What kind of Indian dishes do you like?

[buckytom]

+1 tatt.

i love goan seafood, as well as dosa street food and tandoor.

tandoor cooked roti aloo, stuffed with herbs and spuds. or tandoor head-on spiced shrimp.

there's a joint on 10th ave that has delicious chicken necks vindaloo, and veggie korma. and paneer, and so on. I always get a side of red spiced raw onions and butt blasting mini hot peppers. it adds heat as well as texture/ fresh veggie crunch.

man, i need some indian food. lol.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

When the mood takes me I make dosas from scratch but Gits instant dosa mix is quite good

 

[Timothy]

I love the more Hindu influenced Food of Goa, but the seafood dishes, Holy smokes, SO GOOD!

I also like more Southern Indian, specifically Dosa. I could eat Dosa daily, and am grateful to have an Indian place that specializes in Mumbai style street foods.

BIG fan of Rogan Josh, anything Vindaloo, anything out of the tandoor is always a treat, Samosa, Saag, Daal, Kheer, Chicken 65. . .good, I could go on and on. . .

My experience with foods that are common in India is so limited. There isn't a single restaurant, (that I'm aware of), in my city that specializes in that type of food.

There are a couple that have a couple of dishes each, but nothing that would compare to a restaurant that serves *only* that type of food.

My Doctor, who is from India, tells me of a restaurant on the other side of Jacksonville that he says is the only really authentic Indian restaurant in this area. He tells me it's the one that all the "Homesick" Indians go to for a night out.

I have yet to go there, as I hate driving, and it's quite some distance from my house and in an area that I'm totally unfamiliar with. The next time my Sister and her husband come down to see me, I'm going to get them to drive me there. My BIL loves to drive.

I envy you folks who live in large cities with so many food cultures represented.

 

[spork]

I envy you folks who live in large cities with so many food cultures represented.

same here. I often find myself pining for L.A. for the same reason, but it's a quick coin-flip to remind myself also why I don't miss living there. There are maybe a dozen total restaurants and one small market within my 40-mile radius (not a one offers Pakistani biryani). The upside is that most of them serve buffet, and everything tastes great. Love simple Indian aloo (potato) dishes. Aloo gobhi, samosas.

I wish I was better at cooking Indian at home. It always seems to flop.

 

[Braised Brachiosaurus]

I wish I was better at cooking Indian at home. It always seems to flop.

I've had mixed results. My first effort relied on a single cookbook I found in the library; even when you adjust everything from the metric, there seems to be something lost in the transition from European-style to Indian-style cooking, at least for me.

One relatively simple dish that came out nicely was a carrot pudding. I've found it's far easier to simply make an Indian-style spiced rice pudding. It makes all others just seem bland.

 

[cave76]

To carry food (Indian or not) these are great. I use them for leftovers in the 'fridge.

Small 4-Tier SS Latch Tiffin Lunch Box, Food Carrier Happy Tiffin
(not associated with that web site!)

 

[larry_stewart]

To carry food (Indian or not) these are great. I use them for leftovers in the 'fridge.

Small 4-Tier SS Latch Tiffin Lunch Box, Food Carrier Happy Tiffin
(not associated with that web site!)

My wife got me one for my birthday, ive yet to try it out, but i loved it when i saw them for the first time on Andrew Zimmern's show.

 

[Timothy]

My wife got me one for my birthday, ive yet to try it out, but i loved it when i saw them for the first time on Andrew Zimmern's show.

That's where I saw them also! I believe it was the show where he went to a lady's house and she made homemade yogurt for him.

 

[buckytom]

and lassie!

woof.

lol, i mean lassi.

 

[GiddyUpGo]

Chicken vindaloo, the spicier the better! I also love tandoori chicken, and I make butter chicken at home all the time. Also chicken tikka masala and a really good naan bread.

 

[Claire]

I don't make Indian from scratch very often because I do wind up with spices that stand on the shelf for ages because I don't make Indian food that often (see, a self-fulfilling cycle).

I believe that, at least here in the U.S., especially in a cosmopolitan city or college town, going to an Indian "all-you-can-eat" buffet can be a good introduction to the cuisine, because you don't have to commit to a dish and find you don't like it. As a general rule, I don't like buffets, but for this purpose .... One place I went to (in Apple Valley, CA) would bring you tandoori chicken and nan straight from their oven ... what is it called? A tandoor? My brain isn't firing on all cylinders this morning. Anyway, the buffet was loaded with various curries (yes, I know, I know), salads, rice, etc, but the nan and tandoori were brought out to the table. Wonder if the place is still there?

 

[Claire]

I love funny or odd food experience stories. Once upon a time, many moons ago, the Daytona area had no Indian food.

