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

[Pan]

I thought they were chicken livers, but I'm not sure, and it was a long time ago. I don't remember brain curry being on the menu. It was a wet liver curry with a delicious sauce. We would get dal with the meal and mix the dal with the spicy sauce and eat the whole thing with rice.

[tejon]

Thank you! I'm going to have to make up the dal as well soon. Something incredibly comforting about potatoes and dal, don't know what it is.

[GG Mora]

Mongo_Jones is so dreamy .

MJ, you've got me inspired to cook up something spicy. I even have some ajwain, some asafoetida and, if I'm not dreaming, some amchoor powder and black mustard seed in the house (in addition to cumin, coriander, fenugreek, and turmeric).

Now all I need is a little time.

nightmare creature shurely--come on, it is important to my self-image.

i think all the indian cooks reading this blog (of indian or other origin) should strategize recipes for ggmora based on her list of available spices. i mean, why should i do all the work in my blog? goddamned freeloaders!

Yes, please.

I wasn't dreaming about the amchoor powder. The black mustard seeds are actually not -- they're kalonji. I also have (commercial) garam masala, whole green cardamom and a bunch of other spices not specific to Indian cooking.

Don't ask me to cook liver, though. I'm feeding children and, while they're fairly game, liver would be a distinct no-no.

[tejon]

GG Mora, do you have any tamarind? Rasam would be simple and delicious to make up, or maybe some vindaloo using whatever meat you like.

Edited June 15, 2004 by tejon (log)

[Squeat Mungry]

mongo,

Lately work has been interfering too much with my eGullet time, so I called in sick today for the express purpose of catching up on this blog. I have been well-rewarded. Thank you so much!

I am just beginning to dabble in Indian food, and am loving the look at home vs. restaurant foods. When you have a moment, could you talk a bit about the various breads? Do you make bread at home? Is a variety of good Indian breads generally available in Boulder?

Now I'm off to spend the rest of my 'mental health day' poking around the Indian threads.

Cheers,

Squeat

[reesek]

mongo -

you have to give us time to reply before deciding that we're not as interested in dinner as we were in lunch

dinner looked delicious. do you use mashoor dal more than other types of dal? are there some that are used as pulses and some that are used as flavorings? (urad often seems to be a 1T kind of ingredient) is that mistaken?

i've been thinking about why i feel drawn to indian food. i think it's the spices - there's something about the fragrance - even in a shop of homemade spice mixes, corriander and cardamom that makes me feel good. the same way the scent of sage makes me think of thanksgiving and by extention of family - "warm" spices make me want to cook and eat and share - which is just a lovely feeling.

thanks again for blogging - my hand by the way - firmly down on the liver curry... but okra, other dals and mango creations greedily anticipated.

[mongo_jones]

mmmmm liver curry.....photos in just a bit (and replies to recent questions/posts right after that)

[foodie52]

OK, mongo: tell me this:

Why is English-Indian food so darned good over there, and American-Indian so "so-so"? What makes it so good?

Do you like the English version of Indian cuisine, or is it so NOT authentic?

(Wow: I got 6 "so's" in my post!)

[GG Mora]

GG Mora, do you have any tamarind? Rasam would be simple and delicious to make up, or maybe some vindaloo using whatever meat you like.

Yes, I have both pulp and paste. Rasam sounds delicious and looks quite simple to make. But my black mustard seeds turned out to be kolanji, and what are the dals?

[bleudauvergne]

drooling...

[reesek]

and speaking of vindaloo - monica's recipe in recipegullet is for pork. it calls for 3/4c of rice vingear which - through a 30 minute simmer - certainly reduces quite a bit. what about a fish or prawn vindaloo? would you reduce the vinegar - or cook it down and simply add the fish/prawns later in the process?

many thanks

[katzenjammy]

was it a dry curry? most traditional liver curries in india tend to be dry, and they mostly tend to be made with goat liver. i'm guessing the chicken liver recipe is a concession to american tastes/availabilities--that's the only reason i make mine with chicken liver too. and my version has quite a bit more gravy/sauce.

