In Which I Follow Recipes for Indian Food (Sometimes)

Last night, I was having company and decided that I wanted to try making Indian food. I had never made any Indian food before, and I had only ever tried a few dishes, but I wanted to cook something that was both vegetarian and delicious. Chana masala was the first thing that came to mind. I also chose to make saag, an awesome spinach dish that I tasted once before. Given my total lack of experience with Indian food, I decided to follow recipes. For the most part, at least. I wanted to give my guests the option of meat, so I did do a little inventing. I had awesome yogurt-marinated chicken from an Indian restaurant back when I lived in Hoboken, NJ, so I cobbled together a recipe based on that ideal.

No picture, unfortunately. Didn't really end up having time to take one.

The chana masala came from food.com (follow link for recipe) and was fantastic. It was spicier than I had expected, but in a good way. I had to make a couple of substitutions, unfortunately. I couldn't find Amchoor powder (a sour seasoning made from ground, dried, unripe green mangoes) so I added extra lemon juice and grated some fresh mango into the dish. In place of roasted coriander seeds, I added an additional teaspoon or ground coriander. I obviously don't know what the dish tastes like when made to specifications, but I really enjoyed how this came out. It was also fantastic for lunch today.

I found some good-looking saag on whats4eats (follow link for recipe), and I was once again forced to modify it. The recipe calls for the spinach to be pureed once it has cooked down; I don't own a blender or food processor, so I just chopped the spinach somewhat finely and worked with it that way. There ended up being more liquid than I would have liked, but it was overall very tasty. It was nice that the saag had a lot of ingredients in common with the chana masala - it helped the two dishes work together in order to form a more cohesive meal. Both were served over long grain brown rice. Sure, brown rice isn't the most authentic, but it's healthier and I like the taste.

The chicken marinade was pretty good. When I cooked last night, I was only able to marinade the meat for about an hour. It hadn't picked up a ton of flavor, but something about the yogurt mixture made it really succulent. I had two breasts that I marinated but didn't cook then - I'll be cooking them tomorrow after a grand total of 48 hours marinading and I expect that they'll absorb much more taste.

Chicken Marinade Ingredients:

  - 1 cup plain yogurt

  - 1/2 lemon, juiced

  - 1 clove garlic, crushed and coarsely sliced

  - 1 1/2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped

  - 1 tsp ground cumin

Chicken Marinade Instructions:

1. Stir the yogurt well. If you don't, the acid from the lemon can make it curdle.
2. Stir in the lemon juice a little bit at a time.
3. Add the garlic, dill, and cumin and stir until the mixture is even.
4. Marinade the chicken for at least an hour - preferably overnight.
5. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, or until a meat thermometer hits 165 degrees Farenheit.
6. The amounts above would make more than enough marinade for two or three large breasts. It all comes out quite nicely, with the garlic giving the chicken a bit of punch and the dill lending a smooth, yet still pungent flavor.

This is among the healthiest dishes I've posted on the blog. Chana masala is high in protein, contains lycopene from the tomatoes, and is all-around a low on calorie but high on taste type of dish. Saag is loaded with spinach and garlic, both of which are just phenomenal all-around. Throw them on brown rice and you get a vegetarian meal with complex carbohydrates and a lot of substance that's awfully healthy. The chicken complemented everything well, and there's really nothing bad about chicken. Skinless breast meat is a high protein, low-fat vessel that sits around waiting for you to flavor it.

The one place where I really went wrong with this meal was in assuming I could take care of everything at once. Four dishes is a pretty big thing to cook all at once, especially when the timings for additions to the pots of chana masala and saag were nearly identical. It was frantic cooking, but it got done. I was pretty much constantly chopping, measuring, or stirring. Had I begun preparing earlier it wouldn't have been so bad, but I went to the grocery store, cleaned my apartment a bit, and immediately started cooking. If I had twenty minutes beforehand to chop my ingredients and measure out some spices, things would have been much better. That said, the chana masala and saag will require a lot of attention either way. I really wish I had a food processor for the saag; it would have not only given it a pureed consistency but also saved me a lot of chopping time and exasperation.

The best part of the meal: my apartment still smells fantastic the next day.

Final Verdict (Overall meal): Taste: 4/5 Ease: 2/5 Health: 4.5/5

Edit: I accidentally had removed the links to the recipes I used for chana masala and saag. They're up now. Thanks to Dave for pointing this out.