Indian Food Mania aka Three Gals Makin' Mayhem

Last night, after hitting the gym for a long, lazy workout, I went home to start prepping for an Indian food themed night at a good friend Dessie's house. She is one of the few people who has truly been an inspiration and asset in my quest for whole food culinary perfection. Since our days of making sushi in a collage dorm through now, we have made disasters in kitchens neurotically for nearly 10 years. Anyway, she had mentioned that she was craving spicy and was thinking Indian. I had a very authentic looking paneer recipe that I had found. And voila! Sunday night dinner was born. And what a pleasant surprise it was. Sarah, Dessie's roomate and also a friend of mine, wandered into the melee hoping to make some lentils for dinner. What a perfect match. So into the fray Sarah and her husband came. We ended up eating late, and my stomach was yelling at me for it, but boy was it worth it. I don't remember such a great communal effort to create this menu.

Tofu Sag Paneer is a prep intensive dish, but much of it could be prepped early (as I did at my house and I brought everything over in tupperware) and probably even the night before to make it easier to throw together later.

I adapted this recipe from a food blogger Mahanadi, and it was better than the stuff at Indian restaurants because it was a very healthy but vibrant take on the glop you normally get. When I say healthy, I mean grade A on the nutrition scale. This recipe makes 8 servings which come in at 95 calories each (assuming 16 oz tofu), 6.1g fat (1g saturated fat), 0 cholesterol, 313 mg sodium, 2% dietary fiber, 1.3g sugars, 6.6g protein, 50% vitamin A, 25% vitamin C, 15% calcium, and 11% iron.

The ingredients are simple but the prep can take some time, so just get it out of the way and slice and dice everything first, then assemble.

I took half a bag of defrosted frozen cut leaf spinach and a handful of blanched kale (stems removed), squeezed the water out and set aside. Then I finely diced 5 green chilis (okay, so the recipe called for 5 of these which made this super spicy -- be careful if you have really spicy chilis and be judicious -- we ended up using extra kale to cut the spice down and we are some spicy loving fools) and sauteed them in 1 tsp cold pressed canola oil. You can tell how spicy it'll be by how much your eyes water when sauteeing the chilis. You can remove some if you feel it will be too spicy. Anyway, turn the heat off, mix in the spinach and kale with a pinch of salt, then throw it all in a food processor or blender. I used a kitchenaid blender, which just whirred until I added a little bit of water. So you may not want to press the water out of the spinach and kale in the first place. Once it got going, I pulsed it on puree until the consistency looked the same, still a lil chunky though.

Fry half a finely diced medium onion (or more, I felt this could have used a little more onion and I used a mix of regular onion and a sweet onion like vidalia) in a big skillet, and then the onions are translucent and soft, add garlic-ginger paste (recipe called for 1/2 tsp with cilantro in the paste as well, I made about double sans cilantro and it was great) and 1 tsp mixture of coriander-cumin powder (I ground the coriander in my coffee grinder, and gave it an extra half a tsp). Saute another 2 to 3 minutes. This is when this dish starts smelling amaaaazing.

Now, add the pureed greens, 1 medium sized tomato boiled with the skin removed then mashed (I imagine it would be much easier to take half a can of tomatos and just blenderize it, I used two small slightly wilting campanari tomatos which are sweeter than the average tomato), 1/4 cup raw cashews lightly toasted and grownd into a fine powder (again, coffee grinder and I also added some ground flaxseed -- this gives the dish a wonderful richness), tumeric (I used about 1/2 tsp), and salt and pepper to taste (just a couple grinds of cracked pepper, but this needed more salt than I had anticipated, so taste it and see).

Mix thoroughly and add water, half a cup at a time until it is the right consistency. Don't let it get runny... I prefer my sag paneer a little thicker. I tried to throw one package of extra firm tofu on the George Foreman grill, but it didn't brown right. It's fine just to dice it up and throw it in at the last minute to get hot. Paneer, the indian fresh cheese, if you can find it, is the best but you can also use fresh mozzarella balls and throw them in right before serving (else they melt too much). Due to some delays in dough rising on the indian bread, this ended up simmering on low heat for about a hour, and all parties involved agreed that it allowed the spices to really integrate and helped mellow the chilis.

But to really help create a cool contrast, there was also Raita. Super simple, super perfect pairing with the spicy sag paneer. Mix non-fat greek strained yogurt (oh my gosh, absolutely amazing because this stuff is thick, creamy, and delicious, no extra watery crap, wonderful flavor -- yes, it costs an arm and a leg, but boy is it worth it -- I used two individual serving tubs), about six inches of an English Hothouse cucumber deseeded and finely diced, 1/4 cup finely diced vidalia onion, a small handful of mint leaves, a dash of cumin, paprika, and cayenne. Stick it all in a tupperware and stir it and let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours.

When Sarah came down to make some lentils (she already had some roasted beets and carrots cooling which she ended up serving and they were totally awesome), she came in on the disaster which was LeeAnn and Dessie in the kitchen. We invited her to partake, and she whipped up a fantastic curried green lentil dish in 20 minutes that complemented the sag paneer and everything else perfectly. Variety is the spice of life, and this was spicy in a complimentary way (not hot spicy, but savory spicy).

And finally, the suspenseful Onion Kulcha. I don't have the recipe, but it involves a very flexible dough that does not rise very fast, a cast iron skillet, a baking stone set near the broiler, onions sauteed with various spices, and three girls rolling, stuffing, flipping, and transferring indian breads. The result was onion filled pockets of deliciousness, which yes, puffed finally in the broiler and ended up being the perfect vehicle for the sag paneer, the raita, and the lentils. I found this recipe online which eliminates the anxiety of using yeast that I may try one day when I crave indian food again.

I didn't bring my camera, but its probably best that way. This was a time for laughter and enjoying the mayhem. We sat down to plates piled high with wonderful indian food and beers, enjoying every last bite, then divvying up the surprisingly tiny amount of leftovers for various lunches the next day. I walked home with a belated Christmas present from my second mother in hand (a mini-food chopper, I love you Barb!), a sleepy smile on my face, and some leftovers to look forward to.