tastes very, very good. Very good.

Well, this is my darling wife, Sarah.

Sassie, what do you think of the fish curry?

Ricky, I think it's kalam.

Kalam? What does that mean?

Bloody good.

LAUGHS

So, Rick, final goodbye and I am really going to miss you.

Same here.

-Bye.

-Goodbye, Ashok. It's been lovely.

I'd give you a kiss but it's probably not the right thing.

We'll see you soon. OK.

LAUGHTER

Thank you, India, for a mind-blasting curry extravaganza.

People said to me before I came here

that I wouldn't get such a nice curry as we get back at home.

To those people, I say unto them,

try and get out a bit more - it broadens your horizons.

The generosity I received was overwhelming.

The dishes I tasted, not all of them, but most,

were full of beautiful spice.

And it was the sort of food that made you think.

Much in the same way that a book or a painting

can stimulate the little grey cells.

I've said this before,

but once the thought of a curry enters your head,

then nothing else will do.

Not a Chinese, not a pizza, not a burger. It has to be a curry.

The curries in the North, eaten with bread, were full of ghee and cream

and chillies, of course.

So different from those in the South, made with tamarind and curry leaf.

I loved the fish curries, cooked in mustard oil and coconut, from Calcutta.

They were really deep and satisfying.

And the pulaos from Lucknow.

Would you say this was perfect?

I liked going into the kitchens of the fishing families

to see how they made something really special from that day's catch.

Oh, this was really special,

the best-known street food in Bombay.

-Wow!

-What do you think?

Pav bhaji, once eaten, never forgotten.

What brilliant mind said it? But I think it's so true -

that to understand a country, first of all, you have to eat it.

And I just did.

And it was delicious.

THEY SING IN LOCAL DIALECT

That's a mind-blasting curry, Ricky!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd