The Indian Food Thread

I used to use rice cooker but I got vary of the non stick interiors and the lids that don't pop out for thorough clean. I had bought a SS rice cooker with just a glass lid with a vent hole, but now, I like my stove top rice too much, it's way better. Hubby gets to use the cooker when I'm not home.

I realize that most Indian cooking looks tedious to those new to it. Too many ingredients, too many steps. But, with things pre made like spice mixes, ginger garlic paste, you just need some knife skills and need to know where all your ingredients are. Once you get the hang of it, you can finish cooking very fast. I can start with whole spices portioned,onions sliced and rice soaked, chop and add things as I go and be ready to serve my one pot Pulao loaded with veggies and flavored with various biryani spices, with raita on the side in about 45 min. But you do need to get familiar with the spices, general timing of adding those.
Wish I could make some videos of simple recipes for my SMF friends, or... I could start a spice mix line just for you, wish I could do both. Wish.... But hey, there are like a gazillion home videos on the same subject on YT. One I like is Bhavna's Kitchen, I believe she only does vegetarian. The other one is Vahrehvah channel, that guy is simply awesome. He also cooks meats and fish and he has videos for spice mixes too.

Thank you for the recommendation on the Vahrehvah channel, K, I am pretty comfortable w/cooking almost everything but fish. It is so delicate, and the good stuff is expensive, so I am always reluctant to ruin it (Indian food or otherwise). I will check that out.

Okay, some more questions! I swear I'm gathering together what I need to try some of these dishes.

K, for your recipes... Can you post the non-pressure cooker temps & times? I don't have a pressure cooker. And I'm trying to figure out some of the ingredients... Like the two types of dal. I'm really only familiar with the red/masoor dal. And I guess the tamarind is not the paste I've heard of, but a different form? (And while I don't have limes, I do have a lemon tree out in my back yard...) And what type of dry chili should I be looking for? There's so many in the markets I go to! (One of the benefits of having a high Mexican-American population--chilies are everywhere at all times of the year.) And if I'm reading it right, you add the tadka to the tomato dal, correct?

NA, what's the purpose behind cooking the lentils separately from the aromatics and spices? I'm just curious, because I hadn't heard of it before.

And in general, what's a good resource/recipe for chana masala? That's my bff's favorite dish, so of course I'd like to do a better version of it for her. I'm fine starting from either canned or dry chickpeas.

Dancer, cooking the spices seperately allows them to develop flavor in way that is really different from cooking them in the lentils w/the water. The lentils hold on to it, and it is different, in a way that would be impossible if you cooked it all together. It gives the lentils much more flavor.

dixiedragon said:

It is idiot proof.

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Whenever I see this phrase I have a sinking feeling that I am going to be the idiot that refutes all the other proof

Vkumudini said:

Cauliflower is best when roasted or lightly steamed. When over cooked, it's like brussel sprouts, really yucky. There used to be a time when I hated that thing, but now I'm fine with it and I love those sprouts roasted as well.

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K, I was a kid in England for a few formative years, when brussel sprouts boiled to death were a constant on the school lunch menu. I hated them, they smelled exactly like farts. Now, roasted w/olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper, yum. School lunches have a lot to answer for.

Dancer, I know what you mean about sauteeing rice in spices first. I made arroz con pollo a while ago (Cuban recipe) and it was so yummy. One of the few successful rice dishes ever for me.

NA, just checking to see if I could get away with cooking the aromatics/spices, and then adding the lentils and water to cook, to cut down on dirty dishes. Heh.

I've been looking to try to find an Arroz con Pollo similar to what my Mom made one time... It was more of a mexican-style though, using saffron and she used boneless & skinless breasts, but they didn't come out dry or overcooked (and I really doubt that she added them at a different time).

Ah! The spices are being more difficult to find than I expected. At the very least I remembered Costco carrying cayenne powder in containers that were close to a pound in size. Went today to both Costco and then hit Smart&Final on the way home, and neither had it.

