India

Colorful Fishing Trawlers
Picture from the state of Kerala, India courtesy of user Thangaraj Kumaravel on Flickr.

India has an incredibly long and rich history which I could not do justice in this blog. Suffice to say there are a lot of influences in India and it influences the world. It is in Southern Asia and is the seventh biggest country in the world. It is slightly more than a third the size of the US. The World Factbook lists at least 13 spoken languages. It has the second highest population in the world at over 1.2 billion. Read more!

India is a country I've been looking forward to since starting this journey. I had some grand plans. Different recipes from different parts of the country! Sharing food with friends! Finding some amazing curries!

I got some of this done. I did multiple Indian recipes, but not necessarily from widely varying areas. Instead I asked some people I know that either lived in India for a while or had Indian ties to send me some recipes and I tries some of those. I would love to do more later but I eventually realized I had to move on or I would never get past it. So these definitely aren't representative of the whole country, but it's a start.

First up was Chicken Biryani suggested by my friend Sadie. She said she ate this in Kerala, a southern Indian state on the coast.
Rice from India. Good start.
Right from the start I didn't have curry paste. I had curry powder. I added water to it. Correct? I don't really know.

Also, cooking with kids is sometimes a bit difficult. The solution is to strap them to you!


Anyway, this recipe had a fairly standard beginning. Fry some onion and spices in butter. Was this the first thing people learned how to cook? Because it seriously seems to be global.


Okay! Turmeric, chicken, and curry paste as a go. This one really ended up being pretty easy.


Sadie sent me a recipe for homemade bread, but we just used some naan from Costco. This stuff is seriously amazing.


I got a little worried when it wanted me to add the rice and raisins but then only cook for five minutes plus ten minutes of sitting off of the heat. What kind of rice cooks that quickly?

Apparently basmati. Other recipes we found had similar cooking times. Amazing! I still have some leftover from that bag, but I'll have to see when I need some more quick rice.

This time I realized that coriander meant cilantro and actually put in the right stuff.


We ignored the almonds because I wanted Kevin to eat it.


Everyone liked this one. The girls devoured it. Definitely a nice solid dish. It wasn't what I would generally consider "Indian" but again that is like saying jambalaya isn't American because all you've had are burgers. A little bit sweeter than I was used to and a little bit less saucy. There wasn't much that was spicy in there and there was no yogurt, so that accounts for a lot of it.

Pretty solid start to India. We're not done!

Next time: India the Second

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