Tag Archives: Indian

Kashmiri Masala Recipe

Posted on February 3, 2022 by | Leave a comment

This masala is wonderful, not at all spicy but very tasty.

  • 1″ cinnamon stick
  • 2 black cardamom pods
  • 3 cloves
  • 1 Tbsp coriander seeds
  • 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
  • 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 Indian bay leaf
  • 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
  • a dash of ground mace

Heat a dry saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, coriander seeds, peppercorns, cumin seeds and fennel seeds. Toast for a few minutes, stirring, until the spices are toasted and fragrant. Transfer to an electric grinder, add the bay leaf and ground into a powder. Mix in the nutmeg and the mace.

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Based on this recipe at Archana’s Kitchen

Marga’s International Recipes

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Gobble Meal Kit Review: Butter Chicken With Basmati Rice & Naan Bread

Posted on November 11, 2021 by | Leave a comment

8/10

I absolutely love Indian food, but I’m cursed with not being able to successfully replicate my favorite dishes – of which butter chicken ranks at the top. I’ve tried making it, and while the results weren’t bad, they were not nearly as good as those of my local Indian restaurants. I’ve also tried a number of commercial sauces, none of which can compare to restaurant-make. That’s why I was particularly impressed that Gobbled managed a very good butter chicken sauce, that rivals that at any of our local restaurants.

The kit was fairly easy to make: you cooked the pre-cubed chicken for a few minutes, then added the prepared butter sauce and cooked it for a few more. Pre-made rice was heated in the microwave and a single naan bread was supposed to be baked in the oven. I hate preheating a whole oven just for that, so I put it in the air fryer for 4 minutes. It was a bit crispy, but very good.

Finally, the kit came with a cucumber & tomato salad with a pre-made salad dressing. I don’t like cucumber and my husband doesn’t like tomatoes, so we ate our vegetables separately. The dressing was OK, but didn’t really have much to do with the rest of the meal.

In all, another very good Gobble meal.

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Santos Spices Now Delivers!

Posted on June 20, 2021 by | Leave a comment

I found out today that Santos Spices Market now has delivery and pick up. Santos is an amazing store, with a huge variety of Indian spices as well as legumes, flours, sauces and frozen products. Moreover, they seem to have fixed up the store in the last year and it feels less crowded than before. I definitely like going there in person, though I avoided shopping during the pandemic.

Still, my major problem with Santos is that they have so much stuff that it’s sometimes difficult to find what I want. For example, today I went looking for Kashmiri pepper and I couldn’t find it. It was there, but where? Yes, employees are very helpful and you can ask them, but I hate bothering people. Ordering online will make this much, much easier. Plus I won’t have to remember (or write down) the alternative names for the products I want, as I can just look them up as I go.

I still haven’t used this feature but I will soon!

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New Cuisines Up: Honduras, Hakka, Hyderabad & Hmong

Posted on May 9, 2019 by | Leave a comment

As I make my way cooking and eating food from “H” cuisines, I’ve “finished” four more:

Hakka

I made two very tasty chicken dishes and a vegan noodle dish.

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Hmong

I did great with the meat dishes – the vegan dishes weren’t as good.

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Honduras

Not my most successful cuisine, but I made steak, chicken & rice and coconut buns.

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Hyderabad

This incursion into a regional Indian cuisine had me cooking chicken curries, a biryani and a dal.

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Sky Valley Tikka Masala Sauce Review

Posted on February 19, 2019 by | Leave a comment

My local Grocery Outlet store is currently currying a variety of Sky Valley bottled sauces. I picked up the Tikka Masala sauce because it’s vegan, and I’m always looking for stuff that my vegan daughter can eat. Unfortunately this was a bust.

The sauce itself wasn’t bad. While I wouldn’t say it tastes like the tikka masala you can get at Indian restaurants, it’s better than anything I could make myself. Indeed, it tastes very much like Trader Joe’s masala sauce. They are both far more acidic and less sweet than your restaurant tikka masala sauce.

The big problem for my vegan daughter was that the sauce was too spicy. She ate it with lots of rice, but still couldn’t get past the spice. Now, she doesn’t like spicy food, so in terms of level of spice I’d say this sauce is “medium” spicy.

