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This topic might drop a clue as to why I haven't been doing much posting of late I'd like to make sure my baby doesn't get addicted to Kellogg-MickeyD industrial food, and in order to do that I thought I should start early... by avoiding the Gerber in favor of more interesting international flavors. So - what is fed to infants and toddlers in various parts of India? When is a good time to introduce the baby to various spices? Any old (Indian) wives tales about what to watch out for? For that matter, what do infants and toddlers get fed in other parts of the world?

The heartwarming festival of Janamashtmi is around the corner. This festival celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna. I am planning a prayer service at home and would like to follow it with a meal. What would you all suggest? What is typical..? I hope our newest member who cooked at the ISCKON temple will help me out here.

Travel by Indian rail? What did you enjoy at the stations or on the train? Come reminisce One of my favs was omlettes on a train from Delhi to Chandigarh....

Tell me how you use it? Drink it? Add it to cooked rice? Cook with it?

Monica, Any suggestions on how I should work with your book? What do you think is best way of reading it, cooking with it? Do you have favorite recipes?

I am going to cook an Indian meal friday. Not sure what dishes, but I shall cook from two books, both by our experts from egullet. I have ordered books by Monica Bhide and Suvir Saran. They arrive later today and what inspires me shall be prepared for mom, girl friend and non-indian friends. What wines would be safe ones for me to buy? Any ideas? Or am I too naive to think I can buy wines in advance of having a menu planned? Guidelines for pairing wine with Indian food??

I've been entrusted to make seekh kebabs this weekend. Trouble is, I can never get the ground lamb to stick to the flat skewers when turning over. Instead, they fall off the skewer. I'd rather not use egg as a binder. Any suggestions? Roy

Although it's not blue, and you can't clean windows with it, Monica Bhide makes a compelling argument about how Basil is like Windex. However, you must have a copies of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" cued up on your VCR or DVD player to read this article! After returning from the video store, read on... (P.S. - We're kidding. Read on anyway...) * * * Be sure to frequently check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles, hot topics, site announcements, and more.

Hi, I want to cook a version of mushroom sukke that my sister-in-law makes. I need to use triphala for it. The only way I've seen it being used is in its whole form. They boil it in water and use the water to flavour the dish or use it in tadka. I want to know if I could roast it up and powder it - I have a limited stock, so can't afford to waste it on experimentation. That's also the reason I'd rather not use them whole and then discard them if I can help it. I know this has been discussed elsewhere and remember Episure mentioning roasting and grinding it. I wonder if the flavour is more potent when you grind it? Can you grind it finely to a powder? Will the ground spice lend a bitter taste to the dish or a produce a tingling sensation in the mouth, the kind you get when you suck on a szechuan peppercorn? And you're right Episure - this spice deserves more recognition than it gets. I absolutely love its aroma and the flavour it lends to the dish. Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks, Suman

Ah yes.. I found a packet of Thalippu Vadagam in my local grocery store in Vienna, Va. Made in New Jersey no less! Okay so anyone want to share a recipe? For those who dont know.. I do know a small bit -- Thalippu vadagam are small balls of spices made of curry leaves, fenugreek, turmeric etc and are used in South India to prepare specific dishes.. anyone care to share recipes? tell me more... The lady at the Indian store told me sales of this produce were not good cos people not only did not know how to cook them, most took a bite out of the raw vadas and were NOT pleased

