Jim's Night - Saag, Paneer, Rice, Joy

Greetings, internet!  Alex here, bringing you Jim's inspirational Indian food.  We recently had a home cooked Indian meal, made by an actual Bengali Mama, and Jim wishes to recreate it.  Tonight's menu features...

Peach Lassi
Saag Paneer
Vegetable Chop
Tofu Tikka Masala
Rice Pudding

So delightful!  Deb just dropped this little nugget, which is really representative of the perception altering properties of supper club...

"Remember when we made Thai food and it was better than any Thai food we've ever had before?"

Hungry and optimistic, the wild Deb recalls all of our successes while omitting our disasters.  Anyway, faced with this optimism, I have no choice but to feed her Indian snacks!  In this case...

Mint Potato Sticks

Masala Plantain Chips

The beast is getting sated.  Very...slowly.

Anyway, internet, this week heralds the beginning of the football season, and also, because it is the future, the highlights get automatically turned into animated GIF files.  Yessss.

Let me share this one with you.  This gentleman, #12, Jacoby Jones, is about to return a punt.  He is waving his arms, which means in NFLSL (NFL Sign Language): "I am going to catch this ball, and I promise not to run.  Do not touch me."  Then, Brynden Trawick, a member of the same team, barrels into him.  This is the most spectacular fail ever!!!  And now, an animated GIF, just for you!  Enjoy!

Anyway, I'm going to try this neat game where I write all the fluff outside of the cooking process.

Sara and Janet arrived, and brought treats for us!  And Sara bought a ring for herself, which is made by the Amish to apparently signify the harvest?  When asked to look up whether the Amish have pagan harvest rings, I googled "Amish Ring", only to learn about drug rings.  Awesome.

Sweeeeeeeet.

Anyway, I'm on a very rare lull in the photography, so hey, blogging!

So, right, this guy.  He chops people's beards off when they denounce his authority.  Now that, is an Amish Ring(leader).  Watch yourself, Amish delinquents.

Rice Pudding

Ahh, rice pudding.  Jim began this earlier with cooking some Jasmine Rice.  It has a lovely aroma, and especially so when it's getting prepared by Deb.

Deb brings milk and rice to a boil.

Deb, after I wrote that sentence, immediately said "when did you take that picture?" to figure out how long she's been bringing to a boil.  Awesome.

Then, well, I missed a few steps, but it involved adding cream, coconut milk and spices.

It's cooked and delicious!

Then, transfer it to ramekins, and cover it with saran wrap to chill, otherwise, you'll get a skin.

Also, tape.

Tofu Tikka Masala

Brian is on the tofu tikka masala, which means - make the masala part!  Right now he's assembling the spices laid out in this recipe.

A blur of grating ginger.

Then, you sautee some onions in ghee.  Or, if you don't have ghee (dammit!) you can just do it in vegetable oil.

Onions in ghee

Brian went ahead and added in his pile of spices, and then added in tomatoes.  And how do you add tomatoes?  You squeeze.  Each.  One.  By.  Hand.  And cover yourself in tomato goo.  Yessss.

Awesome.

After it's come to a boil, you can add cilantro and cream.

Anyway, that tofu?  Remember, for the Tofu Tikka Masala?  It's marinating!

For chicken, you marinate in a yogurt spice mixture.  We started with soy sauce and garlic to give it some flavor, and now we're going to marinate it in the yogurt!

Marinated tofu in spiced yogurt

We're going to broil it!

It got broiled!

And then add them to the sauce!

Also, you'll have lots of delicious yogurt sauce afterwards, which you can turn into a dip!

With cilantro garnish

Vegetable Chop

So a chop, in case you're not Bengali, is a vegetable patty that's coated in egg and then deep fried.  Our surrogate Bengali mama microwaved the veggies, but Jim roasted them.  Then, he started to mush them up by hand.

Literally, by hand.

To this, you need to add cooked onions, which you make on the stove with spices.

Featuring harvest ring.

Then, you sautee them!

You can add spices, too!  And cook until they're brown.  Jim added some chili powder, garam masala, cumin...

Once they're brown, you can add them to the other veggies - and don't forget your carrots, which  may have been left in the microwave!

Then, mush them all up in to balls!

And then, you do egg yolks and bread crumbs.  It takes some panache, which we...well.  Yeah.

And then, once you've made a million of them, you fry them!

Apparently, you can deep fry them, but we're just shallow frying them.  Make sure to drain them on paper towels when you're done!

Then, they're done!

Saag Paneer

How do you make Saag Paneer?  You start with spinach!  We have frozen.  It almost got boiled, but we saved it!  Hooray!

And...you use paneer!

Fresh from the Indian market.

And then...fry it!

Deb, fryer and stirrer!

It gets nice and brown!

Once it's fried, you can chop it up.

Chopped, fried paneer.

