"Indian Food" news and stories

Transform your boneless, skinless chicken into a fragrant curry with this recipe from chef Marcus Samuelsson. Star anise, ginger and garlic simmer together with curry powder and lush coconut milk to create a luxurious sauce with a hint of spice. Served over rice, it's the perfect way to chase away the chill of a winter night.

Get Marcus Samuelsson's Chicken Curry Recipe.

Diwali is a five-day Hindu festival that this year begins today (November 5th). But the enjoyment of the festival worldwide goes well beyond the circle of observant Hindus. In India , Sri Lanka , and among Indian immigrants to the Caribbean, the U.S., Australia , and Southeast Asia , the gala event is celebrated by individuals of many religions, including Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians. The holiday is becoming popular among non-Indians, too, in places like the Richmond Hill, Queens, neighborhood of New York City, where everyone is swept up in the excitement of the nonstop street festivals and parades.

As with many holidays, Diwali commemorates a broad range of events in Hindu scriptures, most prominently the marriage of Lord Vishnu and Lakshmi (not Padma, but the goddess of wealth and prosperity). Some make the elephant-headed god Ganesh the center of attention, while others celebrate Kali, the goddess of strength. The precise focus of the shindig is thus up to you. The climax of Diwali occurs on the third day, the Festival of Lights, marked by fireworks and the lighting of candles and diyas, which are clay lamps with cotton wicks, traditionally fueled with ghee (clarified butter).

In common with most religious holidays, there are foods associated with the festival, mainly snacks and sweet treats, which vary according to group and geographic location. On the BBC website, blogger Cyrus Todiwala, a Zoroastrian, provides a thumbnail guide to the foods of Diwali, which include puran poli (a flatbread stuffed with sweetened crushed lentils), karanji (a round pastry filled with coconut), chiwada (beaten rice cooked on a griddle with things like nuts, chiles, and fried vermicelli), and badaam paak (almond fudge). (Links to recipes for the sweets are also included in the BBC story.)

With the overwhelming success of Slumdog Millionaire, Indian entertainers, from director M. Night Shyamalan to comedian Aziz Ansari, are moving beyond Bollywood and becoming more prominent in the American pop-culture scene. NBC even has a sitcom, "Outsourced," that takes place in an Indian call center--and it's been a controversial call for the network. (Some critics claim the show is rife with bad stereotypes.)

It's time to reciprocate, and take something from the American pop culture and make it Indian -- from a fast-food perspective, of course. White Castle already has associations with Harold & Kumar, so let's go get a pizza, after the jump.

When I got that BIG bacon, I wanted to use the big chunks in a soup. My mind immediately raced to split pea -- the bacon replacing the ham. Done and done, I thought. But after searching for the bag of yellow split peas I knew I had never used, I gave up. They were gone, and I had no idea what happened to them.

But hope was not lost. In an Indian-themed shopping spree months ago, I had bought urad dal. A sort of black lentil, it is grown in southern Asia and a particularly protein-rich food that's said to be good for diabetics. It comes a few ways -- you can get it as-is, with the black skins on (what I have), or split urad dal, which has the skins removed.

So I took this urad dal, soaked it overnight, and turned to Lisa's Kitchen for an alternate soup recipe. (Since hers calls for split, I used my mortar to crush the urad a bit, which made it a mixture of split and black.) I cheated a bit since this is a vegetarian recipe, and I threw in a few extra vegetables to use them up, but followed the rest of the recipe as it was written. The result: a very rich, easy, and delicious soup. With a number of hot components added, this is a spicy soup, but one that I found was balanced my the other ingredients floating in the broth. And the urad dal -- it give the dish a wonderful earth flavor, which comes from those black skins.

But just one side warning: Just like cherry tomatoes explode in your mouth, these tomato chunks can, with a much hotter liquid. But other than that, bon appetit!

The first year I was in grad school, my roommate was an Indian doctor. He was in the last year of his residency and was looking for an inexpensive place to live. He wound up renting my second bedroom and in the year we shared the apartment, he tried to teach me how to cook Indian food. Sadly, most of the teachings he tried to impart unto me went un-retained and these days I typically turn to the Indian restaurant that is located just steps from my building when I have a curry craving.

However, I recently acquired a cookbook that I'm hoping will remind me of Madhu's cooking lessons and ween me off my weekly orders of Chicken Tikka Masala. 600 Curries is an 800 page volume that hopes to make a variety of Indian dishes more accessible to the average Western cook. I must admit that I sometimes end up feeling a little intimidated by cookbooks with this many recipes, as I feel like I don't know where to start. This one feelings surprisingly accessible, despite the volume of recipes it contains. I think it has to do in large part with the careful and detailed instructions that are broken down to be easy to follow.

When I first picked up this book, I was concerned that it would be filled unappealing, Americanized recipes. This is because I know that curry as we know it isn't indigenous to India. However, as I worked my way through the book, I realized that the author, Raghavan Iyer, is using the word curry as an all-encompassing term that can embrace a whole spectrum of Indian and Indian-influenced foods. So it actually contains a wealth of recipes that can really spice up your weekly meals. This is one I'd recommend to cooks who want a single ethnic cookbook that will have the ability to inspire new dishes for years to come.

Source