Get that bread

In the modern world you don’t have to get someone to bare their soul to really understand what makes them tick, just look at their Instagram feed. It may seem obvious – an algorithm of things based on things you like and people you follow – but I can genuinely say I was absolutely fascinated the first time I noticed my friend scrolling through her suggestions and finding it was a list entirely populated by pugs and reality stars in bikinis.

Clearly my feed is far more prosaic; mostly featuring pictures of murky pints and a proliferation of carbs, but we do have my browsing history to thank for alerting me to the existence of the giant naan bread served at Taste of Pakistan.

Obviously I made it my priority to hunt it down and try it, although this wasn't going to be my first experience with the kind of naan that resembles a satellite dish. That award goes to the famous Akbars in Leeds, on a visit to see my aunt and uncle. Which is probably too far, even for me to suggest, to travel for a curry. 

That said, Taste of Pakistan is in an unlovable corner of Hounslow which, on a Sunday afternoon sitting on the M25, felt as if it took nearly as long to drive there as some of our trips up to West Yorkshire. 

Ever eager, we were the first to arrive - the closed sign was still hanging in the window as we rocked up, giving me momentary concern lunch was off -  but within about fifteen minutes of us being the first to sit down, nearly every table was full of Pakistani and Afghani families all ready to, literally, break bread.

First up, to keep the Ewing amused, came a plate of fresh salad and two silver jugs containing a spicy fruit chutney and a benign-looking, but also spicy, yogurt sauce. To drink, we ordered a jug of excellent mango lassi, which was even better than the version I had enjoyed the week before at Thattukuda.

Even more exciting than the prospect of the giant naan was the chapli kebab. Originating from the Peshawar region of North West Pakistan, it’s a flat patty of ground meat, usually beef or lamb, mixed with various other ingredients including onions, tomatoes, chillies, and herbs and spices. Traditionally they are deep fried in lamb fat, but vegetable fat may be used in some vague pretence of being healthy, and are served hot with chutneys and raita with rice or in a ‘bun kebab’, which is pretty much a burger by any other name.

While the city of Peshawar alone boasts over 2,000 kebab houses that serve the chapli kebab, it’s a rare beast here, often being overlooked for the better-known seekh and shami. Which is a shame, as the Taste of Pakistan version - a hefty, crisp-edged, well-seasoned disc of tender meat -  is an awesome thing. (oh yeah, I would definitely order this over the others if I had the choice - TE).

Sindhi biryani - originating from Sindh, one of the four provinces of Pakistan - managed to pack hugely complex layers of flavour into what appeared a simple dish. Glowing with the deep orange hue of saffron and studded with spices and chunks of meat, it made me reevaluate my usual indifference to rice dishes from the Indian Subcontinent (who would ever pick a pilau over a peshwari naan?).

Wikipedia reliably informs me that it's a dish served on nearly all Pakistan International Airlines flights, which I'm sure would be a huge improvement on the 'english breakfast' BA served to me recently. (anything would be an improvement on that - TE). 

The chicken karahi was the sleeper hit. A unprepossessing-looking dish – named after the metal pot it’s cooked and served in, cooked here over fierce flames that you can see in the open kitchen at the back of the restaurant  – this was one of the best things I have eaten in a long while. Even the Ewing, notoriously fussy when it comes to a chicken curry, declared this top draw and was thankful the molten hot dish made it difficult to access from my side of the table.

Wikipedia informs me the difference between a North Indian and a Pakistani karahi is the absence of green peppers and onion in the latter. Which can only be a good thing as there are no good uses for a green pepper, although this did contain delicious roundels of green/yellow chilli alongside the chunks of chicken. Buyer beware, there were some splintery bits to negotiate, but serving the meat on the bone kept it juicy and tender, contra to many chicken curries, full of lumps of tasteless cotton wool-esque protein.

And finally to the pièce de résistance, the duvet-sized naan - I certainly needed a lie down after eating it - served piping hot straight from the tandoor; theatrically impaled on a huge metal spike.

I have to be honest and say I don't remember Akbar's effort, to compare them - it was doubtless after an all day pub crawl around Leeds - but this light and fluffy effort was leagues ahead of some of the big breads I have eaten in the Balti Triangle, that more resembled giant Jacobs Cream Crackers.

I was too full to try their homemade kheer, but they kindly brought us complimentary Afghan tea - flavoured with green cardamom - and a dish of sugared almonds. Which, honestly, weren't really my cup of tea, but the Ewing enjoyed them and it made a nice way to ease the digestion before the long drive home. At least the journey back gave me plenty of scrolling time on Instagram to find the next carb-filled culinary adventure.

Curry for breakfast

One thing I do love about being a proper grown up is that you can wake up on a Saturday morning and decide you're going to have a curry for breakfast. Which is probably marginally less fun than eating a curry late on a Friday night and sleeping through Saturday morning, which comprised of most of my early twenties, but makes me feel slightly less resentful about not being able to sleep the clock around any more.

While my favourite Sri Lankan place is just down the road and makes superlative chole bhature (fried bread and chickpea curry), I fancied something a bit different. Somehow I also managed to persuade the Ewing that she also wanted something a bit different That something starting with driving around the M25 while listening to me singing along to my 90s indie playlist and ending up at the veritable New Asian Tandoori Restaurant - aka Roxy's - in Southall for some traditional Punjabi food.

From the list of chaats (small, savoury snacks) we started with pani puri, or, as it's known in the Punjab, golgappa. A dish that's fun to say, and even more fun to eat. 

To do so you take a crisp, hollow puri, carefully make a hole in the top and stuff it with a mixture of chilli, chutney, potato, onion and chickpeas. To finish, top it off with a glug of tamarind water (known as imli pani), and quickly pop the whole thing in your mouth with as much decorum as you can manage. In my case, not much.

While I like to think there are few curry dishes I haven't tried (I've certainly eaten enough curries), in reality I'm a mere pretender when it comes to the cuisine of the Indian sub-continent. In reality this is only a good thing as it means I still get to discover new dishes, even if I'm only twenty miles from home.

Today's new dishes were  sarson ka saag, or mustard greens, traditionally served with makki ki roti, an unleavened grilled corn bread topped with lashings of butter. Mustard greens are traditionally eaten in winter and spring, so we were bang in season to enjoy their rich earthiness. Perfect when scooped up with pieces of the sweet, smoky grilled roti, which resembled a giant Mexican tortilla and was none the worse for it.

Another Punjabi favourite, only available here at the weekends, is dal makhani, or 'buttery lentils'. Made from whole black lentils (urad) and red kidney beans the dish gets its richness from lashings of butter and cream. 

As it's tomato-based, the sauce resembled a spiced version of Heinz tomato soup. Which, everybody knows, is the best soup. I'd try to fool myself by saying the lentils made this healthy, but we all know this contained more glorious dairy than the EU butter mountain.

We tried to order a Punjabi chicken curry but that wasn't ready, so settled for chilli chicken instead. An admirable substantiation, this was excellent -  a sweet, rich, almost sticky sauce full of juicy chunks of chicken. I didn't even mind the odd piece of green pepper, a vegetable that normally conspires to ruin any dish they get near.

To finish we could have gone down the Broadway for chunks of burfi - a dense milky fudge, often studded with nuts - or some gulab jamun - curls of fried batter soaked in a sweet sugar syrup that are freshly fried out on the busy street - but I'm still eschewing the sugar. 

Instead we nibbled on a handful of breath-freshening fennel seed, paid the, very modest, bill and went down the road to see the house where the Ewing's mum grew up. Even with our impromptu tour the advantage of being up and out so early meant we were still back home in good time for lunch.