Episure

I forgot the classic combination of Sindhi Curry, Rice, Aloo Tikkis and .....hold your breath........Sweet Boondi ! For me no meal is complete without wheat so I eat a Chapati with all the above.

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I was there. The chocolates were gooood, a newly launched wine was not. is this the ever popular round brown pastry that is found all over the south? I've asked everyone here about it's "japanese" context and nobody knows. I guess somebody must have introduced it first and the rest is pastry.Wat 2 do we r like this only!

Kandos isMalaysian. Their products are available in many countries though I have not seen them in India for a long time now. The other Malaysian company is Selbourne which makes Raw stock and finds it way into many home made chocolates in India, well Mumbai at least. It has a nickel-y taste that Gingerly mentioned which none of the chocolate ladies admit. Amul has recently introduced Cooking chocolate in two versions at a very reasonable price and it's taste is excellent even if I were to disregard it's infrequent (visually only) problem with 'bloom'. The same happens to After Eights in India due to the weather. My advice to any chocolate freak is to buy an Amul ingot at Rs. 100 per 500g. stock it in your freezer and let it call you.

That's what I do too.

Few people may know about this but in Ooty, King Star is the first and largest maker of Chocolates and supplies to almost all the other outlets there. There is a new kid on the chocolate block, he must be 25 years old only. He is the young son of a shopowner there - Modern stores. I had a long coversation with him about conching, blending raw stock, temperature control and generally spurred him into taking a further look into the science of chocolate making. He is now keen enough to take a course abroad and further his skills. One institute that comes to my mind is Barry Callebaut in Singapore. You all have any other ideas? Gingerly, please use your unpatented world's best spider to ferret out info, sic em! Gingerly You've been around quite a lot, havent you.

Monika, I've found that it works well in a simple Jeera rice. As a solo performer it does well and tends to get overshadowed in other preparations.

I was in the Nilgiri Hills - Ooty and Coonor, last week and came across the famous Ooty chocolates. There must have been at least a hundred shops stocking them and they were all similar than dissimilar. Almonds, Cashewnuts, Rum and raisins, Plain and Truffle were the common ones. I quite liked a version with mint cream center. All were priced at Rs. 400 to Rs. 450 a kg. . When I make them for myself it costs only Rs. 200 per kg. Chocolates are to Ooty what Chikki is to Lonavala near Bombay. I wonder what would happen if Ooty started making Chikki and Lonavala did the same with Chocolates. An additional product line would do well for their economies. I guess there is something about Hill stations that is conducive to consuming such goodies.

Your recipe calls for both jeeras so this culprit is what you bought as Royal/Shahi Jeera. My Shahi Jeera is definitely not bitter so probably you have been unfortunate to have come across an anomaly. A simple solution is to not use it at all and make the missi roti without it. There are many versions of missi roti and not all of them call for Shahi Jeera. I dont think you will miss(i) much.

No. Try buying from elswhere. Or perhaps you might get a sample from an Indian restaurant.

A wealthy American has just picked up a £45,000 tab for an eight-course feast for friends at one of Britain's finest Indian restaurants, the fourtimes Michelin-starred Tamarind.

Food shood maalum nahi..... This is what I had yesterday sitting at the edge of my backyard with just a splash of rainfall: Rain Killer 45 ml White Rum 45 ml Dark Rum 10 ml Honey 15 ml Fresh Lime juice 120 ml Orange juice Blend the rums with ice, honey & fresh lime. Pour into a straight tall glass & top with Orange juice.

It's been raining here( India) like crazy so here's my small pic. Size doesnt count it's the quality, right? Rain Killer: 45 ml White Rum 45 ml Dark Rum 10 ml Honey 15 ml Fresh Lime juice 120 ml Orange juice Blend the rums with ice, honey & fresh lime. Pour into a straight tall glass & top with Orange juice.

Spiral Parottas and Vegetable/Chicken/Egg Korma. These Parathas are spelled like so in Southern India and are also called Kerala/Sri lankan Parottas. If you all have never seen one, I'll take a pic and post one. Lakshmi has posted an excellent recipe for the Vegetable Korma and sounds better than my version. Lakshmi's Korma You can use the same recipe to make the other versions.

and indulged in some sussegado! Roy, whenever I come across a goan, I ask which village? I dont know many villages but it certainly breaks a lot of ice with a goan especially if seated in a bar. So which village?

