The best vegetable curry - the most delightful chef

Mine, all mine!

Dalston cooks.  Honestly, the man is like a gorgeously masculine version of Mary Poppins - that is, practically perfect in every way.  Please note: practically perfect, not actually perfect.  I suspect that being practically perfect is much better.  Being actually perfect would, I suspect, render a person quite boring.  Being practically perfect means that there's spice, not to mention ginger, aplenty.

And so it was - both spice and ginger. Before we get into the ginger, let's deal with the delicious vegetable curry.

Spinach, mushrooms, chillies, fresh, ripe tomatoes - it was absolutely lovely.  All the vegetables came from the always wonderful Ridley Road market.  The rice was also very nice - I made this, basmati, of course, with turmeric, and some crushed elaichi seeds, that's cardamom for all you non-Urdu speakers.  Not that my Urdu is any great shakes being, as it is, practically non-existent - except for the fact that if someone asks me in Urdu whether I speak Urdu, I can say "I don't" in Urdu, which rather defeats the object of the exercise.  I was in the fishmonger's in Crouch End once, buying my octopi as one does, when a Greek lady asked me whether I was Greek prompted, I think, by the large amount of octopi I was buying.  I did think of answering in the negative in Greek, but then I thought there is such a thing as being so up one's own bottom that one is in danger of speaking out of it and stuck to English instead.

The seeds were from green not brown cardamoms.  Does this make a difference?  I think so as green cardamoms taste nicer than the rather hairy and coarse brown ones.  Next time I'll toast them lightly I think and also take my pestle and mortar with me to aid crushing. 

But the curry.  The curry was yummy.  It had been made a day earlier so had time for the flavours to develop and mature.  I could eat the curry very often and if the photos look a little blurred, they're not really, it's because I'm all steamed up.  Sorry, because my camera lens got a bit steamed up.  See what I mean, what can you do when even one's camera gets excited by the food one is about to eat?

Pudding was good too.  So good that in fact I did what I've done before.  Yes, sashimigirl followers, you'll know what's coming next, it's a photo of...

pudding.  It was a platter on which plums, dates, slices of banana and Śliwki (which I've learnt is the plural of Śliwka) were delicately placed so that each was shown off to its best advantage.  So much so of course that I'd eaten (ok, we'd eaten) the contents of the plate before I got round to photographing it.

For those of you who are unacquanited with Śliwki.  I commend them to you.  They are dried plum (not prune, they are more sour than that) which still has some juicy yield to it, coated in chocolate.  The best are made by Solidarność.  Looks familiar?  You're right.  It is the Polish for 'Solidarity' only the Śliwki come minus Lech Walesa's moustache, which to me always looked more like a small hamster running across his upper lip, deep furriness.

They will be available in your local Polski Sklep (Taste of Poland) shop, although some have an unreliable supply.  Dalston's local Polski Sklep has them intermittently whilst mine in Green Lanes has them in stock all the time.  The very nice staff at my GL PS have taken to handing me a little bag to fill with Śliwki when they see me come in now.  You will generally find them for sale by the piece or by the kilo.  Just remember, only Solidarność will do.

And now for the pièce de resistance.  It's the unbelievably good ginger tea. 

 This is what I call an amber nectar.  Adapted from the ginger tea at the lovely Neal's Yard Salad Bar and adopted by Dalston, this deserves to be a signature drink.  Carefully peeled ginger, lovely crushed, steeped in water just off the boil.  Such is the power of the ginger that one can get two servings from each portion (just top with hot water as desired) and then get to eat all the delicious gingery amber nuggets afterwards.  The perfect digestif from the practically (but not totally) perfect chef, made of ginger and spice and all things nice.

Rounding off a wonderful evening of ginger, spice and all things nice