Indian Food Part II: From Sulpicia's Kitchen

For the leftovers, I decided to make some of my own naan. I found a recipe in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread. It was pretty good. Cerinthus (who sadly left today) gave it a "solid 8 out of 10" which is pretty good for my first try. I was not particularly rigorous in my picture-taking, but I will post the recipe from Whole Grain Bread page 80 (modified, as is my tradition).

As Cerinthus is not the greatest fan of whole wheat, I used 50% whole wheat, 50% all purpose flour. It worked quite well. I also used canola oil instead of butter and 2% milk instead of yogurt.

Ingredients

• 227g Whole Wheat Flour
• 227g Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 380g 2% Milk
• 3g salt
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

Directions

1. Mix together the flour and the salt.
2. Mix together the milk and the yeast, fully hydrating the yeast, and the mix the milk into the dry ingredients. Let it hydrate for 5 minutes.
3. Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Use the 40-minute stretch-and-fold technique.
4. Place the dough in the refrigerator overnight.

The Next Day...

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator.
2. Turn it onto a floured surface and divide it into five pieces.
3. Gather the pieces into balls and let them sit under plastic wrap or an overturned bowl.
4. Let rise for 2 hours at 70 degrees or about 1.5 hours at 75 degrees.
5. Preheat the oven with an ovenstone to 500 degrees F.
6. Stretch the pieces into disks about 1/4 inch thick.
7. Go back to the first piece and stretch it about 1/8 of an inch thick.
8. Punch a lot of holes in the dough with a fork. Make sure the holes go all the way through.
9. Load the naan onto a peel and let it cook for 3 minutes or until it puffs up significantly and is dappled with brown. If it puffs to much, dock it again with the fork.
10. Brush with toppings and eat while hot.

 

 

 

My Garlic Naan

Right after the naan came out of the oven, I brushed it with olive oil (mixed with a pinch of white pepper and garlic salt) and crushed fresh garlic as well as chopped cilantro. I thought it was heavenly.

Indian Food

Cernithus and I went to my favorite Indian place of all time tonight. It was amazing. I kept half of it for tomorrow and started a batch of naan to eat with it. I am really excited to try it. I have been drooling over the recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Yum.

I will report on the verdict.

The Summer Flu and Indian Food

On Thursday I came down with the flu. Every morning I wake up feeling better, and every morning, an hour later, I feel like I've been run over by a train and spend the rest of the day trying to recover. My fever shot up today and i had to warn my boss I might not be able to make it to work tomorrow. It's terrible. I've spent all day-- my worst day so far-- in bed watching bad movies.

I feel truly terrible. Cerinthus is here for the last time before he goes to Europe for six months and I'm languishing in ill health while hes watches bad movies and plays computer games. What unfortunate timing.

One of the wonderful things that Cerinthus has done to take care of me was to order take out from our favorite Indian Place, Clay Oven. I got the extra spicy Chicken Tikka Masala, which helped my sinuses to drain and made me feel much better than I would have without it. It was wonderful. Garlic naan dipped in sauce that burns off the roof of one's mouth. It was perfect. I was alive again for about half an hour and then back to being a wraith.

Beside the inane movies that we have been watching, we have also been watching Sherlock with my parents. Sherlock is a new British series that does a modern updating of Sherlock Holmes. I am no particular fan of Sherlock Holmes on principle. The first episode of this show was awesome. Holmes is an obsessive high-functioning sociopath. He is unempathetic, erudite, charming, and brilliant-- but he's totally cold. Dr. John Watson is warm,  charming, and is a soldier at heart who cannot stay away from a thrill or danger. He breathes warmth and levity into the buddy duo that is the lifeblood of the show. I do, generally, have a (particularly unfortunate) penchant for the sociopathic genius, but in this case it's the duo that is bewitchingly charming. I guess it shows my own personal growth. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the characters between the first and second episodes. However, the third episode might be a little brighter.

A Very Indian Valentines

Happy Valentines Day! This morning I got up early to work on my thesis, but was side-tracked by trying to find a job in some employment postings. So depressing-- I don't seem to be qualified for anything. At 9am, I made Cerinthus a surprise breakfast: his favorite is fresh-made Belgian waffles with a whipped cream, strawberries, and a touch of butter. I pulled the whole thing off rather well, I though, except that I totally failed at making hearts out of the whipped cream and it just looked like demented ellipses. Oh well.