A culinary trip to Rajasthan

Buy my upcoming ebooks and you get the rotfl thingy free. Suresh Hinduja P.O. 420, Jhumritalaiya. The rolling on the floor thingy is from my site and you can copy it happily. Use it sparingly for such gems only.

I feel thoroughly entertained and must express that it is not at Lakshmi's cost. The net is a wonderful medium and it is quick buck people like these who give it a bad name. I look forward to your visiting Bangalore and am PMing you my details. I am sure we'll have lots to do.

It's a little difficult for me to troubleshoot unless I see the exact recipe however I can suggest a few tricks. 1]Yes you are right the meat has to be chilled. 2]Add the salt at the last minute. 3]Use freshly roasted and ground chana dal. 4]Wet your hands before pressing the meat on the seekhs. It should work as I have made galoutis and kakoris before and they are incredibly difficult for the same reason. Let me know how it goes. Groan, I hope we all dont start punning on the seekhs again, I'm trying to go straight. Er.. Roy do you understand/speak hindi?

I went through the link carefully. A google search for the two authors names with the word 'chef' reveals no other info. It is possible that they exist and are waiting to be discovered one day and this is their debut. Actually I'm just being polite, so off with the kid gloves. Any website link like this that has dating, casino and betting, car deals, 'free deals' and a job employment section which clicks to EARN BY $$$ GET PAID FOR READING EMAILS !! is a load of Bull****. Additionally there is not a single land address on the site! There is a recipe for Tandoori Chicken which has....hold your breath: Again it is possible that 'Award winning Five star chefs Dinesh Mathur and Selvam Ramkumar' are new age chefs and are going to give everyone here an inferiority complex. But what gets my goat is this gem: I dont think any chef/cookbook author has ever received such chimerical accolades. Lakshmi, I just saved you from And if you click to be an affiliate you save another 50% ! Lakshmi you are better off with us here at egullet than with such charlatans that I'd like to meet in a dark alley on a dark night. Save your 10$ and who knows what else. Frankly I'm

Hi Roy, welcome! You do need a binder. What are the ingredients as per your recipe? Are you using besan/bengal gram flour?

Monica, The next time you visit India, why don't you hop across to Bangalore and let me show you around. I promise you'll have the food experience of your life.

Just did a quick search on our new friend - Raghavan Iyer. He turns out to be quite an accomplished food professional. Raghavan Iyer, ACAI Co-founder and Vice President of Education Welcome Raghavan.

Subjectively myself Is it just a perfect marriage or conditioning acquired over a period of years? Whatever it is, there is no way I'll break them up, it's unthinkable for me to have this fish curry with any other rice. It has to be this cheap rice which is the staple for most of the non urban bucolic types. My favorite Dal - Rice combo is with a spoon of yogurt and some lime pickle. And a Papad. Another one is Mooli(radish) or Gobi(cauliflower) Paratha with Yogurt and Papad. But if it is Aloo(potato) Paratha, I'll eat it with Mango Pickle and nothing else. An omelette( onion+ tomato+ green chillis) for me has to be accompanied with a cucumber sandwich and tomato sauce. Chola/Chana Bhatura/Kulcha must have radish slices on the side. I'm sure you all have your culinary idee fixes, so out with it.

Milagai, this is an interesting topic and deserves childhood regression. As a crawler I remember licking my favourite hole in the wall with exposed bricks to satisfy my Pica cravings. To prevent me from overindulgence, some progenitor must have applied chilli powder to the brickwork. That didnt do much to deter me as I have maintained my taste for Chillis..........gave up the brick dust cravings, still miss the texture though. Growing up I would run away from mushy vegetables like gourds and pumpkins. I guess I wanted texture again! And I could never understand why people didnt have anything better to do than go through the masochistic exercise of eating Karelas(bitter gourd). I love Karelas today! I too grew up as a vegetarian and was one till the age of 22. Since then I eat everything and in the three elements I make exceptions for airplanes, human beings(save a very few ), ships and submarines. Recently, my Nephew from the Carribean islands came and stayed with me. His 2 year son was so unbelievably hyperactive, that I thought he was the combined reincarnation of Road Runner and Tasmanian devil. Guess what I think was fuelling him? .....A rather un Indian diet of Tofu! A great way to add protein in a vegetarian child's diet, thanks to his Phillipino amah. I now recommend it to all my friends who have toddlers. Come to think of it, why should it stop at the baccha log? Your views? Anyone. edited to add this 'freely associated' line from Pink Floyd: "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?" And it's from the album 'another brick in the wall'.