Suvir Saran

You could also now dabble with making parathas. If you want, I still prefer chapatis for a meal that is simple and sublime. There is something really soulful about chapatis. But yes parathas are fancy and special, but one cannot eat them everyday or with everything. Email me if you need recipes for breads. I would be happy to share some with you. I have recipes of all kinds of flatbreads and other home made breads. My email is chef@suvir.com.

Ben, you seem to be the Chapati expert. What you describe is the perfect rendering of the process of making chapati. Kudos to you Ben. Next time, will you take some pictures for us please. I never add salt to my dough, since the dishes have plenty. You could add salt, you could add a pinch or two of garam masala, or even a little ghee or oil. In most homes, chapatis are made with plain dough. The finished chapati is most often rubbed with ghee or butter. And some, like my grandfather, eat is Khushk (urdu word meaning dry). It is kept simple because it is enjoyed daily and for that simplicity. Chapatis are most often treated like an implement that helps you eat the food and also gives you a compliment to the food that does not compete with it, but simply adds to the experience. You seem to have done intuitively everything that an Indian home chef would have done. You should be very proud of yourself. I do not know many young Indian chapati makers. It is a dying art. I am serious. I am eternally grateful to all those Indian home chefs that have fed me chapatis with a meal. I bless them everytime I meet them.

Monica, care to share yours?

Bill, that is exactly what I wanted to hear. I think you should be able to play with your oven and get closely similar results. But then again, those that have worked with both, could tell us differently. Do you have recipes for some Tandoori meats? If you want, you can email me (chef@suvir.com), I can send you at least a couple of recipes to begin with.

Bill, I need to work with one before I give you an intelligent answer. Till then, I feel there is no reason it should not. How does the heat on the surface of the oven differ from heat in the center? Have you ever tried making tandoori breads? I feel you should not have any trouble, but again, I have never worked with Indian recipes in a wood-fire pizza oven, I know a friend that makes good pitas in them. I should assume it should work similarly for naans and rotis. The meats should work fine as well. If you can create a stand on which the seekhs(skewers) could be placed, I am sure you should have no trouble. I would think the key would be to have the marinades and other essentials of the recipes to be in true form to what we do in India, but for the rest, your oven should work fine. We have some restaurant owners and chefs who visit and contribute to this forum, I am sure they could give us more intelligent feedback to your querry. I hope we can get them to visit the forum and this thread in particular soon. I am as curious as you. I shall call Hemant Mathur, the tandoori chef at Diwan in NYC... and see if he has any feedback that can help us with this.

How are your adventures with the new Tandoor coming along GC++? Made anything yet? How did they come out? The Tandoor I have in our deck needs a lot of coal and takes a good amount of time to get heated up. That time and heat is necessary in my book to get to a point where the tandoor becomes so much more interesting to use than a generic outdoor grill. When I cook in the dead of winter, I find coming to that point a challenge. Invariably the few times we use it in the winter, have been times the weather has tried to play with us. Snow, rain etc... but we have never given up. What kind of Seekhs do you have? Seekhs are the skewers one uses in a Tandoor. Do you have Seekhs with a piece of metal that will keep the meats and veggies from dropping into the coal? Do you have a Seekh that has a hook on the end? This is the one used to get breads out of the tandoor. Then there are those seekhs that have a small flat end, this helps scrape the side of the breads to help get it loose. I am sure you have all of these, but I just wondered. How are you finding the Tandoor as a new gadget of sorts? Is it everything you wished for at least at this early point? There are many in this forum that have restaurants which have tandoors, I am sure you could get plenty of help and advice here. I am afraid I am no expert in grilling in the tandoor. I end up being the one that marinades the meats and veggies, that prepares the garnishes and readies the dips. I almost never handle the cooking. I must admit, just 2-3 years ago, I was very afraid of it. I am now not afraid, but far from being even remotely experienced with it. I have made breads, removed them, but breads are something I hope I can work more with. Grilling the meats is easy... at least the handling of them.... but with them, you need to have an eye for when to stop cooking. Another question for you, do you have a lid for the top of the tandoor? Did it come with any instructions? Did the vendor offer to assist you if you needed help? How has that part of the purchase been? Do you feel the vendor has given you support?

