Milagai
-
Posts
1,041 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Milagai
-
-
make a lot, and freeze extra or send it to me
milagai
-
Ketchup is one thing, but my Ismaili Muslim co-worker insists that Potato chips are a traditional topping for veg. curries in Tanzania, Kenya and other parts of Africa where her family hails from. Wha?
chips morphed from the aloo lachhas (shoestring type potatoes)
often used as topping....
much easier,
milagai
-
I'll have to borrow a line from the great critic Curnonsky: "My only regret is that I have only one stomach to give my profession"
milagai
-
Um... yeah. I didn't mean to blame the concept. I made a bad entree choice. It won't happen again. I chose what looked tasty... and it was extremely tasty.... it just wasn't very filling. Next time I'll just go for lunch.
this just happened to me!
lunch in the dept, arranged by the dean, whose very nice
staff went out of their way to ask me my food prefs so i said
"veg, thank you so much"....
the lunch box had:
wild rice with a few green sprinkles (tiny amount of chopped greens
of some kind)
PLUS
pasta with 2-3 slivers of veggies and some generic
creamy sauce!
a handful of sugar-coated pecans thrown in there like an
afterthought......
cookie etc.
that's it! carb + carb + carb (too few pecans to count) !!!
not much taste - all very bland..... (ultimate food sin
to me....)
i'm feeling bloated and hungry at the same time, and thinking
about raiding the thai restaurant across the street .....
milagai
-
Tumeric is not often part of the Garam Masla mixture. Although it can be in many recipes its a separate spice. Perhaps you are right to harminize with English or American culture they mixed together what they thought it was.
turmeric should not be in garam masala, which is one
specific spice mix with specific uses (not throw into all dishes).
Garam masala contains "heating" (not taste or temperature,
but intrinsic quality) spices, thence the name.....
Curry powder NE garam masala.......
And I have never understood, so have never tried,
the "different" varieties of curry powder (e.g. Madras curry powder).
Madras is (or was) the name of a place, which has dozens of
dishes in that region, so one powder has to do it all?
I do keep specific mixes for specific dishes on hand
as I am often too busy to mix them individually
(garam masala; chana masala mix; dhansak mix; sambar powder;
etc.) but each mix makes one specific dish......
and yes, i do have curry leaves in my freezer,
and no relation to curry powder, and yes, i make
kari with them
also poriyal, sambar, rasam, sundal,
chutney, almost anything south indian....
milagai
-
Curry! What is Curry spice? This gets to me a lot. There are spice mixtures in India and Pakistan, but its usually called Garam masla and depending on where you are from there are some differences in the the spice mix. Black pepper, cinnamon, cardanmon, clove and bayleaf are some of the common ingredients.
and while you're at it, what is "curry" anyway?
kadhi? kari?
though the work seems to have firmly entrenched itself
into the indian food vocabulary....
milagai
-
Praising you with faint damns....
You should really do a EGCI on how to take
GREAT food pictures....
Milagai
-
This is SOOOO good on so many levels!
Great writing, vivid insights (pardon the pun)
and as someone who has BTDT, I was riveted!
Milagai
-
I have two problems with vegetarian restaurants.
The first is purely personal - we eat a high protein, reduced carbohydrate eating plan. Sadly, this doesn't leave too many purely vegetarian options.
The second is best told anecdotally. Some years ago, when we were still living in the Bay Area, my vegetarian sister was visiting the area over her birthday, and wanted to have her birthday dinner at Greens. It sounded fine to me (this was before we changed how we eat), so reservations were made and we all went.
While I don't remember the dinner in detail, I do remember one course was vegetables served en papillote, and the vegetables were absolutely perfectly cooked. The main course was a vegetable pasta with a lemon sauce, nicely balanced, and well done. Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake.
It was, in short, an exquisite meal. And halfway home, my husband and I stopped for a burger.
Because we were still hungry.
