An Indian Expedition (Culinary)

I've been trying out some Indian dishes lately.  I really love Indian food but since my friend is on the other side of the continent these days, I'm on my own.  Recently, I discovered the Smitten Kitchen blog.  Turns out she appreciates similar flavors :-D


Here's my go at a Cabbage and Lentil thing (Masoor dal aur band gobi). I've never been a lentil person, but it was really good.

Other related adventures:  Tandoori Chicken

From what I've been reading on the interweb, tandoor is a type of very hot outdoor oven.  I got the spice for this from Pendery's in a packet, so I can't easily link to a recipe like the last one. I took the research on tandoor to mean that I should give this chicken a little more heat than I normally cook with.  Turns out this was brilliant.  The 'burned' portions are the best part. :-D Tandoori chicken appears to be commonly prepared with whole chickens. However, I'm not a fan of dark meat so chicken breast it is!

In side dishes, I tried out a cauliflower and potato dish.  It was good, but I keep getting the feeling that it should have been more mushy.  I dunno.  Will be trying it again this weekend.  No pictures (apparently) of the final product, but the beginning involved toasting the potato and cauliflower together in the oven with whole cumin seeds. Whole cumin seeds have a really different flavor than I expected.  They give a sort of sweet, full flavor (as opposed to the taco essence I had expected).