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Hi Friends A very important everyday question, What should I cook today???? It would be interesting to know what everyone out there is eating and cooking for lunch and dinner......

Guys In many indian recipes I follow, you usually add the oil, jeera/rai, some initial spices like big elaichi, cardamon, etc and then add the vegetables that take longer to cook like potatoes. Now the problem is the potato gets all the flavoring and what comes next seem to lack in flavor. This seems to happen with many dishes I make. For eg I made sabudana khichdi yesterday and the potato was great but not the sabudana I know there may be a quick fix to this by adding half spices initially and the other half in the middle. However, the flavoring is best when you add the spices directly into the oil. Does it make sense to remove part of the oil after flavoring it and add it back later? Thanks

I make roti with white and whole wheat flour...can u also get a good consistency with besan flour ?

Over the weekend, I picked up a bag of idli rava (rice semolina). I had no specific plans for it, but I do love my starch, and wheat and potatoes are problems for me, so I enthusiastically seize any fresh iteration of rice. Even if I have no idea of what to do with it. I doubt I'll be making idli, since I haven't seen anything that looks like it will work as an idli pan, let alone the real thing (the wells in an æbleskiver pan seem too small and deep), but I'd love to find other things to do with this stuff. I could experiment, but I'm using someone else's kitchen, which restricts my more flamboyant efforts just a bit. I took a peek online, and there seem to be a quite a few of confident-sounding recipes, but honestly, I'd much rather hear about what you've tried, and how it worked out.

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but since it revolves around the bacteria used to make idli I thought I'd ask: Are there any breads which use the bacteria that rise idli? Are there varieties of idli which use flours or other grains instead of rice? Thanks,

Hi, Mustard greens have come into season and I've washed 6 giant bunches of mustard greens. After tearing off the soft outer leaf I'm always left with the harder stalk. I was wondering if there was anything I could do with it, any other application or recipe some could suggest. Cheers,

My 10 year log enjoyed wonderful Indian food on a visit to Chicago & now insists we must find something good here in Settle. I warned him this might not be possible since I've never heard of good Indian food here. Let me know if you've found anything you like here other than Poppy which we know & love. It's a bit pricey for an entire family.

We had an early lunch at a little Indian/Nepalese place last week. I satisfied my craving for poori, potato masala, and a cup of chai, and my husband had some kind of Nepalese vegetable curry, and a Nepalese spinach salad with roasted soybeans. Now I have questions. 1) The spinach salad was like cooked spinach wrung very dry, with (according to the menu) roasted chopped soybeans on top. To me these tasted almost exactly like wasabi peas, except not as pungent and not lurid green (they were regular tan soybean color). Definitely a horseradish type of flavor. What was it, and is this common in Nepalese food? 2) Both my chai and my husband's curry had a delicious, elusive smoky flavor. And please note that I have a horror of most smoke flavors added to food. These things tasted like they were prepared over a high-mountain campfire, but this restaurant was tiny and in a basement and I'm very sure that the only flames in there were from a gas range. And anyway, how would that flavor get into chai or a curry in which nothing was roasted? It had to be some ingredient they were using. I bought some Tao of Tea "Pine Smoked Black" tea and added it to chai in an effort to recreate the flavor, and it's similar, but very crude in comparison to the delicate smoke flavor at the restaurant. Yes I am kicking myself for not asking while I was there . . . I could call but thought I'd ask you guys first.

Hi all, been away for a while, but the pressures of Christmas have brought me back. I'm married to an Indian and as the family chef, have been tasked with cooking for all the in-laws yet again! Thing is, they always claim that they want a 'traditional' English Xmas dinner - which I do believe they love. However, last year, I made an Indian alternative chicken dish - pieces marinated in garlic and ginger and roasted with spices - and it suddenly became the winner. So, I think I'll go full-blown Indian this year, except with the constituent ingredients of the traditional feast. Something along the lines of: Starter: spicy prawn cocktail starter Main meal: Whole Tandoori roast Cockeral (what I need is to get that red-roasted effect with the tinge of marinade going well into the breast meat) Sage and onion stuffing South Indian stuffing (curry leaves, split urad daal, chillies, mustard seed etc - a crunchy stuffing) Spicy roasted potatoes (Jeera etc) Minted peas Carrots with jeera/thania (coriander) Brussel sprouts with caremalised onions, chillies and ginger A gravy made in the traditional way, but with some curry leaves, imli (tamarind) and chillie (I may also use a little pre-prepared Gitt's sambhal powder) Dessert: Flambeed Christmas Pudding (already spicy enough!) with brandy butter Any ideas? Advice? Cries of "Don't do it!"? Suggestions? Come on e Gullet - don't let me down!

