BBhasin

This is comming straight from the source ( am currently in delhi) tried the Nanzza at the Utopia Food Court in the Habitat Centre. It was a nan, lightly smeared with a makhani(butter chicken) gravey. The nan is cooked first, not raw. Then it was topped with approx an ounce of finely chopped deboned tandoori chicken, sprinkled very lightly with some cheese and baked a bit in a salamander. When done it was sprinkled with a little chat masalla. It was OK, defineltly not meaty enough for us ' foreigners' but it was was an interesting concept. The famed Kakori kabab is next on the agenda as also a meal at the Moti Mahal new delhi, with Mono Jones who is also visiting.

Man, I need to get back to Calcutta! Spent some high school years there, then a few years working at the Airport Hotel. My mouth is watering just thinking of all the places mentioned. Thanks Gautam for the Imodium advise. I lose two days each trip to 'Delhi Belly'. Do you know of anything stronger??

Why restrict yourself to just dosas, if you can handle a bit of spice there is no dearth of Indian restaurants in the area in a broad spectrum of ambience, price range etc. all with very respectable vegetarian options.You can get a good list by searching washingtonpost.com or washingtonian.com

HA HA, Mongo, I can understand your sentiments, but you never know. Apparantly a lot of restaurants are doing it and it might be interesting.

Making small talk with my niece in Delhi I asked her what was the latest in the food scene. Pat came the answer 'Nanzza'. What the heck is that I enquired? Here is how she described it. Its a cross between a nan and a pizza. A nan is made the regular way in a tandoor(I forgot to ask her if its the traditional shape or rounded like a pizza). Its then layered sparingly with peices of butter chicken, a little butter chicken sauce is then smeared on top. Finally its sprinked with mozzerella cheese and baked till the cheese melts. Behold your Nanzza is ready. Thought I would share it with you. Monica's going to be in delhi soon, maybe she will let us know what else is happenening there. Prasad. You want to kitchen test this and let us know how it turns out? I would do it but I am extremely short staffed, with no free time

Havn't tried this one , sounds good, will give it a shot. Episure, I like the sound of that flavored condensed milk, strange though that they have not come up with flavors that please Indians...Badam, ilaichi, thandai, saffron, pista, rose,khus etc. Bhasin

Thank you Vikram for a wonderful post Bhasin

Just one word describes this class EXCELLENT. Chef Sudhir Seth's proffessionalism is so beautifully captured. Two questions 1. How are the sweeter breads like Peshawari naan and sheermal eaten, as a regular bread, a snack, with tea or do they constitute a seperate course? 2. I was intriguied by the texture of the wholewheat breads' dough. They seemed darker than what most restaurants use and appeared to have more bran. What flour did you use? the one we use is milled in Canada and labeled as Dhurum Flour for chapatis and poories. Thanks bhasin

Suman, The coconut chutney served with the dosas at 90% of the restaurants in the US is pathetic, made from dried grated coconut. You seem to know a lot about Dosas ( even though you were not particularly fond of them growing up). Would be kind enough to share your reciepe. bhasin

Prasad, The next time you plan your sojourns, perhaps we can all go as a group to London and eat 'family style'. That way we can try more dishes/items than one individual can. bhasin I spent a week in london in 89 thats when I tried the CTM at Marks it was good and so were some of their other Indian offerings. Bhasin

Great idea M65, why dont you start a new thread soliciting what kind of pickles people might want to learn

you really like the mix as much as from scratch BB? Yes. The batter is ready in five minutes and the Dosa is done in another five. Most South Indian homes make the Dosa batter in larger quantities and keep it refigerated ( it dries up a bit but you reconstitute by adding a little water) refrigeration keeps it from fermenting excessively too, its ready whenever you are. In India and in some Indian stores in the US now, you can get ready to use dosai batter in polybags which is kept refrigerated. I spent some time in Kerela and Tamil Nadu. The first time I was invited to a locals house for dinner this Punjabi expected the crisp Dosas( just like Vinod made) but when we sat down for the meal what we were served for bread were soft 'rice & lentil crepes' the thickness of tortillas. When I quizzed the host on what this was, he told me that these were the real South Indian Dosas and the crisp 'paper' dosas popular in the north and elsewhere were not the real thing. Almost like the authentic Italian pizza being so different from the popular versions touted by the chains here. Perhaps Chef Vinod or monica can enlighten us on this. Now when I make my dosa stuffing I go the easy way there too Make some instant mashed potatoes ( 5-7 minutes) while the water is boiling make your tempering. heat oil, preferably in a wok, when hot add a pinch of fenugreek seeds and a little channa dal when they begin to brown add mustard seeds, when they begin to start popping add some shelled peanuts or cashews and sliced coconut if you have some handy add curry leaves and when they start turning color add salt and a little turmuric cook a minute to ensure turmuric does not stay raw but do not burn it add the mashed potatoes and mix well. Wow, I got carried away tryska, all I wanted to say was, Yes.