My best guess is that over time, you and your body learn to feel full on vegetables, but even though I know they served plenty of food, and it was good food, it just wasn't providing the signals I was used to. It made it sadly unsatisfying.
Marcia.
Yeah... Yeah! That's it! I love veg food, but I never feel quite satisfied if I eat a veg place. Ricky Li's... schezuan eggplant. I left feeling very satisfied. Full, even. The now defunct Zephyr Cafe... gazpacho start and tofu wraps with rice noodles (delicious, BTW, generous portions). I was starvin' like marvin when I left.
Friends: a vegetarian diet NE eating only vegetables.
Your meal lacked any protein component (beans, tofu, whatever)
so no wonder you felt hungry. Don't blame the concept when
the application was lacking....
Milagai
-
"Chai tea" (=tea tea) and I think there has already been an extensive
discussion of this.
If you want "masala chai" or "masala tea" or "spiced tea" then
say so...
But Chai tea? You mean extra strength?
Or " XXX dish with chai spices..."
do you mean you've spiced it by throwing a
handful of tea leaves in there?
Or do you want do say you've used the spices
you would use to make spiced tea?
Milagai
-
Because vegetarian food is perceived as bland. There's also the general aversion to meat substitutes like Tofu and TVP.
Obviously, it doesn't have to be (much of India's cuisine is vegetarian, as is a lot of Middle Eastern cuisine) but that is the general perception.
In addition to the things others said,
why is there a perception that Tofu is "meat substitute",
not an ingredient in its own right.....?
My additional question in this thread:
why do so many people in the US seem to have
a strong prejudice against beans? Seen as inferior, why?
(I've lost count of the times people said to me "I don't eat /
don't want to eat beans / BEANS????" etc in an incredulous
voice...... ; but then I have the pleasure of converting them
with a simply perfect, simply easy dish of rajmah....)
Milagai
-
i would like to add
I'm pretty sure brunoise, nicoise, and vichysoise
are pronounced SWAHHZ, right? not swa?
because that is my biggest pet peeve in the kitchen, every damn cook calling it "brunwah"
right?
(I took spanish in highschool, no regrets of course, but I wish I had a firmer grasp of french pronunciation)
You are right.
The rule for French words is: if it ends in "oise" then you say the s sound.
If it ends in "ois" then the s is silent
(as per my college French classes; confirmed by my French speaking
relatives).
Milagai
-
1. How often do you sharpen your knives?
I used to use the "iron" sporadically. My knives were decent to
begin with but got into progressively bad shape.
Now I found a neighborhood kitchen shop that sharpens
them professionally very inexpensive and will use them
frequently in future, and thus have gotten very lazy about the iron....
2. What method do you use to do so?
see above
-
taught knife skills to a gaggle of teenaged boys this week. they produced some tears, and a boatload of mirepoix. used some for tortilla soup, mexican rice, etc., but i have a cambro full of (fairly uniformly) chopped onion. somehow, caramelizing chopped onion seems weird to me---that's for onion slices, non? but i suppose i could try that....
anybody got a great use for these? i've done knife skills classes many times before, but i can't honestly recall what we've done with the resulting product...
suggestions gratefully entertained.
1. freeze for future use?
2. take 2 cups of the chopped onion, add to ~ 1 Tbsp minced
ginger and 1 tbsp minced garlic: "bhoono" until all soft and golden
and thoroughly done, add spices (e.g. cumin-coriander powder; garam masala;
turmeric; red chilli) and saute, then add 2-3 cans drained kidney beans
or other beans or chopped greens and paneer;
or whatever chopped veges you like; or browned chicken pieces, or ....
Voila! Indian entree!
3. make stock or soup base, and freeze?
Milagai
-
Hi Kristin, I, too, prefer iced coffee. Even in winter I'm looking for my tall glass of iced coffee.
Maybe you've already mentioned it but do you add milk and sugar? LISTS! Yes! Iced coffee and lists galore comprise a big part of my day. But, hey, it works.
