My favorite cuisine is a three way tie between Indian food, Chinese food, and sushi (notice Malawian food did not make the cut). These three cuisines cover roughly 2/3 of all the food in the universe, look it up. So, really I just like good food, I’m not picky. Of the three, in Malawi you can find Indian food easily, and Chinese food if you wanna drag your ass to Lilongwe and shell out 2500 kwacha per plate (that’s less than $10, but that’s a good chunk of cash for one meal here). I, however, would eat either one for every meal of every day for the rest of my life without complaint. You can find all the spices and ingredients you need in country, the trouble is reproducing it like the pro’s at home.
So after a particularly satisfying Indian meal at our favorite restaurant in Mzuzu, A1, I asked if I could have a chat with the chef to give him my heartfelt commendations. They brought him out, a sweet little Bhutanese man, who spoke God-knows-what-but-certainly-not-English. I was surprised, he was not who I expected to meet at all. How did this guy end up as an Indian food chef in Africa? I tried to tell him about my host father in India, who was also from Bhutan, and was a hot sauce connoisseur. He didn’t get it, but the next day I found myself in the kitchen of A1. He showed me how he baked the naan and yelled at me in his indecipherable language about all the key Indian spices and having me taste each one, so I would know the difference. He gave the Indian names for the spices, which I’m trying to memorize and translate so I can keep up in the kitchen. Since then I’ve had about 3 cooking classes with him. I order and buy the meal, and he shows me how it’s done. He’s showed me how to make chicken tikka masala, paneer palak, and yellow dal. He’s also showed me how to debone a chicken and how to make paneer from milk and how to work chapatti. In the last lesson he’s let me entertain his kitchen staff by trying to do the actual cooking myself. I looked like a baby taking her first steps blindfolded compared to him at the stove. But I’m having so much fun back there! I’m getting to know the staff and the chef (whose name I still don’t know) and I are working on our sign language system. I still can’t reproduce the dishes at home though. I’m getting much closer, but the sauces still allude me. Most of the masala dishes require tomato gravy and onion gravy that I’ve never seen the chef make and I can’t seem to figure out just knowing the ingredients. He showed me, start to finish, how he makes his chapatti dough, so I’m gonna try a big batch of that tomorrow to go with a cauliflower curry I’ve mostly figured out. And the bread is a huge part of it all. But I’m excited and anxious to pin down the gravies! Then it’ll be Indian food for every meal of every day!!!
So after a particularly satisfying Indian meal at our favorite restaurant in Mzuzu, A1, I asked if I could have a chat with the chef to give him my heartfelt commendations. They brought him out, a sweet little Bhutanese man, who spoke God-knows-what-but-certainly-not-English. I was surprised, he was not who I expected to meet at all. How did this guy end up as an Indian food chef in Africa? I tried to tell him about my host father in India, who was also from Bhutan, and was a hot sauce connoisseur. He didn’t get it, but the next day I found myself in the kitchen of A1. He showed me how he baked the naan and yelled at me in his indecipherable language about all the key Indian spices and having me taste each one, so I would know the difference. He gave the Indian names for the spices, which I’m trying to memorize and translate so I can keep up in the kitchen. Since then I’ve had about 3 cooking classes with him. I order and buy the meal, and he shows me how it’s done. He’s showed me how to make chicken tikka masala, paneer palak, and yellow dal. He’s also showed me how to debone a chicken and how to make paneer from milk and how to work chapatti. In the last lesson he’s let me entertain his kitchen staff by trying to do the actual cooking myself. I looked like a baby taking her first steps blindfolded compared to him at the stove. But I’m having so much fun back there! I’m getting to know the staff and the chef (whose name I still don’t know) and I are working on our sign language system. I still can’t reproduce the dishes at home though. I’m getting much closer, but the sauces still allude me. Most of the masala dishes require tomato gravy and onion gravy that I’ve never seen the chef make and I can’t seem to figure out just knowing the ingredients. He showed me, start to finish, how he makes his chapatti dough, so I’m gonna try a big batch of that tomorrow to go with a cauliflower curry I’ve mostly figured out. And the bread is a huge part of it all. But I’m excited and anxious to pin down the gravies! Then it’ll be Indian food for every meal of every day!!!
I would be wildly impressed with some fresh chicken tikka masala when we are there. It is now my favorite food in the cafeteria here. Can't wait to see you!!!!
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