indiagirl

It almost seems as if some of the argumentation is saying that spices are being used to cover up the innate taste of inferior quality ingredients, not necessarily spoilage. Yes, and I wonder how much this notion of the innate "coldness" of beef can be understood in a modern context. I'm not much of a beef eater (!) - Do you think beef is a "cold" meat? edited, several times, because i've only had two sips of the morning cuppajoe

A couple of points and a quote First - The New Tayyeb. I've never eaten there but can make some educated guesses from Steve's various posts regarding the restaurant. Like many other Indian restaurants in the US, I would guess, it over-spices. Food cooked at home or in some restaurants in India uses spice ratios that are not that different from some French recipes I have seen. I am not trying to deny that Indian food uses more spices than French food, by any means. I'm just saying that this is not applicable to every dish. Also, restaurants in the US are primarly North Indian and they do use more spices than say, other Indian cuisines. The message here - the range of spice usage and the fact that a lot of Indian food is vegetarian (nullifies the bad meat cover up) should indicate that spices are used as flavor enhancers and traditionally for their medical benefits. Two - New falvor vs. enhanced flavor. Many well written Indian cookbooks about Indian food will tell you that when you make a tomato-onion-giner-garlic based gravy with ground spices in it, ensure that the you cook it until the oil (fat) that you tempered the whole spices in, separates and appears to float on the top. This ensures that all the flavors combine to create one flavor as opposed to tomato with cumin powder. This would imply a new, hopefully enhanced flavor. My personal theory - skillful spicing results in gestalt and when that happens spices is wonderful and the right thing to do. If it does not ..... The quote: From A Culinary History of Food - a fascinating read. Last night, very pertinently to this thread (and another) I read about the use of spices in food. The book mentions the use of vinegar, garlic and rue to season beef in "out of necessity" to correct the "natural deficiencies" of beef - which in this case are clearly described as being the "coldness" of the beef, not bad quality. On the theory that spices were used to cover up bad meat: Evidence cited was municipal regulations about meat slaughter and sale. The whole chapter on spices is fascinating, particularly the history of it's usage in French food. Synopsis later, if anyone is interested (let me know, okay?). I'm off to dinner. Italian. Moderate/low spicing, I suspect!

Yes, ajwain and cumin are completely different. And they taste completely different and I would not use them interchangeably. As a matter of fact, I think they can supplement each other. And I am not surprised that ajwain was used in the dough. From what I know, I think ajwain is amazing in doughs. Probably something to do with how it responds to baking/roasting vs. cumin (there is prolly a scientific explanation for this but my opinion is purely empirical) - ajwain seems to flavor doughs more strongly than cuimin does. And more subtly, which I know sounds contradictory but I mean it in the sense that it seems to somehow flavor the entire dough whereas cumin seems to appear more in concentrated bursts. You know? And don't get me wrong. I *love* cumin. Also, fyi, ajwain is supposed to help with digestion. And I believe that. It works. Don't know why. But it does. When we were growing up, my mum would gently dry roast it in a pan and make us have half a teaspoon or so if we complained about tummyaches!

Just googled Ras-El-Hanout - sounds wonderfiul. Thanks for the tip. The orange peel mention reminded me of an awesome recipe that my mom-in-law makes. An orange peel curry. I'll try to get the recipe.

ScottishChef. I've never heard of this author before but this book sounds *truly* entertaining. Also, I though it was okay to post recipes as long as they are not posted verbatim. I mean, I've posted recipes from the incomparable Joyce Westrip on eGullet (with attribution, of course). Was that wrong? :( Although slightly OT. I share a similar story - I am immensely enjoying a book I bought a couple of days ago in a used bookstore. It is called: The Art of Cuisine Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Maurice Joyant First published in 1966 (which is the edition I have) It has some gorgeous menus and color plates by Toulouse-Lautrec and the recipes are wonderfully entertaining. Example: Squirrels Ecureuils Having killed some squirrels in autumn, skin them the same day and empty them. Roll them up in a piece of lard and let them brown wth some good quality butter in a copper saucepan.... or The chapter about meat and poultry is entitled: About Certain Domestic Animals De Quelques Animaux Domestiques I'll post more if the recipe thing gets clarified .... I'm worried about that. About your mustard oil question. As far as I know, mustard oil is commonly used in cooking in the North East of India, like Bengal (Simon?). The Indian word is "sarsoan" and it has a very strong distinct flavor - the first and only time I had an entire meal cooked in mustard oil was in a city called Siliguri and I must confess to not liking it. Dishes made from mustard greens on the other hand, are to die for. I wonder how I would feel about it now. I've never heard of the meat explanation but then I grew up in a vegetarian family in Bombay. The only use we made of mustard oil was pickles.

guajalote - i almost responded to your post with my own grilling idea and then got distracted by the "worst recipe ever" link and yyyeccch, now i have no idea what i as going to suggest. oh boy. that's some cake. oh dear. i think i was going to say something about how stuffed grilled poblanos are really good - stuffed with potatoes, paneer etc. but i don't think i can elaborate. oh man. that cake with those worm things. ouch :P

wgallois - fyi - ganga, jamuna, saraswati btw are all names of indian rivers that are also considered holy and therefore frequently embodied as godesses! the names you mentioned, of course, are pop culture. but as others have said they seem specific to your area. i've never heard of them ........ lexus ..... i love it.

