bague25

Here in Brussels, our markets are flooded with Spanish veggies too, and since Holland is a neighbour we get our share too… The Belgian and French veggies, though, are often of better quality and a bit more expensive Edited to add: I should read in more detail the posts. Can you please share the pork curry recipe?? Thanks.

Welcome Monika What sort of dishes do you prepare? Have you tried Finnish cuisine? Do you use local ingredients to make Indian dishes. I'm thinking of reindeer meat (I apologize if you're vegeterian) and cloudberrys...

Thank you very much Episure... For your avocados - years ago I did a recipe that I never repeated (don't know why): Take a cupful of avocado pureé (well ripened ones) - add 3-4 Tbsp of coriander chutney, 2 cups of cream and 2 tbsps of white alchohol (I used vodka). Freeze the stuff in your ice-cream maker or freezer and serve as 'trou normand' (palate cleansers??) between courses.

We make this bhaji adding the very tiny prawns that you get in Bombay...also some whole cumin the spice list is added...

Apart from recipes mentioned above, including the papaya jam (we make it with just papaya pulp, sugar and lime juice), in our family we add raw papaya -it’s grown in our plantations and so we have a ready supply – to fish and meat curries – we just treat it like any other vegetable. However papayas are NEVER given to pregnant ladies – causes miscarriages!

Just thought I’ll share a recipe that I made yesterday and that my guests particularly enjoyed. I whizzed about a cup of smoked salmon with black pepper, a shallot, some lime juice and a green chilli to a thick paste. I then stuffed this in softened paneer – rolled the whole thing into little balls and dusted them with a chilli+paprika mixture. Voilà Smoked salmon filled paneer balls - the saltiness of the salmon was balanced by the bland-ish taste of paneer!

Was this at an Indian Grocery Store? If not, then the description sounds like salsify (vegetable oyster )...a google search will give you more details

Let's say they taste and look more like the fried papads than the toasted ones. I do not like the toasted/roasted papads - unless I have loads of chutney/ketchup to drown the toasted taste

I have questions for everyone – what are your fav papads? Do you just eat them plain or do masala papads or make ‘samosas’, or something else? I love green chilli papads and my Sindhi neighbours (in Bombay’s) papads. I also love sweet potato and jackfruit papads (available in Bombay in the Canara stores)

Sleepy_dragon I forgot to mention microwave papads! That’s how I mostly make them – just spray pam or brush oil and nuke for 30 seconds (in my 900 watt microwave). They are almost always flat and they don’t really take that much time (2 a minute that’s 20 in 10 minutes!)...edited to add - and they do not need your full attention you can do other things in the kitchen while that's happening (wizzing the chutney, for example)

Gingerly This sounds wonderful. Could you please give more details?? thanks

Pat How do you fry the papads? Deep or shallow? The utensils used in papad fry are quite important! Here’s how I do it – Heat 1 cm oil in a frying pan, it helps to have a chimta (tongs, like a huge tweezer) and a flat spoon (like the spatula used to flip over chapatis). Slip your papad in hot oil – now the tricky part – as the papad expands in the oil, hold one end with the tongs and give small strokes with the spatula in the other hand, as if you were flattening the papad (which is what you are doing). For a few seconds, after being cooked, the papad is pliable and can be given shapes or flattened out. I hope I’m making sense - this process is something that is perhaps best shown in a demo

Don't forget the Bhaiyya's unmentionable rag on his shoulders I can NEVER duplicate that taste

Ah yes, available at chowpatty and all over my old neighbourhood -Marine Drive. And in addition to these ingredients - shredded raw mango. Episure Where is the 'I've fainted' emoticon???

The picture of the angled loofah looks very much like Turai (ridge gourd). They are not at all fibrous. My mother has a generic recipe for all gourds (tindora/tendli included). I apologize for the in-exactitude of the recipe. Do a Tarka of mustard, cumin and curry leaves. Add sliced onions, chillies, and peeled, chopped gourd (turai really works well) and chopped tomato. Season to taste (salt and pepper). Cover and cook. Normally the veggies will render juices and there is no need to add water, but you can add some if you wish. When veggies are cooked serve garnished with a lot of fresh grated coconut. There it is simple and tasty.

Gingerly You take me back to childhood memories again!!! Almost all gourds, when put aside for seeds become like loofahs. At the ‘native place’ they grew, rather, overgrew gourds that would be used for seeds for the next season. When these gourds were dried the skins hardened (and made pots – the ones used by sadhus) and the flesh became loofahs and the seeds used for the next crop. Now, I do not know exactly what the loofah gourd is like but I can bet that when it’s young, it’s not fibrous. Other more enlightened people can surely give a better and more scientific response.

I remember piles of boiled green channa (maybe rehydrated dried ones) at the chat waallas… It contained raw onions, chopped tomato, lots of lime juice and enough of spices to send to running to the sugarcane juice waalla who had his stall just next door

I use horse gram in all recipes where I would use moong. The first dishes that appear to my mind when I think of horse gram are usal and missal. In the monsoons (read when it rains - which is all the time in Brussels), I always make mixed sprouts and horse gram is almost always in the mixture.

Tondli is very much in looks & taste like a tiny cucumber. And unless you cook it to death, it remains crunchy (that's the way I ate it as a child) - like all other veggies in this family, the taste is very mild (cucumber, gourds, melons). Guvar is a bit like green beans but with some bitterness as an after taste. It is difficult to describe tastes I'll post recipes later.

Hmmm, Indian stuff in my freezer. - Coconut milk in cubes - Cubes of ground masala (green & yellow) - Peeled, grated coconut - Curry leaves - Chopped cilantro - Pomfrets - Pav bhaji - Chettinad chicken - Pork sorpatel - Dal (mixed) - Kulfi (malai, badam, kesar, pista) Suman, now I'm curious to know about the "other stuff"

Wow Rushina You got some interesting pickles Did you make any of them? Do you do pickles, in summer, in your family?

Guvar is the Hindi name for a kind of thin green bean, particularly popular (with different names) in the South. I think they might be a variety of cluster bean. Tindora is the Gujerati name for a finger-like gherkin-looking vegetable. It's a Bombay favorite (known as Tendli or Tondli), I've never figured out why the Gujju name is used exclusively here in the USA. You have a box of Tindora in one of your photos, Mongo, I think next to the okra (too lazy to go all the way back there and check). Turai/Toorai is the Hindi name for a fore-arm-sized green gourd (maybe a marrow?). It looks vaguely like a longer and unspiky variety of a karela. I've seen it incorrectly translated on a local menu as courgette, it is definitely not a courgette. thank you very much bhelpuri! yes, the tindora is next to the okra and the turai next to the chillies, i think. ... and the guvar is to the right of the cabbage...

ok i know this is provocation but here goes...

Mongo What is - Edo (Alavi) - Dosakai???

i hate you, i hate you, i hate you! I invite you to share them whenever you wish to visit and I'll add that Belgian beers are wonderful! I'll even pay a bus ticket ....