Saturday, September 11, 2010

India in Milwaukee

So last month CP and her man JP came over for dinner for CP's birthday and we decided we celebrate with a home-cooked Indian dinner. So we raided the grocery stores and got all the ingredients to make vindaloo, naan, mango lassis, cilantro chutney, cucumber salad with yoghurt dressing, and basmati rice. OMFG, the dinner was beyond awesome! all the food tasted fantastic, which it should have after the way we slaved over the stove... well not really slaved. We actually totally enjoyed the evening making dinner and drinking Malibu with mango lemonade on the rocks (which, my friends, is a truly delicious drink and makes cooking even more enjoyable). So we couldn't get our hands on any lamb or goat that day for the vindaloo so we used beef instead. Totally perfect substitution. And instead of grounding all our spices manually, we just bought the pre-grounded spice mix.  Umm yes, just because we used pre-ground spices the meal is still considered homemade, And why not? We cut all the veggies, the meat, cooked the sauce, cooked the dish.


We even made our own naan bread. That's right, we baked bread! It really wasn't that we baked it, because actually we grilled it on the grill pan. Basically it was water, yeast, white flour, sugar, salt. Following the standard rules of making bread, we let the dough rise and then divided it into small balls, flattened them out with our hands, brushed oil over them, and then threw them on the grill. 



So what do you serve with Indian food? Umm no, its not ketchup. Eww! So we made some cilantro chutney. Basically all we did was dump a lot of cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic, and a little bit of cumin, tumeric, and chili into a blender and let it whirl and whirl and whirl until you've got a sauce :o) Ahh, isn't Indian food just so easy? So yeah, that was CP's birthday dinner. After that we made a stop @ Kafevino for some red wine... some yummy Australian red wine. I think it was a 10 point birthday dinner. Sorry I don't have the recipes typed up step by step, but honestly, there are so many variations to these recipes I suggest just google a basic recipe and just putting your own twist to them. If you don't like spicy then don't use green chili. If you prefer chicken instead of beef, or lamb instead of goat, or maybe fish or tofu, go for it. Just be creative and bon appetit. 

2 comments:

petite nyonya said...

Haha..what an entertaining post! I love Indian food! Everythg on your dinner table looks delicious.

lulu said...

Thank you very much. I have some lamb ravioli that'll be going up soon.