eG Foodblog: mongo jones - how to lose friends and annoy people

[foodie52]

A propos West Indian food...

I went to university in Edinburgh. A friend of mine there came from Trinidad and used to cook for me over a little burner in her dorm room. It was my first introduction to Indian food. She concocted curries, which were very comforting on dark, rainy Scottish afternoons. I always felt sorry for her, trapped in those windy, northern climes. She introduced me to the works of VS Naipaul as well.

[hathor]

Can I ask a really basic, I should-already-know-this question? Does 'dahl' just mean lentils? Mixed, different types of lentils that are then cooked with whatever spices, onions etc you want?

[balmagowry]

Can I ask a really basic, I should-already-know-this question? Does 'dahl' just mean lentils? Mixed, different types of lentils that are then cooked with whatever spices, onions etc you want?

Me, me! (waves hand, jumps up & down, eager to showcase ignorance) I think I actually know the answer to this one. Lentils (of all kinds) are a subset; it also means other dried legumes - peas, certain beans, etc.

[hathor]

Can I ask a really basic, I should-already-know-this question?  Does 'dahl' just mean lentils? Mixed, different types of lentils that are then cooked with whatever spices, onions etc you want?

Me, me! (waves hand, jumps up & down, eager to showcase ignorance) I think I actually know the answer to this one. Lentils (of all kinds) are a subset; it also means other dried legumes - peas, certain beans, etc.

Thanks... that would explain this 'dahl' that I bought that had small yellow things in it that looked like the inside of a kernel of corn. The label was not much help in identifying the ingredients.

[reesek]

Thanks... that would explain this 'dahl' that I bought that had small yellow things in it that looked like the inside of a kernel of corn. The label was not much help in identifying the ingredients.

did it look like this?

click

this one is even better.

edited to add link

Edited June 15, 2004 by reesek (log)

[mongo_jones]

Can I ask a really basic, I should-already-know-this question?  Does 'dahl' just mean lentils? Mixed, different types of lentils that are then cooked with whatever spices, onions etc you want?

to most indians dal just means one of an endless variety of lentils. see the india forum for recipes of different kinds of dals (i will make 2 other kinds during this week).

i just got back from my planned trip to the local indian grocery. i'd noted that since they'd said they'd get a new shipment of veggies at 1 i was going to go around 3. as it happens i got there at 3.45 and the veg didn't arrive till 4! good to see that globalization has not impacted indian standard time. but it was a good thing i was there when the truck arrived since they only had about 10 unripe mangos. thought about grabbing them all but got charitable and only took 4.

it was a very interesting trip though (and bloviatrix i get pretty much everything i need except goat meat--the store is run by vegetarians--decent mustard oil--prohibited by the fda--and indian mangos--that damned fda again). since i had 15 minutes to twiddle my thumbs i asked the store-owner for permission to photograph things and then when the stuff arrived she explained the things that she knew and i didn't--some of the stuff neither of us could i.d or say what they were for. i'd thought the owners were south indians (the store has tons of things aimed at south indian kitchens) but it turns out they're gujaratis. she was surprised to hear that i am a bengali since she had no idea that bengalis also make green mango chutney (see my long post from yesterday). gujaratis, she told me, make many variations, including one with green cardamom. i'm sceptical about this cardamom business but i'll give it a try on another occasion.

i'll post the pictures of the veg and other things (including varieties of dals and flours) later. now i have to do something about eating the home-made samosas i bought from them as well (only $.80 each). boulder egulleters will also be interested to know that this family (who also own indian groceries in lafayette, louisville and aurora) are thinking about opening a small gujarati restaurant in the same strip mall their boulder store is in. i'll keep you posted on details. it might well be that we might be among the few american neighbourhoods to have a dedicated gujarati restaurant/cafe.

tonight's menu: all the leftovers (minus the liver) plus malayali fish curry and unripe mango chutney (rejoice soba). okra will probably be on tomorrow's menu--it is so fresh i want to cook it soon.

more soon.

edit to add: lisa's right, non-lentil dried peas etc. also fall into the dal category

Edited June 15, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[Behemoth]

Mongo, what kind of okra do you have access to? In Lebanon we used to get these lovely little ones that were no more than 1.5 inches in length. You can cook them whole so you don't get the gluey-ness of the american variety. I have one more string of dried ones I got from my parents, and would love to find a new source.

