liv4fud

Dear Sara, Me and my family all love(d) your shows when they were on foodtv. We dearly miss those. Your simple take on complex dishes was so great - we actually made chicken korma - using your recipes (and we are supposed to be from southeast asia!). Though there were other reasons we got attracted to foodtv, YOU were the reason we stayed with it... Now the question: I do remember you mentioned once during your show an advice to the caller about how to right a recipe. I would request you if you can share that here. I have begun to get my feet wet in the culinary world. And I would love to keep a tab of the recipes that I try and perfect. Thanking you for your earliest attention. And great job EG for this opportunity (we must do this more often )

indian cooking uses banana stuffed with a spicy mixture of coconut, cilantro, spicies, herbs, peanuts and then cooked in spices alongwith root veggies, etc.

ricardo lady is the hands-down worst of the bunch. the lady you all are mentioning does come a close second also one of the thing that upsets me the most is that the challenger doesn't get to pick the challengee... its like pre-selected for them I don't know if this was the format earlier also (ICJ) but it did provide an interesting twist

relax, you don't need to go to a buffet. as I mentioned earlier, you do have to get some prep done. think of the sauce / curry as the stock that was prepared. yes some seasoning did go in it. and if you use it right, then you can make some of the best culinary creations. due to the boom in Indian cooking, a lot of not very talented people got into the industry. they had the financial backing a chef would dream of but no culinary skills. they would get in chefs for some time and learn the *shortcuts* and then run with those. and hence their food would come out and taste like listening to a quote out of context. unfortunately there are more of those than the real good ones. There are a bunch of good ones in Chicagoland area - but they are usually smaller places where a non-southeast-asian would not tend to venture. I recently found one during my trip to Milwaukee Dancing Ganesha which came highly recommended by one of our readers here. and yes don't think that using a curry base and cooking meat in tandoor is a bad thing. (I guess I should stop - this post of mine is taking on a rant-like proportion ) but in short - don't loose hope, there are good places coming up and the bad ones are slowly but surely going down (well some of them)

true and true the base remains the same. however, based on the specific meats, more ingredients and spices are added for the specific end-result you would want to attain. the whole idea is to cook the onions till they are nice and caramalized (but not crisp or burnt). and then use that paste with tomato and slow cook till oil starts separating. this will bring a sort of sweetness (from onions) and tartness (from the acidity in tomatoes). this along with the taste of garlic n ginger along with basic spices (cayenne, turmeric, and generic garam masala) will give you an exciting yet simple base for many recipes. word of caution: the whole idea is to get rid of as much water as possible. thus (hint hint) using more oil.... becomes a necessity - for preserving without preservative purpose. <edited to add:> anzu, how many times will we post within a minute of each other! I actually had the pleasure (or was it pain ) of actually seeing it happen. at the catering place that I stage, the head chef did make the paste and use it in his cookings. but unlike what others would do in his absence, the paste was used as another ingredient in the dish. the seasoning of meats and veggies was done alongwith the paste as a whole. others (he was on a vacation for 3 weeks) used the paste as a be all end all thing. everything from chole to mutter-paneer to jalfrezi tasted the same. so yes, I learnt first hand the difference between run of the mill Indian restaurants where not many people who enjoy Indian food go AND a real Indian restaurant where the chef would actually take his/her time in making the dish what it was worth. </edit>

anvi, u don't know what you are missing ;-) next time - do make a cup for yourself...

its really scarry when some politicians take the cause-effect relationship too far... come on now- do kids get fat because of full fat milk available in cafeteria or because their parents / guardians don't have resources (or don't use them) to teach them good eating habits. while working at delis you see a lot of kids supposedly of semi-depraved economic conditions come in - with decent enough amount of cash in the pocket. and all they buy is chips and pop... nobody goes for a low fat turkey. but ocassionaly you would find someone going with double cheese on steak with extra oil and vinegar... and I agree with jsolomon, cutting milk and promoting cheetos shouldn't be the option. more PE and may be even educating parents/guardians might be.

any home cooks / restaurant chefs have any idea on mise-en-pace for home cooking...? I am a budding cook, but always seem to stumble into too many dishes whenever I cook something (don't have a dishwasher - so this seems more irritating) also, to pour out 1.5 tbsp of some powder after a tsp of oil before that burns or whifs away..... you get the picture - just wondering what others do it on a daily basis

after my active participation in the cooking world (initially it was just passive-eating) - I understand the importance of having a good knife, actually a good tool for a particular job. however, I do come from a culture where knives are usually around $0.05 and a little better ones are around $0.40. So its a little difficult to fork over $50 in knives. Actually I do own 1 chicago cutlery, 1 tramontina, 1 jaHenckels and a bunch of other no-names. All are sets with atleast 1 chef's. And yes my experience with them has made me learn the importance of a good knife.

