Milagai

what a beautiful blog: the pictures of your home, the view from your window, the produce, why oh why can't we all live like this...... hanging on every word and picture milagai

count us in among those who can't afford to eat out, plus a 3 yo who drives us all crazy in restaurants. i think we can't eat out as a family until said kid is 18+ and can be left at home alone..... so, i cook usually 2ce a week, and stretch leftovers over the other days. sunday i cooked: 1. huge keg of panjabi kadhi (this was for packed lunches for entire family for the week, with rice). 2. plain rice 3. cauliflower, red + orange bell pepper kari. 4. made ghee, and a spinach + onion + green chili sabzi in the ghee dregs after the ghee had been poured off into its bottle. yum! 4. mixed dal (3 kinds of dal) with tomatos and onions and panch pora spices (bangla style 5 spice). 5. set yogurt for the week. so: sunday dinner was rice, mixed dal, and spinach sabzi.; yogurt to end. monday lunch: kadhi and rice, with grapes / bananas. monday dinner: dal and rice, with cauliflower kari; yogurt to end. water.... milagai (feeling hungry again)

faustianbargain: you're a gem! thanks for the detailed explanations and recipes. i knew there was a reason i bought my vadams and appalams dry in packets from the grocery store.... milagai

← actually there are a couple of brands already available; i think deep foods may already have a version of "parotta" out, and another (can't remember, maybe pillsbury). i'm not in a position to tell you how good they are, because i looked at the nutrition label and when i saw they were ~ 400 calories each (sign that they indeed do have the authentic amounts of ghee etc.) plus made out of maida (=the most refined form of white flour you can imagine) i decided very reluctantly to walk away...... they taste great but alas, for me they are going to be a once in a very blue moon treat.... milagai

article on a new bangla-style restaurant in NYC called Babu. this appeared in the latest new yorker mag. check out the interesting pricing strategy. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/inde...321ta_talk_mead

there are myriad recipes for mango pickle. some are cooked, some are raw milagai

i would guess if not okra, then mirchi (hot pepper) pakoras, or maybe some kind of baingan (eggplant) pakoras? milagai

Oh dear god! I remember those! I am salivating now. ← check out the "chaat" discussion on the india board. sliced raw mangoes (with the usual salt, red pepper, etc.) are a great chaat ingredient... there's also "thenga manga pattani sundal" a chennai area beach snack: chick peas, fresh grated coconut, raw mango chunks, spiced with mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chili, salt, lime juice and cilantro. diced onion if you wish. milagai

Oh dear god! I remember those! I am salivating now. ← check out the "chaat" discussion on the india board. sliced raw mangoes (with the usual salt, red pepper, etc.) are a great chaat ingredient... there's also "thenga manga pattani sundal" a chennai area beach snack: chick peas, fresh grated coconut, raw mango chunks, spiced with mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chili, salt, lime juice and cilantro. diced onion if you wish. milagai

[ thanks for directing me! now i just need to work on my spelling! it is parantha, right? ←

many thanks! Ammini and Episure! milagai

lovely blog; exiled in the us i gazed with such longing on all the fruit trees. i've only been to malaysia on a very brief stopover to india but it seemed a lovely place. re the BK and McD, and the chilis in "Italian" food: youre right. they serve MUCH better food than the US versions (e.g. McChicken Tikka; LOTS of vegetarian options, etc.) in India. Still not so good as the local food, but the "glamour" of the place draws crowds, also tourists who fear the local food. Re chilis in Italian food: same in many restaurants in India. the pesto frequently has green chilis and cilantro etc in it. Regular Italian food is too bland for most Indians; though some high end restaurants in Delhi etc do serve the authentic stuff. milagai

pepper seems to work with a lot of fruit. may be an indian thing, but i love a dash of salt and red chili powder on all kinds of fruit (e.g. guava, melons, mangoes, peaches, etc.) the hot and sweet combination is fantastic. milagai

we've just booked our india tickets for the summer, so i can count the days when i can be licking my own chaat-fingers, instead of just drooling over the screen...... btw monica: how is your own chaat egci coming along? i have no pictures, but a question: do you have ideas on boiled peanuts as a chaat thing? i have heard this is a popular rural maharashtra variation, and much taken up by army officers in their messes as a snack with drinks; and here in the rural south us it's quite popular too... i've never had any though... any recipes, monica or others? milagai

actually: i was going to mention something earlier that may be relevant to your question. tibetan food is also popular in many regions (around delhi, dharamsala, and bangalore) where the community settled, after many left (including the Dalai Lama) in India after the CHinese takeover in 1959.... momos, noodles, etc. milagai

ps: basically anything you would use a crock pot for you can do in a pc. crock pot: low heat for several hours. pc: quick burst of heat for a few minutes and you're done.... milagai (edited for spelling)

