an aussie in austria

My husband loves cooking, and he loves India… what a great combination! When I first moved to Austria we started a tradition of Indian curry afternoons. Sometimes it’s just the two of us, filling the apartment with sweet and spicy aromas and eating on the balcony, and sometimes it involves the whole family, all bustling around my in-laws kitchen, drinking wine and tasting multiple dishes in an afternoon that ends with us fully stuffed and goes long into the evening.

During the latter occasions, my husband acts as the foreman – he’s the head cook and oversees that everyone else is doing their jobs correctly. My father-in-law and brother-in-law make the roti, and my mother-in-law is the apprentice chef, following orders and dutifully cutting and chopping. Oh, and me? Oh, I just drink wine and enjoy the tangy smells in the air!

Our favourite Asian shop is a 45 minute drive away so when we go there we stock up on everything that our local supermarket doesn’t have (so basically everything but coconut milk and soy sauce). Along with selling an awesome selection of Asian goods, this shop also, we recently discovered, sells other wonderful things like sweetened condensed milk and proper brown sugar. Our curry afternoons have strayed a little from traditional Indian now: Butter Chicken is always on the menu, and then we mix it up with other dishes – Beef Massaman – Aloo Palak – Dahl – whatever the season or tastebuds demand!

And after we’ve eaten our fill, we usually top up the wine and finish the night with multiple games of Uno, pfoodle, which I’ll explain in a later blog.

What a perfect way to spend a cold, wintery Austrian day!