BBhasin

Episure, slight deviation from the beef/steak stuff but do you have a favourite raan reciepe? thanks

Beef or Buff This goes back a few years ago. The congress party was in power in India and the Junta party ( Holy Cow) was in opposition. A Junta party minister sits down to dinner at ' The Supper Club ', a pestegious restaurant in the government operated Ashok Hotel in New Delhi. He opens the menu and is appalled to see beef steak on the selection, furious, he storms out and at the next parliament meeting lashes out at the ruling party that in a predomenantly pious hindu Indian society, in a restaurant run by the government, the holy cow ( revered like a mother by hindus) is being butchered and served. This could be serious trouble for the chief of the hotel but they had an intelligent individual whose sole purpose was, you guessed right, to field these stupid querries. Did the hotel chief get fired? Nope. Did the opposion minister get appeased? Yes sir. The hotel responded that as per the Dictionary Beef meant the meat of not just cow but water buffalo, bison etc. and the beef sreak was not cow. If I remember correctly it was served there as a pepper steak as that seemed to appeal to both the Indians and the foreigners who dined there. I do not remember it being tenderised in any special way. The Indians usually liked their steak really well done ( which was easy, just cook it to death) but getting right the medium and medium rare for the others was a little tricky.

Give them to my neighbor. I'm on the Atkin's Diet!

Thank you Bux. To answer your question, no the menu does not change though we we do intent to work on that ,exactly on the guidelines you outlined. We have a sunday buffet for lunch where we do tend to get a little seasonal. To give an example ,this past sunday we had a summery long squash ( ghia ) prepared with split yellow lentils (channa dal) with fennel seeds, crushed red pepper and grated ginger. We usually do not run out of lentils but this time we did.

Numerous have been the occasions when our patrons have explained their absence during the summer months with ,' its too hot for Indian food'. What do you think ? I have some views on this but would like to hear from all you wonderful people out there. Thanks

You are looking for suggestions from US??? We are all messed up and dont know where anything is! Seriously, keep the spices you use more ( often and in quantity, in larger containers and close at hand) the rest you can put away. In the pull out drawers you cannot read the lables from the top so its less frustrating to mark the contents on the lids with a permanent marker. If you want to be more organized mention also the date of purchase. Take note of all the suggestions that come in but do what you want to do, afterall it's your kitchen and you are the Chef ( Big Boss). Good Luck ( you are going to need it)

I operate a small Indian place in Alexandria and get quized a lot about the cuisine. To the 'Garam Masalla' question I always refer to to your comentary on one of your shows covering Indian cuisine. It is simply the best description I have EVER come accross. But they cannot find it, on the air or the web. Is there any way one can get copies of these episodes?

In Punjab it was very popular, being the most popular cooking medium after Desi Ghee. It was used for cooking deep frying and making achar(pickles). It was invariably heated to smoking point and then cooled before being used, to get rid of some of its very strong smell. Used raw it can have a very overpowering effect like horseradish. I do not know if in Punjab it was used as a flavoring as in bengali cooking ( below is a simple reciepe for bengali bharta that one of my Bangladesi cook prepares sometimes). It is a wonderful taste ( though aquired, as Vikram correctly mentioned). The use of the oil has never been discouraged but I guess two things happened 1.Peoples tastes changed a bit with time. 2. There was a major scandal in recent years in India where mustard oil was adultraded, by unscruplous individuals, with rapeseed oil and sometimes a synthetic oil. The motive was simply greed and profit but the resultant concoction was poisionous and numerous people were killed. ( Vikram, can you please, as the local person elaborate on this? thanks) Since then I think mustard oil sale was actually banned for a while in India. Besides cooking ,mustard oil is also popular for masaging body and hair. So I guess when you see ' for external use only' that is what the manufacturer is purporting, or perhaps he is simply circumventing litigation so cooking is at your own risk. But if the store carries a reasonable selection of mustard oil you WILL see some that do not have this marking and say gauranteed pure etc. I will look up the name from my bottle and post it for you. I have to rush off now so the bengali bharta reciepe a liitle later

