I’m a bit out of sync due to the amazing couple of weeks on the Vincent Price Legacy Tour, reports on events coming soon. It was all utterly brilliant, and I’m still getting over it!
I made Basil’s curry for Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen, which seems like eons ago, so here’s a quick post with photos and the recipe, which is a very good mild curry (scroll to the bottom for the recipe).
The flower arrangement in a pumpkin I did my very own self, at a fabulous flower arranging class at The Blossom House in Crouch End. Lisa from Daring Buds is a genius – click here to go to her Facebook page in case you are in London and fancy having a go at flower arranging. Highly recommended, I loved it. Heather and I are sporting Halloween corsages I made with leftover bits and pieces.
So here’s Basil’s recipe. It’s from the 1940s so is very mild compared to some of the humdingingly hot curries you can get these days in the Western world. But it’s delicious nonetheless.
Basil gleaned this recipe from the East India Curry House in New York. From a bit of internet rummaging I discovered that this curry house was a tiny restaurant “tucked away in midtown Manhattan up a winding flight of stairs” presided over by someone with the marvelous name of Miss Trudie Teele. The curry house was a favourite of “home sick colonials” and “ex-servicemen who found out about curry during the war”. And movie stars it seems!
Basil Rathbone’s India Curry
2 and 1/2 lbs boneless lamb
4 onions
4 tablespoons butter
1 small clove of garlic, minced
Lemon juice
3 green apples
1 and 1/2 lbs tomatoes
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon paprika
Cut lamb into neat pieces. Sprinkle with salt and curry powder. Slice and sauté onions and garlic in melted butter until brown. Add spices, and cook 15 minutes. Peel and slice apples, add meat, and cook in juice about 1/2 an hour. Slice and add the tomatoes and more liquid if desired. Cover the pot and cook slowly until the flavours are truly blended. When serving, sprinkle with a little salt and add a little lemon juice. Serve with boiled rice to which a pinch of saffron has been added for colour.
Thanks Basil! …and Trudie!
4 responses
Compliments on your flower arranging and corsage making skills! (not sure if you knew, but I was is the business for many, many years) There’s a career for you if the TV hostess, kitchen diva, blogger/writer/archivist, food photographer, cookbook author, dj, web personality, and book tour organizer things don’t work out… lol…The curry sounds nice. It hit a cord with Alex’s taste buds…gonna be curry night soon now. Kuddos on your amazing job with the whole Vincent Price legacy tour and all you did!
HA ha – this made me laugh OUT LOUD in bed in London, you probably heard me in Greece. I did read somewhere about your former career. How lovely. My mum was a florist so it may be in the blood. She said exactly the same as you, that I should go for my City & Guilds qualification and then I’d have “something to fall back on” – tee hee!
Oh the Vincent Price stuff was all so marvelous, I MUST get it all written down on the blog before I forget it all…
Compliments on your flower arranging and corsage making skills! (not sure if you knew, but I was is the business for many, many years) There’s a career for you if the TV hostess, kitchen diva, blogger/writer/archivist, food photographer, cookbook author, dj, web personality, and book tour organizer things don’t work out… lol…The curry sounds nice. It hit a cord with Alex’s taste buds…gonna be curry night soon now. Kuddos on your amazing job with the whole Vincent Price legacy tour and all you did!
HA ha – this made me laugh OUT LOUD in bed in London, you probably heard me in Greece. I did read somewhere about your former career. How lovely. My mum was a florist so it may be in the blood. She said exactly the same as you, that I should go for my City & Guilds qualification and then I’d have “something to fall back on” – tee hee!
Oh the Vincent Price stuff was all so marvelous, I MUST get it all written down on the blog before I forget it all…