buildfirst

This was probably the most fearsome dish to make for the party since I had never made it before (especially in such quantity), it was quite involved, and I thought the taste might be hit-or-miss with the crowd. (Maybe they can respond on whether it was good or not.) It is a type of daal, which I guess you could call Indian soup. This is Gujarati daal (specific to my home state) which is meant to be a little thicker than just soup. It turned out to be a bit too thick but fortunately this dish can easily be diluted with a little bit of water.

This requires a bit of beforehand prep; in order to make things go as smoothly as possible you need to soak the lentils beforehand in water for about 1 hour. The type of lentils you need is found at any Indian store; it is called tuvar or toor daal. There are two types of toor daal in stores, dry and oily. This dish uses the oily kind.

For the party I multiplied this recipe by 4; this is the maximum I would attempt making in one pot. If you want to make more I recommend using multiple pots.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup oily toor daal
• oil, mustard/cumin seeds
• 1/4 cup chopped cashews
• 1/4 tspn turmeric
• 1 tspn hot chili powder
• 1 Tbsp dhanajiru (50/50 mixture of ground cumin and coriander)
• 1/2 tspn white sugar
• salt
• MAX 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tomato
• chopped cilantro to taste

Like I said the prep is involved. But the result is a hearty, filling, vegetarian dish. Best served mixed with rice.

1. Soak 1 cup oily toor daal in water for one hour.
2. Rinse three times with hands. The water should be mostly clear after the third wash.
3. In a rice cooker or pot, boil the daal in enough water to cover it. (About 2.5 cups water per cup daal.) If the water runs low add more. You should have to drain the water when you are done. You will know it is done boiling when the daal has grown in size and is easily crushed by a spoon or your teeth.
4. Drain the daal and pour the daal into a blender. Blend until smooth.
5. Place a pot on the stove, on medium heat. Add oil, mustard and cumin seeds.
6. When the seeds begin to pop, add the blended daal and stir.
7. Add chopped cashews and a stick of cinnamon here. Use 1 stick cinnamon per 2 cups daal. Use technology to chop the cashews.
8. Stir in the following spices: 1/4 tspn turmeric, 1 tspn hot chili powder, 1 Tbsp dhanajiru, 1/2 tspn white sugar, salt to taste.
9. You can also add (no more than 1/4 cup) lemon juice to help dilute the daal slightly.
10. Stir and bring the mixture to a boil. Add in 1/2 to 1 finely chopped tomato.
11. After the mixture is boiling, set the heat to low and let cook for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
12. When you are ready to serve, garnish with chopped cilantro.
    

This post will go into my personal favorite dish of the night, paneer makhani. This was the only dish I had made beforehand, so I was adequately prepared to make several pounds of this dish. This is one of my favorite dishes to make because it is so easy to make so much of and the taste is really good; there is a lot to like about it. Making the makhani curry is slightly involved but none of the steps are particularly difficult. With technology even the most tedious steps will take little time.

Again you can scale up as much as you like to make as much as you like. The following recipe serves about 8. This is close to the maximum I would recommend attempting in one pot; if you want to make twice as much (which I did for the party) I would recommend using two pots and combining them after they are done cooking. It might just take too long otherwise.

Ingredient list:

• 8 tspn butter
• 1 head garlic
• 1/2 ginger root
• 1/3 sweet onion
• 1 tspn turmeric
• 2 tspn hot chili powder
• 1 cup tomato puree
• 1 lb paneer, chopped
• 4 tspn kasuri (kasoori) methi
• 3 cup milk
• 4 tspn white sugar
• salt
• OPT: 1/2 cup sweet corn, 1/2 cup green peas

The prep is not bad. You can do steps 2 and 3 beforehand to make the rest flow even smoother. This quantity feeds the two of us about 3 or 4 times, so you get plenty of yield out of this! It is a great way to use up milk that is about to go bad as well.

