Lpink, it sounds very lovely. I'm afraid though that it sounds way adventurous to me...But you describe it well..and it sounds good, if I step back and listen to how you enjoyed it!

The recipes were dead easy, and not weird tasting at all. And I am an impatient, lazy, clumsy cook, so if you can screw it up, I will. But these turned out excellent. The yellow rice was not spicy at all, it had a very "buttery" taste somehow. Like I said, just like a risotto except with that popcorn taste of basmati rice. You could use saffron instead of tumeric, for an even richer taste. Less saffron though, that stuff is potent! The salad is something I can't wait to try again, as I have mint, cilantro and peppers fresh in the garden right now.

MINT CORIANDER CHUTNEY - from Gardenguru
Ingredients
1 bunch fresh mint
1 bunch fresh coriander
6-8 cloves garlic
1" piece of ginger
2 green chilies
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsps lime juice
Directions
Peel garlic and ginger and remove stalks from green chilies.
Grind these and all the remaining ingredients into a smooth paste in a food processor.
Chill and serve.
I used this to dress diced cucumbers in sour cream.

PEAS PULAO - from Gardenguru
Yellow Rice
Serves 2-4
Ingredients:
2 Tbs vegetable oil or ghee
1 large onion, chopped fine
1 cup fresh green peas (or frozen, thawed)
1 cup Basmati rice (a long grain Indian rice)
3 cups water
tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
½ cup warm water
Preparation:
Wash the rice well in running water and set aside to soak for 30 minutes.
Heat the oil in a deep heavy-bottomed pan. When it is hot add the onions and cook till soft.
Add the peas and stir well.
Add the rice and fry for 2 minutes.
Add the 3 cups of water, turmeric and salt to taste to the rice and set it up to boil on a medium flame.
Once the water comes to a boil, reduce the flame to a simmer and cover the pan.
Cook till the water seems to have almost disappeared - tiny holes will form on the surface of the rice.
Add the 1/2 cup of warm water all over the top of the rice and cover the pan again. Simmer for another 5-7 minutes and turn off the fire.
Allow the rice to sit for 10 minutes and serve.

The only change I made is I added about a cup of chopped frozen spinach with the last 1/2 cup water addition. No peas.

Well I'll have to atleast give the yellow rice a try. Thanks for posting the recipe.
I only use Basmati for my "white" rice..and I keep tumeric on hand for hubbies BBQ sauce he likes to make.
Thanks for sharing..

I tried risotto a few months back and it was a bomb...I don't know if I just didn't get it right..or just a weird concept for my family....

Yeah, I always bomb out with risotto too, so that's why this dish impressed me because it was better than risotto, IMHO, and easier!

I did a pork vindaloo for supper tonight. I had some of the paste left over in the fridge and wanted to use it up. Also made parathas for the first time.

When I first started eating Indian curries, I was of the impression (mistaken) that vindaloo was the hottest of the hot! Instant death unless one had copious quantities of cold beer on hand to put out the fires. Now that I make what I eat, I understand that it ain't necessarily so. Although vindaloo can be hot, like any other curry, you can vary the heat by using less hot pepper. This dish is a regional one, from Goa, a former Portuguese colony, and is influenced by the cuisine of that country. Also, Goa has a large Christian population, one of the few religeous/ethnic groups in India who eat pork.

I have no idea if parathas (layered griddle-fried breads) are an "authentic" side to a vindaloo, but I wanted to try them anyway, if only to soak up the excess sauce. As it was a fine evening, and we ate outside, I was sorely tempted to offer the excess sauce to the barking Labrador next door. However, since my daughter is babysitting him this month, she was toooo afraid that if it disagreed with his digestive tract, she would have a lot to clean up tomorrow....

I have seen recipes for vindaloo paired with parathas, so I suppose it' an "authentic" combination...but heck, even if it isn't, who decides what's "authentic" anyway?

I have been learning to cook Indian food for some years now. In my early 30's I moved to a small town in Southern Maine for a year, and about went nuts craving all the wonderful foods from other cultures that I'd grown up surrounded by in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, once I moved back, I realized that small town life was more my speed and that I'd eventually relocate, so I set about learning to cook the foods I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get once I did.

The cuisine of India is surely one of the world's most varied and sophisticated. I have frankly always thought that French cuisine was overrated, based as far as I could tell in fresh produce, cream, butter & wine...what's not to like, and beyond that, what's so difficult?