Easy: it's got to be Suvir, Monica & IndiaGirl A special big up respect to his Royal Majesty Simon Majumdar even if he is as English as a Morris Dancing fertility ritual scottishchef - how many times in a month are you going to make my day? :) :) :) :) :) :) shall i thank you for you lovely compliments with my favorite dal recipe?

indiachef, you must join us on "The Measure of All Things" post - it is 22 pages long and will require some time investment but opinionated people are needed there! :) i completely agree about the tomato. i almost never eat out in indian restaurants - possibly nyc has a better selection than i have access to - because their tomato sauces are all made with canned tomatoes and if you order two dishes with a tomato gravy it tastes the same. and then indian food gets a bad reputation. so sad. what can we do to change this?

wow. one lives and learns. no, suvir, i never add whole cardamom to ground garam masala, and i was just telling anna-n that until now i'd never heard/seen anyone do it, either. now, I'm going to have to make a couple of batches and see which i like better - the recipe i use explicitly mentions seeding the cardamom but i'll experiment so anna-n, i guess it is done both ways and unless the recipe explicitly says seeds you use the whole darn thing .....

Anna N, I think it is as you assume - when you are grinding it you do not use the pods, cookbooks implicitly assume that you will remove the pods, a la your onion example. However, Suvir, seems to indicate otherwise? He may have been referring to the use of whole spices in garam masala - a phrase Indian cuisine applies equally to a set of whole spices used during tempering as well as for the roasted ground powder. Perhaps, Suvir could clarify? Although, I have never heard or seen the pods ground, I would defer to Suvir's superior knowledge. :) Suvir - so here is the specific question - when making ground garam masala, are the pods included?

From the "exploring and exposing Indian cuisine" aspect I agree. And MTR masalas are phenomenal. I think I need to add a little perspective to my questions re. sauces. Here is where I was coming from - Patak's, whose pickles, I think are quite well made and who I respect as a purveyor of Indian food of high quality, started selling bottled Indian sauces. I immediately bought a couple to try out of sheer curiosity and found them well flavored but rather gelatinous - if memory serves one was a coconut base and the other a classic tomato-onion base. Since I consider Patak's a really good brand, I assumed the texture was an inescapable side effect of preservatives. And that led me to wondering what everyone else thinks and also I thought eGullet would be the place to find out if my assumption was accurate. So?

i've ordered three more but they're not here yet this thread is bringing to the surface an untapped addiction in my personality! in combination with the favorite cookbooks thread it may prove to be lethal to my finances. no matter, circumnavigating the globe, making it to the moon are far more important. if it's good enough for jfk and jules verne, it's good enough for me.

Pods and seeds. Yes, in most powdered masalas it is only the seeds that are used. In fact, I do not think I have ever heard of the pods themselves being ground. The seeds are sometimes roasted in the pods because they are quite delicate and the heat that gets to the seeds through the outer covering is quite sufficient to release the aromas. They can indeed be roasted directly, just with more care. For usage in garam masalas they are typically roasted outside the pods because with the combination of spices being used, a slightly spicier and stronger cardamom flavor is quite acceptable. Many recipes, especially desserts, call for no roasting at all. The pods are quite flavorful though if not as intensely flavored as the seeds - try eating one. They are used whole in recipes where they are able to cook in some liquid over a long enough period of time to allow their flavors to seep into the liquid. Pilaf and indian milk based desserts are good examples. A typical Indian thing to do is to save the pods from making masalas and so on and then use them while brewing tea. They are added to the water/milk before it is heated and release the aromas and flavors as the liquid begins to heat. Does that help?

the question about bottled sauces was not meant to be directed Kaimal-Macmillan particularly, just wondering about people's opinion on the idea in general - do the sauces have any chance of tasting as good? what will preservatives do to the taste? is there something specific about indian sauces that makes them more or less conducive to preservatives? and so on

+3 for me, maggiethecat :)

Aaah, ScottishSchef. Thanks for the praise. That would, indeed, be my dream life. That's why I asked in that other post if you were hiring cooks! 2 degrees in Mechanical Engineering. 10 years of experience in the auto industry. 8 of those in immigration shackles. What can I say? Besides, I'm trapped. Nigella Lawson has my life. I'm convinced we were switched at birth. ;) SobaAddict, I eat in stainless steel thalis (yes you had the plural correct) with katoris (little indian bowls) and drink water in copper glasses (oxymoron, i know) whenever I cook Indian food - about 2-3 times a week. I don't know why it has not caught on in restaurants - specially with the so many stainless steel kitchen appliances becoming a vogue. If I had a restaurant (I posted a description of the restaurant I dream of starting on another thread which I cannot recall now) I would serve in steel. I think colonialism is possibly the answer - even today in India, many families entertain using china. Steel is for family meals, you know?

