There’s curry, and there’s curry. Anyone who had home economics lessons at school in the 1980s will know this; a curry that I had to make in one lesson (an extraordinary 60 minutes which surely laid the groundwork for all my further education) contained apples, bananas and raisins, and its function seemed to involve bridging that yawning gap between main course and dessert by just shoving the whole bloody lot in one big saucepan. (I also remember renowned der-brain Matthew King, who was in the half of the class doing “theory” that week, drawing a really shit picture of a cooker on a bit of paper and handing it in with my name on it – possibly the cleverest / most subversive / most amusing thing he ever did.) Anyway, curry. Even in your student days, curry is just vegetables in a pot with curry powder. Then, in a desperate bid for multicultural sophistication in your mid-20s, you buy a proper Indian cookery book, and you gasp in awe at your own culinary efforts, as they almost taste as good as the real thing. But the best curries I’ve ever had – rather like albums by Magma or scripts for The Thick Of It – leave a lasting impression because I know I could never have made them myself. My first moment of wonder was eating in the Kashmir, no, not the disputed region between Indian and Pakistan, in fact a basement behind the Alhambra theatre in Bradford. A couple of years ago I wrote about it for the BBC Olive magazine, and – unbelievably – they revealed a recipe, which I share with you all now:

Chicken Masala

3 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
1 small onion – finely chopped
1.5 inch piece cinnamon
2 green cardamon pods
4 whole cloves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 inch piece fresh ginger – very finely chopped
2 cloves garlic – very finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1-2 teaspoons chilli powder
1 teaspoon concentrated tomato puree
salt
1 tomato, chopped
2 chicken breasts, skinned and cut into 1 inch pieces
handful of chopped fresh coriander leaf to garnish

Heat the oil in a very heavy pan, add the chopped onion and stir for a few minutes on a low heat. Add the cinammon, cardamom pods, cloves and fennel seeds and stir on low heat for 5 minutes. Add the ginger and garlic, stir and cook for another 5 minutes on low heat stirring now and again to make sure nothing browns or burns. Add the turmeric, coriander and chilli powder and fry gently for a minute. Add the tomato puree and chopped tomato and stir in. Pour in hot water – enough to make the mixture very fluid. Bring to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes to reduce to a sauce. Add salt to taste.

Heat a little oil in a large heavy frying pan and stir-fry the chicken pieces separately til they turn white. Add the chicken to the sauce and simmer gently for another 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked, stirring from time to time. Serve, garnished with chopped fresh coriander leaves.

Since the early 90s and dozens of meals at the Kashmir, I’ve had quite a few curries in other places, including preposterously expensive (and slightly rubbish) ones in posh West End restaurants. But my second moment of wonder didn’t occur until recently – and it’s just a stone’s throw from my flat. Mirch Masala, on Upper Tooting Road. It’s just like a cafe – formica tables, plastic chairs, strip lighting – but the food is unbelievable. And people are catching on – while the dozens of curry houses in Tooting Broadway all do a healthy trade, there are queues outside Mirch Masala throughout most evenings, both weekday and weekend. I can’t imagine what the 10 blokes sweating away in the kitchen are actually doing with the food, but they’ve turned the tasteless, white-hot parcel of the ubiquitous vegetable samosa into a thing of supreme beauty. “Christ, taste this,” I said to Jenny the first time a had one, and I’ve done it virtually every time since, or would have done if she hadn’t ordered 4 for herself already. A couple of nights ago, on the way out to meet egremont and strictlytrue, I stopped off for a Ginger Chicken and a couple of roti. The place was rammed. I was ushered into a corner opposite a Muslim man who was deep in concentration over both his Methi Gosht and a copy of Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. The waiter came over with a pen and paper, but it wasn’t to take my order; instead he asked to see the front cover of the book, and then wrote down the author and title of Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. I’m not sure that this small event portends the de-radicalizing of militant Islamist factions across the world, but we can dream, we can dream.