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Indian Food

My own experience is only with Indian vegetarian--which does cover a lot of ground--but here are a few indispensable cookbooks, some of which nod toward carnivores and vegetarians alike:

Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking
--This is a classic, an in-depth reference covering small dishes, breads, curries, dosai, desserts, and more. Some of the preparations are a bit involved, but the author explains the theory and practice of combining spices, which helps you simplify on your own.

The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking--I stumbled onto a copy of this book years ago; it's not as comprehensive, but the recipes are fantastic, authentic, and the prep is typically simpler.

Pretty much any book by Madhur Jaffrey--She's the authority, the Julia Child of Indian Cooking, and her books are uniformly excellent. She has volumes covering meat as well as vegetables, and collections focused on quick and easy meals. Highly recommended.
 
Off the top of my head this is my
Chana Masala (spiced chick peas)
3-5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2-4 Tbsps fresh ginger, minced
2 cans chick peas, drained
1 can crushed tomatoes (not stewed)
2 medium onions, sliced
Garam Masala (spice mix available at Indian grocery stores, and most places now, will vary wildly from place to place)
Cumin (ground works, freshly pan roasted seeds then ground is better)
Turmeric powder (the roots scare me)
Vegetable oil for sautéing.

Basically you heat the oil, just under-brown the ginger and garlic, add the onions, cook until translucent, add a good amount (2-4 tbsps) of garam masala, a good amount of turmeric, and a smaller amount of cumin (1 tbsp) once the spices have browned a bit in the oil with the onion, garlic and ginger "de-glaze" the pan with the tomatoes including most of the juice, then add the chick peas. Adjust the spices to you preference, and let it simmer as long as you've got patience for, minimum 10 minutes.

It's quick, easy, tasty, just serve it with some pita and raita (simple yougurt, grated cucumber, mint and salt/sugar combination) maybe some spicy mango pickle :drool:

Most Indian cooking can be pretty freeform, just experiment and see what you come up with. It gets more complicated in the kormas and makhanis but as long as you're not shy with the spices you can take any recipe and bend it to your culinary will.
 
I'm a huge Indian fan. Having enjoyed the food for 15 some years now and having lived with a friend from India for a few years, it's all in the spices. Too many recipes try to use American spices and they never taste right. Find an Indian spice store or mail order.
 
Love cooking/eating Indian food. It is all about the spices. As mentioned, you'll need to find an Indian grocery to get a lot of the ingredients. The spices there are also sold in bulk and are consequently a lot cheaper than your usual supermarket.

I'm working my way through this Neelem Batra, 1000 Indian Recipes . I still have a lot to go, but I have not hit a bad recipe yet. The author has been living in the U.S. for quite some time and has geared it toward ingredients that are reasonably available at an Indian grocery.

You'll probably need a pressure cooker too if you want to speed the dal dishes along.
 
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If you hit an Indian market, be sure to go to the frozen case and get a bag of patra. They're some leaf, filled with chickpea paste and awesome, then rolled up and sliced. You fry them in a little oil and then squeeze some lemon on them.

While you're there, check out the microwave meals. They're delicious and usually inexpensive--great for lunches.

Popadoms are also really easy and cheap to heat up at home-30 seconds in the microwave will puff them up nicely.
 
B

BrightFutur

My favourite quick at home butter chicken recipe. I have a longer one thats better but this can be made in under an hour!

You can mix your own garam masala if you like, or, I would *highly* reccomend MDH brand spices, particularly their 'butter chicken masala' (Pictured below)
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Easiest butter chicken recipe I've seen, and you will be blown away by the results.

Ingredients:

2 pounds boneless chicken breasts
¾ cup ketchup
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped ginger
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup of cream
2-3 tablespoons of 'MDH Butter Chicken Masala'
2-3 tablespoons of unsalted butter


Method:

Fry the chicken on high heat until its colour starts to become golden
Add the ginger and garlic
Fry some more (about another minute)
Add the masala and then the ketchup and continue frying for 1-2 minutes
Add milk and cream
Cover, reduce heat to medium or low, and let simmer for 30-40 minutes
Add the butter just before serving.
Garnish with fresh chopped coriander.

I was super skeptical at first. Especially about the ketchup. But I've been trying for years to get a tasty butter chicken recipe that doesn't take 2 days and a load of mess to make.

I often use more cream and less milk than is called for - worse for you but richer. You can play around with the recipe all you like, I sometimes add onions at the same stage as garlic/ginger.
 
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Off the top of my head this is my
Chana Masala (spiced chick peas)
3-5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2-4 Tbsps fresh ginger, minced
2 cans chick peas, drained
1 can crushed tomatoes (not stewed)
2 medium onions, sliced
Garam Masala (spice mix available at Indian grocery stores, and most places now, will vary wildly from place to place)
Cumin (ground works, freshly pan roasted seeds then ground is better)
Turmeric powder (the roots scare me)
Vegetable oil for sautéing.

