Food questions

[icepixie]

Apparently my local Kroger has turned into Import Central, particularly for European countries. This is AWESOME. McVitie's biscuits! Blackcurrant jam! Malteasers! About twenty different varieties of black and flavored black tea! Interesting herbal teas from Caribbean countries! German mustard and Swiss chocolate! Thai noodles! Indian curries!

This last one brings up a question. The only Indian food I've ever had that I can remember is korma--once at fair, and last week out of a jar.* I've liked what I've had so far, but don't really know where to go from there. Does anyone have any favorites to suggest? (I know making from scratch would probably make anything taste better, but let's be honest--I'm not even all that great with stuff where I know what the end product is supposed to taste like. I'm gonna go with the jars and cans at least until I figure out what I like.) There were lots of jars with interesting names full of interesting-looking sauces and chutneys, as well as things like naan bread mix and cannisters of poppadums (sp?). I like food with a lot of flavor--if it's bland, I will undoubtedly douse it with salt, pepper, garlic, and/or sugar. What should I try?

(I got a jar of tikka masala sauce today that I plan on trying later this month. The description sounded good, and I remember hearing the name when I was in the UK...)


* I know, I know--I lived in England for nine months and completely missed out on Indian food. I don't know how that happened. It wasn't intentional.

Comments

[tarzanic.livejournal.com]

(Am on page nine of my paper and am currently revising. Hoping to pull another half page to page out of it, but am not terribly worried at this point, since the max is ten pages.)

Ooooooooh, yum, imports! :D Naan and poppadums are very tasty. Btw, poppadums used to be on Farscape all the time, so it makes me giggle a bit to see them at the grocery store.

RasaMalaysia.com is my current fun go-to site for recipes. It has an Indian section: http://rasamalaysia.com/recipes/indian-recipes/ You can also just check out the entire recipe index http://rasamalaysia.com/rasa-malaysia-recipe-index/ which lists everything by main ingredient. The author gives some good suggestions for curry pastes and such.

I don't have favorite recipes at the moment, but I also really like chicken saag and samosas (http://www.samosa-recipe.com/).

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Have you had store-bought pappadums, though? Are they the same? (I bought some at Whole Foods that were sold in the chip aisle and packaged in that way, and was mightily disappointed, which is why I ask.) Seems to me she needs to go to a good restaurant to scope things out before trying the processed/preserved stuff she can get at a supermarket.

And mmmmmmmsamosas...quite possibly the world's most perfect food!

[tarzanic.livejournal.com]

The only store-bought ones I've had were in Australia and I didn't buy them, so I'm not really sure. Since store-bought naan doesn't stack up too well sometimes, yeah, I get what you mean. A restaurant would be the best bet -- prices shouldn't be too bad if you have leftovers and make two meals out of it -- but I've had some luck with packaged sauces. English imported might be a good idea.

Samosas are so delicious! If you're willing to cheat on the dough, they can be made pretty easily at home too.

[icepixie]

Btw, poppadums used to be on Farscape all the time, so it makes me giggle a bit to see them at the grocery store.

They were? As food cubes or something?

I have heard samosas are wonderful, but the recipe looks like more work than I'm willing to put in.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Honestly? Go to a restaurant. You'll get a much better idea of what's what, how it should taste, etc. The jarred stuff isn't necessarily bad, but it's probably totally overloaded with socium, and may not really be authentic thanks as much to the process of, well, being processed as anything else. Going to a restaurant (a lot of Indian places have buffets where you can try lots of stuff) is a much better guide than either a jarred sauce or your friends who may not have the same taste as you do.

That said, my personal restaurant favorites are Malai Kofta, Palak Paneer, and Navratan Korma. The only one of those you can buy in a jar is korma, and you'd need to add your own veg/meat. You couldn't pay me to buy Palak Paneer in a heat-and-serve pouch, having had it once and found the texture of the "spinach" (it really bore no resemblance to spinace, aside from the color) utterly revolting, so as I say...tread lightly with the prepared grocery stuff.

[icepixie]

Honestly? Go to a restaurant. You'll get a much better idea of what's what, how it should taste, etc.

Hmmm. I think we have an Indian restaurant in town. Maybe. I'll have to check.

