The Times / Nov 2001
I could hardly stop my pakoras from igniting
by Richard Morrision

Some spicy tips on Indian cookery help our reporter to curry favour with a former Miss World

Like a novice nun starching her wimple for the very first time, I have had my first Indian cooking lesson. I can now bhunao like a Bombay native. The smoky mysteries of dhuan hold no terrors for me. I can sniff out fresh pudina at ten paces, and grind my dhania patta with the best of them. My tawa gosht is to die for. Never again will I be troubling the dodgy takeaways of North London for a reheated carton of chicken tikka masala (a dish, incidentally, that is utterly unknown in India). From now on, it’s home-made kheema mattar for me!

I must admit that I wasn’t keen to have the lesson at first. But Pinky Lilani, the author of a brilliant new “beginner’s guide to Indian cooking” called Spice Magic, knows that the way to a chap’s heart is through his kuku paka. “It just so happens that I shall be cooking a meal next week for the actress Diana Hayden — the former Miss World and Miss India,” she casually remarked. “Why don’t you watch how it’s done?”

Well, the prospect of sharing an intimate dhansak with one of the world’s great beauties did make the old ticker go boom-titti-boom — as Miss Sophia Loren so memorably put it. And it got better when I arrived for my lesson. As I donned a fetching apron, the former Miss World shot me what I thought was a look of wild yearning.

“I can see you are of the new generation of men who really like cooking,” she purred. It was as much as I could do to keep my pakoras from igniting.

But back to the author, Lilani. One of the great movers and shakers in London’s Asian community, she has been advising Sainsbury’s, Safeway and Tesco on their Indian food sections for years, and also giving masterclasses in Indian cuisine. Where did she learn her skills? “When I was a girl in Calcutta my family employed the best cook in the city,” she says. “Like all great cooks, he was reluctant to reveal his secrets. But when he found out that I was going to live in England and that I had to cook for myself, he took pity on me and revealed some of his techniques.” Despite its title, Spice Magic is not full of recipes for dishes that turn your innards into the digestive equivalent of Dante’s Inferno. “I wanted to explode the myth that proper Indian cooking is complicated and very spicy,” Lilani says. “It’s not. The hottest Indian food I’ve ever tasted was in English restaurants.”

Nevertheless, Spice Magic gives you the lowdown on a huge variety of spices, including the medicinal properties ascribed to them in the Ayurveda, the 3,000-year-old Sanskrit manuscript that is the basis of all Indian cooking.

“Ginger, for instance, is a wonderful remedy for flatulence,” notes Lilani, usefully. “Whereas saffron has always been used as an aphrodisiac. That’s why men are traditionally given saffron in hot milk on their wedding night.”

Besides the recipes, Lilani’s book also offers a guide to the four basic techniques of Indian cooking. They are bhunao, whereby you keep spices simmering until they blend perfectly; dhuan, which is the tradition of placing red-hot charcoal in a dish of chicken or smoked salmon and then sealing the lid so that the smoke infuses the food; dum, in which rice is cooked in its own steam; and tarka, in which spices are added to hot oil to release their flavour.

But the most inspiring part of Spice Magic is its fascinating historical survey of Indian cuisine (a rich mixture of Aryan, Mogul and even European influences), and its life-affirming philosophy. “For me, the sharing of meals is the essence of India,” says Lilani. “And just as important as the ingredients is the mood in which you cook. When you cook with love, that energy goes into the food.”

And, of course, if you want to be authentic you should always eat Indian food with your fingers. As I served the former Miss World a healthy portion of one of Lilani’s favourite recipes, gosht-e-mehboob (“lamb for the beloved”, named after her husband), I quoted one of the Shah of Iran’s few memorable remarks: “Eating Indian food with a knife and fork is like making love through an interpreter.” Whereupon the former Miss World gave me an odd look, and purposefully reached for her cutlery.

Never mind. Just wait till she tastes my carrot halwa.