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I am a wine enthusiast. And a fan of Indian food. If you can bear the thought of setting aside beer for an Indian meal, I'd be interested in hearing what are some favorite wine matchings with Indian food?

does in indian food in the u.s have its analogue for orange chicken yet or even chinese chicken salad? or even for balti food? has anyone come across any indian dish that has hybridized or adapted to meet local tastes in the u.s, in the process becoming different while still recognizable in a geographically homogeneous way? i use "indian-american" to describe what i'm talking about not to suggest food eaten/cooked by indian-americans (though i would also be interested to know if the food of second generation indian-americans is qualitatively different from those of first generationers and that of the home country) but to suggest a similar hyphenated identity for food that we use for all the various hyphenated immigrant american identities. in other words, how has indian food in the u.s changed (if it has) over the decades that it has been here? has the change been only in terms of adapting to the tastes of more recent waves of indian immigrants (thus giving them more of what they were used to in indian restaurants in india) or has it also been (if only in a few areas) to completely local non-indian tastes? it would be too depressing only if it turns out the cookie-cutter north-indian menus have held out largely unchanged since the sixties.

episure, how about that recipe of yours that bhasin referred to? i suppose i could just scour the site for it but that seems like too much work. mongo

as winter in colorado approaches it become time for gajar halwa. of course in two months i'll be in delhi eating far superior versions of it than i could ever make but i'd like to take another stab at it. my mother's recipe is a little too cholesterol unconscious for my heart (though this may be a built in problem with the dish), and also it contains a number of short-cutty maneuvers that don't bother indian cooks in india but make people like me in the diaspora feel all inauthentic. so let all your gajar ka halwa recipes fly people!

Rasachandrika is excellent for all the Saraswat dishes. Its now exactly 60 years since the Saraswat Mahila Samaj (Saraswat Women's Association) in Mumbai first came out with it, and it is still a standard presence in every Saraswat kitchen, however stained and tattered with use it may be. I'd put it up there with Samaithu Par as one of the bases for Indian cookbook writing. What are the other such books that people would nominate in other regional Indian categories? I'm lifting this out of the Konkani cuisine thread since it might make for a good new topic. Which were the first Indian cookbooks that people encountered? Did your mothers and grandmothers (if they were Indian) use any? Did your mothers and grandmothers pick up recipes from anywhere else? Which cookbooks have you found the most useful? Any particularly interesting or unusual ones? Which of the new Indian cookbooks do you like best (we'll take it as a given that Monica's and Suvir's forthcoming one will feature on your list!)? Vikram

Hi All, I am working with BBHasin on a class for eGCI teaching Indian breads. ANy favorites that you would like to learn about?

People, I find this dynamic duo of spices ( HING & SALT) very important to my cooking "ishtyle", lol Wine dictates the yes or no in my cooking style, your comments would be deeply appricated. Regards

hi all, i'm looking for a new way to cook grean beans. i'm open to all suggestions that don't include more than 5 minutes of prep time or more than 7 ingredients (including spices and condiments).

Hi, I'm organising a Diwali party at my son's school, which has children from many different ethnic backgrounds. Would anyone have suggestions on what I could make for the snacks (one savoury, one sweet perhaps)? I keep changing my mind because unlike at birthday parties, this one will have to be more traditional - I'm not sure if all the children will like Indian sweets. I'm kind of leaning towards tiny samosas (ambitious, because I haven't the time/patience/energy to make so many) and burfi, perhaps. Any advice greatly appreciated. Suman

I was just curious as to what different perceptions people have about Contemporary Indian Food, what foreign elements may be allowed, how much identity in terms of visual appeal it must retain, how much breakaway from non family style service is acceptible when eating at restaurants and etc. Your views people. :) thanks

I am doing some research and could really use some assistance. Are you on a lowcarb diet or on Atkins -- are you preparing any any Indian dishes.. PM me if you are upto doing a short interview with me i am also looking for boards on Atkins in India and any other related materials.. would love your help

Russ, I am a huge fan of your work. Thanks for taking part in this Q&A. You honesty in answering the questions is quite inspiring. I am curious as to your opinion about Indian cuisine here in the States. It seems to be gaining popularity -- do you think it will ever be as popular as, say, Chinese food is here? Have you ever traveled to India? What were your impressions? Thank you

Yesterday I bought a small pouch of Deep Foods' Dry Garlic Chutney. It is hot and garlicky and kind of dry and crumbly in texture. I would like to try this on my own. Anyone out there care to share a reciepe?

