Indian Food Made Easy

The title of this post is another one of my favorite shows on the Cooking Channel. I love all the layers of flavors in Indian Food. Last night we had Lamb with Green Chiles, Bengali-Style Aubergine Cooked in Yogurt, and Naan Bread. The lamb was marinated overnight and consisted of tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, poppy seeds, turmeric, fennel seeds, garam masala, and salt. When you're ready to cook your curry, you always start with a little oil in a pan and saute your spices; in this case Nigella Seeds (black cumin seeds) and Cumin Seeds for about 30 seconds to release their flavor. Then you add the lamb with the marinade and let it cook for about 15 minutes. You add a cup of water, bring to a boil, then cover and let simmer for 35-40 minutes. When the curry is almost done, quickly saute a bunch of jalapenos (in this case 8), which were halved lengthwise in a little bit of oil. Add to the curry for the last 5 minutes or so of cooking. I know 8 jalapenos sounds like a lot, but it actually was pretty mild.

Bengali-Style Aubergine Cooked in Yogurt was the absolute hit of the meal. I started with a Chinese style eggplant cut into rounds. The rounds got a sprinkling of a mixture of turmeric, salt, and ground red chile powder (I bought some red chile powder from the Indian market instead of using our American version; definitely hotter). The seasoned eggplant slices got a quick saute to soften slightly. These are finished in a sauce of gently heated yogurt seasoned with sugar, toasted, ground cumin seeds and salt. The heat from the spices on the eggplant, cooled by the yogurt sauce was extraordinary.

Naan Bread was more of an experiment and not quite successful. It was edible, but not really good. Take some flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, milk, and vegetable oil. Make a dough, knead for about 10 minutes, and set aside, covered, to rise to double its volume for 1 hour. How does a dough without yeast rise? Mine didn't, so I rolled it out and baked it anyway. Like I said, edible, but not very good. Today I'll do my research on Naan.