The jarred korma was pretty good; I'd get it again, anyway. But I have pretty low standards for authenticity.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Seriously, visit the restaurant during a buffet. Do it a couple times. Take some friends. You'll get more out of that, and have more fun, too. (And better samosas. I have yet to find decent samosas outside an Indian restaurant...)

[icepixie]

Take some friends.

Well. That would require making some friends out here first, but advice noted! (Perhaps I'll go and bring a book.) Apparently we do have one Indian restaurant here, and it has a buffet.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Books are good. Especially if it means that you get to the buffet. ;-)

[chickwithmonkey.livejournal.com]

I like the orange and yellow stuff. I don't know what it is, but that's what I eat. I avoid brown and green. Have fun!

[icepixie]

I like the simplicity of this advice! :D

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

MALTESERS!!!! OMG SO JELLUS!!!1!

Ahem. As far as Indian goes, I am strongly anti-curry, and therefore tend to avoid, er, that whole subcontinent. But good for you for being adventurous!

[icepixie]

MALTESERS!!!! OMG SO JELLUS!!!1!

Do you have Kroger up there? Maybe it's a new thing the entire chain is doing!

As far as Indian goes, I am strongly anti-curry

Was this why we never got Indian food when we were gallivanting around Britain? (Do you have something against the spiciness or the coconuttiness or the cilantro? 'Cause you can get different flavors that eliminate one or all of them...)

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

Do you have Kroger up there?

Sadly, I don't believe so. There's an import store that sells Maltesers, but the markup is insanely high, so I feel silly for buying them there more than once in a blue moon.

Was this why we never got Indian food when we were gallivanting around Britain?

Uh, that's why *I* never got Indian food in Britain, don't know about y'all. I can't even identify exactly what is wrong with curry, except that the overall smell strongly resembles "unwashed hobo on the bus," and just a whiff of it makes me gag. Maybe there's good-smelling Indian food out there, but I have yet to find it. Good luck!

[icepixie]

Sadly, I don't believe so. There's an import store that sells Maltesers, but the markup is insanely high

Awww. Too bad. There's a markup on these, but at $1.60 a package, it's not as horrible as it could be. I don't actually find them that much better than Whoppers, so I have no big plans for these, but I'm hoping for imports of candies that I actually do like better than their American counterparts.

I can't even identify exactly what is wrong with curry, except that the overall smell strongly resembles "unwashed hobo on the bus," and just a whiff of it makes me gag.

Huh. That...is not my impression at all. Have you tried korma? It tastes of coconut and cilantro, mainly.

[thiswaltz.livejournal.com]

yay import foods! although I probably would have been better off without an Arnots habbit.

Tikka masala is often lovely. And korma. I personally don't have mcuh of a taste for storebought indian food, although some of the sauses are good for bases of your own curries. There's some reasonably good premade naan you can get though.

mainly I like going to restaurants - good Indian food is a *lot* of work and it can be hard to get all the right ingrediants. Palak paneer is great (Paneer is a soft cheese) and aloo gobi (lightly curried cauliflower & onions) and eggplant biryani, pakora (veggie and chickpea flour batter croquettes)... it's a genre of food that's good for veggers. I highly reccomend.

[icepixie]

yay import foods! although I probably would have been better off without an Arnots habbit.

If we had Tim Tams around, I would be in serious trouble.

Oooh, pakora sound yummy.

[asinpterodactyl.livejournal.com]

Everyone who says "go to a restaurant" is right. It's the only way to get Indian food that tastes the way it should. But the store-bought stuff is pretty good too -- it may not be perfect, but it's worth a few bucks.

Me, I like anything with paneer in it. (It's a soft cheese, kind of like ricotta).

[icepixie]

Advice noted!

[babylil.livejournal.com]

They're selling jars of curry sauce, right? If it's the Sharwoods ones, get the saag masala. It's seriously the best curry sauce from a jar I've ever tasted.

[icepixie]

This is a brand called Patak's. It may not actually be an import; it was near the other imports, though, and I'd never seen it before they remodeled with the imports, so I was just assuming. I'll look next time to see if there are other brands.

[babylil.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, we do get Patak's in this country, though I've no idea which country it originates from. I haven't tried it though, so can't really give a recommendation on flavours.