#rogan josh

[daily-deliciousness]

Beef rogan josh

[fattributes]

Chicken Rogan Josh

[morethansalad]

Vegan Rogan Josh / Roghan Ghosht (Kashmiri Indian Curry)

[fairtraderuk]

Always a favourite Indian curry - lamb Rogan Josh.

What's you favourite?

[slowcookingperfected]

Slow Cooker Beef Rogan Josh

It's so delicious!

Cannot wait to make this again!

[servalans-flowers]

Jacob Frye headcanon: Jacob vs. hot curry

How would a dinner of Indian Punjabi dishes go down with the twins, especially Jacob? (an excerpt from a longer WIP)

In a side room of the pub, Henry was presiding over a host of dishes large and small. Jacob had never seen that much rice in one place. Once the lids came off the dishes, he had to admire the wild mixture of colours and scents. No two dishes were of the same colour and none were recognizable.

Even the bread looked unfamiliar, landing somewhere between a bed sheet and an overgrown pancake. Naturally, every single thing had its own name and an exotic list of ingredients.

For a while, the conversation died down as they ate, broken only by occasional murmurs of wonder. Henry was explaining the supposed medicinal benefits of spices, then explained to Evie that naan – the odd-looking flatbread – was not supposed to be cut with a knife and a fork. Watching his sister trying to eat with her fingers was delighted Jacob as much as the taste of food.

Jacob prodded a strange piece of meat with a fork.

“What is this thing in green gravy?” he asked suspiciously.

“That’s saag paneer,” Henry explained helpfully. “It’s not meat. It’s cheese.”

Jacob considered this. “Cheese cooked in spinach gravy. No wonder it is hard to sell around here.”

Henry shrugged. “And yet it is better, and cheaper to make, than most things you buy off the carts,” he said sadly.

Jacob had to admit that the taste was quite good.  

“Greenie, what’s in that little pot over there?”

Evie passed him the dish. It was yet another shade of earthen colour. He suspected there was meat in it.

“It’s lamb stew,” his sister said.

“I’d be careful with that,” [OC] opined. “I can smell the heat from here.”

Henry had a similar warning. Jacob was starting to feel slighted.

“You are talking to someone who used to spread hot mustard like it was jam,” he said.

“This isn’t mustard, Jacob. That rogan josh was made especially -”

“And horseradish!”

“At least have it with some rice,” Henry advised.

Evie waved the dish under his nose.

“Great Jacob Frye, defeated by lamb stew?”

That did it. Jacob grabbed a spoonful of the meat and gravy and shoved it straight into his mouth.

The taste was good, the meat well cooked. What in the world was all the -  

Half a pint of beer later, the ringing in his ears died down. Jacob glared daggers at Henry. Evie was still laughing, her hands covering her face.

“Evie insisted on trying a truly hot dish,” Henry said apologetically.  

Evie wiped tears from her eyes.

“What a charming shade of red you turned, brother dearest.”

“Did I indeed?”

“That is supposed to be a sign of good health,” Jacob murmured. He passed the dish to Evie. “Your turn, my darling sister.”

Henry stood up. leaned in towards Clara. “If you’ll  excuse me, I think I had better bring us more drinks.” He shook his head sadly at the bickering twins. “I do fear this sort of food will never catch on in London.”

[butter-and-too-much-bread]

My dinner

[dr-archeville]

A cheat sheet to Indian restaurant menus

Let’s get the big flashing misnomer out of the way: Not every stew at an Indian restaurant is a curry. It’s understandable how it’s become shorthand for “meat-filled spicy sauce to dip roti in,” but that’s a gross generalization for a cuisine that’s breathtaking in its diversity.

Let’s get the big flashing misnomer out of the way: Not every stew at an Indian restaurant is a curry.  It’s understandable how it’s become shorthand for “meat-filled spicy sauce to dip roti in,” but that’s a gross generalization for a cuisine that’s breathtaking in its diversity.

Part of the problem is that some restaurant menus haven’t done the best job articulating the distinctions of a vindaloo from korma or tikka masala.  “Lamb in savory sauce” and “chicken in aromatic gravy” isn’t exactly the most evocative description.

What follows is a beginner’s cheat sheet to the dishes you’ll most likely encounter at your neighborhood Indian spot.  True, there are ingredient commonalities: the spices used are typically a combination of turmeric, black pepper, chilies, cardamom, cloves, and the like.  There is usually onion involved, sometimes tomato, and if there’s a sauce, it’s likely thickened with yogurt or cream (or both).  But then it veers off into delicious tangents.

A brief preamble: It’s worth noting while the corpus of Indian cuisine is incredibly vast, the menus at Indian restaurants are dominated by what is called Mughlai cuisine, a category of north Indian food — born during the Mughal Empire — that’s laden with rich, gravy-based meat and vegetable stews.  This is less a function of Mughlai cuisine being the best or most popular food in India, and more a function of the fact that many of the dishes within it use the same sauce (which, for a restaurant, makes them easy to produce in large quantities), and often involve meat (a seeming necessity for American palates).  This is not to say the dishes aren’t delicious, but it’s a reminder that Indian food has a lot to offer beyond just what you’ll find at these restaurants.