Last night, to celebrate Valentines Eve (yes, we're clearly desperate romantics) we went to Indian Food at a place called the Bombay Cricked Club. We ordered cheese and garlic naan and chicken tikka masala. It was wonderful. The cheese naan was especially good-- it had spices and possibly green onions in it, I couldn't be sure. The garlic naan was HUGE. I wasn't expecting it to be so large. From now on, we will just order one piece of naan. The chicken tikka masala was great, although it was dark meat instead of breast meat, which was a little disappointing. However, this may be more traditional, I do not know. Cerinthus got the medium plus, while I got the hot. Both were a little out of our league spice-wise because they use habaneros instead of jalapenos. It was great anyway. Highly recommended, although a bit pricy (but I think worth it for good Indian food).

Tonight, crazy as we are, we are going to try the India House. The reviews are mixed, but we're going to try it anyway. It's cheaper than Bombay Cricket Club. I will write a review when done.

ADDED REVIEW:
India House was also fabulous, and Cerinthus and I had a lovely Valentines Day. I also got the Chickken Tikka Masala hot at the India House with garlic naan and paneer kulcha. The naan and kulcha were incredible and much more what I'm used to. Although I really liked the cheese naan at the Bombay cricket club, it was almost a meal unto itself. The garlic naan was much smaller at India House, but I like that it was topped with cilantro and I liked the naan dough better. I also liked the rice better at India House. My Chicken Tikka Masala was better on the whole at Bombay Cricket Club, partially because it was spiced with peppers rather than simply cayenne power and paprica, but the chicken at India House was breast meat, which was nice and was still flavorful and fabulous.

At India house, I got a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir. The glass was quite good, but the spiciness in the Pinot Noir actually intensified the spice in the food (which for India food as hot as I like it) is very hot. I tried a Syrrah with the leftovers and it was much better because it cooled my mouth down.

NOTE ON LEFTOVERS:

• There were more leftovers from Bombay Cricket Club, quite simply because the portions are much bigger.
• The rice from Bombay Cricket Club did not heat up very well, but the naan and the Chicken Tikka Masala did
• I heated the leftovers from India house up in the microwave. This was a bad plan-- the oil separated from the rest of the sauce. Probably next time I will heat it up in a pan.
  

Cerinthus' Visit-- 10 days in Recipes and Food Commentary

Cerinthus was here for ten days. Ten glorious days filled with love and food. We went out to eat a lot and made a lot of wonderful food over the journey.

Cerinthus arrived on New Year's Eve. Having no real plans, Cerinthus, my parents, and I decided to see if the local Italian place, Oliva's, could squeeze us in for their set dinner. As it turned out, they had space, so we had a wonderful meal with rosemary bread, Caesar salad, gnocchi in a mushroom aurora sauce, and dark chocolate cake. It was wonderful. After walking home, we played poker and watched Ishtar until midnight. It was fabulous.

The next morning, New Year's Day, we made whole wheat, primarily-egg-white French toast. We sliced the toast a little too thick, but other than that, the country-wheat bread held up very nicely and the 3:1 whites to egg combination was fabulous, especially when seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla extract.

That week, we also went (twice) to my favorite Indian restaurant, the Clay Oven. The food is wonderful and the atmosphere is fairly strange. Looked over by a gigantic black cross-legged statue, the goldenrod and white restaurant plays strange Indian techno music. The food is wonderfully flavorful, and most dishes can be ordered with any degree of spice. Case and point, Cerinthus gets his chicken tikka masala at medium, while I get mine spicy. We also had garlic and paneer naan.

By the recommendation of a friend, we visited the thai place about two blocks away from Indian, called Lanathai. My mom had visited this restaurant 20 years ago, but had never been back. The food we had was magnificent. Cerinthus ordered something called the Sizzling Plate which consisted of red and green bell peppers, mushrooms, chicken, and pineapples in a spicy sweet and sour sauce. He cleaned the plate, saying he could never order anything else from the thai place. I got a nice fried rice (albeit fairly traditional). My mom got a phenomenal dish called cashew chicken which was onions, cashews, dried red peppers. It was shockingly fabulous, espeically because I like the flavor of onions but not large pieces of onion, for the most part.

