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HI all - by popular demand I am starting this thread on premade spice mixes and other almost from scratch items in Indian cooking that we all use successfully. Please use this thread to post recommendations and how be sure to talk a bit about how you use the products. (This is not a discussion thread but more of a information one can use thread)

My cousin is a diabetic with a gentically weak heart and occaissional blood preassure. Also he is of the old guard that wants tasty food. I need to formulate a workable diet for him. It has to be easy to do with ingrediants that are locally available. We are already baking most thinks instead of frying. Oil has been cut down to a bare minimum, salt is out and sugar is out. What I would like help with is anything in terms of advice as to what could work. Do you know a diabetic? Do you know of any foods that are helpful to diabetics? Any websites that deal with diabetic food for Indians? Rushina

There's a street snack that's sold in Bombay that's always intruiged me, not that common, but you can find it fairly regularly at Chowpatty or near Fountain and a few other places. What's remarkable about it is the way it looks - a large cylinder of what looks like ivory wood, with a thin reddish tan layer outside. If you want to eat it the guy selling it will carefully slice a thin section from the cylinder, remove the tan park and give it to you. It tastes sweet and crunchy, a bit difficult to swallow since its a bit fibrous, but quite nice. One guy I asked told me its called kandhamul, but does anyone know what its English name is or what plant it comes from? Could this be what's called hearts of palm? Vikram

Hello I'm Indian living in France. Since it's the season now, have you had experience in cooking game Indian style. Back in India, in the north of Bombay where my parents have a farmhouse, the Warli tribals used to cook game. Thanks

Yes -- if its cheaper than the local korean grocery store.. its a good deal. Our local Korean store still has good deals on fish prices This is funny.. and true! Signs at your local stores????

We have a great eGullet forum on India and Indian Cuisine, with an incredible amount of information on cookbooks, favorite dishes, and styles of cooking from various regions, and much more. Suvir Suran did a great job as forum host before opening Amma in Manhattan to great acclaim. Now Monica Behide is the new forum host, and she welcomes all of us from Texas to visit. So it would be helpful to know more about all the Indian markets in Texas, especially DFW-Denton, Houston-Galveston, Austin and San Antonio. What are the favorite Indian markets in your area? Any special products or ingredients they carry that you have had a hard time finding in other places? How's quality, and how's the service?

I'd like to think I know a bit about English, Japanese and Chinese tea varietals, but I really don't know my Assam from my Darjeeling. Can anyone elaborate what all the major Indian tea varietals are, how they are prepared, what teas go best with what kind of Indian food and what are the best times of day (and time of year) to drink them? And besides the classic English way of serving tea, are there any Indian-specific tea customs I should know about? And what goes into a "masala" tea?

I posted a similar request in the cooking section and thought I'd ask here as well. I'm looking for the ultimate, most complete, comprehensive and authentic cookbook for Indian cuisine to add to my library. What do you recommend? Thanks for your comments.

While the fruity and flowery whites with their sweetness like the Gwerts, reislings, fume blancs, the chennins etc are much touted with spicy cuisine I would be very grateful to all the knowlegeble wine folks out there,who are also familiar with Indian cuisine, to steer me towards some reds that my guests might enjoy. Thank you

I've decided to assemble a list of Indian restaurants that are somewhere near my area (Rutherford), so that I can start sampling their offerings when time & circumstance allow. I've just spent a very frustrating half hour-plus with the search engine. I can't seem to get it to search for two words within the same post, in spite of following the Advanced Search instructions. E.g., I want to find posts containing the words "Indian" and "Montclair." Instructions say search for +Indian +Montclair. Doesn't work, gives me a HUGE list of posts containing EITHER Indian OR Montclair. Tried various permutations on placement of the + sign, no better. Any advice on the search engine would be appreciated too. Then searched on "Indian," which, as one might expect, gives another huge list. Somewhat helpful but a lot to wade through. What I've found so far is listed below. However, I seem to remember that someone had mentioned a place in Fairlawn, & another place in Montclair in addition to Taj Palace, that I haven't scared up so far. (I should have taken notes on the spot, that'll teach me!) If anyone knows either place, please advise! Also, I'm aware of the Iselin area from the Turnpike thread. To me that's an excursion, as opposed to the closer-to-home places I'm looking for. I.e., Montclair is 8 miles away while it's 30 to Iselin, so I'd much rather drive to Montclair. Here's what I've found so far: Namaskaar Mall at IV / Rt 4 West Paramus Taj Palace Montclair Kinara River Road Edgewater Thanks for any & all suggestions! Edited to add: Bloody hell! Just tried the +Indian +Montclair search again and it seems to have worked! Mystifying. Anyway this has enabled me to add Natraj to the list. I think that's the one I'd noticed but not noted some months back. Or perhaps it was Satish Palace. Ah well, the list grows.

