email me

Regards,

Paul

When you become a connosuir (sp?) of Indian cooking – you will appreciate that fresh garlic and ginger is no match for the paste jars!

Pakoras eh? That’s a very ambitious start! The key is to get the besan (gram flour) consistency right – should not be too thick – but not too thin either.

I did not see your previous post untill, Thanks for the through explanation of the pre-puled garlic, chillies and ginger.

I looked like crazy at the cash and carry and could not find anything called pre-pulped so I just bought fresh cillies, (3) 7.5oz jars of ginger paste, garlic paste & Mint Chutney

That night it was runnign late and my girlfriend was complaining about being hungry so we bought some frozen Saag Paneer, Cholee and some frozen Samosas which we made in the microwave and toaster oven and they were not so bad.

But right now for a snack I am goign to attempt for the first time some Paneer Pakoras, I bought (4) 400 gram blocks of paneer.

One question, tonight I will attempt to make some Mutter Paneer, Do the cubes of Paneer need to be frozen when put into the recipe or thawed?

Thanks Again,

Sal

I went to the Local Cash and Carry store last night.

Check out the link, I think I’m laready ready to try some indian dishes at home

Sal

Anyway – the pot looks great! I think I have answered this question before – I will dig out my response to someone who asked pretty much the same thing.

OK – found something here: http://www.route79.com/journal/archives/000161.html
Read the comments for some cluse.

Basically – you need the basic set of ground (powdered) spices: salt (which is not powdered of course!), turmeric (deep yellow/orange fine powder), garam masala (powdered mix of various elementary spices) and ground coriander seed (course soft powder) – these form the foundation to most dishes.

Then it is also handy to have some other dried spices in smaller quantities: whole cumin seeds, ground cumin powder, dried bay leaves.

Also – you need to have a stock of canned plum tomatoes in your can cupboard – may “pot” cooking Indian dishes will use tinned tomato to form the base of the dish after browning onions and adding spices. If you want the ultimate in convenience then get ready-chopped tinned tomato – but make your there are no other added falvourings 0r like garlic or herb etc.

All of the above are the sorts of things that can sit in cupboard for a long time and are very long-term perishable.

What you should also do is keep a stock of pulped ginger, garlic and chillie in your freezer. This is hard work at first – but well worth it in the long run. Just get a whole load of garlic, ginger and green chillies from the grocer one weekend and spend the morning peeling it all, (top and tail the chillies), washing it all – and then zapping it all up (separately of course) in a food processor until pulped. Then just spread the pulps out into freezer bags and lay flat in freezer for a few hours until they are rock solid. Then smash them all up into fragments and store in your freezer again in airtight bags for later use. When you are cooking and need to use ginger, chillie and garlic (which is a lot of the time) then just retrieve the frozen chunks from freezer – place on plate – and then zap for 15 seconds on full power in microwave to thaw then to pulp again – then they can be thrown into the pot as if you had created it from fresh.

And finally – in terms of fresh produce – the things to always have in your veg rack are potatoes and onions – but definitely lots of onions – as these are used in almost every dish.

And finally – well – meats and other veg used in the main dishes are usually bought soon before you want to cook them really.

I just bought a nice circulon non-stick glass top 8 QT stock pot to try out some of your recipes.

The only thing is I don’t know what to buy from the Indian produce store. Can you post a list of all of the ingredients that someone cooking Indian food will need?

Then I can take that list to the store and buy a good supply of it.

Thanks,

Sal Cameli

Have you tried MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator)?

With Mame you can play almost 4000 arcade games at home.

My 3 Favorite games are, Ms Pac Man, Tempest & Qix

This is a picture of my Large Arcade controller that I bought at SlikStik.com but I have made a portable one just for my three favorite games

http://38.161.195.8/Sals-Arcade.jpg

If you have any intrest in this just email me, I’ll post some stuff on my ftp site.

Sal

Chakra: Thanks! If you are on O2 (which I think you are) you should be able to download this Java app from the “O2 Games Arcade”.

HappyButterfly: I used to be good at Space Invaders as well – but haven’t played it for years!

JackalGB: Cool – I didn’t realise there was a book about it!

Quin: I have to say that’s amazing! I so want one!

Rajesh: Yes – indeed it does!

Venkat: You mean “frogger”? I loved that game also! What an inspiration eh?

Rupa: Thanks for such a nice comment! Hope your fiance tried some of the cooking out too!

Fritz: Well – I’ not sure of exactly how much I spent on this game – but I agree with you that there was a certain “something” about the arcade rooms in this era that was “exclusive” – which is just not apparent any more …