I have been successfully making idli for a few years but have had problems lately that I don't fully understand. My recipe uses 64g of urad gota (decorticated whole black matpe beans), 192g of parboiled rice, 1-1/4t salt, and 1/4t guar gum (as a tasteless, colorless substitute for the methi seeds which according to a researcher at University of Mumbai act only as a thixotropic agent). The beans and rice are soaked separately for 6 hrs (the rice is washed the urad not) in RO filtered water (no chlorine, mineral content< 10ppm). The soaked beans are then ground (with water to make a total dry beans + water weight of 256g) plus salt and guar gum for 5 min in a stone grinder, producing a very smooth paste. The soaked rice (dry rice plus water to make 550 gm) is added and ground for 11 min until the particle size is like coarse sand or idli rava. The batter is then covered with plastic and fermented at 30°C (86°F) until it at least doubles in volume. When it works, it works fine, taking about 13 to 15 hrs to double. The batter is then steamed in greased idli pans for 13-15 min, cooled slightly and served or cooled fully and frozen. The problem I have been seeing is that the batter does not ferment (after 48 hrs it just picks up a pink bacterial growth on the top surface that stinks but does not get foamy or rise). I have an active hypothesis that the beans I have bought were treated with heat or radiation to kill insects before they were imported and that the process also killed off the leuconostoc mesenteroides bacteria that is the active agent for the fermentation. Does anybody have any insights that support or refute the hypotheses? Or is there something I don't yet fully grasp that is essential to the making of these wonderful fluffy little steamed dumplings?

I'm a huge fan of Panjabi style karahi dishes I've had at various Pakistani restaurants run by Lahoris in the US and Dubai. I've had reasonable luck replicating the chicken dishes, in which ginger, garlic and green chile are fried, followed by chicken, followed by crushed tomatoes and the masala. Apart from the taste, I like it because it cooks so quickly, not containing any onions. A few questions - is this a specialty of Lahore only, hence why I see it only at Pakistani restaurants, but rarely see it at Indian ones? Is my method for making the chicken more or less correct? I've seen extremely variable recipes online. Also, how is lamb/goat karahi done? I don't see any way to cook the lamb thoroughly enough in the 15-20 minutes it takes to cook the dish. Is the meat boiled first?

Hello. I'm very new to Indian cooking and I'm trying to wrap my head around all these different "masalas" that I see in different recipes. I'm aware that a masala is going to differ from household to household, but surely there are some general rules that apply? Garam Masala Sambar Masala Chole masala Chat Masala Chana Masala ... The list goes on... Are there any guidelines to what typically goes in these? Or when to use which mix? Are "curry powder" and "garam masala" generally used interchangeably? I'm very enthusiastic about making my own masalas but I'm a bit overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. Thank you.

Julie Sahni has a recipe for "Lentils with Garlic Butter" that appears all over the 'net (sometimes credited to other authors). It calls for 1.5 cups of pink or yellow lentils simmered in 5 cups of water -- with added turmeric -- until tender, and then pureed in the pot. The recipe continues from there. I just finished doing this, and I'm greatly confused. I ended up with nearly 6 cups -- almost all water, of course. The lentils are certainly cooked through, but rather than a lentil dish, this is like an extremely thin soup. Is this the way the dish is supposed to be? It seems unservable, but it's such a simple recipe and I can't imagine where I might've gone wrong.

I'm looking for a superb Chicken Korma recipe. I've looked around the 'net and so many recipes seem to be met with the criticism "too bland." I'm not looking for 100,000 Scoville Units, but I would like a dish with impact...unless Chicken Korma's just not supposed to have impact. None of my go-to books and sources seem to have this recipe. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Dear All Diwali is just couple of months away. I need suggestions about menu for Diwali party. I would be expecting around 60-70 guests and its not a formal dinner. It is more like open house where people can come in the evening at their convenient time. I need to serve plenty of snacks like items which are tradional as well as can kind of substitute for dinner. Would greatly appreciate suggestions.....

What's the best non-buffet Indian restaurant in Iselin? We're staying for two days and a EG search came up with the repeated recommendation that pretty much all the Indian places were worthwhile. Oak Tree Rd, was mentioned as a mecca but I'd like specific places. thanks

What are the traditional dishes of Mughlai cuisine? What ingredients are typical?

I've eaten enough bhel puri to feed a village, but I haven't prepared it in something like seven years and even then I did so under close supervision. Now I find myself needing to make it for a party. Can we get a bhel puri crash course here?

http://i.imgur.com/lyitw.jpg ^^^That is the newspaper announcement the gentleman provided for me so I can tell you all about this place. Its called Super Bazaar, its on Main Street Its right up the road in Jeffersonville from the Golf club and the 7-11 Its huge, clean, and the rice and ice cream selection is humungous! Literally 30 different Indian flavors of ice cream! They have everything.

