A taste of Europe in Auckland

Summer has arrived in Europe, and for the first time since 2004 I'm not there. Not that June in Auckland is proving all that bad - the temperature gauge has crept up to 17 degrees celsius today and Sunday's forecast cold snap came to nothing. But I've still got itchy feet thinking of those fortunate souls sitting on olive-tree-shaded terraces in the south of France, devouring fat spears of creamy-white asparagus and contemplating the sparkling Med. I'm even envying Londoners, for whom a rare sunny June weekend brings the chance to head to one of the city's excellent parks armed with a picnic blanket, punnets of oversized, juicy strawberries and a chilled bottle of riesling.

Over the past couple of months I've been thrilled to discover that even though we're down under, we don't have to go without the gourmet treats Europe has to offer. My exploration of Auckland's markets and foodie shops has revealed many of my old favourites available in abundance here, thanks to the efforts of a growing number of importers. In London I bade an emotional farewell to plump, meaty Manzanilla olives, fearing we wouldn't meet again until my next visit to Europe - only to find them on the shelf at Sabato in Mt Eden. Sabato also stocks Leone, those gorgeous bronze-die-cast sweets found on bar counters throughout Italy, along with Italian licorice in pretty vintage tins.

At Nosh I've found reasonably-priced 00 flour for my pasta-making adventures, various cured meats such as serrano ham from Spain and prosciutto from Italy sliced to order, and marinated anchovy fillets. I'm going to thread these onto toothpicks with the aforementioned Manzanilla olives and some pickled chillies (also spotted at Sabato) to make the small-sized but big-flavoured tapa I enjoyed in San Sebastian in northern Spain. Over there it was excellent washed down with a glass of txacoli, the local fresh, young and slightly fizzy white wine. I'll have to think up a suitable wine match for it here.

Then there's the excellent French-themed farmers' market in Parnell, La Cigale. Their boxes of frozen Paneton croissants, which you prove and bake yourself at home, turn out just like the real thing - as if you'd just popped down to your local boulangerie in France. You can even buy the excellent French Bonne Maman jam at La Cigale to go with them.

The market feels a bit like a village market in France, with its gazebo-shaded tables laden with produce. You can get a freshly-grilled croque monsieur - the ultimate hangover cure - or a crepe to munch on while you peruse the wine shelves, which display an interesting variety of European wines.

Finally, macaroon success

This blog is supposed to be about eating away from home, but today I'm writing about macaroons, which I have been attempting to make at home. They're French, so I figure they have a place here. 


I've had a thing for proper macaroons since I first tried them at Laduree in the Printemps mall on a work trip to Paris a few years back. I don't have a sweet tooth but I do love contrasting textures in food. So these decadent treats, with their thin crunchy shells yielding to chewy insides and creamy fillings, occupy a high rank in my gastronomic top-10. Having eschewed the cupcake craze, this is one foodie bandwagon I've gleefully jumped aboard.


They're tricky little bastards though. Several attempts over the past few weeks have ended in disaster - cracked tops and spreading in the oven being the main issues (although the resulting "meringue biscuits" were yummy).


So you can imagine my delight yesterday evening when, after I'd all but given up on the damn things, Henry had a go and produced an almost-perfect batch on his second attempt. Ok, a few were cracked, but there were enough smooth-topped, crinkly-footed, perfectly round little marvels for me to assemble a baker's dozen of finished macaroons, held together with chocolate ganache. 

But I've now been upstaged in my own kitchen. This obviously won't do, so I'm more determined than ever to master the macaroon. Henry reckons my principal mistakes have been a) not beating the egg whites enough; b) not folding the mixture together thoroughly enough; and c) having the oven too hot. More thorough beating of the egg whites will solve the spreading problem. The folding is tricky - you don't want to over-fold and lose all the air in the mixture, but under-folding means the biscuits won't form a strong, smooth top. The mixture needs to be thick, but fairly runny and glossy too. And next time I'll try baking them on the conventional bake setting rather than fan-bake, which I'm hoping might eliminate cracked tops altogether.

Waiheke Island wine

I'm back in New Zealand, where mussels are the size of plum tomatoes and eight bucks worth does lunch for four. Where fish is just-caught, flavoursome and plentiful. And where wine, grown under the dazzling sun through languorous, never-ending summer months, jumps out of the glass, bursting with freshness and flavour.