What is a katol or turbot?? Can someone help

Hi, Some of the most memorable dishes I have eaten in Indian restaurants had a smokey flavour to it. I can still almost taste the mixed dal I ate in a small restaurant in Edinburgh, the aloo gobhi and a mushroom rice here in Dublin , the smokiness enhancing their flavour superbly. I know that they must be using their tandoor to get that flavour, but is there any way to recreate it at home? I neither have a tandoor nor a BBQ, so I was delighted when Sanjeev Kapoor showed a way to cook 'Dhungar Dal' on Khana Khazana. The results were quite disappointing - there was no smoke flavour at all. These are the things I have tried: - Cook dal, place a piece of foil on top. Now put a piece of live coal on the foil and pour a few drops of ghee onto the coal. Cover tightly and allow to smoke for a few minutes. This is Sanjeev Kapoor's trick, but it didn't work for me. - I roasted the uncooked dal, even burnt it a bit on purpose, and then cooked it. This tasted burnt (and why wouldn't it? ) rather than smoked. - I added liquid smoke to my aloo gobhi, but the flavour of the liquid smoke goes better with Western dishes, definitely not with Aloo gobhi. - My bharthas and naans are good enough because I char them over the gas fire. And as I write that it occurs to me that perhaps I could char the aloo/gobhi a bit too. But how do I do the dal? Suman

i bought two bunches of absolutely vibrant methi (fenugreek) from the local indian grocer today. plan to make it into alu-methi tomorrow. my usual modus operandi is to make alu-methi exactly the way i make alu-palak. if this is a crime against nature and humanity i take cover behind my bengaliness. let the truth(s) set me free: how do punjabi homes (as far as generalization is possible) make their alu-methi? bhasin?

does anyone have a regular home-kitchen friendly recipe for chicken or goat biryani that they'd be willing to share? what do i mean by "regular home-kitchen friendly"? a recipe that doesn't require multiple hours of prep, multiple helpers or overly expensive/exotic ingredients or utensils. thanks in advance!

does anyone have a good, relatively easy egg curry recipe they would be willing to share? i don't have my mom's, and i've been using one out of a cookbook, but it involves using nuts to thicken the gravy, and i'd rather just have it be more tomato based. i would call my mom and ask, but her cooking has changed lately, and she's always skipping steps, or using ingredients i didn't grow up with. and of course last night i developed a craving for egg curry and rice.

I am thinking of organizing a tasting of Indian wines paired with Indian food here.. what do folks think? This is a new distributor who is gaining a lot of credibility in the market place for Indian wines.. is there an interest?

Randall -- Thanks for doing this wonderful Q&A. I am curious as to your opinion on pairing wines with Indian food. The Indian forum has had a very spirited discussion on this topic - Indian food and wine - ranging from "don't even try" to "how can you not pair wines with Indian food" I am a novice in this area but eager to learn more. I would love to hear your opinion. Thank you

