Suvir Saran

For my cookbook, I have had to learn how to be precise and accurate. In my cooking classes, I have had some students challenge me and measure out my pinch and fist and palm of something... and you will be surprised to know, most times, my pinch, fist or palm has measured out to be almost identical to what the recipe would call for. I think we do learn to have a gift for measuring and tasting if we deny ourselves the dependence or avail of measuring utensils. I never meausre unless I am baking. But I am trying very hard for the last year to measure.

And yes I did seem to enjoy the Mashed Potatoes with Champagne that I ate last. Chuck makes these and they are always great. There was something nicer about them than even the sinfully truffled mashed potatoes I ate a couple of years ago when a restaurant owner was trying desperately to charm me and convert me into a mashed potato believer.

Tommy, mashed potatoes are the one dish in the whole wide world, that I would not eat very happily. I find no magic in it, whatsoever. And I love simple foods cooked well. I have been taken by foodies to several places where they swore I would once and for all understand t his dish, but nope, nothing changed. I came back finding it the same mediocre dish I consider it to be. And yet, I am fully aware of how strongly so many people feel about it. The only way I can eat mashed potatoes, are the Bengali way.

I love the Bengali version of mashed potatoes. ALoo Bharta. In this they add Mustard Oil, finely chopped green chiles and very finely minced cilantro greens. It is amazing.

Must be the Mid-Westerner in him craving the Sugar and Fat. That makes sense now.

Steven I hope you are serious. Chuck makes mashed potatoes... and in them he adds Champagne. They are quite tasty. One of the better savory things he can make.

Wow! See how different we are? Many Indian restaurant chefs, actually several that I really consider the finest from that land, never taste either. They did when they first started, for he same reasons you share, but years later, they find no need to do so. I never taste, and I can also sense when a certain meat, vegetable or spice is not doing what it ought to. And again without tasting. BUt I only have such confidence when cooking Indian food and my own food. When working from a recipe, I tend to follow it as closely as I can. At least the very first time.

You like to nibble on raw puff? Really? Never tried.. or even thought to.... Cool! I have made it to decent success from Julia Childs recipe. I tried maybe 4-5 times before I ever got to finding it acceptable. And now I use store bought...

I wish I had the problem! I never eat my cooking... But I eat every good dessert I can ever find...and so, I unfortunately have no way of being skinny...

Did your mother taste? Do most friends of yours you have cooked with taste? Do you not taste for any particular reason you can think of? How do you salt foods if you are not tasting?

How do you make the curried Aioli?

And you have tried making me believe that you do not know Indian cooking???? WOW! That sounds amazing. You do know that we use besan like that a lot in Indian cooking. We seldom use egg wash... Besan wash is the choiced way of doing this.

What other spice tales do you have?

Thanks for doing this detective work. YOu are very kind to offer to ask you mom. I remember getting a sore throat many times, since I would eat too many of these balls, and then not be able to sing without a grand effort in my music lessons.

In India as well, the old ladies had them in big glass jars covered with muslin. They had the tamarind balls tossed in fine sugar... so the outside was white...and the inside dark and sinful and addictive.

How would you flash fry the stuffed mushrooms? What does the curry laden aioli entail? Any recipe for those of us home chefs that know these things.. but may have never made them at home.. please...

Do people use Garum today? How does one make it? Or is it sold as a prepared ingredient?

Now I am being educated as a classic chef would have been I presume. Do all chefs that go to culinary school learn about these secrets and ancient ingredients and condiments??? Or was this one of your interests and is unique to you.

What other recipes did you all use Tamarind in? Did you all make any drinks with Tamarind as well?

Did you have Tamarind Balls back home? Were they the same as the ones available in the Asian stores?

Baba as in Babaganouj? Wow.. that sounds very tasty. Have you ever made these? Or is it just a creation waiting to take form in your mind?

What is garum???

What are the Tamarind Balls like? How are they sold or eaten? And yes in India we have these wild berries called Ram Ke Ber (Berries that were the favorite of Lord Ram) and in Nagpur, we would see vendors sell these berries cooked in a Tamarind Jam like the one you describe. The tiny balls, which would usually be just the size of cherries, would swell up in the jam as they cooked and take on the size of a plum. And t hey would be full of juice and sour and sweet and spicy. Yummmmm I was only 9 I think when I ate them last, and still, the flavor lingers in my mouth everytime I think of them. I have dreamt of those berries in the Tamarind Jam so very often. What a shame I could never share that experience with my mother. It was forbidden for us to buy that stuff. We did it on the sly. Now I worry if I can ever find that old lady that sold them, ever again. And I worry if someone continued with her business. I am certain she has moved onto the next part of her journey, even though, she lives in the minds of all those millions of children that she charmed with her great berries and Tamarind Jam over several decades.

Thanks for the recipe. It is so simple and yet seems easily to be something most people would find addictive.

Toby, I had been waiting for you to share some of those thoughts that came up.. Did any include spices or Indian food? Care to share some with us? And yes, food to me is all about the manner in which all of life is nothing but keenly connected to each and everything else that forms it. I look at life as being a part of food and food as being a part of life and similarly life being me in this form and me being life. So, in the end, I am what I eat. And I eat what is from me and of me and will make me.