What are you cooking during lockdown? | Page 117 | Vital Football

What are you cooking during lockdown?

I was introduced to curries in the early 60s, we had a neighbour who had lived in India at some time in her life. Mind you, her recipe used Sharnwood's curry powder as a base. Mum always added mince and diced veg and we always had it for Saturday dinner.

I bought a Madhur Jaffrey book in c1983 (she was the TV chef of the day) and probably used it for 15 years most Saturdays. I bought another 2 or 3 curry books over the years but always went back to the MJ. Then I discovered the Patak curry pastes in jars and rarely bothered with recipe books.

I've ad-libbed a couple of curries recently with dried spices.

I think I used have that MJ cookbook. The curry you describe was pretty much what was served in our family in the 70s - with left-over chicken from Sunday lunch and a ring of rice on the plate.

Barely recognisable as a curry, these days.
 
I was introduced to curries in the early 60s, we had a neighbour who had lived in India at some time in her life. Mind you, her recipe used Sharnwood's curry powder as a base. Mum always added mince and diced veg and we always had it for Saturday dinner.

I bought a Madhur Jaffrey book in c1983 (she was the TV chef of the day) and probably used it for 15 years most Saturdays. I bought another 2 or 3 curry books over the years but always went back to the MJ. Then I discovered the Patak curry pastes in jars and rarely bothered with recipe books.

I've ad-libbed a couple of curries recently with dried spices.
Sounds like you have a great grounding in curry making! It is easy to make decent ones with shop bought pastes to be fair. I'll just have to experiment and see what happens!
 
So we actually had a couple of microwave ready meals. I had a Thai red curry with jasmine rice and the good lady of the house had macaroni and cheese with added tuna.
 
Mrs N. and I often compare notes on the meals we had as kids. The 60s and 70s standards that came out of traditional British cooking and the constrictions of rationing during and after - up to mid-fifties - the war, seem to be remarkably uniform across the country.
 
Cheeseburger for lunch, followed at tea by a weird sort of Greek/Turkish filo-pastry pie that contains cabbage, onion, spinach, a load of herbs and spices and we're adding feta cheese in as well. Very experimental!
 
Lunch today was at a service station (fancy, huh) - Mrs Rob had katsu prawns with noodles, I had Korean fried chicken, noodles and gangnam sauce (not sure if that's a legitimate Korean sauce or a lazy Western name for a sauce inspired by a song).
 
Lunch today was at a service station (fancy, huh) - Mrs Rob had katsu prawns with noodles, I had Korean fried chicken, noodles and gangnam sauce (not sure if that's a legitimate Korean sauce or a lazy Western name for a sauce inspired by a song).

So, sitting in the, er, service station was Mrs Rob looking at you lovingly and thinking "What a catch, maybe he'll take me to Cleethorpes next year!". ;)
 
Mrs N. and I often compare notes on the meals we had as kids. The 60s and 70s standards that came out of traditional British cooking and the constrictions of rationing during and after - up to mid-fifties - the war, seem to be remarkably uniform across the country.

Yes, before "mass produced" chicken (1960s?) it was something you rarely had, perhaps only at Christmas. I seem to recall you could buy a boiling fowl or a roasting fowl. I presume the former were old birds, perhaps those were past laying.

LIkewise, I remember there was mutton, I don't remember lamb.

My dad's mam was a cook before she married. In the 1911 census, she was Cook at Branston rectory. She used to make all sorts of wines from vegetables and hedgerow fruits. I seem to think it was a few years (if ever) before they became drinkable. They were drunk from a small glass, perhaps a sherry-type glass, not what you'd think of as a wine glass. I don't think "ordinary people" drank "dinner wine" with a meal in the 50s.
 
Change of plan after another busy day in the home office. Whipped up some home-made cream of leek-and-potato soup to have with the rest of Mrs N.'s bread.

And a batch of roasted red-pepper humous for some quick lunches between appointments tomorrow and Friday.
 
So, sitting in the, er, service station was Mrs Rob looking at you lovingly and thinking "What a catch, maybe he'll take me to Cleethorpes next year!". ;)
Oh, I like to spoil her sometimes. In November we're going for a cuppa and a wagon wheel at Doreen's Café on the A57 😂
 
Lunch today was at a service station (fancy, huh) - Mrs Rob had katsu prawns with noodles, I had Korean fried chicken, noodles and gangnam sauce (not sure if that's a legitimate Korean sauce or a lazy Western name for a sauce inspired by a song).

The fare at service stations has evidently changed since the days when the coach used to call at Watford Gap in the 1960s.