Shopping & Cooking in Delhi

 Monday Jan 29 / Taj Mahal Hotel - Delhi

Traffic in India is chaotic. The mix of vehicles (cars, trucks, buses, motor scooters, rickshaws). The way that marked traffic lanes are treated only as a suggestion with everyone vying for any open spot. The minuscule space between vehicles that drivers are comfortable fitting in. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the use of horns, other than, use it as often as you can. Not a place for the shy driver. Fortunately we were leaving the driving to the experts.

We arrived at the Taj Mahal Hotel around 8pm. The staff were all very welcoming and anxious to share info re the hotel, Delhi, or India. Their excited chatting is in a heavily accented English so we struggled to get it all. One told us about some Indian sweets and brought up a sampling. The tastiest was a diamond shaped coconut paste in 3 layers of color. There was also a carrot one (small carrot sticks, raisins and more in a sweet sauce, with slivers of cheese and nuts.) The 3rd is serious comfort food for Indians. It was a cross between a custard and a rice pudding. Minus the rice.

Tuesday January 30 / Shopping

We had two breakfast options: a dining room with an a la carte menu or a buffet (with a mix of asian and western food...but very poorly lit). We chose the dining room. We had basic western foods but the chef offered to make us some Indian specialties another day.

Our shopping guide, Rajeev Goyal (aka Raj), was waiting for us in the lobby after breakfast. He would also be our cooking instructor. We later learned he has a PhD in Food History and started his guide business to follow his passion.

The first stop was the National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy with a vast array of arts/crafts spanning centuries and regions. It has an extensive collection of paintings in a myriad of styles, wooden constructions, ceramics and textile arts.

Then onto Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd. with some amazing works of ceramic, painting, fabric, rugs, jewelry, .... We checked out a few carpets and if we had more time would likely have bought one but it wasn't a priority for us.

Lunch was at Kahn Chakka (a former street food business, now turned into a small chain). Basically wraps with mutton, fish, or chicken. He recommended the chicken tikka roll (tasty and spicy) and Thumbs Up (a soft drink preferred to Coke here). Why is it not surprising that Thumbs Up was bought by Coke planning to kill the product? The surprise is that Coke caved to demand and left it on the market.

We went on to visit Indian Loom, a gallery and store with a massive array of crafts for sale. We toured a bit and then focused on fabrics. We ended up ordering quite a few shirts (5 for Bill, 3 for Pat) plus two dresses....one made out of a sari.  

We were promised they would be ready and delivered in 2 days, They arrived on-time, Bill's fit great. Pat's were all overly snug....but they had left huge seams. The next morning they came over to check the fitting and took them back for adjustments.  The clothes were delivered in the evening as we were packing to move on. Fortunately the adjustments were all fine.

We discovered that our hotel had a bar focused on cocktails and another (Captain's Cellar) focused on wine with 40+ available by the glass with roughly 20 available from a dispenser. And great food for pairing. We had: red Fratelli's JNoon (passion)  and Sula Chenin Blanc), both from India (near Mumbai). Both were quite good.

The hotel also has 2 full restaurants. One with Western & Indian foods. One with Chinese — renowned restaurant. We only realized how special the Chinese restaurant is after we chose the Captain's Cellar a second time. What with the huge meals we were served at lunch, we couldn't have done it justice anyway. 

To go with our wine, we had:

• Croquette of cheese and Iberico ham (sheeps milk croquet, copa, bacon, & popcorn)
• Mushrooms & Chips (crispy french fries with mushroom & white wine sauce)
• Apple tart with apple ice cream and chantilly sauce

All was so good we had to return.

Wednesday January 31 / Cooking Class

Our cooking class started around 10am at Raj's home and wrapped up around 4pm. Our chefs were Raj and his wife (also a guide) who is the baker in the family. 

We started with an overview of Indian food and cooking basics. 

• Eat your water, drink your food....Clean water is scarce. So "eat water", ie consume hydrating foods eg cucumbers, melons, broccoli, ...)  This way you get more nutrients and you stay hydrated longer as you will need to pee less. To "Drink food" means to chew your food thoroughly making almost a puree in mouth and then to "drink" it down. This helps the body access the nutrients.
• They are also conscious of the value of balancing the body's temperature and are conscious of the role spices play in this. It was beyond my note taking skills to capture all that.
• Indian and Asian cuisine focus on spices (not ingredients) Indian households likely have a Masala Dani, a box of key spices. Masala means blend. Cooks are aware of the digestion benefits of the range of spices. 