I'm glad that you didn't find it, that is too much to buy! For folks like us - not using them every day and in large amounts - it is better to buy in smaller ones, the flavors go off after a while. In LA most big grocery stores in ethnically Hispanic areas have racks w/spices that come in bags for a dollar or two, do you have those? That is what I usually buy.

They usually have cayenne and powdered cumin on those (the cheap) racks. You might have to go the more expensive racks for stuff like turmeric and powdered coriander, but veggie curries in particular are so cheap that it is still a really inexpensive, delicious meal.

I was looking for it for K's spice mix recipe from earlier in this thread. I was going to make it, then stick most of it in the freezer to preserve it.

I tend to buy those baggies for chile powders and ground cumin too, because I go through so much of them when I'm in the swing of making mexican food.

Call me weird, but I love cauliflower and all the other *stinky* vegetables such as cabbage and Brussels sprouts, etc... Yum! I actually got to try some of the grated cauliflower thing a few weeks ago at my sis's house that Dixie mentioned in her post. I had never even heard of such a thing up until then, but it was actually pretty good. It was served in a dish with chicken and a spicy tomato-y sauce.

As for rice- me and rice have no problems- it cooks in a regular pot on the stove beautifully for me every time...... thanks to the directions on the back of the bag . Jasmine and basmati are my favorites, with jasmine beating out the basmati for top favor. Speaking of people having problems cooking rice, here is a short clip of one of my favorite I Love Lucy shows where Ricky and Fred switch places with Lucy and Ethel in the kitchen and try to cook arroz con pollo.... and have problems with the rice (Fred put too much rice in the pot) It's hilarious, lol): [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToVtd98RhXs[/ame]

Well, we had a glorious gastronomical Labor Day weekend- hubby took us out to our favorite Indian restaurant Sunday evening (it had been such a long time since we last went!), and the enjoyment continued on through Monday when we ate the leftovers for dinner, which I supplemented with my first ever homemade cilantro chutney, as well as jasmine rice spiced with cumin seeds that I pre-heated in ghee, Kirtiraj brand papadum and Asoka brand naan (from my corner international market), and homemade mango lassi. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum! Our taste buds were so happy!

Up until Monday, I had never tried making my own chutney, but it actually turned out great! When we were at the restaurant on Sunday, they served us the cilantro chili chutney that we love so much, and we were all examining and savoring the taste of it like detectives to see if we could decipher what it was made of. lol Then when we came home, we looked at V's recipe here, as well as other recipes on the net to compare with the flavors lingering on our taste buds, and after putting our heads together, we ended up using a recipe off of a site called Veg Recipes of India as a plumb line of sorts, with a few tweaks here and there thrown in. This is what we came up with (it made 1 cup worth and tasted so much like what our taste buds enjoy at the restaurant):

50g chopped fresh cilantro leaves
3 scallions/green onions
1 tbsp. freshly grated ginger
1 small jalepeno (19 grams worth)
1/3 of a pasilla/poblano pepper (27 grams worth)
3 tbsp. water
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon peanut oil
3/4 teaspoon powdered cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt

We threw everything into my small Ninja blender and blended 'till smooth and enjoyed it with the papadum we had bought at the store.

The papadum was a first for me, too. I mean, we've always enjoyed it at the restaurant, but we'd never had it at home before, and so I didn't know exactly what to look for at the store. I ended up buying a package of what looked like it could be the right thing- round disks with cumin seeds embedded in it, and which thankfully had cooking directions on it (the only one that did, actually), and it happily turned out that I chose well. Whew! It was a lot of fun watching them cook, too. I cooked them one at a time on a small indoor electric grilling apparatus that we have (instead frying it in oil), and it was amazing- it only took seconds before it bubbled up and turned golden and crisp. I gotta say that I love these things more than I love tortilla chips, which is saying something, because I really love tortilla chips. I just love how thin and delicate they are in comparison. And the flavor just can't be beat.

Yep, it was a good and yummy holiday weekend and our tummies and taste buds are very happy.

Oh- at the restaurant, one of the dishes we ate was Madrasi Chicken, which was cooked in a coconut sauce, and it was so yummy! Do any of you know of a good recipe for it?


