I’ll be honest. After a fabulous foodie holiday in Wales, there is nothing I wanted more than some tasty, vegetarian Indian food. Spice was what we were all after and Southall was on our way home.

Southall is located a couple of miles from Heathrow Airport and is home to the largest Asian community in London. The neighbourhood is predominantly Sikh and the streets are full of gurdwaras, temples, shops, and amazing food.  For me, a trip to Southall always includes a visit to the Gurdwara on Havelock Road and a delicious meal at Delhiwala. This is a family tradition that is going strong for many years now.

Havelock Road Gurdwara

I had friends visiting for tea the other day and wanted to make something quick, easy and spicy.

Chilli Cheese Toast is often served as a savoury snack in India. It is essentially, a spicy version of cheese on toast, kicked up with chillies, onions, fresh coriander and spice. I love cheese and this is one of my favourite things to make and eat. 🙂

The wonderful flavours of Indian style chilli cheese toast were a huge hit with my friends. Here’s the recipe for some easy entertaining the next time you have friends coming over.

The recipe makes around 18 chilli cheese toast canapes.

Chilli Cheese Toast 

BIG milestones to celebrate this week! Hungry Aphrodite turns 1 on Friday and this is my 100th post. Time flies. I never imagined the blog would go this far when I started writing a year ago. I am grateful for the opportunities and experiences that have come my way and can’t wait to see what’s in store for the future.

A special milestone like this one deserves a delicious post. As you know, I was recently invited to enter a culinary challenge hosted by Maille, the famous French gourmet brand. I shared my recipe for a delicious summery salad a couple of weeks ago (see Maille Halloumi Salad). I am excited to share my 2nd and final entry for the Maille challenge with you all today.

I was recently invited by Maille, the famous French gourmet brand to enter the Maille Culinary Challenge and develop recipes using a couple of their products.

I love Maille mustard and was delighted with the opportunity to experiment with flavours. I chose Citron et Harissa (White Wine, Lemon & Harissa Spicy Mustard)and Noix de Coco et Epices Colombo (White Wine, Coconut and Colombo Spices) as my spicy mustard weapons.

Today’s recipe uses the Maille Citron et Harissa mustard. Harissa is a spicy red pepper paste commonly used in North African cooking. My colourful salad is a tasty marriage of flavours and textures with the marinated cheese, tangy pomegranate, walnuts and of course, the Maille Harissa mustard dressing.

Cold salads on wintry January days aren’t easy.  Especially, when it is gloomy outside and all you want is a hot plate of comfort.

I wanted something fresh, spicy and Thai yesterday. And, I needed it to be raw. A gorgeous Thai green papaya salad came to mind but I wasn’t going to find a Thai green papaya anywhere in my neighbourhood. Luckily, there was an unripe green mango at home with my name all over it. 😉

It took no effort to put together this cheerful Thai style Mango Salad. It is packed full of flavour, healthy and so easy. Try it sometime – it makes being good, taste fabulous!

Brrrr. It is freezing cold out there and on wintry days like these, all I want is hot, comfort food. In my case, comfort is always a steaming bowl of spicy curry. Thai, Malaysian, Indian, any kind will do – but, the only way is curry!

Today, I am sharing the recipe for a delicious Kerala style Pepper Chicken I made earlier in the week. As you can guess, the dish uses loads of black peppercorns and fresh curry leaves along with other aromatic spices traditionally used in food from this particular region of India.