Christine Manfield’s Indian Cooking Class: it’s the real deal

My plan to visit India is on hold, for now. But this new Indian cookbook by a famous Aussie chef is the next best thing.

Yum: tomato paneer curry from Christine Manfield’s Indian Cooking Class

I was just coming round to the idea of India when the world closed. The noise, chaos, heat and way too many traps for the innocent had always seemed an adventure too far, right up until early last year when I started to think of a maiden voyage as a “when”, not an “if”; how old is the cutoff point for rites of passage?

And now? Let’s give it a few years, I’m thinking. Like, quite a few. No matter how fast that vast nation is changing, there will still be something left, I hope, of what I’m sure I’ve been missing. And in the meantime, we at least have the food in all its incredible diversity, and re-runs of a sweating Rick Stein visiting India with his notebooks and avuncular curiosity. And people like Sydney chef and cookbook author Christine Manfield, who has done the translation for us, as it were.

A quick flick through Manfield’s new book Indian Cooking Class (Simon & Schuster, $59.99) quickly reveals the one-time Paramount restaurateur and chef hasn’t spent her time in India feeding monkeys outside the Taj Mahal. No, clearly she has spent much of the past 20 years or so walking the streets, climbing the hills, strolling the beaches and thrashing her way through the markets of cities and villages with her nose on high alert and a commitment to documenting, and maybe trying to understand better, what it is about the place and its food that is so stimulating.

Undoubtedly Manfield has experienced the occasional upset tummy in that time but based on Indian Cooking Class (“Think of this book as a personal masterclass,” she says up front) she has experienced far more joy, inspiration and respect for the varied culinary styles of the massive, old and disparate cultures of India.

And I think we’re lucky to have here in Australia experts who can interpret all this for a domestic audience. It’s the chef’s curation of recipes, the putting her subject matter into the context of what’s already out there and what excites Australians, that I like.

I mean, we don’t need another beef vindaloo recipe, do we? But slow-braised kid in cashew coconut gravy? I think so. And Manfield’s collection of recipes, and step-by-step pictorial spreads (I will for the first time make parathas and paneer this weekend, following the pictures) only makes me want to get on a plane and see it all for myself.

Speaking of kid, it is the ideal meat for my favourite curry of all time, malai gosht (or creamy tender meat) from another great Indian manual, the absolutely essential Madhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible (Ebury Press, $55). It’s actually a recipe for lamb, but… this curry is rich, elegant, powerful and intriguing. It’s also easy.

It starts with marinating meat (cubed shoulder) in a combination of (single) cream, grated ginger, garlic, salt and cayenne at least four hours. Overnight would be better. Then you heat oil or ghee in a lidded pan and add bay leaves, cinnamon, cardamom and dried red chilli. Very quickly, the chilli will darken, which is when you add a couple of halved and finely sliced onions. When they start to brown, in goes the meat, then the marinade. Bring it all to a simmer, then cover and let it cook gently for around 40 minutes.

You might like to put some rice on at this point, fry some papadams (Manfield has a recipe for DIY, which sounds like fun) and hunt down that mango chutney you left somewhere in the back of the fridge. Throw some diced cucumber into yoghurt and sex it up a bit with salt, green chilli and chopped mint. And a little finely diced red onion.

Right. Now remove the lid from your pan, lift the heat to medium-high and add garam masala, ground cumin and coriander seeds. Cook for a further 15 minutes or so until the liquid is absorbed fully and the sauce clings to the meat.

And that’s it. Jaffrey recommends chopped pistachio to garnish; I usually toast slivered almonds. Either way it’s a hit. The ingredients are all straightforward (some of Manfield’s, like mustard oil, or flaked rice, or ash gourd or spice mixes available from only one specific supplier/retailer, could challenge some) and the effort-to-reward score is off the charts.

Dare I say it? It’s like a little trip to Mumbai. I imagine.

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