"indian cuisine" news and stories

I have to admit that I am very predictable in an Indian restaurant or on the phone making a delivery order. I very rarely, if ever go outside my personal ordering repertoire of samosas as a starter, chicken tikka masala, maybe chicken korma if I'm feeling particularly crazy, saag paneer, gobi aloo, and of course, garlic naan.

However, in recent months, I have been forcing myself to try new things because the Indian table doesn't revolve around chicken tikka masala. I have now become quite enamored of dal, any number of varieties of lentils. Moong dal are lentils cooked with garlic and ginger, mild in heat, but still extremely flavorful. I'm quite sure I could make a meal of naan dipped in dal.

What are your top three Indian dishes?

With a new little niece around, I am becoming more and more aware of what little babies and toddlers eat. Cheerios and goldfish crackers always seem to the be the snack of choice, and dinner-time foods are always finger-foods like chicken nuggets and peas. However, kiddies around the world don't eat the same way. Heck, growing up in a Korean household, I'm quite sure I was wrapping up little balls of rice in nori and spilling soy sauce all over myself. If you've ever wondered what a two-year-old in South Africa is eating, check out this list:

• Japanese toddlers may not be eating sushi, but they do lunch on egg-flavored rice with broiled fish or seafood and miso soup with tofu. It's no wonder that Japan has the longest average lifespan, with the types of foods that are introduced into the diets as such a young age.
• In South Africa, kiddies eat toast thats been spread with a touch of Marmite, a concentrated yeast spread that is a by-product of the beer brewing process.
• If it's Marmite in South Africa, it's Vegemite in Australia, spread on Ryvita crackers
• Danish and Swedish kids eat meatballs and lots of other meat and potatoes. Sweden has the world's highest consumption of ketchup, which kids put on to disguise anything that looks healthy.
• In India, children eat khidchi, a spicy rice and lentils porridge.
• They even list kids in Korea! Korean kids eat lots of kimchi, which is probably how they build up such a tasty tolerance for spicy foods. They also eat gim-bahp and bibimbahp.

Back when I roasted cauliflower with curry, I thought that Indian raita, a minty cucumber yogurt sauce, would have been a nice accompaniment.

Raita is made by wrapping 1 seeded, grated cucumber in cheesecloth and squeezing out all the moisture. In a bowl, whisk together 1c. whole milk yogurt, 1/2 tsp. cumin, a pinch of cayenne. Add the cucumber, as well as 2-3 Tbsp. finely grated carrots, and 1 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro or mint.

Raita is very similar to Greek tzatziki which is yogurt, cucumber, lemon juice, and a lot of minced garlic. I have to say that even though the raita sounds like it matches better with a roasted curried cauliflower, I'd rather have the garlicky tzatziki.

I love Indian food, but I still have a lot to learn about the nuances in the cooking from region to region, ingredients, and technqiues. The best way to learn of course, is to keep eating it!

Recently, I have been enamored of a small restaurant in Santa Monica. Chandni is a vegetarian restaurant. Now I'm not vegetarian, but that doesn't mean that I can't have an incredible meal there. There are standard dishes that you will find in the "vegetable" section of any Indian restaurant's menu like saag paneer, bengan bhartha, and gobi aloo. However, I have been forcing myself away from these standards to try things like bindhi masala (okra) and khumb (mushroom) curries. The best thing I've had at Chandni is the bhara mirch, a bell pepper that has been stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes (similar to what's inside a samosa) and simmered with a rich, creamy, spicy tomato-based sauce.

Chandni Indian Vegetarian
1909 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 839-0482

I often whine about how I go to restaurants with the promise of spicy foods, and end up disappointed because I didn't even break a glisten. Korean food is spicy, but I always hear stories about Thai and Indian foods being hot enough to put hair on my chest. I've given up on Thai, mostly because I think restaurants in the LA area are too scared to really give me the fire, but I still had hope for Indian food.

And thank goodness I did, because I finally found something that got me a little hot. At Bombay Cafe, the lamb frankie made me glisten. The frankie is an Indian street-type food made of a thin bread similar to a tortilla that is coated with egg and fried. The tortilla is filled with meat and/or vegetables, then rolled like a burrito.

I tried the lamb frankie at Bombay Cafe, which had nothing but enormous chunks of lamb meat straight out of Hades. Granted, I wasn't reaching for the fire extinguisher, but it was still spicy enough that on a breezy winter day in LA, I had to lightly dab my forehead. I felt awesome.

The strange thing is, the heat was very different from the type of heat I get from Korean food. The lamb meat in the frankie wasn't so much a burn on my tongue that I feel from things like red pepper and jalapeno. No, this heat was an overall heat that I felt after I swallowed my bite of the frankie. Like I said, it was awesome.