Try tasting your cumin if you have any. I’m betting that’s the ‘dusty’ taste. I don’t think it’s in every Indian dish. I agree, though, that you need to try a good buffet at a ‘real’ Indian restaurant. Check out your town for reviews of the best places.
Two things:
1)Ready-to-eat packages from stores are not close to authentic. For that matter, even the typical fare served in the (North) Indian restaurants in the US is not quite the same as the indigenous thing. (Note: buffet offerings are typically blanded down to cater to American palates. Order from the menu and ask them to make it as they would for a visitor from India.)
2)India is like Europe, except that it’s a single nation-state. There are dozens of ethnicities, each with their own corresponding cuisine. What typically gets represented as ‘Indian’ food in restaurants abroad is mostly cuisine from certain parts of Northern India (Punjab, Rajasthan, UP…etc)
As any of you who have seen me can assume, I am anything but a picky eater and my appreciation of Indian food ranges from “it’s okay if there’s nothing else” to “no thanks, I’ll hit Mac’s on my way home.” I dislike cumin and to me the reason to not eat Asafoetida is contained in its name, but most of the rest of the spices Levdrakon listed are integral to Scandanavian cuisine so I love them. It must be the cumin because I hate curry (so I’ll never be able to move to England) because of its overwhelming cumin taste. A little in Mexican food is fine, but not in those quantities.
well for me, I don’t like curry and that leaves out quite a bit of indian food. I’ve had some really good indian food though.
and it’s not the spice level, I like spicy food, I just never cared for curry.
So what do you mean – you don’t like any dish with a lot of sauce? Or you don’t like the spice mixes used in curries?
Yeah, cumin does have kind of a dusty taste, but I use quite a lot of it in my chili and it doesn’t faze me.
Of the spices listed so far, I am not familiar with asafoetida, fenugreek, or curry leaves, and we’ve already determined that tamarind might be one flavor I’m not fond of. Coriander… I wonder. As I noted elsewhere (in some other thread) I DETEST cilantro, and even though I have been told that coriander seed tastes different, knowing they’re from the same source makes me a little nervous about trying it… that said, I don’t recall in the teeny bit of Indian food I’ve had, tasting cilantro at all.
I have quizzed local friends and we’re trying to reach a consensus on a decent Indian restaurant that might have a buffet.
Curry leaves do not have what I’d describe as a dusty smell…plus, you’d have to be eating south indian foods like dosas, vegetables and sambaar to encounter them most of the time. It’s not something they’re likely to throw around at most restaurants because the tree doesn’t grow in this climate, only in pots and is very difficult to nurture and raise.
A lot of restaurants chop coriander leaf over curries and it then gets mixed in. Chicken Jalfrezi is made with coriander leaf cooked in during the last 2 minutes.
It would probably help if you told us what you’d had at said Indian restaurants. The overwhelming flavour of curries in most North Indian restaurants is cream/sour with a hint of spices.
Perhaps you just don’t like the combination of spices. No big deal, I detest French food though I’ll eat it if necessary.
I don’t know which 'burb you’re in, but if you’re not too far from the North side, it’s totally worth the hellish parking to make a trip to Bhabi’s Kitchen. The owner takes all the orders himself (and he talks just as much as that review indicates!) and he’s very good at making recommendations and helping you figure out what to try. I highly suggest the bagarey baigan, a dish of his own devising (he claims) with baby eggplants in an amazing sesame, almond and other nutty stuff sauce that is to die for. It tastes like a rich buttery cream sauce, but is actually low-fat! We always ask for little to-go cups with lids so we can take the leftover sauce home for later munching on with extra naan dipped in it. I don’t like eggplant, but his eagerness convinced me to try it, and I’m so glad I did. And he’s pleased as punch whenever we bring the baby and makes her special little tidbits to try.
Parking. Sucks. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But it’s totally worth it to try real “homemade” Indian, as opposed to culturally homogenized buffet food.
If you are in the north or northwest burbs, go to India House (one in Schaumburg, one in Buffalo Grove). Many of the people I work with who are from India like it.
Schaumburg works! (I’m in Elgin.)
Anyone wanna go with me?
Admittedly, I’m biased, as Indian food is what first made me realize how good vegetarian food can be. One suggestion: as said above, Indian buffet food can suffer some, like any buffet food, from being overcooked and sitting awhile.
A good tactic is to try a buffet to sample what type of Indian food you like, then go back for dinner sometime, and order that dish as a solo. In better restaurants, that dish will be fresher and cooked to order, a whole different taste.
