After spending 2 weeks at the resort on holiday with my family during Easter 2016, I fell in love with the food there and grew a liking for spice and curry, but the chef in me wanted more. I wanted to explore spices more and know the roots of how curries are made, so come Tuesday 12th July I was flying over there to make that dream a reality.
When I arrived at the dock feeling extremely tired and nearly dead from an 11 hour journey, I was immediately welcomed by some of the staff, some of whom I recognized from my last visit to the island. from there I was shown to my new palace that i would be calling home for the next few weeks. I was lucky to stay in a room with 3 amazing and beautiful girls Bii, Clara and Renita, and later Cindy joined us. It’s true I will miss them.
Here is an overview of what I got up to during my time there.
Week 1
My first day in the kitchen was HOT (the weather there was 32 degrees) and like any new environment it took me a couple days to really settle in and find my feet. I met with the Head Chef Mahesh Kini and he gave me a rough guideline of what I would be taught; the first week entailed me getting used to the spices, how to use them and the amount I should use when combining them altogether. I then was shown how to make ginger and garlic paste and mint chutney alongside a few other condiments used in breakfast service the tomato chutney and the coconut chutney. Out of all of the meals in the day breakfast I loved the most because the food was so different to what I am used to in the UK, there was dosa, idli, wada, upma, uttappam, sambhar and pav bhaji. my favourite being the fermented pulses and rice flour and then spread thinly in a circle on a flat top. you would then splash a little oil on top and then curl it up into a cylinder, you could put a potato (aloo) filling if you wanted too.
Week 2
By now I was feeling more comfortable in the kitchen and had even explored the bakery to see some of the Indian sweets and desserts. I tried Gulab Jamun which has a spongy texture and is soaked in an incredibly sweet syrup, there was also saffron fudge, kaju pista roll, khajur barafi, bibianca. My favourite if I had to choose out of all of the sweets treats I tried would be Phirni, which is semolina cooked in condensed milk, water, jasmine water and spices.
During this week I was also starting to be introduced to all the different lentils and dal that were used in the majority of the dishes they made such as Dal Makhani (this uses whole black lentils otherwise known as urad dal.) I was given the task of dry roast spices and grinding them up for them to then be used in the curries, marinades or kebabs such as Kadhai, Sambhar or garam masala (masala means a mixture of ground spices.)
I was then allowed the Saturday off so I chose to spend the day in Malé and venture off. There is a staff/ guest boat that leaves at 7am, which I took to the main island, it takes roughly 30minutes. I went to sweet shops, supermarkets and saw the tornedo monument. The island is amazing to sum it up, it is like a floating city that had just risen from out of the clear sea. I ended up loving it there and visiting the fish and fruit and vegetable markets, I loved the buzz and the busy streets that surrounded me whilst walking round under the market tents seeing vegetables I had never seen before and having venders call out to me “lady come try this.”
Week 3
This week I was moving from the gas stove to the flat top and making kebabs such as shammi, galouti (there are two types lamb galouti and mushroom galouti, which is then smoked with cloves and ghee) and Bhatti murgh. Shammi is a vegetable kebab using carrots, cauliflower and beans then sautéed in a wok with ginger and chilli, dry ground spices added and then left to cool before blitzing in a robo coupe. Bhatti murgh is chicken on skewers marinated in a green herb and spicy marinade.
For my Saturday off this week I went back to Malé and was fortunate to have a friend take me to Hulhumalé and show me around as my tour guide. I found Hulhumalé to be similar to London just less noise and people. Compared to Malé it was definitely quieter and the island was more spacious and open. For any residents living here it was considered a posher area to living in Malé.
Week 4
Moving on to the tandoori oven (which I was looking forward to the most) where I couldn’t wait to make my first naan bread and my favourite: tandoori chicken. Here I learnt all the marinades and discovered that cheese and yoghurt was used to help the marinade stick. I also made both from scratch the white naan dough and the atta dough (whole meal.) It was interesting to see that no raising agents where used in either dough instead it was your hands that formed the air inside when you flattened them out before placing it onto a cushion to help leaver it in to the tandoori oven. I am still surprised to this day how I did not manage to burn myself when using it!
The kneading techniques used as well were different to what i was used to, for me once the dough had come together I would take it out the bowl and knead the gluten on the work surface with maybe a little flour. For this dough once it had formed you would pour a little oil on top and proceed to punch it, which would allow the dough to soften. Now this for me was my workout because I was punching a 4 kilo dough here in 32 degrees or more heat. It was worth it though.
Before entering this internship, I only knew of one type of naan and that was the tear drop shape, but there was so much more. Poori, various filled paranthas, lacha paratha, missi roti, bhatura and phulka. I was shown also that I could add garlic to the bread before placing in the oven or add ground mint powder to finish a bread off when it was cooked. It was mind blowing just how much of a variety there was.
Week 6
This week I used to really pin down all that I had learnt, I started by working on my naan shaping skills, I wanted to be quicker and create a bigger shaped naan compared to the tiny ones I was managing to create. In addition, I was now learning the art of Dum cooking, which is used for the biryani rice. Dum cooking is essentially slow cooking in a sealed container on a low heat- as the chef would say to me the slower the better. I was introduced to make gravies too, Makhani gravy, white gravy, onion gravy, tomato gravy and spinach gravy. These are all used as either bases for curries or cream was added and it was reduced and served with tandoori chicken or paneer (cottage cheese.)
Finally, for my last day in the kitchen I wanted to give back to all the chefs who had been patient with me, and shared their knowledge and given time to help me. So I made them a dinner of chicken curry (using coconut and tomato,) tandoori prawns, atta bread, water gourd (an Indian vegetable, which is apparently good for your health and diabetes) with chilli and ginger and a small batch of shammi kebab and I can gladly say they all enjoyed it.
I will never forget this experience and all the amazing people I can now call friends that I was able to meet there. Shukuriyaa! (thank you)
The Simple Frenchie 