It's a fairly dry curry -- 2 T ghee and one ripe tomato for a pound of chicken livers.

The cookbook itself is still in print; the author is Australian, not American, but I imagine it's not much easier to find goat liver in Sydney. The cookbook's "comments" section at Amazon include this one from the author: "The publisher keeps reminding me that there are folks out in woop-woop (Australian slang for back of beyond), who would still have to rely on dried or canned ingredients, so we didn't re-write the recipes, knowing that any keen cook would make their own adjustments." (Like many of the other commenters, my own 25-year-old copy is comprehensively stained and held together with duct tape.)

[mongo_jones]

step-by-step chicken-liver curry

ingredients:

1 medium onion sliced, crushed ginger-garlic (1/2 in piece ginger, 2 large garlic cloves), i medium chopped tomato; spice mix: red chilli pwdr, turmeric--1 tspn each, coriander and cumin powders 1/2 tspn each

the liver itself--separated a few pieces to give a sense of the size i cut them down to--about 1.1 lbs

prep:

1. heat oil, saute onions till they get close to this point

2. add the ginger-garlic and saute till this point--well, maybe you shouldn't burn them as much as i did...

3. reduce heat to medium, add the spices and saute till around here

4. add tomatoes and cook down till here

5. add 2-3 tspns white vinegar, a big pinch of sugar and diced potatoes (or at least this is where i added the potatoes you could add them earlier if you like)--i diced up 2 small red potatoes

6. liver goes in--mix gently, saute for some time till the raw color begins to leave and add 1 cup water (or less), simmer covered for some time (sorry i never time my cooking)

7. cook down till it begins to approach this consistency (or much drier to taste), add a pinch of garam masala, raise heat to high and cook for another minute--remove to dish

8. garnish with slivers of soap

and here's last night's dal with cilantro added in--now, it looks like a real bengali mushoor dal.

[ms. victoria]

Why is English-Indian food so darned good over there, and American-Indian so "so-so"? What makes it so good?

I'll second this question. Can you second a question? I've also eaten Caribbean-Indian food in Trinidad, or East Indian (as opposed to West Indian) as they call it. I liked it even better than the Indian food I've eaten in London. I think this all ties in with Mongo's theories on why Indian food is so widely appreciated but I can't wrap any words around how I want to make that connection.

And, Mongo, this may be one of my very favorite blogs.

[mongo_jones]

OK, mongo: tell me this:

Why is English-Indian food so darned good over there, and American-Indian so "so-so"? What makes it so good?

Do you like the English version of Indian cuisine, or is it so NOT authentic?

(Wow: I got 6 "so's" in my post!)

so

i haven't been to england since i was 10 so i'm not going to say too much about this. i do have cousins who were born and raised there and lots of friends who've lived there and in india and in the u.s. i'll leave it to people who've sampled the food in both the u.k and the u.s to chime in on how it is better/different there but one basic difference would seem to be the much higher concentration of indians in the u.k. the best indian food i've had in the u.s has been in new jersey--imagine a bigger new jersey with far more south asians, and with a majority population that has embraced their food.

i've heard so much about caribbean indian food--especially guyanese indian (i guess there might be more indians in guyana than anywhere else in the west indies?)--but i haven't ever been to the caribbean. i'm guessing it is different there because the indians who went there were originally taken there by force. they probably didn't have access to ingredients from "home" the way the indians in the u.k, and now the u.s., did. as a result i'd speculate that indian food in guyana has evolved into a unique sub-cuisine and that to call it "indian" food may in some ways be limiting or inaccurate.

but i'm sure others will have more insight/actual experience

edit to add: my english cousins do claim, for what it is worth, that the new fashionable indian restaurants in london are just cashing in on the new currency of "indianness"--something they say they're happily cashing in on too!--and that the food in places like chutney mary is highly over-rated. then again both their parents are fabulous cooks so their frame of reference is very different and not valid for all consumers.