Yes iced coffee for me 365 days a year! first thing in the morning.
I drink it with both milk and sugar, when I do drink hot coffee I only add milk.
loving this blog and the lovely food and kid pictures.
thank you so much for sharing.
another iced coffee (or in indian-speak - cold coffee)
fan here! with milk and sugar, and best of all
thai style, with cinnamon (and what else? )
in it....
milagai
-
Good response Chefzadi! Gracious and effective
Here are some Indian Ramzaan recipes:
http://www.webindia123.com/cookery/festival/ramzan/intro.htm
Milagai
-
there are also the more desi-customized brands and flavors
of ketchup:
e.g. maggi chili and garlic ketchup (tomato ketchup spiked with...)
that are really good too.
milagai
-
possibilities:
1. grinding onions in the blender does a lot of cell damage
compared to even the finest hand-chopping. so the
whatever-they-are compounds in the onion need much longer
cooking time to get rid of the harsh raw taste.
longer cooking on lower heat.
2. i've had better luck slicing onions in a mandoline.
they come out paper-thin, so cook quickly. but
they are not ground up so the harshness is much less.
3. variety of onion? yellow onions are worse in this respect....
milagai
-
tomatoes....
it is a fruit, and
an old name was "love apple"
and can't imagine life without warm-from-the-garden
tomatoes...
milagai
-
mini portobellos or even button mushrooms,
caps stuffed with mixture made of:
thoroughly sauteed onions+ginger+garlic+chopped almonds or cashews
spiced with cumin-coriander powder+garam masala + turmeric + red chili + salt.
brush liberally with butter or ghee and broil till done.
very nice appetizer.
milagai
-
If you like Indian food, cabbage poriyal.
Recipe at:
http://www.syvum.com/cgi/online/serve.cgi/...s/srcpv34.tdf?0
It's really great, and will change people's ideas of cabbage
as low status food to be avoided!
Milagai
-
Impossible to eat crab legs with anything resembling efficacy if you don't have a fingerbowl or hot towel.
Are they that unusual, or do I just eat messy food in nice places fairly often?
I don't know about in the US, but in India,
fancy restaurants almost always give you a finger bowl
(warm water, a slice of lemon to get the grease off your
fingers, a napkin to wipe).
Remember we mostly eat with our fingers (though prob
less so in fancy restaurants) so it's really useful...
Milagai
-
Milagai, now let's not pre-judge the guilty ...
I think Triangle dining is progressing wonderfully, perhaps a little bit slower for your taste.
When I was studying over at Chapel Hill in fall 1987, I remember, during one weekend, seeing a long line going out the store down onto Franklin. It happen to be the grand opening of a eating establishment called ... Taco Bell ...
i agree the triangle has progressed wonderfully in terms of
available eateries.... that's my whole point.
based on descriptions upthread, the editor in question seems to have an attitude
personally stuck in the 1987 you describe; i.e. almost 20 years ago.
i recall when we moved here mid 90's people used to tell us that
not too long before that howard johnson's was considered THE
big thing in eating out....
milagai
-
Thank you all for the feedback!
Well, Greek or not, it was rather good;
so will continue to enjoy but will search for
a new name
Milagai
Hungry? Why?
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
I've grown FAT on that plan!
I am hungry all the time.
I used to have a hummingbird metabolism:
eat a little, constantly, and burn it off.
Came midlife, and I now eat a lot, constantly,
and my mild exercise regime does not help.
I feel SERIOUSLY hungry at regular intervals (~ every 3 hours)
and if I don't eat I get jittery, then headachy, then go all out crazy,
knocking things and mowing down children and old folks who
may be between me and my food.....
There are those enzymes: leptin, ghrelin, etc that regulate
the "hungry" and "satiated" feelings, and depending on where
yours is set, you eat more or less.
I definitely feel my switch has been re-set. I used to fill up
quickly, now I eat more before I feel full....
I wish I could re-set it back down.....
Milagai