BBhasin

Torakris, The method of heating the rice vinegar, then adding the milk to it and boiling it in my humble opinion is WRONG. The sequence should be to bring the milk to boil, preferebally in a thick bottmed pot/pan and stirring it to avoid it getting burnt at the bottom and giving the paneer a burnt taste. Once the milk is boiling add something sour to split the milk. Vinegar, lime or lemon juice. used in the right proportion will not have an aceidic taste in the paneer. We use vinegar at the restaurant where I work. Just keep adding a little at a time until the milk splits. Continuue boiling until the cheese seperates and you see an almost clear liquid ( a few minutes should do it). Strain in a muslin cloth tie in a ball and hang it for a few hours. Adding too much vinegar/lemon juice will make the paneer hard. Your target is soft ( though firm ) paneer and some people including my mother use sour yogurt to split the milk in the belief that it results in a better end product. You do not want to boil the milk too long after the paneer has seperated as prolonged heating will also harden your paneer and you will lose some of the nutrional benefits. Some people, including us at the reataurant, will turn off the heat and add cold water once all the cheese has seperated. This stops further cooking and your paneer will be softer. To quickly form the paneer you can tie it up in muslin cloth and set a pot of water on topof it to drain the water. If the weight is too heavy or you weigh it down too long you will sqeeze out too much moisture and your paneer will againg become hard. I think I made it all sound too complicated. Don't worry you will be making the best paneer in a couple of tries. Just a point of intrest, Indian Halwais ( sweet makers) who made a lot of paneer and Indian kitchens 20-30 years ago also used 'Phatkari' ( alum I believe it is in english) to split the milk. I dont know if they still use it but it coagulates and seperates the milk. I am sure low fat can be substituted but I have not tried it. How about you trying it out and letting us all know. good luck bhasin

Right on Monica, This is a very good restaurant and the food is excellent. The Chef Sudhir Seth worked at the Bukhara in New York, from there he moved to the Bombay Club, which is very highly acclaimed by the food critics ( though I personally choose to reserve my comments). Heritage India is a joint venture with another person who operates Indian restaurants in Europe. The cooks I believe are mostly proffessionals on company transfer visas and not the 'made in America in a few months, chefs' you find in a lot of Indian operations. I am glad that you mentioned the cost of the meal, as per general Indian restaurant standards its expensive. Would you be surprised if I told you that they do not have a charcoal fired Tandoor and use a gas one. What does a purist like Suvir think of that? It has been a while since I ate there but at that time they used dark meat in their chicken tikka and butter chicken, which was contrary to the white meat craze. Do you remember what you got this time? Sudhir is a personal friend, very learned in his craft and one of the most hard working and dedicated people I know. Food produced in any kitchen he commands is certain to recieve rave reviews. I wish him and Heritage the very best. Your review, Monica, was excellent and a testimony to your good taste. You can sign me on for an egullet meeting here! Bhasin

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Suvir, Madras is a term that denotes a degree of hot & spicy. It is a term coined in the UK most likely by the early restauranteurs who created a ' Hot & Spicy Scale ' to comunicate with diners. Take 1 to 10. 1 being mild and 10 being painfully hot. This is how I think it works. 1 to 2.......Korma ( perhaps because they are usually mild ) 3 to 4.......Curry 5 to 6........Madras ( maybe they wanted to create a level hotter than regular but less than vindaloo) 7 to 8........Vindaloo 9 to 10.......Phall Phall. I only heard this term after arriving in the US, from english patrons. The first time when he asked, can you make it Phall, I did not know what he was talking about and thought I should have paid more attention in cooking class. Later, I leaned from others that all he was seeking was very, very hot food. Maybe some member in the UK can authenticate this. We do make a Chicken Madras at the restaurant, sometimes. And the seasoning IS turned up a bit. But the reference is also to the traditional Southern seasonings( fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, curry leaves, dried red chillies, peppercorns, cloves, coconut , both ground and milk, tamarind etc) and the Southern process of dry roasting the spices and grinding them to a paste. So we are to blame for some of the the Madras confusion. bhasin

