Welcome to India!
India makes up most of what is considered to be southern Asia, but each region has it's own blend of flavours and favourites. It was hard to choose what to make!
First we made tandoori chicken with basmati rice. Tandoori chicken is a Punjabi (northern India) dish where the chicken is marinated in yogurt and spices, and then cooked in a clay oven called a tandoor.
We cooked ours in a very hot oven and it worked out well, but I hear that everything is better in a tandoor.
I 'cheated' a bit with India because we bought all the sauces instead of making them from scratch because life got busy for us at the beginning of the summer. The tandoori sauce was from VH, which we then mixed with goat yogurt, and was surprisingly not all that spicy; more of a smokey flavour, which we LOVED. Akin to barbecue sauce, but with a definite Indian flair.
Basmati rice has a light sweet flavour, a little like jasmine rice but not as strong.
It's a delicate contrast to the smokey meat.
With this we had raita and naan bread. Of course, there is no gluten free naan, so we used warmed pizza flat breads, which worked just fine.
Raita is a little like tzatziki (Greek yogurt and cucumber dip), but with spices added that you would typically find in hummus. It's a creamy and cool palette cleanser, but with a warm hint of cumin and coriander.
Dal and rice is a definite Indian comfort food. Hailing from the north, but found all over India, this lentil stew has many different variations and is always served with rice.
Ours was made with tomatoes, ginger, turmeric and garam masala, and ghee.
Garam masala is a blend of ground cumin, coriander, cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, pepper and nutmeg. The result is something unmistakably south Asian, without being curry powder (which is actually a very similar spice blend, with the addition of spices like turmeric, mustard, and curry leaf).
Ghee is clarified butter. The milk solids, butterfat, and water are removed, and you're left with a very pure, very flavourful form of butter. It is also considered to be healthier than conventional butter because you're only left with the vitamin-rich fats, and often people with lactose intolerance can have it because of the removal of the milk solids.
Dal was one of Toby's favourites in this venture.
Ours was made with tomatoes, ginger, turmeric and garam masala, and ghee.
Garam masala is a blend of ground cumin, coriander, cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, pepper and nutmeg. The result is something unmistakably south Asian, without being curry powder (which is actually a very similar spice blend, with the addition of spices like turmeric, mustard, and curry leaf).
Ghee is clarified butter. The milk solids, butterfat, and water are removed, and you're left with a very pure, very flavourful form of butter. It is also considered to be healthier than conventional butter because you're only left with the vitamin-rich fats, and often people with lactose intolerance can have it because of the removal of the milk solids.
Dal was one of Toby's favourites in this venture.
Biryani is another staple rice dish that has many different versions.
Again we used a bottled biryani sauce from Patak's and used the chicken and veggie recipe off their site.
The sauce has quite a bit of heat to it, but it's a slow subtle heat. I heaped plain yogurt on mine which was quite nice.
We scooped it up with papadums - sort of like a giant round tortilla chip. Toby and I have been eating them since he was little and love them. Made with lentil flour, they're naturally gluten free. You buy them dried and fry them for a few seconds in hot oil until they double their size and become crispy.
Again we used a bottled biryani sauce from Patak's and used the chicken and veggie recipe off their site.
The sauce has quite a bit of heat to it, but it's a slow subtle heat. I heaped plain yogurt on mine which was quite nice.
We scooped it up with papadums - sort of like a giant round tortilla chip. Toby and I have been eating them since he was little and love them. Made with lentil flour, they're naturally gluten free. You buy them dried and fry them for a few seconds in hot oil until they double their size and become crispy.
One of the most popular snacks in India is bhel puri. It's a puffed rice 'salad' that is served as street food and in restaurants. You can buy dry versions of this snack in bags at a store, like chips, but we made a 'wet' version with fresh herbs and chutney.
I made a tamarind chutney from scratch because we couldn't find one in a store, and everything I read said it was ESSENTIAL to the flavour of this snack. Tamarind is a little like a sour date which you stew, strain, and add cane sugar and spices to make the chutney.
We also used a store bought mango chutney and mixed with green onion, tomato, potato, cilantro, and puffed rice cereal. Traditionally there are dried noodles in this too, for crunch, but we couldn't find a wheat free alternative.
The puffed rice gets soggy very quickly, so it's best made and eaten fresh - no saving this snack in the fridge! It was delightfully light and flavourful, and we scooped this up with papadums as well.
And of course, one can't visit India without having samosas.Trying to find a gluten free phyllo pastry is near impossible. I found a company that makes it but nobody ships to Canada. The one site that might have wanted double the amount of the product in shipping costs.
I didn't want to try making my own GF phyllo because I know how finicky it is at the best of times.
I found several recipes online for gluten free samosas, but with my experience with different doughs I wasn't confident that the recipes I was reading were going to work.
I ended up trying one out and the dough wasn't sticking together at all no matter what I did. The recipe said the dough would be 'delicate' but there was no way I was going to be able to form it around the filling.
I finally went back to a pasta dough I had developed a few years ago, and added some cumin powder to it to give it a bit more flavour depth. It worked beautifully and fried up surprisingly well.
No as crispy as traditional samosas, but a fantastic 'almost' in the gluten-free world is nothing but a win. We filled our samosas with potato, peas, onion, cumin, ginger, and turmeric; and then dipped them in my leftover tamarind chutney and mango chutney. We loved them!
Moving on to western Asia (the Middle East)!
Happy Eating!!
