Kitchen diary, 19/06/13
Jun. 19th, 2013 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceProbably one way or another everything we note, everything that comes to our attention is a coincidence, one way or another. Like this:
On Monday I was feeding half a dozen people - "the yogi", hereafter - and Jeannie had sent me a recipe for whole tandoori cauliflower, so I was cooking Indian. I made a beef pilao which I was really pleased with (I have decided to stop being nervous about baked-rice dishes, although I do hate not having the perfect moment of the rice's doneness under my immediate control*), and a creamy buttery urad dal which I just plain adored (and everybody else ate entirely, so), and the cauliflower.
Which I thought it could have used another ten minutes' roasting, but hey. It was nice regardless. And there was about half of it left; and I wasn't quite sure what to do with half a tandoori cauliflower, but so happens that our friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aberwyn had sent me a boxful of cookery books she no longer wanted; and one of those is "Classic Indian Cooking" by Julie Sahni, and I was flicking through that and lo: among the breads-and-pastries was a recipe for stuffed paratha, requiring cauliflower.
And it so happens that my old house in Newcastle was just around the corner from my favourite Indian restaurant, the Komal - which caters mostly for students, and although it's working its way upmarket it started as very cheap-and-cheerful with shared tables and formica and so forth, and it still has that kind of feel about it - no liquor licence, eg, you bring your own and every waiter carries a corkscrew. So you wouldn't expect it to attract national notice, is what I'm saying - but as it happens, it is widely regarded as having the best stuffed parathas in England.
So there we are with the coincidence, cauliflower plus recipe plus standard; and Dave and Katherine were going to be here for lunch, so.
I've owned food processors for, oh, thirty years or so; and this was the first time ever that I've used a grating disk. I grated down that cauliflower, and spiced it up; and mixed and kneaded the dough (and Indian kneading-technique is weird, compared to the Western tradition I know) and stuffed and bakey-fried my parathas, and y'know what?
They are not as good as the Komal's. Not by a distance.
Yes, it is true: in my first attempt, I have failed to reach my established standard. Internet, I am disappoint.
People did eat them, which was very sweet, but meh. Filling was fine, I just wasn't impressed with the actual bread. Karen suggests that I may need to practise some.
I do still love my lemon-and-lime pickle, though. That would be a keeper, except that it's vanishing more every time I bring out the jar.
And dinner tonight is still a mystery. I've no idea.
*This is why I don't have a rice cooker, and I don't cook rice by the absorption method. I've seen too many friends go from "It always comes out perfect!" to "I don't understand why it hasn't worked, it always works!" in the span of half an hour.
On Monday I was feeding half a dozen people - "the yogi", hereafter - and Jeannie had sent me a recipe for whole tandoori cauliflower, so I was cooking Indian. I made a beef pilao which I was really pleased with (I have decided to stop being nervous about baked-rice dishes, although I do hate not having the perfect moment of the rice's doneness under my immediate control*), and a creamy buttery urad dal which I just plain adored (and everybody else ate entirely, so), and the cauliflower.
Which I thought it could have used another ten minutes' roasting, but hey. It was nice regardless. And there was about half of it left; and I wasn't quite sure what to do with half a tandoori cauliflower, but so happens that our friend
aberwyn had sent me a boxful of cookery books she no longer wanted; and one of those is "Classic Indian Cooking" by Julie Sahni, and I was flicking through that and lo: among the breads-and-pastries was a recipe for stuffed paratha, requiring cauliflower. And it so happens that my old house in Newcastle was just around the corner from my favourite Indian restaurant, the Komal - which caters mostly for students, and although it's working its way upmarket it started as very cheap-and-cheerful with shared tables and formica and so forth, and it still has that kind of feel about it - no liquor licence, eg, you bring your own and every waiter carries a corkscrew. So you wouldn't expect it to attract national notice, is what I'm saying - but as it happens, it is widely regarded as having the best stuffed parathas in England.
So there we are with the coincidence, cauliflower plus recipe plus standard; and Dave and Katherine were going to be here for lunch, so.
I've owned food processors for, oh, thirty years or so; and this was the first time ever that I've used a grating disk. I grated down that cauliflower, and spiced it up; and mixed and kneaded the dough (and Indian kneading-technique is weird, compared to the Western tradition I know) and stuffed and bakey-fried my parathas, and y'know what?
They are not as good as the Komal's. Not by a distance.
Yes, it is true: in my first attempt, I have failed to reach my established standard. Internet, I am disappoint.
People did eat them, which was very sweet, but meh. Filling was fine, I just wasn't impressed with the actual bread. Karen suggests that I may need to practise some.
I do still love my lemon-and-lime pickle, though. That would be a keeper, except that it's vanishing more every time I bring out the jar.
And dinner tonight is still a mystery. I've no idea.
*This is why I don't have a rice cooker, and I don't cook rice by the absorption method. I've seen too many friends go from "It always comes out perfect!" to "I don't understand why it hasn't worked, it always works!" in the span of half an hour.