Edited June 15, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[tejon]

GG Mora, do you have any tamarind? Rasam would be simple and delicious to make up, or maybe some vindaloo using whatever meat you like.

Yes, I have both pulp and paste. Rasam sounds delicious and looks quite simple to make. But my black mustard seeds turned out to be kolanji, and what are the dals?

Scroll down here to see pictures of both toor and urad dal. Here's another rasam recipe that I can vouch for - very comforting and good for whatever ails you. I didn't have curry leaves when I made it up and it came out well - and doesn't require black mustard seeds. Though you could substitute brown mustard seeds - the taste isn't the same, but it's in the same ballpark. Ditto with the dals, you can use whatever dal you can find locally - taste won't be the same, but it'll still be very good.

[Behemoth]

"Alim" means religious in Malay and Arabic and, doubtless, Urdu)

Actually it means "learned person" in Arabic. I have no idea about Malay or Urdu. Though, like "madrassa", it may have a religious subtext in those languages that is not present in Arabic.

Then again, Alim is a perfectly nice Arabic boy's name, so it might have just meant, "Alim's restaurant".

You may now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

Edited June 15, 2004 by Behemoth (log)

[mongo_jones]

mongo,

Lately work has been interfering too much with my eGullet time, so I called in sick today for the express purpose of catching up on this blog. I have been well-rewarded. Thank you so much!

I am just beginning to dabble in Indian food, and am loving the look at home vs. restaurant foods. When you have a moment, could you talk a bit about the various breads? Do you make bread at home? Is a variety of good Indian breads generally available in Boulder?

squeat,

as a man who has dedicated his entire life to the pursuit of sloth (it is a very languid kind of pursuit) i am always very glad to hear that i am encouraging unproductivity.

about breads: the only breads i make at home are chapatis and parathas, and i'm not the best at either--but let me say that my mother still can't make chapatis. to make indian breads well you need a lot of patience at the dough stage and unfortunately those of us who are slothful are not automatically patient.

let me do a quick breakdown of how the major north-indian breads fall along the home/restaurant divide. open of course to modification and correction by others.

first the breads you should never eat in a restaurant. why? because they need to be eaten as they're made: in this category fall the punjabi chapati/phulka and the bengali luuchhi (made with maida)

the breads you'll rarely see in homes (except those of the very rich with armies in their kitchens). because they require special equipment and tedious prep work: naans, tandoori rotis, rumali rotis etc. many indian restaurants in the u.s make credible to excellent versions of these.

breads that can be good in both places: all kinds of parathas, pooris, bhaturas--these are more robust breads and adapt well to the restaurant kitchen. yet, i have yet to eat a decent one of any of these outside of certain hole-in-the-wall indian/bangladeshi places in los angeles (caveat: have not explored new jersey thoroughly). alu parathas in most indian restaurants are particularly self-parodic in form.

there are of course other breads i have not mentioned.

i'm sorry to say this but as of now there are certain breads that you can only eat decent versions of in the homes of indians, and then probably only if there's a woman over 40 present. i certainly can't make a luuchhi worth a damn and i miss them every sunday (growing up we always ate luuchis with alur-tarkari and achar every sunday for breakfast).

Edited June 15, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[balmagowry]

Liver curry... drool drool drool. Alas, The Boy will not even consider eating anything with any kind of liver in it, so I will have to wait until the weekend. One thing that surprises me... wait a minute, almost everything surprises me. Not that I haven't ever had Indian food, or at least what I was given to understand was such - I have and have always loved it - but eating it greedily and knowing anything about it are of course very different things. WRM, in answer to the why-it's-popular question, I'll concur with - was it tejon? - who plumped for Door #2, Indian food tastes good! All those other factors have their place, no doubt, but this is the one that does it for me. (I am a simple character, said Linda, generally I laugh when I'm happy and cry when I'm not.)