The 13.8 oz bottle of Sky Valley tikka masala sauce sells on their website for $5.30, but it was just $2 at Grocery Outlet and it was on sale for just $1.75 at Walmart (regular price $3.65). It’s produced in Danville (so not to far away from where I live) and exported all the way to the UAE!

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Vegan Options at Favorite Indian – Hayward

Posted on February 13, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Eating out – or getting take out – with a vegan is no easy matter, at least here in San Leandro (L.A., though, is another matter altogether). So I’m starting to ask restaurants what vegan dishes they offer previous to taking my daughter to the restaurant.

These four dishes are always vegan at Favorite Indian, Hayward. I’m sure that’s true too at the other branches, but you may want to confirm.

Vegetable Pakora, veggies coated with seasoned chickpea flour and fried.

Dal Curry, a yellow lentil curry. I tried this at the buffet, and it was pretty good.

Aloo Gobi, potatoes and cauliflower cooked with spices.

Bhindi Masala, okra cooked with spices and onions.

Chana Masala, chick peas cooked with spices. Alas, my daughter is not too fond of this.

In addition, Favorite India can make the following dishes vegan. Simply ask them to make them with no cream when you order them:

Baingan Bharta

Eggplant roasted in tadoor and cooked in a cream and tomato sauce

Navratam Korma

Vegetables, nuts & cheese cooked in a mild sauce (asked them to hold both the cream and the cheese/paneer)

Mushroom Matar

Mushroom & green peas cooked with onion & tomatoes

Dal Makhani

Whole black lentil & red kidney beans cooked in a creamy sauce.

They may have other vegan dishes at their buffet, so it doesn’t help to ask. The restaurant manager/owner – the young woman who is often at the reception desk – is very knowledgeable as to the ingredients.

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Review: India Oven / Indian Masala, Las Vegas, NV

Posted on August 2, 2017 by | Leave a comment

We stopped by India Oven / Indian Masala for lunch on a Thursday night in late July, 2017 and enjoyed their lunch buffet.  It was pretty generic as far as Indian lunch buffets go, which is not a bad thing.

The restaurant is a fusion of two different Indian restaurants, Indian Oven and Indian Masala, and it does not seem to have decided upon a name so it’s using both.  Hey, it’s Vegas, why not?  It sits in a small strip mall but the inside is rather nice, it could even pass for elegant if it didn’t have a buffet.

The buffet included a small salad bar, made-to-order naan (choice between plain, butter or garlic), had a couple of appetizers (vegetable pakoras and samosas), soup/daal (if I remember correctly), rice and vegetable rice and four each vegetarian and meat entrees.  It most certainly did not have all the dishes they claim to offer in their website, not even close.   I tried the four meat dishes and was fairly pleased.  The chicken tikka masala had a very nice flavor, slightly spicy, but deep.  I enjoyed it.  The goat and chicken curry both seemed to have the same sauce, it was good but not a favorite.  The chicken tandoori was juicy and very flavorful.  My daughter was less happy with the paneer dish she had, but it wasn’t one she usually eats (there was no paneer tikka masala).

The buffet also includes drinks, and my daughters liked the lemonade and the mango lassi, which was more like a thin mango drink than a lassi.

Service was fairly good, though they initially tried to charge my husband for a buffet even though he had clearly not eaten anything (he was sick).  Dinner for the four of us (I was there with three tweens), came up to a little over $50 after tax.

Given the plethora of Indian restaurants in Vegas, I’d probably try a different one next time, but this is certainly good enough to visit again.

India Oven Restaurant
India Masala & Bar Grill
1040 E Flamingo Rd
Las Vegas, NV
http://www.indiamasalalasvegas.com
Open 11.30am to 3pm –  5pm to 10pm

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Cuisine of India (Delhi Palace) – Sedona, AZ – Restaurant Review

Posted on January 2, 2014 by | Leave a comment

We were in Sedona on vacation, staying at a house near Cuisine of India aka Indian Palace, India Palace and Delhi Palace.   I don’t know what the actual name of the restaurant is, I’ve found reviews under all names.  We wen there for lunch a rainy day in August, 2013.

