Anna Mckay shares a recipe perfect for celebrating Chinese New Year
Ding Huang demonstrates the art of paper cutting
A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
Laura Reynolds looks at the habits of exam-weary students
The state of some student accommodation coupled with a lack of equipment, time and money make it all too easy for one to fall into a ‘cookery rut’. By ‘cookery rut’ I mean the dull routine of cooking the same few meals every week of term. You’ll know you’re in a rut when your idea of making a trusted recipe more exciting is to add a sprinkling of dried parsley to it (as a friend did to his daily pasta Bolognese last year). The bountiful cookery shows can be a great way of finding new recipes and getting yourself out of your rut. However, speedy Jamie and voluptuous Nigella don’t always take into account that not everyone has a food processor or can get their hands on a ‘poussin’ for dinner.
Luckily for us foodies though, York has great shops and delis to help liven up any meal and Rafi’s Spice Box on Goodramgate is one of them. Behind the bright purple entrance lies an aromatic delight of Indian spices. Rafi’s sells anything from chutneys and Bombay mix to kaffir lime leaves and large portions of various spices. The star product, though, are the shop’s ‘curry packs’. These are freshly put together spice mixes for any curry you could want. The friendly staff make up the curry packs as you order, so you can choose how spicy or garlicky you want your curry to be. The spice mixes come with instructions on how to cook with them and it really couldn’t be easier: simply add liquid to the mix followed by your choice of meat or veg and leave it to simmer. The curry packs make a portion big enough for six people but leftovers could be frozen or kept in the fridge for a couple of days.
Waiting for your curry pack to be made up you’ll be hard pressed not to give in to some of the other treats Rafi’s sells. The mango chutneys are excellent quality and taste wonderful with the shop’s papadums you cook yourself in some oil (very quickly but very carefully too!). More specialist items also line the shelves, such as andardana powder (a powder made from ground pomegranate seeds). Whether you’re looking to make a specialist Sri Lankan delicacy or simply fancy a non-greasy korma, I would definitely recommend a visit to Rafi’s Spice Box. You’ll find yourself going back again and again.
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