I love making yogurt at home. My method is very simple. Boil the milk - let it cool to the "pinky test" (if your pinky can stay in it for a full 20 seconds without your yelling bloody murder, then its ready). Add prepared yogurt ( about a spoon or so depending on the quantity of milk). Mix well. Pour milk into a bowl you can cover. Set overnight in a warm place (oven with pilot light on, or wrap the container in a towel). DOnt touch it for the rest of the night. in the morning you will have --> BTW_ this one is made with the low carb milk. It is the thickest best yogurt I have ever made. So what is your yogurt making secret???

Best Asparagus recipe, Indian style. Inspired by all the discussion on asparagus in the India forum recently , I have decided to hold a fun contest. You will have three days to complete the contest. Only the recipes posted on the recipeGullet will be judged. Our very own eGulleter's Rajsuman and Tryska will be the judges. The winner will receive a copy of one of my favorite new books – The Potsticker Chronicles. The rules – 1. You will need to use asparagus as one of the main ingredients 2. Please post tested recipes. IF you can provide a picture even better 3. You will need to use spices listed here… using any of the Indian pantry items listed here -- Indian Pantry 4. Anyone in an “official” capacity at eGullet is eligible to enter but will not receive any prizes. Judgments 1. All judgments are final 2. Contest ends on April 15th 3. The winner will be announced on April 20th Please post your entries on this thread along with a link to recipeGullet. (Note – We may need an alternate judge if Rajsuman is unable to find asparagus!)

Moving the Swati Snacks thread here since we were really straining the tea thread. Here's the article I wrote on the place after interviewing Asha Jhaveri, its very reticent owner. It was one of those rather frustrating interviews where you'd ask a long question and she would just reply 'yes' or 'no' - not from unfriendliness, that's just the way she is. One thing I didn't mention in the article is why she's able to run the restaurant the way she does - she's apparently from a fairly well off Palanpuri Jain (meaning diamond trading) family, so its not like this is the main source of income. Shortly after I wrote the article though, she finally did give in to the pressure and has just opened a restaurant in Ahmedabad. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the quality doesn't fall now. Vikram

does anyone know how much dessicated coconut would approximate 1/2 a medium coconut's worth of flesh? the latter is the amount of coconut called for in a number of the recipes in the penguin kerala cookbook--but it is written for an audience that has access to fresh coconut as well as people/tools to cut and shred it. here in colorado i have neither. i assume though that i will be able to find shredded, dessicated coconut in grocery stores. which leads me to the second question: what does one do to dessicated cocount to prepare it for use in a recipe that calls for shredded, fresh coconut?

I guess Suneeta has been working on her cookbook for upwards of 20 years. It is out now. I've done a bunch of recipes from it, and I know many of them from her cooking classes here in Houston. The book is excellent. I love the way the book is laid out, it is designed to make following the recipes fast and easy. There are three columns for each recipe, the left column has the measures listed in English units, the center column lists the ingredients, and the right column has the measures listed in metric units. The cooking instructions are excellent. The headnotes consist of information on the dish and tips for the dish. This is a cookbook by a teacher who knows how to put a recipe together. Here's the beauty of the book, by way of example. How many times have you seen a cookbook recipe that calls for, say, "1 onion chopped"? What size onion would that be, exactly? Here in Texas an onion can be pretty bid. In Europe, they aren't as big. What Suneeta has done is demystify the list of ingredients by using measures of cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons, or, metric weights. This is awesome! It makes the recipes foolproof. And it gives you a baseline for later changing the recipe up to suit personal tastes. I own 5 Indian cookbooks, and I have read quite a few more. But this is the one that I will default to. This book should be in every cook's collection. It is that good. I would recommend starting with the following: Chicken in Cashew Saffron Gravy North Indian Lamb Curry on Bread Whole Baked Masala Cauliflower Bell Peppers with Roasted Chickpea Flour Dhokla (a fast and easy recipe using cream of wheat that produces beautiful results) Split Yellow Peas with Tamarind Chutney Gena's Kababs (flavored with green onions, ginger, cilantro, crisp fried onions)

For Christmas, I'm planning on buying my father a decent selection of Indian spices. He loves to cook Indian, but his spices are stale, to say the least. What spices would be considered essentials? Also - are there any that are nice to have but not absolutely necessary?

We spent the afternoon today making "Karanjees". Soft dough is prepared with all purpose flour and milk. Then it is rolled out into small discs. We stuffed some with spiced peas and some with a coconut jaggery mixture. Sealed it in half moon shapes and deep fried it... delicious. See here for pics tomorrow do you make these? what is your secret to making perfect karanjees?