Picking season is well underway down under and winemakers on Waiheke Island, a 40-minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland, are upbeat about the quality of this year's harvest - despite a fairly tough La Nina-influenced growing season.


Aromatic white and Bordeaux red varietals are widely planted on the island. Merlot and friends are not homesick as they inhale Waiheke's cooling sea breezes, sun themselves on its gently-rolling hillsides and dig their toes into the free-draining clay soil.

We visited a couple of the island's 30-odd wineries during a sunny early April weekend. Topknot Hill Wines produces a concise range from grapes grown on the east side of the island. Their tasting room shares premises with the Waiheke Island Brewery at the relaxed Wild on Waiheke complex, where you can have a casual lunch, play petanque, shoot a few clay birds or try your hand at archery between the rows of vines. The latter two pursuits are probably best attempted before a stint in the tasting room.


I liked their 2008 sauvignon blanc. It's always a nice change to drink sauv grown somewhere other than Marlborough. The regional differences are obvious. This racy number was like a summer fruit salad of grapefruit, apples and passionfruit with lime juice squeezed over.


Way over the other side of the island, the remote Man o' War winery must have one of the most relaxed little tasting rooms in the world. A converted caravan sits on a grassy clearing, surrounded by trees and with views out to the tidal flats and sea. You can do your tasting at a picnic table while enjoying the sunshine and view. There's even free sunscreen.

There were several really interesting wines on show here, including the 2010 Gravestone sauvignon blanc semillon. The 30% semillon component has been oaked, resulting in light smoke on the nose amid melon and apple aromas. 


Their 2008 Ironclad red is a blend of 52% merlot and 27% cabernet franc with malbec, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot making up the rest. A quarter of it has been aged in new oak, predominantly French, with the rest in old barrels. Very firm tannins suggest it needs at least five years' more in the bottle, but there are beautiful ripe red berry and spice flavours coming through now. Decanter magazine's Steven Spurrier proclaimed it the best new world red in 2010 - an impressive achievement given the stiff competition it's up against.


If I had to pick a favourite I'd go for the 2010 Exiled pinot gris, grown on neighbouring Ponui Island. The grapes are a special clone with looser bunches, allowing later harvest. The result is a luscious, silky, medium-sweet wine with honeysuckle and tropical fruit flavours. Simply delicious.

Ahmedabad

Bustling and chaotic, Gujarat state's capital Ahmedabad is at first glance just like any other Indian city. But give it a bit of time and you'll notice a difference. There's no hassle. No touts, no persistent rickshaw drivers, no beggars, no shopkeepers calling out as you pass. The only attention you'll receive is in the form of cheerful greetings from curious locals. This could possibly be India's friendliest city.


There are a few sights to occupy you if you have a day to spare here, as we did after watching New Zealand thrash Zimbabwe in the world cup cricket. The spooky Dada Hari step well, built in the 16th century as a communal water source, comprises a staircase leading down to a small octagonal well a few storeys below ground. Carved stone columns hold up a semi-roof, allowing dusty strips of sunlight into the lower depths. The stone walls are intricately carved with floral designs and Arabic script (the well was built during Mughal rule). There are many such constructions in Gujarat and Rajasthan, their elaborate carving reflecting the importance of water in these drought-prone northwestern states.

The modern city also conceals a number of historic houses, tombs and mosques, including the beautiful, open-air Sidi Sayad mosque. Open on three sides to keep worshippers cool, the 16th century cloistered stone structure features intricate, lace-like carved screens - some depicting organic tree and leaf designs, others geometric patterns. 

Museum buffs will also be at home here, with an eclectic selection including a kite museum, utensil museum and the Calico Museum of Textiles, with its world-leading collection of Indian silks.


But that's enough sightseeing - it's time to eat. With 90% of the population vegetarian, Gujarati cuisine is balanced and varied enough to satisfy even the most dedicated carnivore. Protein-rich lentil dishes sit alongside a mind-boggling array of snacks, side dishes and main courses. It's well worth giving yourself extra time in Ahmedabad just for the food. 


