For our weekend of cooking, we picked six recipes from this book:
When making Indian dishes, we often just wing it, but I've had this book for ages, and hadn't made anything from it, so we figured it was about time we put it to the test.
On Saturday we made lamb daniwal qorma (lamb in coriander sauce), chukandar ki subzi (beet curry), and methi ki roti (fenugreek bread):
Unfortunately we were not impressed with these recipes, and kept doubting/ questioning them as we were making them, because they seemed to have bizarre measurements, were too simple, and lacked the depth of flavour that we love in Indian food. The bread was a breeze to make, but was very, very bland. The recipe for the beets was completely wack. We had to cook them way longer than stated (about double the time), and they were still under-cooked, and also bland. The lamb was the best part, but still wasn't great. It was much better two days later for our lunches, although not good enough to make ever again.
We thought about adjusting the measurements as we were cooking, and also adding our own seasonings, but we wanted to know if the book was worth keeping, so we decided to do everything as instructed.
On Sunday we cooked rasedar baigan (curried eggplant in coconut sauce), palak paneer (paneer cheese with spinach), and methi ke chawal (fenugreek rice):
Don't mind the palak panner; it looks absolutely hideous, and didn't taste much better.
Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it was very boring, under-spiced, and just okay.
The eggplant was boring. You couldn't tell there was coconut milk in it, and it was under-spiced as well. The eggplant and paneer dishes lacked the sauciness we were hoping for. Fortunately the rice was well-seasoned and flavourful. All of the dishes were measurably better a day later, but none were worthy of a remake. Now, this book does have over 1000 recipes, and we only tried six of them, but we both agreed they seemed untested, and were poorly written.
If we use an Indian cookbook in the future, we'll be sticking to this one, which we highly recommend.
For dessert we had a true Indian delight - Saskatoon berry crumble ;-)
Christopher and I can't share a bowl of crumble, because I always do something very, very bad. I dig around and sheepishly take the bites with all the crumb topping, pretending I don't know what I am doing.
Because the crumble is the best part, I now put two layers of crumble. I did a layer of butterscotch shortbread crumbs first:
And then the traditional oatmeal-based crumbs:
Mmmm, Saskatoon berries are so good, and with a little ice-cream in there, it's a perfect dessert.
Do you like Indian food? Do you cook it at home? Where is your favourite place to go out for Indian food?
3 comments:
That berry crumble looks AMAZING! Do you have the recipe for that? I would love to make it!!
That is too bad about the Indian dishes not working out. Every time I have tried to make indian food at home it has not turned out, so I've given up!
@ Amber - sure! I'll post something soon :-)
That is a bummer that the recipes you used were a bust. :( I will have to check out the other indian cookbook you mentioned, though, as we love Indian food! That crumble looks AMAZING, though, so I'm looking forward to you sharing the recipe for it!
Post a Comment