Richie111

Does anyone know if most Japanese "Curry House" type restaurants use a pre-made roux such as S&B or do they all make it from scratch?

Well here are the photos I promised. Unfortunately, I do not have any pics of the food we ate. They weren't letting cameras onto the fairgrounds, but it's not really a big deal because we've all seen ribs before and there was nothing special about their appearance. At the vendors' trucks, the ribs were served in styrophoam or else in between two hamburger buns and wrapped in foil. Also, as a side note, I have read in this forum some not-so-great reviews of the restaurant we ate at, Rendezvous. I am sure they are all true, but our experience wasn't so bad. We went there late on a weeknight and didn't have to wait for a table and weren't rushed at all. Also, coming from New York, we thought the ribs were quite good and the prices quite reasonable ($40 for dinner for 2 with tip). The following pics are of various contestant tents on the fairground. SO much work was put into these, it's really incredible! The "tent" on the left was a three story structure! The elephant shoots running water out of its trunk! This is the entrance to Rendezvous (it's in an alley).

I am very interested in cooking with guava, pineapple and other tropical fruits. I searched this Swati Snacks thread but did not find the reference to the curry with ripe guavas of which you speak. I did, however, find this recipe for an Apple and Guava curry on a site called "www.Jainworld.com". Is that recipe similar at all to what you are describing? I also google'd halwa and murabba. Looks like murabba is fruit preserves? Kind of like jam I guess? And halwa looks like a yummy dish made with cheese, pineapple, (sometimes flour?) I think this is a picture of it in the bottom right corner? Should I try this recipe for the pineapple rasam? -Richie

Thanks for all your tips and info. Cooking was a success today. I decided not to blanch anything, but I'll try it out next time to see the difference in taste and color. -Richie

I am trying out a few vegetarian recipes today that are based on fresh greens. Specifically, I'm dealing with fresh spinach, collard greens, and kale for use in Indian Saag dishes. I understand the importance of washing these greens before using them as there is a lot of sand and dirt in there. However, I am spending a lot of time "patting dry" these pounds and pounds (something like 12 lbs today) of greens. Is this drying process important and what benefit does it provide? Secondly, some recipes require blanching of the greens while other recipes for the same dish don't mention it. I think I know have a basic idea how to blanch, but I'm not 100% sure I understand what value it provides. (Has something to do with lasting longer in the refrigerator I thought...Maybe I'm way off). Thanks for your help. Richie

Bake for comfort food after a bad day. Bake to celebrate after a good day. Basically, any day that ends in 'y'.

I spent one Sunday making close to 100 samosas. I was experimenting with different types of fillings and dough. Although they were big hits with the GF and the co-workers, I was dissapointed that the skin was not as flaky as I would have liked. Since then I have learned the importance of working the fat into the flour to make a flaky crust, but I have not tried making them since. Although the crust did not come out so great, I had a lot of fun experimenting with different fillings. Some of them came out really yummy. About half the batch I made were potato pea, which seem to be the standard veggie kind served at most restaurants I have tried. In one batch of these I left the skin on the potatoes and I thought the taste of the potato skin went well with the other ingredients. I got creative with the second half of the samosas, here are the fillings I tried: chicken tikka and potatoe-pea chiken tikka and mango chicken tikka and pineapple spicy ground beef (sookha keema) spicy ground beef and potato-pea spicy ground beef and mango shrimp and cilantro mango, yogurt, almond and raisin Some came out better than others. The beef and mango was pretty disgusting. The chicken and potato were a big hit. The last one on the list with the mango, yogurt, almond, and raisin was sprinkled with powdered sugar and a little garam masala, and it was very tasty.

I spent a summer working in Princeton about 7 years ago. I'm glad to see Hoagie Haven is still around because that was a favorite. I actually preferred the hoagies from a place we called "Brothers Deli" (not sure if this is the actual name or a derivation) which was on the other side of town by the fire station. I might have heard something a few years back that this place no longer exists...