But tackling Indian spices was an adventure for me. Who knew that one could produce a myriad of different flavors from one spice depending on whether it was whole, cracked or ground, added early or at the last minute, dry roasted or fried in oil? One dish may use the same spice in several different ways at different times in the cooking process!

Now I have all my Indian spices in little clamp-top jars in a dark corner of my kitchen. Beautiful yellow tumeric, green cardamom pods, brown cinnamon sticks, bluish poppy seeds, yellow & brown mustard seeds, black nigella, and the more muted shades of the ubiquitous cumin and coriander. I know I should store them in the fridge or at least a dark cupboard, but I use them quickly enough and they're so pretty!

Twenty two jars of spices rarely used before this adventure, and another 10 of spice mixes like garam masala and rasam powder.

A wonderful starter book for anyone unfamiliar with the cuisine of India but curious is, believe it or not, "Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking" with recipes by Raghavan Iyer. I also found the Williams Sonoma book, "Savoring India" and "The Food of India" by Murdoch books very helpful & inspiring.

I learned about Indian cooking when we lived in England in the late 1980s. It was the cheapest and most popular take-out food available. A close friend had taken an Indian cooking course, and she taught me the tricks she had learned, since I didn't think it likely to find the same sorts of restaurants once back on this side of the Atlantic.

Now, I'm wondering if my curry cookbooks wouldn't be more accurately described as "Anglo-Indian", or recipes for the most popular dishes in UK curry restaurants. These establishments have now become so mainstream, that in some circles, Indian isn't considered "ethnic" anymore.

I get most of my spices and other specialty ingredients at a local Indian grocer, and the owner has recently published several cookbooks of her fav recipes. They are nothing like the dishes with which I've become familiar. I guess her family came from a different region than the British restaurateurs, and she has adapted her recipes for what she perceives as the Canadian palate (really, how can you flavour anything with one clove of garlic???)

Anyway, its been an interesting and ongoing culinary journey. Besides introducing a variety of exotic spices and flavours into my meat-and-potatoes-white-bread family, it has also illustrated some of the influences that act on immigrant communities depending on where they choose to make new homes. FWIW, there is a vast array of convenience foods available in my Indian grocery.

I've had a love for Indian food going back to my college years when I roomed with a fellow from Bombay. He was also learning because back home women did the cooking. I taught him some "American" dishes and he showed me what he knew of Indian foods. Over the years I've worked hard to recreate the delicious curries we had. Danced for joy when I found cans of tamarind juice at the grocery store. We don't have ethnic grocers around here. Curry paste is still mail order and until a decade ago curry powder had to be homemade.

Anyways... curried pea soup. Basically just pea soup with curry powder. You can cheat this dish by mashing up a can of peas with curry powder. Water, olive oil, and hot peppers until you get the texture and heat you want. Simmer it until the flavors come out. Makes excellent corn chip dip! We don't have the variety of lentils available that I see used in many "authentic" curry recipes. Green peas make an excellent substitute.

Yogurt is the best cooler for a tounge fired up from hot curry. I was disappointed to order curry in a restaurant and get a sweet dish with little heat. It was very good but not what I expected.

Another "curry" I like is made with chicken, chicken stock, coconut milk or juice, shredded coconut, mushrooms, and curry paste to taste. I have put this both over rice and lentils! Using coconut milk makes a sweet creamy curry and the juice makes a greener tasting clear curry. Both are good. If going over lentils I recommend using smoked chicken as lentils beg for smoke flavor.

Cumin fried potatoes are quick and easy. If you have leftover baked or boiled potatoes this is a quick dish. Cube them up, coat with tumeric, sprinkle cumin seeds on them, and fry in oil until browned. A neat twist on fried potatoes.

The only cook book in my house that I use is a Curry book by Mridula Baljekar. I've not made anything but use the recipes and pictures to get ideas. From it I became aware that curry is very different things in different parts of India and even more so in Thailand.