Once the paneer is ready and the spinach is thawed, you chop onions and fry them, too.  Add in spices, and tomatoes.

Tomatoes, do your thing!

Once tomatoes cook, add cream.

And finally, the paneer!

We kind of forgot to blend the saag mixture, which isn't terrible, but isn't really Jim's preference.  Also, the tasting committee decided that we need more cream, so, hey, more cream it is.  Also, lemon juice is added.  We had a little discussion about whether that means that curdling will happen - apparently, super high fat dairy (like heavy cream) makes it way harder to curdle.  Here's way more information on that then you wanted.

Peach Lassi

Well, I don't know if peaches are authentically Indian, but they are authentically New England delicious, so we are using them in a lassi!

Step one of lassi adventure, measure yogurt.

We have fresh peaches, which Janet is going to chop up and maybe precook?  We will see.

Janet is also going totally rogue, and now adding extra cardamom to the lassi.  I'm...uh...not enthusiastic about cardamom.  But, hey, not my night.

Cooking peaches to sweeten

Unfortunately, these peaches need to be cool before blended into the yogurt.  Does Janet have a plan?  I don't know, but the peaches are getting mushy!  Well, add some sugar, and then blend it!

Janet says it...uh...tastes like a smoothie.  Since the yogurt isn't tart enough.  We shall see!  After this happened, Janet also added some greek yogurt and some salt.  Tart enough?  I SAID WE'LL SEE OH MY GOD WAIT.

Grades

Chops

Bri - A- without the sauce, A with the sauce.  Tasty?  It kind of fell apart...

Jim - A-.  The sauce was delicious.

Sara - B.  But like Brian, better with the sauce.  Something in the spices I didn't like.

Janet - B+ without the sauce, A with the sauce.  It fell apart, and I was like, ok cool!

Deb - B.  It didn't really have a strong flavor at all.  It was kind of fried vegetables.

Alex - B.  Exactly the same as Deb.

Saag Paneer

Bri - B.  The cheese never really...it felt separate from the spinach.  It didn't melt and mingle.  And the spices were...I was surprised by heat!

Jim - C.  I thought it was too spicy!  I don't know if I put way too much spinach in or what, but it just wasn't what I wanted.

Sara - B.  Puree!  More salt.

Janet - B-.  It needed way more salt, which was easily fixable.  It wasn't like saag paneer, but I thought it was quite, quite tasty.  I liked the spicy!  I liked the creamy.

Deb - B.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't as good as restaurant food.  The spices weren't quite right.

Alex - B.  I liked the spicy, I think the puree would have helped a lot.  I also wonder if enough cumin went in?

*Note: Jim forgot the fenugreek altogether.

Tofu Tikka Masala

Bri - A.  I...I mean...it has to do a little with me cooking it.  The rice wasn't as fluffy as it can be, but it was awesome.

Jim - A.  Solid A.  I thought it was really good.

Sara - A+++.  I loved everything about it, especially how good it was.

Janet - A+.  So good, so good. It's like...no, that shit was just really good.  I think the rice is a separate not county thing.  And I can't taste the soy sauce.

Deb  - A.  It was a standout.  It really went well with everything!

Alex - A-.  In my world, I imagined the chicken part, which the tofu definitely did not replace.  Still, delicious.

Peach Lassi

Bri - A-.  It was tasty, I personally had trouble with it because it all wanted to be soaked up by my mustache.

Jim - A.  I thought it was nice and bright and tasty.  I thought I never liked lassis, but maybe I don't like salty and mango.

Sara - B-.  Meh.  I wanted it to be more sour.  Additionally, more smooth.

Janet - C+.  It was a tasty smoothie, but not remotely a lassi.  I thought it was too thin.  Maybe there's no such thing as a peach lassi, but we didn't have the right kind of yogurt.  You can also just buy a thing called "lassi" in a bottle.

Deb  - C+.  It was a good smothie, but not really a lassi.  I'm also really full.

Alex - B+.  It was a good smothie, but not really a lassi.

Rice Pudding

Bri - C+.  It was heavy on the rice, low on the pudding for me.  Moist rice in a bowl...?  But tasty, for what that is?

Jim - A.  I like that it wasn't super sweet!  I thought the bursts of golden raisins in my mouth were just...nice!  Delightful!

Sara - A.  Light, delicious!  I enjoyed raisins?!

Janet - A-.  I thought it was remarkably similar to the rice pudding from a restaurant, which is pretty much the only rice pudding I've ever had.  I was sad it lacked nuts.  A little more spices would have been good...really, mostly just right on.  Perfectly sweet.

Deb  - C.  Edible but I wouldn't want to eat it again ever...I think it needed more spice, and the creamy texture was not there.

Alex - B.  I think maybe I don't like cold rice pudding that much.  I also apparently want my desserts to be crazy sweet.