Tag Archives: Indian Cuisine

Red Pork

Posted on by

Red Pork
I made this recently for a dinner party. I’m tempted to call it a vindaloo but then my Parsi and Goan friends might get angry. It’s generally in the vindaloo family in that it involves pork, vinegar and garlic but it is not a vindaloo: this is me messing around with a pork shoulder with general taste memories of proper vindaloo in mind. Proper vindaloo, in case you’re wondering, is made with pork. It is not made with lamb or beef or chicken as Indian restaurants in the US, afflicted by the curse of complete substitutability, may have led you to believe. Sweet, fatty pork is the meat for vindaloo—the only acceptable subsitute is duck. And the other necessary ingredients of a proper vindaloo, as indicated by the name, and as many North Indians also do not know, are vinegar and garlic. If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me that a vindaloo is made with vinegar and potato (alu/aloo in most North Indian languages) I’d be able to buy some Yamazaki 18 at the current price.

Anyway, I don’t know why I’m going on about vindaloo as this is not one—I believe I may have already noted this. What it is though is tangy, sweet and just a bit spicy and if your tastebuds and soul are not dead you will like it. It’s best made a day ahead.

Continue reading →

Meen Mapas (Kerala-style Fish Curry)

Posted on by

Meen Mapas
Malayali food is one of my very favourite cuisines and is one of the things I miss most about living in India. I don’t mean to suggest that I grew up eating Malayali food (Kerala is the state, the people, culture and food are Malayali; the language is Malayalam). Indeed, given how intensely regional Indian cultural identity is, and also how relatively recently it is that restaurants specializing in something other than the local cuisine, “Mughlai” cuisine and Indian-Chinese cuisine have begun to pop up in the major Indian metros, I didn’t really have too much of an opportunity to eat it. In fact, it wasn’t until my early twenties that I was really introduced to Malayali food. This happened at Malabar, a restaurant in Hauz Khas in Delhi that I would eat at often with friends from work. I left for the US shortly thereafter and on visits home seeking out Malayali food was a major highlight (though then it was to the Coconut Grove in the Ashok Yatri Niwas hotel that we’d go—see here for a brief account of a scandalous crime that resulted in the shutting down of the Ashok Yatri Niwas). These days there are lots of places to eat Malayali and other non-idli-dosa-sambhar South Indian foods in Delhi, but in the early ’90s there really weren’t and so there’s doubtless some element of exoticism in my attachment to Malayali food.

Continue reading →

Bandhakophir Chorchori (Stir-fried Cabbage)

Posted on by

Bandhakophir Chorchori
Chorchoris are sometimes referred to as the Bengali analogues of Chinese stir-fries but they’re not exactly the same thing. Vegetables are fried in in a hot pan with spices but after water (or some other moist ingredient) is added the cooking is finished without much further stirring, letting the bottom layer crisp up a bit. The final dish is mostly dry (no gravy/sauce). That’s the general rule anyway. When I’m cooking cabbage in this general way I don’t let it get too tender as I like my cabbage to be a little crunchy. Anyway, it’s a very simple dish and you can cook other vegetables in much the same way (pumpkin, cauliflower etc.) or in combination. And you can also add some diced potatoes and even some small shrimp to this cabbage version. Continue reading →

Egg Curry/Dimer Dalna

Posted on by

Dimer Dalna
I don’t make egg curry very often but was moved to write this up after reading a comment by someone I follow on Twitter that referenced a complicated recipe they use. This foxed me because, in Bengal at least, one of the chief attractions of egg curry is more or less the fact that it’s a simple, quick thing to make: something you make because you don’t want to go through the hassle of cooking chicken or mutton (or if you don’t have any). As you’ll see, the recipe below is as basic as it gets. You boil the eggs and some potato; you make a spiced tomato “gravy” and then you simmer the potato and peeled eggs in it for a little bit longer; you eat it with rice. It’s certainly possible to add more twists along the way, and it’s also possible that there are more elaborate approaches by default in other parts of India, but you should be able to make a pretty decent egg curry in not more than 30 minutes.

