Catering for this private function was hard work but my goodness was it worth it!  So many kind people gave us such wonderful compliments about our food. It was really worth the time and effort that went into it.

Friday afternoon was spent shopping in Kingsbury for fresh produce. Had to ask the ‘Man of the House’ to come and help carry 20 kg. of meat and 20 kg. of a variety of vegetables, not to mention 10 kg of rice and a whole host of spices and condiments.

Cooking began Saturday lunchtime with preparing the ‘masalas’

It takes a long time to grate and then brown 6 kg. of onions in oil. You can read a whole book doing it!!

My fantastic copper pan comes into it’s own for large scale cooking. I bought it in France when visiting my dear friend Carolyn and catering for the very first ‘jogindersupperclub’.

Lacking pans that were big enough I had to use foil containers for the dishes. Two of each for lunch and dinner. Each foil dish contained 6.5 kg. As you can see they needed ‘underwiring’!!

On to the party!!

Reaching for more....

Ma Rani doing the rounds and taking well earned praise for the food!

We did the food in two sittings. Lunch and dinner. The table was always full of food!

The party in full swing!

As always too busy to take photos!!

We are a family of cricketers and cricket fans. I have added a link to Lords Cricket Ground on our website so you can check all the latest information about tickets and what is coming up this spring and summer. It will prove to be a busy time with Australia returning to play a series of test matches at the ground as well as Pakistan and of course England (Ma Rani has a soft spot for KP!)  We will be doing some cricket themed evenings as the summer progresses but in the meantime, have fun following your team and lets hope we get the weather to enjoy some mighty fine cricket this year!

Saira x

Next Sunday we are catering for a big engagement party here in Tufnell Park for 100 people. We will post the menu on the website and do a write up. It will be all systems go from Friday to Sunday, looking forward to it! We started out doing outside catering so it is great to get the first one in of 2010!

Saira x

We had a full table with both hungry and generous guests!

We had yet another great evening and managed to raise a fair amount of money for charity. Our guests were in constant conversation with each other all evening and were asking when we were going to sit down with them to eat! I suppose one should do that if you have such a small group of people at the table. One guest said he wanted to learn more about the food as they were eating each dish and hoped that next time Ma Rani would be at the table!

Joginder's Pancakes with spicy onion, potato and paneer. Every plate was polished off when I brought them back to the kitchen!

Different from previous supperclubs’ was that we served the dishes in stages rather than all at the same time and this worked so well. Everyone got to enjoy each dish and didn’t feel full by the time the next dish came out. Joginder’s Pancakes went down really well, we also decided to change the menu slightly and served the potato, paneer and  spicy onions on top rather than in the pancake. They tend to break very easily when rolled so the version that was served up was tried out on the family the night before!

Always on our menu is Joginder’s Chicken Masala and this time we served up Lamb Biryani as well. Both dishes were served on to the plates at the table and everyone had seconds of both dishes! Mum usually makes up a plate for my Dad but there was nothing left! Another dish that required more helpings around the table was the Boondi Wala Dahl (Yoghurt with Dumplings). It was served as a side dish to go with all the courses and needed refilling at each stage.

Indian Sweets washed down with Masala Chai or something a little stronger!

A topic of conversation that came up which we were all involved in was how people found out about supperclubs and underground restaurants and what would prompt someone to eat in a stranger’s home and indeed cooking for strangers in your own home. It was agreed that the size of our supperclub meant that everyone spoke to each other throughout the evening and there was a feeling of comfort in each other’s presence. Some of our guests are members of the ‘fans of the underground restaurant’ website set up by Ms Marmitelover to encourage ventures such as ours and to help people find these places to go to. Three of our guests have been to every supperclub we have done so far and it is so nice to have that support, apart from the fact that we are all becoming friends! The Jamie Oliver programme came up in conversation and most of us had seen him visit the underground restaurants in New York. All of our guests came prepared to talk to and sit next to strangers for the evening. What they didn’t expect, as was pointed out, was that they did all get on with eachother and every person around that table had a story to tell. It was a really enjoyable evening but once again I was rubbish with the camera so please excuse the lack of pictures! George the cat also made frequent guest appearances and as far as I know our guests didn’t notice her staring at them and the food from her place in the living room!

They evening finished well after midnight!

