Mystery Produce Episode 8 - Banana Flower

Yesterday we checked out the mega supermarket at a new mall nearby.  In the produce section (which includes Western fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary, basil, yay!) I saw a pile of big, purple, conical, husky things.  So obviously I bought one.  It's a banana flower.  Peel away the husks and little banana fetus tubes and eventually you get to the pale yellow, edible part.  It's apparently a pretty common vegetable in Asia.

I made a little salad, inspired by this recipe (and cute write-up on banana flowers).  I should have discarded another layer or two of the leaves.  Our salad was a tad bitter, but still pretty tasty.  Hard to go wrong with lime juice, fruit jam, soy sauce, chili powder, ginger/garlic paste and cilantro tossed with Chinese fake meat, topped with fried shallots and roasted peanuts.

Weekend at Sula Vineyards

 

We spent a lovely weekend at Sula Vineyard's Beyond Resort.   We didn't travel more than a few kilometres from the vineyard or a few feet from the booze, so there aren't many pictures.  It was darn picturesque though, as you can see.  The room was very comfortable.  I was pleased with the food too (all meals are included).  I didn't try any of the continental fare, but the Indian offerings were tasty without being heavy.

The Nashik Valley is littered with vineyards and wineries.  We did a tasting at Sula, but are already very familiar with their wines.  Wine pickings in India are pretty slim and Sula is a widely available, palatable choice.  I've been drinking a lot of Sula.   We also visited York's tasting room.  York's wines were a little more distinctive, a welcome departure and lately my go-to wine.  We especially liked their late harvest chenin blanc.

Makin' Korean food in India

That tinda pickle was part of my effort to make an Indian inspired bi bim bap (or bi bim bap inspired Indian food, I'm not sure which).  Bi bim bap is in my mind the quintessential Korean dish: several different preparations of vegetables and ground beef and rice and raw egg and delicious chilli sauce.

Ours of course has no ground beef, as Bo is vegetarian.  Shama had made some soya ball curry,  but I don't like soya balls.  I like the crumbled granules okay, if cooked with enough soy sauce, cumin, garlic, onion - basically flavor and salt.  The way she makes them they taste like waterlogged, grainy sponges.  (I'll cover all of this in another instalment of  Mystery Produce.)  So I wanted to repurpose her curry.  I chopped it up, cooked it with garlic, onion, cumin powder, garam masala, coriander powder, soy sauce and ketchup.  Ours is topped with a fried egg and an attempt at chilli sauce.  I would go with cock sauce or a Korean chilli sauce, if you can.  I made ours with ginger garlic paste, sesame oil, chilli powder, little soy sauce and vinegar.

Here it is without the egg.  I'll describe the veggie vignettes starting at the top and working clockwise.  First we have simply carrot matchsticks (poorly crafted, I am no Masterchef).  Next time I will pickle these in some fashion.  Now sesame scallions.  These are just inch long pieces of scallion marinated with a little salt, garlic, sesame oil and seeds.  Next is plain chopped tomato.  Then our beef replacement.  Followed by our tinda pickle.  The potatoes were particularly good.  These were sliced as you see and simmered gently in some water with a ton of soy sauce and turmeric powder.  Delicious.  And finally long beans sauteed with a little ginger and garlic.

Mystery Produce Episode 7 - Tinda

I've been wanting to do another Mystery Produce installment.  It's one of my favorite things.  And there are some good candidates in my cabinet as we speak, but I've thrown away the packaging!  Or I could do one on Indian "cheese", but I can't bring myself to buy any more of it.  Maybe I'll try to sneak a picture of the cheese section at the grocery store, even though it is explicitly prohibited.  So today I just bought something I'd never seen before and hoped would fit into my dinner plan.  I bought tinda.

Tinda, or Indian round gourd, is exactly that: a little green, round, white fleshed gourd, complete with pumpkin sized seeds.  I licked it raw (it's not usually eaten raw), but am struggling to describe it.  For our dinner tonight I am pickling it.  A quick, more Korean or Japanese style pickle with sugar, salt, garlic, green chili, and vinegar.  There are quick pickles in Indian cuisine too, but they are usually soured with lime juice or tamarind.

Boaz describes the result as having the texture of a raw cucumber, but a flavor closer to an unripe pear (or something like that).  It came out pretty well.  I left the skin on for appearance's sake, but next time I'd peel it.

(See the dinner this was for here.)

Amateur Hour

Boaz (from the living room):  Are you gagging?
Me (in the kitchen):  Yes.
Boaz:  That is so awesome.

Let's just say the sour dough starter didn't go well.

Mystery Produce Episode 6 - Spices

I am making some of my own masalas, so I went to a little street vendor and bought a sort  of ludicrous amount of spices.  They were so eager to garner my repeat business, they gave me a little handful of almost every spice they carry for free.  Most of them are familiar to me at this point, but I had never seen turmeric and hing in their whole forms.