So. A top-of-the-line wood-fired smoker, bought capriciously, used once, and forgotten about, has been idling on Jeff's deck for two or three summers now. Last weekend, we made it our mission to fire the thing up and smoke the best damn brisket in the world, armed not-very-promisingly with zero experience, more or less nothing in the way of resources, and only our unshakeable faith in the sanctity and nobility of the cause protecting us from apocalypse. Saturday, 9 October 8:30am Good morning. We woke up early on Saturday, yawned, and started planning the shopping list, sequence of events, and how much beer we'd need. We went to our (inexplicably) favorite diner in the world: The Tastee Diner in scenic Laurel, Maryland. The day was a little overcast and gloomy, the clouds swollen with a threat of cold drizzle. Nonetheless, we soldiered on with our plans. We formed a plan of attack over eggs, bacon, corned beef hash, potatoes and coffee. <A side note: the Tastee Diner is run-down and shabby, the sort of place where the waitress lights a Bronco 120, leaves it burning in the ashtray, and strolls over to take your order. The potatoes - no fancy "home fries" or "hashbrowns" business here; just "potatoes, with onions or without" - are excellent, boiled, roughed up, and crisp round the edges like a perfect frite.> Note Colonel Klink's excellent eGCI course on the table, along with lists of things to buy and maps of where we'd accumulate all our supplies. Please note the rubber band in the upper-right corner of the flag-trivia placemat, found lurking in the aforementioned (still) wonderful potatoes. Filled with youthful hubris (and keeping in mind the protection given to drunks and fools), we hadn't put much thought into where to obtain the brisket. I'd posted in the DC board for suggestions but hadn't called anyone yet, thinking that it would be an easy matter of strolling into a deli or butcher and just picking one up. Unfortunately, we'd forgotten that the kosher delis would be closed on Saturdays, and every other place we called seemed to think we were nuts when we asked for a whole, untrimmed brisket. We did find one place - Wagshal's on Massachusetts Avenue in DC - but they were insistent on charging $6.99 a pound for the beast, which seemed a little ridiculous. Deflated, we started altering plans for a trimmed flat, deciding to mop with beer and mustard. It still seemed doable, but not nearly on the all-out overkill scale we'd been envisioning. We pulled out of the diner's parking lot, a little wind taken out of our sails. Then, we saw this: The Laurel Meat Market. The giant fiberglass cow out front gave us hope. Our hearts thudding, we went to the meat counter, and happily took home an 11-pound baby with beautiful fat to the tune of $2.99 a pound. Oddly, the meat market (which in a perhaps synergistic relationship is a block from the equally incongruous Outback Leather, with a giant fiberglass cowboy out font) appears dingy out front, but hides beautifully colored, fresh-smelling beef, pork and fish inside for surprisingly low prices. The tilapia was particularly enticing, snowy-white and fleshy, for $4.15 a pound. We will return. 11 am Meat in hand, and feeling pretty good about the day, we went to get wood. A bit down Route 29 from Jeff's house, we found a farmstand that sells 'lopes and corn earlier in the summer and pumpkins and firewood at this time of year. After some conferring with the sweet lady who seemed to run things, we loaded an entire tree's worth of seasoned hickory into the back of Jeff's truck. She sold it to us for a dollar a stick. When given the opportunity to count what we'd loaded, she said, "I trust you", smiled, and waved us off. We went grocery shopping for peripheral foodstuffs, and went home. 3 pm Time to start cooking. I started some quick spicy pickles: by submerging some kirbys overnight in a boiled and cooled brine of wine vinegar, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, peppercorns, salt, pepper flakes, cilantro and dill. 7 pm Jeff got home from the gym, came out of the shower, and was seized by an irresistible urge to wrestle with the brisket. As you can see, it got the better of him: But not of me: After some earnest consultation with