ScottishChef Murgh Khubani (Joyce again, I worship this woman) 750 g skinned chicken breasts 1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots 1/4 cup sultanas 1/2 cup hot water 1 cup lightly whisked yoghurt 2 tsp coriander powder 1 tsp cumin powder 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ground black pepper 1/2 tsp chilli powder 1 tsp Kashmiri garam masala (I posted the recipe for this in the garam masala thread) 2 tbsp ghee 1 inch cinnamon stick 2 lightly bruised cardamom pods 2 finely sliced medium onions 2 tsp grated fresh ginger 1 tsp finely chopped garlic 1/2 tsp saffron threads steeped in 1 tbsp hot milk 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander 2 tbsp cream Cut the chicken into large bite sized pieces and set aside Steep the apricots and sultanas in the hot wwater for 30 minutes and set aside Put the yoghurt in a bowl, add the coriander powder, cumin powder, salt, pepper, chili powder and garam masala and stiir well to make into a marinade. Add the chicken pieces and leave to marinate for two hours. Heat the ghee, add the cinnamon stick and cardamom pods and fry for a couple of seconds to release their aromas. Add the onions, ginger and garlic and lower the heat and stir fry until the onion starts to change coloour. Add the chicken and the marinade and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Then stir in the apricots and sultanas and the liquid in which they have been soaked. Add the saffron threads in milk and cilantro and simmer for 5 minutes. Discard the cinnamon sticks and cardamom pods. Stir in the cream, ifusing, and serve. Have fun, scottishchef and I'm glad you're keeping the name of the dish! :)) ta-ta , must go sell my soul to the corporate world. :)

in india, the germs and water borne disease are an essential ingredient!!!

thanks, monica. i've been wondering too. what do you all think about the concept of bottled indian sauces? i have to say that i don't like the idea too much

hey ben - just wanted to say that perhaps the next time you're making paneer you could even think of adding some spices to the milk before you "curdle" it. curshed peppercorns. cumin. mace. you know .. you can then serve it as an appetizer a la caprese but with the spices making up for the taste of fermentation/curdling that mozzarella making causes or you can serve it with a dipping sauce. also about the whole spices - yeah, i just love biting into those. cardamoms even!

yes, she did. in a car accident or something sudden and violent like that. unfortunate. don't know very much about her besides media reviews and leafing through her cookbook at borders. it seemed like she was doing an excellent job of blending french-indian cuisine (!) which reminds me, i must rush off to another thread where i have some conversations to continue and explaining to do with an interpid eGulleteer :) don't i steve?

Raji Jallepali?

scottishchef ..... i'll post the recipes when i get back from work tonight. just wanted to point out something about "hansi ki achari". for correct usage you would have to follow that with either murgh or raan or something. achari is an adjective. it must be followed by a noun. apologies for the pedantic grammar lesson! perhaps suvir would be able to give you a more elegant name for that - is suspect he is more proficient at hindi than i dhals. ahh yes, that is a vast vast door to have opened. my current favorite is made of black lentils and cooked in a yoghurt-saffron base. my staple is toor with the standard onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger and fenugreek leaves (which i can buy in dried form at the local indian) annd that's only a microcosm since suvir has given me licence to ramble here :) let me tell you what i dream of? the restaurant i will start someday? a menu which has nothing more than the raw fresh ingredients available that day. no more than 3-4 groups od diners for the evening. they come in - we talk. they tell me what mood they're in, hot and heavy, light and flighty, you know? and then i go and cook up something for them. sigh. someday. i once made this dinner for all my friends - a sort of faux thai style. i made 3 or 4 different kind of sauces and set them outon the table - red curry based, green curry based, peanut coconut. i set out a number of flash fried vegetables on the side and my guests tossed together their dinners. i'd love to do something that is conceptually similar for indian food someday, i suspect it may be a little more difficult and would take some trial and error

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. hmm, let's see grilled stir fried with a little olive oil and garlic soup quiche stir fried with mustard seeds, asafoetida and a touch of garlic, sometime i add yoghurt, a la raita risotto - yes, love asparagus risotto wrapped in puff pastry steamed, once