More on Food.......

Our hosts continue to feed us like royalty. They insist all of the food they are teaching us how to prepare is just their every day fare. For us it’s all so exotic and different. The spices and odd vegetables are just outstanding! Here is a great example of odd vegetables.

Kara Curry – made with Littlegourd, it looks like a very small cucumber but has an inside like a jalapeño but isn’t hot. It is sliced thin and stir-fried with curry spices and chilis. Very simple and delicious.

Vetha Kozhambu with Drumstick – This is a Sambar using a tamarind base (see earlier post on Sambar). The Drumstick vegetable is used in this one. A very long thin green twig type thing. It is chopped into 3 inch pieces and boiled in the sambar with spices. It becomes quite soft in the center so you can suck the fruit out of the twig when it is done. It has a sweet taste that is fabulous with the tamarind and chilis in the sambar. See photo above of Littlegourd and Drumstick. These dishes are served with rice and a drop of Jaggery, sugar that is boiled into a paste, kind of like palm sugar, and chappathi, of course. YUM!

soaking the tamarind

preparing the sambar spices

from left- yogurt, vk w/ drumstick, rice, kara curry, asst. sprout salad

Now, in case that wasn’t enough for you…….

Can you say Mutton Biryani? This is one of Shrikants specialties, so he was the one doing the magic for this meal. This dish is just a big pot of LOVE. The method is as follows:

Marinade cubed mutton or lamb in yogurt, ginger, garlic, lemon, cinnamon, turmeric, chili powder and salt. Let sit for about an hour. Sauté onions and chopped tomato in more spices. Add that to meat marinade and biryani masala. Simmer to reduce the curry. In a separate skillet stir fry red onions, fresh pineapple, cashews and raisins.

Make some basmati rice and add ghee, saffron and a bay leaf.

Layer into a covered cooking dish – rice, red onion/pineapple stir-fry, meat curry and repeat. Serve with a yogurt/cucumber/chili/red onion and coriander mixture. And, of course, chappathi.

Dessert- Kaju Katli. A ground cashew sweet wrapped in a thin silver foil. :o)