Blackburn chef Cha Cha makes a comeback

3:33pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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A SELF taught chef who set up Blackburn's longest surviving curry house has come out of retirement after calls for his homemade recipes.

Sher Mohammed, now 78, retired in 2004 but returns to the kitchen of Khyber restaurant, Whalley Range, at weekends for his loyal customers.

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Sher, of Carr Street, Blackburn, started cooking curries when he was 12 - he would sell lentil curry to make money when he lived in Karachi, Pakistan.

He learnt to perfect his recipes on his own because his mother died when he was born and his father died when he was 10. And Sher, known as cha cha', the Urdu word for uncle, to his customers, said practice was the key to his success at the restaurant, which he set up over 40 years ago.

It has built up a reputation as a traditional community' cafe/ restaurant rather than the town centre restaurants which many curry fans are used to.

Sher's son Salim Mohammed, 24, who now manages the restaurant, said: "My dad taught himself how to cook, he learnt how to make lentil curry, which he then cooked over a gas barrel in the streets in Pakistan.

"The police would tell him to move on but he always came back.

"The people above the offices where he used to stand would come down and order his lentil curry when they smelt it. Then he started making keema (mince meat) curry with a boiled egg."

Sher continued selling his two specialist curries until he came to the UK in 1956 but it wasn't until 1966 that he bought the Khyber.

He had a simple menu with his famous lentil curry, keema curry with boiled egg and a few other additions. It was then that people began to ask who the chef was.

Sher said: "I look forward to meeting my loyal customers as well as the new ones. Seeing my loyal customers age during these years has been a pleasure, I hope to see them around for many years to come as they are what makes Khyber."

Salim, also of Carr Street, has spent the last eight years trying to perfect his father's technique.

He added: "My dad is trying to teach me the tricks of the trade, even though I have been cooking for eight years I'm only 75 per cent there.

"Hopefully in the next few years I will be able to cook like my dad."