Hi Jackal10, You may like to check out this site : http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ejones/ufdi/...alrec/ddef.html I am sure it must be available in U.K. I really would not think of a substitution until you have exhausted all your chances of getting them. Vinod/Monica, While I am all for soaking the rice and lentils, grinding them and fermenting the batter a bit to get the tangy zing, a packet of Instant Dosa mix gets the batter ready in five minutes after adding the requisite amount of water and the dosas turn out almost the same as the ones with the tedious method. So why not just get the mix? bhasin

Dear Chef Vinod, What a wonderful class and introduction to South Indian breads! I have not covered all the breads just the first one Puttu. Few questions, just my curious mind, 1. It looks sooo different from a bread, would it truely be classified as a bread ? Do you think of it as a bead in South India or is it just a starch with your meal like boiled rice? 2.The pressure cooker and the cylinder are mordern things but I am sure this bread is very old, I love the way you do the hole in the coconut shell and steam it on top of the pressure cooker or the hollow bamboo. How was this done when pressre cookers didn't exist.

Prasad, it might be a good idea to check out the websites of all the restaurant suggestions you have and shortlist them into a doable list as thereis only so much you can eat in a week. Bring back frozen dinners from Marks & Spencers the qualitly is surprisingly good, sepecially the chicken tikka masalla, to try later.

Have not been to London's Indian places but have heard good things about Cafe Namaste Spice and Red Fort besides the ones on your list. You might also want to check out the Balti houses of the Indian/ Pak sector, Birmingham I belive its called. Of course you should have kept your mouth shut as now you will have to give a full report. Anway have fun bhasin Ps would love to chop onions in your kitchen!

I am an army brat and we put tomatoe sauce/ ketchup into EVERYTHING. omlettes of course but ketchup sandwiches growing up dal is not good, add some ketchup want to add a little zing to the raita, add some ketcup whats with the pakoras ketchup or tomato sauce of course Growing up, in my family tomato sauce/ ketchup reigned supreme ( followed perhaps by cans of baked beans, kraft cheese etc.) During the season when tomatoes were cheap, all the womens clubs would be making and bottling tomato sauce. After that post, are you sure you are grown up Episure? I suspect you will be eighty, toothless and still reaching for that bottle to take your porridge up a notch or two.

Anil, because its not a three dimentional image it appears like a tawa but it IS a tandoor.

Episure, Let me be the first one to congratulate you on some beatiful images, capturing the essence of REAL street food, we reataurant people do good stuff but to eat there in the mele, that is something else. THANK YOU. I now look forward to reading Vikram's piece, describing your visit. For what its worth, in my humble opinion, I think egullet should post it on their front page so everyone( not just those of us who visit the India forum) can share these these pictures on Ramzan and Vikram's fothcoming essay. best bhasin

Suvir, Whenever you have the time, I would be interested in your staffing at AMMA. The number of people you have both front and back of the house, what are their designations and job functions. Thanks. bhasin

Rks, next time you do your fruit chat add black salt, ground black pepper AND ground roasted ( almost blackened) cumin seeds. and then sqeeze a wee bit of lemon juice. mix it all and enjoy.

I am a bit confused too Bhang, Ganja, Charas, Afeem, opium can someone clarify please

Usually not, but numerous chaiwallas did tea with ginger or cardamon. Slightly off the topic, but in Delhi near the Pusa campus area during the examination days a couple of chaiwallas stayed open the whole night serving students needing a little refreshment while burning the midnight oil. They Had different flavors, masalla, ginger, mint and even chocolate where they added a spoonfull of cadburys drinking chocolate powder to the aleady sweet tea. Many a night I have spent with my buddies sitting on the pavement on a cold winter night, sharing a charminar and sipping the wonderfully hot and sweet chai, while my folks thought I was studying so hard with my friend.

Now on the subject of Thandai, I lived in benaras ( Varanasi ) for a while and should have paid more attention. I believe its a sweet milk based drink flavored predominantly with ground fennel seeds and ground char magaz ( an asortment of melon seeds etc). Bhang or opium was mixed in this if you wanted a high. All the Thandai wallas also had these copper vessels which, if you desired, they would rub with a copper coin and the resultant blackish greenish stuff was also mixed with your Thandai. Supposedly it heightened the kick you got but the stuff was poisonous. This bhang bussiness reminded me of two little stories. It was holi in benaras and we decided to make bhang wali thandai. We sent out a hotel employee to get the 'stuff ' and ground up everything in the hotel's dosa grinder and prepared our thandai. Had a fun holi drank a lot of thandai and kept waiting in vain for the stuff to hit us nothing happened, until next morning, when it hit us and we all rushed for the toilets. Apparently the stuff we mixed in was the smoking stuff and not for thandai. Also near Benaras is a place called, I think, Gop Gunj, where the government has an opium factory exporting tons of opium for medicinal purposes. Well a little stream flows( or used to) through this place into which the factory discharged their waste. There were dozens of baboons who got addicted to the water. They would just sit like zombies in the nearby trees etc and keep falling off now and then. It was a funny sight, though I never saw any monkey laughing.

Mishas in Alexandria is my top choice, even though I don't make it there as often as I like. When I smoked, the room with the coffee roaster and the big communal table was the place to be. Double kicks.