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Coriander

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Liam Hetherington
Liam Hetherington
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3 out of 5
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14) Coriander - The Healthy Herb

14) Coriander - The Healthy Herb

Bangladesh - 09/03/09

Apparently, in Bangladesh coriander grows widely. It is thought to have specific health-giving properties: to protect against nervous complaints in general and against hepatitis A in particular. If Coriander the herb is both Bangladeshi and healthy, the same too must be said of Coriander the restaurant.

Coriander is some way south of the centre of Chorlton along Barlow Moor Road, opposite Southern Cemetary, though there is plenty of parking space outside. It seems an unfancy place with a white stucco frontage. The pink dining area inside is not the largest in the world, with space for maybe 30 covers. A couple of tables were occupied when we arrived at 7pm, though it soon got busier. There was also a steady stream of people arriving to collect take-away food. The owner was very attentive, asking how we had heard about his restaurant, and explaining about coriander when we asked him whether the use of the herb was a specific trait of Bangladeshi cookery.

Coriander certainly featured prominently in the menu. Nor was this the only attention the restaurant paid towards healthy eating. As the menu explains they try to use fresh vegetables rather than tinned, and cook in a way to preserve the nutrients in the ingredients and minimise grease and fat content. They cut out artificial colours. They have a section called ‘Balanced Meals’ where your meal will be prepared equally with meat and veg (and so rather than a plain chicken or lamb curry you will get a mix of chicken or lamb with lentils, chick peas, okra, cauliflower and green peas etc). They even pack their take-aways in plastic dishes rather than foil trays to prevent injury and enable microwaving the food.

While they did have Kingfisher lager on draught, we decided to be healthy and ordered instead a jug of sweet thick mango lassi. There was a wide range of appetizers to start with, from the usual poppadams and onion bhajis, to rather more exotic-sounding fare (I was a bit nervous about the poor Reshmi Kebab, described in the menu as "Pan-fried mashed meat mised with herbs and raped by egg"! I actually went for the Bengal Special Chicken Pakora for £2.80. These were two pastry packets stuffed with sliced meat. The menu said this was guinea-fowl, but I couldn’t tell you if that was accurate or not. Coriander, obviously, was used for seasoning, alongside tomato and turmeric . And true to the restaurant’s word, the pakora were not oily or greasy as they often are, but satisfyingly crisp to provide a contrast with the tender chicken / guinea fowl inside. Even better were two dipping sauces that were provided. One was fairly standard sweet red chilli sauce, not very hot at all. The other sauce was a sharp lime green, but it wasn’t the lime pickle I had been expecting. Instead it was actually a pickled coriander sauce, and it actually had more bite to it than the chilli. It was very unusual, but very tasty.

Main courses again proved to be very tasty. The usual curry-house dishes such as kormas, bhunas, baltis, biryanis and tandoori chicken make an appearance, but so do other more Bengali specialities such as dishes made with ponir, home-made Bengal cottage cheese. It was in this spirit that Paul ordered a beef dish, something you would never see on an Indian menu due to the cow’s sacred nature in the Hindu faith. Though tempted by the name of ‘Mother’s Meat Ball’, he eventually went up a generation for Grand Mother’s Beef (£7.50). This was tender chunks of beef, marinated overnight in lime and sweet peppers and slow-roasted according to the menu. It came in a mild red sauce thickened with use of lentils, which contributed to a rather nice mouth-feel.

As the menu had a section of fish and sea food I thought I would indulge. Fish From The Village (£8.20) caught my eye. This proved to be a fried fillet of a Bengali fresh-water fish called pangas. This was served in a red sauce of turmeric, lime, green chilli and garlic. And of course coriander. Chopped coriander, sliced red onion and lemon provided the garnish. It proved to be deceptively spicy and rich in its taste. We had ordered rice and naan with our meal. On the host’s suggestion we had gone for the special rice, cooked with onion and coriander. We just had plain naan though.

The bill came to around £14.00 each. We had found some points of difference with the curries we usually have – the use of beef, more use of fish, and of course the signiture coriander. And it even felt as though we had eaten healthily. Chatting with the manager he mentioned that once the recession ended he was thinking of expanding – possibly even into Withington, where I live. Now that’s an eventuality that I would be interested in seeing. I certainly have no complaints. And after all that coriander, certainly no nervous ones!

(Another restaurant of Bangladeshi origin that I can recommend is Khandoker in Parrswood. Again they have a healthy emphasis on mixing meat and vegetables.)

From journal Around the World in 80 Meals! (part 2)

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