Two of the city's best eateries can be found at the House of MG, a wonderful boutique hotel housed in a historic merchant's house near the river. At the casual Green House restaurant downstairs, the extensive snack-focused menu offers treats such as makai ghugra (deep-fried crispy dumplings filled with onion, cabbage, almonds and coriander); and bataka vada (balls of light gram flour batter enclosing spicy mixed vegetables flavoured with herbs and chilli). They're all served with lashings of hot and sweet dark red chilli sauce, fiery green chilli sauce and a dried red chilli to crumble over.

Come back for dinner to try unique Gujarati curries based around small gram flour dumplings, vegetables or paneer cheese.


The hotel's rooftop restaurant, Agashiye, dishes up legendary thalis (traditional round alloy plates holding a variety of mini-dishes) on a grand and delicious scale. The daily-changing offering comprises several vegetable preparations - we had okra curry, spiced potatoes and a complex and delicate dhal - with four different accompanying curry sauces; two of them milky and slightly sweet, a unique feature of Gujarat's food. There were so many different chutneys - some hot, others sweet - that they required a separate plate on the side. Two types of roti bread, two types of poppadom and sweet, sticky Gujarati rice thrown in will have you loosening the belt buckle a notch or two.

The only downfall - Gujarat is under total prohibition, so there'll be no cold Kingfisher to wash your curry down with. Don't let that put you off visiting though - foreigners can easily obtain liquor permits from the major hotels.

Kashmir

Squeezed between the Himalayas on one side and the Pir Panjal range on the other, dotted with terraced rice paddies, fruit orchards and rows of poplars, the Kashmir Valley is a picture of tranquility. Or at least it should be. Ever since Indian independence, the valley has been periodically marred by violence. The drive for independence, and three wars with Pakistan, have divided the population and nearly ruined the tourism industry. While visitors are now creeping back following the latest spate of violence in summer 2008, the situation is still tense, discouraging many.

The result of this is poignantly obvious in Srinagar, the region's summer capital. On Dal Lake, row upon row of colonial-style house boats - over a thousand of them - float forlornly at their moorings, bereft of visitors. House boats have been a feature of the lake ever since the Raj era, when the British were forbidden to own land. While most of the boats on the lake today are less than 40 years old, you wouldn't know it. Stepping aboard is like entering a time warp: poky rooms bedecked with chandeliers, carved walnut panels, chintzy curtains and frilly lamp shades. 

The struggling house boat owners, for whom tourism is their lifeblood, long for an end to conflict in the region. The visitors' book on Morning Glory, the floating palace of kitsch on which we spent a night, revealed only three or four groups had stayed in 2010. No wonder many boats have been abandoned, listing into the water lilies, their wooden hulls rotting as their owners seek an income elsewhere.

Waking before dawn and boarding a shikara (a gondola-like boat) to visit the floating vegetable market on the lake is a magical experience. As you drift through the canal-like passageways in the pre-dawn greyness, the eerie, wailing call to prayer from half a dozen different mosques echoes across the water and off the black shadows of waterside houses. By the time dawn breaks, the floating market is in full swing. Dozens of growers and buyers perch on shikara filled with vegetables, eyeing up each others' produce. Dressed in pheran (long woollen capes) and huddling over kangri (wicker baskets holding pottery bowls filled with hot coals) to keep warm, they weigh vegetables on rudimentary scales and transfer purchases from boat to boat.

Winter tourism is making a positive impact on the region's economy. The world-class backcountry skiing at Gulmarg, on the flanks of Mt Apharwat in the Pir Panjals west of Srinagar, has attracted crowds every winter since the gondola opened six years ago. Skiing here is a truly unique experience. Many of the creaky, old-fashioned hotels are heated with wood-fired stoves. Domestic tourists learn to ski using 1980s equipment on the snow-covered golf course. Sledge-wallahs tout for business and will drag your skis up the hill to your hotel for a few rupees. Soldiers from the nearby High Altitude Warfare School thunder through the village in giant trucks. Groups of pheran-clad locals, clutching kangri underneath for warmth, gawp at the skiers and boarders arriving at the bottom of the gondola.