Anyway, getting back to my question. It seems to me that when working with liver - especially chicken livers which are so delicate and cook so quickly - no matter what's going to happen to them further on in the recipe I almost always sauté them first. Or actually, closer to sear than sauté - to set the outside edges and crisp them a bit, leaving the inside tender and pink. I'm wondering whether it would be outrageously wrong to do something like that for this dish. Where I get off even questioning your cooking, given my proclaimed ignorance, damned if I know - it's just that this is the one thing that made all my culinary instincts cry out, "HUH?" - and when my culinary instincts do that I generally find it best to humor them.

I love that you never time your cooking. This is how I cook because it's how my mother cooked, and it seems to me the natural way that good instinctive cooks work. Turns out that this is pretty much how most cooks worked in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, judging from their books, so it was kind of an advantage to us when it came to working with old recipes. (OTOH, the hardest part about writing a cookbook was remembering to write down every tiny goddamn detail! We had to watch each other like hawks. "Did you just put in another 1/4 teaspoon? Did you WRITE IT DOWN?????")

God that curry looks wonderful.

EDIT: I love this:

alu parathas in most indian restaurants are particularly self-parodic in form.

and will inevitably use it in some context soon.

Also... Mongo, don't make us iggerant furriners beg every time: please splain the new sig....

Edited June 15, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[mongo_jones]

Anyway, getting back to my question. It seems to me that when working with liver - especially chicken livers which are so delicate and cook so quickly - no matter what's going to happen to them further on in the recipe I almost always sauté them first. Or actually, closer to sear than sauté - to set the outside edges and crisp them a bit, leaving the inside tender and pink. I'm wondering whether it would be outrageously wrong to do something like that for this dish. Where I get off even questioning your cooking, given my proclaimed ignorance, damned if I know - it's just that this is the one thing that made all my culinary instincts cry out, "HUH?" - and when my culinary instincts do that I generally find it best to humor them.

lisa,

very good question. bengalis, in general, are not big on the pink on the inside thing. while i'll eat my steaks bleeding and my tuna barely seared i tend to cook bengali food like a bengali (this is the first time i've consciously faced that contradiction). most bengali fish are similarly cooked through completely--however, because they're almost always simmered in a sauce they remain moist. there's no reason why you couldn't sear your liver first (well, not your liver). in fact, do it and follow the rest of the recipe and you'll be a practitioner of "new indian cooking"!

i should have added with the pics that this is not a classic recipe. there are no classic recipes in home-kitchens--there's only endless variations on common concepts. so anyone making this liver curry should feel free to vary proportions of spices, leave out the potatoes and vinegar completely, make a completely dry dish etc. etc.

I love that you never time your cooking. This is how I cook because it's how my mother cooked, and it seems to me the natural way that good instinctive cooks work. Turns out that this is pretty much how most cooks worked in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, judging from their books, so it was kind of an advantage to us when it came to working with old recipes. (OTOH, the hardest part about writing a cookbook was remembering to write down every tiny goddamn detail! We had to watch each other like hawks. "Did you just put in another 1/4 teaspoon? Did you WRITE IT DOWN?????")

i used to curse my mother's recipes when i first started cooking in a big way. instructions like: "add a little chilli", "cook till done" etc. but i've come to realize the beauty of this approach. as i've said in a different discussion on the india forum, what this kind of cooking allows you to do is to make a recipe entirely your own--by the time you "learn" it you've both re-constructed it and made it different from the model you were given.

mongo

[katzenjammy]

Mongo, pardon me if you've covered this elsewhere, but have you found an Indian restaurant in Boulder that meets your exacting standards? I've heard good things about Saffron (where Mijbani used to be on 18th @ Pearl) but haven't been yet.

[Squeat Mungry]

mongo, thanks for the excellent reply!

Poking around on the 'Gullet, I found two great-looking eGCI courses for others who may be interested in Indian breads: A Sampling of North Indian Breads, and A Sampling of South Indian Breads.

Mmmmm, more reading: looks like my prognosis might be getting worse!

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.

