Indian Cooking

Before I started at INSEAD, Deeksha gave me a half day lesson in Indian cooking. She showed me the spices, and we (she) made a whole bunch of veggie dishes. They were outstanding. Then I went to school and didn't have time to breathe. I barely cooked at all. Now that I'm unemployed and live across the street from Little India, I feel empowered to do better!

Last weekend I made a great chickpea dish. It was more like western Indian cooking, but it was still amazingly tasty, and I had it for breakfast the rest of the week.

This week, I decided to take it one step further. First, I went to Little India, and I bought my own masala set. I had bought a bunch of spices, but they come in bags, and it's just messy.

Then, I started two dishes, from an Asian cookbook that Shana gave me before we moved to Singapore. It has different sections for each country, and the recipes are amazing. Highly recommended...if you live in Asia and have access to very Asian ingredients. I popped my own mustard seeds and everything! I made a superb potato, onion, and pea dish, and then I made a chickpea dish that has a sauce of blended onions and tomatoes. They were both surprisingly yummy! This picture is the best I can do - Matt has our camera in London, so this is from my phone, but you can get the idea. This is the leftovers after I had packed some for a friend (I forgot to take a picture of the full dishes). I was really impressed with myself. If I had more than two burners, then I would say that they were easy and fast, but since each one used the same pan and burner...it was a bit more than an hour of cooking. Totally worth it.