Reflecting the region's geographical isolation, Kashmiri cuisine is deliciously unique. Elaborate spice combinations are used and sometimes meat is cooked in yoghurt or milk - resulting in pale-coloured but flavour-packed sauces. Popular dishes include goshtaba and rista (meatballs in spicy sauce); Kashmiri biryani (almost Chinese in its flavour combinations) and kanti; deep-fried diced chicken served in an oniony, sweet and spicy sauce. But let's not forget the Kashmiri dish that has travelled far beyond this small valley to become a favourite at your local curry house: the world-famous, fiery-rich, lamb rogan josh. 

Train food

There are trains going from almost everywhere to almost everywhere in India. It's one of the most extensive rail networks on the planet, with some mind-boggling stats: around 20 million people travel by train every day, and Indian Railways is the world's largest utility employer with 1.5 million staff. Alongside cricket, the rail network is rightfully one of the proudest legacies of the British Raj. Everyone uses the trains and rail travel transcends class borders. As a traveller in India, I simply can't imagine how the country would function without the railways.

Keeping long rail journeys entertaining is the endless variety of food and drink which is peddled up and down carriages and on platforms. Unlike the limited offering of crisps, chocolate and bland, day-old sandwiches on British cross-country trains, on an Indian rail journey you'll be presented with a riot of different snacks - something new at every stop. Roving vendors jump aboard at every station, calling out their tasty offerings as they hurry up and down the carriages.

An early-morning journey we took from Bangalore to Mysore started with a chai wallah doing the rounds with a big flask of sweet, milky tea. Hot on his heels came vendors offering breakfast treats. We tried battered, deep-fried bananas and savoury biscuits made from subtly-spiced potato, onion and cauliflower - everything always freshly-cooked and still warm.

The return trip in the evening brought fresh peanuts in their shells, packed into slim newspaper cones, passed through the bars on the train windows. We also had savoury, spiced doughnuts, crunchy on the outside and soft inside, served on a cardboard plate with cooling coconut chutney.

On another journey, a rural stop somewhere between Goa and Mumbai featured tasty vada pao: golf-ball-sized, deep-fried spicy potato patties, served in a square of the Mumbai Mirror with little soft white bread rolls, green chillies and chutney; all the ingredients you need to make a delicious vege burger.

As we approached Mumbai on that same train, we tasted bhelpuri as good as you get anywhere in the city.

Indian wine

India's fledgling wine industry is turning out some surprisingly drinkable drops. A clutch of wineries (commendable names include Chateau Indage, Sula Vineyards and Grover Wines) have established positive reputations and are easily found on restaurant menus and in wine shops all over the country.

There is no reason why India should not be able to produce good wine. Several parts of the country have suitable climate and soil conditions. One of the most promising so far is Nasik in Maharashtra, north of Mumbai. The area benefits from a cool, maritime-influenced climate, a hilly landscape and well-drained soils. Over the past decade, these factors have allowed producers to turn out respectable wine from international varietals including chardonnay, chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and zinfandel.

What's more, with wine drinking quickly gaining popularity among India's burgeoning middle class, there is a huge opportunity for ambitious local producers to focus on quality and grab market share from importers.

Tasting note: Sula Chenin Blanc 2008

Pale lemon in colour with a crisp citrus aroma. Light-bodied and off-dry with good acid balance. More zingy citrus on the palate - lemons and grapefruit - rounded out by ripe tropical pineapple and melon notes. Medium to long length. More than quaffable.

Industry pioneer Sula Vineyards is located 15km west of Nasik and offers winery tours and tasting. www.sulawines.com.

Mumbai

Mumbai is a city of jarring contrasts. Grand British-built edifices - monuments to the glory days of a vanished empire - loom over streets teeming with ordinary Indian daily life: vendors, beggars, sweepers and shoppers. Oxen pull cartloads of goods as smartly-dressed middle class Mumbaikers whiz past in their BMWs. Rickshaws, bicycles, scooters and 1950s Ambassador taxis honk and fight for space on the clogged streets.

Underneath a billboard advertising luxury bathroom fit-outs, a family crouches on the dusty footpath, their belongings tied in bundles beside them. The mother is cutting up vegetables to cook for dinner, right there on the pavement. They make the residents of nearby Dharavi slum, one of Asia's largest, look wealthy. Meanwhile, Bollywood stars sip cocktails at swanky bars in the city's upmarket suburbs.