 

 Trying to start with the big yellow lumps at the top and working clockwise:  turmeric rhizome or rootstock; just under that is mace; next is a chunk of hing, which I had only seen in a yellowish powder form; a mix of white poppy seeds, coriander seeds, sesame seeds, whole peppercorns, cloves, green and black cardamom, and god knows what else; star anise; dagad phool, literally stone flower, a lichen common in Maharashtrian cuisine; cassia, which is like cinnamon; tejpata, patta meaning leaf, this is an Indian bay leaf.

The dagad phool has a mild, familiar aroma.  Who knew we've probably been eating moss for months.  The turmeric rhizome and hing are like rock hard.  I'm at a loss as to what to do with them.  Maybe I should have brought my microplane.

Mystery Produce Episode 5 - Chickoo

Chickoo!  Chickoo, chickoo, chickoo.  I just love saying chickoo.  This was certainly a new fruit to me.  I chopped it up with some mango and put it in a custard.  I can't say it's my favorite, but I would eat it again.  I like some tang to my fruit, which chickoo is not.  Nor is it cloyingly sweet.  The texture is almost grainy, like a pear.  I think in smells oddly like the fenny Boaz's coworkers brought back from Goa.

Mystery Produce Episode 4 - Torai

Today we cooked with Torai or ridge gourd or, much to my surprise, luffa!

 

Upon seeing our creation, I had what is now a totally foreign experience for me - an inexplicable aversion to trying this new food.

 

It doesn't look all that different from other food I eat, it smells good, I generally relish trying new foods.  Nevertheless, I didn't really want to eat it.  And when I did, I didn't really like it.  It's not bad, but it has all the qualities I dislike about overcooked zuchini (that's overcooked by my definition and not necessarily anybody else's).  Fortunately Boaz likes it.

Mystery Produce Episode 3 - Bottle Gourd

Shama has been giving me some cooking lessons.  Today we made the dish she served when I visited her home, white pumpkin dal.  It's good that she is doing the shopping for these sessions, because I never would have guessed that this was 'white pumpkin'.

 

 The flesh is indeed bright white and makes about the tastiest dal I've had so far.  (I'm not exactly a fan of dal.)

Miscellany

Boaz has recovered.  I thought I had escaped the infection and celebrated appropriately with a bottle of wine on Sunday.  Now I'm starting to feel crappy.  I've also been terrible about remembering to take pictures while wandering Pune, but I'll throw a few out to you while I spend some time resting.

Speaking of wine:  Alcohol is pretty expensive here.  The cheapest wines I can find are still over $5.  I've found a couple in that range that I like.  You can easily spend $30 on a domestic bottle of wine that is about on par with a $5 bottle at home.  I haven't found any reds I really like yet.  That's always a little trickier.  This system won't scale, but for the moment I take pictures of bottles I like or hate.

Sprouts! Part 2

Oops!  I didn't get a picture of it, but the methi (fenugreek) sprouts came out well.  I made the tempered spice salad thing and added some cilantro.  It was a little bitter, but tasty.  The moong dal and chowli sprouts are looking great.  We'll start eating them tomorrow.  I thought the chickpea sprouts would be the easiest, but so far only the ones on top are starting to grow.  We shall see.

Sprouts! Part 1

I'm really enjoying fenugreek here.  Fresh, dried, seeds, powdered.  I never used it at home for some reason.  I came across this recipe for warm sprouted fenugreek seeds.  I may be embarking on a new obsession to join the spice collection.  Salads made with all kinds of sprouts should be delightful in summer.

 

It's pretty obvious when you think about it, but you can sprout almost anything.  Speaks to how removed we really are from the production of our food.  Upon realizing this, I had to resist the urge to start sprouting anything in my cabinet I thought might work; whole peanuts, mustard seeds, ajwain, cumin, fennel seeds, various lentils.

I'm starting (from left to right) with fenugreek seeds, chickpeas, red chowli, moong dal.   After soaking over night, I'll put the beans into those water bottles.  I've sawed off the tops and cut holes in the bottom for excess water to drain.  The seeds I'll do in a wet tea towel since they are so small.

Snacks

You may recall from my Making Chapati entry that a meal must include rice or chapati.  Well, here it is in print.

 

Even if it comes with fries and salad, a sandwich is merely a snack.

Mystery Produce Episode 2 - Sharbat

Disclaimer:  This episode does not in fact contain any produce whatsoever.  Mystery Produce was not the most accurate choice of name, but it sounds better than Unfamiliar Foodstuffs I've Been Buying Randomly Since Arriving in India.  One of my first such purchases was Rooh Afza, an Indian Sharbat.  Boaz figured it for a rose syrup.  It also features several other ingredients. 

Serendipitously, in my quest to buy all the spices D-Mart carries I picked up some sabja, or basil seeds.  Shama was here as I was putting away my purchases and asked about them.  She showed me that when soaked in water, sabja turns into little gelatinous balls.  Plans for supplies to be acquired and delicious drinks to be created upon her return Wednesday ensued.  Then I remembered the Sharbat!  So we combined both of these with milk and made a delightful little drink on the spot.

