Food interview: Romy Gill’s authentic Indian cuisine

Tuesday 9th June 2009

Romy Gill’s launched a one-woman crusade to show the rest of us what authentic Indian cuisine is really all about. Tim Davey caught up with her at home in South Gloucestershire.

Romy Gill is seeing red. And bright yellow. She doesn’t really want to see either. To this 37-year old mum-of-two from Thornbury both colours are anathema for her, representing as they do all she perceives that is wrong about our normal British conception of Indian meals.

Indian restaurants and take-aways abound in every town and city but the way the dishes actually appear are nothing like the real thing.

“All the colouring in ‘Indian’ dishes really annoys me. You should not have that in the foods, it really is wrong. Most restaurants are Bangladeshi and they use too much.”

Often there’s a tendency, too, for each dish to taste the same, something approaching a heinous culinary crime in Romy’s book.

We are talking in her diminutive kitchen on an edge-of-town estate in Thornbury, where she lives with her two children and husband.

As we talk, Romy is rustling up some samosas for me to try.

“In India, I was brought up in a house where seasonal vegetables were used, local vegetables.”

It’s a policy she follows herself with her own cooking, sourcing produce locally, including flour, with the samosas for example, from Shipton Mill near Tetbury.

Settling in the town, Romy has established a name for herself as something of an Indian food guru, banging the drum for doing things the right way when it comes to cooking these dishes.

And where better to start than the local schools?

“I go to the primary and secondary schools. Primaries are always brilliant, they are big samosa fans. I don’t charge for doing it, just the cost of ingredients.

“The thing is that not enough kids know about the food. Maybe that’s because parents will think they won’t like it. But they do!”

She cites her pakoras as an example. She cooks these up in schools containing spinach, onions, spring onions, caluliflower and potatoes.

“It is amazing when kids get involved in chopping and cooking food. It makes all the difference, because they are willing to try something different and, above all, eat it.”

Adults, too, are getting in on the act. Romy holds cookery classes at Thornbury Community Centre. Actually, she stresses, they are open to all ages and take place on the first Friday of the month.

It’s no real surprise to discover she is fully booked up until July.

“I cook and the people in the class wants to know all about how to use the various herbs and spices.

“I also give them all my well-documented recipes. We then all sit down together and eat what we have made.”

The sessions cater for about eight or nine people at a time.

“I don’t want too many because I want people to be able to relate to me and ask questions.”

Romy’s next stage in her culinary career is a challenging one.

She is currently putting the finishing touches to her own cookbook, containing a nice mixture of menus and personal reminiscences. She’s also keen to supply foodstuffs to other retailers, from supermarkets to local shopkeepers.

Things are in the pipeline on that score and she’s optimistic.

One things for sure, though, is that she won’t lose sight of her roots.

“I was born and brought up in West Bengal, in a very close-knit multicultural community.

“My father worked in a steel plant and people came to work there from all over. In our community in India we always shared cuisines whenever there were religious cultural gatherings.

“Now I live here in the UK, I have a great exposure to different cultures. I want to share those recipes I learned as I grew up with other people.”

You can check out Romy’s website at: www.romyskitchen.co.uk

Receipe for boneless lamb biryani

“My daughter’s friend Jessica was going to come for tea one day, so I asked her mum, Briony, if Jessica ate lamb. Lamb would be fine, she said, though just to be on the safe side I cooked the sausages as well as making a boneless lamb biryani. They all ate it.

Here’s the recipe that I used for that meal:

Ingredients

500g boneless lamb

1 medium-sized red onion sliced

3 tsp tomato puree

1tsp garam masala

3tsp of veg oil

2tsp dried fenugreek leaves

250g Basmati rice

500ml of hot water

Salt to taste

Method

Soak rice in water for 20-25 minutes and wash properly before cooking.

Heat 2tsp oil in a pan. Add boneless lamb and sliced onion together and stir on high heat for 7-8 minutes.

Add tomato puree, mix well.

Add garam masala, salt and dried fenugreek leaves. Cover the pan with a lid and cook on very low heat for 20-30 minutes. Once tender, leave aside. On the other side, heat 1tsp of oil in a pan. Add rice and cooked lamb together and mix well. Add hot water, let it simmer. Cover the pan and cook on a low heat for 8-9 minutes.

Serve with with carrots and cucumber.