Jenni

I think it was whole squid...the can sort of implied that at any rate. By the way, I'm not necessarily bringing it up as a candidate for this thread. Having never tried it I cannot comment, and I am a veggie anyway who has never eaten squid so I would hardly be a good judge. The canned chicken thing just made me think of it. ETA: It may have been this. I know the can was red, but I just did a google and a lot of them are, so I am not totally sure, but this particular one does look similar at any rate.

The "soup" you were served may have been rasam. This is a tart, spicy, soupy dish usually served with rice. Served with rice it forms the second course of a traditional southie meals (at least in the Tam-Bram style of meals), the first course being sambar and rice and the last (after rasam and rice) being curd (yoghurt) and rice. The sourness often comes from tamarind, but lemon, tomato and buttermilk are also used. I love rasam, but maybe you weren't expecting it because it was served like soup? This is drumstick, uncooked. When cooked, the inside is tender but not the fibrous outer bit. It is easiest to take a bit of drumstick, pull out the tender bit with your teeth (like you would when eating the outer bits of artichoke) and then discard the fibrous bits (just leave them on the edge of your plate). I have a real soft spot for drumstick adn my favourite dish with it is drumstick and jackfruit seeds in a coconut paste sauce. You do sometimes get it in rasam, but more commonly (in restaurants at least) in sambar. Did you enjoy the drumstick? Broccoli can be adapted for Indian cooking styles, and I think it can work quite well. Shame it was overcooked. The seeds in the yoghurt wer most likely to have been black mustard seeds, but you probably would have recognised them. You can see a couple of them in the yoghurt in this picture. I would have thought it was very unlikely for the seeds to have been black cardamom. The desert kheer (called payasam in South India) is indeed soupy, and makes a light, milky sweet ending to a meal, though actually in some traditional meal arrangements it is not eaten at the end but as a course somewhere in the middle of the meal. Although often translated on english language menus as "rice pudding", it is really very different from the Western idea of rice pudding. It can be made with rice, sago, vermicelli, dal, aval/poha, carrot...I could go on! Shrikhand is a dish made from yoghurt that is strained until very thick and creamy and mixed with sugar, ground cardamom and saffron, and garnished with nuts. It's a very famous Gujarati/Maharashtrian dish, and is delicious. There is also a variety called amrakhand that has mango pulp in it. Nowadays there are all sorts of new flavours available but I don't think they are as good as the proper cardamom-saffron one. Eaten with puris, it is divine, but is also a nice snack on its own.

^^ Hearing talk of chicken-in-a-can (I nearly wrote kitten-in-a-can then!) makes me think of the time my brother brought squid-in-a-can just for laughs. I'm not sure if he's ever opened it - I think he's afraid of what he will find inside!

I think it's a pointless exercise in the first place. A person who counts calories may think it is useful, but actually it is not necessary to know what calories are in what you eat to lose or maintain weight. Do the people who made this legislation really think that people are overweight because they don't know how many calories are in a big mac or a pasta entree? No, they are overweight because of years of poor eating habits such as regularly consuming significant amounts of very sugary or fatty foods, eating when not hungry, satisfying hunger by filling up entirely on comparatively calorie dense foods such as bread instead of using low calorie foods such as vegetables to satisfy their need for a "full" feeling, etc. Calorie listings on meals is not going to stop someone from eating a greasy burger with a huge portion of chips if that's what they want to do. As a young woman, I already feel constantly bombarded with reminders to "shape up" and "watch what I eat" via commericals, magazine articles, other women and so on. I eat healthily anyway I and am satisfied with my eating habits, so I have no desire to see calorie lisitngs wherever I go. I don't want my food to be about numbers.

^^^ Yes, I believe a lot of people find several of those fruit and meat combinations to be rather nice! It's just more proof (if it were needed) that everybody's tastes are different.

In cooking, the combination of yoghurt and coconut is delicious! There are many south indian salads and cooked dishes that use it.

^^^ Key point for kachori is that the outer casing for the filling is a dough made from flour as you would for bread, not a batter such as is used for bonda, pakora and so on.