There are places to escape to if it all gets too much. The green, palm-fringed Oval Maidan, where so many social cricket matches are underway on any given afternoon that their outfields overlap, is one of them. And the vast Taj Palace Hotel, in pride of place on the waterfront next to the massive stone Gateway of India arch, offers ridiculously-priced cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches to weary sightseers.

We found refuge in the tiny Kotachiwadi neighbourhood, near Chowpatty Beach. One of the several wadis, or hamlets, in Mumbai that somehow escaped the bulldozers as high-rise office blocks grew around them, Kotachiwadi is a Christian enclave of quaint wooden houses and winding lanes - a village within a city. Its streets are too narrow for taxis, cars and rickshaws, so the area is blissfully free of honking horns. Wandering the lanes reveals a quiet life, with many residents operating small businesses such as tailor shops out of their homes.

Every evening, people swarm on to Mumbai's beaches to see the sun dip below the Arabian Sea horizon. Dozens of food stalls offer up street food snacks to the crowds. Competition is fierce - the stall holders will do anything to get you to eat at their stall, from shoving their menu in your face as you walk past, to offering free samples. Whichever one you choose, you'll be able to taste Mumbai favourites such as bhelpuri, a tasty and crunchy mix of puffed rice, chopped onions and tomatoes, thin spicy besan sticks, coriander leaves, lemon zest and chutney. We also got stuck in to pav bhaji, a spicy vegetable curry served with little bread rolls fried in ghee; and pani puri, small hollow balls of crisp fried pastry filled with spicy tamarind water and potato.

Cruising the backwaters, Kerala

Around 900km of interconnected lakes and canals make up Kerala's extraordinary, watery "backwaters". It's like an enormous, rural Venice, with houses lining the edges of the waterways and residents carrying out their daily errands by canoe. The only solid bits of ground are the canal banks, which are just wide enough for one house and the narrow tow path which links the houses. As far as you can see is nothing but water, rice paddies, coconut palms and banana trees.

The best way to observe all this is from the deck of a traditionally-styled house boat, which can be chartered for scenic and relaxing one or two-night excursions. In between eating the delicious meals cooked by your onboard chef, you can while away the hours in a wicker chair or day bed, watching the endlessly fascinating backwater life go by as you cruise the labyrinth of canals.

Our excellent onboard cooks treated us to huge spreads of authentic Keralan food: crispy-fried, delicate and moist whole fish; tasty vegetable curries; steamed vegetables flavoured with coconut, mustard seeds, turmeric and curry leaves; and a rich, dark chicken curry.

The residents of the backwaters bathe, brush their teeth, wash their clothes and do their dishes in the murky water of the canals. They cross the water by canoe or bridge several times a day to get to school, church or the shops. But I got the feeling the backwaters both sustain and threaten people's livelihoods in this low-lying community. We saw a few houses flooded with a foot or more of water, with many other residents reinforcing the banks outside their homes with sandbags against the rising water level.

Recipes for a Keralan feast

Many guest houses in Fort Cochin offer cooking classes, which offer a fun way to gain a deeper understanding of Keralan food. Predictably, coconuts are a very common ingredient in the cuisine of this part of India. Garlic and shallots are also almost always used, along with turmeric. Most vegetable dishes include cumin.

Here are the recipes we made at our cooking class. NB:

• Cup measures in the recipes are tea cups.
• Coconut oil adds an authentic flavour dimension, but sunflower oil is fine.
• Where curry leaves are called for, don't substitute anything if they are unavailable - just leave them out.

Keralan fish curry - serves 4

This special dish is traditionally reserved for weddings or festivals. Make the curry 1.5 days before it is to be served, to allow the flavours to properly infuse.

500g firm fish fillets, cubed; or prawns

1/2 finger sized piece of ginger

6-7 cloves garlic

1-2 shallots

10-14 curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

4-5 tsp tamarind paste, soaked for 10 min in a cup of water

FOR THE MASALA:

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp ground fenugreek (not more or it will be bitter)

4-5 tsp chilli powder (preferably Kashmiri)

1/2 glass water

Combine ingredients and set aside.

