Roopa Gulati at Borough Market #DemoKitchen.

To paraphrase Jona Lewie, “You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties.” Which is exactly what it felt like last Thursday, when I was invited by Borough Market to a preview of their new Demo Kitchen residencies.

Chef Roopa Gulati gives us a taster of Demo Kitchen at Borough Market.

With a lovely chatty, relaxed style Roopa introduced us to a taster session taken from her upcoming Demo Kitchen featuring the vegetarian street food of Gujarat. We were to help make and also got to eat the most delicious mushroom and paneer samosas.

That all sounds very simple but in the hour that Roopa was sharing (I can’t say teach or demonstrate as the whole process was certainly a collaborative experience) I learned about the pastry types favoured for samosas by those who live in different regions of India. I realised that  paneer is a cheese I could easily make and masala paneer especially will feature in my kitchen soon. I began to understand how recipes are passed from family member to family member and that the politics involved to extract a recipe for garam masala from your mother might need support from UN negotiators.

Add to this that I can now fold a samosa using two different methods, got to eat the samosas with an amazing mint chutney and wash it all down with a lovely spiced cordial too, I think I won!

A good teacher does many things and Roopa certainly is a great teacher. She enthused us, encouraged us and enabled us to go back to our own kitchens and recreate these samosa and chutney recipes. If you are anywhere near Borough Market on Thursday lunchtimes (12.30  – 2) I urge you to go along. It’s free and I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Following Roopa Gulati there are further residencies from equally exciting chefs.

In October Borough Market then has National Chef of the Year 2013, Hayden Groves whose theme is Autumn entertaining: sea spray and tidal marsh, forest and orchard fruits

In November, Jenny Chandler, UN FAO Special Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses )  will be cooking with pulses in all their varieties.

In December Katherine Frelon will be helping everyone prepare  for Christmas and winter festivities.

I was invited to this Demo Kitchen event by Borough Market. I was not paid to attend nor was I asked to write a positive blog post. All words and photographs are my own.

 

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