Could someone explain (maybe with pics?) for someone who doesn't fully get what a grilled cheese sandwhich is? To me, a cheese on toast is bread toasted under the grill (I think it's called a broiler in America?) with a bit of butter. Then you add cheese, along with anything else you like. I tuck spring onions and seasoning peppers - a Trinidadian non-hot chilli - under the cheese. Many people swear by worcester sauce. Grill (broil) until the cheese is melty and delicious. I can't fathom this grilled cheese thing of which you speak - I hear grilled, and it just makes me think of cheese on toast as made above. Is it fried in a pan? Where does the "grilled" bit come from? The only other thing I can think of is a cheese toastie. Back in the day a toastie maker was a metal contraption and you had to use your cooker to heat it up. Nowadays I believe you can get electric toastie maker. See here for details, but basically you make a sandwhich and put it in the toastie maker. The toastie maker toasts up the bread and melts the cheese. It also kinda squidges the toastie together so it is somewhat "sealed". 'Tis lush. Is this anything like the grilled cheese thing?

These may not be particularly great definitions, but just to give you some idea: Kachori (let's ignore Raj Kachori for now, which as you have seen is a large-ish crispy poori stuffed with various ingredients) - variously described as small stuffed breads or pastries. The outer casing is made from flour and some kind of fat. Common fillings are urad dal, moong dal, peas and there are also dried fruit fillings. They can be roundish or quite flattened. Vada - this is sometimes used to refer to a variety of snacks, but broadly speaking they are South Indian deep fried fritters. A large variety of them are made from dal soaked and then ground into a batter with spices and seasonings. A range of vada made from urad dal often have a whole in the middle, like a donut (but it is savoury). Another selection containing channa dal is often a flattened disk and is quite crunchy. Sabudana vada is a well known vada made with sago, famously associated with Maharashtra. There are many other varieties, and some people sometimes blur the line between bondas and vadas. There is a well known dish called dahi vada which is vada in yoghurt. There is a similar dish in North India, made with some slight differences, called dahi bada or dahi bara. Pakora - Pieces of vegetables or other foods (such as meats, nuts, etc.) dipped in a gram flour and deep fried. Sometimes this is also called bhaji, but other people distinguish between the two by saying that bhaji is shredded vegetable mixed with batter and fried, whereas pakora is pieces of vegetable dipped in batter and deep fried. Other people reverse this distinction, and some people maintain it is a regional difference. Bonda - Here is where things can get a bit confusing. Broadly its a South Indian fried snack. A dish labelled bonda alone may well be the variety made from urad dal. It is a round ball. Aloo bonda, also called batata vada in some areas (this is the vada in vada pav) is mashed potato in a gram flour batter. There are also vegetable bonda, and sweet bondas, rava bonda, etc. Some people blur the line between vada and bonda and even pakora/bhaji a bit. Hope this helps in some way! There are a huge number of variations possible for each snack, and sometimes varieties can be similar and it can be confusing. People also sometimes mix terminology.

The three on the right look like vada to me, definitely not kachori! But perhaps I am getting your meaning confused...are you asking if they are a kind of kachori? They are not. I am not sure what the thing on the left is, which you say is sugian. I know there is something called suhiyan, which is a jaggery-coconut filling dipped in a batter and fried. But you mentioned potato so obviously this is different. Just at a glance, had I looked at and not been told a name I might have assumed it was some variety of pakora, bhajji or even bonda.

^^^ Thanks for this interesting information. I had always been confused as to why the raj kachoris you get in Delhi are called kachori, when they are so different from the pastry-like kachori! Bruce, now that v. gautam is here you will have someone who can help you with all your queries

Sorry for making people repeat points, but thank you for the clarification re spores and toxins. From what I understand then, since pickles are not cooked before serving, it is necessary to add an acid at the start of the maturing process to prevent the spores from proliferating (and thus producing toxins). Any acid added or formed near the end of the process would not destroy any toxin that had already been produced.

Thank you everyone for your interesting and insightful answers. I think I'm getting to get hold of some litmus paper-type thing as suggested and test the various pickles I make. The lemon/lime and mango I confidentally predict will be fine, and I'll be able to see how well the other varieties do. Sadly we've recently finished the squash pickle and the chilli pickle, and we only have mango and lime left, so it looks like I'll have to go on a pickle making spree to really test this out! One question, when should you do the pH test? If you test at the end of the maturing period, you will indeed find out the pH of the end product. However, isn't the important thing that there is an inhospital environment for the botulism spores at the beginning of the maturing time, and therefore isn't it the pH of the pickle before maturing that counts? Something that ends up with a reasonable pH by the end might be pretty low acid at the start, and surely in the time it takes to become acidic, a whole lot of botulism toxin could have been produced? Or will the acid environment not only prevent botulism spores from proliferating but also kill of any toxin produced if the product has only become acidic after a while? Apologies if this is not clear...