I will post photos as soon as I get them uploaded! They didn't allow cameras, but we were taking pictures during the first day when people were just getting there. As far as the weather. It was overcast and rainy during our entire trip. We didn't get caught in any downpours while we were on the fairgrounds, but some spots were very muddy. Also, you could buy rain panchos right outside the entrance. The air really did smell great! You could smell the wood chips all the way up Beale Street!

Follow up to our Memphis trip. We had a great time. It was a lot different than I had imagined. I guess I thought that all the participants would be selling samples of their goods to the general public. But each tent (and there were some really extravagant setups - some were three stories tall!) was basically intended for friends and family of the BBQ team. One cool thing was Lawry's People's Choice awards testing. This is the first year they did it, I'm told. Basically, you pay three dollars and you get to sample 5 different team's BBQ. You vote on your favorite. It was really good. I believe there were 40 teams competing for this award, and you can get back in line and be a judge (paying $3 each time) as many times as you want. So you can try a lot of different styles. There were also vendors who weren't participating in the competiton, selling BBQ ribs and other goodies. We tried several different trucks: Corky's, Lil Red, and and one without a sign. We liked Lil Red's the best. Also, while we were in Memphis we ate ribs at Charlie-Vergos Rendezvous which was recommended by several locals. They served a great slab of dry ribs that were some of the best had ever eaten. Needless to say, we accomplished our mission of stuffing our tummies with as much pork as possible in a 48 hour period, and thoroughly enjoyed our first trip to Memphis. We look forward to going back!

Be sure the Mexican sodas are Mexican before you buy them. I accidentally bought a bottle of "Stuart's Key Lime Soda" that was deceptively hanging out with the Mexican soda bottles at a deli in Spanish Harlem the other day and it was not good.

Switch the labelled lids on the paprika and cayenne. Took me a week before I figured out why everything was coming out so spicy...

Is that the one in the village east of campus? That place rocked. They let you do a "to go" all you can eat deal and let you cram as much food into a styrofoam container as possible. Could feed a small fraternity for days on that. Consider this my coming out on orange chicken and beef ( I go both ways) -Richie

My GF and I have three little "food vacations" as we've been calling them, planned for this summer. Tomorrow we leave for Memphis, TN for their annual BBQ Cookoff. We have never been to anything like this before, and our plan is basically to suck down as much pork as possible in a 48 hour period. Philadelphia, PA - We are planning to do a 2 day, 1 night Cheesesteak Tour. Hitting the big three: Pat's, Gino's, Jim's, and any others that come accross our path. Finally, we have turned a friend's wedding in RI that we are not excited about going to, into a fun little seafood getaway. We are NOT staying in a hotel with the wedding guests as we have plotted out a bunch of seafood stops in northern CT, and MA along the way to and from there. -Richie

