Last night the Ascendancy Team enjoyed a fantastic team building experience with our good friends at Lajina Masala.
Lajina has been a client of ours for a few years now, and we’ve been meaning for so long to organise a curry-cooking team build. We finally got round to it, and boy was it worth it. Here’s our review of how the evening went:
Getting started
Before arriving, Lajina (ably assisted by hubby Krish!) had already set up our three cooking stations, with all the equipment we needed, a gas burner at each station and and our ingredients. She had even chopped all the veg for us in advance (If only that happened at home).
There was also a soft drinks station provided and we could bring our own beer if we wanted a drink with our meal.
After a health & safety intro (very important when web designers are wielding sharp implements) we were introduced to Golgappa. These were hollow round balls that tasted like poppadoms. You break a hole in the golgappa and put fillings inside – ours were a salad, dried noodles (like in Bombay mix) and a couple of sauces – a yoghurt based one and a tamarind one. You then pop the golgappa in your mouth whole. Delicious!
Teamwork
We then split into three teams, one at each workstation, and each team was given three or four recipes to make. Lajina’s recipes were really easy to follow and she was also on hand to advise if we got stuck. Team 1 (Jon, Emily, Jay and Alex) made beef kebabs, butter chicken, and a super spicy chilli sauce. Team 2 (Mary, H and Tom) made a chicken pasanda, raita and fruity mess for dessert. Team 3 (Helen, Alice and John) made the rice, a tomato chutney and mango lassi.
Of course, there was absolutely no competition whatsoever between or within teams, and we all worked together beautifully!
Naans
One of the real highlights was naan-making – we all had the chance to make a couple of naans each, and some of us got carried away and made three or four. Lajina had already made the dough for us, and she showed us how to fold and roll it – and then ‘chapati slap’ it! – before putting it on to cook. It was amazing to see the naans puff up on the hob.
Even though we all made our naans from the same batch of dough, it’s fair to say some of the naans came out better than others – well, mainly it was Lajina’s that came out best 🙂
The feast
Of course, the best bit of all was when we got to serve up our meals and try the delicious food we had cooked.
One team member was heard to say that it was surprising how good the food tasted given who had made it!
Lajina had checked with us first to see what level of spice we would enjoy as a team, and as a result there was plenty of milder spiced food for everyone to enjoy, along with some hotter options for those who like them.
And finally
Lajina and Krish took care of all the washing up – no mean feat! – so we just got to relax and enjoy the meal we had cooked.
Would we recommend it to other teams? Absolutely! It was great fun, we learned some new skills, had some downtime together as a team and got to eat some amazing food. We’d highly recommend to any business that they book a team building curry night with Lajina.
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