That is indeed puffed rice. In my experience there are kind of two kinds of kachori (there may be more, but I am just talking about the two kind that i have come across). One is basically a round or flattened deep-fried pastry with a filling - common fillings include urad dal, moong dal, peas or something sweet. The other is something like what you had here - it is a chaat item made up of a fried roti that puffs up like puri and is hard. A hole is broken in it and a filling is added - most commonly potatoes, chickpeas, tamarind chutney, yoghurt, etc. as with most chaat items. It's often called Raj Kachori. This one with puffed rice seems to be a variation on the idea. It looks good I am now haunting this thread because the chaat items and snacks you can get in my area (Bristol) are not as varied or as good as what can be had in India, and I am interested to see the kinds of dishes offered in your area. Just out of interest, have you had the opportunity to try these dishes in India? Do you think your local restaurant compares favourably? There's a place near where I live that does some snacks, but as I mentioned, they don't quite get the taste as I remember it in India. I often feel let down by restaurant versions of such street foods actually, even sometimes within India itself. Maybe there's something about the leaf-plate-dubious-quality-water thing on the street...?! I don't know what it is, call it street masala, but the flavour is different! I make do though

^^^ Cue violent fights over marmite versus vegemite.... *ahem*go marmite!*ahem*

Thanks for the input guys. It's funny because I've been making pickles for quite a few years now, and other members of my family have made various preserves on and off over the years. It's only now that I have thought about it a bit that I realise I should probably be a bit more careful. The most common pickles I make are mango (the green kind, unripe and sour) and lemon/ lime. I am assuming these are probably acidic enough to be ok. I think from now on I will probably start adding an acid to less acidic veggies such as carrots and so on. Loki, I did come across that indiacurry.com site a little after I posted my original query. I thought it was an excellent site and I will probably use its trick of acidifying low-acid produce before pickling from now on. I'm leaning on lime or lemon juice, as I don't really like to use vinegar in Indian pickles. I just want to add that from what I have read, botulism thrives in an anaerobic atmosphere, aka in an oxygen-free atmosphere. This is why, according to indiacurry.com, it is important to acidify low-acid produce BEFORE adding oil (as the oil coats the produce and forms a sort of layer). Therefore, if you make a pickle of some vegetable such as garlic, without acid, and leave it for a long time at room temperature (as you may do whilst waiting for it to mature) then you can put yourself at risk. Apparently refridgeration is not always a reliable way of preventing botulism growth, and commercially produced garlic-in-oil products have to go through certain steps during the production process in order to be considered fit for sale. I have also heard (again, anecdotal) that salt in oily preserves/ pickles does not always help - something to do with it not dissolving well in the oil. It may be complete nonsense, but there it is. The trouble is with stuff like this is that this kind of pickling has been going on for yonks. And plenty of people "have been doing it for ages and haven't had a problem". Thing is, it only takes one mistake for someone to add pretty nastily ill, or worse. So, as I said, I don't want to panic, but I do want to get some facts straight. Btw, we did consult the NHS direct helpline (we, that is to say my Dad and I, did eat quite a bit of the garlic pickle last night and this morning! :0 ) and they said that this kind of garlic preserve can be quite risky, and said that if we get any of the symptoms of botulism we should call 999 and explain that we have eaten a high risk product and so on. Personally, I am inclined to think we might be ok, but I wanted to check and that's why we rang. Scott123, with regards to the garlic pickle recipe - I remember that I adapted the recipe from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe. There's no acidic substance in the original recipe, and in my scrawled notes I can see that I didn't add anything acidic along with any of my other ingredient additions. I also deviated from the maturing instructions that she gave (something like 10 days out maturing, and then put in the fridge) and left it maturing for a good few months. I have to say, it smells great. Has a strong flavour and is rather salty too. I am slightly sad to see it go, but I don't feel at ease enough to keep eating it!

Just out of interest, how do your above suggestions apply to things like kimchi and saeurkraut? Does the acid produced in lactic acid fermentation prevent botulism?

