india

sorry i haven't posted in ages. a combination of simple meals, travel, and bad pictures have conspired to keep me from posting. while "away" i've attempted to get a bit more comfortable with the spices and flavors of the south-asian subcontinent. turns out i had a lot of the necessary spices in my pantry already and only had to add a couple more to the collection (cardamom, garam masala and ghee). in the process i also rediscovered how much i enjoy basmatti rice - by far my favorite rice. it's so fragrant and light, yumm!

so anyway, my foray into "indian" cooking started with a lentil dish i improvised using what seemed to be a good mix of spices (cumin, chili, coriander, pepper and a few others i'm forgetting). a good start but the lentils weren't cooked enough. probably using yellow lentils instead of green lentils would have worked much better. next i prepared a dish entitled Kashmiri Chicken in my indian cookbook. basically chicken and onions simmered in yogurt, cinamon, cardamon, paprika, chili, ginger and garlic. it tasted like a spiced up version of chicken paprikash - so pretty tasty. in the process i realized those little cardamom seeds packs quite a punch. i'm also pretty sure they don't call it kashmiri chicken in karmir, so if anyone has any more info on this dish, please let me know.

the whole point of all this indian cooking is to get ready for our indian turducken in a couple weeks. with that in mind i tested out a stuffing for the birds next. i made some palak paneer, which had the whole house smelling like an indian restaurant thanks to the cumin, coriander, garam masala, tomatoes, onions, spinach, paneer and cream. i used this recipe but also combined elements from this recipe, which was actually quite different.

in order to make it a stuffing, i added some bread and milk to the whole thing before baking it at 375 for an hour. the result was fantastic. the paneer had maintained its consistency despite the long baking time and the stuffing had remained delicously spinachy with a nice crunch on top. pretty sure this one will make it's way into the turducken.