Welcome to “My Curry Club” #Blog
Stephen Wundke
14th January 2020
Most of us know by now that Britains most popular dish is…. the Chicken Korma, which for a country that the French refer to as “le Roast Bouefs” is quite a transformation. I wonder if this culinary revolution is down to our taste buds exploding in the early eighties with the fabulous flavours from the sub-continent hitting our dinner plates after such bland food for so long; or was it the adventurous nature of the Bangladesh immigrants who left a country in turmoil and fought their way on to our high streets with the only skill set they could muster, that being the ability to cook outrageously good food and of course a propensity for hard work. If its not one or the other then its certainly a recipe of the two and as a nautral extension, that brings me to the birth of “My Curry Club”. I hasten to add its not my Curry Club, although I am very partial to a good curry and it was on my most recent journey that I discovered exactly whose curry club it was.
Habiba Chowdray is the creator of “My Curry Club” and it is very much “her Curry Club”. She is a 3rd generation Brit whose family come from a place called Sylhet, in the northern region of Bangladesh. She was born on the ancestral farmland area, a space of some 25 acres, that the family still own, and she and her sisters moved to the UK when she was but a baby, a little over 3 decades ago, where they grew up in North London. Habiba spent time with me explaining not just about My Curry Club but about her beliefs in food, its cultural connection to people, the experiences that she has garnered in her short but eventful life and I was fascinated.
My Curry Club is a realisation of a life long dream. It is a place where people come to learn about cooking curries, yes – but it is so much more. She doesn’t just demonstrate recipes she explains how they were created, why they do it this way, why this food is different to that which is cooked in the restaurants and why cooking the Habiba way is not just cooking to eat – its cooking to live better, longer and with greater purpose. You see the base ingredients of almost every good curry is in the herbs and spices used to layer the meal and recently the health qualities of two of the Curry staples, cumin and turmeric have been shown to be astronomical, cumin as an aid to weight loss and turmeric helps in the prevention of Cancer. Pretty positive stuff and great taste as well!
Cooking the Habiba way means understanding what you are trying to create and then building that from the base blocks. The way you cut the onions, how long they are cooked for, when to add the spices, releasing the natural oils, treating every ingredient with respect and then producing a meal that has depth, flavour and pride. Habiba believes that we are now seeing the kitchen as a gender free zone, no longer dominated by the female and her cooking classes are testimony to that with equal numbers attending and enjoying making meals together. She says, that’s the way it was in her house and it makes her proud to think she is passing that on through her classes and helping, in a small way, getting families back in to the kitchen cooking and eating together. In her eyes, everyone can cook, they just need someone to explain to them clearly what we are trying to achieve and with her media degree coming in handy, her communication skills are second to none.
My Curry Club only opened in mid 2019, so if you haven’t heard of it, that’s the reason. Habiba has created a superb cooking area for groups up to 16 in the top floor of an industrial building just off Goostrey Lane, near Cranage. She has brought an authenticity to her school with hand made table-tops, mosaics, cooking utensils and of course hand picked spices in large tubs, where you can bring along containers and top up as you need. The diminutive figure has a personality that fills the room and the realisation of her dream through the Curry Club came after doing many private cooking sessions in the houses of people right across the UK. She already has plans to expand further, such is the popularity of her curry classes and in the next month she travels to Malaysia to see how she can broaden the appeal of the Curry Club by including not just the flavours of the sub-continent but also those from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Habiba has promised to provide as with a travel diary of her culinary pursuits in Malaysia. I am sure they will be wonderful.
My Curry Club is a hidden gem, cooking classes for the individual, for companies and for families, that are both affordable and incredibly entertaining – and better still, you get to eat what you create whilst developing a skill that not only feeds you but makes you healthy at the same time. Now that’s win, win, win in my book.
For more information about My Curry Club got to https://tastecheshire.com/shops/my-curry-club/