Your Best Dish: Curry Club
By Matt Vecchio and Laura Peters
A Hindu belief is that everything is God and contains the divine energy of God; therefore it is worthy of worship. At the Curry Club in Ashburn, the food is certainly worthy of worship. The Your Best Dish crew headed in to figure out just how two scintillating dishes (Kashmiri Lamb Korma and Seekh Kabab Gilafi) are converted from simple ingredients into culinary gifts for the pallet.
Meet the Chef(s)
Owner Madan Mohan, originally of New Delhi, India, has lived in the United States for 27 years after an extensive life of travel and exploration. He tried his hand at owning a restaurant in New Zealand, for one, and his worldwide travels has armed him with an arsenal of different spices, flavors and techniques to bring to his unique dishes.
"Fresh food starts with the freshest ingredients," Mohan told the Times-Mirror as we stepped in to the aptly named Curry Club's kitchen. Mohan, along with the dynamic kitchen duo Diwan Singh Chouhan, the Executive Chef with 25 years of experience and Bhushan Lall, Curry Club's Executive Soo Chef with 30 years of kitchen skills, started bringing fresh curries, kabobs and vindaloos to Ashburn when the location opened in December 2010. They serve Northern Indian Cuisine.
Culinary art
First came preparation time for the Kashmiri Lamb Korma. The chef duo wasted no time splicing apart a cut of lamb and started to cook it up on the stove over onions and oil — creating a flambé effect which drew "oohs" and "ahs" from us drab journalists, easily entertained by fire.
Next came an army of spices, an array that included a variety of curries and green herbs, and a slew of cashew nuts and crushed almonds. Topping off the dish, all thrown together in a standard skillet, was heavy whipping cream, making the base of the creamy curry sauce. This original recipe hit home when coupled with basmati rice (and perhaps some garlic or onion naan, made fresh in-house) and left a rich, decollate taste in our pallets. But the Curry Club's chef combo wasn't done yet.
Next came the Seekh Kabab Gilafi, a skewered minced lamb dish. The chefs laced the ground lamb meat with finely chopped onion and bell peppers, sprinkled in a healthy portion of various spices, and wrapped the meat around a skewer before placing the meat into a giant cauldron to cook. The chefs claimed that grilling could be an alternative for the home-chef, although the taste and texture wouldn't be quite the same.
Once cooked, the soft meat, served fajita-style on a steaming plate, crumbled off the skewer and melted in our mouths — guaranteeing a return for more.
With offerings this tasty, the Curry Club appears to be on the right track.
"Business is picking up day by day by word of mouth," Mohan said. "We are here for good food and service. We want to give consistency, we want people to have the same great experience over and over."
In our book, they're 1/1 so far.
Your Best Dish is a regular cooking show on loudountimes.com that brings the taste and flair of professional restaurants into your home kitchen.
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Curry base sauceby chrischedgzoy6,604 views
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