A small corner that is forever ...Punjabi

In the early nineties my mother started to complain that her local Indian grocery store was always running out of fresh coriander. It would seem that non-Asians were buying it; outrageous behaviour, coming into our stores and taking our herbs....

Back then an increasingly well travelled, culturally informed, domestic population was waking up to the pleasures of this delicate and versatile herb. Today pretty much all the main supermarkets stock 'ethnic' produce from eddoes to galangal and alphonso mangoes, much of it air freighted and in the shops in just a few days from harvest. I don’t hear any complaints from my mother now and what’s more she doesn’t agonise over the details like transportation and how exactly we in the West are able to enjoy produce of a better quality than people in the country it is grown in.


I, however, still do and so when I discovered that there was a farmer in Lincolnshire growing not only coriander but also small aubergines, chillies, mooli, saag and bitter gourds for the UK market I was intrigued. That was ten years ago but when I met Colin Martin I was amazed to discover that he had been growing these 'specialist' crops for three decades. Colin is based in Spalding, the heartland of Britain’s potato and onion production. Back in the early 70’s Colin received a telephone call from a Pakistani fruit and vegetable company based in Bradford. Could he, they wondered, grow vegetables favoured by Asians?

Bitter Gourd - only for older Indians

“They were already buying spinach from us and it just so happened that the market for the salad crops that we grew was going through a downturn. So I took their request very seriously.”

Small aubergines - great for stuffing

Colin travelled to Bradford to meet Rafi, the late owner of Rafi and Company Ltd. By then Bradford has established itself as the main centre for Pakistanis in the north of England and demand for fresh, familiar produce was high at the household level and starting to increase in the restaurant trade. So, having established what varieties were to be grown and just how feasible it all was, a business friendship was born that has spanned 4 decades.


So fruitful has it been that from the original 5 acres set aside for them, Colin now farms 700 acres in Lincolnshire and Portugal, with 80% of his herbs and vegetables for the ethnic market. The rest goes to ASDA. To put this into perspective, for the same period of time Colin has been supplying Bradford with his British coriander, horticultural production in the UK has halved - self-sufficiency is not part of the UK government’s food policy.  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring access to healthy food is. Colin does both, allowing consumers to buy vegetables just one day after harvest.  And it's grown in British soil with all that implies for the UK's water footprint and other environmental considerations here and abroad.

Colin is a real farming entrepreneur.  He diversified when he had to, takes an interest in both his product and clientele, and does his best to minimise resource use while maintaining an honest product. Honesty is a quality demanded by consumers, campaigning groups and (some) retailers.

Less so by our policy makers. In their drive to meet greenhouse gas targets recent Governments have been happy to talk up how much UK emissions have fallen in recent years. However this has been met in no small by our importing much of our horticulture leaving other countries to shoulder most of the environmental burden.

Lincolnshire Saag - a Punjabi staple

Getting Ready Meals ...ready

A few years ago I helped develop a curry sauce recipe for the trendy 'wholesome' fast food chain Leon. Now I've been doing the same thing for ASDA. Not quite so cuddly; they're currently number 2 in the supermarket rankings, a real giant of the corporate world. I was asked by a food manufacturer to help them develop recipes for a range of premium Indian ready meals for ASDA including a chicken balti.

Whatever the dish and whoever for, the challenge is the same; how to replicate 'authenticity' on a vast scale working to strict budgets, using bulk ingredients - pre-prepared in the case of garlic and ginger, in massive cooking vessels and without the 'love' factor that all good food needs.

What's more it has to match the retailers view of what customers expect of such a dish. Unfortunately for the most part this still remains trapped like a fly in amber in some 1980's lurid red, sticky, tomato based sauce; flock wallpaper in a bowl. I say this based on what was shown to me in the development kitchen. The balti dish I was asked to work on was made with a 'balti paste' procured in good faith from a company boasting of its attention to detail when roasting chillies etc. It tasted of the sherbert lemon sweets I ate as a kid - far too acidic but with a chili kick. I suggested ditching their use of this and to his credit this is exactly what Development Chef Richard Pearson has done. Instead he's chosen to follow a method I demonstrated.

Lamb with okra

A balti is typically cooked on high heat in a short space of time in a karahi or wok. One common method is to boil chicken and spices first for 5 or so minutes before adding oil and cooking for a few minutes more (red meats like lamb tend to be pre-cooked first). It's an unusual technique and the opposite to what is done in much of South Asia. Of course it's the all important spice mix which is key to the taste. In Kashmir where baltis are thought to have originated, people make a basaar (or masala)  rich with asfatoeida which is native to the area and also fenugreek - both seed and the dried leaves. This combination gives the balti its distinctive taste and fragrance. If you want to cook a very quick curry then this is the technique for you. Adding the oil near the end of the cooking process gives the lovely glistening browned meat.  Drain off any excess oil before serving.

Scaling Up

Once you've cracked the spicing the challenge is to recreate the searing heat required on an industrial scale. The manufacturers plan is to cook the sauce in huge 'kettles' separate from the chicken. Straight away this factors in problems when trying to recreate a dish, that there will be no meat juices flavouring the sauce in the normal way.  So other techniques are used to recreate what happens on the small scale, using meat glazes etc. These less familiar names are often what confuse and concerns shoppers when they read the list of ingredients on the side of a ready meal pack.

I saw nothing to fear or arouse suspicon on Richard's cooking list - beyond the mysterious 'balti-paste' which was jettisoned.  Naturally I will be very interested to taste what his team finally comes up with.

As much as foodies love to loathe ready meals they serve they serve an important role in the diet of millions of people in this country. Why else would they called convenience food? No matter what you feel about the lack of domestic science provision in schools, they help those people with no culinary skills to feed themselves. And there's a strong argument to say that they are the most energy efficient way to feed us all.