Indiagirl, does your mother-in-laws recipe call for similar amount of garlic? My recipe, from a family friend who is from Andhra, and whose family loves Garlic has significantly lesser amount of garlic and yet is very garlicky in flavor. Just wondering. Also do you think the amount could have something to do with the size of garlic in India as opposed to here in the US? Our garlic here is rather huge. I find it too big at times and shy in flavor. What is your experience?

My mother brings this for me from India. The dried leaves are picked by hand from fresh ones that are approved by our chef, Panditji. He cleans the batch, trims it and then dries it for use in our home in India and also for my sister and me in the US. One has to only open the bottles we have in our pantry and the smell of methi permeates the pantry. If the leaves and freshly dried and are all leaves, the stuff is very potent. In fact my last batch had some dried yellow in it as well. Which is more like a dried light green. That batch was the most amazing ever. It was from my parents kitchen garden in Ludhiana, a city in the state of Punjab where my father was stationed for a period of time. My mom tells me that this year they shall grow some in their vegetable patch in Delhi. And she will send some dried leavs for me as I have been pestering them for more of the home grown leaves. Methi leaves are very flavorful. Methi seeds are more bitter in taste to me, but make all the difference in the dals and curries they are added to. In fact my music teacher and I each have a family recipe of a potato dish with a sauce and in each of our versions, fenugreek seeds are an essential ingredient. She comes from Bangladesh and I from India, and our potato dishes are more similar than different. And what makes them similar is the generous use of the fenugreek seeds.

Indiagirl, yes, you, the resident expert. You have been missed lately. Glad to see you back here. You make things even richer. Thanks for sharing all you do with us.

Rasam is closest to what we could consider a soup. It is more like a consomme. It is drunk by itself in Southern Indian homes or even with rice or idlis (steamed lentil and rice cakes). Some people also have it with vada (fried lentil and rice dumplings, shaped like donuts, most often served with sambhaar). Ben, if you want, email me and I can send you recipes for rasam that use Tamco (tamarind paste) and still taste just as authentic as what I grew up eating in India. Also, Dakhsin is a great book. The recipe Indiagirl has posted is from that book. I can well imagine it being very tasty.

Rhea, you have had what are really very good store bought parathas. The Malaysian ones you mention are very popular with many Indians in the US. If you have any desire to make parathas as one would find in the homes of India, do email me, I would be happy to give you recipes.

Rhea_S, I have enjoyed frozen parathas as well. But they are something entirely different from what is home style or even remotely Indian paratha style. What is similar to home made parathas are the packages you can find in some Indian grocers, these are homestyle parathas made by people in their homes and sold in small numbers to local stores. The Malaysian brand you speak of, is available and is nice for having sometimes, but whilst I have been in Denver, feeding the family and cooking for many guests, I have realized that there is really no substitute for good home made parathas. They will never be like the bleached flour, flakey and oily store bought stuff. They are made with whole wheat, with care, very little fat and are meant to be an entirely different animal. My parents and my sister would not eat the frozen ones after they had it the one time I asked them to try them. They said the taste was good, but that the item was not really a paratha. They were correct, but the frozen ones made my life easy as my brother who loves parathas, was able to enjoy them without feeling he put me through the grind. Home made parathas are very easy to make. What is tedious to some is that they can only be enjoyed at the best when they are fresh off the griddle. I love having people at a table eating parathas as I prepare them. It is those enjoying them that have trouble. In India, chefs at homes do this all the time, and I would never even think of eating frozen ones. We make parat waale parathas (flaky multilayered parathas) at home, these are amazing, but again, nothing like those frozen ones packaged to sell commercially. They are made from what could be a cross between a paratha, phyllo and puff pastry. They are tasty and convenient but not what any Indian would call Paratha. If you want recipes for parathas, email me at chef@suvir.com, I would be happy to give you recipes that you can play with. I enjoy the Kawan parathas when I have harldy anytime on my hand, and have some tasty dish prepared and needing bread to heighten its enjoyment. Kawan parathas are my safe and comfortable alternative in those times.