(First of all, apologies in advance if I posted this in the wrong place. Wasn't sure if I should add a reply to a 2 year old topic or start a new one here, or in New York, or some other forum like "Adventures in Eating"...) Anyways, being new to this forum and to eGullet, I have had the pleasure of reading posts you all have had available to you for years. I was fascinated with the threads about Chaat (Indian Street Food) which I had heard of but never eaten. After a few days of reading and salivating, I just couldn't wait anymore, and decided to take my GF to an early dinner this evening at Dimple on 30th St. in NYC. I am just now recovering from a 3 hour food coma I went into immediately after our meal. I don't think this is necessarily a heavy food, we just ordered way too much and it was way too good to apply moderation once everything started coming. With me, I brought a list of dishes to order, based on recommendations from this forum. Here is what I tried: Bhel Puri - This was an amazing dish. I really don't know how to describe it except that the texture and tartness reminded me ever so slightly of the Chinese Chicken Salad I'd eaten at Chin Chin Cafe in Las Vegas (without the chicken of course). My GF is very averse to heat and actually thought this was a little too spicy for her taste, but to me it was just a little tangy with no heat at all. It's also surprising to me that this is sold by street vendors. I think of street food as something eaten without utensils and that is often pretty greasy. In any event, now I'm hooked! Chana Bhaturas - The deep fried puffy bread was so light and and delicious. The chickpeas were spiced to perfection and topped with chopped onions and cilantro. Raita and some sliced onions with a couple of mango pickles were served as an accompaniment. I typically love raita and tend to smother it on everything, but I didn't eat it much with this dish. I was enjoying all of the other tastes, especially the mango pickles!!! I thought the tiny bit of heat in the chickpeas would bother my GF, but surprisingly she didn't seem to mind. Is this also sold on the streets in India? I coudn't find it on the menu, I was ordering from a piece of paper on which I had handwritten notes. (Which was actually very helpful to our server as I am sure I butchered the pronunciation of everything! ) Butter naan - I don't think this is considered chaat, but I noticed in another thread that Fat Guy recommended it so I ordered it. Wow. This was amazing. I'm glad I had the Bhaturas before this because the bar just kept being raised with each dish. (Not to take anything away from the Bhaturas -- they were incredible.) I had some chick peas left over that I ate some of the Naan with, but I could have just eaten the naan all night. It was so fresh and hot off the tandoor. And it had brown spots, not the black burnt spots that I have come to expect. Definitely the best naan I have ever eaten, period. We also ordered a tomato/potato curry dish for my GF fearing she may not fill up on some of these dishes (boy were we wrong) as she tends to be more of a meat and potatoes girl. That dish was barely touched because we were about to explode. In fact, I was sitting there, so stuffed, and I was debating whether I should order another naan to-go and try to eat it when I got home. Then all the sudden I gasped in horror as I remembered we still had one more dish coming. I had no idea what it was, just that I had jotted down faloodas and something about there being some type of "worm-like" noodles in it. I frantically asked the server if there was any more food coming (praying he forgot about this last dish or that possibly he didn't hear us). He informed us the Faloodas was on its way, and I envisioned a huge pasta-like dish was about to be served. Faloodas - We were pleasantly surprised to see that this dish is an ice cream dessert. Two scoops of rose flavored ice cream with some sweet rose flavored syrup water. It also had what I believe were vermicelli (I could be way off on that) and some little things that reminded me of pomegranite seeds but seemed smaller than I remembered. My GF, a Filipina-American, pointed out it was kind of like Halo Halo - a Filipino treat with ice cream and a hodgepodge of all kinds of fruits and little tapioca balls. With minor effort, together we managed to spoon and slurp our way down to the bottom of this delightful way to end a perfect (and very large) meal. Final note: Pani Puri - I wanted to save this to last because I didn't want to spoil all the positive and wonderful things I felt about the rest of the meal. Unfortunately, I was really let down. One of my very dear friends has been raving about this dish for years, and after reading all good things about it here, I could not wait to try it. The puri was just not that great to me. It was not hot (not even lukewarm) and I think it had been sitting around for a while. The texture was almost like pork rinds that you can buy in a bag by the potato chips. All the other ingredients (potatoes, tamarind sauce, lentils) were marvelous and the pani water (although I have nothing to compare it too) was a treat. It was really an intriguing mix of flavors in my mouth. I also noticed that most of the recommendations here were to go for lunch so perhaps they would have been much fresher if I we had gone around noon. Anyone have any suggestions on where to get some good pani puri in NYC? Or perhaps I just caught them on a bad day. I don't want to give up. In any event, I would recommend Dimple and chaat in general to anyone who hasn't had the pleasure. I will defintely be back there. -Richie here are a couple of relevant links: Dimple Chaat, It kees getting better in India and Indian Cuisine forum Bhel Puri, Should one try making it at home? in India and Indian Cuisine forum

Thanks for the tips. I am interested in these types of batch cooking techniques because I cook so much on my weekly cooking day. Richie

There is not and never will be anything quite like DJ Sasha and John Digweed at TWILO.

Thanks for the tip, Scott123. Never would have thought to use my ears. Thanks Rushina! If I do a large batch of onions in advance, should I reduce the amount of pre-cooked onions I use in a recipe to adjust for the water loss in the onions? Thanks again for all your responses.