tried to make stuffed peppers that I saw in some show they had asked for nicely charred peppers with tons of cheese ( they were making rellenos). not enough cheese, not enough charring and a lot of crushed black pepper later - 3 lbs of stuffed peppers went into the garbage bin - all nicely stuffed and cooked.

yes its available in chicagoland area also price is $50 couldn't get myself to buy it - though it was not an easy sell to put them down. bought a fabreware instead from a walmart next door for $10 (7"). works fine...

thanx pam, i will check out the 2 I visit often

if you are really interested in trying out authentic food, I would strongly recommend Sabri Nehari its pakistani food and alcohol of any kind (byob or otherwise) is not allowed. service is borderline but seriously go for food. some suggestions: * sabri chicken * frontier chicken * nehari (offcourse) * chicken biryani (never had but heard great things) * pasanda kababs - highly recommend it now regarding bhabhi's - they have 2 locations - I have been to the one on oakley/devon. their food is definitely authentic. but service is not present. food is definitely good but not great.

chicago costco or somewhere else? I do find that costco carries a lot of items *locally* 3 I visit - chicago, oakbrook terrace, bedford park (midwaY) have different stuff at times. so just wanted to verify

the chicago edition is hosted by alpana singh its one of the best known-unknown shows haven't applied to be on it yet, but know someone from work who has. they have a lottery type system and they try to match you on the type of restaurant and the amount of money you wish to spend.

laksa is right, though its very popular back in India, what we get here is nothing like back home. The only place in Chicagoland I have come across is called *Hot Wok* in one of the affluent suburbs. The food is good and very similar to the one we find back home. Alas its expensive. Its as if the owners took the menu from a restaurant back home and changed the Rs. sign to $ But as I said the food is really good On an interesting note: they tried to open up a branch in the more well known place on Devon Street but it closed down really fast thanx to the really high prices and generally slow service.

milagai, if you need someone to appreciate your full food spread, we are available :-) as far as making goes - we don't do much (anything really) out here most of it is store bought but we used to do a full spread and then some more pretty much end of summer is the end of time at our homes for storing grains, spices, etc. Yes a whole years worth! Then school begins and the whole busy busy schedules kind of die down right near diwali Thus from now upto the kite festival, its festival after festival of food, food and more food but its definitely a lot more harder out here to go through the whole enjoyment

anzu, in the true eg tradition - how about a visual guide (here's hoping you have a digi cam and some time this weekend to make makai di roti) thanx in advance

so is it like *rotla*? which are also made out of bajri(a) (greyish flour) and jowar (millet)??

maize is corn but I wouldn't know exactly which kind of corn flour (or meal ) that you would need

for example take apples one of the first fuits fed to childeren are in the form of apple-sauce (cooked apple product) most of the jams / jellies/preserves have used some form of cooking on the fruits. apple - pie.... yumm - but u see the trend yes the people I hung out with would eat a piece here or there of raw fruit but they always looked as us wierd for eating granny smith's raw (along with others but I believe the granny smiths gave it away). conversely they would feel that our veggie curries lacked the crunch or textures because they were seemingly overcooked (cooked to death also has been mentioned) I do see that there are a few homes where stew is really cherised and they have slow and long cooked veggies. but more often than not, I have had a meal in which there was a meat, some kind of starch and/or bread alongwith veggies, which were mostly boiled / steamed very lightly and only salt pepper and a little fat sometimes. (plese see I am all for spices and hence I do feel salt/pepper alone is kind of bland - though once in a while its ok) this was followed by a dessert mainly of cooked fruit something. thus came the question / curiousity / thirst for knowledge of trying to find out if there was some tradition that we didn't get

Well if you come from a culture where there are no such things traditionally like fruit pies and salad bars with lots of raw veggies or raw veggie platters in supermarkets... It does look like a "cultural thing" These things are relative you know... ← agreed and hence I like to point out that I was not trying to hurt or insult anyone's culture just trying to find out more about the one I am in...

One of the things that we have noticed (we are from south east asia) is that back home, people usually cook their veggies and eat the fruit raw. out here, there's a strong influence of the opposite i.e. to eat the veggies raw and cook the fruit wonder why that is?

moosnsqrl, unfortunately, one doesn't really ever come to terms with the smell you would usually get offended by it (mostly beyond repair) if you use it in a very high concentration. usually we add a pinch to nearly a 2 gallon lentil soup and that too in the tadka or in the pre-stir-fry oil. usually its said that if you can taste it, you have already gone too far. usually used as a digestive aid and fragrant so use very very sparingly (in terms of resin, they use nearly a 1"x1"x2" block for nearly 300 people )

real quick, don't forget the importance of bread! especially eating indian food, go for the good carb in paratha, chapati/roti (check the section on north indian breads in egci) if you are a good carb or low carb person. and eat more. meat eaters have a little bit of portion control pre-program that would need to be reset for this part. eat till you are almost full to say about 75% leaving a little room for desert / water. you will be fine... if you need any specific recos regarding menus (and even some places in chicagoland) I can be of some help