Indian cooking

[mountaingal]

I've had my fill of detox food and am now moving on to Indian cuisine, esp. the books of Madhur Jaffrey. Gosh that stuff tastes good!

I just love all the spices and the heaps of vegetarian dishes (I'm abstaining from meat, milk, eggs and cheese for a while). It's like an adventure to cook Indian food. I made green beans with ginger and amchoor (powdered green mango), a potato dish with aobut 13 different spices, a chickpea dish, and a dish with yellow and red lentils (mung and masoor dal). Mmmmm. The only thing is that it seems to use so much oil.

Gran2, Simmy, do you have favourite Indian meals? Do you know anything about meals cooked by Indians in Jamaica that reflect their heritage?

[BND1999]

Re: Indian cooking

Yum.... mountaingal, I love Indian food too. I go out to a great Indian buffet atleast once a week. Years ago I cooked some recipes but now I only make chicken curry. You kind of got my interest spiked..maybe I wil check out that cookbook or another.. do share some of the dishes that are a success!!!

[mountaingal]

Re: Indian cooking

Hi, BND! I love Indian buffets, too, especially the ones that have tandoori chicken. Can't get enuff of that.

I borrowed a nubmer of cookbooks from my library, but found these two the most interesting (it feels like the author is in the kitchen with you) adn also easiest to follow:

1. Madhur Jaffrey's Spice Kitchen: Fifty Recipes Introducing Indian Spices and Aromatic Seeds. The recipes I mentioned above were all from this book - simple dishes that get you used to the techniques of Indian cooking (e.g., frying seeds and spices to flavour the oil, learning which spices are strong and weak.) I had to go to a specialty shop to get some of the spices, but it was a lot of fun.

2. Eastern Vegetarian Cooking, also by Madhur Jaffrey. This one has not just Indian but also Middle Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Korean vegetarian dishes. It was written in 1983, before the great expansion of Thai cooking I think, so it only has about two recipes from Thailand (pity, coz I like Thai food, am developing a fondness for Vietnamese, too). The recipes look so simple, and plus I just bought a whole pile of spices, so I went ahead and bought this vegetarian cookbook. Tonight, I'm going to try making Cauliflower and Potatoes cooked with Fenugreek and Fennel Seeds. Tomorrow I'm going Middle Eastern and try making Falafel with Tahini Dipping sauce.

Wish me luck!

[BND1999]

Re: Indian cooking

Good luck, and tell me how it turns out.. If my man ever comes inside from building outside.. I may even suggest going to Indian.. now that you planted the seed... Do you like Mideastern food at all? That's another favorite of mine... Actually I have lots of favorites.. sushi, Thai, chinese, Greek... Italian.. guess I like food.. Meanwhile, I am sitting here with my guacamole and wine...LOL [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[BND1999]

Re: Indian cooking

What an idiot.. I didn't see the part about the mideastern, and thai in that cookbook.... guess one glass of wine already went to my head..I love humus, falafel... yummmmmmmm mountaingal [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[mountaingal]

Re: Indian cooking

Hey, no worries, BND - I love all kinds of food too. I'd be happy to keep you posted on the success of my recipes.

I like Greek food (anyone for souvlaki? mmm), the bit of Eastern European food I've tried (borscht) - I think German cuisine is about the only thing I haven't tried. Another food that I've fallen for in the past couple of years is Ethiopian. They have this kind of moist, slightly sour pancake that you tear off and eat with a bunch of different meat and vegetarian dishes, all highly spiced of course. So good. I've had sweet plantains cooked with onions and spices, which is an Ethiopian breakfast dish. An unusual combination for a Jamaican to appreciate (we normally have plantains fried by themselves). But it was delicious. One of these days I'll try making some of that too!

Do you ever try cooking international foods at home?

[BND1999]

Re: Indian cooking

You are inspiring me.. Yes, I used to cook Chinese, Indian, Mideastern,Italian, but now it's each man for himself.. with a teenager.. he comes home from school starving at 2:30..eats something like Pizza or soup.. or whatever he can get his hands on that he deems "edible"..I tend to nosh all afternoon and rarely sit down for dinner except when we go out.. which is fairly frequent..I'd like to get back into cooking but somehow after I've cooked I lose my appetite to eat what I make.. I like it in the summer when you throw things on the grill , make a big salad.. potatoes or corn.. glass of wine.. all set..Wish we all lived closer to have a big ethnic potluck...

[Breeze]

Re: Indian cooking

Hi Mountaingal. Gran2 asked me to post this recipe for you. I really enjoyed it.