speaking from personal experience, onions are treated differently depending on the dish you are making (don't get me started here about how the word "curry" is so bogus to describe all the different indian dishes). some dishes that call for the "holy trinity" (onions, ginger and garlic): these ingredients are food-processored to mush, and will require long and slow "bhuno"ing (slow cooking to caramelization in oil or ghee, adding drops of water as needed. other dishes call for sliced or coarsely diced onions, and this treatment does not do the same cell damage that pureeing / grinding does, so the onions cook in shorter time without the harsh taste. (e.g. many dals). some dishes (e.g. sambar) use the small whole red shallot type onions, and these boil until done - fairly quick. ghee is not inevitable: veg oil does just fine. one tends to use ghee in veg food to give it a richer taste. non-veg dishes you won't be able to make out the ghee taste anyway, as there's plenty of animal fat w/o it. hopefully you have eg's own monica bhide's book and suvir saran's book..... milagai ps: do-piaza means "two onions" or "twice onions" so expect mucho onion taste in that dish...... but should never be harsh or offputting.

I don't know too many Muslims who believe Jello is derived from pork. The question is the use of pork gelatin in Jello. I don't eat Jello and the product doesnt' interest me anyway, so I don't know if Jello is still made with pork gelatin or if it ever was. Anyway, you're getting into religion which to some overlaps with superstition or is entirely superstition. But superstitions tend to be more random, whereas religion is neccessarily more organized... Religion isn't one of those things that can be dicussed with as much humour as superstitions can be. Well I can discuss religion with humour, but a public board wouldn't be my choice of venue. In case you're wondering, I'm not religious at all. ← Actually: since my family is vegetarian, my dh emailed jello.com and asked them about how jello is made: their answer basically "boiled down" to (pardon the pun) that gelatin was derived from highly processed hooves and hides of all kinds of animals. They said that everything was so mixed up that you couldn't specify which kind of animal: presumably everything from cattle to pigs to horses to mules etc. And they had the gall to say that since there was so much processing involved, that they no longer considered jello an animal product so it should be OK for vegetarians. Well, that's a matter of opinion, lots of people do and don't eat jello.... It's really hard to avoid: hidden ingredients in all kinds of things. When making at home I get the vegetarian jello (agar based) from the Indian / Pakistani store.... Milagai

i have 2 and use both ~ 2-3 time a week. can't make dal wihout it. makes gret rice too. also, i hear that any braising type meat dishes do excellent in a pc at very short times milagai

one voice of dissent: non-chickeny spicy here! sorry to offend the meatarians here but when i'm sick the very idea of non-veg throws me even more into nausea tailspin..... my whole family (self,dh and 2 dks) have colds right now so have brewed an industrial size batch of tomato rasam, with garlic. the spices (i think cumin, black pepper, and red pepper and several other things) plus garlic, plus tamarind and tomato and cilantro: no cold can stand a chance. i LOVED the idea of coca cola + ginger + lemon. it's so interesting how coca cola is getting worked into home remedies all over the place.... in india now, for an upset stomach, people drink coca cola with a pinch of rock salt. smells very sulfurous but supposed to be great for the gas works..... what about a thread on suggestions for foodie home remedies for other ailments? and in general masala coke is evolving into a popular truck stop drink (coca cola + pinch of chaat masala) milagai

Yes, it looks perfect. everything went well process-wise it's only when you taste it that you go "Wow, onion!!! " I actually used 2 "medium" US onions where it called for two large onions finely sliced, and just 1 jumbo onion for the two rough chopped onions that went into the paste, in order to adjust what I had in the house to what was called for. I really think the recipe must have had a typo/error and meant to call for less. I've never had an indian dish that tasted this one dimensional. I bought more spices today (since round 1 ran me out of some) and will try to revisit this tomorrow if I have time - Otherwise this weekend... ← another possible answer to the onion issue is that you did not cook them long enough (even though you saw the color change and they smelled different). with american varieties of onions (i presume that's where you're located?) i've discovered over the course of several ruined dishes that they take very long to cook in order to remove the overtly harsh onionly flavour. it takes me at least ~ 20 to 25 mins. maybe longer, depending on the quantity. milagai

there's been several discussions on the wonders of "indian-chinese" food: chinese food in chinese restaurants in india, majorly fused with indian tastes and ingredients, and absolutely divine. right now thai food is growing popular.... milagai

it's seasonally available in indian grocery stores: call and ask around. re cleaning: before attemting to cut it, oil hands, knife and cutting board well (to prevent the sticky stuff from sticking) and proceed with caution. it's also available canned and frozen... milagai

try this link for recipes: http://www.massrecipes.com/cats/Raan and use goat leg wherever they call for lamb. raan refers to leg of goat (someone had a q about cuts). milagai

Plus, let's remember that Mughlai cooking, and the Nizam court style cooking etc were all aristocrat food: rich food for rich people. The ordinary janta ate peasant style food I would guess: simpler ingredients, less subtlety, and cheaper overall: maybe more grain/bean based (out of necessity) with sharper and simpler seasonings (to create the feeling of a full stomach).... milagai