This thread is mainly directed at eGulletteers in India, or who come here frequently! If you such, you'll certainly now how there was a time, and not a very distant time either, when being a foodfreak was a difficult thing. In those NOT nostalgically remembered days before liberalisation, getting many ingredients for non-Indian cooking was very difficult. So friends and relatives coming from abroad would be presented with loooooong lists of items to be purchased, and when they came we would circle round their suitcases like vultures hoping to see what they had got us. In the unlikely event that we went abroad in those foreign exchange control days the torture was worse, as we stood in the middle of a supermarket (or as a last twist, in the duty free homeward bound) and stood lost because we wanted it all and had next to nothing to buy it with. Or back at home there were the dubious pleasures of the local smuggled goods shops like Hira Panna in Bombay or Burma Bazaar in Madras where you might find the odd food item nestling below the stacks of Walkmans and bottles of fake scent. If you knew any diplomats that was another route and God knows did we put up with many self important minor embassy types to get them. And failing everything there was always the fun of trying to substitute, like a recipe for coq au vin that blithely suggested that soy sauce could be substituted for red wine... I remember trays of Western herbs tenderly nurtured from seeds smuggled through customs (they mostly died), or suitcases perfumed with rapidly deteriorating Brie and Camembert (some of those old suitcases still vaguely smell of them), or bottles of entirely dubious wine procured, via Mr.Friendly Neighbourhood Bootlegger from a down at heels Soviet Bloc consulate (so you can imagine what sort of wine I'm talking about). And what is horrible is that we cherished them, cherished them all, for the fugitive links to foreign tastes. And then came Dr.Manmohan Singh, finance minister of blessed memory (lets forget what he's been doing recently), who, to use a phrase endlessly recycled by my bizjournalist brethren, "threw upon the gates to the winds of liberalisation". Under him and his successors the Export-Import policy was modified and now you can get a lot of the stuff that was never available before. My kiranawalla sells Italian pasta and the vegetable seller has fresh rosemary thanks to enlightened agriculturists like Trikaya (whose gourmet greens are partly subsidised by their production of iceberg letture for McDonald's in India, doesn't globalisation work in wonderful ways). Initially it was only dried foods, but now you're even getting perishable stuff, like cheeses. These days you are even getting imported kitchenware, which was one of the last things I still had to keep imploring aunts to bring. Even Le Creuset is now selling here (thank god, since I would never have dared to ask anyone to bring a single pan that would have taken up all their luggage allowance weight). So what is there left to ask people to bring? Or what should one stock up on when you are abroad? Obviously particular brands, labels, makes might top this list, and I'll be interested to hear which. But I'm looking more for types of food in general that are still hard to get here. Vikram

Hi folks, Before I delve into the details of this little-known cuisine, I'd like to introduce myself. I feel really lucky to have come across this wonderful forum where everyone is passionate about the same thing as me - Indian food. My name is Suman Varadaraj and I live in Dublin, Ireland. I used to be the Indian Food Guide at About.com - the best part of my job was helping all those who wrote in with their queries to discover the wonderful world of Indian food. I've lived in Ghaziabad in U.P. (Have you heard of it Suvir?), Bombay, Mangalore, Bangalore and Dubai. It might come as a big surprise , but I am, of course Konkani. We're a small community and yet it's amazing to see the variations in the cooking styles, depending on where we come from. - My parents are from Mangalore, which is a coastal town down south in the state of Karnataka, famous for its wonderful seafood. We love our fish and our food is 'bold' in the sense that it makes liberal use of garlic. - My husband comes from Bangalore and their food is more 'saathvik' - it leans towards the famous Udupi-style of cooking. They use very little garlic, if any and their food is purely vegetarian. They also tend to add a little jaggery to their side dishes. - My maternal grandma's family was amongst the many Konkani families in Northern Kerala, they have some distinctive dishes not known to other Konkanis. In general though Konkani food can be described as thus: Ghashis: Coconut, chillies and tamarind ground with or without any additional ingredient and made into a sauce for fish, beans or even chicken. The baghaar or tadka also differs. Sukke: Dry vegetable dish, again using coconut, chillies and tamarind with ingredients such as roasted or raw coriander, urad dal etc. Upkari: A stir-fry of vegetables - in Mangalore they generally prefer it with a baghaar of mustard and red chillies , in Bangalore it's usually mustard, green chillies, curry leaves and grated coconut Thalasani: Again, a stir -fry of vegetables, but with garlic and chillies. Thoy/Kholombo: The former being Konkani-style toor dal, the latter being our version of the sambhar. I could go on and on, but at the outset I hadn't even intended to write so much. I'd love to know if any of you have ever come across Konkani food or have tried to make it at home. Thanks for making me feel welcome on this forum. Suman