[mongo_jones]

Mongo, what kind of okra do you have access to? In Lebanon we used to get these lovely little ones that were no more than 1.5 inches in length. You can cook them whole so you don't get the gluey-ness of the american variety. I have one more string of dried ones I got from my parents, and would love to find a new source.

soon there will be photographic evidence. the store carries both kinds in the same box. most of the ones i picked up today are pretty long (about 3-4 inches).

is this lebanon, as in beirut, lebanon of which you speak or is this lebanon, texas or lebanon, oregon? (i don't actually know if there is a town called lebanon in either texas or oregon but the odds are on my side.)

[Behemoth]

is this lebanon, as in beirut, lebanon of which you speak or is this lebanon, texas or lebanon, oregon? (i don't actually know if there is a town called lebanon in either texas or oregon but the odds are on my side.)

The first one. Though there's also a lebanon, PA which apparently produces bologna. It's a popular name for some biblical reason or other.

[mongo_jones]

okay, so the missus has asked that samosa devouring be pushed back to 6 p.m. so here's the grocery pictures:

india's grocery, boulder (on 28th street, just south of valmont)

some dals

more dals

even more dals (there's even more varieties but i didn't want to redo their whole display for my photodocumentary purposes)

some of the flours (again, there were a lot more)

half the veg display

the other half

the price-list

okra

gongura leaves (used as a souring agent in andhra and hyderabadi cooking)

tiny little satanic eggplants (perfect for most bengali recipes)

snake-gourd

mangos, mango leaves and karela (bitter-gourd)

turmeric root

paan leaves, long beans and things (the leaves in the box at top-left are something called "tandalju"--she didn't know what the english name was, said gujaratis and some south indians cook it)

chillies, other gourds

does anyone know what these are?

and finally, their bhujia and dalmut dispenser

they have lots of other vegetables as well--i needed to get home (i know, not very dedicated of me). when the india forum hands check in later they can identify everything, correct my mistakes and tell everyone how/where each of these things is cooked.

but one last picture. this is high comedy. an ad for a local indian restaurant. afoodnut, other coloradans--been there?

the yoga of food, my ass. and just in case we don't get they're indian, there's a huge picture of the taj mahal, and they point out that the flavors are exotic. man, it is tiring being a blogger, but things like this ad make it all go away.

[mongo_jones]

However, neither of them seems to mention luuchi, of which I have never heard. Can you describe it? Then I'll shut up and get back to goofing off. That curry is making me hungry.

the luuchhi is a quintessential bengali bread.

here's a picture. the fluffy things at the bottom of the picture are luuchis. the monsters at the top of the picture are my nephews (so if you know who my nephews are you know who i am). this picture is from 2000. my nephews have grown--luuchhis still look the same.

(edit to change "what my nephews are" to "who my nephews are"--though "what" is probably more accurate)

Edited June 16, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[JennyUptown]

Wonderful blog, Mongo. I'm relatively new to Indian cuisines (first tried it in London in '97 and loved it at first bite) and I'm really enjoying learning new stuff.

I remember my first trip to an Indian restaurant so fondly. There was a large group of us - probably 16, 18 or so - with a few Brits who knew their Indian food, me as the lone American, and a troupe of Slovenes who had also never had Indian. One intrepid soul called ahead and arranged for a family-style banquet to be served. We received a fantastic variety of dishes - veg, non-veg, curries, spicy dishes and less spicy. I must have had three variations on lamb and loved them all.

Upon returning to NY, I couldn't wait to introduce my similarly unacquainted friends to Indian food.

What are a few Indian restaurants you know and trust? Have you tried any of ours here in DC?

[mongo_jones]

i've only been to one indian restaurant in dc--it was an overpriced fancypants place near the white house. don't recall the name--make of that what you will. but you don't need my help with dc indian--you have monica. and chef balraj bhasin's (egullet's bbhasin) restaurant, bombay curry company, is within reach, i think--somewhere in virginia.

(i'm trying to make sure i answer everyone's questions--who knew i was going to turn into the perfect hostess?--i'm getting to them all out of sequence but i'll get to them all, i promise, before this blog ends, unless someone else does first.)

[Squeat Mungry]

Thanks again, mongo. The nephews are cute, and the luuchi look delicious! They seem similar to what I (perhaps mistakenly) think of as poori.

Squeat

[mongo_jones]

I have a question.  Did you introduce your wife to Indian food or did she already like it?  If she had never had it before, how long did it take for her to like it?  What is her favorite?  What does she dislike?  Does she like cilantro? 