I love making pickle. This year I made a new pickle, indian-style garlic pickle with oil, spices and salt. We opened it last night and tried a bit. My Dad happened to mention that he had heard that garlic preserved in oil and kept at room temperature for a long time can be at risk of containing botulism. A quick google reveals that this is indeed a risk, and we have decided that for safety, we will dispose of the rest of the pickle and not eat any more. However, it got me thinking about the other pickles I make. I make indian style pickles in a traditional manner, so I add no vinegar. Unlike western pickles with vinegar, they do not always contain added acid, though some do have lemon juice and they are also supposed (I think) to create acid through lactic acid fermentation. It occurred to me that I am probably rather lax about my preservation methods, and my pickles do tend to sit at room temperature for a very long time. I believe the worry with garlic in oil is that garlic is a low acid vegetable and the oil creates an anerobic environment which is perfect for botulism toxins to proliferate. When it sits at room temperature for a long time, this creates certain conditions which increase the risk. So the obvious suggestion might be to not make garlic pickle at home, but what are the risks for other pickled items involving oil and no vinegar? My squash pickle also contains a low acid vegetable, lots of oil, spices and salt - is it dangerous? I haven't died yet, but I don't want to take stupid risks or endanger my family. Here is how I usually pickle: I take fruit or vegetables such as green mangoes, chillies, limes, carrots, cauliflower, etc. These are usually cut up in some way, and sometimes I parboiled them (in the case of veg such as cauliflower, carrots, etc.) and other times they are left raw. They are then mixed with spices and salt. The next step varies on the kind of pickle I am making. Broadly speaking, I make three kinds. The first kind involves parboiling veg, drying them well, adding spices and salt and pickling them in the cooled liquid in which they were originally parboiled. The second kind is a lemon or lime pickle with no oil - the fruits are mixed with spices and citrus juice. The final kind involves oil. I usually use mustard oil for north indian pickles, and sesame oil for south indian. The oil is heated and allowed to cool a little, and then poured over the veg-salt-spice mixture. Most recipes tell you to cool the oil completely but I often add it whilst it is still warm. The pickles are put into kilner jars that have been washed and heated up in an oven. The pickles are supposed to be kept in a sunny place for several days or weeks and then moved to a cool storage place for a while longer to mature before use. In practice, as it is not always that sunny where I live, I tend to leave the pickling jars in my conservatory for weeks or months till the pickle is ready - this is evident when the fruit or vegetable being pickled has softened and the pickle has a pickle-y taste. I don't want to panic unnecessarily, but I do want to be able to make pickles confidentally without worrying about suddenly getting botulism. My Dad's philosophy is that people have been making pickles this way for centuries, so I shouldn't worry. My philosophy is that people used to die of a lot of things that we now consider preventable and/or treatable, so I don't want to take stupid risks. Unfortunately I a lot of the stuff on the internet about botulism is about home canning or making western style pickles with vinegar in them. This doesn't apply to the kinds of pickles I make, so I'm finding it hard to get information. So, any advice (preferably not just anecdotal - I need some hard science guys!) would be much appreciated.

Hmm, whilst I am here I may as well write up some of my recent meals in Bristol. Had a fairly mixed lunch at Mazati, a Lebanese place on Small Street opposite the crown court. The setting is wonderful - the room is quite small and has a low, arched ceiling as if you were in an underground tunnel (I'm trying not to say sewer!). We had a selection of mezze, some of which was quite nice and some of which was less good (the various pastries such as fatayar stand out in my mind as being particularly not good). Then we shared various main courses. As vegetarians my Mum and I were limited to basically a choice of three veggies cooked in tomato and onion. I had the aubergine and my Mum had the okra, but we pretty much split them. Both were quite nice but fairly unexciting as main courses. Now you may say the this serves us right for being vegetarian, but actually many middle eastern/morrocan/mediterranean places can do fantastic things with a simple aubergine dish which leave you glad to be vegetarian. This place could not quite manage it. There was rice on the side and we also ordered yoghurt and cucumber. The boys had various meat-y things which seemed to please them. Drinks wise they have some nice freshly squeezed juices (carrot and apple juices were nice) and also a quite thick version of aryan, which was tasty. At the end of the meal it became clear that the chef was in a rush to get away, which was a shame because we wanted to take our time and relax. Turns out he had some kind of exam to get to. I think perhaps this may have had an effect on some of the quality of the food, as I did feel that some of the food was pretty average or even below average at times. I would be willing to go back again though, as it was obvious by the end that the chef was not fully focused on his cooking, and as well as there being some quite nice dishes, a lot of the rest showed promise. Also, as I said, the setting was quite picturesque and I think with more time to savour the meal it would be a nice place to eat. I also had a nice quick lunch at Las Iguanas. Las Iguanas is a Latin American restaurant with a few branches in Bristol and also outside of Bristol. The food is quite refreshing and flavoursome, and I have had some nice longer meals there. On this occasion though I took advantage of their fantastic value lunch/early evening menu. A selection of mains are all £6.90 and you can add a starter for £1. You can also had an alcoholic drink for £1.5 or a soft drink for £1. I had "Sopa de calabaza" which was a butternut squash with a coconut milk. It had a creamy-spicy-zingy taste and the crunchy tortilla strips on top were a nice touch. I also appreciated the fresh coriander. For my main I had the veggie wrap, which was butternut squash (again!), spinach, onion, chickpeas and cheese inside a spinach tortilla, grilled. The menu said fries or salad but mine came with both. The salad was actually nicely dressed and came with interesting salad leaves and red onion, which was a nice change from the limp side salads you get in most restaurants, which are pretty much just tasteless roughage. On the table they had some of their yellow chilli sauce made with peruvian chillies (sold in Bart's Spices branded bottles), which added a pleasent fruity tang to the meal. Las Iguanas actually do some pretty good food. Previously I have had an apparently (I am only going by their menu) Brazilian dish called Moqueca, which was a sort of creamy spicy stew (they described it as a "curry") with sweet potato and palm hearts. It came with rice, plantain, salsa and also farofa (toasted manioc flour). It was really good. Their hot chocolate is also a delight, and they also do nice mocktails (and, so I am told by the rest of my family who all drink, rather nice cocktails too).