suvir and others, i never reported on my adventures with this recipe (from the home-cooking thread)--re-posting it below. i've made it twice now, the first time with a squash from the farmer's market in boulder that more closely resembled the indian kaddu and the second time with butternut squash. i am happy to report that in both cases the result was phenomenal and i would urge everyone who hasn't yet tried it to do so. suvir, please convey my thanks to panditji and keep a portion for yourself for acting as the conduit. here's my comments/slight variations on the recipe: *butternut squash cubes hold their shape far more readily than the mystery farmer's mkt. squash, so those who are experimenting with other squashes/pumpkins would do well to cook not by time but by feel. if you actually cook certain squashes for 25 minutes you won't need to mash any pieces, they'll completely disintegrate. then again this may be a matter of textural preference. i like more mash, my wife prefers a more solid texture. *in my second sortie i upped the spiciness quotient a little by doubling the green chillies (i use thai chillies) red chilly powder. i personally like the spicy kick with the sweetness of the squash--i also didn't add as much of the amchur, preferring the spicy/sweet with a hint of sour balance to the sour-sweet combination. again a matter of personal taste. *i also added a touch more hing--the earthy aroma of hing really goes well with the sweetness of squash but i can see how this is a dangerous game to play--there is such a thing as too much hing. we ate this alongside an improvised dish of potatoes and green-beans, bengali style mushoor dal with liberal squeezes of lime and hot phulkas. we were happy. while i like my slight variation i would recommend people start with the original: it is a bullet-proof recipe (the only complicated part is the cutting of the squash) and you should taste its splendor before you tinker with it. more home-cooking recipes please! ---------------------------------------------- here's the original as posted by suvir: SWEET AND SOUR BUTTERNUT SQUASH WITH GINGER AND CHILIES Kaddu Kee Sabzi Serves 4 to 6 In my grandmother’s home in Delhi, visitors would arrive begging to eat Panditjis preparation of this very simple and humble vegetable. His recipe, reproduced here, was fabled to be deliciously addictive; you will find out. Kaddu is the Hindi word for the oblong shaped, Indian pumpkin. In America, I use butternut squash instead: it comes close enough in flavor and makes it unnecessary to go hunting for the real thing in Asian markets. The end result is a dish that is authentic in taste and just as beautifully orange. Try it with a traditional Thanksgiving meal. 2- to 2 1/4- pound butternut squash 3 tablespoons canola oil 1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and minced 1 fresh, hot green chili, chopped 1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/8 teaspoon asafetida 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar 2 teaspoons dried mango powder (amchur) 1. Cut the squash in half lengthwise. Peel it with a vegetable peeler or a paring knife and scrape out the seeds. Cut the two halves lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick strips. Then cut the strips crosswise into 1 1/2-inch pieces. 2. Heat the oil in a large wok, kadai or frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and cook, stirring, 1 minute. 3. Add the fresh chili, the fenugreek, cayenne and asafetida and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. 4. Add the squash and stir to coat with the oil. Stir in the salt and sugar. Turn the heat down to medium. Cover and cook until the squash is tender, about 25 minutes. Uncover and stir the squash every 5 minutes and check on the cooking; if the spices begin to burn, turn the heat down. If the squash doesn’t brown at all, turn the heat up slightly. 5. Stir in the dried mango powder. Mash the squash with a spoon to break up some of the pieces. Taste for salt and serve hot.

this is inspired by the mussels thread. being largely north, east and hyderabad centered in my indian orbit i'd never encountered mussels (or for that matter shellfish outside of shrimps/prawns, crabs and lobsters) in the indian food context. it doesn't surprise me to learn that keralaite and konkani cuisines incorporate mussels, cockles etc. how about scallops? i hadn't even heard of scallops till i came to the u.s? are there indian cuisines that have traditional recipes for scallops? if not, can anyone share their own innovative scallop recipes? and also for squid and octopus.

This morning as usual I stopped by my wholesale seafood vendor where I buy my seafood for the restaurant. I was buying some Chilean Sea Bass which looked gorgeous, one pound red snappers, some Halibut and some mussels. On my way out The guy asked me if I was interested in buying some big prawns. I said I got pretty big prawns in my freezer. He said these are unusually big, I would say two or three per pound or may be five for two pounds. Since I had quite a bit of seafood in my hand I said I shall return in a day or two to get those big Prawns. Any suggestion on how to prepare these big prawns. As appa or as an entree...