I do not know if this is typically Allahabadi or simply a UP thing. I was visiting some friends in Allahabad, uttar Pradesh in the cooler winter months. When I said good night to my hosts they told me to get up early as we will have some oos (Dew). At night a utensil containing milk was left ouside covered with a piece of muslin cloth with a hole in the center, the cloth kind of left to slope down in the middle towards the hole. Dew drops would fall onto the cloth at night and roll down into the milk. Early morning before the sun came up the milk would be collected, I think a little sugar was added and it was churned up. I dont know why but the milk would become all frothy and it was this froth that you were served and ate. It was considered very aristrocratic to enjoy this delicacy, perhaps I was too young or did not have the sophistication, to me it just tasted like milk froth. Does anyone know about this?? I hope I narrated this correctly.

Welcome Back Indiachef

I was saddened to read your post, forever_young_ca. I reflected upon it for a while about what I personally was doing on these forums? Conclusion... learning more about Indian cuisine from all the folks out there, sharing my personal knowlege and experiences and making friends ( met some wonderful people here) and enlightening the uninitiated and setting them straight about this wonderful cuisine ( to the extent I know). But on the other hand there were others who got under my skin by their attitude and irked me but they had great knowledge so I ignore their attitude and continue to benifit from their knowlege. I don't like it when our friend Vikram puts down north Indian or punjabi cuisine or says that restaurants serving gustaba are 'crap'. But I find he is immensly well versed in Western and Southern Indian cuisine and I am grateful that he shares his knowlege on these forums. So don't run away, there are a lot of wonderful folks here, like Suvir Saran, Monica, Prasad 2, to name a few, besides others I do not know yet. I hope to see you around.

forever young canada, regarding your parathas. Since you are cooking for only 15-20 people you will only need about 10 parathas or so, as I am sure will also have some rice dish for your guests. Also usually after appetizers, 10 parathats is all that I think you will need. Here is a techique which has worked well for me. Roll out your layered paratha and cook it on a gentle tawa or griddle. Cook it only till the dough changes color. You want to make sure the dough is cooked but you do not want to brown your paratha. Remove and save. Tip.Do not stack right away on each other but do so only after you have air cooled them. You can do these pathathas days in advance. Refrigerate them or freeze them in a freezer bag. You can finish them just when you want to serve them. there are two ways... 1. Heat them on a tawa/griddle when they begin to color fry with a little butter or oil. 2. Finish cooking them on a gas flame flipping them with a tong. Remove when browned ( to the extent YOU like them) baste with a little butter and squish them a bit to open out the layers. Your paratha will be almost as if it came out of a tandoor. If you like you can also sprinke some dried powdered mint on your paratha. Well have a fun party and save some leftovers for me.

After the last, very informative post I would be curious to learn what forever_young_ca had in mind with respect to an East Indian spread.

Rick, Describe this Korma and the restaurant and we will work out a reciepe for you

The reasons my friend are numerous. Most of the restauant operators are in the bussiness for the money and work with the formula ' give the customer what he wants'. And what does the customer want when he visits an Indian restaurant? Chicken tikka masalla, rogan josh etc etc. He will throw the authentic vindaloo in your face as not being good becauce he has become so accostomed to the doctored version Indian restaurants serve overseas which he takes as standard. Also, I may have mentioned this before, most of the people working in the Indian kitchens in the US these days are not real chefs or cooks. They have worked for a while in the kitchen and thanks to the acute shortage of help in the Indian kitchen become self proclaimed overnight chefs. They simply do not have the knowledge. But there is hope. As the audience matures, they, like you are looking for 'beyond the norm' and as this number grows I am certain we shall see a Goan restaurant. Its all a matter of supply and demand. Just look at the number of south Indian vegetarian restaurants that have cropped up in the recent past. And the number offering 'Indian Chinese' has grown tremendously. If by my above statements I have offended any real chef or proffessional operator, my apologies, as that was not my intent

Carry on Vikram! It interests me and a lot lot of others I am sure. We have been away from India too long and most of my memories are pretty old. Its great to have you on and learn from your experiences even though you are not particularly fond of Punjabi fare! take care. bbhasin

Don't know the answer to that one but here is a link where they do roast it. Masalas Is there a thread on Garam Masalla?

