Monday 15 April 2013

Christine & Christian - Episode 4: Up and running

After a few hours of warm up by leafing through the pages of Tasting India, I started cooking from it on Thursday April 11th. 
I mentioned there would be over 250 recipes in the book. Now after carefully counting ... that is if I really was that careful, but that would be too many 'ifs' ... I came to the number of 283 recipes in the book, not counting any variations. I added, though, also individual recipes for spice mixes and pastes, of which I might need some more then once. That also means there are also some quite simple recipes in it.
While cooking for 5 days I managed 8 so far, including one for garlic and ginger paste ... or was it ginger and garlic paste. No worries. I was also invited to cook some Indian food with some friends. On that day, there was also butter chicken on the menu, which tasted very very luvly. Fine, that doesn't count for the recipes, because I didn't make it from the book.
I contributed a gorgeous dal, which tasted as luvly as the chicken, although one of my friends said, it was even better than the chicken. Ah, whatever, very lovely.
I leave you with some food impressions before I have a few more words.


Dal Makhani - one of the best dals I ever had ... with that ginger and garlic paste, tomato puree, butter and cream it promises a lot of taste and ... guess what? Have no fear!


Butter Chicken - I wonder, why it has this name. There were a lot of spices, yoghurt, milk and obviously chicken.


Just give me a large plate of it ... anytime!


Sweets for the sweet - Wholemeal Halwa. Don't ask, just taste ... there is a touch of cardamom to it ... if you do it right. All that stirring was some good exercise. Was it half an hour? It was supposed to be less.


 That would be something for hot days - Ginger Lime Soda. I just hope we will have some days this year, so I can put that drink to proper use. It's really refreshing. The ginger isn't too intrusive.


Eggplant (Aubergine) Masala - There were two green chillies and two dries red chillies going into it. I wonder what that will do, if you have properly hot chillies. Those fresh green ones from my windowsill need some more sun. This eggplant masala is delicious how it is with some rice ... good I have a rice cooker.

I hope, that gives you also some good inspiration for our current Bloggers Around the World - India. If you like to know more about one of those dishes, ask away ...
 
Now I had also chance to stock up some things. While sitting at home unprepared and pondering about what to cook, I was still in need of some vital ingredients and there was no chance for shopping. By now, it's fine! I'm up and running ... as you can see above as well.
What about fresh coriander, though? That might cause a problem, searching through shops for some. Parallel to that I started my coriander growing program again. Better late then never, although it will take some time before I can use some of that ... if it works at all. I definitely should get some more ready plants for the garden, when the time is right.

2 comments:

  1. Love the sound of your dinner. I bet it was luvly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In fact, both of them were. At the moment, I'm having Indian food every day.

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