Conversely, did she introduce you to Korean food or did you already know all about it?  Same questions as above but reverse.

she had already eaten indian food--entirely in restaurants in los angeles. it actually took her a while to adjust to my no-cream, lighter-spiced home-cooking. she likes it so much now that she encourages me to do 2/3 of the cooking. after eating my mother's and my aunts' cooking she's not as impressed with my skills as she used to be. after just one visit to india she already cribs about all the things we can't get here and which i can't cook. and she likes cilantro but unlike me she thinks there is such a thing as too much cilantro. she likes pretty much everything but she isn't a big fan of coconut or the very heavily sweet sweets (though she loved certain varieties of shondesh in calcutta); she can't stand gulab jamuns in the u.s but couldn't stop eating them in delhi.

i had eaten some korean food before i met her but i didn't have the first idea about how to eat it and which dishes went together and so on. so much so that i'll say that she introduced me to korean cooking. she's an excellent cook as well, but when we lived in l.a it seemed superfluous for her to make certain painstaking dishes when we could get such excellent versions in koreatown or her relatives' homes. now, of course, it is a different story. as you know we purchased some hardcore korean cookbooks on our recent trip to l.a--she hasn't cracked them open yet. when my aunt and uncle were here last week she did all the cooking (i had devious plans of making my aunt--one of the world's great cooks--do all the cooking while she was here, but it turned out she had plans of her own and wanted to eat nothing but home-made korean food!). if there is interest i can post pictures of some of that as well.

our biggest problem (outside of the fact that i am an angel and she is evil) is that she is a laker fan and i am a clipper fan (who also roots against the lakers on principle). in fact, if the lakers lose tonight, as they likely will, and if i cannot control my glee, as i likely won't be able to, i may not survive the night. so, i should say a provisional goodbye. if the blog doesn't continue past 9.45 pm mountain time, you'll know why.

(edit to add: uh oh, i already hear pained screams coming from the direction of the living room--perhaps i should watch the game in the bedroom)

Edited June 16, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[afoodnut]

boulder egulleters will also be interested to know that this family (who also own indian groceries in lafayette, louisville and aurora) are thinking about opening a small gujarati restaurant in the same strip mall their boulder store is in. i'll keep you posted on details. it might well be that we might be among the few american neighbourhoods to have a dedicated gujarati restaurant/cafe.

I usually go to the Boulder store, also going to the Asian market in the shopping center at the same time. The other day I tried going to the Lafayette location; it was closed, and it looked like the windows were papered over. Do you know if that location has changed? I do know that they recently opened a Broomfield location.

What might a dedicated gujarati restaurant/cafe serve?

[mongo_jones]

I've not been there, but I've also seen blurbs that she does cooking classes including "Bhog" – Food of the Gods. I found that John Lehndorff did a positive mini-review last year, saying In brief: Indian-food aficionados are flocking to this bright new eatery for Calcutta-born chef Roma Mukherjee Melrose's virtuoso saag paneer, tandoori chicken and chai. We never tasted better chutneys than hers

i'll be willing to bet big bucks that this woman is a killer bengali chef. of course, the restaurant serves "saag paneer, tandoori chicken and chai". i don't blame them--there's a set business plan for successful indian restaurants in the u.s. but still.

i think we should go check this place out--what say? maybe i can call and sweet-talk her in bengali and see if she'll go off-menu for us (this sounds vain to say, but it is true: older bengali women looooove me).

Squeat Mungry Posted on Jun 15 2004, 06:49 PM

  Thanks again, mongo. The nephews are cute, and the luuchi look delicious! They seem similar to what I (perhaps mistakenly) think of as poori.

squeat, the poori and the luuchhi are related. the difference is in the type of flour--the luuchhi is much lighter than the poori. not only do you have to be good with the dough to get it to fluff up properly and taste almost insubstantial when it gets to your mouth, you also have to be good so as to not get it overly oily.

others: there's a picture at the bottom of this page of a poori from our trip to india this winter. this is a tamil-style poori from the incomparable saravana bhavan (the delhi outpost)--episure, any update on what the fate of the chain is? for those, who don't follow episure's news updates on indian food in the india forum, the owner of the saravana bhavan chain decided to become the villain of his own real life hindi movie a few years ago.

from episure's post of april 26, 2004:

"Well, well, what do you all know, the honorable sounding upright Tamil Brahmin Mr. P. Rajagopal, owner of Saravana Bhavan has been up to no good. This restaurant has been visited by our egulleteers recently and was discussed on this forum as quoted above.

