INDIAN FOOD!

is it a "thing" for Indians to like and frequent Thai restaurants a lot? i get the feeling that indians to thai is like americans to mexican, but maybe it's just particular to the places i frequent.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2011/02/venn_food_diagram_indian_food.php

i like everything i've tried/heard of on the "indian" side of the diagram.

I want to eat everything on that diagram.

Just back from Dimple Bombay Talk in Iselin NJ. Why do I have to go that far to eat Pani Puri that doesn't taste stale or weird?

Punjabi #2 FTW

oh man, i totally know the place you're talking about, dan. it's good and cheap

my recommendation with indian food (especially as i live in boston, which is a wasteland for good indian food)--make it yourself. i can send recipes, or suggest good cookbooks

i can send recipes, or suggest good cookbooks

I'm fond of this one, particularly for dal and a couple meat recipes (tandoori chicken, etc). Have a few others I never use tho. what do you recommend geeta

'Classic Indian Cooking' by Julie Sahni is the best one I've tried (I've tried a lot of Indian cookbooks) - it's like the food I grew up with.

If you can find the book Savoring India by Julie Sahni--that one is great. It's out of print. Some of the same recipes but big, glossy, full-color photos, good layout ('Classic Indian Cooking' is all text, black and white)

Madhur Jaffrey's first book, 'An Invitation to Indian Cooking' - I have a first edition, from the 1970s - that one is good too

I also learned a lot by watching my grandmother, an incredible cook who never looked at a recipe in her life (she doesn't know how to read very well--she never went to school.) Indian cooking is a lot like Indian classical music--mostly an oral tradition. All of her recipes are in her head; at first I found this frustrating, but after watching her for years, I realized that all her off-the-cuff measurements were incredibly consistent. So I worked out a lot of her recipes, and wrote them down. And then, the more I tried my hand at it, the more I started to develop the same kind of intuition. Part of it is understanding how the spices work with each other, and in what proportion.

I make the korma out of Classic Indian Cooking about once a week. Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking is also great.

yes, i have that one too! lots of love for julie sahni

this thread totally inspired me to make indian food tonight

I do have a Madhur Jaffrey one, can't remember the title offhand. it's sort of my second go-to indian cookbook after the vaswani one

recently bought "Quick and Easy Indian Cooking" by Madhur Jaffrey, have made 2 recipes so far, both pretty tasty (have "royal chicken cooked in yogurt" leftovers in the lunchroom fridge still). have you looked at that book, geeta? it seems to be the case that once you have a well-stocked spice rack, Indian cooking is a lot less intimidating. something titled "classic indian cooking" still does intimidate though...with all of the common spices at hand, should it?

geeta: a WASTELAND? Really?

I mean I know there are a ton of average places but what do you think of (for example) Shalimar in Central, or India Pavillion in Union?

a well-stocked spice rack, Indian cooking is a lot less intimidating

so fucking true. so glad I have a local indian grocer that gets things like sambar powder and garam masala

shit I have a Jaffrey cookbook, I should start using it again

i can never find some ingredients in anything less than industrial size. like i prob have enough black mustard seeds to last through the next Ice Age.

an indian restaurant recently opened up near me called... "Indian Restaurant". It's supposed to be pretty good. Hoping I will like it, b/c for a city of its size there ain't much in the way of super-delicious south asian eats here

seems to be the case that once you have a well-stocked spice rack, Indian cooking is a lot less intimidating.

This is totally it. Another book I recommend is Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine, from the restaurant in Vancouver. His basic chicken curry is amazing and easy and the kind of dish I make a double batch of and eat off of all week.

one of my older cookery books -- thought it might be Elizabeth David's spices salt and aromatics in the english kitchen, but if it is i can't find the passage -- has a list of addresses of specialist london outlets from which to mail-order all the best indian spices

dunno if I posted this already but Dakshin is the best indian cookbook I've used so far, its south indian

http://www.amazon.com/Dakshin-Vegetarian-Cuisine-South-India/dp/9625935274

everything is pretty straightforward and there are actual measurements and shit

Great book, but I find the actual measurements sometimes reflect different strengths or preparations than would be commonly available: many of the recipes call for a lemon-sized piece of tamarind pulp, which makes me suspect lemons are much smaller in India. Also, calling for like 6 red chilies would fucking kill you, the ones you get at any indian grocery i've been to. must be a milder kind.

some of the recipes from this book turned out inedible when i followed them exactly, but it is still an invaluable reference.