Col. Klink's course, the web and various anecdotal sources, we decided on a cumin-spiked version of Klink's rub for the meat. We were told, variously, "just salt and pepper", "every spice you can use", and "carefully blended flavors". Our dry rub consisted of salt, brown sugar, pepper, cumin, red pepper flakes, turmeric, dry garlic, oregano, thyme and parsley. The second photo pretty well describes the vision in our heads at that point - meat, endless fields of meat. Taking this as a bad sign, we cleaned up for the night and went to bed. Sunday, 10 October 8 am The day started like any other Sunday, though the spectre of the smoker looming outside the sliding glass door, and the tray of meat bowing the shelves in Jeff's fridge, lurked in the corners of our eyes and put courage in our hearts. It turned out to be a beautiful day, cool and sunny buried in the woods where we were. It took us a long time to get the fire right. Every fire we started seemed to consume the kindling, catch the logs, flare, burn brightly for a few minutes, and then peter out quickly. Blowing; playing with the damper; opening the lids for airflow; nothing helped. Desperate, we stuffed way too many logs in the firebox and lit the whole thing with a kilogram of C4. Actually, we just kept adding wood until we had a big, bright self-sustaining fire going - the highly technical barbecue jargon term for the scene above is "too damn hot." The temperature reading on the closed smoker lid was going nuts - the needle was straining above 475, the maximum reading. We decided the best course of action would be to open the smoker lid, open the damper entirely for maximum airflow, and let the fire burn down to a more manageable state. 12 pm Luckily, it was noon at this point. Aaaaaaahhhh. The beer we drank yesterday is a (formerly local; now it's brewed in Wisconsin) beer called National Bohemian, or Natty Bo for those in the know. It's the Baltimore beer of choice for broke UMBC and Johns Hopkins students, bums, and insufferably smug hipsters who drink PBR in NYC bars because it's, like, retro, man. Though it tastes more like sugar water than beer, we thought it was in keeping with the commando spirit of the weekend - not to mention that, at $5.10 a 12-pack, it opened up our beef budget considerably. We finally got a handle on the fire, and put the meat on. Jeff busied himself with splitting wood, While I smoked meat and cigarettes. 1 pm Around this time, we figured out the best way to manage the fire - we soaked split sticks in water, in a pot sitting above the firebox - a hot-water soaked stick, when placed in the fire, created a lot of smoke and caught quickly without flaring the temperature too much. The inferno we'd imagined was too hot for our purposes; a steady, smoldering 225 meant just about one small, soaked stick resting on a bed of embers. 4 pm It was a really beautiful day, and we were sitting outside, soaking up the last of the Indian summer sun, watching the fire and drinking. Though the chimney was belching out delicious-smelling smoke, we were sitting upwind and didn't notice. Jeff's roommates emerged from the house, drawn inexorably by the pervasive odor leaching into the vents. "Dude, what is that?" "Dude, it's eleven pounds of meat." "Oh." 5 pm This is what the meat looked like at 4 hours and 3 beers: 7 pm While Jeff was outside, diligently tending the fire and checking the brisket (a seriously good-looking, charred black piece of baby-bottom soft beef at this point), I busied myself with a scallion-y potato salad and other peripherals. 8:30pm Check out that smoke ring: We're eating the brisket - succulent, juicy, and deeply smoky, suddenly not just beef but transubstantiated into something miraculous and wholly different - along with delicious pickles, onions, potato salad, wonder bread and garlicky Texas toast while watching the Redskins-Ravens game. It's Sunday night; my clothes smell like smoke; we're curled on the couch with a fire in the fireplace and a distinct chill coming in through the open screen door. BJ Sams scores an out-of-nowhere touchdown for the Ravens; Joe Gibbs looks terrified and constipated. We're comfortably full and sleepy, happy with the success of our grand project, ready for bed.

