Well, we have quite possibly had the best time over the last month meeting even more people, feeding them, getting interest from the local press and raising a little bit of money for charity. All in a month’s work for Joginder’s Supperclub. We are nearing our one year anniversary and so pleased that people keep coming back and supporting us and that more people who live locally are literally strolling to us for supper and not having to worry about last trains or taxis! Thanks guys!

So this is going to be a bit of a war and peace novel as I haven’t done a write up for a long while. Plenty of pictures too! The weekend of the 17^th September was our Charity Supper weekend in aid of Cancer Research – we hosted one in France in August, read the write up on our archive page. Among the guests around the table on the Friday was the lovely Regina aka ‘Gastrogeek’ (check out the link to her web page) and Sarah who as well as being a great friend of mine works for the charity and was a real ambassador for the evening! Rebekah had never been to a supperclub before and we were really pleased to have hopefully given her a reason to try more around London (and of course return to ours!) Saturday evening was equally as enjoyable with the conversation turning to the leader of the labour party race and why Diane Abbott knew what she was talking about!  We were the fourth supperclub for two of our guests, who liked the diversity of what is on offer here in London. They also liked sitting with the other guests at the one table as well as having separate tables, depending on where you go. Chris and Dave were back as at the table after a summer of umpiring and travelling which meant Dave couldn’t get his fix of our Murg Masala for two months! We fed him well. (I think)

We served our Paneer kebabs with home-grown tomatoes and peppers. The paneer was made on the Wednesday and painstakingly moulded into cubes and left under bricks for a day (this technique, my grandmother used frequently) the kebabs were served with our homemade Rhubarb chutney which has gone down a treat with pretty much everyone who has tried it. Ma Rani put it on the menu after making up a batch for our supper club in France. Could we find Rhubarb back in England during the week? No. I suppose if we had gone to every supermarket within the M25 we would have found some, but how much time do any of us have to get everything done in a day let alone sit in traffic jams. During a lunch party with friends the host presented Ma Rani with a box load of Rhubarb because they couldn’t do anything with it and knew of our plight. I have to put my hand up here and say that I have never been a fan, along with sprouts and beetroot, but that’s another story. Now converted to eating Rhubarb, the chutney goes brilliantly with some of our dishes and on a piece of granary toast with thick slabs of cheddar cheese and a cup of tea! Right enough about Rhubarb…..

Our new dish, Joginder’s Fish and Chips was a hit and intriguing right up until the plates were served.

We are pleased to send a cheque to Cancer Research for £700 donated by all our guests over the three supper clubs.  Many more to come for a very good cause!

The following weekend we had 12 people around the table for both nights. Laura and Chris booked with four other friends on the Saturday evening. Very impressively they had taken our menu to a wine merchant who recommended their wines for the evening. The other guests were intrigued by the bottles being opened for each course and a couple commented that their bottle of Pinot Grigio was quite boring in comparison! I will post the menu again along with the selection of wines, including the wine merchant’s details. I think this is such a good idea and really very flattering that the time was taken to compliment our menu in such a way.

We served up a new dish of spicy masala prawns and spicy apple dumplings which went down well. Again, we were given a batch of cooking apples by Ma Rani’s neighbour so more chutneys, apple pakoras and the spicy dumplings were made.

The thing that we do at Joginder’s Supperclub is to try and accommodate people’s requirements as much as possible. Our guests have always been really good at letting us know in advance of the evening if they are vegetarian, non fish eaters and so on. We always create separate dishes so everyone has the same dining experience.  A few of our guests for our last supper club of the month were vegetarian and so we decided to try a mainly non meat menu. We had spicy mushrooms stuffed with homemade crumbled paneer and home-grown tomatoes, spicy fish masala served in ramekins’ with a homemade chilli cornbread; the main courses varied from aubergine to cauliflower to potato and peas. Our signature chicken masala was on the menu and along with the three vegetable dishes were topped up for seconds! We had a table of 12 again, some returning and some new guests. The ages varied, as did the professions and nationalities’. Guests didn’t seat themselves according to their groups but rather mixed themselves up. It was really nice to see! The volume around the table didn’t drop all evening and even The Eagles at volume 5 could barely be heard! I know the sign of a good table (you learn the more you do) when I feel like I am interrupting people as I serve and clear. In the end I tried to do a Houdini act and morph myself into gaps too small to retrieve empty plates! Because the kitchen is a stones through from the table you can feel the atmosphere of the evening  and get snippets of the conversation. A random attempt to say Edward Woodward backwards kept people amused later on into the evening!  Lots of laughing and clinking of glasses is always a very good sign – when the guests sat down at the beginning of the evening, someone raised their glass in a toast to the evening which was lovely!

One of our guests had flown back from Delhi that very morning but pushed through her jet lag to enjoy the meal. Again, some guests were just around the corner so didn’t have far to travel home and stayed until well after the coach had turned back to pumpkin!

We did a taste test with a sweet dish that Ma Rani hasn’t made for years. Gulab Jumun, a small sweet cooked in syrup. Because we were going to serve it with the Masala Chai I wanted to find out how full people were. All the hands went up to try the sweet and it all went, with some helpful feedback. Put it this way, it is staying on the menu from now on!

We have had such a good time and want to thank everyone who has sat around the table so far! See you for the next one, dates will be posted soon!

Over and out xx

From a comments book……

Hi Saira,Just wanted to say thank you so much for a fabulous supper club on Saturday. We all had so much fun, the food was amazing and the company was great too…thank you also to your wonderful mum and her culinary talents!!

We hope to return in the future,

Many thanks again

Laura xxx