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| Our banquet table for the evening. |
Like a phoenix from the ashes, this blog has risen! I had intended on keeping You Pick Two going because it’s a lot of fun to do,
but as happens sometimes, work got in the way in 2017. My job this past year entailed lots of domestic
travel, which disrupted any planning for these dinners. I spend a lot of time combing
through my modest library of cookbooks, scanning online sites, and watching old episodes of my favorite cooking shows on Youtube searching for new recipes and inspiration. I also must
say I was surprised by how many of you out there that I ran into throughout this past year asked me, “hey what’s up with that dinner thing you
guys do?” So that was really nice to learn that some people do actually read and follow this.
I was also worried that the online landscape, especially with regards to blogging, has
changed so much since I last posted. I wondered, do people still blog anymore?
Is it passe now? Luckily, my site is still available and active. Although I am going take a
look at new platforms (suggestions anyone?).
This was our first 100% millennial dinner! It was interesting to see social media
actively being used during the night.
Although I like Instagram, I find that I take the online thing too
seriously sometimes. So, it was nice watching
them Snapchat while hanging out after dinner as we discussed and demonstrated
our different typing abilities (there was a fierce debate over the superiority
of the “asdf jkl;” method). It got me
thinking that sometimes those apps are really just supposed to be fun. I struggle a bit with it since I feel like I
was told my whole life to hide who I am, so my instinct is to be cautious about
my online presence. But maybe it’s time
to let that stuff go…
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| From left: Hunter, Grant, Karie, Kate. |
So who were the guests?
We met Kate and Karie through some mutual friends, who we unfortunately
don’t get to see much anymore. But that
has allowed us to spend some time together and get to know them pretty
well. They are incredibly nice people who,
in some funny way, have kind of become our millennial interpreters a bit. They went to American University and have a
big group of friends here that settled and found jobs after college. They throw a fun holiday party. They, like many of the millennial generation,
are very knowledgeable about food and drink and have introduced me to some
breweries and products here in DC that I really like. In fact, they brought us a bunch of great
beer as a hostess gift when they came for dinner. For the surprise guests, they brought two of
their guy friends, Grant and Hunter, who were a lot of fun. I haven’t laughed that hard in a
while really… plus it was really nice to hang out with adults and not talk jobs,
politics, or anything super heavy. Our conversations touched on the pros and cons of hooking with your pizza delivery person (still
unresolved), how Goya products are made in New Jersey (who knew?), and what it
feels like getting older (the big 3-0 is on all of their mutual horizons).
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| Beef vindaloo. |
For the food, I have been trying to have a dinner that
featured Indian cuisine for a while now, but had a hard time focusing the menu since Indian cuisine is
impressively varied by region and town. I turned to two sources, Nigella (shocker) and
someone I consider a great spokesperson for Indian cooking through her writing and cookbooks, Madhur
Jaffrey. Now, as a bit of a side note, I
also was one of those people who bought an Instapot on cyber Monday this past
year and, after being very skeptical initially, I have come to love it. So, after learning how evangelical Karie is
about the device at her holiday party, I knew I had to use it in some way
for this dinner. Fortunately, a lot of Indian cooking
lends itself very nicely to pressure cooking. I had intended to make lamb vindaloo, but no
grocery store here in DC had any lamb shoulder roasts, all I could find were sliced
blades from the shoulder that came from New Zealand. No thanks. So instead I found a
nice chuck roast (which admittedly is not very Hindu), but
it was quite delicious. Using Madhur’s
recipe it was a cinch to make in the Instapot – which also served as the cooking vessel for the
rice pilaf. And this is really where the
Instapot shines: cooking grains and legumes.
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| The rice pilaf. |
The appetizer was surprisingly easy to make
and also quite delicious. I have never
used chickpea flour before, but I would make these fritters again anytime. They were easy to assemble and after a quick pan
fry in an inch or so of vegetable oil, quite good with a yogurt dipping
sauce.
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| Aloo gobi and muttar paneer wait to be served. |
I also did my best to make a menu that contained no
cilantro. I randomly saw online that one
of the guests has that rare genetic thing where the leaves taste like soap or
worse, so I pulled that out where I could and substituted parsley instead. I also
learned that you can use ground dried coriander and it doesn’t affect
them the same way. Which would have been
tough since a lot of the Indian recipes I was looking at had ground coriander.
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| Frying up the onion fritters. |
The cocktail and dessert were something of a challenge. The Indian desserts have had in my life on
the whole just weren’t the most exciting. So I looked and found this semolina
cake with coconut added four ways, which sounded good. Unfortunately the recipe was really
off in their amounts and I think I overcooked the cake a bit. The guests still liked it, but I was disappointed. For the drink, we were pretty liberal on what
could constitute an "Indian" cocktail. Some research
online and we ended with a pretty good drink.
Although in retrospect I would have added sparkling wine, rather than
soda water, since it needed some acidity to cut through the guava.
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| Our cocktail for the evening. |
Overall, it was a fun night, with good food, and we made
some new friends – so glad to be doing these dinners again.
An Indian
Banquet
January 27, 2018
Cocktail
Mumbai Mint Sparkler
Guava
nectar, muddled mint, rye, club soda
Starter
Onion fritters
Besan (chickpea flour),
onion, spices, fresh chile,
green chutney dipping sauce
Mains
Chicken with Green Chiles
Chicken breast, green chile,
spices, spinach/mint sauce
Beef Vindaloo
Chuck beef, garlic, ginger, cayenne, whole
grain mustard, red wine vinegar, coconut milk
Sides
Muttar paneer
Paneer cheese, sweet peas,
tomato puree
Aloo gobi
Cauliflower, potatoes,
turmeric, mustard and cumin seeds
Rice pilaf
Gold basmati rice, cardamom, cinnamon,
slivered almonds
Sweet
Goan Baath Cake
Coconut (four ways),
semolina, rosewater
Guests
Karie Kvandal
Kate McCoy
Grant Carlisle
Hunter Mason
