Ask any chef where their love of food first came from, and the vast majority will tell you it stemmed from their mother’s cooking. The culinary memories we make during our childhood tend to stick with us throughout the rest of our lives, and many of the world’s most accomplished chefs incorporate nostalgic dishes into their contemporary menus.
Alfred Prasad is no different. Growing up in central India meant he was always surrounded by quality ingredients, thanks in part to his father’s vegetable garden. But it was his Anglo-Indian mother that showed him how to prepare cuts of meat, thanks to her upbringing in the UK.
One of the dishes he remembers most fondly is her prawn curry. Unique in style thanks to his mother’s background, it combined a tomato-based sauce with marinated prawns and was served alongside string hoppers (or idiyappam) – a type of steamed rice noodle. It’s a dish he still enjoys making to this day; full of warming, comforting spices, thick juicy prawns and stringy, spaghetti-like noodles to mop up all that delicious sauce.
