Sunday, March 25, 2007

Indian Food Extravaganza


I've been having an Indian food festival over here over the past few days. It goes like this--following an intense craving for Indian food, it seemed like a good idea to, at 7:30PM, start cooking a big delicious and spicy (household hiccuper is out of town) Indian dinner. At 8:30, this seemed like a really dumb idea, but by 8:45 things were under control and a happy diner could be found!

And then it started all over again the next night.

The Menu (Punjabi-focused, assistance from Madhur Jaffrey)
saag--fresh spinach with coconut cream
carrots, potatoes, peas and tofu 'gajar aloo matar'
aloo gobi--cauliflower & potato
basmati rice with cloves & cinnamon
pappadums
dal--lentils with curry spices cooked in ghee
red pepper, mushroom, & tofu curry, and
of course, all with yogurt and mango chutney

Tips for your own extravaganza:
1. Have lots of strange ingredients ready to go in your cabinets.
2. Do not try to substitute pita for naan.
3. Start earlier if you wish to eat before 9.
4. Be patient; it helps to be able to multi-task in the kitchen.

There's leftovers--anyone bearing samosas will be admitted for dinner.

4 comments:

rebeckspe said...

My favorite tip is not substituting pita for naan. While I agree it is a mistake, how do you solve the lack of tandoori oven to make home made naan issue?

InfoChef said...

Who says I don't have a tandoori oven?!

I'm still awaiting the guest arriving with takeout samosas AND naan! Or, I might just try home recipe version of naan someday.

rebeckspe said...

belive me, if i didn't have dinner plans already tonight, i'd be alllll over it.

codown2earth said...

Do not bother with the naan from the freezer section either. It might be worse than pita. Better get GT and Welding Boy on construction of a tandoori oven Stat.