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Curry in a heatwave.

The other night I didn't cook at all. The temperature was in the high thirties (celsius) so we had take-outs from Singh's Indian take-aways, one of the best around.

When they opened about fifteen years ago, their vindaloo was so hot people couldn't eat, so they toned it down for local tastes, but you can still order it cranked up if you wish. The guy who ran Singh's used to bring out people from India to cook and ran into a bit of trouble with the Immigration Department for using illegal migrants. They sure were the genuine item. The food was sensational.

I hadn't been to Singh's for quite a while, but I remembered what to order: mulligatawny, that hot, seedy, delicious Raj soup creation; Alu Chap, which is curried peas encased in mashed potato and deep fried; a beef vindaloo; a garlic naan and some pappadums.

The mulligatawny was redder and more dahl-like than I remember; we slice the alu chap in two and pour the mulligatawny over the top. Yum.

The vindaloo was large pieces of beef in a thick red sauce. incredibly flavour dense. One serve goes a long way, especially with the naan which is stuffed with garlic and deliciously soft and warm. Wipe up the curry gravy with that and you're in heaven. I also took away one of their hot pickles. Hot it was: I was gasping.

We sat outside enjoying the intense heat, the superb Indian food, cold beer and the bird chorus singing to the setting ball of fire in the Western sky.

The sun set at last and it was dark. We retreated to our lawn tent. Too hot to go inside.

Sleep.

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