Thank you for your responses. This place rocks! So based on what you've said, I guess I will generally carmelize all onions involved in any Northern dishes I prepare. As for the spices, I will allocate a portion of my weekly Indian Food cooking time next Sunday to practice roasting spices. Up to now I had been using Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for garam masala (using all raw spices), but the Julie Sahni book I bought describes a Mughal garam masala (with raw spices) and just "garam masala" which is made with roasted spices (The former for use in cream, milk, yogurt, and fruit based dishes and the latter is suited for onion and tomato gravies). So I guess I'll make both and use the appropriate one in the appropriate dish. Thanks again! Richie

Hello all. Thanks for your warm welcomes in my previous post. First of all, I have to say that I am a little intimidated to post anything here for several reasons: 1) The posters here seem so knowledgable (chefs, restauranteurs, authors) that I would be afraid my post would be ignorant and dumb. 2) There is so much information on this forum that if I had a question I'm sure it was already answered in another post. However because of the amount of information here it is daunting to search through all of it for an answer to a specific question. (And for some reason half the links in the "Indian Cooking For Dummies" thread don't work for me -- although probably the reason they don't work has already been discussed in some other thread that I missed.) I've spent the last 2 hours searching for a definitive answer to my questions below to no avail. 3) Finally, this might be totally out of line, and I don't mean to offend anyone. But there seems to be a kind of prejudice against the westernized, Northern style dishes that are served in a lot of fast-food type, delivery restaurants I order from here in New York. I mean I am very fascinated with learning about, eating, and cooking all different types of Indian food from various regions, but I also am interested in learning how to make some of the dishes I've ordered from these fast food type places. Then again, I also like to eat at McDonald's and perhaps the negativity I've picked up on is from people that do not enjoy fast food in the first place. Hey, I can't help it if I enjoy Chicken Tikka Masala and the occasional Big Mac! It tastes good! With all that off my chest, I will post my two basic questions. 1) Carmelizing Onions - Until I picked up one of Julie Sanhi's (based on recommendations from this forum) none of the recipes I have tried had instructed me to fry onions to the point of carmelizing. But she discusses it thoroughly and in her Pork Vindaloo recipe I tried yesterday, it was a required step. I also noticed in the thread here under one person's pet pieves were undercooked or burnt onions. Should I be carmelizing onions as a matter of course whenever I cook an Indian dish? Does it depend on the dish? If not, what type of dishes would it be better to carmelize onions in? Being a novice to cooking, I guess I don't really even know what carmelizing the onions does to them other than when I eat them they seem sweeter and not as tart. 2) Roasting Spices - Again, Sanhi's book was an eye opener for this as well. Although I had tried a few recipes that required me to roast a spice or two first, for most of the recipes I had tried I just added the raw spice when it called for it. This was another pet pieve from that same thread I referenced above: Bong wrote "one of my pet peeves is the smell and taste of uncooked spices in Indian food." I also have learned that raw spices can cause indigestion. After reading Suvir Saran's description of the years and years of training to become a "spice master" I am sure that it will take me a life time to get any kind of comfort about when to roast and when to use raw spices. But to make matters worse I don't even feel comfortable with the process of roasting spices in the first place. I find it really difficult to stair at 1/16 inch pieces of cumin sitting on the black surface of a pan (maybe I should get a white pan? haha) and determine when they turn from their greyish/brownish color to a darkish brownish color making sure that they don't turn to a darkish blackish color. I guess my questions from this are: Any general guidelines as to when to roast spices or what kind of spices should never be included raw into a dish? and Any tips on roasting spices? Perhaps I will become more adept at roasting with experience... Thanks, Richie

Hi all. My girlfriend and I are scheduled to fly down to Memphis this Wednesday night and spend all day Thursday and Friday at this event. We love BBQ and have never been to Memphis and thought this would great to check out. Not ever having been to something like this, I'm not exactly sure what to expect. I suspect there will be all types of BBQ everything available at the tents of the contestants. Our plan is to sample as much as we can in the two day period! Any suggestions on what we should try? We were going to see about trying a lot of the food from last year's winners (EMC, L&L, Hogwizer), but we are adventerous and up for just about anything. If we get tired of the fairgrounds, we will definitely try out some of the restaurants mentioned in this forum. Basically, all we have is a plane ticket, reservations at the Wyndham downtown, and big appetites! Thanks in advance, Richie