A friend wanted to introduce us to her daughter's paramour. She said (imagine a stage whisper) that we'd understand where some of her friends wouldn't (???). the implication was that he was African-black and we wouldn't care. Well, she's right. So we arrived to find ... and laughed. He WAS from Maurititius (probably misspelled and probably mis-named it, but an island off the African coast), but ethnically it was quite plain he was Indian. We got along great, and I told him I couldn't possibly make the foods his mother did (he was a college student), however, I'd give it a try.

we all had a wonderful time. I told the gal to wear a u-neck T-shirt with her shorts/jeans and bought copious yardage of pretty-but-cheap fabric and tried to dress her in a sari as best I knew how (yeah, seeing it on TV doesn't do it) and added kohl and figured out what kind of dot to put on her forehead.

We really did have a blast. But the most fun was a week later when we got together for something else, her father cracked up. He'd thought he was hemoraging when he went to the bathroom the next day! That darned tandoori chicken does it every time!

 

[Claire]

Oh, another P.S. -- the guy was born on Mauritius but actually lived most of his life in, I think, NYC, and, thank heaven, although he loved it all, he had limited knowledge of Indian food!

 

[TATTRAT]

He'd thought he was hemoraging when he went to the bathroom the next day! That darned tandoori chicken does it every time!

LMAO!! My mom use to make quite the Indian spread, and prefaced the meal with that disclaimer, and ensuring folks NOT TO WORRY, lol. Not the best pre-game speech, but, it certainly was worth getting out there.

 

[NoraC]

The Indian dishes we like are the spicy ones, LOL. Seriously, Moong Dal hits the rotation about once a week, 3 out of 7 dinners around here are a curry, from different parts of the world, but Bengali or Tamil most frequently.
I noticed several comments about cost/acquisition/storage of spices and have a system that makes it work for us, here in the middle of nowhere. It is 57 miles to our nearest international food market of any note; that defines the middle of nowhere, LOL.
The freezer is your answer. If you keep whole spices well sealed in the freezer, they last almost forever, so you can buy a spice and not worry if you will use it "often". To kick it up a notch get 2, not 1, spice grinders, one for sweet and one for hot spices (let your nose decide which is which).
Find an area in your freezer that you can dedicate to spices; double seal each spice in ziplocks, with a label for any "other language" names slipped inside the outer bag, alphabetize according to the name you purchased it under and you are good to go for most cuisines that occur at a similar latitude. I started with plastic storage boxes in teh freezer, full of spice bags; the current refrigerator has a freezer drawer pull out that I have dedicated to spices. The trick is to store them in a an order that makes them easy to find.

 

[gabagoo]

We used to have one night a week devoted to Indian food at our house, so I've had quite a few different regional dishes from different parts of India. I like almost all of them.

But my hands down favorite is Pork Vindaloo. The real Goan stuff, fiery and heavily laced with vinegar. Not the pale imitation that a lot of restaurants call vindaloo.

would love to see the recipe for that dish

 

[Claire]

There is only one Indian dish I'm not crazy about (that is to say, of what I've tried) and that is the spinach/cheese one. Cannot remember what it is called, but the spinach has the appearance of spinach baby food, and the cheese more closely resembles tofu cubes (to my palate).

 

[tinlizzie]

The Indian dishes we like are the spicy ones, LOL. Seriously, Moong Dal hits the rotation about once a week, 3 out of 7 dinners around here are a curry, from different parts of the world, but Bengali or Tamil most frequently.
I noticed several comments about cost/acquisition/storage of spices and have a system that makes it work for us, here in the middle of nowhere. It is 57 miles to our nearest international food market of any note; that defines the middle of nowhere, LOL.
The freezer is your answer. If you keep whole spices well sealed in the freezer, they last almost forever, so you can buy a spice and not worry if you will use it "often". To kick it up a notch get 2, not 1, spice grinders, one for sweet and one for hot spices (let your nose decide which is which).
Find an area in your freezer that you can dedicate to spices; double seal each spice in ziplocks, with a label for any "other language" names slipped inside the outer bag, alphabetize according to the name you purchased it under and you are good to go for most cuisines that occur at a similar latitude. I started with plastic storage boxes in teh freezer, full of spice bags; the current refrigerator has a freezer drawer pull out that I have dedicated to spices. The trick is to store them in a an order that makes them easy to find.

Thanks for this, Nora. This certainly appeals to my thrifty side -- if I can just get my "get up and do it" side into action and actually put your suggestions to work.

 

[Andy M.]

There is only one Indian dish I'm not crazy about (that is to say, of what I've tried) and that is the spinach/cheese one. Cannot remember what it is called, but the spinach has the appearance of spinach baby food, and the cheese more closely resembles tofu cubes (to my palate).

That was probably palak paneer. Palak for spinach and paneer for cheese. Indian paneer does have a soft tofu-like texture. It's a very mild fresh cheese.

 

[Selkie]

I like the kind of Indian food that someone else fixes!