What’s on my plate: May

Thistles and Kiwis

For this month’s what’s on your plate blog challenge, hosted by Donna from Retirement Reflections and her co-host Deb The Widow Badass Blog, I’m going to take you to an Indian cookery class I attended on Saturday. This challenge is a chance to share what you have been cooking or eating recently, so I thought this would be fun to share.

The class was hosted by Wendy of Savour Cooking School which regular readers might remember from the Egyptian cook class I went to a couple of months ago. The cook for the day was Ashia Ismail-Singer, who has recently published her second book focussing on desserts. We were welcomed with a cup of masala chai and tray full of puri (or poori), little puffs of deep-fried bread (you can actually buy pre-made ones to fill at home). Delicious!

We were put into four groups, with each one tasked with making a dish. The group I was in made the mung dhal, while others made an aubergine curry, a coconut chicken curry and a pear and paneer curry. We all joined in rolling out the naan breads, making up the raita, tomato relish and a carrot salad. You can see work in progress below (including my friend chopping up the corander garnish).

Once all the cooking was done, we sat down to eat a late lunch of the dishes we had been preparing. Below you can see the dahl and some trimmings, Including a tamarind based dip we had with the puri, and the pea and paneer dish which I have to say was my favourite.

The rice was based on the way Asia’s father cooked it with onion and which turned out so fluffy and light that I really need to have a go and see if I can get my rice to go that way. Wine and beer were for sale, or you could have some home made kombucha.

All in all a fun class with great food, and yes I did buy her first book at the event, review coming later.

Footnote: the class was held at LTD, the home of Everybody Eats, a charity offering pay-as-you-feel dinners to those in the community who deserve good food once in a while.

Also entered in the weekend coffee share hosted by the wonderful Natalie the Explorer.

You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis.  As for Twitter….am totally inactive these days.  If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com

Published by Thistles and Kiwis

24 Comments

  3. Thank you for joining us at What’s On Your Plate. These dishes all look delicious. You’ve inspired me to check into cooking classes in my area. Speaking about inspiration, I’m off to check out ‘Everybody Eats’!

    Liked by 1 person

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  7. Mouth-watering post …. what fun! and so clever that each group gets to make one dish, and then you can share in the deliciousness!

    Question: did you toast & crush the spices? Did the instructor offer any tips in this area?

    Liked by 1 person

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  9. Everything looks delicious and what fun to cook and share a meal. Thank you for the link to Ashia’s website and for linking up with #weekendcoffeeshare.

    Liked by 2 people

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  11. This all look so delicious! How inspiring to take a cooking class, and the idea of the charity is marvellous. Thank you for this positive post.

    Liked by 2 people

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  12. Ah – T&K.
    So many of my favorite dishes.
    The problem is that I’ve not learned how to make them myself and we no longer have a good Indian restaurant nearby. We have some great Thai, but the Indian places have moved on. . . .
    Sad.
    Thanks for the glimpse of what we’re missing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  14. Pingback: What’s on your bookshelf #10 – Thistles and Kiwis

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