1. Melt 8 teaspoons butter (about 3 Tbsp) in a large pot. Keep the heat on low-medium.
2. Peel the head of garlic and the half ginger root. (Adjust to taste. More is better.)
3. Also chop into small cubes approximately 1 pound of paneer cheese. You can obtain a brick of paneer about this weight from any Indian store, or even a halal store. You could sub in tofu if you wanted, but don’t you dare call it Indian if you do so… I’m watching you.
4. Using technology (like a chopper) chop the garlic and ginger along with the sweet onion.
5. Empty into the hot melted butter and fry until the mixture starts to brown.
6. Again using technology, chop/blend one roma tomato into about 1 cup of tomato puree.
7. Add 1 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp hot chili powder, and the tomato puree to the mixture. Stir a bit and let sit until a thin layer of oil begins to separate from the mixture. Usually about 5 minutes.
8. Add 3 cups milk, or cream if you are a fatty.
9. Add the kasuri methi (ask someone to help you find it at an Indian store; they will be impressed), white sugar, and salt to taste. Stir well.
10. Add the paneer and stir. Let sit for 3-4 minutes until the paneer feels soft and squishy.
11. Bonus: Throw in some green peas and sweet corn. Frozen is fine. These give the dish more texture and a hint of sweetness, which I thought tasted amazing. It may not work for you.

You know you’re done when the food looks exactly like it does in the picture above. The curry will be a soft yellow with green speckles of methi; the paneer will be soft but well-formed. Definitely serve over rice. I like to have roti as well on the side to make the leftovers last longer. And enjoy.

We had several friends over to celebrate our housewarming Saturday evening and I thought a great way to spend the afternoon would be to cook up a set of fantastic Indian food for everyone to enjoy. I was a little nervous about preparing so much food (approximately 12 pounds for 10 people) so I printed out the recipes and an action list and posted it on the fridge for reference. The food that followed was actually quite simple to make. With the help of two highly capable co-chefs and modern machinery we were able to complete all three dishes (plus a healthy quantity of basmati rice) in only two hours. (I exclude the time to marinate meat and soak lentils, which must be done beforehand).

As the box above implies this post will go into the most-requested recipe for chicken tikka. I apologize in advance if this disillusions anyone, but the recipe for chicken tikka is actually quite simple. I bought a jar of Patak’s Tikka Marinade, mixed the contents with 10 Tbsp (almost 2/3 cup) of Trader Joe’s creamy European yogurt, and marinated 40 oz of cut up (boneless skinless) chicken breast in the mixture for a little over an hour. Then we baked the contents in a Pyrex baking tray for 45 minutes, and let sit for another 45 (mostly because we were busy with the other dishes). The chicken turned out quite tender; the only way I can think of to get it more tender would be to marinate it longer (perhaps first in beer for 30 minutes and then the marinade).

However there are a couple of comments to make on the recipe. One is that the recipe should also turn out very well if you use (boneless skinless) chicken thighs in place of chicken breasts. This would save you $1 per pound on average; here it would have saved $2.50. I intend on trying this next time and I suspect I will just need to marinate the meat longer for it to turn out well.

Second, the curry paste is a simple combination of spices. The most important are ground coriander, cumin, salt, chili powder, ginger and garlic. So yes, I could have made my own curry (by mixing those in oil and water) but I didn’t, because:

• It is a waste of time. Most Indians (in the US) don’t scratch together curries if they don’t have to.
• The curry paste has 3% tamarind, which you’re not going to find very easily, and sometimes tamarind is that key that makes Indian dishes taste more authentic.

So in summary, the steps are as follows. You can scale this up and down to your liking.

1. Buy a jar of Patak’s Tikka Paste. In Berkeley any ethnic store should have them.
2. Mix the contents (approx 200 mL) with 10 Tbsp (150 mL) creamy yogurt. As you can see this is a 4:3 volume ratio.
3. Marinate up to 40 oz (perhaps up to 48 oz) for at least 1 hour.
4. Bake in a large pan at 350 F for about 45 minutes. Let sit for at least another 15 minutes.

And a round of applause for the chefs!