Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

When I asked the Spice Girl, of Spice and More, where I could find decent Goan food in Sydney, she very kindly invited us to her place for lunch.  There we were treated to an array of interesting and delicious food, all in the company of her charming husband Andrew and their incredibly cute children.

The meal began with freshly cooked Bondas – balls of spiced mashed potato and peas, flavoured with turmeric and spices, then coated in a chick pea batter and deep fried.  I could have eaten these all day long.  These were served with a spicy mint, coriander and green mango sauce, which was just sublime.

Pork Vindaloo – SG has some very firm opinions about how this dish  should be made.   It should only ever be made with pork,  it shouldn’t be overly hot (spicy) and its unique sourness should come from vinegar, preferably one that’s been imported from Goa specifically for that purpose.

The curries were accompanied by one of my favourite vegetables – snake beans, mixed with freshly grated coconut.

An absolute treat and my favourite dish of the day was the Xacuti Chicken Curry.  There were more than twenty spices in the mix, including coriander seed, cumin, fenugreek, star anise, mustard seed, fennel, cloves, and a couple of unique Goan spices that I’d never seen before.  The sauce was enriched with  onion, garlic, ginger, curry leaves and tomatoes, then finished with a little lemon juice and a handful of chopped coriander.

By the way, Spice Girl doesn’t have a spice rack, she has a spice wall. The jars were literally stacked from floor to ceiling!

Finally, a wickedly good dessert – Chocolate, Cardoman and Expresso Cake.  With 70% dark chocolate and half the sugar of the original recipe, SG’s version of this cake was delicious and very grown-up.  The recipe is available on her blog.

Wikipedia has an interesting article about Goa, India’s smallest state since 1987, and its fascinating blend of Portugese and Indian influences.  Once you understand the history, it’s easy to see why Goan dishes are quite different from “regular” Indian cuisine.

Thanks for feeding us, Spice Girl.  You do realise, of course, that we won’t be eating Goan food anywhere else from now on!