I sometimes toy with the idea of what the best menu would be for a curry van. I’m talking multinational, favourites. A range of ingredients. Ten curries is probably too many for a van style set up but I reckon I’d go:
Pork Vindaloo - hot. Goan style
Lamb Rogan Josh; medium heat
Beef Madraa - extra hot
Chicken Biryani - mild
Beef Massaman - medium
Red Curry (chicken) - hot
Green Curry (chicken)- medium
Beef rendang - hot
Mulligatawny soup (chicken) - mild
Butter Chicken - mild
Samosas, bhajis, naan, Raita, couple of chutneys. a couple of rice types.
You’d definitely need a vegie dish, but you might consider branching out geographically as well. Perhaps something African or Caribbean to contrast with all the Indian/Malaysian.
Had quite a few interesting indonesian dishes lately. Pork knuckle in some sort of spicy bbq sauce was v good (not sure what it was, my language skills led me to believe the menu said it was pork ribs with potato so hey, knuckle with crinkle cut chips was pretty damn close). Their curry (Kari) was a bit disappointing but yeah Rendang rules and the Javanese spicy fried tempeh is a ripper vego side dish.
You know you’re onto a good samosa when the outside crumbles with a tang, the next layer has some give and the contents has a perfect balance of spices while cauterising the roof of your mouth and you don’t even care.
My wife cooks Rendang often for us, it is her fave. When l told her last year that l was taking her to China, the first thin she asked me was, ‘Are there any Indonesian restaurants there?’
I’ve has rendang made for me by a migrant family for my birthday. Top three things I’ve ever eaten. Another occasion was a biryani made by a different migrant family which was just amazing. Drumsticks amd full lemon wedges. Must have been slow cooked for half a day. You could just put the entire lemon wedge in your mouth and it melted.
I got something billed as “Malaysian Curry” from a completely inauspicious looking Asian restaurant in Daylesford. It was pale yellow in colour, tangy and medium hot in intensity. It was insanely good.
Turned out the chef was Malaysian…