This is another good one:
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Curries-India-Camellia-Panjabi/dp/1904920357

Great book, but I find the actual measurements sometimes reflect different strengths or preparations than would be commonly available: many of the recipes call for a lemon-sized piece of tamarind pulp, which makes me suspect lemons are much smaller in India. Also, calling for like 6 red chilies would fucking kill you, the ones you get at any indian grocery i've been to. must be a milder kind.

some of the recipes from this book turned out inedible when i followed them exactly, but it is still an invaluable reference.

― fields of salmon, Wednesday, August 31, 2011 5:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

tbf I totally forgot to mention that in every recipe you have to cut down on all the chilies by about 80%

but yeah my first few dishes from Dakshin were completely inedible because I followed the recipes to a t and when I got the hang of it they got p amazing

See I thought it was just me for all these years. I'm very happy now. There is also an el-cheapo coil bound generic "Indian cooking" book you can buy as a remaindered book practically everywhere. The thing is worthless and nobody wants it, but it somehow it was written by somebody who really knew their stuff. It is a dead-on book and everything is super accurate, but not over complicated with references to things you'll never be able to buy. Buried there, in the stack of remaindered Indian cookery books, you will find this one, and you will know what I mean.

Fuck this shit, I'm getting Indian food delivered.

Malai kofta, garlic naan, veg pakora, and samosas.

And that's how I roll it.

it has been three years since i've had indian food.

three years.

THREE YEARS.

#$%#@$%#$%@$!

i will freeze some korma and mail it to you!

omg me too

i cant find anywhere here that makes good lamb korma its killing me

indian food is easy to make and a lot cheaper to cook at home than to buy at a restaurant, especially if you're not using meat. there is no reason to go three years without eating indian food; that's just criminal.

INDIAN FOOD!

SAAG/PALAK PANEER

i made muttar paneer last night. it was okay.

I've learned to cook dishes at home, not as good as restaurant food, but better than frozen Indian dinners. Only drawback is that I can't make samosas or naan!

Fuck this shit, I'm getting Indian food delivered.

Malai kofta, garlic naan, veg pakora, and samosas.

And that's how I roll it.

― ███★★★███ (PappaWheelie V), Wednesday, November 2, 2011 7:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Add gobi Manchurian (dry) and that's exactly what we got a couple nights ago.

There is NO reason to go more than one week without Indian food.

there is no reason to go three years without eating indian food; that's just criminal.

I was going to say!

There is NO reason to go more than one week without Indian food.

I've lasted longer. More than one week without Mexican food = RED ALERT.

Can you get anything like Patak curry paste easily in the US? You just add tomatoes and whatever you want to curry (veg, meat, etc) and get a decent result in twenty minutes.

Yeah, there're several brands of that type stuff at the Whole Foods/Trader Joe's type stows.

I like the Maesri curry pastes in the small cans.

Patak's Lime Pickle is the shit.

Only drawback is that I can't make samosas or naan!

? why not? neither of these is particularly difficult.

Trader Joe's has great frozen indian breads for some reason - parathas and garlic naan both surprisingly tasty

Can you get anything like Patak curry paste easily in the US?

you can totally get this stuff in the US

not from Safeway, but anywhere where there's an Indian community, this stuff is available.

any good recipe sites/books?

there's some cookbooks ref'd upthread

Madhur Jafferey's Indian Cookery is quite good.

what's up with the packaging on these papadums
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7167/6670278241_b1ba843619.jpg

The papadums of nightmares.

that child's mouth totally gives me the willies