I really like the Thai Kitchen brand of green curry paste. The flavor I often want already cooked down. Curry spices can take so long to cook when you start from scratch. Something I learned is flavors can be varied by cooking time. Sometimes I'll add some fresh hot peppers to my curry or chili after it has cooked awhile to bring back some of the bite. A happy discovery was that peppers change flavor as they ripen. Now I'm using lots of green habenera's rather then waiting all summer for them to turn red. They lack the powerful upfront heat of a ripe red habenera but have a wonderful delayed background heat. With a green habenera you might be a few bites into a dish before you notice any pepper at all but then the sweat comes on. A good curry should make you sweat a little!

Lauri... I've found GFS here in Michigan has very nice cumin powder. I'm a fan of whole seed but the GFS stuff is very fresh and sometimes better then the seeds I can get. Best of all you can get a 2lb box cheaper then a 4oz can at the grocer. I add a portion of chopped seeds for the aromatic oils and ground cumin to fill out that flavor. In a perfect world I'd use all seed but I'm lazy sometimes. Cumin seeds are very time sensitive to cooking. You have to cook them long enough to release the oils but then they start to cook away. There is a window of time where it is a magical flavor.

: )
lyra

I'm a member of another subcontinent forum, and they have interesting information on Indian food and restaurants. The SoCal division had a field trip in Artesia (aka Little India) in O.C., and we visited several Indian restaurants to sample south Indian cuisine.

I've been buying Indian spices quite a bit since that trip about 3-4 years ago, and I generally go to an Indian market not far from my house, and it is actually better than any of the markets in Artesia. I tend to buy take out food at Indian markets, and so I don't end up making that much myself, but I have made a lot of different spice mixes that I use with lentils, garbanzo, chicken, potatoes, etc., and I usually make my own combinations of spices, sometimes only loosely following a recipe. I know what I like and don't like in Indian spice combos, and I adjust recipes accordingly, but nothing ever comes out the same way twice. I also tend to cook Indian food more in the winter than in the summer - not that we have much of a winter - it's only 5-6° cooler in winter than summer here on average.

Lars

I can't say I know anything about Indian food except that I love it. We have a good number of excellent Indian restaurants near me so I order more Indian than I cook. But lately I've gotten interested in preparing some.

Sometimes I get a prepared sauce at Whole Foods and simmer steamed veggies in it. Sometimes I search the net for recipes. I've picked up this one for a really great Mulligatawny http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/mulligatawny-soup-recipe2/index.html Then I went looking for videos and found this woman named Manjula who has very clear instructions and great recipes. I'll link one below but check out all of them.

I still haven't mastered naan even though I do pretty excellent European breads (if I do say so myself). But I'll keep trying because there's nothing better!

I think the problem with making good Naan at home is that one doesn't have an actual tandoor, the clay oven Indians cook it in. I have made tandoori chicken at home, and it's quite good, but not the same as the chicken cooked in an actual tandoor. I haven't tried making Naan yet, but when I do, I'll probably use a heated pizza stone to try and get as close as I can to actually slapping the dough onto the sides of a tandoor.

Interesting the subject of Indian breads comes up. That was my experiment for this weekend. I'm not going to do the deep fried breads, because I just don't want to get into deep frying. I made chappatis. They were fun to make and pretty easy. I got to use my cast iron crepe pan that I hardly every use. But frankly, I don't get the appeal. They tasted kinda like what they are, glorified playdough. They would be good with something rolled up in them, but the curried potatoes and peas I made didn't cut it. Basically the same as flour tortillas or any other kind of wrap. They tasted a little raw to me, but they were getting really dark brown in spots so I had to take them off the heat. I had the burner set on med. high but turned it down to med. so I could try and cook them longer, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I rolled them pretty thin. It was a pain in my little kitchen, I had to roll them out on a cookie tray and almost dumped the whole thing in my lap a couple of times.

I also made aaloo mutter, which is basically curried potatoes and peas with tomato sauce. It was the first time I tried a recipe with dried mango powder. I'm not sure I really like it all that much. I had the aaloo mutter with cottage cheese for dinner and with scrambled eggs for brunch, chappatis on the side to soak up juices, but their weren't that many.

Bunny I saw Madajur Jaffrey (I hope that's how she spells it) on PBS and she was making a curry dish almost exactly how you describe. I used to keep cocunut milk in a can in the pantry but after years of not using it I ditched it when trying to simplify my life.

I have a couple of spice mix recipes I might try eventually. I love Manjula, everything looks so easy when she does it, but my kitchen is even much tinier than hers, and her videos are very well edited if you notice! She never even gets flour all over the place like I do!

