indian food vs. italian food

...yes...yes...my campaign of giving out free now and laters to the voters is bearing fruit...cherry, banana, apple, and "tropical"

indian food is super easy to make fwiw

Italian food is one of those unchallenging comfort things that it's stupid to say you like because EVERYONE LIKES IT EXCEPT VEGANS AND WEIRDOS.

This is utter madness, I became more vegetarian than I ever used to be thanks to proper homemade Italian food. Lentil soup with garlic, ceci (chickpeas) with tomato and chilli over pasta, fennel salad, salad in general. All vegan. I dont think Ive ever been to a decent Italian restaurant that has put cheese all over a dish without asking, either, except for obvious things like a pizza, or a green salad if it incs shavings of parmesan.

for fuck's sake what an awful poll, the priest wouldn't ask you this.

Indian btw, tho pasta indeed > rice

In fact Italian is easier to be vegan than indian, because they use olive oil, whereas a lot of indian places use ghee.

how to make super easy indian food

Wishing I'd brought in my chickpea/tofu/cauliflower curry I made, now. Hungry.

i actually work with a number of indian folks. maybe if i offer to do odd jobs for them they'll take pity on me and bring me food.

I gotta say Italian would stand a better chance against Indian with me if you had to do more to make an Italian dish "alla diavolo" than add a damn teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes. I like Indian food, I like Mexican food, I like Thai food, I like Szechuan food. crushed red pepper flakes do not make the grade fire-wise you italians

i think the hardest part of indian cooking is finding high-quality spices. after that it's just frying onions, garlic and ginger and getting the spice blend right.

i am bad at paneer though

yeah tbh to make any range of indian food i think you'd need a pretty loaded cupboard of spices etc but you can make six classic italian dishes using only a leaf of basil and a hymn to our lady

obv this depends where you live but in most parts of london you can get all the indian spices you need in any local corner shop (usually not saffron, but all the others)

yes london seems wonderful

my wife's gotten pretty good at making a few homemade indian dishes (or at least some very delicious bastardizations thereof) and has a lot of the necessary spices but still it's just an every now and again thing

true story, the first time i ever had indian food as a teenager was IN london, so pretty good introduction for me there

granted, i have many of them myself, but there's a lot more of them needed for you to be able to claim even a reasonably basic indian kit, imo

surely cumin, coriander, ginger and turmeric aren't hard to get most places? That's all you need for your basic stuff. Which will still be delicious

madhur jaffrey complains that what gets sold as garam masala is often subpar so every time a recipe calls for it i have to hunt down green and black cardomom pods and half a nutmeg and grind them with peppercorns and cloves. i've misplaced half a dozen little homemade garam masalas. sometimes i think madhur jaffrey just likes complications, though.

vs a leaf of basil, tho

yeah cumin, coriander, ginger, turmeric and cayenne are the only super-essential ones. though it can be hard to get the right chilies. jalapenos are not quite right.

nothing very hot in that group, number none

italian needs maybe five basic herbs, not inc.salt and pepper? i'd say indian needs maybe 10 basic spices (that's a guess based on my memory of my spiceshelf back in london) (haha if geeta is in my flat at the moment she can go look! tho she probbly knows them w/o looking and will spot something really obvious i don't have)

I didn't include chillis cos they're a staple surely?

can't wait to post in this thread

you know what can be hard to find? asafoetida

i found it at the indian store but i didn't get it

well, like i say, all the others are a staple in my neighbourhood!

i'd add cardamom cz i love it, amchoor and tamarind cz i like sourness and horseshoe's list doesn't really cover sour, cinnamon, though that's obvious a staple also, and maybe mustard seeds? also useful to have cardamoms and cumin as seeds as well as powder

i voted on the basis of which one i wd miss the most so indian it is

also lol @ jaggery
i needed it for something but then nothing else, so i had this block of sugar sitting in the cabinet forever

lol go to any indian store

cardamom is totally essential, you're right, and it can be hard to find the whole black cardamom pods.

when i lived in chicago the indian stores were far away from where i lived! life was so hard!

protip vegetables are cheaper in indian stores too

but like then again I just go to korean supermarkets to buy everything because they're the best I think

my indian store has not-so-fresh vegetables :(

indian food and italian food are kind of the only two cuisines I specialize in besides "breakfast" which is like 80% of the meals I make, but I like both I guess

bah it's the middle of the night here and now i want to go and make a curry even though i'm in the wrong house and have none of the above

anyway I am indian and have eaten food all over lil villages and big cities in india but I feel like there's really nothing interesting to say about this, they're both good things

uh oh i'm having curry

uh oh i'm having a puri

ilx food threads aren't really about interesting discussion they're fights to the deeath

I am a youngish indian male so old ladies behind the register in indian stores always feel pity for me or something whenever I show up to the counter w/ things to buy, like they figure out what I'm making by looking at the ingredients and bark out orders at me to pick the shit I'm forgetting up off the shelf back there, no to the right, above the yellow thing, the yellow thing to the left, and then they finally walk over and take it off and walk back to the register and ring me up with a big sigh

aero makes a v good point about the spiciness of italian food, but alas

I generally make my italian food kind of spicy anyway

i haven't been able to find fenugreek at the regular supermarkets, but i may break down and order some from the net.

Grew up with an Italian mom. Had my fill. Indian.

I am a youngish indian male so old ladies behind the register in indian stores always feel pity for me or something whenever I show up to the counter w/ things to buy, like they figure out what I'm making by looking at the ingredients and bark out orders at me to pick the shit I'm forgetting up off the shelf back there, no to the right, above the yellow thing, the yellow thing to the left, and then they finally walk over and take it off and walk back to the register and ring me up with a big sigh

this story made me laugh hard

a friend of mine was a dishwasher at an Italian place in California when he was sixteen and his boss was Mama D., aka the owner's wife who'd put her in charge of the kitchen. She was from Italy and made the dishwashers sweep the parking lot and the part of Foothill Boulevard in front of the restaurant before closing.

The speed limit on that part of Foothill then was, iirc, 50 miles per hour.

I recently got a mild infestation of those moths that come in on bags of rice from Indian markets. Any open spices or grains in the cupboard... ruined. Dead moths and larvae in the bags. I just discovered my fenugreek has moth larvae in it. I'm so pissed off because I didn't realize it and I have to make masoor dal later.

Italian, only because I'm pissed off.

I have always made masoor dal without fenugreek but that's because I never have fenugreek, is it mind-blowing essential and I am impure for not using it?

I am a youngish indian male so old ladies behind the register in indian stores always feel pity for me or something whenever I show up to the counter w/ things to buy, like they figure out what I'm making by looking at the ingredients and bark out orders at me to pick the shit I'm forgetting up off the shelf back there, no to the right, above the yellow thing, the yellow thing to the left, and then they finally walk over and take it off and walk back to the register and ring me up with a big sigh

LOL <3 damn xposts

I risked a Proper Indian Grocer the other day and bought some readymeals and some boxed "chana masala" powder which turned out to be SO FUCKING HOT I COULD SEE THRU TIME and I basically darent use it. I liked the idea it had powdered dried fruit, it made it seem different.