I picked up an Indian Cookbook from the library yesterday - Easy Indian Cooking by Suneeta Vaswani. I couldn't follow any recipe exactly last night because I don't have the full complement of Indian spices, but I did make a chicken dish with yogurt, curry powder, hot peppers, onion and garlic. Although it was very tasty, I would like to be more authentic. So today I went to two international markets in my town to look for ingredients. I couldn't find mustard seeds or poppy seeds or fenugreek. I bought some coriander seeds, and basmati rice from Thailand. I did see lots of curry powder. Do the average Indians make everything from scratch, or do they use curry powder? What basic spices should I get? The book recommends whole seeds rather than already ground. Can you recommend any mail order companies?

Does anyone out there have an Indian recipes to share on Okra? A friend recently send me a huge box of it from her garden and I'm tired of using them as thickeners for my Gumbo.

Hello everyone, Am quite new to this forum. Has anyone tried making laccha paratha successfullly? I do not seem to get the layers and it's so disappointing. I dust the surface with oil and flour before cutting a radius, folding it like a cone, flattening it and then rolling out. In the dough I add oil too. I am originally from Kolkata, where we get the most amazing layered parathas. Any suggestions???? Thanks Nayantara

Hello Everyone, I got inspired by a can of blackeyed peas in my cupboard and a bunch of dill sitting in my fridge. Here is what I came up with. This recipe isn't officially written or tested, but its simple so it should work out fine. It turned out delicious. Gujarati-Style Blackeyed Peas with Dill (Lobhia aur Suwa) 3 tablespoons ghee or oil or a mixture 3/4 teaspoon mustard seeds 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds 1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds 1 medium onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup) 1 large garlic clove, minced 1 cup peeled and diced fresh tomato 1 teaspoon Gujarati or Marathi-style garam masala, divided 1/2 teaspoon paprika 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder 1/4 teaspoon turmeric 1 teaspoon sugar (optional) 1 (15.5 ounce) can blackeyed peas, with liquid 3/4 cup coarsely choppped fresh dill Water as needed Salt to taste In a medium saucepan heat the ghee or oil over medium-high heat. When hot toss in the mustard seeds. As soon as they begin to splutter and pop add the cumin and fenugreek seeds. Cook until the cumin darkens a few shades. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to turn golden, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute more. Add the tomato to the pan and cook, stirring, until it begins to turn to pulpy sauce, about 3 minutes. Toss in half of the garam masala and all of the paprika, red chili powder, turmeric and the sugar if using. Stir once or twice. Now stir in the blackeyed peas with their liquid and the dill. Add enough water until you get the consistency you want, up to 1 1/2 cups. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes. Stir in salt to taste, the remaining garam masala and 2-3 tablespoons more chopped dill before serving. I ate it with plain basmati rice and a raita, but if you make it on the drier side it would go great with rotli. Try this and let me know what you think. If you don't have Gujarati or Marathi-style garam masala, the regular kind will work fine. Though I would avoid a pure Moghul garam masala, it is too cardamomy for this. You can make an approximate version by adding a little fennel seeds, ajwain, sesame seed, dried red chili and a star anise to your regular garam masala recipe.

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?

After many experiments with unsuccessful ingredients and different varieties of socalled Rasamali Im asking someone to please tingle back to life wth may be a hint or two if you have one in your chest.. please I need to do it once atleast in my life time. I'd rather not foray one of the chefs of those best restaurants as it would be mean to them anyone else is welcome to pipe in thanks for all your efforts it will be appreciated in this family years from now too truly Yes it will be remembered I trust if my geans get passed on and even if it my husbands he loves food(food lovers are different breeed that it a entirely different thread I guess)

I'm having some trouble finding spices for an upcoming Indian food gathering, the top on the list being black cumin seeds. Does anyone out there know where I can get some in Philly? I've tried the spice sellers in Reading Terminal, the Italian Market, and actually struck out this past weekend in New York City too (alright, I just went to one Indian grocery store on 6th and 1st). I'd really appreciate it if someone can point me in the right direction. Cheers, Stephenie

Perusing the international cookbooks at my local Barnes & Noble today and what did I spy but the new cookbook by our own Suvir Saran, "Indian Home Cooking"! So of course I picked up a copy. It appears to be chock full of excellent and very approachable recipes, as well as Suvir's terrific notes and comments regarding his remembrances of each dish. Although I couldn't resist bringing it home from the B&N, I did check to see if it's available on Amazon through the eGullet link. It is, of course, and ten bucks cheaper. Congratulations, Suvir. Well done. I know you're proud and you should be.

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)

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

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.

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

I buy my fish from chinese market in New Jersey and I have seen lots of packaging which they keep outside marked with Indian or Bangladeshi cargo mark. They have live Eel kept at the counter and it is in the Air Biman cargo boxes, similalrly I have bought Pomfret there with Bombay cargo markings. Also seen shrimps with Orissa packging in that shop as well as in Costco. So lot of fish does come from India it seems.

I've recently began eating East Indian cuisine and wondered if anyone can suggest a good inexpensive restaurant. I've tried a few in Vancouver and would prefer not to travel further. I know Surrey has a lot of very good restaurants but my eating companions are hard-core Vancouverites. There are lots along the Main and 49th corridor, as well as Marine Drive and 60-ish. What places have eGulliteers tried?