Squeat

[mongo_jones]

Mongo, pardon me if you've covered this elsewhere, but have you found an Indian restaurant in Boulder that meets your exacting standards? I've heard good things about Saffron (where Mijbani used to be on 18th @ Pearl) but haven't been yet.

katzenjammy, i don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon (though i don't mind if i do) but the only indian restaurant i have eaten at in boulder/denver that i would go back to for a second meal is masala (i understand the bigger branch is in aurora--haven't made it there yet). hands down, the worst has been sherpa's--who serve crappy indian food and even worse alleged tibetan and nepali food. for what it is worth these opinions are shared by not just other indian colleagues but also people like afoodnut on the colorado forum. caveats: have not been to saffron (heard a rumor that they're owned by the folks from masala) and the royal peacock. haven't had time to go to saffron yet (but i do want to go), and have avoided the royal peacock (despite the good reviews) because a friend of a friend owns the place and i have this terrible habit of saying what i think of things when people ask me what i think of them (this got me in terrible trouble with the same friend when a different friend of his asked me how i'd liked his new movie--a major indo-american production from a couple of years ago).

i will say this though: the average indian restaurant lunch buffet in boulder has been of a higher standard than those in los angeles. buffets visited include those of the taj in the basemar centre and the tandoori something place in the table mesa complex.

bombay clay oven, where we colorado egulleters went for our first egullet dinner was serviceable but nothing to get excited about. but the food was not the primary point of that meal and they did do us an expansive special menu for just $20 each.

and now i must cleanse my body and go to the indian grocery. talk amongst yourselves.

[balmagowry]

however, because they're almost always simmered in a sauce they remain moist. there's no reason why you couldn't sear your liver first (well, not your liver).

Ahhh... well, I figure it becomes mine by right of purchase if not by birth. Good - thank you. Actually I'm realizing that this is less about the pink-inside business than it is about the texture of the outside, which I have come to expect to be a certain way. Seems to me the wise thing is to do it your way first and not immediately adapt to suit my own assumptions until I know what your version is like. (I always TRY to follow recipes pretty closely the first time... but I don't always succeed....)

in fact, do it and follow the rest of the recipe and you'll be a practitioner of "new indian cooking"!

Oh! No, I don't think so. That's way too daring for me. I might be dipping the tip of a toe into Indo-French (Con)Fusion, but New Indian is definitely, um, beyond me. I hope.

i should have added with the pics that this is not a classic recipe. there are no classic recipes in home-kitchens--there's only endless variations on common concepts.

Dang, maybe I know more about Indian cooking than I thought. Most of my day-to-day cooking fits that description exactly; few of the dishes I produce have the luxury of names.

i used to curse my mother's recipes when i first started cooking in a big way. instructions like: "add a little chilli", "cook till done" etc.

That line could have come almost verbatim from my L&SD lecture - the part about the improvisational nature of 18th-c recipes etc. and the way my mother taught me. Put in some. How much? I don't know - enough. Cook it for a while. How long? I don't know - till it's done. Unlike you, though, I've found it to be a very good way of learning to do something exactly the same way as the teacher, if that's what one wants. Yes, of course I see your point and have certainly also lived it: that the familiarity and comfort you get from learning that way allow you to generate your own evolution of a dish almost without thinking about it. But the dish doesn't have to evolve unless you want it to. I make certain things exactly as my mother did (probably even with the same gestures, to judge from the odd loooks I sometimes get in the process) and it's... well, it's important to me to be able to do that.

[bloviatrix]

okay, so let me pick up on the second sense in which i asked the question: "what do you think of when you think of indian food?"[snip]

[/snip]2. indian food tastes good.

To me, it goes beyond tasting good. There's something about the flavors that I find comforting. I didn't really start eating Indian food until my late 20s, and yet from the beginning the flavors were like coming home.

Now to change the topic...

Mongo, you mention the Indian grocery -- is it easy to get the ingredients you need in Boulder? How does shopping compare to LA? Do they have a good selection or do you need frequent care packages from the old country?