According to news on Television and Print media yesterday, he has been jailed for 10 years for kidnapping the husband of a woman he was in love with but has been acquitted of the charge of murdering him.

Rajagopal owns the Saravana Bhavan chain of south Indian restaurants in India as well as abroad, including in the USA and the Middle East.

He was said to be in love with Jeevajothi, whose father was employed at one of the restaurants. Rajagopal and his men began threatening the couple and Jeevajothi lodged a complaint with police in 2001. On October 18 that year, according to the prosecution, Rajagopal and his goons kidnapped Shanthakumar and Jeevajothi and took them to Tirunelveli, where they were kept captive for weeks.

Shanthakumar then went missing. Jeevajothi, who managed to escape, complained to the police that her husband was missing. Weeks later, Shanthakumar's decomposed body was found near the hill resort of Kodaikanal. "

as mohandas gandhi once remarked, "i have known a number of vegetarians who were far more violent than non-vegetarians". or close enough.

[gingerly]

does anyone know what these are?

i think the yellow stripey things are what are known as mangalore(place on the s w coast of india)cucumbers.don't know the botanical name. very nice watery,crunchy when cooked right.the other stuff looks like whats known as .malabar spinach

that store is rather well supplied with southern(indian)ingredients-gongura!

[mongo_jones]

does anyone know what these are?

i think the yellow stripey things are what are known as mangalore(place on the s w coast of india)cucumbers.don't know the botanical name. very nice watery,crunchy when cooked right.the other stuff looks like whats known as .

interesting--never eaten or heard of this

malabar spinach

don't know about that--it is hard to tell from the picture but the thing in the store had a much redder tinge to it and was a lot more bedraggled looking (not a sign of freshness, i think) than the veg in the picture on the page you linked to.

that store is rather well supplied with southern(indian)ingredients-gongura!

yeah--in my experience, a very unusual thing for indian stores in the u.s. as i've noted on the india forum, they have multiple brands of south indian style rice, but only one of basmati. this is why i thought the owners were south indians too--now it turns out it is the majority of their customers who are (i had to tell the owner that people from andhra cook with gongura--i guess they just order it because enough people ask for it). now can someone give me a recipe for gongura maans?

the area around the living room is now very dangerous--shaq has 2 fouls in the first quarter and the pistons just went on a 8-0 run to reclaim the lead.

[gingerly]

don't know about that--it is hard to tell from the picture but the thing in the store had a much redder tinge to it and was a lot more bedraggled looking (not a sign of freshness, i think) than the veg in the picture on the page you linked to.

these maybe?

.

now can someone give me a recipe for gongura maans?

there's one in the penguin andhra cookbook otherwise at ammas.com.

Edited June 16, 2004 by gingerly (log)

[mongo_jones]

wasn't there a knight in the morte d'arthur whose castle was named the dolorous gard? the atmosphere in the jones home tonight is funereal--i'm hiding out in my basement-cave office where i won't be in danger of bringing the roof down around my head by saying the wrong thing about the pistons' championship.

anyway. here's some food shots from this evening.

first the aforementioned samosas from the indian grocery. these are "home-made". if you are like me and like to eat your "home-made" foods qualm-free you don't ask too many questions about the home in which they were made. here are 4 perfect samosas (reheated in a toaster-oven), arranged around the most traditional of dipping sauces: maggi's hot and sweet tomato sauce. if there is a better dipping sauce for samosas than this i am yet to encounter it.

and if there is a more perfect combination in the indian snack universe than samosas and tea, well, i'd like to know what it is

i also photographed the inside of the samosa to give you kids a chance to see that not all samosas have to have dramatically spiced stuffings. these, as you see, have very light insides with a very subtle flavor. really, really good--i recommend these samosas to all boulder egulleters. they are apparently available daily at the boulder store. i was told they don't send them to the aurora store--don't know if that means they're available at louisville and lafayette (and afoodnut, she mentioned both those stores to me today: maybe yours just moved?)

dinner. apologies to soba and others waiting for the promised mango chutney pictures and recipe. thanks to the basketball game i didn't have time to make more than one thing. and since i couldn't in good conscience eat another meal today with liver as the star (my cholesterol count is higher than many baseball stars' batting averages) i made the fish.