All right, here goes.... This is called Jogan Josh. Its a Kashmiri mutton stew(you can use lamb). Its a little different from the tradional punjabi Rogan Josh. The reciepe may not be purist and you are welcome to adapt it any way you like. She has used a pressure cooker as she was using mutton and it is quicker to do it in a pressure cooker but when using lamb a regular pot should do. Kashmiri mirch is popular in India for the intence reddish color it imparts, I would suggest using Paprika and Cayenne 50:50. Rogan Josh Mutton 1kg Oil 4 Tbl spoon Onions 2 medium size/1 large hing ( aestofeda) a pinch salt to taste red chilli powder 2 tspn ( kashmiri mirch) saunf powder 2 tsps ( ground fennel seeds) garam masalla 1/4 tspn yogurt 2 tbl spn clove 2 nos wash and drain the meat . chop the onions. heat oil for a minute in the pressure cooker. add the mutton alongwith salt, onions, cloves and hing. stir-fry till golden brown. reduce the heat and add red chilly powder. stir for a minute and add the yogurt. keep stirring till the yogurt becomes brown and leaves the oil. now add water and saunf powder. pressure cook till three whistles or approximately 10 minutes. open after 10 minutes as it will cook in its own steam . open . add garam masalla and check to see if tender. in case meat is not tender, add a little more water and cook till 1 0r 2 whistles as needed. taste and serve. That is it. I have put down the reciepe exactly as it was emailed to me to also give you a little insight into Indian cooking terminology, method etc. The end product is a soupy stew and all the onions should not be floating around but assimilated into the sauce/gravey/curry. this is good with fresh steamed plain rice. let us know how it turned out.

I have a wonderful little book on Kashmiri cooking by Krishna Prasad Dar. If you can get get a copy it will interduce you to a whole new facet of Indian cuisine. Kashmiri cooking is one of my favorites, not that I am expert at it, a friend of mine gave me a few of her reciepes which have turned out pretty good. What would you like, a chicken or a lamb stew?

I do not know why this thread popped up as today's active topic but now that its up. My neighboring restaurant is popular for his barbeque ribs and uses coffee as one of the ingredients in his sauce.

Beautifully said. This needs some serious pondering. Bhasin

Samantha/Malawry we did send them some money and a gift certificate for the silent auction. I was just curious about the turnout and the funds raised. and how is Med doing now?

Beautiful, intelligent AND honest! Monica in my book your stock just keeps going up. What a fun article. There was a time, long ago, when I was a purist and looked down my nose at people straying from the method and subtituting ingredients. But the pace is more hectic now and if you can find ways to save time and money without changing the end result too much, I now say, go for it. As a first year student in Hotel School, I was to make Sweet & Sour pork for important guests my father had invited. I was appalled when the reciepe, in the chinse cookbook I got from the library, called for Tomato Ketchup and Sherry.But it was the best sweet-n-sour I ever had. I know of at least two Italian restaurants where they pass off frozen batards as fresh baked bread and A-1 Steak Sauce is a staple in a lot of their sauces! Sales are in excess of 1.5 mil so people must like the stuff. Indian restaurants ( I cannot speak for all of them ) are using frozen brocolli pureed in the saag paneer to give it body and enhance flavor. using Bisquick and milk powder to make Gulab Jamuns. And the garam masalla at most is store bought. My friend at his Indian restaurant takes a gallon of vanilla ice cream and blends it with chopped pistachios,almonds, raisins a drop of green color and some saffron dissolved in milk and refreezes it. its his most pupular dessert! At the Bombay Curry Company, the Mango Sorbet which patrons love after a sicy meal is store bought and if anyone enquires we tell them that it is made in california by Brothers. They do it so much better and the product is consistent. Everone is happy so why rock the boat? Thanks Monica, I feel so much lighter now, almost like after confession.

