Bhaji butties - are they authentic or not?

Thousands of people will be descending upon our lovely city to participate in a gastronomical celebration of good food.

There will be hundreds of stalls with a myriad of cuisines for you to buy, try and taste - hmmm, I love food tasting, especially if its free!

I have been asked to do cooking demonstrations and I am really excited about it. I am going to be donning my Britney Spears style headset, my new red spice queen apron, red lippy and I will be good to go. It’s going to be great, as I am doing two things I love to do most - cooking and talking!

As it’s part of the demo, the guest chef has to have a bit of banter with the presenter on stage. So ahead of my demonstrations, I had to answer some questions about myself and my cuisine. I decided not to get too “cheffy” but just to answer openly and honestly with a touch of humour. Well, I like to spice it up a little - pun intended, guys.

However, even though I like to jest, I like to be authentic as to who I really am. One of the questions was about how and when I first got into cooking. My answer was “my mum spent 10 years trying to get me in the kitchen and I spent 10 years trying to get out!” You may think that’s strange given that I now cook for a living but my passion for cooking didn’t really kick in until I got married when “my passion for my husband fuelled the passion for my cooking.”

I also talked about one of my earliest memories of food. That would have to be big sister’s amazing onion bhaji sandwiches or bhaji butties as I like to call them. I know what you are thinking, bhaji butties - are they authentic?...Well, actually they are.

They are authentic to my childhood, growing up in Yorkshire in an Asian household. If you look up the word authentic the words that come up are; genuine, bona fide, valid and true.

So, yes my onion bhaji butties are a genuine recipe, they are made with bona fide bhajis and the story is valid and true.

See you all at the food festival. Pop along to say hello, watch the demo and try the bhaji butty for yourself.

I will be in the local chef tent on Saturday at 12pm and Sunday at 11.00 am.

RECIPE

Generously butter two slices of bread, add your bhajis, cover in ketchup and apply to mouth!

For more info go to www.ParveenTheSpiceQueen.com