Finely slice the garlic, ginger and shallots. In a pan over a medium heat, add 4 tbsp coconut or sunflower oil. Add the mustard seeds and when they pop, add the garlic, ginger, shallots and curry leaves. Sauté.

Add the masala to the softened vegetables, and stir in the pan until it darkens and separates - this is called "roasting the masala". Add more oil if it dries out too much. Add the tamarind paste and 1 further cup of water (1/2 cup if using prawns). Add a big pinch of salt and stir.

Add the fish, cover and cook until the fish is just done.

Green Banana Thoral - serves 4

This tasty recipe suits almost any vegetable - cabbage, carrot, potato, parsnip, pumpkin, spinach etc.

300g green bananas or other veg, diced

1 onion, finely chopped

A couple of cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 green chilli, finely chopped

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 cup fresh grated coconut or 3/4 cup desiccated coconut, soaked for 10-15 minutes in warm water

Remove the banana skin with a vegetable peeler before dicing the flesh. Keep in a bowl of water to prevent browning.

Combine all ingredients in a pan over medium heat and add half a glass of water (don't add water if using soft veges, eg spinach or mushrooms). Stir and add salt to taste. When cooked, fold in some mustard seeds and curry leaves that have been sautéed in coconut oil until the seeds pop, as a garnish.

Dhal - serves 4

1 cup orange split lentils, rinsed

2 1/2 cups water

1 tsp sunflower oil

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tomato, diced

1 onion, finely chopped

Combine all ingredients in a pan and cook over medium heat for 15-20 min.

FOR THE MASALA:

1 tsp mustard seeds

1-2 shallots, finely chopped

6-10 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6-7 curry leaves

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chilli powder (or more if you like a spicy dhal)

Pop the mustard seeds in the oil over a medium to high heat. Add the shallots, garlic and curry leaves. Sauté to soften.  Turn up the heat and add the spices. Add this masala to the cooked lentils, and add salt to taste. Boil for five minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Pea Masala - serves 4

You can use either chickpeas or green peas. Soak chickpeas overnight.

200g peas

1 shallot, finely chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tomato, diced

1 cup coconut milk

FOR THE MASALA:

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin 

1/2 tsp chilli powder

1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper

1 tsp garam masala

Add a little water and mix to combine.

Sauté the shallots and garlic in 3 tbsp oil. Add the masala and "roast" for three or four minutes until dark and separated. Add the tomato and peas, with a little water if using fresh or frozen green peas. Add coconut milk and cook for 5 minutes. Add salt to taste.

When cooked, fold in some mustard seeds and curry leaves that have been sautéed in coconut oil until the seeds pop, as a garnish.

Chapati - serves 4

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup lukewarm water

1/4 tsp salt (added to the water)

Mix into a dough and knead for 2-3 minutes. Add 2 tsp sunflower oil and knead lightly. Leave at room temperature for half an hour.

Form golf ball sized balls of dough and roll in flour. Roll out the balls until 1-2 mm thick. Get a dry frying pan hot and add the chapati one by one. Warm both sides first, then brush with oil and brown on both sides. Eat straight away while still hot.

Fort Cochin

Sleepy Fort Cochin is only a short ferry ride from mainland India but it might as well be on another planet. In Ernakulam, the mainland part of the city of Cochin, the streets are crowded with the usual crush of rickshaws, scooters, stray dogs, stray cows and people. Fort Cochin is a dramatic contrast. A Portuguese colonial outpost from the beginning of the 16th century, the town has escaped modern development; leaving crumbling mansions looming over streets shaded by lush, mature trees. Several of the mansions have been sensitively restored to their former glory and now serve as gorgeous boutique hotels: think airy verandas, billowing muslin, wicker chairs and teak. It's a place to escape to for a few days to unwind and refresh. We might have even forgotten that we were in India, were it not for the suffocating January heat and humidity.

An impressive sight on the northern tip of the island are a row of enormous Chinese fishing nets. These massive, cantilevered wooden structures are still in daily use and you can watch groups of up to six fishermen lowering each one into the water and raising them up again, ideally containing fish. Beside the nets every evening, several stalls appear selling fish so fresh some of them were still gasping. We bought a dozen big tiger prawns and persuaded the proprietor of a nearby restaurant to coat them in tandoori marinade, impale them on long skewers and plunge them into the smoky, searing depths of the tandoor oven.