Next week samosas, but I am going to bake them. I just cannot do fried foods. I love muligatawny soup, but I have a bunch of soup in the freezer I have to use up before I can make any more. It isn't really soup time yet. Meanwhile I've got to see if I can find some of the more exotic legumes.

To cook naan in our oven, I turn it up as high as possible - either the highest temperature setting for surround bake which is 550 or the high broil which goes to 575 - with the baking stone in it and a cast iron griddle pan we use for baking pizza. That way the oven is holding lots of heat and I can cook the naan on both the cast iron griddle and the pizza stone.

It cooks the naan really well - as good as at an Indian restaurant when my son rolls them. I still am working on getting them rolled thin enough.

My prob is that the local Indian restaurant makes naan that are soooo soft and almost creamy and mine come out so "bready".

rachelellen is right, tandoor clay oven is what makes the naans so soft. There are some online retailers who sell tandoor home ovens, although I haven't used one myself.
Btw, even Indians cook only rotis/parathas at home. I am from India and I don't know anyone who makes naans from scratch! :-)

I confess to using the Trader Joe's frozen naan which are even better than the fresh ones. I don't like their simmer sauces in the jars, though.

I'm fond of the Patak curry pastes in the jars when I'm in a hurry, I just use the recipes on the labels. I use twice as much hot curry paste as mild, but my family likes spicy food. The pastes aren't quite as good as fresh ground spices, but are much better than supermarket spices.

Their website has a number of recipes, as well.

lpinkmountain, chapatis are wonderful if they are made correctly, but like anything else that seems simple, it really isn't! :D

In the first place, it's best to buy actual chapati flour from an Indian market. Many recipes will tell you to mix wheat and white flour, but it isn't the same at all.

Many recipes will tell you to use ghee or butter, but it's important to use ghee.

The chapati cook very quickly if they are properly thin and the griddle at the right temp...about 30 seconds on each side.

When they are almost ready to remove from the griddle, another trick is to take a clean cloth wadded up to press on one edge of the chapati which forces the steam inside to separate the layers just a bit, lightening the texture.

As for the fried breads, Poori are essentially fried chapati, and they are wonderful as well. They aren't greasy if done properly so that they puff up well and set to drain on a rack.

Well, I watched Manjula's roti video, and I made mine just like she did, so it must have been the flour. I have a cool cast iron griddle like she does, and mine looked like hers. They just had kind of a raw flour taste, IMHO. I used a mix of whole wheat and unbleached pastry flour. I wonder if toasting the flour a little bit first would be a good idea. I also didn't let the dough "rest" for 10 minutes, which I can do next time. They were definately easy enough to make that I could see making a bunch and freezing them and using them for wraps.

I love Indian Curries and have been making Indian food for many years. Thankfully, we have also lived in areas where there were a number of outstanding Indian restaurants so when the craving hit, it was easy to satisfy. Victoria has a couple of really good Indian Restaurants and there is one here in Duncan too. And an amazing one in Ladysmith. The Royal Dar. We were at a wedding in Ladysmith on Saturday night and it was catered by this restaurant.

When we lived in Dunkirk, NY we use to drive at least once every two weeks into the far side of Buffalo just to have Indian Curry.

Naan is one of the breads that is very difficult to make at home. In fact unless you have a tandori oven it is impossible to make authentic Naan. It is the oven that gives it that wonderful flavour. Chapati on the other hand is really easy to make, especially if you have a gas stove. Once the chapati is baked it goes right over the gas burner and puffs up.

I buy chapati flour from the Indian supermarket, but my Mom used to grind wheat in a flour mill and the rotis/chapatis used to be heavenly soft. She also used to heat up a few teaspoons of oil and knead the dry flour in it before adding water to make the dough. Also keep the dough covered with a damp cloth/paper towel.
Do you cook chapatis (apply oil while cooking) or phulkas (no oil)?

I follow Julie Sahni's recipe for Chapati. It is actually the same for chapatis and phulkas, the only difference being that Phulkas is baked a second time over the gas flame. Buttering or oiling the chapati after baking is optional in her recipe. I almost always double bake.

Julie Sahni's Cook book Classic Indian Cooking is my favourite of all my Indian Cook books. Maybe because I've had it the longest and used it the most since 1980.

