Mutton & Malbec

What do dark chocolate, wine, and mutton all have in common?

Answer: An acquired taste...and this recipe.

As a child I hated all of the above, but good thing both my palate and I grew up. My obsession for milk chocolate and grape juice gave way to their mature counterparts. As for the lamb, well, my mom cooked it a lot, and somewhere between refusing to eat Baa Baa Black Sheep and the subsequent hunger pants, I came to love it.

This recipe is a mixture of my personal culinary holy trinity. Lamb slow cooked with Indian spices, red wine, and a handful of good chocolate. The resulting stew is 100 dimensions of heavenly taste.
Don't trust me though, try it for yourself!

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Palak Paneer Artichoke Dip

"Can I get the chicken makhani without the chicken?". That's what I want to say when I have to order Indian food...

I rarely go to Indian restaurants to eat, but when I do I have this problem where I eat all the gravy and leave the meat behind. The problem may also lie in the fact that most Indian restaurants just toss some tasteless grilled/boiled chicken or rubbery paneer into the gravy right before serving it. So, I thought it would be a great idea to take my favorite and most flavorful part of curry, the gravy, and create a dip!

This "Palak Paneer Artichoke" dip trades out the Parmesan in a traditional spinach-artichoke dip for fresh paneer. Best served with toasted naan or crackers.

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Simply Smashed Potatoes

Normal families make enough of a fuss over making the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Well imagine making two Thanksgiving meals in the same day and you got yourself an Indian Thanksgiving. Along with the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie you add a rice dish, chicken, some vegetable curries, and a few Indian desserts and sweets. On top of that you invite every Indian family you know because whats the point in making a Thanksgiving spread that puts a Grand China buffet to shame without sharing?
...well at least that's how Thanksgiving went in my house growing up.

These "Simply Smashed Potatoes" are the perfect union of the two sides of my family's Thanksgiving: Aloo methi meets adult mashed potatoes, A.K.A Roasted red potatoes, smashed and topped with dried fenugreek leaves, lemon zest, and a dash of truffle oil.

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Irresistable Irani Samosas

I recently found out that Hyderabad placed #3 in Lonely Planet's list of Top 10 cities to visit in 2013. So, in honor of my birthplace and its 15 minutes of fame, I've decided to add a baked twist to a Hyderabadi fried favorite, the Irani samosa.

These little onion-filled cocktail samosas are all over Hyderabad, from train stations to movie theaters and tea shops. They are so good to eat, but so very bad for you. So, I got the idea for baked Irani samosas with a cilantro goat cheese dip.

My version uses wonton wrappers, which means they become just as crispy in the oven as they would if fried. And the coolness of the goat cheese dip really adds another dimension to the sweet and spicy onion filling.

While I do admit that biting into a real, deep-fried irani samosa with oil dripping down your face brings out a Paul Deen-esque excitement...these baked ones are a very close second.

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Pumpkin Lux Lassi

Pumpkin is one of those things that people either love or love to hate. I'm glad I'm in the former boat because the explosion of pumpkin this Fall is absurd: from Pringles to Poptarts to perfume. You might be thinking there is nothing possibly left that could be pumpkin-fied. Well, you, my friend, are wrong.
That's right folks, it's time for some spiked pumpkin lassi.

I had the idea for this recipe while sipping on some regular mango lassi. My usual experimentation logic is that if two things are the same color, they can be substituted for each other. If I were you, I wouldn't take this advice to heart, BUT it's how I stumbled upon this wonderful recipe. All you need is yogurt, honey, a can of pumpkin and some spices!...oh and some Kahlua.

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Street Food Sliders

One of my favorite street foods in the whole world is pav bhaji. This is a take on the old favorite: Pav bhaji sliders with a sweet and spicy Indian slaw. It's street food, fanci-fied.

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Pumped-up Panna Cotta

Most people are scarred by memories of their parents' attempts to explain the "birds and the bees". Since I never had that talk as a child, I was most recently scarred by the birthing story of my favorite childhood dessert...

I was reminiscing about "junnu," a dessert that I would rarely get on vacations to India. It was this sweet, custard-like milk and cardamom pudding that I loved. Today, I (mistakenly) decided to Google it. What was in this mysteriously rare childhood treat?

Answer: cow colostrum.

Ah! Not to mention the fact that I selfishly stole the antibody-rich, first milk of many a baby calf, that's just UDDERly unappetizing.

So, I've decided to memorialize my favorite "junnu" into something a little less disturbing...a cardamom infused panna cotta drizzled with a ginger-saffron honey.

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