Oh yum, I checked out Madhur Jaffrey's book World Vegetarian from the library two days ago, and today I cooked an Indian meal entirely from this book. We had invited our friend Lynn over, and we see her rarely enough that it felt like an occasion to celebrate! Everyone (me, Nigel, Claire, and Lynn) loved the food. I am very pleased that I pulled off a nice dinner party with brand new recipes. My only complaint is that my rice was sort of sticky, and I'm not sure why. Otherwise, great eats were had by all.
The first picture shows the red lentils (masoor dal) before stirring in the fried red peppers, basil leaves, garlic cloves, and mustard seeds. It just struck me as so pretty that I had to snap a picture. The second picture shows everything plated, clockwise starting from the rice: Lemon Rice, Green Bean & Potato Curry, Apple Cranberry Chutney (from Trader Joe's!), and Masoor Dal Hyderabadi.
For dessert I served mango and chocolate sorbets with a pineapple and lychee compote. I don't have any pictures of dessert, but here's how I prepared the compote: I heated 1/2 can of coconut milk and a few tablespoons of brown sugar until the sugar dissolved, then I gently warmed up chunks of fresh pineapple and lychee in this sauce. In retrospect, there were too many flavors competing in the dessert bowl. Others agreed with me on this. In the future I would modify it to include only mango sorbet, and only pineapple compote. I think that coconut sorbet with mango compote would be divine, but there wasn't any coconut sorbet at the store today. Live and learn! I experimented a lot in the kitchen today, had a great time, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with family and friends. Success!
1 comment:
That all looks so lovely!
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