The Urban Rajah is a food writer, cook and traveler. His cookbook, Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs commissioned by Headline Publishing is out now and tells the story of his love affair with curry through over 80 familial recipes. A practical, easy to follow and inspirational cookbook, it expresses his family’s food story through the eyes of the men in his family and was nominated for the World Food Awards Cook Book of the year.
Humorous, engaging, vivid, brave, delicate and abundant it’s through their stories he provides access to family recipes which have been passed down through 3 generations and crossed 3 continents. They’ve survived and thrived in an era of immigration.Recent Credits:
His celebrated blog www.urbanrajah.com is dedicated to spiced recipes and stories about food, travel, life and style finds.
He runs the elusive and highly acclaimed supper club, Cash n Curry, a social enterprise dedicated to raising funds for projects helping India’s street children and helping to liberate trafficked children and those in bonded labour. His pop up restaurant, The Great Indian Food Feast is an immersive dining experience. Spinning diners across the Indian sub-continent featuring regional sub-continental food, story-telling and live food demos...all in one evening.
@urbanrajah
Q: Where did your love of Indian subcontinent food come from? (& where did you learn your cooking skills?)
A: Well, growing up in Slough, the air in our street at tea-time was scented with fragrant Indian food…I grew up eating Indian food at home, tucking into my Mum’s chapattis and Dad’s meaty curries. So I learnt my trade at a young age, which is where the recipes for my book, Urban Rajah’s Curry Memoirs come from.
Q: Do you have a speciality or favourite dish?
A: Ah…I see what you’re doing here, naming a favourite dish always involves a family member’s recipe and I’d be sure to start a family feud if favoured one over the other. However, when it comes to a speciality I developed what I believe to be one of the UK’s most spiced dishes for my pop-up restaurant The Great Indian Food Feast. It’s a recipe called Lucknowi Lamb reflecting the siege of Lucknow…it’s besieged by over 24 spices and is slow cooked for crumbly tenderness.
Q: What 3 things should a great Indian restaurant have?
A:
i) No more than 30 or so seasonal dishes on the menu, it’s all about quality and not quantity.
ii) An atmosphere which rocks, it’s as much about what you taste as what you experience when you walk through the doors.
iii) An inventive drinks menu, skip the beer for once and try a cocktail or a more balanced crisper taste. There’s also some great ciders which have been blended specifically for spiced food.
Q: What 3 things should a great Indian restaurant NEVER have?
A:
A:
i) Pictures of food on the menu especially puddings which come in fake coconut shells.
ii) Chicken Tikka Masala (save some cash and buy a supermarket version).
iii) Promo people outside dragging you in for ‘an Award winning curry’.
Q: Do you like the term ‘Curry House’?
A: I’m fine with it, if the cap fits…In the burger world there’s room McDonalds and Byron, you get my drift.
Q: What is the perfect drink to accompany Indian food?
A: At the minute I’m really taken with a cider I’ve discovered, called Blow Horn Cider. It’s specifically blended for Indian food, with aromatic spices such as cinnamon and ginger and it’s fantastically fresh and balanced, it’s nowhere near as heavy as beer and complements Indian food brilliantly.
Q: Korma or Phaal? - Do you like hot curry?
A: Ah…now here’s the thing. When I talk about Korma, I’m referring to the feisty, rich authentic home cooked version rather than its’ weaker cousin served in a lot of restaurants. Korma should have a kick. Phaal….well like drinking pepper water it should be reserved for medicinal purposes only.
Q: What sort of things do you cook at home?
A: I’m in a perpetual state of food development, so this last week I created a spice crumbled beef carpaccio using spices from Natco Foods (who are supporting the charity campaign Curry for Change for Find Your Feet www.find-your-feet.org). I blitzed lotus seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and all spice to coat the fillet with and then seared it. The scent was totally heady, I dressed the carpaccio slices with lime, ginger, chilli, radish and coriander….it barely touched the sides. When I’m not developing Indian style food…I’m really partial to Eastern Mediterranean flavours, such as Lebanese and Turkish cuisine, ingredients are really distinctive, identifiable and taste of the sun.
Q: Other than your own, what is the best restaurant you have ever been to?
A: That’s like choosing a favourite child…they’re just different. However, one of my favourite dining experiences was in Jodhpur at a grill and kebab joint called ‘On The Rocks’ nothing pretentious just great grilled food under a Rajasthani night sky.
Q: What well-known figure would you most like to share a curry with?
A: Eric Morecambe would be a blast…food and laughter what a contagious concoction.
Q: Curry is great because…
A: It’s the most socially and culturally unifying cuisine in Britain whether it’s take-away, eat out or cooked at home it usually involves a crowd sharing plates of food.
The Urban Rajah's next pop up restaurant, The Great Indian Food Feast is on Thursday 24th & Friday 25th July at the Dolls House, 35 Hoxton Square, London N1 6NN. In one night he’ll spin diners across the Indian subcontinent with flavours spread across 4 courses from the mountains, the desert, the coast and the city all for £25. Check http://www.thedollshouse.org for details.
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