A CURRY club in a secret location in Whitefield is urging people to ditch supermarket curries in favour of traditional home-cooking. We sent own curry addict — news editor Steven Thompson — to find out if he could stand the heat.

I LOVE good Indian takeaway — and my lack of kitchen after moving house has only served to increase my curry intake of late.

But this constant gorging on microwave bhunas and takeaway vindaloos has done nothing for my waisteline.

So when the chance to learn how to cook my own curries from scratch arose, I jumped at the chance.

Spice Club Manchester started back in 2010 as a supper club, serving up home-cooked Indian feasts to grateful punters at £20 a pop.

At the time, I was, among other things, food and drink correspondent for the Bolton News and Bury Times, and when I heard there was a super-secret curry club in a super-secret location on patch, I went to investigate.

It is safe to say I was impressed. I am proud to be one of the first people to discover this enterprise, based in secret location — a modest semi-detached home in Whitefield.

And when I discovered they had branched out into a cookery school, I went along to find out more.

Spice Club Manchester is a mother-daughter double act, with Monica taking the lead and her mum Anita chipping in with all her years of wisdom in the kitchen.

In this particular lesson we were learning how to cook up an Indian vegetarian feast.

We learnt five recipes in total – two different veggie curries, a flaky north Indian flatbread, a bread roll with spiced potato stuffing, and a carrot pickle.

Despite being a militant meat-eater, I’m not averse to the odd veggie meal, and these recipes, contained a healthy dose of protein and were also “transferable” should you wish to add a bit of chicken or lamb.

The daunting thing about Indian cooking is the blend of spices. It has always seemed to me that every recipe demands 17 different powders — little wonder then that most people reach for either a jar or a takeaway menu.

But in fact, it turns out that it is just different blends of the same handful or spices — paprika, tumeric, garam masala spice blend, amchur (sun-dried mango powder), cumin, coriander, mustard seeds and salt — which you should always keep in your handy spice tin.

Since I first wrote about Monica and Anita six years ago they have gone from strength to strength.

They have featured on the Hairy Bikers Best of British BBC television programme and were also ranked in the Guardian's top five UK supper clubs.

The cookery school — launched a couple of years ago — is a great addition to this burgeoning empire.

I learnt a great deal, and while I won't be giving up the takeaways just yet, I'll certainly be making my own curries too.

For more information go to spiceclubmanchester.com