Haggis, where did you come up with your version of the saag paneer? Is it from a book or did you 'tweak' a reciepe. I am curious as I have not come accross either tamarind or lemon in saag paneer. Most in northern Indian homes use tomatoes ( which you dont actually see in the finished dish). Addition of fresh cilantro and dried methi(fenugreek) leaves at the end for flavor is also popular. Sour cream, cream etc also is a pretty much a restaurant thing, to give the dish richness and make it different from the homey stuff. In Indian homes these days, adding raw cubes of paneer is popular as browning the paneer denaturises the protien and makes it hard to digest. Also I am not too sure about the garam masalla business, if you keep adding it to everything it may all end up tasting the same. Do you puree the saag or do you leave it kind of chopped? In the good old days the wife, in India, did not work and she would spend hours slow cooking the saag and it would end up in a smooth mush( perhaps a wrong word) thanks to her constant stirring/mashing action. This was really appriciated by all because of the amount of effort that went into it. Indian restaurants would simply puree the spinach mechenically after cooking as it indicated the same effort. Saag, incidently, FYI if you do not already know means greens and can be mustard, kale, spinach etc. Palak is specifically spinach. Though when you say saag paneer it is spinach that is being used. bhasin

Thanks for your confession. But I am intrigued, that in spite of all this you DO make an effort to try Indian once or twice a year, what motivates you? A special friend perhaps? Whatever the reason, thank you for making the attempt ,as a restaurant person I salute you. May I share the following with you...... An esteemed food magazine ,Food & Wine or Gourmet , conducted a reader survey and asked respondents to name the herb they detested most. The conclusion was Cilantro, which was surprising as salsa has been outselling ketchup. To most people who responded it left a 'soapy taste' in the mouth. Why am I telling you this, because all people are different and the same thing cannot appeal to everyone. On the other hand I get patrons who on the one hand give very strict instructions that they do not want to see any cilantro on their food and on the other literally soak up all the cilantro based chutney that is served to them by mistake with their appetiser. So, there IS hope for you. Then the esteemed Readers Digest a few years ago had an article on the ten things that make you feel good. Listed were things like meditation, exersise and yoga, sex, chocolate and yes my friend... HOT & SPICY foods! which apparently give you a slight endorphine rush making you a little ' high' and feel good. Just one of the benefits of hot & spicy foods! While saying all this I must truly confess that while waiting in a doctors office once I read an article in a medical journal that people do react differently to hot foods. Some people can get blisters on their skin if toched by a hot pepper/juice. While in others ingestion of hot & spicy foods causes the body so much trauma that it shuts off some of its systems and persons have been known to simply pass out. Indian food though spicy is not necessarily hot. Just like certain regions in the US like Louisiana, Texas etc are considered hot & spicy when food is mentioned, does it mean that everyone in Louisiana and Texas eats fire? It is the same with India and Indian cuisine and though there are tradtionally hot regional cuisines it all boils down to a matter of personal preference. If turmuric does not bother you in the mustard on your hot dog, I do not think it will effect you in your chicken curry. It might be the hot chilli or cayenne. I would suggest starting at a really low level and working your way to where you enjoy it most. Indian cuisine is not about hot. If you can share on the forum what you have been ordering and if you remember, the name of the restaurant. I am sure there are a lot of members who can guide you to curry nirvana.

Prasad, The ingredients vary slightly, most contain corriander seeds cumin seeds mustard seeds turmuric fenugreek seeds dried whole red chillies in the variations some add one or more of the following cloves dried curry leaves hing or asfoteda peppercorns rice powder and even lemon grass there are numerous versions like Indian, Chinese, Thai, Malasian and African etc. And each has variations in themselves. If you plan to use curry powder I would recomend Indian and you will have to research and experiment to arrive at what suits your needs best. It is a good idea to stick to a good reputable brand as that will ensure consistancy. I may have forgotten an ingredient or two but you get the general picture. The whole spices are roasted and then ground to a powder. Bhasin

in continuation of this curry powder thread. I remember using it once in a dish we sometimes have on our buffet based on a British rechaufe dish where they would reheat leftover roast chicken in a sauce with curry powder, apples and raisins. We had no leftover chicken, tweaked the reciepe a bit and it turned out quite nice.

