Sunday, March 19, 2006

Cooking with the Husband

Sunday, glorious Sunday.

There's nothing like coming home from a long day at work to some yummy, home made Indian food.

So Nanu and I decided to do some heavy duty cooking this Sunday afternoon, since we figure we'll be too busy and tired to cook during the frenetic work week ahead.

After some discussion on what we wanted to make, we rolled up our sleeves and got right down to it.

Soon our small kitchen resembled a war zone with vessels competing for space on the limited counter top.

We used our wonderful Black & Decker food processor to slice, grate, chop and grind a whole bunch of ingredients ranging from ginger, garlic, green chillies, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, spinach, aubergines and Indian spices.

The B&D food processor has to be the best kitchen gadget we've ever bought. The abuse we've put it through every second day on the pretext of cooking Indian food is not funny. (The thing even rolls dough beautifully, much to our surprise).

At a powerful 500 watts, it does a marvellous job of cutting down on cooking time and conserving our energy.

Having decided to make a mish-mash of South Indian and North Indian food - since we enjoy both equally - we started cooking. After about two hours in the kitchen, this is what we ended up with:
  • Aloo Pyaaz ki Subji (Spicy Potatoes with Spring Onions)


  • Murungakkai Sambar (South Indian lentil gravy made with ground coconut, spices and boiled drumsticks)


  • Aloo Palak (A healthy spinach and herb based gravy with boiled potato cubes)
  • Channa Masala (Chick Peas in spicy onion, garlic and tomato gravy)

  • Baingan Bharta (Flame roasted and mashed Aubergines mixed with spicy onions, garlic, tomatoes and coriander leaves)

After cooking all that and lots of rice to go with it, we sat back and enjoyed a hearty meal! Looks like we have enough to last us most of the week. Anyone want to join me for dinner? :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will!

I wish I was brave enough to try making Indian food from basic ingredients. I have bought some packaged foods though at a local Indian grocery store and have been taking as lunches. I guess what stops me from trying is when I don't know how it's supposed to turn out, how do I know if I did it right? Often I cook very flexibly because I can tell when somethings not turning out the way it should.

I'll take Channa Masala for my lunch tomorrow, though. :-)

PJ said...

Brian, often you know its turned out right when you like how it tastes!
Abby, you are an Indian cooking Queen indeed! :)
Shree, the recipe for Baingan Bharta can be found here

Anonymous said...

Yipes, I had to stop myself from getting right in the car and driving to Carbondale. The food (and the prep event) look AWESOME! :)

PJ said...

Thanks Elizabeth. You need to get into that car amd drive down here. Its been ages since I saw you.

Thanks George for visiting my site and commenting. Yeah cooking is fun especially when its done with someone else - friend or spouse.
Please note that normally no one eats all that food in a single day - as in they are all separate dishes to be had for lunches and dinners with rice or rotis. So thats not really a proper menu - just what we made to last us for the week.

Anonymous said...

Sooper yumm... it reminds me so much of all the good times we had in Bloomington. I still have your recipe for the spicy noodles :)