Cooking some Indian food!

Cafe Society
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My nice Indian friend from work agreed to come to another coworkers house to show us how she makes her awesome chicken curry.

We started some dough for naan: 1 1/2 packet of quick rise yeast started in 2/3 cup warm water with a teaspoon sugar. She over yeasted it to make it go faster. When the yeast was foamy we added it to 2 cups flour, 2 tablespoons melted butter, 2 tablespoons non-flavored yogurt and a teaspoon salt, kneaded it well (all in the bowl) and allowed it to rise while we did other stuff.

She cut up the chicken in that strange Indian way that they do and soaked it it water, the juice of a lemon, and some wheat flour.

Then we cut up a large onion and a large tomato.

Next, we heated a good dose of olive oil (maybe 3 tablespoons) and added some black mustard seeds. When the seeds started ‘dancing’, she added lots of spices- maybe 5 tablespoons of coriander powder, a tablespoon of black pepper, maybe two-three tablespoons of meat masala (she grinds and mixes her own, so no clue there), and perhaps a teaspoon of acefetida (not clue what that is). Perhaps there was some tumeric. I did not see her put that in, but she was showing us the jar and telling us how her mother grew and processed it herself.

She cooked al those spices for a few minutes, then added the onion and tomato and stewed it down for 10 or fifteen minutes.

Finally we drained the chicken, added it to the pot, put a lid on it and set it aside to cook while we made two more dishes and the naan.

The next dish was what she always calls “green vegetable”. Apparantly, you can use any green vegetable, but she usually uses some kind of green bean that grows in her yard. We used broccoli. She grated some fresh coconut with some grater she got from her grandmother and diced the broccoli very fine. She started again with the oil, mustard seed, ionion, tomato, a small bit of ginger and ‘vegetable masala’ (again, her own blend). She added the coconut and broccoli and stirred and covered. This dish cooked about half as long as the chicken.

She also whipped up a vegetarian curry for our vege friends.

Finally, back to the naan:
It should have risen twice but we rushed it and rolled out 8 oblongs. They were placed in the oven on a hot cookie sheet about 3 at a time and cooked at 400 for about 4-6 minutes, turning once.

The naan wasn’t so good because we rushed the rising and the oven was not working right. We should have cooked them on the range top. Totally edible though.

She had brought with her a large dish of precooked rice and we all had an awesome meal!

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Moving from MPSIMS to Cafe Society.

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Oh, I forgot the garlic, Just add lots of garlic to the onion tomato step.

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Not an indian here, but been on the cooking course, had a lot of curries in the uk, and my curry isn’t bad compared to restaurant curries

Can’t comment here, I make chapatis myself (flat bread, chapati flour).

Amazon.com’s Shish Mahal Cookbook for the US Amazon.uk’s Shish Mahal cookbook for the UK. These have nan, chapati and a bunch of other recipes. I well recommend them.

What you call meat masala could be also called ‘garam masala’ and is often available premixed where indian spices are sold. You’ve missed out (I suspect, but it is needed) salt (1/2 to 1tsp) and cumin (1 tsp). Yes, theres commonly tumeric there too (1 tsp).

As mentioned later, you’ve missed out garlic (1 tsp) but not mentioned ginger (1 tsp).

I typically would fry the onions without the tomatos for 8 mins, then add ginger and garlic, for 2 mins, then tomatos and then stew for 10-15 mins.

I’d personally dry roast the spices seperately (except mustard seeds, those go in first), especially as a novice, some of them burn quicker than others (cumin goes up fast for instance, and the curry tastes burned)… Actually don’t roast the garam masala either. Roast coriander powder, cumin, tumeric… These would go in with the tomatos.

You’ve also missed out the chilli’s, be it raw or chilli powder… Add that to taste (chilli powder can be mild or hot, so its something to be judged according to what kind you have).

I’d personally add some chicken stock to this, often curries are cooked on the bone, so if not, use some stock to make up for it…

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I loves me that Indian food!! Try putting a cast iron skillet on your stove top and letting it heat on high for a long time and use that for the naan. If you look around on the net, or search here in CS, you’ll see that you can make your own tandoor which will produce much better naan, and tandoori dishes, than can be achieved with a kitchen stove/oven.

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Personally, I just buy naan. You can certainly get it at the Indian grocery stores, and even some American grocery stores. But if you can’t find it, pita bread makes a decent substitute.

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I think Smid was right and I missed some things.

It was so much fun to have her show us how to cook, but it was a lot of information and new stuff. I did see fresh ginger and I think a jar of red chili powder, so I bet that stuff went in while she had me doing something else. Also all her spices were in old reused plastic jars (like peanut butter jars) and not labeled or anything.

One fun day! Plus, I took home some leftovers!

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That sounds like Asafoetida. The description of your meal has me salivating at my desk here, just so you know. :wink:

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Huh, I would never in my life have compared asafoetida’s flavor to onions/leeks/garlic as that Wikipedia article does. It’s yummy, but it’s its own thing.

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I love Indian food but would not even try to make it at home!
I haven’t a clue what most of the spices and ingredients are, let alone know where and how to get them, and what to do with them when I have them.

I almost never go to Italian restaurants as I can whip up most Italian dishes with no problem (grandma came from Sicily) and do a better job than many Italian restaurants.

But some foods (Indian and Chinese) I leave to those who have far more experience and know how to make them!

Still, it would have been fun to watch your friend cooking this all up! I would have been quite happy to sample everything as well.

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I love indian food and have a cupboard full of spices and chapatti flour to show for it. However, I’ve never ‘quite’ achieved the same flavour I find in restaurants. Long ago i put that down to not using Ghee, which I just can’t bring myself to use because it’s so damn fattening.