Suvir Saran

How funny.. the similarities between your experience and mine. Elegant dinners.. served in a retreat like setting.. and a connection to a large Utilities company. (BHEL in my case and PG&E in yours). Curious and exciting.

Below is the link for the recipe and thread on Tomato Chutney Tomato Chutney

SALMON “EN PAPILLOTE” WITH CATHY L's TOMATO CHUTNEY Patra Ni Machhi Serves 4 4 skinless salmon fillets, 6 to 8 ounces each (about 1 inch thick) 1 teaspoon salt Juice of 1 lemon Tomato Chutney 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice 8 fresh curry leaves 1. Sprinkle the fish all over with salt and lemon juice and refrigerate 30 minutes. 2. Meanwhile, for the chutney, combine the tomato chutney with the lemon juice and curry leaves. 3. Preheat the oven to 450?F. 4. Cut a piece of aluminum foil about 15 inches long and lay it on a work surface, one of the short sides facing down. Brush the bottom half with a little oil. Spoon about one-eighth of the chutney on the bottom half of the foil rectangle and spread it out to a rectangle about the size of the salmon fillet, lying crosswise on the foil. Set one fillet on top of the chutney and cover with another eighth of the chutney. Fold the top half of the foil rectangle over the salmon so that the top and bottom edges meet. Fold the bottom edge up about 1/4 inch, and then fold it up twice more. Do the same on both sides to completely seal the salmon in the foil package. Repeat to make three more packages. 5. Put the packages in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake until they puff, 11 to 12 minutes. Cut the packages open and slide the fish and chutney out onto plates. Serve hot.

I learned long ago a trick from a talented Bengali chef on how to make the best Chenna (cheese) for Bengali desserts. The key to good soft cheese and how ones mouth will react to the cooked cheese lies in what ingredient has been used to break the milk. Lemon and vinegar leave a sour aftertaste and make the cheese somewhat sticky. At each bite, even the softest of cheese will stick just a little to ones teeth and those that pay attention to each bite, will be able to hear a squeaky noise inside the mouth. Using sour yogurt or buttermilk makes good cheese. This renders a cheese that is at once soft and also void of any aftertaste. I never believed this till I tried it. And now when I am at restaurants, I am able to tell the chef how the made the cheese. They are tickled that I can tell the difference and when they do it right.. And when I understand their subtle clever tactic; they are most amazed that someone else cared. It matters and makes a world of difference. The worst is cheese made with vinegar. That is tough even in its soft form. And it also makes the cream go all sour very quickly.

Yes fresh ricotta can be a good substitute for chenna made from cow or buffalo milk that has not been killed overtly. But again, what we end up getting are desserts that are no where close to the original you will find in India. And these certainly help needy immigrants like me feed our craving at least partially, but never make us feel we have experienced the same dish. Maybe in a few years.. once we have the water buffalo milk and some really good halwais from India, we will finally have a restaurant or three or five.. and some shops selling good Indian desserts and amazing Ras Malai. Ras Malai is bad at its best in the US.... and in India it is only good at its average and most commonly found standard. Very few but a sizeable chunk of chefs can make it become that magical dessert that it really is. I remember eating Ras Malai across India.. from villages where it was prepared traditionally to cities small and large... There was always a huge gap between the most amazing preparation and the average one. At least once we have chenna made from Buffalo milk, we will begin to have in th US Ras Malai that is at its worst better than what we are served these days.

You know it has been so many years Adam that I do not remember. But I was never one to drink any milk with Sugar. I would have close to a gallon of milk myself at the very least each day...I would drink it plain. Chilled but not sugar or any additive. I love milk for what it is by itself. Amazing! But after moving to the US, I have almost never drunk plain milk again. I find it very different from anything I ever drank around India and travels to other places. It seems very different in taste, texture and especially seems different when you try cooking with it. There were Indians t hat added sugar to both cow and water buffalo milk. These were friends and family of mine. But many of these were kids that did not really love milk. I was famous for taking money, going to Mother Dairy (a state run milk cooperative), buying tokens and putting them into t he machine and instead of placing a milk container under the slot, I would have my large glass under. Once filled with milk and full of froth I would drink it even before I got home. It infuriated my mother for at home this same milk would be boiled and then chilled before being used. But they knew I would manage to find some way of drinking milk directly from smaller farms that were even less safe.... So they gave up.. And they let me enjoy milk in the many different ways I chose to. So, no sugar for me in milk ever. But when I have desserts... I love them mildly sweet when it matters.. To overtly sweet when that is exactly what they need to be. Cloying sweet is never a negative to my taste buds... For me all tastes are valid. I may not get them all... But sweet ones I do. Maybe buffalo milk has much less sugar... I am sure your friends are correct. I wish I knew the answer. I just know I loved drinking it daily and never added any sugar. I never found it that different from cow’s milk. It was certainly richer in taste.