Chicken tikka masala

More British than Indian (it’s regarded by some as the national dish of England), chicken tikka masala begins with tandoori chicken, where the skinless bird has been marinated in a spiced yogurt sauce, then cooked in the tandoor (a clay oven) until juicy and smoky.  Tandoori chicken in and of itself is a wonderful dish, but Chicken tikka masala takes it one step further, by simmering it in a sauce made of onions, tomatoes, and cream (or yogurt).  The dish is known for its safety-cone-orange color, usually from turmeric and paprika in the sauce, but sometimes because of added orange food coloring.  Some restaurants will give the tikka masala treatment to lamb or even beef, but chicken is the O.G. protein.

Butter chicken

Butter chicken is the classic Indian truck stop dish that’s as straightforward as it sounds: Chicken gets cooked in a tomato and butter gravy (or literally just butter) until the meat is fall-off-the-bone soft.  Butter chicken will often look very similar to chicken tikka masala; the difference is that tikka masala has more of a complex, layered flavor from the spices, while butter chicken tastes like, well, butter, with a milder, sweeter gravy.

Vindaloo

Vindaloo is a south Indian dish with many variations.  The version you’ll likely see in an Indian restaurant will include some kind of meat base cooked with red chilies, vinegar, garlic, and sometimes potatoes.  In India, the dish is known for its unmitigated spiciness.  But at your neighborhood Indian joint, chances are the heat has been tamed.  Unless you ask for it.

Chana masala

The name tells you everything you need to know: Chana = chickpeas.  Masala = spices.  Chana masala, which happens to be a very popular street food in northern India, consists of boiled chickpeas that have been cooked in a tomato-onion gravy.  A special feature of chana masala is that the spices in it are often over-toasted — this is what gives the most flavorful versions of the dish its dark hue and deep roasted flavor.

Dal makhani

You may think that a lentil stew would be a healthy alternative to the otherwise rich offerings at a lot of Indian restaurants, but in the case of dal makhani, you would be wrong: The dish literally translates to “buttered lentils.”  This is a classic vegetarian restaurant staple, made with black lentils that have been cooked with lots of butter, cream, and a clove- and black-pepper-heavy spice mixture — plus (sometimes) a little bit of jaggery, for sweetness.  The taste, oddly enough, is reminiscent of drinking chai — creamy with a slight kick, but very subdued.  In the cooking process, the lentils get soft, like a thick porridge.

Korma

Korma is meat (usually chicken or lamb) braised in a garlic- and ginger-spiked yogurt sauce.  It’s cooked using the low-and-slow method, so the yogurt doesn’t curdle, yielding a tender, mild stew.  If your korma tastes extra rich, that’s probably because the gravy has ground cashews or almonds in it — an extra piece of flair often added to enrich the taste.

Rogan josh

With most Indian dishes, you can select your choice of meat.  When it comes to rogan josh, lamb is the only option.  The key to its smoky and sweet taste is the base, which consists of onions that have been browned in oil or ghee (clarified butter) until essentially caramelized, as well as the heavy dose of bracing, warming spices like whole cardamom and clove.  You might see on a menu that the dish has chilies, but don’t worry — the chilies used in rogan josh are usually mild ones.  If you’re at a good Indian restaurant, your rogan josh might be finished with a touch of saffron — an expensive spice with a delicate, floral flavor.

Biryani

There’s nothing not to love about biryani: soft, long-grain basmati rice, tender chunks of meat, layered, warm spices (cardamom is usually key), and loads of ghee (clarified butter), all cooked in a pot over slow fire.  On the surface, biryani can look like just a pot of steamed rice, as there’s no actual “sauce” involved; what makes it truly luxurious is the way that the ghee clings onto — and enriches — each grain of rice and morsel of meat, and the aroma of the whole spices (most of which are left in the biryani itself) that’s totally all-consuming when you initially lift the top off the dish.  There are countless takes on biryani, some vegetarian, some finished with raisins, some with gold foil on top for extra pizzazz.  The point is, you can’t go wrong, no matter what kind you get.

Jalfrezi

The name of the game here is sizzling meat and vegetables (or just vegetables) that have been dry-fried on very high heat with plenty of chilies.  The dish is pretty spicy, as there’s no gravy to cut through the heat, though many restaurants will tone it down by adding cream or yogurt.  This is a close analogue to stir-fry, or fajitas, but with the piquancy levels turned way, way up. 

Here’s an interesting bit about Vindaloo from the comments section:

I mention in a different post: there is no authentic, legitimate spicy vindaloo.  It is a Goa [Western Indian] dish, far from wherever most Indians (or Pakistanis) who migrate to North America to open restaurants come from.  Like, "as far as Sweden from Spain, they have very different cuisines despite both places being called 'India'" far.

Goa cuisine is unique to Goa, the state is less than 200 miles long, it's tiny and unique; the cuisine was invented by some specific cultural alchemy of Portuguese colonists picking up some Mangalore Brahmins, making them Catholic and moving them 600 miles north; they then take some of their recipes, mix it with this new port wine they suddenly have access to, mix it with this new meat they're suddenly eating.  And it's super regional: not even 50 miles out of Goa do they know what a "vindaloo" is.  Maybe in specialty restaurants in Mumbai or Delhi, for $20 a plate.

What you get in a western vindaloo, is indian restaurants trying to kill their clients with a few dashes of bhut jolakia.

A good list... but no Saag Paneer (chunks of paneer cheese in a creamy spinach sauce)?!  That’s Punjabi, that’s as North Indian as you can get, and it’s been served at every Indian restaurant I’ve visited.