Mum's Kachumber

This is something my Mum always made with curries, and I love it. I imagine she learned it in Malawi, where it is called Sumu. I think it originally had chillies in it, but I’m making it as Mum made it. In later years in London we became big fans of making Lamb Jalfrezi, with a jar of Sharwoods sauce. It’s a happy memory of Mum visiting me in my tiny studio flat, just north of White Hart Lane. Mum buying me a pound of lamb to make this was a real treat and it’s a way I like to remember her. We'd pad it out with courgettes from the market, as they were cheap but we both liked them. This is her version of Kachumber, and it takes me back every time.

2 tomatoes

1 red onion

A handful chopped coriander

Malt vinegar to cover

A memory of making this with Mum. We have a lamb Jalfrezi bubbling away. Mum is stirring chopped cucumber into a small pot of Safeway yoghurt, We’ll have it with Safeway naan bread when it’s ready. There is a Vanessa Mae CD playing. She was the star violin player at the time though she has since vanished, her style a bit mannered now. It’s August. The windows are open and my thin peach coloured curtains are billowing in the wind.

Chop the tomatoes. Juice will run everywhere but try to get as much of it in the bowl as you can. Finely chop the onion and then the coriander and mix. Pour in malt vinegar to half cover and stir from time to time so it all gets covered in turn. I use malt vinegar as Mum did. Not sure if this is authentic, or whether it was all Mum could get in Malawi, or if it was just what she was used to from growing up in 1950s Yorkshire. Anyway she used it so I do.

This should have chillies, but Mum didn’t and so they now don’t seem right in this.

This does well to rest for an hour but it won’t keep overnight. It needs its fresh sharpness and it goes well with the lamb Jalfrezi. Spoon it on, leaving the vinegar behind.  The yoghurt goes on the other side of the plate as it will split if they meet. They usually find each other anyway but by that time we are spooning up the lovely gravy, infused with both the grainy yoghurt and vinegar. For some reason Sharwoods stopped making their Jalfrezi cooking sauce for a few years. We missed it. Mum had died by the time they brought it back. The square shaped jar with the black lid still takes me back.

I usually make curries from scratch now, but occasionally go back to this to remember her. She loved food. I loved and love her still. I do think the way we hand down our cooking through the generations is the best legacy we can hope for. Neither of us being elegant eaters, we would change out of white T shirts, knowing the likely consequences.