Mother India Cafe

It was Will's (second) leaving meal so we met at Firebird for a pre-prandial drink before heading to MIC. I was quite excited as I hadn't been in a while (months) and felt that I deserved it (running).

Things didn't run as smoothly as usual, resulting in us sitting for about ten minutes before we got the menus but we were happily munching our way through some poppadums at that point so we hadn't really noticed. It was only when our waitress, who was new, said that she didn't know what was in the dishes that I started to get concerned. Of course everyone blamed my ordering 'sliced raw red onion with green chili, salt and lemon juice' off menu as what threw her but I demur.

As there were six of us we ended up ordering a fair amount of the menu. Of course there was the so very tasty but so very bad for you, Butter chicken.



The sauce is especially good when mopped up with a piece of Peshwari Naan.



The equally yummy lamb mince with peas




From the left a special of lamb chops with kerala, lamb saag and a chicken karahi



Garlic chili chicken

It wasn't a complete disaster, there were just a couple of duplicate dishes, and some that were omitted.
Fortunately, as usual, the food was pretty spot on and everyone rolled out with satisfied tummies.

Mother India's Cafe

Is one of my most favourite places to eat although I don’t allow myself to go there often due to it’s badness (high calorie content) factor. However, it had been a couple of months since my last visit, and I had been for a run that day, so off K and I went.

Glasgow has a large number of Indian restaurants and there seems to be some sort of curry monopoly going on. The most popular ones belong either to the Harlequin group, so include the Ashokas, or the Wee curry shop including Mother India and the Café.
I tend to eschew Indian restaurants thinking they cater for the Western tongue and produce curry that is not only in- authentic but also laden with fat. Althoigh not the healthiest I make an expection for Mother India Café (or MIC as it is affectionately known) for two reasons.
It has on it’s menu a couple of authentic dishes, namely masala dosa, puri's and a spiced haddock dish that is quite similar to the one my mum used to make. It also calls itself Asian tapas, serving smaller portions (which are actually still quite generous) whilst encouraging you to order 3-4 dishes each.This was how Indian food was meant to be eaten. Go to any Indian persons house and what you will get is a table with about 4-5 dishes on it, from which you help yourself. Repeatedly.
I think that this is the origin of my not greedy, but curious nature. It’s in my genes to sample a variety of dishes, not to stick to one. At last a scientific explanation!




Now, myself and K can fairly pack it away and we are lucky if we can finish 4 dishes between the two of us along with Peshwari Naan and a chapati. The dishes cost between £3-4 each so represent good value. There seems to be an odd magic at work: no matter how large our group and how much we order (including booze), when the bill is divvied up it always comes to less than £ 15 each. Magic!
Between us and allowing for K’s odd food exclusions we have sampled most of the menu and hit upon, what for us is the perfect combination:
For me: Lamb Saag, Butter Chicken, a chapati, fried rice, some raw red onion with salt lemon and green chillies
For K: Patina Lamb, Methi Keema Mutter and a Peshwari Naan.




The Butter Chicken is ‘oh so good, but oh so bad’ for you. The sauce must contain both cream and butter in large amounts but is so tasty that I try not to think of it. My normally health conscious friend Rachel has been known to order it and eat just the sauce. It is particularly good with the Peshwari Naan. Peshwari Naan is not something I had ever had before K introduced me to it, and for this I am glad otherwise I would have been 2 stone heavier. It is a naan filled with butter a desiccated coconut which when combined with any manner of savoury curry makes a delightful taste in your mouth. The methi keema mutter is quite authentic and is reproducible at home by following the Madhur Jaffrey recipe in Illustrated Indian Cooking.

All in all I would recommend this place as it has a nice buzz to it, the service is fast and efficient and the food satisfying to both palate and wallet. The only downside is that they don’t take bookings and there usually is a queue. I suppose this is testament to how good the food is, as people tend to be happy to wait no matter how long it is. Best bet if you are in a group, is to take turns waiting in the queue whilst the others pop round the corner to Firebird for a pre-dinner drink!

Khao Phoune or yum, yum, yum.

Him Indoors likes to cook on a Friday, more specifically likes to cook chili on a Friday. When I say chili I mean that Texan Red stuff. In his quest for the perfect Red he has slaved away at the stove every Friday for the last 8 weeks. I never knew there were so many variations. Indeed, I may ask him to write a piece devoted to the Red. Anyway, as I was in this Friday he decided to humour me and cook something else, and this is what he cooked - Khao Phoune.




The recipe came from an article in the Telegraph and can be found here.

This was the second time he made it, so this time round he decided to substitute the chicken for duck and to use reduced fat coconut milk. I have to say that although I like duck for this I think I preferred chicken. I think the next time he may try beef.

First of all he skinned the duck and cut in into bite size chunks.




then he browned the pieces off and discarded the fat.




Then he made a paste out of 2 red chillies, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 inch of ginger, 4 small shallots, 1 stick of lemongrass, some shrimp paste and 3 tbsp of fish sauce.




He fried the paste in some vegetable oil and when it was brown added a tin of coconut milk and the same amount of water.




He then added 2 tbsp of crushed peanuts, the juice of one lime, 1tsp of sugar, 2 tbsp of fish sauce and the duck. This was left to simmer for an hour until the duck was tender. This is the resulting pot of goodness:







In the colander from closest to furthest away we have bean sprouts, garlic sprouts and basil (unfortunately not sweet Thai basil, as none in Chinese supermarket) and in the small bowl there are shallots and cucumber.

To quaff down with this fiery and intensely savoury dish we needed something that could stand up to the heat and flavours and chose this lovely Gewurztraminer.




What I love about this dish, and what made me think it was Vietnamese at first, is the fact that you are able to garnish it to you own specification. To me this is heaven as it allows each subsequent bowl to have endless taste possibilities. What more could one ask for?