One the final night that Cerinthus was in town, we decided to make two chicken pasta dishes. They were great if I do say myself. Here are the recipes. Both are modified from recipes I found online.

Chicken Piccata Pasta (1):
Makes about 2 1/2-3 servings
Chicken
1 chicken breast (pounded to 1/2 inch thick)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 pinch Kosher Salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground white pepper
Pasta
2 1/3 cup of dried wheat fusilli
Sauce
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 shallot, chopped
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup lemon juice (or preferably fresh-squeezed juice from one large Meyer lemon)
30 (or so) capers
salt (to taste)
white pepper (to taste)
fresh chopped parsley (for garnish)
1-2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese (preferably freshly grated)

Directions
Place the chicken breast between wax paper or something of that type and, using the flat side of a meat tenderizer, pound out the chicken to about 1/2-inch thick.

Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate. Drag the chicken through. Shake off any excess.

Bring pot full of water to a boil and add fusilli. Follow the directions for the pasta.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet. When the butter starts to sizzle, start browning the chicken breasts.

When the chicken is browned, remove from the pan. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil from skillet. Add shallots to the skillet and saute for about 1 minute. Meanwhile, if you wish, cut the chicken into bite-size pieces. Then add the chicken stock, the lemon juice, and the white wine.

Let the sauce simmer and add salt and white pepper to taste, then add the capers. Let reduce for a 3-5 minutes. Add in the pasta and chicken pieces. Mix well. Add in Parmesan and parsley. Stir well and serve hot.

Olive Garden Fettuccine Alfredo (2)
Sauce
1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons cream cheese
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon garlic powder
salt (to taste)
white pepper, freshly ground (to taste)
Pasta
1 package fettucine, prepared as directed
Chicken (if desired)
Chicken with cajun spices and lime pan-grilled in olive oil and crushed garlic.

Directions
Melt the butter in a large skillet. When the butter is melted, add the cream cheese.

When the cream cheese is softened, add Parmesan.

When Parmesan begins to melt, add heavy cream. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

Let simmer for 15-20 minutes over medium or medium-low heat.

Cut chicken into bite-size pieces. Stir in chicken and fettuccine. Mix well and serve hot.

The last thing I made was for Cerinthus' plane ride home. It was my traditional fried rice that I learned from eating way too much at the thai place up by school.

Sulpicia's Fried Rice
Makes approximately 3 servings
Rice
1 cup of dried rice. My suggestion is NOT to rinse it first and to use a mixture white rice, red rice, and brown rice (although any rice should be fine)
2 1/2 cup water
Soy sauce (to taste)
Lime juice (1/2-1 lime, fresh squeezed)
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
pressed garlic (to taste)
1/4 cup egg white
Vegitables
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 head broccoli, chopped
1/8-1/4 onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
pressed garlic, to taste
1/2 cup water
Chicken (if desired)
Chicken with cajun spices and lime pan-grilled in olive oil and crushed garlic.

Directions
Put rice and water in a pot. Cover on medium heat. Stir and add water as necessary. Rice should be sticky, but not undercooked.

Meanwhile, put 1 tablespoon olive oil and garlic in skillet. Heat on medium heat.

When garlic begins to sizzle, add onions. Let heat for 2 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Add broccoli. Then add about a quarter cup of water to help broccoli steam.

When the water has mostly evaporated, add carrots and another 1/4 cup of water.

When that evaporates, add green bell peppers. Stir and heat thoroughly. Pour vegetables in to a bowl.

When rice is finished, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and garlic to the skillet. When garlic begins to sizzle, add the rice.

Add soy sauce and 1/4 lime juice to the rice. Stir. Then add shallots. Stir. (Note: if the rice you are using is not fresh, add in 1/4 cup water to plump the rice and/or tablespoons of water as needed).

Add the vegetables to the rice. Mix well. Add more soy sauce and the remaining lime juice. Mix well. Add chicken (if desired). Mix well. Then stir in egg white (if desired-- can be made without for a vegan dish). When traces of egg white are thoroughly cooked at the bottom of then pan, then the rice is finished. Serve hot.

Endnotes

1. Modified recipe from http://www.humblerecipes.com/2009/02/chicken-piccata-recipe.html.
2. Modified recipe from http://www.recipezaar.com/Olive-Garden-Fettuccine-Alfredo-8596.