Posted on 10/13/2012 6:57:52 PM PDT by MarkL
I make my own curry powder without salt. You can find recipes on the web.
Here’s something I wrote for friends:
Stir Fry or Curry Recipe Guidelines
1. Rice made in rice cooker
a. I use white or brown rice. With brown, I soak it for a couple of hours first because I keep it in the freezer to prevent the oils from going rancid.
b. With white rice I use 2 measures of water (better to substitute chicken broth!) for one measure of rice plus a bit extra to keep the rice moist. Also I add stuff that absorbs some of the water.
c. At the beginning I add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to keep the rice from sticking. I add curry, some cayenne pepper, garlic powder, dried onions, parsley, and sometimes some Indian spices like Nigella or Fennel Seeds or Black Mustard. Adding a different spice each time makes every pot of rice unique.
d. A good rice cooker from Hong Kong Market is worth every penny. You will save so much money on eating out that it pays for itself quickly.
2. Stir fry or curry.
a. I start with olive oil, sometimes peanut oil, coconut oil, but ALWAYS add toasted sesame oil. That sesame oil really adds flavor. Use just enough oil to coat the bottom of the skillet. Remember that it’s healthy to eat a LOT of olive oil.
b. I always start off frying my chopped onions, chopped fresh garlic, chopped ginger root, and peppers first. I scrape the seeds out of the peppers with a spoon after splitting them. I have used serranos and jalapenos, both red and green. Frying them reduces the fire while retaining the taste.
c. I add carbohydrates that take a while to cook after a couple of minutes. I have used thin sliced potatoes and sweet potatoes, but only in curry. If I want it to taste Chinese, I don’t use potatoes. Frying the potatoes takes 15 minutes or so while you are preparing other veggies.
d. One of the secrets is to add vegetables and meat in the right order. The things that take the longest to cook are added first. Vegetables should be cooked but with a slight crunch. Better to under-cook than overcook.
e. I try to add as many different types of vegetables as possible with as many colors as possible. My primary goal is healthy food.
f. When you stop frying and start steaming add either water or chicken broth enough to generate a lot of steam. I keep the lid on the skillet.
g. Vegetables that I use include squash (any kind), red cabbage (a favorite), green cabbage, broccoli, carrots, poblano peppers, caribe peppers, bell peppers (all colors), green beans, soybean sprouts, green onions, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts. Have used tomatoes and cilantro to make it into “Mexican Stir Fry”. I know that there have been others.
Often, I use whatever I picked up “On Sale” at Sellers Brothers. Some people add fruit to curries, but I have not tried this.
h. When the veggies are almost finished, I add spices. I have used soy sauce, rice vinegar (every time), stir fry sauce, Hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, teriyaki sauce, wasabi powder, lemon grass, curry, cayenne pepper, Chinese 5 Spice, and many others.
Go to Hong Kong Market on Scarsdale and the Raj Grocer on Highway 3. Cruise the aisles and try a few new things. I usually buy the more expensive brands because I don’t use much and the quality is better. I try to balance the spices. For example, if there are bitter veggies like cabbage, I add a sweet sauce like Hoisin to balance the flavors.
Try individual spices on plain rice and decide if you like that flavor. I think the best food has a little bit of many different spices in it. By changing each time you learn what you like best. For instance, I have learned that I like just a hint of lemongrass, not a lot.
i. If meat required cooking, I added it at the appropriate time. I almost always marinate meat in rice vinegar, spices, some oil (especially sesame), and soy sauce or other flavored sauce. Half inch or smaller cubes of meat cook thoroughly in less than five minutes.
Now, I have learned to make tofu taste great. I dice it into quarter inch cubes and marinate it a couple of days in sesame oil, spices, etc. I stir fry it separately from the veggies. It’s pure protein, no bad fats, and Seller’s Brothers has it on sale for $.79/lb. regularly. At that price, I wanted to learn how to make it tasty as well as healthy.
Pre-cooked shrimp I add near the end to prevent overcooking and toughening them.
j. Last step. I add one half to one cup of water or chicken broth. Then I stir in some corn starch quickly and mix all of the veggies into it. A final simmer thickens the sauce.
k. Makes great leftovers. Can freeze if you make mass quantities.
l. My next culinary adventure is to mix up my own curry powder. I bought a bunch of individual bags of spices from Raj and pulled recipes off the internet. Mine will have no salt.
