Showing posts with label Indian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian. Show all posts

Thursday, October 23, 2008

some-more-sas!

My first samosa was in high school at our World Food Fair that had a booth where Indian food was featured made by our Indian parents.

A samosa is basically like a Chinese Spring Roll. It's filled with potatoes and peas and sealed with a light dough. It is fried and served with a light herb dressing.

Samosa

Ingredients
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup frozen sweet peas

2 tablespoons ginger, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
phyllo dough, defrosted in the fridge
flour and water, for sealing

vegetable oil for deep frying


1) Boil pototoes in water until fork tender (15-20 minutes). Drain and put in a large mixing bowl.
2) Boil peas in water for 5 minutes.
3) Mash potatoes with fork then mix in peas
4) In a small pan, heat 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil on medium high heat. Add ground spices, ginger and garlic. Stir with oil and sprinkle with 2 T of water. Heat until aroma fills the air (3 minutes).
5) Mix spice mixture with potato and peas mixture until well combined
6) Take one rectangle of phyllo dough. Place a tsp of potato mixture in the top corner and fold into a triangle down the long length of dough. Fold until it makes a triangular cup and fill it with 1-2 tsp of potato mixture. (Do not overfill)
7) Seal dough with flour and water. Cut off additional dough
8) Heat vegetable oil in a deep wok until its 375oF. Add the samosas into the oil (2-3 at a time). Phyllo dough is very thin so they will take less than 1 minute on each side. Remove when brown.
9) Leave samosas to drain on paper towels

Tip: Serve with chopped mint, coriander, fish sauce, lemon juice and yogurt.
Tip2: Phyllo dough is very fragile so cover with dampened paper towel on dough not being used while rolling samosas (prevents drying out)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

indian inspiration

Recently, I invested in an Indian recipe book after perusing the International recipebook aisles of Barnes and Nobles. After looking through several, I picked up Meena Pathak's Complete Indian Cooking. Since I only know a few Indian recipes, I wanted a book with pictures that I can strive to make my own food look like. Pictures are a must!

Here are a couple of dishes I attempted to make with twists of my own. Most of the time recipe books serve as a springboard for inspiration. I try to make my weekly dishes interesting, adventurous for myself and the people eating them. I rarely follow a recipe step by step. I get the "gist" and I go from there. I'm hoping I can try all the recipes in the Indian recipe book so it becomes 2nd nature to me.

For lactose intolerant people, coconut milk is a great cream/yogurt/milk substitute in most of these dishes. It gives the creamy texture you are looking for minus the "eww" factor that comes with dairy products.

Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Peas


Indian Coconut Chicken


Chicken in Tomato and Onion Sauce


Spicy Indian Meatballs (Beef not Lamb =P)


Samosas with a Cilantro/Mint Yogurt


Chapati (Indian Flatbread)