Thanks for the great link. Water Buffalo they are indeed! And now we will have them in the US very soon.

Anil, where outside of India have you had Ras Malai as good as you once spoke about in another thread... I think you had eaten some delicious ones in Calcutta if I remember.. or was that Simon? Since you travel a lot.. you may have found better versions in other countries... Is that the case? Where are those restaurants or stores??? Simon says he gets great Ras Malai in this special store in London. IN fact he has promised to bring some next time.... I am not holding my breath on that one.. for I know it has become increasingly difficult to do such things since last year.

I am told by a friend from the Midwest, who raises cattle and has traveled with me to India that we in the US do not have that kind of cattle. It is called "Water Buffalo" by him. And they are very different from the American Bison or Buffalo. He was in too much of a rush to tell me more. But he did tell me that I should be confident in saying that we will never get the same milk here. He drank it several times daily and was amazed at the creaminess. He also did fall in love with the Indian Buffalo.. found them very gentle and friendly. I never thought of thinking of them as being any different from cattle any where else in the world.. but he says their being raised with families and without machinery makes them very intimate in their relationships to human beings. Can that be true?

But even the lighter cows milk is richer when not treated as we do it here. And of course the buffalo milk is another story entirely. In some homes only Cows Milk is used for it is considered holier and so sweets are only made from that milk in the first place. And then there were kids like me that loved the richer Buffalo milk and fought with their grandmother for permission to drink raw but chilled buffalo milk. Nothing like it. I love buffalo milk. Chilled and plain. Heaven on earth.

I have tried that milk. It does not froth the same way.. and when boiled does not give the same amount or even close to amount of cream that we get when boiling milk that is certified back home. Mind you, even in India today, most milk is homogenized and pasteurized. But still, it boil differently and tastes far superior. I am told the temperatures and procedures are different.

There is a shortage of skilled "halwais" (pastry chefs) even in India. They are a dying breed. So, the pool of trained and worthy Indian dessert chefs is very limited and almost skeletal. What further exasperates the whole situation is that it was not till recently that trained Indian chefs from India were sponsored and brought into the US. Till most recently and actually for the most part even now, men who had never ever cooked even at home, let alone in a professional kitchen, were hired to fill the role of chefs. With a growing interest in Indian food and with the great reviews given to worthy Indian restaurants from the likes of Gael Green and Eric Asimov, restaurant owners understood the need for trained professionals being hired to run their kitchens. Well, getting them to do that was not an easy step forward in the life of the Indian food movement. But is has begun to happen. Now, maybe in the next few years, some of these owners and chefs will understand the need to bring in trained pastry chefs from India. When that happens, American diners and those from India by ethnicity but not birth will finally find a true sampling of Indian desserts. Till then, we are unfortunately only eating the junk that is being sold in the name of Mithai (sweets) from India.

That would be a good start. For one, they are not deep fried at all. For real... there is no deep frying in Ras Malai. Between the green recent immigrants and the unfamiliar non-Indian audience buying this junk, they have each helped the other enjoy what is unreal. I have no clue from where "deep fried" got associated with ras malai.

chawal ka atta (rice flour) for making fritters Indian style. Used often to make spinach fritters. The lightness of the batter makes the spinach leaves look like art work. The veins of the leaves can be seen through the light crisp batter. It is also often added to besan (chickpea flour) in the making of pakoras.

