CURRY AWARDS 2012 DETAILS

Written by Umberto Bacchi, on Saturday 26th of November 2011

Amateur and professional chefs have been invited to get hot under the collar cooking up a new recipe for curry.

The Raj restaurant in Surbiton is calling on anyone who is "over 18 years old who can cook a decent curry" to enter their contest to invent a brand new curry recipe.

The curry contest was started on Thursday and is the brainchild of The Raj restaurant's chef, Mr Anis.

Raj restaurant manager, Mr Kaz said: "He said we needed something new and different on the menu, as we were serving always the same traditional Indian dishes."

But Mr Kaz said: "It is not a cooking ability competition with other restaurants, it is about founding a new dish which will make us different in comparison to them, like an Apple laptop is different from any other."

The first round of the contest was held at the Raj on Ewell Road on Thursday, with two more cook-offs planned for December 8, and December 22. Semi-finals and a final will then be held in the New Year.

Around 20 chefs are taking part in the curry challenge.

The best three will be awarded with a £1000, £500 and £250 prize, and with an employment opportunity in The Raj chef’s team.

Their recipes are to be judged by the organisers and by a jury of journalists from the Surrey Comet and the Kingston Guardian.

Thursday was the turn of Mr MD Abdul Koddus and of Mr Mahbub Ahmed to present their curry preparations.

Both confident in their abilities and possibilities to reach the finals, they prepared respectively, a delicate king prawn based curry, named Boro Icha Jaljala, and a tasty and saucy chicken breast dish called Shobash Dum, which both gained the public’s approval.