My Classic Old Indian Recipes

A long time ago, I spent several years sailing around the world with a British Merchant Navy company as an Engineer Officer.  This company was old school (even in those days), some saw us as the "Rag Tag" of the British Merchant Navy but the people I worked with were some of the most amazing engineers and navigators that I have ever come across.  We sailed into places no one else sailed to, we fixed things that no one else could have fixed and had experiences that with them that I will never forget.  

As an old school merchant navy company, they operated a traditional crewing model where the officers were British and the crew were from the Indian subcontinent.  It made for a very interesting work environment both for the mix of cultures and for the food served on board.  There were two messes, an officer's mess and a crew's mess each served by different galleys with different cooks.  The officer's food varied but was quite traditional but the crew's food was amazing.  Awesome curries, dahls, breads, kedgerees, samosas, tikkas and curry puffs and if you wanted to, you could eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On my second trip to sea, which was on a old tramp ship called the MV Pikebank, I got to know the Chief Steward and over time, I got him to share with me some of his oldest and best recipes that covered a range of styles.  I have had these since 1985 and I thought it was time they were made available again before they are lost.  

I have a bunch of typewritten recipes that I will be sharing with you all over the next few months. I'll share both the original recipe and a slightly modified version which uses more recognised ingredient names and tidies up some of the recipe instructions and processes.

These are the recipes I'll be posting for your pleasure (Enjoy):

• Biriani
• Chicken Curry
• Fish Curry
• Prawn Curry
• Curry Powder
• Palin Kedgeree
• Tandoori Chicken

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have over the last 30 years.