Start Easy: Green Chutney

Indian chutneys are flavorful sauces used to compliment any meal. Green chutney is the perfect accompaniment to samosas. This sauce can also be enjoyed with chapatis, nan bread, or baked pita chips from the grocery store.

Recipe

1 large bunch or two small bunches of fresh cilantro (also known as corriander)
1/2 t salt*
1/4 cup peanuts
1 T lemon juice
1 t cumin
1 t Asafoetida powder** (not required)
1-3 dried red chili peppers*

*The quantity of salt and number of red chili peppers you add, will depend upon your personal preference. It is easy to start with less and add more as necessary depending upon your taste.

**Asafoetida also known as Hing is a familiar ingredient in many Indian dishes. You will need to go to an Indian grocery store to buy it. In my opinion, Asafoetida has a very strong, unpleasant odor. I've tried cooking with it, but my western palate is unable to discern when it is missing. As a result, I tend to leave it out.

Directions

1. Wash the cilantro thoroughly and remove the bottom ends of the stems. Both the leaves and stems from the cilantro should be used in the chutney.
2. Place all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend. You may need to add a few tablespoons of water to create a sauce like consistency.
3. Add additional salt and chili peppers as needed.

Pinky meets Ganesha

I will never forget my first Indian curry. My introduction to Indian food came rather late in life. I was in my early twenties, backpacking around Europe, after a year of study in Florence, Italy. The final stop on my circuitous route home was London. It was there, after a night of enjoying some fine Irish beer in the British pubs that I happened upon my first Chicken Tikka Masala. I am sure that I did not fully appreciate the complexity of the savory sauce and tender chicken chunks, but I left making a mental note to seek this food out when I returned to the US.

Indian food continued to mark important moments in my life. One of my favorite places to eat during my two years working in a rural Japanese public high school was Chai Pasal, in downtown Kobe. The food may have been so delicious that it inspired me to spend two months backpacking around India. While there, I spent most of my time admiring the architecture and adventuring into remote regions instead of learning how to cook the local dishes.

I’ve always enjoyed cooking. As a child, cooking meant spending precious time with my mother, maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather. From cinnamon rolls and spaghetti sauce to freshly baked bread and chicken pot pies, each cook had something special to share. As an independent cook, recipes became my platform for venturing out, testing my skills, and undertaking culinary adventures. When I was ready to try my hand at Indian food, I found that I had little material to work with.

Many of the Indian recipes I found were either in British measurements or seemed to be missing important ingredients or steps. I even went as far as marrying an Indian-American with the hopes of getting closer to the elusive curry recipe. What I found is that Indian cooks don’t really use recipes. Like me, they’ve spent time learning how to cook from a mother, grandmother or favorite aunt. The precise measurements we like to follow are replaced by a pinch, handful, or cup or so.

The goal of this blog is to make Indian food accessible to the Western cook by providing recipes that are (hopefully) straightforward and relatively easy to follow. I hope they will provide a good starting point for exploring this complex cuisine.