The biggest irony about Indian food and its associated heat is that Indian food is spicy because of Europeans. Without the Spaniards and Portuguese traders bringing in the chilli-peppers into the Indian Subcontinent around the 1500s AD, Indian food would be milder than British fare. The spiciest native Indian ingredient would be black pepper - that’s as hot as it could have gotten before the 16th century.
Actually, having lived and travelled widely in India, what most Westerners associate with “Indian” food is Mughlai cuisine - Indianised versions of Persian cooking. The traditional Indian fare, made from ingredients completely native to the Subcontinent, and the food that Indians in India typically make at home, is mild as coconut cream.
Tell an Indian conditioned / brainwashed into believing traditional Indian cuisine must equal spicy hot about this factoid (re: the European introduction of chilli-pepper to India) and watch how dumbfounded he / she gets.
Hi All,
Just a note...
I’ve had to postpone my visit to an Indian buffet until next weekend. Thanks again to everyone for such terrific advice!
Mark
Note, the American peppers are a powerful medicine which when consumed in sufficient quantities, kills off all sorts of parasites and bacterial and fungal infections.
Without the Americas, India would probably be down to just a few hundred million people!
They'd think of it as a huge echo chamber.
Imagine Italian food before Columbus.
No tomatoes. No potatoes/risotto. No corn/polenta. No beans. No chocolate.
Most breads made from other than wheat, barley or rye WILL not rise because their stretchy protein to starch/sugar ratio to fiber (non soluable sugars) is too low.
The secret you use to turn "it" (teff, or tapioca, or rice, or corn, or buckwheat) into bread is as follows:
(1) Add plain old baking powder ~
(2) Heat slowly then
(3) Heat a bit faster.
That helps the baking powder blow it up a bit. When done put some crushed red pepper Italian style on the product. You'll have some of the texture of wheat bread AND all of the taste. That crushed red pepper tricks most people into believing they're eating wheat.
I've been to a number of Ethiopian restaurants over the years ~ and all of them served raw hamburger. Read the menu carefully; ask them to toss it in the microwave a couple of minutes if you aren't sure.
Now see, I could eat them if they were served plain. The thing that made me gag was the rose water syrup. It was just too intensely floral for my tastes, and the syrup made the little donut holes all mushy-textured. Blech!
The absolute worst ones are made out of dried milk powder ~
Well????
Or if you don't like that we could have some cold dove breast's with some home-made dipping sauce. Pretty good stuff.........
Oh wait you want India food....
Never mind.........
Or if you don't like that we could have some cold dove breast's with some home-made dipping sauce. Pretty good stuff.........
Oh wait you want India food....
Never mind.........
No fair! It sounds WONDERFUL! Actually there was this restaurant on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives," I think in Colorado, that specialized in Indian food (the type YOU were talking about!). Something I recall was braised bison ribs in wild blueberry BBQ sauce! WooHoo!
Seriously though, I did specify the "Rajesh Kuthrapoli 'Indian,'" not the "come to our casino 'Indian!'"
:-)
Mark
Or if you don't like that we could have some cold dove breast's with some home-made dipping sauce. Pretty good stuff.........
Oh wait you want India food....
Never mind.........
No fair! It sounds WONDERFUL! Actually there was this restaurant on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives," I think in Colorado, that specialized in Indian food (the type YOU were talking about!). Something I recall was braised bison ribs in wild blueberry BBQ sauce! WooHoo!
Seriously though, I did specify the "Rajesh Kuthrapoli 'Indian,'" not the "come to our casino 'Indian!'"
:-)
Mark
So, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to try again, but this time, go earlier, like before noon!
Mark
Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded... (Yogi Berra)
Just throwing a top-water lure out...and jerking it around.
I love the show..DDD.
Lot's of places...I'd love to eat at!!
FRegards,
I've been to a couple of the places in Kansas City that Guy featured on DDD. One of which is closed now, but to be honest, the place was great for about 2 months after the show, and then the quality took a tailspin. He raved about the corned beef hash, as being home made, and it was INCREDIBLE. But after a couple of terrific visits, it was obvious they had started serving their hash out of a can... Never went back after that. But the 3 other places I tried (including one in Vancouver, BC) were pretty awesome.
If you get a chance, try to get to any of the places he's featured, if there are any around you, or if you're ever forced to go on a business trip - the people we visited in Vancouver had never heard of the place, but I hear they're going there at leave once every couple of weeks.
Mark
Great. Now I’m drooling.
Two words: goat curry.
Never tried goat, but that’s one of the many things I want to try at the Indian restaurant. I do like lamb.
Mark
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