here's the before picture:

and here the after:

this recipe is from penguin india's excellent kerala cookbook from their regional cookbooks series. the author is vijayan kannampilly . here's the recipe and some discussion. i'd been asked to post it to the india forum after i first raved about this dish. the dish is called nadan meen kari. nadan means "country", meen means "fish" and kari is the original thing that got corrupted into "curry"--as far as i know kari refers to any "gravy" made with curry/kari leaves. just a few more words on this:

the growth in awareness of south indian cuisines in the u.s seems to already be accompanied by certain fixed ideas: prime among them is that all south indian fish dishes are made with coconut or coconut milk. while there is some basis for this belief, up-country malayali cooking often does not feature coconut at all. in his excellent intro to his book, vijayan also points out that until relatively recently it was only the coastal areas that even had access to seafood and so there are variants of malayali cooking that don't even feature seafood prominently.

now i have eaten my fair share of malayali food, but i don't know a whole lot about it. on the india forum we have a treasure in ammini ramachandran (peppertrail) who is a font of information on malayali vegetarian cuisine (and especially the cuisine of her home region of kochi). in addition to this cuisine (only the brahmins are pure vegetarians), the other major strands of malayali cuisine are non-brahmin hindu cuisine (and even among the brahmins the namboodris and the nairs--the two dominant brahmin castes of kerala--have differing practices), muslim/moplah cuisine, and christian cuisine (st. thomas landed in kerala way back when). malayali food is beginning to become very popular in other parts of india--there's a number of restaurants in delhi now that serve it, and penguin has already published two extremely successful cookbooks on the region: vijayan's and k.m mathew's "flavors of the spice coast"; hopefully ammini will soon publish hers as well. i urge those interested in this cuisine to seek out these cookbooks (available on indiaclub.com) and to exploit the resource we have in ammini to the hilt--she has recipes/knowledge in her possession that very few others have. and check out her website as well.

Edited June 16, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[balmagowry]

Fish looks beautiful. Too tired to follow link right now, so will save questions until I've looked.

Tomorrow's Glasgow Herald crossword includes an anagram of TS Eliot. I don't know how you do it.

Still waiting for big surprise and translation of sig....

[mongo_jones]

the fish is lethal is what it is. 5 broken up dried red chillies and 5 sliced (unseeded) hot green chillies! and a total of 3/4 cup of water to cut it. luckily the kokum (the thing soaking in the water) also retards the heat a little, and deploying rice helps as well.

as for crosswords: as i said earlier, solutions to all crossword clues may be found in this blog--you just have to know where to look.

translation of latest sig:

first some background: as all my close friends know i am obsessed with hindi film music from the golden age of bombay cinema: roughly 1949-1971 (for those in the know, roughly speaking spanning the period when kishore kumar's career started and s.d burman's glory days ended). in those days a large number of urdu poets worked as lyricists in the industry (the incomparable sahir ludhianvi, kaifi azmi, shakeel badayuni etc. etc.) and music directors such as salil chowdhury, o.p nayyar, naushad, s.d burman and hemant kumar were mixing classical influences/training with popular/folk forms and western influences (the twist, rock and roll) and turning it into something never seen before and never seen again. and then there were the singers: lata mangeshkar, rafi, geeta dutt, mukesh, manna dey, hemant kumar, and my personal favorite, kishore kumar (also an actor, producer, music-director and madman)--perhaps the greatest genius the indian cinema has produced. a little later in the 60s, as the golden age wound down we got another great lyricist, working in hindi this time, gulzar. for many hindi film lyric aficionados it really comes down to sahir and gulzar. i've quipped in another place that all conflicts are merely a metaphor of the battle between sahir and gulzar.

and so: the lines in the signature are from a song by gulzar that begins "jab bhi yeh dil udas hota hai", from the film "seema" (1971). the lines i quote translate as follows:

"i have made no vows, why then do i find myself waiting for you?

when the heart/soul receives unexpected satisfaction/stability/rest/patience it remains/feels forever unsatisfied/unstable/restless/impatient"

my one conceit for this blog is to have a new signature every day. connections/significances, if there are any, are to be drawn by people other than me.

(edit to shamefacedly translate qaraar properly)

Edited June 16, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[Flocko]

Dr. Jones:

I has appreciated your posts for some months, for their informative, assertive, literate way they read. Well, this blog has gone above and beyond!! It is wonderful. Please keep it up.......................................AND the chicken liver curry is definitely on for dinner tomorrow................................WOW

and.................Balmagowry...........................................keeping the blog pump primed with your literary insights and knowledge, and "way with the word"

All in all, a great blog.......................and great food to boot

Thank you for much entertainment and knowledge.

Bill

[bague25]

the price-list

Mongo

What is

- Edo (Alavi)

- Dosakai???