Besan (chickpea flour) batter for making pakoras

Vivin, I have been to both. But not in a few months to either. The last time I was at Mavalli it was not good at all. I was dissapointed. And then you were at Mavalli and quite liked it.... My last experience at Pongal was better than my last one at Mavalli. Maybe someone has been to both of these in the much more recent past and will help us better.

Maybe my Oster spice grinder would be the perfect thing to use..... Never thought of that. I make my date flour with that. Dates are very hard to grind.

Only for coffee. Ditto.

And another famous Indian chef said it is better to be less exposed to stuff of high quality and standard. If one is ignorant and has not tasted what is superlative, he said how would one then know the difference. He was referring to the Indian vendors that have begun selling stuff they were never exposed to back home and the American clients that do not know better. He called these two people a perfect match. "Match made in heaven", he said. They each need the other. Both are driven by greed alone, "no substance". He was speaking of vendors that proudly sell sub-standard Indian sweets and do not even understand what a crime they have committed by selling that junk. And those bold souls that are willing to try something new. How are they to ever know that they are being cheated of the real experience? I was astounded by the sheer ease with which he made this statement. I was upset at myself and also felt limited in what I could do. I have been debating since yesterday what I should and can do about this. I too have known for the longest of time that too many things that we love of India and crave from India, are now available in the US, but are far from good. But even I, one who never felt he would accept things that did not meet a minimum standard, have faulted my own sensibilities by remaining silent. In my silence I have aided in this crime of bringing credibility to what does not deserve any acceptance. Maybe he could say it with such clarity for he was the most recent immigrant out of all of us. He has been in the US only close to 2-3 months. He has not yet started missing the things from back home as dearly as those of us that have lived here for years. How can we change this from happening? We need more Indian food fascists and perhaps then we can begin seeing a difference in the quality of the desserts.

I was eating lunch with Durga Prasad yesterday. We were debating why Indian desserts are of such poor quality in the US. All across the Tri-State area I have gone hunting for desserts and not yet found anything but Jalebis that are even satisfactory. How sad. Durga blamed the milk. He said the milk was somehow killed by the dairy owners in the process of making it acceptable for consumption. How can one get milk like back home? Would Dairies be willing to sell raw milk to fools like me that would want to enjoy desserts from back home with the same level of taste?

Would a coffee grinder work? Have you ever used it? I have only every used my Cuisinart. I have personally never ever had trouble using it. But I do hear friends tell me how their nuts become into butter very quickly. Maybe the small quantities one would put into a coffee grinder would make that less of an issue.

Nuts can easily be ground at home with an inexpensive nut grinder, like this one from Zyliss. I use mine for all kinds of nuts and there isn't the worry of extruding the oils and making a nut butter as there is with a food processor. The consistancy is very similar to the ground nuts I work with in France, but coarser that the nut flours sold in the US, which are made from dried nuts. The ground nuts have worked fine in all recipes I've used them in, such as a pain de gênes, a genoise made of nuts. Thanks for the links. You know, I make this flourless chocolate cake with ground hazelnuts and I have never had trouble grinding them into flour. I also make my almond pound cake that is quite well known in certain circles in NYC. And again I use my Cuisinart to grind the flour from almonds. I use chopped peeled almonds for the cake and whole hazelnuts that I toast and process myself. But these have both always-worked fine for me. I have only recently learned that one can but nut flours commercially. And so wondered if the result will be that much better. Both the cakes I make are actually not bad at all. In fact, there are people across the US and in India that swear by these recipes. I have found great popularity for them in my catering. People that eat them fall in love with the cakes. Nothing fancy, homey simple cakes. Gael Green, a food critic based in NYC has found my cakes "deeply addictive" and other friends have said similar things... But since I am no pastry chef and rely on recipes from my mother.. From her baking days back in the 70s and 80s, I have never worked with commercial nut flours. They were certainly not available to her in India. She was only a home chef but a prolific one and baking for parties of often over 100 people. Your nut grinder is similar to what she used in India. Funny!

I have had it like that.... Now I get it.... Duh.....I have always seen it referred to as beurre noisette and never thought one would use it in baking.... Silly me!

What restaurant was that??? I love financiers...

I think I get it.... How can I ever see it made or buy it made? Or is this something one has to do at home? Do people sell brown butter? Does it solidify?