In the mid seventies and early eighties in new Delhi, there was a wonderful hotel called the Akbar. Maybe it was because I started my career here but I even now think of it as one of the best thought of and designed facillities that I have come accross, ever! Maybe, I will one day describe it on the 'what whould the next restaurant be thread'. Anyway this hotel had a 24 hrs coffee shop called Madhuban. It was in those days the most popular eatery in Dehli and its most popular non vegetarian selection was ' Chooza Kabab '. Bite sized pieces of bonless chicken marinated in oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and yup Curry Powder. These were skewered with onion, tomato and peppers and then grilled on a griddle. When done this was served on a bed of rice topped by a curried sauce. The curried sauce was in essence a bechamel with garlic,onion, chicken stock and you guessed it Curry Powder, finished with some cream. When we wanted to recreate it from memory we would come close but not quite. Then one day I bought a cookbook from a store going out of bussiness, it cost me two bucks and there it was the reciepe we were looking for ( it wasn't called chooza kabab though). Now you want to know the name of the book?? I'll tell you if you promise not to laugh. A Guide to Mordern American Cooking - Pol Martin. ISBN 0-517-10327-3 Am I ashamed to use this curry powder in our kitchen and credit an American cookbook for the reciepe? Nope. Chooza Kabab is one of our popular entrees. The patrons love it. Is it Indian? Is this fusion? you figure. There is a natural food store in my neighborhood which sells loose (bulk) curry powder and you can get it Mild, Medium or Hot. It is a good product and they get it from St John's Herb Garden, (301) 262-5302, http:www.st-johns.com

In the washington DC area Bombay Curry Company 3110 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22305 (703) 836-6363 Cannot miss this opportunity to add my place! It looks pretty fancy in the website ( we just painted and changed the decor around so the website needs to be modified) but its positioned as a small neighborhood eatery, 44 seats, with vinyl tablecloths. It is a clean modest establishment with value oriented pricing. The menu is divided almost 50-50 into the usual butter chicken, rogan josh comfort foods and other stuff we picked up, like pathar kabab ( Frontier restaurant, Ashok hotel, new delhi ), Chooza kabab from the Madhuban in the now closed Akbar in New Delhi, the Fish Curry which started out as Goan but changed dramatically to its current popular style thanks mostly to requests for modification by the patrons. We have been lucky to be positively noticed by the press on numerous occasions. Two of my most priced reviews are 1. Tom Sietsema ( currently with the washington Post) mentioned us in his last article in sidewalk.com as one of the two Indian places he would visit( in the DC metro area) if was dining on his own money. 2. being listed among the top 40 Washington area Restaurants For Value by subscribers of Checkbook and Consumer reports. www.bombaycurrycompany.com for more info, directions etc. We look forward to serving you soon Bhasin

you are right indiachef, it is a herb and not a spice. I keep mixing them up. Thanks for straightening it out.

Methi is Fenugreek, it is green leafy, sold fresh when in season in small cilantro like bunches with leaves being more clover like. It has a slightly bitter aquired taste and is popular with northern Indians. Its used fresh like a vegetable. It is also used dried as a spice to add that special extra flavour at the end of the cooking process. The dried version is called kasturi or kasuri methi for two reasons. one the word Kasuri or Kasturi refers to a place/region, now in Pakistan which apparently produces the most flavorful methi and seccond becauce if you said kasuri methi it automatically implied that it was dried as the chances of getting fresh methi all the way from Kasur were very slim. The dried methi can be reconstitued by soaking in water but is not as good as the fresh stuff. Methi or fenugreek seeds are also used. Very sparingly at the begenning of the cooking to infuse the oil with the flavor which is popular in the south or in pickles or 'achars' in the north.