IrishLass

I'm getting closer to trying to cook something Indian. I bought a cookbook and hit the spice store today, only thing I didn't get was saffron but I will at some point. I couldn't find orange lentils either so I just got regular ones.

Wow, IL! That was quite a weekend of Indian food. You tried so many new things, so brave you are. Glad that everything turned out to your liking. Here I'm, tired from my trip,waiting for my dal to get done cooking so we could eat.I'm already so hungry and your post just made it intolerable, lol!

FBS, I really wish I could point you to a good source of Indian spices. I never bought them online so, really can't recommend a vendor. I will work on creating a super easy dal recipe that doesn't use pressure cooker though,just for you. So far it's either the pressure cooker or a method similar to N_A but only longer. I will see if you could pre soak the dal like you do for dry beans. Then you could finish the whole thing in one pot with less hands on time.

Fresh hot rice and hot tomato dal, yummmmmmm! When I'm tired and hungry, no better comfort than this.

Is there anything that I can sub for fenugreek seeds and asafoetida? I want to make lime pickles and neither of these can be found locally.

I'm not sure which lime pickles you are talking about O, I make mine without either. It's red hot, sour and sweet and only takes salt, cayenne powder, sugar and extra lime juice along with the lime quarters ofcourse. So, yeah they are not needed for me. Could you may be share your recipe so I could see what you could substitute them with?

There are a few recipes I was looking at, the one from my book is:

6 limes, quartered
1/2 cup salt
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
seeds from 2 star anise
4 small green chilies
3/4 cup light muscovado sugar
3-4 tsp water

then there are these
http://www.onetomato-twotomato.com/2013/05/key-lime-pickle/
http://sinfullyspicy.com/2012/05/18/indian-lime-pickle/

I'd be happy to try a simpler recipe, I just couldn't find one. I've never actually eaten a lime pickle but they look really good, especially that last recipe I linked.

Quite frankly, I haven't tried much variety of pickles. I only preferred what my mom made because all others paled in their comparison. Only way mom used to make lime pickle is this.
Rinse and thoroughly dry the limes and quarter them. If the limes are too large she would cut them into 16 pieces each.
Add about half a cup of chilli powder, cup of salt per 25 limes( our limes used to be just a little bigger than key limes).
Mix them very well and put into a clean glass jar or one of those earthen pots specifically made for pickles.
Cover well and let rest.
After three days, she would check on them, add extra lime juice if needed. Give a taste test and adjust the salt, mix thoroughly.
Cover again and forget about it for a month.
Now you have a lime pickle that's going to last forever. It might darken a bit over time, but it's still good. Since there's no oil, there's no question of rancidity.
As a kid I used to enjoy this with rice and home made yogurt.
I started adding the sugar because of my husband. I would typically add 3/4 cup of sugar to the limes in the first step.

Coming to your recipe, I don't think you'll miss the fenugreek seeds in this. The recipe in that last link, I really don't know how all those spices will play together. I would think that the amount of carom seeds is a bit much but may be the lime juice will tame it. FYI, carom seeds taste like thyme, only much much stronger. The asafetida, I hate it in raw form. I only ever used it in hot oil for garnish/tempering. It's very pungent smelling but again, the lime may tame it as well. I would think it's easier to find both fenugreek seeds and asafetida than say kala namak or carom seeds. Basically every Indian grocery store has them.
If you end up trying either recipe, please let me know how they turn out. The reviews don't say if the writer actually tried the recipe and liked it, they for me, are pretty useless. It's the same with most blogs. That's why I prefer recipe sites where people have tried the actual recipe and if they needed to make any tweaks, why they made them and all such info is readily available.

Thank you for all the advice. I think I will try your moms recipe for now since I have the stuff it needs and its simple. How do I know if they need more juice added? How much liquid should be in the bottom of a quart jar?

By day 4, everything should be covered in juice. You might want to go easy on the cayenne pepper, although it seems like your tolerance for heat is as much as mine.
Also, if you are using those decent sized limes from Costco like I did, only use 15 and halve those quarters so you end up with 8 per lime.