By the way, in Bengal the dish is called “dimer dalna”. Dim (pronounced closer to “deem”) means egg, and “dalna” refers to the specific mode of prep (dalnas have thicker gravies than jhols). Continue reading →

Alur Dom/Dum Alu

Posted on by

Alur Dom
Alur dom (in Bengal) or dum-alu (in the Hindi belt) is a popular dish made in a variety of ways across India. The name implies cooking on “dum”, or in a tightly sealed vessel so that the potatoes cook in their own “breath”, so to speak; in practice, however, it’s rarely prepared that way in most homes. At least the potatoes are rarely cooked entirely on “dum”. This is certainly the case for this recipe, which comes to me from one of my aunts who is one of the best cooks in the extended family and has a very successful, small catering business in Calcutta. Ideally, you’d eat it with luuchis (luuchis are a lighter, fluffier version of puris) but it goes very well with parathas and rice. Indeed, match it with some chholar dal and rice and you’re all set for a great vegetarian meal. Continue reading →

Spicy, Shredded Beef

Posted on by

Shredded Beef
This is cooked with Indian spices but there is nothing traditional about this dish, nor does it originate in any particular region. I improvised the general approach some years ago for pork shoulder in the slow cooker (though I use a slightly different spice mix for pork). You cook it low and slow all day long, take the meat out when done and shred it with a fork and mix it in with the sauce. The end result is very close to the Mexican barbacoa in looks but, of course, tastes quite different. You can eat it in much the same way: with rice, or with chapatis or parathas (rolled up in them or otherwise). I suppose if you really wanted to get fusiony you could even put it in a sandwich.

But whether making a sandwich or an ersatz taco/burrito I find it difficult to add cheese. This is entirely my problem. Despite all the similarities between Mexican and Indian cuisines—both in terms of form and flavour—I can’t wrap my head around putting cheese over Indian meat dishes (or any other dishes for that matter). Those not bound by a lifetime of associations should feel free to experiment that way and report back. Continue reading →

Palak Paneer

Posted on by

Palak Paneer
This is another Indian restaurant favourite and like many Indian restaurant favourites it is usually made in restaurants with a gallon or so of cream. Home-made versions have a much lighter touch and, as in my version below, often leave out the cream altogether. This means you can actually taste the spinach and paneer—a radical concept, I know. Again, palak=spinach; you can make this with a combination of greens and if you do then you’ll have saag paneer (saag=leafy greens).

There are two major components to good palak paneer: good spinach and good paneer (ideally, home-made). If you have those two it’s hard to go wrong. You can tweak the other ingredients (proportions and texture) to your liking and make it entirely your own. You can even add some cream, I suppose, but to my mind palak paneer is best when it’s pureed spinach and soft home-made paneer that are the source of the velvety richness. Continue reading →

Bhindi-fry

Posted on by

Bhindi-fry
Okra is not a universally beloved vegetable in the US, primarily due to its reputation for becoming slimy when cooked. This was not an idea I’d encountered before coming to the US. It is eaten all over India but no one seems to complain about this quality. This is not because Indians like slimy vegetables but because in the ways that most Indian cuisines prepare it it doesn’t turn slimy. This is the case in this fairly simple recipe as well. The key is to keep it away from moisture. Dry the pods thoroughly after washing them; slice them with a dry knife on a dry cutting board after they are completely dry and you’ll barely see anything mucilaginous at this point; after that cook them quickly and add a bit of acid (mango powder in this case) and any slime that develops while it is cooking will dissipate. Read on for more detail and photographic corroboration. Continue reading →

Kali Dal

Posted on by

Kali Dal
This is the classic Punjabi dal that doused with cream and butter appears on Indian restaurant menus as dal makhani (more or less). This is a home-style version that skips the cream and butter and actually lets you taste everything that’s in it. As you can probably tell from the picture it is a creamy dal but the creaminess comes from the lentils themselves (a portion of which you mash). It’s not just healthy on that account though: as it uses a lentil/dal that is unpeeled it is chock full of fiber.