^^^ Agreed. What's so wonderful about Falafel King is that they have one of those machines that drops fresh batter into hot oil. So the falafel are always fresh and hot. I'm not going to claim they are the best falafel ever (I have not yet tried all the falafel in the world ), but they are certainly tasty.

Er, maybe, but I'm not sure. What I mean to say is that on some occasions it has been good and on others I have found it very salty, so I don't think it's a case of them not being good at all. Just occasionally they have bad day perhaps. I like the fact that they aren't greasy-generic-takeaway style Indian a lot. Tbh, I'm not a huge falafel fan either, especially served on its own. But Falafel King does them in good quality pitta with salad, yoghurt, etc. and all together it is a very tasty dish. I don't think I tried the falafel at Arabesque actually, as I seem to remember they looked overcooked and dry. I think I remember the okra dish...I remember it had a slightly glutinous texture (not full out slimey though) but I don't remember watery-ness. I do think that sometimes okra works quite well with a little glutinous-ness in some stews, and I don't think I found it that objectionable (though it wasn't a stand-out dish).

Ah, ok, whole beans. Sounds like usal pav then. It's my fault - because you mentioned toor and channa I automatically assumed dal!

My experience with "Spice up your life" has been mixed - on some occasions I have found the food rather salty and otherwise pretty bland. The caribbean place is usually spot on though and is always my choice, and my Mum really loves the morrocan place too. If you're looking for something inexpensive, filling and informal somewhere around the Bristol waterfront, you can't go wrong with something from Falafel King. They have a stand right at Narrow Quay, and the falafels are fresh and really delicious stuffed in a pitta with big piles of their various salads. It's a little pricier than some of the stuff at St Nicks, but really tasty. My friend also swears by the crepe stand on the opposite side - she always goes for a nutella crepe and apparently they are lush! (I wouldn't know, I don't do eggs, but I can tell you that they are made fresh and certainly look tasty).

Could have been usal pav, but that is usually made with sprouted beans, or at least whole grams as opposed to the dal which you mentioned. All I can see from your picture is something that looks either like quite a sloppy puree or a soup!

Hmm, if you thought there was toor and channa dal in the dish, and tamarind too, then it is sounding less and less like pav bhaji! Also, the veg in the bhaji shouldn't really be identifiable, they are mashed down on the tawa. It does look soupier than pav bhaji too, I just thought that maybe they had made it quite sloppy. Pav bhaji has a tangy, spicy taste which you pep up with the raw onions, coriander and lemon, and I wouldn't say I have ever tasted a pav bhaji with sweetness or dal in it. And you would definitely be able to identify potato as a large part of the veggie bulk. The colour, the onion-corinader garnish and the pav made me so sure but now I am not! The mystery continues.... And I'm sad that you had a not-so-good bisi bele bath, but to be honest I think this is what happens when you have it in a place that isn't Karnataka! I've had some pretty naff versions of the dish in various restaurants even within South India. But as I said, a good version will change your opinion I am sure. A common way of serving it is with something crunchy and fried like khara boondi (little deep fried gram flour bits) or some kind of chips (cassava, plantain, sago, potato).