Thalis from Pri's Kitchen

Last Thursday evening a lovely lady called Priyanka delivered a hot, freshly cooked thali directly to my door - my door which is attached to a cottage in a very small village tucked away in Cambridgeshire. Things like this don't happen often around here, if you don't fancy cooking our options are a questionable pizza delivery or trekking out in the car to a supermarket or to the dreaded golden arches.

Really you shouldn't require a knife and fork...

Pri's Kitchen is based in Priyanka's home in Saffron Walden - every Thursday, Friday and Saturday she cooks up orders of thalis for residents in Saffron Walden and the neighbouring villages. She'll make you a meat thali or a vegetarian thali and deliver it to you in the proper metal tray and bowls piping hot and smelling delicious.

To explain, a thali (Hindi for 'plate') consists of various different Indian dishes, which vary from region to region, consisting of several different curries, rice, dahl, raita, rotli or puri, sometimes a chutney or pickle and a sweet too.

Meat Thali

We ordered a vegetarian and a meat thali. Both had dahl, aloo jeera (cumin potatoes), chole (chickpeas), gobi (cauliflower), raita, rice, roti and a chocolate burfi as the sweet. My meat thali had a lovely lamb curry and a spinach and chicken curry. The veggie thali had a paneer curry and bhindi - okra.

Spinach & Chicken Curry, Lamb Curry

                                     

Aloo Jeera

My god everything was delicious! Everything was perfectly spiced, not too heavy on the chilli which good Indian food should be, perfectly cooked and each dish so different from the next - which is the best thing about a thali. It might sound odd but it was nice to eat it from a proper plate, it was obviously the authentic way to do it but it also just made it more like homecooking, which it is, very much so.

Gobi

If you're local, or fancy coming around my house for a thali, you can order directly from Priyanka's website. She will then contact you to arrange a delivery time and day. And then a week or so later she'll come and collect your empty plates and bowls - and if you are smart you can arrange it for when your next Thali is arriving!

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