Cooking Indian food recipes?

[piratesmate]

Last night DH & I went out for our 34th anniversary and ate at the new Indian restaurant near us. We both tried different items this time (we'd eaten there for Valentine's Day) and the food was even more outstanding! I asked if their chef's would share their recipes, but no luck...although it's understandable.

DH had Palak Paneer (spinach & cheese) as his entree and Gajar Halwa (carrot 'pudding'?) for dessert. I had Shrimp Biryani with house-made Pistachio ice cream for dessert. We rarely have dessert, even when eating out, but OMG I'm so glad we did last night!! Both things were totally awesome alone, but eaten in combination...well, I think that must have been the best thing I've ever had! LOL

Anyway, I've tried Google for a recipe for Biryani but none seems to come close to what we had last night. This one definitely had more than just raisins in it & I can't say I had any cashews - although it had a hard boiled egg (whole) in it. And I've never had such a soft hard boiled egg before! I wasn't sure what it was until I cut into it because it was so soft! I'd like to know how to get an egg to come out like that too. LOL

I know many of you don't cook Indian cuisine, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd greatly appreciate it!

 

[etoiles]

I love Indian cuisine too! It's my absolute favorite. I have tried many times to make different dishes but it just never turns out as good as the dishes in the restaurants.

The closest thing I have made is a vegetable biryani. I went to an Indian grocery store (if you have Indian restaurants by you I'm sure you have Indian grocers as well) and bought a 'vegetable biryani spice packet'. I cooked the rice and veggies with the spice packet and it was very close to what would be served in a restaurant. I topped it with raisins and cashews. I have never seen a biryani with a soft egg though. ??

I will be looking forward to any recipes anyone else shares but I think they use a million spices in their recipes and it's hard to know the exact combination of them hence the spice packets work pretty well.

 

[MazdaUK]

Madhur Jaffrey (sp?) wrote an excellent authentic recipe book some time ago, and Gary Rhodes recently did a trip aorund India learning to cook Inidan cuisine (and no doubt produced a "book to accompany the series" ), you could try googling them specifically or look on Amazon. I have some Indian friends so I'll ask them if they know a good byriani recipe. Indian cooking is quite regionalised so the egg might be peculiar to where the chef originates.

 

[piratesmate]

DH works with someone who was just home to India last month. She brought back a couple things for DD - an elephant statue & a cookbook. Unfortunately, the cookbook got lost somewhere before she could give it to us. I keep hoping she finds it. LOL She did loan one she had that came with her pressure cooker, but they're all geared for use of the cooker & I don't have one. I figured I'd try to adjust the biryani recipe in there.

But the one thing I forgot to mention in the OP was that at the restaurant it was served with a yogurt sauce. The waitress said it was yogurt and shredded carrots, cucumbers & their soft cheese. I'm sure there was something else in as well since it had a bit of a kick to it but didn't even have a name of the dish to Google. I did see a number of recipes for Raita, but they all seem to have mint in them & this one didn't. Any clue what kind of sauce it was? I'd just try the Raita, but DD really detests mint.

 

[MazdaUK]

How about making raita and using cilantro instead of mint?

 

[piratesmate]

Thanks! I had thought about doing that, but was wondering if there was an "official" recipe. You know? There may have been some cilantro in the sauce we had, but not as much as the mint called for in the recipes I've seen...because that would have made the sauce green too. The sauce was white enough that you could see the color of the carrot strips in it. I do think I'm going to try this next week though.

 

[MazdaUK]

I asked my friend and she had never heard of that sort of sauce - cheese is not widely used in Indian cooking so she thought it might have been adapted from something else to appeal to the US palate. She recommended this http://curryfocus.co.uk/recipe.php?recipe=90 as the best place to find an authentic recipe

 

[jackson2009]

love indian food, check out indianmadeeasy on the bbc website got some great recipes