Suvir, I read with intesrest 'Indian Restaurant in NYC' and coupled with 'Ambience in the New Indian Restaurant' may I present the following humble observations. Indian cuisine and Indian food is definetly not stuck in a rut. Look around you, has the number of Indian restaurants grown?? In my area, tenfold in as many years and they are all doing well. The offerings and their quality may be debatable but there certainly has been expansion. Look at the shelves at the grocery stores with the variety of ready to eat Indian entrees. Look at the local caterers offering Indian selections as a matter of routine. They used to contract out to local restaurants but cook it themselves now. Even the bookshelves at Barnes and Noble now carry a much larger selection of Indian cookbooks. Are Indian Restaurants and kitchens Dirty ? Here is scope for improvement. Restaurants as everyone is aware have to undergo routine inspections from the health department and Indian restaurants( I believe) actually tend to get a slightly tougher inspection as mostly the operation is conducted on a ' prep and hold basis ' where basic curries are prepared in advance to be finished off later at the time of recieving an order. There is the chance of food ( meats specially) being in the danger temp zone for a longer period which the health department frowns upon. The ' front of the house' is generally what the guest opinion/perception based on, as one feels that if its not clean outside it must be dirty inside. The key to cleanliness I believe is education and training. and constant continued training and this is where owners/managers have to step in. Explaining to the server why blowing on the papadams to get rid of loose bits is not good for the customer or why wiping a plate with a dirty rag is not going to clean it. But at the same time even though Chinese restaurants/kitchens have reputation for being dirty it is among the most popular in the US. Regarding Ambience I would like to share the following, A few years ago the National Restaurant Association conducted a survey where they asked restaurant patrons, owners, managers to priortise restaurant attributes like ambience, service, location, food, personable owner etc. etc which attracted ( or should sttract, in case of owners/mgr) them to their favorite places. While the owners/managers rated rated ambience, location, service etc at the top, the patron ( accross all age groups, gender and income levels) invariably put FOOD on top. And in the Restaurants in NYC thread both Anil and Pan confirmed it. I am not saying that ambience is not important only that if you have good food then good ambience is " Sone pe suhaga" ( can you translate that Suvir) It might be interesting to look at Indian restaurants in India. Each comes up with a different mix of ambience, food offerings, price range etc. They have a slightly different formula they are working with and I think that is the way to go in the US also, as one mould will not fit all. A visit to India is also educative with respect to Fustion Cuisine as while we are racking our brains here they already have some very interesting concepts in the market right now.

From the Hindustan Lever Website, Indian manufacturers of Dalda http://www.hll.com/HLL_Flash/knowus/oilsfa...fats_dalda.html " Dalda - for healthy cooking Launched in 1937, Dalda Vanaspati has been the Indian housewife's trusted companion for tasty, healthy cooking. Considered as an embodiment of mother's love, Dalda has always been associated with purity, quality and trustworthiness. In 2000, Hindustan Lever launched Dalda Activ, a healthier version of Vanaspati, primarily because it contains twice the amount of healthy fat (poly unsaturated fats) and also actively reduces the unhealthy fat (saturated and trans fat). As a result, food cooked in Dalda Activ does not congeal on cooking and, hence, no layer of fat is formed. The product was developed through the process of interesterification, a fat modification procedure, which changes the melting and crystallisation properties of the fat. The process has been perfected for Indian conditions at Hindustan Lever's Foods Innovation Centre. In 2001, Hindustan Lever launched Dalda Classic, which with its butter aroma is targeted at consumers in the South. " As to Vanaspati, all I could learn was that it means 'vegetable ghee'. Regular Ghee or Pure Ghee or Desi Ghee as it is sometimes called in India is clarified butter and hence an aminal product. So my guess is when the Dalda folks started selling they used vanaspati as a marketing ploy to appeal to the purist hindus. Dalda Vanaspati also became very popular in India as it resembled real or desi ghee in many ways, was inexpensive in comparison, could sustain higher tempratures for longer duration and did not get rancid as quickly as desi ghee. But in later years, I think in the early 80s it lost its popularity because of the abundace of unhealthy fats it contained. But you can see how the manufacturers have addressed that.

