#CURRYSINTHEKITCHEN

Last week I was invited to the Underground Cookery School, near Old Street, for a cookery class with 20 other food bloggers, hosted by CurrysPCWorld, for #currysinthekitchen. All week I was wondering what the correlation between a computer shop and a cookery class was (bar the obvious fact that we food bloggers use computers to blog - which I didn't think was the link) but all became obvious when we arrived - CurrysPCWorld now stock kitchen gadgets! Ta-da - the reason we were there!!

Despite my best efforts to arrive cool, calm, collected and on time, I arrived half an hour late, flustered and in my normal state of everything at a million miles an hour. I was greeted by the CurrysPCWorld team, their PRs and the guys who run the cookery school, who had an apron waiting for me, ready to don for our cookery class. Camera out, apron on, I was given a glass of bubbles and told to help myself to trays of arancini, sausage rolls and smoked salmon on biscuits to nibble on before we got busy in the kitchen.

I have to say at this point, that although I had a super fun evening, I was a little disappointed at the level of cookery class we were given - it was all a bit... basic. I didn't learn anything. We were cooking a chicken curry, and a pear soufflé, but lots of the ingredients were pre prepared, due to time constraints, and it was more like a cooking demo than what I'd imagined the cookery class would be like.

We started with the chicken curry, for which we boned and chopped chicken drumsticks, then added various ingredients to the pan, most of which were chopped, mixed and ready made for us. Onion, garlic, ginger and chilli went in, followed by the curry sauce the chefs had made earlier for us, coconut milk, our chopped chicken, and some pre-chopped carrot and potatoes. A quick stir, and we poured it into mini Le Creusets, which went into the oven while we moved onto pudding.

Pear soufflé next. To make this we separated a couple of eggs each into a large bowl that were then whisked up the chef, tipped into another bowl with pear puree in, and sugar was added. We then filled a ramekin with the mixture, ready for baking.

Finally it was cocktail time. Chef Carlos whipped up a caipirinha and a pina colada, both of which were delicious (and both of which were made with the less than traditional tequila, following Carlos's advice that if you don't have the spirit the recipe requires, use whatever you do have!)

After the class we got to sit down and enjoy the food that we/the chefs had made earlier. This was my favourite part of the evening as it was really nice to get the opportunity to chat to other food bloggers, most of whom I only knew via their blogs, and had never met in person. The number of cameras was hilarious, as we all snapped away to get the best possible shot of our food.

CurrysPCWorld were running a very generous competition throughout the evening for best tweet/instagram photo etc, and the lucky winners won some serious prizes - Kenwood appliances to take home so they could make their very own versions of what we'd eaten that evening, and lots more! If you want to see the winning shots/tweets look for the tag #currysinthekitchen.

As I tweeted away during the evening someone got in touch on Twitter asking for the recipe for the curry. I tried to give him a 160 character version of it, but not satisfied he wanted full details! So here's the recipe, for him, and you, if you want to make it yourselves. It was a really good curry, which I enjoyed, and there were clean bowls all round.

Chicken Curry

Serves 4

2tspn Mustard Seeds
1tspn Fenugreek Seeds
1 tspn Coriander Seeds
1 tspn Cumin Seeds
2 tspn Turmeric
2 Cardamom Pods
3 Onions
2 cloves Garlic
3 Chillies
2 Thumb Size pieces of Root Ginger
1 tspn Chilli Powder 1.5lb Diced) Chicken
3 Tins chopped Organic Tomatoes 
1 Tin Of  Coconut milk

Dry fry all the seeds and pods until toasted. Place in a pestle together, and pound until a powder is formed, set aside. Fry the chicken until coloured on all sides, set aside. Gently fry the onions in a pan. When golden add the ginger, garlic, and Chillies. Now add the curry powder, then the chicken, and the tomatoes. Cook for 1/2 hour on hob, or in the oven at 200oC/320oF/Gas . Whilst you want a thick consistency, don’t let the curry dry out too much; consequently add the coconut milk during the last ten minutes in order to achieve your desired consistency and flavour.

CurrysPCWorld have also written a blog about the evening which you can read here -  http://techtalk.currys.co.uk/cooking-home-appliances/currysinthekitchen-currys-first-food-blogger-event/.