Raj's Masala Box has the following (but his kitchen has many other spices stashed into every nook and cranny):

• tumeric (In India, they always rub tumeric on meat. Tumeric is even used in a paste as part of cleansing the body for a wedding)
• dry green mango powder / aamchur (a fruity, tart spice powder made from dried unripe green mangoes)
• coarsely ground red chile powder (made from ground chilies that have been dried with the seeds; generates heat, calmed down by mango powder and salt or lime or tart fruit)
• iodized salt (saltier than ours...leaves mouth with more saliva; works as a palate cleanser)
• coriander powder coarsely ground (It cools food down; Don't expose to heat directly.  Add after flame is off).
• garam masala (it adds heat; made from 9-24 spices - Some common ingredients are coriander seeds, cumin seeds, green cardamom, cloves,  black peppercorns)

They gave us a set of Indian spices - now we have to try to make something on our own.

Tidbits mentioned throughout the day:

• Always cut onions at the last minute.
• The sharper the taste of purple onions, the better for lamb.
• If fat melts in your hand it is good for the body.because it won't stick to the body....eg ghee, butter, coconut oil
• Peanut, rice and canola oils are good for deep frying.
• To taste dishes, place a bit between back of thumb and index finger and taste it from there 
• Briefly roast (5-10 min) whole or ground spices in oil or ghee on low to medium temperature. This "tempers" them to release essential oils, thus making their flavor more aromatic.
• Drip some water on potato to help spice stick to it (if potato has been sitting and isn't moist). Drips of water on eggs works for seasoning as well, even to recover overcooked eggs. 

We started with prep work including cutting up chicken and lamb, preparing marinade for the chicken and making Pakoras with chutney and masala chai for a snack. 

Pakoras (fritters made by coating ingredients, usually vegetables, eg sliced potato 1/3" thick, cauliflower, spinach, onion ..., in a spiced batter, and then deep frying).

Chutney (mix cilantro and mint in any proportion, Added ginger, salt, garam masala. and water.  Blend. Store in fridge. Add a tart seasoning (lemon, mango powder) last minute. 

Masala Chai (sweet tea with hot milk and spices...calms down the heat of pakora)

We paused for a light snack of potato pakoras, chutney and masala chai.

Then we got serious with more work on the chicken and lamb plus making breads (Aside from the intro to spices, it was our favorite part of the class.)

Chicken Tikka (Boneless pieces of chicken, marinated in spiced yogurt, threaded on a metal skewer and grilled or maybe cooked over charcoal. The term “tikka” translates to a piece or chunk. Butter chicken combines the chicken tikka with a creamy, mild tomato-based sauce. Not to be confused with Chicken Tika Masala which is a Brit variant with a spicier, earthy, and tangier taste. 

Butter Chicken (Basically starting with tomatoes, nuts and spices, cook down to gravy consistency, add cream. Note: The gravy works over meat / chicken, deep fried potato or paneer cheese and freezes well. Used with chicken, it is called Butter Chicken.)

Mutton Meat Masala (Lamb slow cooked with tons of onion and lots of spices. Raj favors a base of packaged meat masala, aka "Meat ka masala", supplemented with others to taste.)

DAL (Cooked spiced lentils maybe with added lime juice of mango powder.)

We moved on to making Breads 

• Roti/Chappati - flat
• Paramtha - stuffed
• Dessert - with sugar filling. 

They all start with the same simple 3 ingredients (whole wheat flour, salt and water,)

For the Roti, we took small balls of dough (1.5" to 2" in diameter) and rolled them out to about 6 inches in diameter. The technique is key. Roll the dough then lift (be sure to lift) and turn 1/4 turn. Roll again and continue. If it sticks, drop it in flour to coat it thoroughly. Then for some reason, you carefully take the top of the dough, called the "face" and flip it onto a hot pan. Cook til it forms small bubbles and then flip it so the former bottom of the bread (called the backbone) will now be cooking. Again cook til it forms small bubbles. Then move pan off burner and use tongs to pick up the bread and toast it in the flame. Amazingly, it now puffs up. Continue til golden brown.

To make Paramtha  which can be stuffed with dry veggie (potato, squash, cauliflower, spinach pieces), start as with roti. But only roll it to half the size (3" dia).Then add stuffing. Collect sides like a wonton pouch and then flatten to seal. Rollout with the gathered side down, rolling, lifting and turning until even and about 6" in dia,  Cook in butter/ghee "face" down, for 45 sec. Flip and Spread evenly with butter/ghee cook 60 sec. Cook until toasty with  dark spots...goal is a crusty outside and soft inside.

Dessert was a variant of Paramtha using large granules of sugar as the stuffing. Once cooked, freeze for 20 min or much longer. Use pizza cutter on frozen dough and serve with honey, syrup, conserve, …

We finished off the lamb and chicken and enjoyed the results along with several Indian wines. And yes, there are a few very nice Indian wines. We later learned that Sula Winery was founded by a Stanford grad. Their basic wine is very drinkable and they have some very fine premium wines.