Indian Night! Cooking In...

So, taking my inspiration from Y and Samia, I went for it and spent hours and hours in the kitchen to come out with some Southern Indian dishes.  What an experience!  I really enjoyed getting in there and having fun while cooking - though I am going to have to recruit Paul as a Sous Chef.  I need help with the prep work and the clean up!!! What do you say?!


Overall, the food ended up being really good - yeah!  Mom and Paul said they enjoyed it...my Daal (Dahl/Dal - the spelling seems to confuse me...) was dry, but I'll be able to fix that for next time.  By far, the best thing of the night was the Spinach Pakoras (Gram Flour mixed with water, spices, spinach to make a batter then fried).  Wow - they were so easy to make.  I do avoid frying and this was probably my first experience with it and actually like it.  It wasn't difficult.  I don't have a good thermometer but used Samia's test with the piece of bread and that worked like a charm!

I didn't want to use Garam Masala because it tends to be so heavy, thus it's name meaning warm or hot spices.  Essentially, hard to digest.  But, the flavor is nice at times.  I copied what Y did when we stayed at her house in Singapore.  It ended up quite good - but, I should have fried it until the oil came to the top.  I thought I had, but you can see the difference between Y's and mine - my photo is below.

Here is Y's:

We DID NOT try to make Naan - we ordered it from a local Indian Restaurant - which was a very good idea!  Very nice - we will order from them again.  It's nice way to bring the whole meal together.

We enjoyed some Mango Chutney and Harissa that we bought from Coriander Leaf (Samia's Restaurant).  It also adds a lot to the meal.

I also made up Loki Raita (Seasoned Yogurt with Grated Squash).  You par-boil the Squash - I used Yellow Squash and it worked quite well.

I ended up cooking from three different Coriander Leaf Recipe Booklets: South Asian Adventure, Frontier Works & South Asian Classic.  How about that for putting together a meal.

Mom really enjoyed it - I watched the spice; one reason is that I couldn't get to the Pacific Ocean Marketplace to get fresh chilies.  But, we enjoyed it anyway.  We're having a friend over on Saturday night and I'm going to try out some more things out on him.