I agree Simon, I do not know how far back you go But I was in Calcutta twice, Once when my father was transfered there and I was in school, then again when I worked at the Airport. I have never come accross anywhere, the gayiety and christmas spirit that one saw on Park street. Decked out superbly with lights and ornaments, dotted with fine restaurants like Trincas, Blue Fox, Fluries, Moulin Rouge. So many people on the streets it was fantastic! Durga Puja time was another favourite, though in Calcutta, every day was a festival and you never really needed any excuse to hit the sweet shops. What really amazed me was that everyone, rich or poor could indulge. Did you walk the strand with some muri (bhel) or chinabadam ( roasted peanuts) or did you watch the river go by from that little restaurant they had on the waterside? Did you eat your Kathi Kabab at Nizams, inside the dirty restaurant or did you wait outside to be served in your car. were you there when Sub Zero, the ice cream parlor opened next to the Hobby center? That was a crazy scene, on a hot summer night we used to ride over on our scooters, the whole world seemed to gather there and the girls.....they were beautiful! Where did you go for chinese? My family loved Jimmy's Kitchen and just could not get enough of their food. Now if you wanted Indian Chinese, the best place was the restaurant at the Airport! Then if you wanted Northern Indian Mughlai food you went to Amber, remember its various floors? some where you could only dine if you were with a lady. It was said at that time that Amber sold more beer than any other restaurant in India, that they paid the salary of their entire staff with the resale of the empty beer bottles. I used to go to this place which was very famous for its Rizalla( a muslim meat curry in yogurt and milk) and firni. And you had to try and make it when the Big pot of curry would become ready. 15 minutes late, and it was all gone and you waited for the next one. Do you remember the name? I cannot think of it. Thank you simon, for reminding me.

Andae aur Andae My favorites.. I sometimes crave the oily overcooked omeltte made by the guy who operated this shack outside my college. Sandwitched in a bun with a glass of high caffene/tannin '90 mile' tea. Also, remember the Anda Tarka? The dhabaewalla scrambled some eggs with chopped onion, green chilies, tomatoes etc. and then ladled a portion of his dal into the pan. Finished with fresh cilanto, great with some fresh roti or chappati. Omelette Curry.. Make a masalla omelette with chopped onion, tomato, green chillies, fresh corriander. Cut it into bite sized pieces and simmer in leftover chicken curry.Just plain old 'mordern' bread was fantastic with this. And the egg parathas....... these two were my favourites In calcutta, near Dum Dum, there were these wayside vendors who used a white flour dough similar to naan. They would roll it out a bit and then stretch it out quite thin on the metal table top. They would then beat up a couple of eggs with, onion, tomato, green chiiles and corrianger. This would then be poured in the center of the streched dough. The four corners would then be lifted and folded towards the centre, like an envelope. This would then be lifted and placed on a hot tawa (griddle), cooked and then shalow fried. In Delhi, I forget if it was Moolchand or Southex, but this guy would make his parathas which were stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes. He would do the paratha on the Tawa and when he applied oil, the paratha would swell up for a moment a bit like a poori. At this moment, with a closed flat chimta (tong) that he held in his left hand he would pierce the edge of the paratha, release the tong a bit, creating an opening and in his right hand he had an egg which in one smooth movement he would break and fling the white and yolk into the paratha though the opening in the edge. He would pull the chimta(tong) out and press the paratha on top breaking the yolk and spreading the egg throughout the paratha. He let me try it a couple of times but each time the egg went flying onto the sidewalk or the tawa but never into the paratha! Hard boiled eggs in keema curry. The yolks added a velvetty smoothness while the whites gave the keema a geat texture. A Bengali friend of mine, who managed a deluxe restaurant, could order anything from the menu would go crazy over simple fresh boiled rice atop which he would break a just boiled egg and pour melted butter. I am not very familar about Bengali fare but he told me that bengalis loved it. Guess I am egged out now