Hi There are a couple of products I need to purchase including a kaldie, pressure cooker, idli pot. These items are not available where I am, so I'd like to import them. When I do a search I'm swamped with hits. I'm hoping someone can tell me a company they've used, a popular company, or one they know to have a good reputation. Thank you much, Steven

In a few weeks I will be hosting an outdoor/indoor "party" (for lack of a better word). It will consist of 14 families from India staying here for a few years (they have been here for about a year) and the local families of the people professionally involved with the Indian group... Kids of all ages will also be coming. What should I serve? I thought about a BarBQ, for those that do eat chicken/meat, but what about those who do not? Should I have some Indian style dishes? Which ones can I make having not too much experience cooking this style of food? Should I go with what I normally would make? Any ideas and recipes? What would YOU do/want? Whenever the group gets taken out to a restaurant, they request to go to "Taj Mahal" restaurant... Thanks in advance!

For the holiday, I took my camera for an evening stroll across Shinjuku and back, to my favourite Indian restaurant. Some sights along the way, from Shinjuku 1-chome and across Kabukicho: The head chef and branch manager - all the staff are Nepali: Being a bit of a girly, I ordered the lady's set. First plate: This guy was working the tandoor station: For my free choice of 2 curries, I chose my eternal favourite, dal mutton masala, which arrived with a nicely steaming plate of rice: My second choice was anda panir dopiaza, or Egg, cheese and onion curry, and the naan came along with it: This is the soirt of casual, relaxed place that you can bring your pack of tabs and a book along to, and turn up in your house clothes: Finally, this rather handsome mango lassi was included in the set, which was enough to feed two normal appetites, and came in at the astounding price of 1,580yen, or just under 13 dollars US, if my mental arithmetic isn't too far gone. I'm happy to introduce you to this place - feel free to send me a PM if you are interested.. The road home:

I am doing an eGullet food blog over here and would love some input on using mustard seeds with cauliflower. I want to keep things simple and was thinking of tossing the sliced cauliflower with olive oil, salt, and mustard seeds (black, white?)- would they need to be toasted first? I plan on a hot 425F oven. I know this is not a standard Indian prep but I thought cooks familiar with Indian preps would be the most knowledgeable about mustard.

I'm just beginning to venture beyond my preferences for American and French cuisine and exploring the cuisine of India. As a novice cook in terms of the variables and subtleties involved with Indian cooking, I thought I would start with just one ingredient-Lamb. I've been reading through At Home with Madhur Jaffrey as a reference to my introduction to Indian cookery. I started with Jaffrey's recipe for "Punjabi Lamb Kebabs." While staying fairly true to the recipe, I substituted rack of lamb for the boneless lamb meat called for in the recipe. I couldn't find, (nor did I take the time to make), the mustard oil called for in the recipe so I used a combination of Chinese Chili Oil, Sesame Seed Oil and Olive oil. And due to the cold, wet weather in the Northwest today, I wasn't able to barbecue on the outdoor grill like I wanted, so I used the recipe suggestion of broiling the meat. The rack of lamb was marinated overnight in a mixture of yogurt, the three oils, salt, garlic, ginger, garam masala and I added some curry powder and an incredibly fragrant Ras el hanout mix I bought yesterday. To accompany the lamb I made some pickled red onions and served them on a bed of sliced cucumber. And a simple steamed basmati rice seasoned with saffron, tumeric and cumin. I welcome your suggestions and discussion on how you like to prepare Indian-style lamb.

I'd like to know if a masala dabba translates out of Indian spices . . . I have two kitchens, and in one I have an old ironing board closet (about two inches deep, one foot wide, and tall as a regular closet) that I've converted into a spice rack. This stays dark, and inside I have a large set of spice jars, clear glass, that I keep spices in. For the second kitchen, I had a small spice rack on the counter with glass jars. I found that the exposure to light weakened the spices and I wanted to try a masala dabba, since I can bring it to the stove and change what I have in the box as the seasons change. I put a combination of Indian and non-Indian spices in there, for the most part -- mustard powder, chili powder, turmeric, cumin, basil, oregano, thyme. I realize this is a risk, and because the spices aren't individually covered, may weaken and blend. I am assuming the blending is a good thing for Indian cooking with it's spice mixtures, but maybe a bad thing for the thyme . . . I've just started it, and overall the aroma is intoxicating, but I haven't tried cooking with the individual spices yet to find out if my spaghetti sauce is going to taste like mustard. Can anyone who is using a masala dabba advise? Thank you!