Due to this beautiful east-coast weather, I'm planning a picnic in the park with a few college friends. Would South Asian cuisine fit the bill or would I be better off waiting for a rainy day and invite everyone inside?

Hi. I'm new here and I've discovered that I've come to the right place for help on Indian food & cooking. Great advice. I'm a foodie living in Japan who loves Indian food and who also loves to cook, but never attempted to make Indian food, as it seemed so exoctic that I figured I could never replicate those flavors and taste sensations myself. Luckily there are some great Indian restaurants in Tokyo. I recently went to India for 10 days, and for good or bad (as I don't like hype), I figured for the experience I had to have dinner in Delhi at least once in my life at Bukhara, renowned for its tandoori cooking and dal. Besides these two dishes, we wanted something with "gravy", a word which always made me laugh on my trip since it's what westerners refer to as a "curry" in India, but which Indians refer to as a dish with some liquid or sauce. Not expecting much, we settled for the Murg Makhani (Butter Chicken) on their menu since it was one of the few "gravy" offerings, and besides it's sometimes fun to compare the same dishes from one place to another, as we had eaten it once or maybe twice during the trip and liked it. I remember the tandoori as being o.k., but after a while the huge portions got to taste too smokey. The dal very good (no offense to Indian cooks/cooking, but it tasted like the great cuban beans my friends make at home. It's definitely the smokey flavor common to both.) Anyway, when I took my first bite of the Makhani Chicken, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven while sitting on my Bukhara stool. Now, ever since then I cannot get that taste out of my mind. I have since hunted the Internet (one reason I ended up here.) to look for a recipe. I settled on three and ended up combining what I thought was the best of them. One had a supurb combination of spices for the tandoori marinade. Another added cashew nut paste and cilantro, and the 3rd called for a pinch of mace and nutmeg. If I do say so myself, it came out better than I had expected. I am now also into trying other dishes (potato cauliflower) was another favorite discovered during my trip. I am also having fun trying to decide on Indian cookbooks too, as I am getting into "doing it myself". Anyway, I know that on this forum many members have given ricipes for butter chicken. Suvir has offered some, one from Bukhara, in fact. But what was noticeable/remorable about the Bukhara's was the richness of flavors, the thick texture of the sauce, and hints of various spices. Topped with a good helping of cilnatro cooked in as well as garnished fresh on top. The dish just wasn't butter, cream and tomatoes, as there were definitely other tastes in there. The finishing touch of this ambrosia at the Bukhara was a slice of lime to squeeze in and mix up. I know they have the dal in cans, but if their makhani sauce were to be next, I'd be first in line to stock up on some. I know butter chicken has been hashed around by many and often here, as the dish is popular for good reason: it's an unforgetable taste sensation that's addicting. Sorry to bring it up again, but is there really one recipe that creates the taste I'll never forget? And with all your good help I feel more confident already in "polishing up my elbow" (as the Japanese say) when it comes to cooking Indian food. Thanks.

A common request is to suggest a Indian cookbook. This compilation of links has most of the discussion which has happened on this topic. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=41944 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=38550 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40426 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40158 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=35639 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=29928 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=34831 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=13852 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=28196 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=23402 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=9910 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=11649

Okay - so which one do you use for Indian cooking? Why? Do you substitute one for the other? How does it work? Which one is better? Why? inquiring minds want to know

Several months ago I was in the little Punjabi store near my sister-in-law's house. In their shopping cart of clearance items I found several bags of pebbly-looking things covered in sesame seeds. Unfortunately for me the grandmother was working the counter that day, and all she could convey to me was that they were a sweet. They are about the size of a hazelnut; they are covered on the outside with sesame seeds; they have a firm but not hard consistency; they taste of cardamom. What are they? I'm sure I'll want to buy some more some day, and I'd like to know what to ask for.

Lifting out my eulogy to mangosteens from the mango thread. As this topic's subhead says, they entirely deserve a thread of their own (also I want to do some nitpicking). Are there other mangosteen maniacs out there apart from me? Any other mangosteen memories? I don't know whether to ask for mangosteen recipes though, because part of me feels that fruit so perfect shouldn't be messed around with.

I was reading Italian Food by Elizabeth David when I came across a recipe where you first fry onions in oil, then add the lentils, fry some more, add water and cook until the lentils are done. That made me wonder if such a practice exists in Indian cooking. Does it? Any advantages of doing this? Suman

Welcome Monika, Are you from a Marwari family? What is the Indian grocery situation like in Finland-are you able to get all the essentials or is it difficult to find things, like....besan for instance?