Hampi

Hampi, site of the once great but now ruined city of Vijayanagar, is a hot and dusty place in central south India. It's a firm favourite on the backpackers' circuit but still offers a taste of the 'real' India. There are people scrubbing clothes and bathing down at the river ghats. Cows, dogs, roosters and monkeys share the dirt streets with women in bright saris carrying basket loads of everything on their heads.

Over the river from the sacred centre of Hampi Bazaar you can stay in huts arranged around gardens, with restaurants overlooking the rice paddies. Ours had a chill-out area of low tables and cushions where we passed a couple of lazy afternoons resting our sightseeing-weary feet. Every now and then a cow would wander across the rice paddy. Each cow had a white bird hopping along beside it (don't ask me what kind of bird). The bird would jump up and peck the flies or insects that landed on the cow. Seems a mutually-beneficial partnership.

Hampi has a whole lot of uninspiring restaurants and one excellent one: Mango Tree, which you reach via a path through a banana plantation. The atmosphere is lovely, with terraced seating so everyone gets a view of the river. It's a vegetarian restaurant but the choice of dishes on the lengthy menu is overwhelming. My mixed vegetable "mango tree special curry" was sweet and smoky.

We tried our first Indian street food in Hampi: idli (spongy and rather plain fermented rice cakes) dipped in spicy sambar and coconut chutney and served with deep-fried battered green chillies.

South Goa, India

At 7am on Christmas Day, Palolem Beach in south Goa was cool and silent; populated only by fishermen hauling their brightly-painted wooden fishing boats up the sand, stray dogs and cows. Slowly the sun broke through the high swaying leaves of the coconut palms and cast golden light over the sand. Then the beach gradually came alive. Dreadlocked backpackers emerged from their coconut leaf thatch huts to unroll yoga mats, beach bar owners set up umbrellas and sun loungers, and we found breakfast.

After having our flight delayed by four days due to snow in London, we had travelled through the night to get to the beach by Christmas Day and we were exhausted. So a glass of mixed fresh fruit juice and a banana pancake - typical backpacker fodder on beaches all over the tropics - set us up well for a soporific morning on sun loungers under the shade of the coconut palms.

Our week-long stay split between three beautiful south Goan beaches (Palolem, Agonda and Polem) gave us time to fully appreciate the delicious seafood-based cuisine. Displaying Portuguese influences following four centuries of colonial rule, it's complex and often fiery (the world-famous vindaloo is a Goan dish).

Polem beach is a pretty, palm-fringed crescent of sand in the far south of the state. It's undeveloped as yet, so should you choose to stay the night in one of the three palm-thatch huts on offer, your only company will be the handful of staff who run the beach restaurant, their canine and bovine friends, and Chris from Manchester who can't drag himself away and has been there since October.

The beach restaurant doesn't look like much from the outside but the food is amazing. There is no menu and the food on offer reflects the day's catch. Sitting at a plastic table under the shade of a tarpaulin we feasted on crunchy deep-fried cauliflower florets and hot green chillies coated in a sweet, sticky sauce, and the fish curry was light and spicy. Earlier, while on my morning run on the beach, I saw a woman peeling prawns that had just come off the fishing boats. Sure enough, they were on offer at lunchtime and arrived at our table in two ways: fried in crunchy, light batter and served with a sweet, rich and spicy masala sauce; and in a coconutty curry sauce spiked with coriander.

Seafood barbecues on the beach are another of Goa's culinary treats. Our best one was at Agonda beach, where we sat at tables on the sand and tucked into a feast of calamari, snapper and gigantic prawns coated in spicy tandoori marinade and grilled to perfection over charcoal.

At the far north end of Palolem beach, away from the music and crowds, there is a little restaurant called Ordo Sensei. You have to cross a foot bridge over a stream to get there and it feels like another world as you lie back on cushions and watch the monkeys playing in the mango trees. Unlike all the other beach restaurants which proudly boast their "multicuisine" offerings of Indian food, Thai food, Continental food, Chinese food, Tibetan food, Israeli food and Goan food almost as an afterthought, this place has a simple menu of purely local dishes. My coconut milk and papaya curry was delicate and light with complex spices - simply delicious.