According to my daughter, this was the smallest buffet at which she’s ever eaten.  That’s not necessarily true for me, but with ten or so offerings, including rice, it would definitely not win any prizes for size.  Then again, it also doesn’t seem to be very popular, at least for lunch, so few offerings hopefully mean the food is fresher.

As far as Indian food goes, this buffet was pretty average.  I liked the mushroom korma, but the chicken tikka masala was underseasoned (even though it was a bit spicy).  The same can be said for the chicken tandoori, it didn’t taste as if they’d use any spices on it other than pepper.  The lamb curry was OK, though the lamb was a bit dry and tough.  The rice was a bit too starchy for my taste, but the garlic/herb naan bread, served pipping hot, was quite good.  Sweet lassis also lacked flavor.

My biggest problem with the meal was the price.  We ended up paying $42 before the tip for 3 people.  That’s pretty ridiculous for a buffet lunch.  Now, my husband didn’t look at the bill carefully so perhaps they charged us for our other daughter who didn’t eat any of the food (which they knew, as she instead had a subway sandwich at the table).  According to the website, the lunch buffets are now $10

As far as the restaurant itself, it was your run-of-the-mill shopping center restaurant, it didn’t have any ambiance to speak of.

Cuisine of India/ Delhi Palace
1910 W Hwy 89A, Suite 102
Sedona, Arizona
928-204-2300
www.cuisineofindia-az.com

Marga’s Restaurant Reviews: Beyond the Bay Area

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CreAsian – Taste of the Himalayas Restaurant Review – San Leandro

Posted on November 18, 2013 by | Leave a comment

UPDATE: THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED

I haven’t been to dinner to the new Taste of the Himalayas restaurant, which replaces CreAsian, but I did go to its Grand Opening which included a limited free buffet.  From it, I can say that I’m glad to welcome them to San Leandro.

Taste of the Himalayas is a popular Nepali restaurant in Berkeley.  They’ve taken over the old CreAsian space, a much welcome change as far as I’m concerned.  While I liked CreAsian, it was too expensive and the menu never changed.  Alas, they seem to be wary of their new venture in San Leandro, so they are keeping some old CreAsian dishes in the menu and they are mostly concentrating in serving Indian rather than Nepali food.  I imagine that will change as they get more comfortable in San Leandro.

At the Grand Opening they had three meat curries to taste, their chicken curry (normally $14), lamb curry ($14) and the chicken nauni (not yet in the online menu).  The regular curries were OK, the flavors were good and solid, but not compelling.  However the meats themselves were spectacular, the chicken was velvety and the lamb was beyond moist and tender, without being fatty.  These taste like high quality meats.  The chicken nauni, on the other hand, was very, very good (though actually, the sauces mixed together tasted even better).  It was similar to a tikka masala, only the chicken wasn’t smokey (and was moist) and the sauce was less sweet.  Still, it was very balanced.  Taste of the Himalayas does offer a chicken tikka masala ($15), and I look forward to tasting it.

Both the plain ($3) and garlic ($4) nan were nice, though the fact that they were hot and not burned helped.

I didn’t try the vegetarian offerings, so I can’t opine, but I heard the vegetable pakora (also not in the menu) was also very good.

According to their website, they deliver with a $25 minimum order.

CreAsian – Taste of the Himalayas
1269 MacArthur Blvd.
San Leandro, CA
(510) 895-8028
http://www.creasianhimalayas.com/
M-Su 11:30am to 3:00pm, 5:00pm to 10:00pm

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Soul Indian Wraps – Review

Posted on July 15, 2013 by | Leave a comment

soul_butter_chkn_3dIf you’re tired of having the same old frozen burrito for lunch, Soul’s Indian wraps provide a reasonable alternative.  They have four flavors, butter chicken, chicken vindaloo, chicken tikka masala and vegetable curry.  I’ve tasted the three chicken ones, and I can’t say I could really distinguish their flavor. They all tasted like mildly spicy generic chicken curries, acceptable but not exciting. Of the four choices, the tikka masala has slightly less calories/fat (370 c/11 g. fat) than the others, so that may be your best choice.  The vegetable curry, which I haven’t tried, has the greatest fat content.

The wraps were about $1.50 at Grocery Outlet and they cook in the microwave in about 3 minutes (you have to turn it half way).

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