The preparation is a simple one. You cook the dal with water, salt and turmeric till it’s done, then add a prepared “tadka” to it, and continue to simmer until you’ve reached the desired consistency, which is achieved when the dal is soft to the bite but still easily holding its shape. I cook the dal itself very quickly in my terrifying Indian pressure cooker—but it will be easy enough to cook it normally on the stove-top; if you have a new-fangled pressure cooker you’re on your own (I don’t understand how those things work). Continue reading →

Matar-Paneer

Posted on by

Matar Paneer
Yesterday you made paneer (you did, right?); now here is something to make with some of that paneer.

Matar-paneer (literally peas-paneer) is a fairly ubiquitous dish on Indian restaurant menus in the US but, as with almost everything on most Indian restaurant menus in the US, often drowned in cream. The recipe below is a version of the basic way in which it is made in most homes in North India: a tomato sauce with clean, bright flavours that offsets the paneer nicely, with the peas providing textural contrast.

It is a very easy recipe, calling for not very many ingredients, most of which you probably have on hand, with a very light touch with the spices. Continue reading →

Home-Made Paneer

Posted on by

paneersquare2
Various paneer dishes have become quite identified with Indian food in the US but I’d wager that most Americans have never eaten anything better than mediocre paneer. The versions served at every Indian restaurant I’ve ever eaten it in in the US have in fact been worse than mediocre, whether served in a braised dish like palak paneer or fried as pakoras: it’s invariably hard and dense. I suspect most restaurants don’t make their own paneer or that if they do that they make it in mass quantities ahead of time and rarely use it fresh. Then again, paneer made well doesn’t always need to be fresh—as you’ll see, the recipe below freezes very well.

Anyway, if you like eating paneer in restaurants you should really make it at home; it will be a revelation. And if you think making paneer is some sort of higher-level skill, you’re wrong: if you’re capable of bringing milk to a boil and then stirring it you have mastered the two steps of making paneer. That’s pretty much all there is to it: bring milk to a boil, add an acid and stir as it splits the milk. Once the milk has separated into whey and lumpy curds you strain it, cover it with a weight and in as little as 10 minutes you have paneer ready to eat or cook with. Continue reading →

Pork and Beans, Indian Style

Posted on by

Pork and Beans
Here’s a bonus recipe that is probably also the easiest recipe I will ever post. This is because it assumes that you have already made this pork. All you then have to do is cook some beans and at the very end add 3-4 ladles of the pork to the bean pot and simmer it all together till the beans are done. What you are basically doing here is adding the spiced pork as a “tadka” to the almost-cooked beans. As always, I use heirloom beans from my friend Steve’s company, Rancho Gordo but, obviously, any good beans will do—and you want to be cooking good beans because you want good pot liquor to add the dry pork to. And frankly there are no beans in the US better than Rancho Gordo beans.

In this recipe I used Rancho Gordo’s monstrously large Royal Corona beans—when fully cooked each bean is almost as large as a tablespoon—but this will work just as well with any beans that are good for pork and beans (such as Rancho Gordo’s Red Nightfall or Sangre de Toro). That said, I prefer a milder bean like the Royal Corona because its pot liquor/broth allows the flavour of the spiced pork to come through clearly (their Cassoulet or Alubia Criollos would be great too). But see what works for you. Continue reading →

Spicy and Tangy Pork

Posted on by

Pork
Along with some friends we recently purchased half a steer headed to slaughter. It was a fairly large animal and even after processing and dry-aging for about three weeks our share of the meat came to about 80lbs. I’d purchased a very large freezer to hold the meat easily (the last time we did this our regular freezer was overwhelmed) and it is so big that 80 lbs of beef barely took up any room in it. So, of course, I went out and got half a pig (being able to do this kind of thing on a whim is among the few benefits of living in a semi-rural part of the upper Midwest). The goddamned freezer still seems less than half full and we have a lot of beef and pork to eat. Luckily, these are all animals raised without hormones and antibiotics and in fairly “humane” conditions. Anyway, all this is to say that those of you interested in my recipe posts can look forward to a fair number of beef and pork recipes in the months ahead. (And goat and lamb too—this is a monstrous freezer indeed.)