Not necessarily. I had limited exposure to Indian food until the ill-fated day I had lunch at an Indian place. Barely made it back to the office washroom before I heaved it all up as my body violently rejected it. On a later occasion I had a mildly curried dish at a non-Indian restaurant and felt ill for the rest of the day. So it may well be one or more of the spices in Indian food that really is physically sickening her.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve been wanting to try some new places instead of going to Tiffin all the time. I’ll have to check that one out.
I think that may be it–cilantro.
I recently went to a new Indian place called Kebab and Curry and ordered the vindaloo chicken. I took one bite and got the biggest mouthful of cilantro I’ve ever tasted.
My son had ordered something else, and he also got cilantro tongue-raped.
I spit mine out and called for the check.
Re: dusty taste…
If there is just a teensy-weensy bit of cilantro in food, then that’s what I get: a dusty taste. Maybe try sampling a bit of cilantro at the grocery store next time to see if that’s what you’re tasting.
Ha! But not really laughing - my reaction to cilantro was also immediate and very unpleasant, but I don’t get dusty, I get soapy.
I’m irritated that jarred spice blends don’t generally list precisely what spices are included, though. Looking at my bottle of garam masala, I see “ingredients: spices” Well, no shit, Sherlock. I was hoping to narrow down whatever the “dusty” stuff is by sampling different spice blends and seeing if I could tell by the ingredients which spice is in the dusty ones and not in the non-dusty ones.
Must be an Indian fusion place. I’ve eaten at many Indian restaurants in quite a few cities and not run across cilantro at all. Nor is it in any of my Indian recipe books. It’s prevalent in Thai cooking and in Mexican. And powdered coriander, which is common in Indian cooking, tastes nothing like cilantro.
Tiffin is kind of my standby as well, but have you tried Hema’s Kitchen? It’s a much more homey setting, BYOB, very inviting and delicious.
As for the OP, the main flavors in most Indian curries are cumin and coriander. I’m not sure what you taste that can be described as “dusty.” Turmeric and cumin are the first that come to mind, but there are plenty of curries that are not overloaded with turmeric. It seems only the McCormick’s brand-type curry powders are the ones that really go overboard with turmeric. In most dishes, turmeric is only a small portion of the entire spice mix.
Cilantro is also very common in Indian cuisine. Most dishes I’ve had are sprinkled with cilantro at the end, and whenever I make a curry at home (as I did yesterday), I always finish it off with copious amounts of fresh cilantro.
As for the other spices you mentioned. Fenugreek isn’t terribly common, but I use it in my vindaloo paste. It has what I would describe as a maple-like taste. Coriander seed tastes citrusy and otherwise lively to me, not dusty. Curry leaves are only found in dishes from cerain regions, and I doubt you’ll find them in most Indian restaurants as their dried form is completely tasteless, and the fresh or frozen form is a little difficult to come by. As for asafoetida, I’ve never come across this herb to be honest. Apparently, it’s used mostly in south and west Indian vegetarian cooking.
It is chopped on top of many dishes fresh, and it’s what gives chicken jalfrezi the taste (it is cooked in during the last 2 minutes). Chicken jalfrezi is probably the more widely eaten dish that I absolutely know has cooked cilantro in it. Coriander leaf is somewhere between a garnish and mild last minute flavouring.
It’s very prevalent in Konkani/Goan and Marathi food (vindaloo is a Goan speciality). My mom puts it in every daal and most types of kachumbars/raitas.
ETA: ooooh, second Hema’s Kitchen, I recommended it when DoctorJ posted about going to Chicago, not sure if he made it out there. Excellent excellent Andhra-style cooking. My dad insisted on going there after seeing it on PBS. I still remember the lamb samosas with the raspberry chipotle coriander (he he) sauce. Very inventive and tasty. I’ve heard there’s a Lincoln Park outpost now too (though reviews online said it’s more expensive and not as good but I haven’t tried it). My only complaint about Hema’s was that I thought the quality of the meat they used was cheap.
When my dad and I went there were people patiently waiting outside for it to open.
I guess maybe people from a different part of India settled the places I’ve been to and wrote the books I’ve got. I’ve never seen Chicken jalfrezi on a menu, for instance.
That’s odd. So have I and I would say chopped cilantro (aka coriander) is a common garnish for many curries, dal, and other Indian and Pakistani dishes.