Irish TV anchor's heart aches' for Kadala curry

Alappuzha: Giving an international push to the Kerala’s traditional recipes, Bibi Baskin, the Irish television and radio presenter, has written an article on them. In her piece in The Irish Times, ‘Kerala cooking with Bibi Baskin’, on Saturday she describes how she fell in love with them. It began 15 years ago when she made a visit here and was tempted to buying the Raheem Residency. She felt she wanted to explore its quintessential tastes besides her journalistic pursuits. On her way to that venture, she says, she had to overcome different challenges.

Her search culminated in buying the restaurant near beach road in 2003. Later it was converted into a boutique heritage hotel, which is now a well-known beachside destination. She says Kerala recipes are more suited to the busy life of Westerners rather than the Indian housewife, who lovingly spends most of the day in the kitchen. She says it was great challenge preparing Kerala recipes because of difficulties in finding ingredients in Ireland.

Pointing out that acquiring and understanding of the vast array of ingredients used in dishes was a daunting task, she says she had learned their names in Malayalam from locals. “My cooking experience was similarly limited by circumstance when I bought the hotel in Alappuzha. I learnt it from my qualified chefs who didn’t want the boss in the kitchen," she says. "And I took the baby steps in preparing Kerala food with the support of them. There were plenty of the most marvellous spicy flavour combinations that teased my palate and my imagination endlessly. It still continues for me today in Ireland, but without my teachers. And I’m still stealing the garam masala."

Ms Baskin chooses to share her favourite recipes: chickpea curry (kadala) and carrot or cabbage thoran.  "They are like the bacon and cabbage in Ireland," she says. "The Malayalees serve these curries with puttu, or with the large-grained rice native to their own state, simply boiled. You can rarely find it in Ireland, and you need a puttu machine, like a kind of meat mincer, to make the rice rolls. So we’ll keep it simple. You can get basmati rice in your local supermarket."