Indian Curry Feast

1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 onion, chopped
3 celery stocks, sliced
1 apple, chopped
1 tbsp medium-strength curry powder
1 tsp ground ginger
4 oz thin green beans, sliced
8 oz potatoes, cut into cubes
2 cups mushrooms, wiped and sliced
13 oz can garbanzo beans, drained
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 tbsp tomatoe paste
1 oz golden raisins
sant 1 cup basmati rice
1 tbsp garam masala

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the garlic, onion, celery and apple gently for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the curry powder and ginger, and cook gently for 1 more minute.

2. Add the remaining ingredients except the rice and garam masala. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. Cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes.

3. Cook the rice in boiling, lightly salted water until just tender, according to the instructions on the package. Drain thoroughly.

4. Just before serving, stir the garam masala into the curry. Divide between 4 warmed serving places and serve with the rice.

Doesn't look like much but tastes great!

[mountaingal]

Re: Indian cooking

Breeze, me darlin - only seeing this now. I'll try that recipe and let you know.

BND - sorry, promised to get back to you on my culinary experiments. Let's see:

Cauliflower and Potatoes with Fenugreek and Fennel - turned out good.

Falafel - Not so successful. Couldn't get the chickpeas to grind very fine in my food processor, so it the texture was a little rough. Plus it sucked up a lot of oil. And I left them in too long in the frying pan and they got crusty. I ate most of them over a few days but had to throw out the last couple of patties.

Tahini sauce - not as successful, either. I don't have a grinder or blender, so the little sesame seeds just did not get chopped up enough, even with my hand held blender (the sesame seeds kept flying all over the place, as a matter of fact. Plus, I must have put too much garlic or something, because it tasted really strong. I've got some tahini left over, I'm going to add it to some ground up canned chickpeas and make hummus.

I have more luck with Indian cooking than with Middle Eastern, it seems. For Easter, I made couple Indian dishes - spicy chickpeas, and whole green lentils with spinach. Both were delish.

[Suesumba]

Re: Indian cooking

MountainG, glad to see you are trying new vegetarian recipes .. should be good for bringing down the weight/blood pressure. Good luck. Cut out the salt if you can. Lime juice is amazing. Keep it up and Cheers!

[mountaingal]

Re: Indian cooking

Thanks, SMaid! I've been trying Mexican and English type vegetarian meals, too, but haffe seh de Indian one dem a de tastiest. Gwine try Breeze recipe tonight.

Yes, I've become a friend of limes and lemons - remember a friend in JA saying they were good for pressure.

[NYC_Girl]

Re: Indian cooking

My coworker is indian and her mom sends amazing dished for us to eat.
Dal
Pokoras etc...

BND have you tried malabar hill by tarrytown?

[mountaingal]

Re: Indian cooking

I tried the Indian Curry Feast last night. It was so good, I had two helpings (not good!). I had to fight off my 11 year old, who had already eaten a meat meal. Excellent recipe.

Only thing - I bought basmati rice in bulk, so there were no package instructions for me to follow. Luckily, I now have two Indian cookbooks. This is the recipe I followed for cooking basmati rice:

Boiled Basmati Rice

1. Take 1 1/2 cups of basmati rice. Pick over, then wash and rinse rice in cold water several times and drain.

2. Put the washed rice in a bowl and cover with about 1 inch of water. Leave to soak for between 30 minutes and 2 hours.

3. Near the end of the soaking period, take a saucepan and fill it with lots of water, about 8 cups. Bring to a boil.

4. Drain the soaking water from the rice. Add the rice to the boiling water.

5. Boil rice for 4 to 5 minutes.

6. Remove from heat, and drain the boiled rice thoroughly (I use fine mesh strainer.).

7. Serve the boiled rice immediately. If not serving right away, drizzle some oil or clarified butter (ghee) into the rice, mix thoroughly, then cover the rice to keep it warm.

[ReggaePrincess]

Re: Indian cooking

Mountaingal....My tummy is grumblin' thinking about Ethiopian and Indian food.

growing up my best friend was Ethiopian and so I eat it very frequently. What dishes do you like best? I could give you couple of recipes to try if you tell me the dishes you like.

Oh and the "sour pancake" you are talking about is called Injera. The ingredients are Flour; whole wheat, Flour; white, Sugar, brown, Salt, Baking powder, Egg, Buttermilk

[mountaingal]

Re: Indian cooking

Thanks for the offer, ReggaePrincess! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] What I need to do is go to an Ethiopian restaurant and write down the name of the dishes. I'll do that and let you know.

If you have a recipe for Injera (thanks for the name), that would be good, because I think that could go with a number of Indian dishes.

What kind of spices do they use in Ethiopian cooking?