Chez Azra

My daughters, Emily and Maria and I were invited to Ladies Lunch at Azra's house yesterday.  Azra is a beautiful Pakistani lady who is an excellent cook and is also a close friend of my mother-in-law Mary.  I think there were around 12 ladies at the lunch including Mary, us, my sister-in-law and her daughter Rebecca, Mary's friends and some Azra's neighbours. It was a lovely, enjoyable afternoon, eating lovely home-made meal whilst catching up with everyone or getting to know each other.

Azra invites friends over to her house once or a twice a year and this is one event which everyone is looking forward to every year. She prepared lots of food from the previous night with her daughter Tashin. There were so much food... vegetable pakora, fish pakora, savoury potato balls, home made popadoms, roasted vegetables, rice, etc.  We were wondering what kind of butter Azra used to fry potato balls as they are not usual bread crumbs. My mother-in-law Mary explained how Azra made the savoury potato. Mush potato and season this using some spices, possibly touch of curry powder or turmeric. Make them into balls. Soak slices of white bread in water, squeeze any water out and wrap potato balls with this and deep fry!

Everything was freshly made and really tasty and you just want to try everything.

Vegetable pakora (back) and fish pakora (front)

Savoury potato balls

Home made popadoms

Beautifully roasted vegetables

My plate - I wish I can have this again now!

Mary's friend Mrs Mary Brown brought her sponge cream cake for dessert. She is an accomplished baker. She has made many beautiful cakes for her family and her friends including Mary's special birthday or our wedding.

Mary Brown's sponge cake.

Sponge was fluffy and light and so as cream as it was low fat.
It was really delicious!

Azra's friend popped in to bring a traditional Indian dessert called Ras Malai, which is made of fresh milk, condensed milk, dried milk and egg.  According to Wikipedia, this sweet dessert is originating in Eastern India and means juice/juicy cream. I think the dish might have been flavoured with slight hint of cardamon. This is a very very sweet dish and to be honest it is a bit acquired taste with interesting texture but I imagine this, given using milk, could be an excellent finish to spicy or strong flavoured meal as some of Indian dish can be really spicy. 

Freshly made Ras malai by Azra's friend.

Azra also suggested we try Masala Moong Dal - spicy snack made of fried split green gram.
See the packet below.

We finished our meal with teas and coffees. There were still so much food left over. My mother in law whispers to Azra and asked for a doggy bag for my husband on my behalf. She went into her kitchen and came back with a huge plateful of vegetable and fish pakora, rice, potato balls and popadoms for me to take home for him. To this, I could not contain my glee, clapped my hands with excitement whilst everyone laughed.

Well, we all really enjoyed the lunch and it was also definitely a blog-worhty lunch!  Can't wait for another Ladies Lunch event at Chez Azra and would like to thank Azra and Tashin for wonderful meal.

That's all forks.