Mystery Produce Episode 1 - Bitter Gourd

Occasionally I see produce I don't recognize or at least have never cooked with. Today I picked up some Karela, aka bitter gourd, bitter melon, etc.

Isn't it pretty all cut up? It smells like crushed dandelions.  It is often salted and rinsed before cooking to remove some of the bitter juices, like eggplant. Or stuffed, which sounds interesting.

For dinner I planned saute it with lots of garlic, onion, tamarind pulp, coriander seeds, turmeric and chili powders.  They are not kidding about the 'bitter' part.  I kept adding that tamarind, sugar, water, salt and cooking the heck out of it.

Served with chapati, packet dal (Yes, I am lazy. It is also surprisingly tasty.) and a green salad. Not to be confused with a leafy side salad back home: in India a 'green salad' is composed of various sliced fresh veggies, usually accompanied by cilantro and lime. Yum! We're pretty reckless and eat these at restaurants a lot too.

Making chapati

Boaz's coworkers do not believe something constitutes a meal unless it includes rice or chapati.  Samosas?  A snack.  Pizza?  A snack.  Fettuccine alfredo?  Also not a meal apparently.  The western style bread here is pretty terrible.  And we love bread.  So I have to make lots of chapati.  I don't mind.  Today I am going to experiment with making and rolling a bunch of dough to cook up as needed later.  Wish me luck!

(Siera's version of a) recipe and pictures after the jump.

Squisito

We had dinner recently at Squisito, one of few restaurants here with Mexican food. It's an iffy proposition in India. Boaz has tried several other Mexican restaurants and wishes to return to none. The hotel in Magarpatta City had nachos on the room service menu. They were on the 'Do Not Order' list. It's kind of like somebody told them about Mexican food, but they haven't actually tasted it.

I think part of the problem is that they don't make the right kinds of cheese here. Squisito's nachos were drenched in gas station style cheese sauce, only redeemed by the delicious salsa.

The tacos were good. Boaz was impressed with the quality of the corn chips and tortillas. He found it perplexing that a country with myriad fried foods would struggle so much with this element, but his previous experiences were limp. Everything at Squisito was delightfully crunchy.

They also have an Italian menu, a common marriage here. I was impressed with the wine service, given that wine connoisseurship is only an emerging thing in India. They offered a taste, promptly refilled my glass only when it was down to less than 25% and never over-poured. American restaurants foul this up all the time.

Spices!

I am totally excited about the variety of quality, inexpensive spices available. Every time I go to D-Mart I get more. I fully intend to buy every single spice they stock. Probably not all of the masala mixes, though this picture does include dosa and sambhar mix.

So far most of the spices are pretty familiar. I picked up some Jaipatri (Mace), the dried lacy reddish stuff covering nutmeg seeds. I'd heard of it, but had no practical knowledge of it. It indeed smells just like nutmeg, but is milder I guess? I was surprised to find they don't seem to carry the usual green cardamom pods. I did find Elaichi (black cardamom). It smells like campfires.

First of many a cooking experiment

I haven't been here long enough to miss food from home, but I think Boaz mentioned wanting for decent pasta. So for the second time in about 7 years I am making pasta from scratch. There is dried, shaped pasta available at the store, but not any brands I recognize. And what's the fun in that anyway?


I guessed at 600g, which wasn't too hard since I knew that I had 2kg of flour. The well I made however would not accommodate the 6 eggs called for in my recipe.

A tour of our Indian kitchen

We have a pretty big kitchen here, which is stocked with all the basics now. Here is a view from the entryway. You can see the fridge, counter top stove and laundry area beyond.


We got a pretty inexpensive non-self-starting, 2 burner stove. I'd conceived of these as glorified camping stoves, but the burners are as capable and even as any I've used in the states. Yesterday we had the 30L gas tank installed. Anil said to turn the gas off at the source if we would be gone for say two weeks, leaving it on the rest of the time. I turn it off whenever I am not cooking. We don't have smoke detectors or anything.


Here's a view of the rest of the kitchen. Ovens are pretty uncommon, though not unavailable. It would be fine now, but I'm sure in summer I won't want such a thing around. So I've embraced the microwave, which managed to produce some surprisingly acceptable, humble meals over the last couple of days. And of course a rice cooker. As you can see, there is plenty of cabinet space.


I may have spoken a bit about the Geysers in an earlier entry. There isn't a central water heater for the whole house, as there would be in the states. Each bathroom has its own heater with a pretty small capacity, but it gets surprisingly (like the fires of hell) hot, if you leave it on long enough. The kitchen also has a small in-line water heater that comes out its own tap. I mostly just use cold water to avoid the burning.

We are still looking into bottled water delivery and in-house filtration. Since I've been going to D-mart nearly everyday anyway to slowly accumulate food staples and kitchen supplies (salt, sugar, rice, pots and pans, tupperware, towels, tea, spices, etc.), I just get a few bottles of water at the same time.