Ann

I'm drooling!

For chapatis, you should smear it with oil on both sides when it is on the griddle. They have a slightly longer shelf life than phulkas.
The dough is same for roti/chapati/phulka/paratha. If you like it leavened, you can make plain parathas. After you roll it to half size, smear it with oil, then fold it twice to quarter circle and roll it again, don't make it too thick. This turns out much softer.

Thanks Saruna,

I've never thought of Chapati or Phulka has having a shelf life. LOL! I just make them fresh each time I want them. Good to know that a little oil will do that. I'll give your method a try next time.

Ann

Don't they catch on fire when you put them on the flame? It's moot for me anyway as I have an electric stove, but I was just curious.
Mine looked like that, just tasted "doughy." I pushed down the puffiness like in the Manjula video.

well, phulkas go straight from the stove to a plate, so no shelf life whatsoever. Chapatis/parathas can be eaten for the next meal or on the next day too, so longer shelf life :-)

Some may think that they can't cook good naan in their home ovens but we get very good results - as good as what I've gotten in restaurants. They are fully cooked but soft. I think part of the trick is rolling them thin enough that they cook quickly before the outside gets crispy - but not too thin - you don't want to turn them into a cracker. And having a very hot preheated oven with a stone or a cast iron griddle.

My son just whipped up some chola tikki from Manjula's Kitchen. We had cilantro chutney and riata from a meal a few days ago. And tamarind chutney from a batch I made and froze.

It always feels like a good Indian meal when you have a couple of dishes like curry and dal. Usually we try to make a big enough batch of curry or dal for two meals and freeze the left over. That way, we usually have one left over one reheated plus one we have made up that night which will in turn provide a leftover for a future meal. And we have chutneys out of the freezer too.

Cloud, I know that it is possible to make a bread like naan, but for me what makes naan really naan is the smokiness and char you get from baking it on the sides of a tandoori oven. Every so often I'll make naan, baking it on the stone and it is good, but not the same as real naan.

LPink, no the bread doesn't burn. I just lay the bread on the burner , turn it on and the bread puffs up immediately.

Ann

When I had an electric stove, I used to use one of those small metal grid kind of bbq grills with a wood handle to make phulkas.
Or you could use something like the one below.

I have bought a couple of indian cookbooks over the years, but I've found that the recipes often call for things that aren't available or contain steps like "take the unpasteurized milk and make your own raw cheese and hang for a week to dry." or even just, "now simmer for 24 hours."

Gee, thanks, I'll get right on that.

I have devised several easier-to-make versions of some Indian dishes, the one that has turned out the best is a version of what restaurants call either Saag Paneer or Palak Paneer.

The recipe is:

16oz frozen chopped spinach
1 cup water
4 tbsp Pataks mild curry paste
1 stick butter
1 tbsp mint chutney
1 tbsp sweet mango chutney
4 oz feta cheese (cut into ½ inch cubes)

Put spinach and water in large pot, heat uncovered over medium heat until spinach is thawed and simmering. Add butter, curry paste, mint chutney and mango chutney, continue to stir and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat, add feta cubes, stir thoroughly and serve with basmati rice and/or lightly toasted pita bread.

Also when I make basmati rice to accompany Indian food I'll usually add about 1 tsp of tumeric, 8 to 10 whole cloves and a bay leaf to the 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of water

Didn't get to cook this weekend other than some Cincinatti style chili because I had to use up some ingredients I had on hand. (sorry, I cannot spell that town!) But I did peruse the "Indian" aisle in the international section of Wegman's. They had many whole spices and a very good selection of curry pastes and chutney and other flavor packets. That's what a lof of my friends say, when they cook Indian they buy prepackaged seasonings.

Now, being a canning weenie I want to make my own. My previous experiences with chutney hasn't been that great, but I only made two--green tomato and apple. I am going to try peach soon. I have one recipe book with quite a comprehensive selection. I just know I won't use it that much to make jars and jars of it, and only my most adventurous friends would have the slightest idea of what to do with it if I gave them sone. I will make the peach chutney, which is a stand-in for mango, and maybe some kind of pickled ginger. I had the greatest coriander cuke pickles the other day at a restaurant with a pickle bar, of all things.

Up next--a curry I got from imrainey and a baked samosa recipe I found online by Rachel Ray.