First up, here’s a version of a spicy and tangy pork dish that I have been making to some acclaim for about 10 years now. The exact ingredients are never quite the same and I vary the consistency of the gravy from time to time, but insofar as it is constant it’s a rough pass at versions of some pork dishes I’ve eaten in the homes of family friends from southwestern parts of India. So it’s not a specific regional recipe; but, to blow my horn twice in one paragraph, it is very good. Try it; you will like it. And if you have the ingredients it is very easy to pull together. Continue reading →

Everyday Chicken Curry

Posted on by

Chicken Curry
A while ago I posted a recipe for a “hybrid” chicken curry that I more or less improvised. Today I have a recipe for the basic chicken curry that is eaten in homes all across north India. I don’t mean to suggest that there is (only) one identical chicken curry eaten in homes all across north India, only that these curries (and this one) are members of the same closely related family, with a bit of ingredient variation in different regions, and proportions of spices (or even the exact ones used) varying in homes. But basically this is a familiar template for most north Indian home cooks: you heat up oil, add some whole garam masala to give it fragrance; saute onions and then ginger-garlic paste; then add ground spices; then add the meat; then a souring agent (tomatoes, usually); then water; cover and cook till done; serve with rice or parathasa/chapatis. And that is what I am doing here.

Continue reading →

Ghugni: Chickpeas in a Bengali Style

Posted on by

Ghugni
Following my “Indian Home Cooking Week“, just a one-off recipe this week. [And see here for the second edition of “Indian Home Cooking Week”; and here for all my cooking posts so far.]

This one is for a take on a classic Bengali dish called ghugni. Ghugni is one of those rare dishes that is both a popular street food and made at home. It can be found year round but is often made in homes on the last day of Durga Pujo—the week-long celebration that is the Bengali religious/cultural festival (imagine Christmas, Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, the Oscars and the Super Bowl all rolled into one but communal, public, louder and with more food). It’s most traditionally made with dried yellow or white peas but it’s not unusual to see it made with kala/desi/black chana/chickpeas as well. Here I make it with garbanzo beans. This has always been a popular dish with everyone I’ve made it for and it’s supremely adaptable.

As with almost all my bean cooking I don’t really bother with anything but Rancho Gordo’s garbanzo beans (disclosure: Rancho Gordo proprietor Steve Sando is a pal). They cook implausibly fast, are incredibly sweet and the pot liquor is great. Continue reading →

Chapatis and Parathas (Indian Home Cooking Week 1)

Posted on by

Parathas
Rejoice, whisky people, Indian Home Cooking Week is at an end.

As for those of you who have been following and enjoying these recipes, and possibly looking forward to them, you might recall that I’d promised chapatis, parathas and pickles for the last post, and here I am with only chapatis and parathas. This is how life is. Also, the post will get way too long if I write up the pickle recipes as well and so I’m going to save those for a future post. Stop whining! I’ve already given you so much!

First, a tedious autobiographical detour!

Continue reading →

Rajma: Beans in a North Indian Style

Posted on by

[Update, 12/9/2014: As I got a big kick out of posting this recipe, and the one that followed for turkey koftas, I’ve decided to make Indian home cooking a regular part of this blog. In fact, next week (starting December 15) will be Indian home cooking week with recipes every day for everything from breads and pickles to dals, vegetable dishes, fish and chicken.]

Rajma with Rancho Gordo San Franciscano Beans

Rajma with Rancho Gordo San Franciscano Beans

If it weren’t bad enough that this whisky blog now features weekly restaurant reviews here’s my first foray into cooking posts. Soon I’ll expand to regular reports featuring my vegetable garden (I’ll have updated pictures of the foot of snow it’ll be under for the next five months); parenting advice (Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom is not a family film); and my crucial fashion insights (the Nehru jacket is coming back!). It’s going to be so much fun!

Anyway, I’ve been an annoying food person for much longer than I’ve been an annoying whisky person. I’ve been discussing food online far longer than I’ve been discussing whisky (before the rise of food blogs, back when food forum wars were a serious thing—I was part of the second eGullet purge; “eGullet what?”, you say; exactly.) I’m also a prolific cook—other than a meal or two out on the weekend all our meals are home-cooked, and as my wife has a much longer commute than I do most of it is cooked by me. I have a pretty wide repertoire cuisine-wise but let’s face it nobody wants anything but Indian recipes from an Indian. And so here is yet another axis along which I can inflict myself on the world (though my old food forum friends will see this only as a return). Continue reading →