In the US, I have found many local brands as I have traveled across the country. There is one brand I found in Denver, I shall try and see if I can go to the grocery before I get back, to get its name. None in the freezer now, or else I would have written about this. This particular one was mass produced and I am sure is available nationally. The others come wrapped in zip loc bags or other plain plastic and are made in homes locally. Have you ever tried making parathas at home? Any interest?

The meatballs sound wonderful. One of many other reasons to buy her book. All the best to your wife and you through the pregnancy.

Thanks for the link to the Time Out Dubai page. And many thanks for sharing your wife and your exprience and also that of your friends. I love Dal Makhani. In fact it is one of my most favorite dals and actually, many friends I know have been hooked to Indian food because of this dish. You decribe it perfectlty in your words. ".....There is something very lush and rich about its combination of creaminess, tomato and earthy flavours that I like a great deal.." I could have hardly said it better. You nailed it perfectly. The Dal is tradionally made on the left embers of the tandoor and allowed to cook overnight. It is then seasoned in the morning and cooker for many more hours. My grandma felt it became sublime the next day. Hardly any food was eaten in our home the day after, but this Dal, certainly was relished the next day.

Anna, the way you handle it varies from recipe to recipe. What were you making? What particular recipe did you use it in and found it grassy? Traditionally it is soaked in recipes where it is used as a green. If it is being used as a herb, it could be soaked or not depending on what recipe you are preparing. As a spice it is used as a seed. But, sometimes, in some recipes, you use it as a spice even in the form of a dried green. And in these recipes, you grind the dried leaves into a powder that gives a nice spicey flavor. I am sure the resident Fenugreek experts (Indiachef and Indiagirl) can enlighten us further when they check this thread again. Until then you have something to work with. Anna, you were needed in the Tomato Chutney thread.... Did you read it lately?

Click here to check out another thread about Fenugreek.

Indiachef and Indiagirl on another thread, bring out the fact that fenugreek is also a green. An essential part of Fenugreek actually. Check out the thread for more information on Fenugreek, including the origin of the name Kasoori (Qasoori) for its dried form. Click here

It is the same place I was thinking of. Thanks for posting about it Pan. When back in the city, I shall make a visit there. And you know what, there are some Indian pickles served in restaurants and sold in stores that remind me of turpentine as well. Pickling is a lost art for the most part. Those that have grown up with the tradition do it very well. For pickling one needs to have amazing produce, very fresh oil, and perfectly clean and fresh spices and also the perfect proportions. And then you have to sun them, age them and rest them according to the recipe and where you are situated. If any of these steps is handled poorly, the result will be mediocre to poor.

Royal Palace, Mont Clair, New Jersey Click Here to read more about this restaurant and also others.

Kinara, Mela, Namaskar, Maharani and others in New Jersey "Actually, I felt that Maharani (in Fort Lee) had a better lunch buffet, in terms of selection. But what Kinara had was quality. Namaskaar in Paramus is also pretty good." - From Jason Perlow on the thread about Kinara and lunch Click Here to read more about these restaurants. or Here, for another thread about Kinara (more attention to dinner).

Mirchi 29 Seventh Avenue South (Bedford and 7th) 212-414-0931 "When it first opened, we went there probably the third day - Boy was it hot !!!, kind-of-burned my stomach linings. Then I re-visited it a few months back - After we had had a few doubles, and a local pub. The food seemsed milder, then I visited sober, and indeed they had toned it down. The barkeep was from Argentina - EZE, and the wait person, was from Portugal - LIS." - From Anil's post on the Mirchi thread Click Here to read more about Mirchi. And click here for more on Mirchi.

Grameen 75-18 37th Avenue, Jackson Heights, NY 718-505-4083 Click Here to go to the thread on Grameen.

Bombay Club, DC Click here to see the thread about this restaurant.

Nirvana, Central Park South, NYC, NY Nirvana was the first multi-starred restaurant in NYC. It was the highest rated Indian restaurant in the 70s. The Beatles and Ravi Shankar called it their haunt in NYC. The Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden was the idea of the owner of Nirvana and he introduced Ravi Shankar to George Harrison at Nirvana. It is under re-construction as I write this. Maybe the menu will get updated and the decor too. Nirvana has great potential and certainly a stellar location. Only if it can come back to the glory of its past, and be connected to the times of today. CLICK HERE for an old thread on Nirvana.