I started off Saturday night planning to make just one dish, but it sort of morphed into three.On the left, the one that looks like it's sliding off the table, is Peter Singer's daal, on the right is this Chicken Tikka Masala, and the rice is this lemon rice.
They were all enjoyable, but not amazing. I'm beginning to think my standards are too high. If it doesn't taste like excellent restaurant food, it's not good enough. So I may well make these again, but I'm certainly not putting 'best ever' on them. And as usual I massively overcatered.
I followed the reviews and cut down the salt and chilli in the chicken recipe. The rice was ok, better than plain white rice for sure, but not at all like the lemon rice I've had in restaurants. At all. I think if I try again I will try a different recipe. The daal was actually quite good, but I felt kind of guilty for serving it in the same meal as a chicken dish, as Peter Singer provided it to convince people that vegeterian food is just as tasty as meat, and therefore we should stop torturing defenceless animals to satisfy our own selfish tastebuds. Whoops! But I don't think my family would've reacted very positively to a dinner of just lentils, but now they've tried it and liked it, I should be able to make it again as a meal in itself without too much complaining or hippie jokes.
Also served was a little lemon pickle from the Indian grocer on Market St. It tasted exactly like the lime pickle at Beyond India. You win some you lose some I guess.
2 comments:
Cutting down the salt and chilli on the chicken could have made a big impact on the taste though! Maybe try it exactly how it says before you write off the recipe? I am always wary of altering salt in recipes. But then again you and I apparently have different tastes in curry.
The mango pickle you get in the supermarket, it's no good. No good at all. Maybe I gotta go to the same grocer as you, huh?
Yeah, I wouldn't've changed it, but there were about 200 comments all saying, 'great, but cut down the salt, it's way way too much'. Plus you can always put salt in at the end. Ditto with the chilli, but I'm not so fussed about adjusting that - it doesn't really affect the flavour of dish, and it means my tame family can swallow it. But on the whole I agree that it's best to try to follow recipes exactly the first time at least.
The lime pickle defintely was exactly like Beyond India. My dad and I loved it, but no one else liked it at all. It came in a big jar. I have no experience with mango pickle as I don't like mangos. I would definitely recommend the Indian grocer on Market St though - it's way fun. Also, the restaurant across the street from it sells takeaway Indian sweets and paneer.
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