From an Indian restaurant's point of view.... Our biggest problem is getting people ( newcomers) to cross the threshold. Most people are afraid to do so as their perception of Indian food is hot and spicy. They eventually come in with a bunch of friends/family and in most cases end up liking the food. In my opinion following are the factors that keep people away from it 1. Preconcieved perceptions. A British diner told me that his parents never ate Indian food as they believed it was 'unclean'. 2. Bad first experience. Not necessarily in a restaurant. I have spoken to converts whose notion of Indian food was to sprinkle curry powder on a kind of chicken stew they made and that was Indian food. 3. Common language in Indian restaurants. Tomato soup the world over is called, guess what, tomato soup! But chicken curry in Indian restaurants can be chicken curry, Bombay Special, Murgh Anarkali or a dozen other names owners may call it to make it sound exotic. can be confusing sometimes. Or there can be a dozen variations of the same dish, eg. chicken karahi. 4.Comunication. Most of the time people working in Indian restaurants do not come from a service background, do not speak perfect english and yes, have limited knowledge of Indian food themselves. The owner/manager does not invest in training as he has a heathy bottom line so he really does not care. 5. Restarants have perceptions too. Thank God these are changing now. Some restaurants thought that these 'foreigners' cannot handle the spice so if they have to retain their custom, the food needs to be mild and they would end up making it tasteless. At the other end of the spectrum were reatauants who believed that people come to eat in Indian restaurants becauce they are looking for hot and spicy and end up nearly killing their patron with heat. So what is a new person to do??? Educate yourself a bit if you can. Do some research and locate a restaurant in your area that fits your budget ambience etc. Read some reviews from local food critics, get some feedback from boards like these. DO NOT pick a restaurant simply because it has a large Indian following. Try to go with a group of friends and dine ' family style' as that is how Indian meals are suppsed to be and you can try a good range of things. Talk to your server and if you feel comunication is somewhat lacking ask for the manager or owner and seek their suggestions. Try an Indian restaurant for the, first time, if possible with an experienced person in your group. And if you can get Suvir Saran or Monica Bhide to accompany you, ignore everything above this sentence. But please.....please, do not let life pass you by without giving Indian cuisine a shot.

Anil' we do not have the dough ready for makki-ki-roti. Tandoori roti, nan, paratha, puri etc are on the menu and if anyone desires phulka/chapatti. No problem. Incidently the two most commonly used phrases in the hospitality industry. 1. No problem ( because we are so eager to please our patron/customer we will promise anything) and 2. I am sorry ( besause when we were comitting No 1 we were using our heart and not our brain )

Thank you Indiachef that was a really great post and hope it gets the ball rolling on this issue and more people log on and share their experiences. You sound like an angry idealisist though, which is good. Like you, I will not call myself an expert but having journeyed long through Indian cuisine I will say that I may have gained some knowledge and experience But far as Indian cuisine is concered my experience is, the further I try to educate myself the more confused I get. Who is right, your customer ( who pays the bill ), the food critic who can make you or break you ( though most in my opinion need more research and education) , the acclaimed cookbook author ( with his 'authentic' reciepes for american kitchens) or should I follow the Guru who taught me when I was an apprentice. I don't know, so what do I do? I listen to all and do my own. Works for me! well, here are some more so called experience ramblings..... Is everything in India served with rice?? That's what you would believe if you dined at 99.9% Indian restaurants in America. When I arrived more than a decade ago I was appalled to see even things like Bharta and saag Paneer served with rice. How can these idiots do this, my punjabi mind would scream and today I enjoy the dryish bhatra with rice myself and serve it the same way at our place but we do throw in a complimentary side of dal to moisten the experience. A new place opened up close to us where you ordered the main dish and then added rice or breads (at an extra charge of course) . Numerous customers of ours tried the place ( which in my opinion is quite good ) and returned with the verdict that they felt stiffed because they were charged exta when they asked for rice, it was like someone had pulled the speghetti from underneath their meatballs!! In further episodes.... Why Indians sometimes feel uncomfortable in Indian places ( Monica, this one is for you, as u mentioned such experience. The American Food Critic What I learn't from the Brits Who are these people actually cooking in Indian restaurants( I can only talk about the US ) etc etc