Basically you heat the oil, just under-brown the ginger and garlic, add the onions, cook until translucent, add a good amount (2-4 tbsps) of garam masala, a good amount of turmeric, and a smaller amount of cumin (1 tbsp) once the spices have browned a bit in the oil with the onion, garlic and ginger "de-glaze" the pan with the tomatoes including most of the juice, then add the chick peas. Adjust the spices to you preference, and let it simmer as long as you've got patience for, minimum 10 minutes.

It's quick, easy, tasty, just serve it with some pita and raita (simple yougurt, grated cucumber, mint and salt/sugar combination) maybe some spicy mango pickle :drool:

Most Indian cooking can be pretty freeform, just experiment and see what you come up with. It gets more complicated in the kormas and makhanis but as long as you're not shy with the spices you can take any recipe and bend it to your culinary will.

Yeah my basic veg curry is similar.
OP, as said, all you need is tumeric, cumin and garam masalla.
Once you have that, cooking up a curry is simple. Onions, garlic, chillies, chopped tomatos and you're set. Just add whatever you like to that, like meat, or chick peas, pumpkin, zuchinni, ginger, coriander etc.
edit: forgot red and green capsicums and carrots, and not all this goes into the curry, just options of what works well in a basic curry.
 
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What more recipes do you guys have?

How some curries, chicken tikka masala, yogurt sauces, samosas, pakoras, vegetarian dishes, whatcha guys got?

I've love to buy a cookbook or two, but at this moment that's just not in the funds, so I'm looking for every recipe I can find here at B&B. I'm also looking for sites to order spices from online.


Thanks all!
 
Depending on where you live, if you can find a good indian grocery store there's no point in making your own samosas or pakoras. I get samosas 5/$1 and pakora 10/$1 pretty localy, the same goes for spices, way cheaper than anything online or in traditional grocery stores, and fresh, because of the huge indian population there's a massive turnover. There's one strip mall with 4 different Indian restraunts and 1 grocery store, and they're all fully thriving. ($5 for a thali plate with 3 curries, rice and "salad")

I'll try and come up with some more recipes later, just gotta find them.
 
Yeah I like a medium steak with the juices being the only sauce needed too.
I do cook up a couple of vegetarian curries and risottos occaisionly though.

It's a decent site to get to know some of the ingrediants like spices , techniques and the different breads. I think it's the northen style that eats most curries with breads, and the southern style with rice, I might be wrong though.
I was looking at that site because I normally have stir fries and curries with rice, and I'm sick of rice so I found it when googling for flat breads.
 
Sorry for the large font on this one, I simply cannot force the copied text to shrink.


This sounds kind of wild, but I have made it few times for groups. It is not a very sweet but still tasty with a definite carrot taste to it. The real secret to it is simmering it down until the liquid is absorbed, which allows it to set up into a pudding.



GAJAR HALVA
Sweet Carrot Pudding

Yield 6 to 8 servings


6 carrots (about 1 pound), peeled and finely shredded
2 cups half and half
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup seedless golden raisins
¼ cup butter, margarine, or ghee
½ teaspoon cardamom
salt to taste
1 cup finely chopped almonds
½ cup nuts of choice for toppng

Equipment: medium saucepan with cover, mixing spoon

Put carrots and half and half in saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to simmer, cover, and cook until liquid is almost absorbed, about 1 hour.

Add brown sugar, raisins, butter, or margarine or ghee, cardamom, and salt and mix well Reduce heat to low and stir until sugar is dissolved (about 2 minutes)


To serve as they do in India, spoon pudding into a mound in the center a dish and garnish with nuts and serve warm.
 
Indian food requires a lot spices, but you can get away with buying some key base ingredients like

Tomatoes
Onion
Ginger
Garlic
Green Chilies
Ghee (clarified butter)
Cilantro

then walk into an Indian Grocery store look for spice mixes from Laziza

(They make several different types of spice mixes for Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka, Seekh Kebab, Biryani, etc... you name it they have it)

Follow the instructions on the back of the packet and enjoy the food.

If you cannot find Laziza spice mixes try Shaan (much spicier)

Hope that helps
 
First serious attempt to do Indian. My favorite, lamb & spinach. Only substitution was Greek yogurt, but it's only 2 teaspoons. Result? Not quite ready for company. At least not to my taste. Too much coriander for one. Two tablespoons!!! I've never ground so much coriander seed in my life, let alone a whole tablespoon of cumin, which was easy by comparison. The mortar & pestle gotta go.

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