A Growing Repertoire of Indian Recipes

Verne and I had an opportunity this past weekend to show off our skills at preparing Indian food and, if you can believe Jana and her friend, Bashir, our dinner was delicious and quite authentic! Our first attempt to make naan last month was less than successful. Since then, our friend, Sally Simms, forwarded an article on making naan that was published in Cook's Illustrated. Few home cooks own a Tandoor oven and we're no exception. To cook properly, naan needs both direct radiant heat and convection cooking. Before reading the Cook's article, I'd worked my way through each of the failed alternatives discussed in the article...oven, outdoor grill, stovetop griddle. The winning approach, which I tried this past weekend with great success, is to butter both sides of the naan (using ghee, which is a clarified butter), and cook the flatbread in a very hot, cast-iron pan (I used my new Thermolon non-stick pan) about 1-2 minutes per side with the lid on the pan. Perfection!

Now naan alone is very good, but it is made even better by eating it with the traditional green and red chutneys. That brings me to our second success...Sweet and Hot Tomato Chutney from my new favorite (and only) book on Indian cuisine ("India Food & Cooking"). It took a trip to an Indian market for nigella (wild onion) seeds, but other than that our pantry was well stocked to make it...fresh tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, garlic, bay leaves, and chili powder. After cooking for more than an hour, it reduces to a thick, tasty chutney that pairs well with the more savory coriander/mint/chile chutney (I cheated and bought one that was very good...next time I'll experiment with making my own).

Indian cooking reminds me of our attempts to make Chinese food at home...literally hours of preparation, half-hour of eating, and hours of clean-up! Authentic Indian recipes are even more complex and labor intensive. Preparing a meal with multiple dishes/courses requires hours (in some cases, days) of preparation. But then, it's time well spent when the eaters respond enthusiastically, "Good Eats"!