What's happenening Monica ? No one wants to bite, where are you Suvir, Indiachef, Anil, Prasad2 and the rest of you great people? Maybe, Monica, you asked too much in one question. One could write a book based on your querries. OK I'll take first bite and ramble a bit and perhaps others could respond. Food at the restaurant where I work has not really changed. We have always tried to stay as close to authentic as possible and offer the best we can within our price structure. The change has been perhaps in the additions to the selections. The present diner (compared to just ten years ago) is more sophisticated in his taste and knowledge of Indian cuisine as there is more available, he is more educated, well travaled and better exposed to the cuisine. But he is definetly seeking a change and variety from the familiar items on traditional 'overseas Indian menus'. He is exited about South Indian and Indo Chinese Dishes. We have addressed that by offering newer items on our menu as also the sunday buffet. Things like Tandoori Chicken, Vindaloo, Kormas etc which used to be considered exotic are now plain or comfort food. The Indian diner on the other hand, is begenning to graze in other pastures namely Mexican and Thai, both being spicy.

Thanks Indiachef! It all makes more sense now. Also glad to have made your aquaintance.

Numerous Indian restaurants now have chefs as partners. Either a chef and a front of the hose staff who are working for the same establishment pool their resourses and do a project or an investor picks up a good chef and offers him a partnership in a venture for his expertise and steady service. In the DC area you have Mehak ( they have since gone their seperate ways with individual restaurants), then you have The Connaught Place. The most famous is Heritage India considered by some to be the best in the area, Sudhir Seth ( ex Bhukhara NYC, I believe) was the chef at the Bombay Club and partnered to be the Chef/owner at Heritage. The two Bombay Bistros and their new DC location Indique are again chef and Front of the house partnerships.

thanks anil

Working in a restaurant has its advantages. You learn so much from your patrons! One of my senior guests quizzed me if we had a ' ten boy' curry. I told him no,I did not even know what it was, he then went on to explain that he had had it at Veeraswamy's in London, years and years ago. 'Boy' was sometimes a term used in British India to describe your waiter. And at Veeraswamy's those days when you ordered the Ten Boy curry, what you got was a ten course feast, each course served to you by a different Boy (server). What a fantastic gimmick, though I do not know if I could handle ten courses! I would be intested learn if anyone else has also heard of this or can add to it thanks all

Indiachef, you might want to call it something else peri peri or piri piri are very hot little peppers from portugal. The portugese make a hot sauce from these peppers similar to tobasco( mohlo de piri piri ) which they will use on practically anything, they will sometimes also use these hot piri piri sauces for dipping eg steamed shrimp, or use them to grill chicken etc. The portugese have left their hot imprint whereever they went. There are numerous Goan piri piri dishes and in South Africa and Zimbawbe I came accross Nandos a fast food chain selling hot peri peri sauces besides grilled chicken basted with these sauces. Also the makhani sauce is tradionally flavored with green cardamon and cloves besides dried methi and garam massalla, would you replace all these with crushed black cardamon or would black cardamon be in addition. the cheesey touch tastes good!

very nice monica, it would have been interesting to get a peep into the contents of more of those dubbas, perhaps on your next visit to bombay.