‘Thank you for such a lovely evening, fantastic food and good company. This is our first experience – thankyou for making it memorable’ ~Philippa & Colin

‘Thank you so much, yet again, for a lovely – and delicious – evening. We thoroughly enjoyed the company and Rani’s beautiful food. What a great way to spend an evening – its a celebration! Thank you yet again’ ~Chris & Dave

‘Thank you so much for a lovely evening. We’ve really enjoyed the food and the experience of dining with complete strangers! Thanks once again for a wonderful introduction to the world of underground supperclubs’ ~Naaz & Howard

‘First of all I am delighted to have met you. Second thank you so much for such a wonderful evening and you are a superb cook’ ~Matti

Georgie the cat in a rare moment of serenity ~ probably because there was no food to be had!

Thank you once again to our guests for helping to make it a great evening and for being so generous with the donations. We have been asked to do another charity supperclub and we are thinking maybe at some point during the summer when we try out our Punjabi barbeque evenings!

|Last night was amazing and what a fantastic gathering of guests. I know that Saira will be adding to this post but am aware how busy she is with her show at the South Bank. Went to see ‘ The Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner ‘ today – fantastic!!!

I just want to THANK our small gathering of 8 guests who donated an amazing £230 in aid of  our chosen charity – ‘Cancer Research & Breast Cancer Awareness’.

We hope someone from the charity will be posting something also.

The next supper club is on Saturday 10th April so do check out the menu.

I was in  two minds about shopping this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I am lucky enough to teach in a school where we finish at lunchtime so I decided to go for it even though  I was exhausted after a week of teaching so didn’t really fancy it. However, I did check with Saira ( also exhausted after a week at the South Bank )  for cancellations before I went shopping and luckily there were none. So I went and bought all the food.

I cannot tell you the pleasure in buying fresh ingredients to cook a meal. I hope our guests will enjoy the food tomorrow evening. I have been prepping and cooking most of the evening with a short break with my husband and son to have a lovely meal at our local gastro pub called ‘The Junction ‘.

Looking forward to tomorrow night!

Salt is a very important flavouring in every cuisine in the world. However, it is only a very small part of the flavour of the dish. Most cuisines around the world realize that a small amount of salt ‘alerts’ our flavour taste buds which then alert the ‘sour, sweet and bitter’ buds.

However, the wide variety of international taste sensations which we experience when we eat and drink can only be explained by the fact that our sense of smell also plays an important part – when you are tasting something you are also smelling  it. Have you noticed that if you eat something when you have a cold you actually ‘taste’ nothing – both senses are impaired!.

If people have had  a high salt diet it is going to be hard to get used to a low salt diet and appreciate the ‘FLAVOURS’ of the food.  But I promise you that you will not miss the levels of salt used but will enjoy the different flavors of the curries’ and their allocated level of salt .

I will continue to use my level of salt in my dishes and  my diners can, if they so wish, add a little more because you can’t take it away

Thank you Chris!!  Looking forward to seeing you and Dave  on the 27th.

Due to unforeseeable circumstances our road trip to North Wales and the supperclub has been cancelled for this weekend, but we are rescheduling for a later date. Maybe when this weather turns a little friendlier! We are doing a big family dinner instead and trying out lots of new dishes on our unsuspecting siblings and otherhalves so watch this space for photos! See you on the 27th if you have booked for our charity night

Saira & Rani x

Thank you to Ms Marmitelover and owner of ‘The Underground Restaurant’  for her appreciative  review. We are glad that you had a good evening! Click on the link on the blogroll to read the review (The Underground Restaurant)

Saira  x

I wish I had the time to write as prolifically as  some other supper club ‘owners ‘ do. I didn’t think it was important to put up lots of photos etc. etc. prior to a supper evening but I think I will have to try harder to  to give our diners an idea of what we will serve them.  It does not make the food any better because the dishes are not invented but are cooked as I learnt from Beje and I have cooked them for the last 35 years.

When I got married in 1974 the highlight of a  ‘new wife’ was to have a dinner party ( ‘ Abigail’s Party’  – a little later but the concept is the same!)  My favourite was French food and I still think that I can cook a respectable ‘Boeuf Bourguignon’ and ‘Coq au Vin’. Very many holidays in France and many friends from France coming to visit us were probably the reason for this!. However, now and then I thought I would surprise  them and cook my Punjabi food and wait for the reaction! !

30 years later all my friends expect to eat my home cooked Punjabi food and 99% of the time they seem to be disappointed if I want to serve anything else. I only do it if I want to try something different because I love cooking and am always trying something new.

My helpers in this task, I hope will be ‘ Chris and Dave’ – our guests who have been to all our supper clubs . They love Indian food and are so knowledgable about it and are happy to tell me what they enjoy. We look forward to seeing them and all our other guests for our Charity event on the 27th Feb.