The Indian Food Craving

So it's probably been nagging at Ben and I for about 2 months - but a serious hankering for some good Indian food. It's always when I drive past my favorite buffet. I just want to run in and smother myself in rice and curries - oy.

Trouble is, last time we did this - about 2.5 months ago, we both left not feeling so great. Ben especially. Major gluten problemo.

We asked what had flour in it and what didn't - and I trust them so I didn't get why the bad feeling. So I am in the Indian store on Saturday and pick up the asafetida. Uh. Damn.

Wheat starch.

It's in almost every Indian dish. I forget exactly what it is, but I think it comes from the bark of a tree. In any case, it adds a nice depth and it's supposed to help with digestion - but not for celiacs.

That's a hard one. So officially, I am determined in the next year to become an expert at a much larger variety of Indian dishes. It's a must.

So yesterday, I busted into a few that were FANTASTIC.

I started watching this show, Indian Food Made Easy on the cooking channel. Seems funny for some reason as I write about it, butI won't complain because the two dishes I made were great.

The three tricks are get the go to the Indian store so you can get the right lentils and real curry leaves (and I tried to find these nigella seeds with no luck but it worked out just fine), use your judgement, if you fail - try again!

The first I made was a cabbage dish - this was so incredibly easy and I had a small head of red cabbage in the fridge I had to use up anyway.

http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/peppery-hot-cabbage-salad-recipe/index.html

The second thing I made is a great breakfast, comforting - pretty much any time of the day thing. Kicheri. YUM. Pretty easy too. Here I actually doubled the recipe and it was not enough - ok, I pigged out on it.

http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/creamy-lentil-and-rice-dish-khicheri-recipe/index.html

Be on the lookout for more Indian food recipes and tricks I am picking up. I am bound and determined to figure it out, and explain it - because many of these sites that I have been looking at, they don't explain how they get the depth - and it's tricky stuff like just toasting the spices enough for example. Anjum (host of that show) kind of stinks at this too, but if you watch the show and try the recipe, you can figure it out. But, I will explain it once I get it down!