East meets West

So far this blog has explored Indian food from a British perspective but what happens when the British adopt and adapt the Indian culinary tradition?

In the past week I have discovered two very interesting adaptations of Indian family cooking. The first occurred when I dug out a Indian Jalfrezi wrap kit that my mother had given me:

 

and the second was a dubious Argi Bhaji sandwich:

Let's start with the names. 
Firstly,what is the 'Argi', in Argi bhaji?  It doesn't mean anything to me in English or any of the Indian languages I understand. But what my ear did pick up was the rhyming quality which makes it memorable. Even if Argi means nothing to me!

Jalfrezi wraps are also an oddity because wraps are distinctly un-Indian to me but I was eager to try this new combination absolutely loved having Jalfrezi in a chapati style wrap. It was lazy Indian food and perfect for a quick meal.

Sharwood's advertising sets the scene:

 From the opening of the advertisement Sharwood's has emphasised the duality of their products, a combination, or a twist, to the traditional curry. This is evident in the contrast between the flamboyant truck and the idealised English countryside. It is worth noting that Sharwood's does not intend to recreate a traditional home cooked meal, but it aims to mimic the restaurant curries that the nation is fond of.

The wrap kit is as easy as they claim:

Only three steps? My kind of meal.

Everything you need.

Stir fry chicken. I couldn't leave the recipe untouched and added chopped green chili's and turmeric powder

And then the peppers. Finally some colour!

What Sharwood's have called a spice blend. But on close inspection it seems to be Garam Masala which is a traditional Indian blend of cumin seeds, black and white pepper corn, cardamom and cloves.

It goes into the warm wrap, with some of the mysterious salsa they provided. I added a dollop of greek yoghurt because I added extra chilli!

My overall experiance of these spin-offs has been mixed. I throughly enjoyed the Sharwood's wrap kit because the combination of salsa and Jalfrezi chicken complimented eachother. The sandwich is another matter, it had the potential to be a great vegetarian sandwich but something did not live up to expectation. Firstly, let us rule out the argument that bhaji's cannot go with bread because it becomes too dry. My mother makes bread bhajis that are delicious she smothers triangles of bread into the batter of potato spinach and gram flour. There doesn't seem to be any innate incompatibility between bread and bhaji, and the ingrediedents are authentic, I can only conclude that inside the sandwich was too bland a bhaji.