It's Wednesday again, and this week Boy chose Chicken Vindaloo. I can't say it's the simplest or best written recipe I've used, and the prep work took nothing short of an hour and a half, but I guess that's what's to be expected when one cooks Indian food at home.
When I went out gathering I was annoyed but not suprised to find that my store didn't have a bottled garam masala mix. Fortunately, I had everything necessary to make my own (there are about eighty bajillion recipes out there) and while this was a bit time consuming, it was well worth it for the smell alone. It was absolutely enchanting, like a drug really, and it added to the pleasure of getting to spend an afternoon playing around in my bright, sunny kitchen.
Anyway, the dish turned out fabulously. We both ate way too much and my only regret is that there isn't much leftover.


In the interest of staying in a breadmaking groove, I decided I'd try and make naan to go with the vindaloo, and you can see a couple of pieces tucked on the edge of the plate there. I used a recipe from Joy of Cooking, substituting about 1/3 less instant yeast for the specified active dry yeast. (Incidentally, the Bread Baker's Apprentice book addresses the properties of various types of yeast in detail which is how I knew this substitution would work. I'll tell you about this and how it relates to the No-Knead Bread at some point since active dry yeast is much easier to find on the spur of the moment than instant yeast)
Fortunately, JOC knows I'm not very likely to have a Tandoor oven in my house, (is naan the kind that gets slapped up against the inside walls of the Tandoor to bake?) so the recipe has you use a baking stone which worked great. The recipe was super simple and came out really good...something I'd make again, even to serve with non-Indian food, or, better yet, as a sandwich wrapper.

So, despite the fact that the vindaloo was about a three hour recipe between making the chili/garlic/ginger paste and carmelizing a whole pan full of onions, I'll definitely keep it on our menu rotation.

Now go check this coincidence out over at Knit-Whit. Unbeknownst to me, she had taken notice of the swank new carts, too and was on the verge of blogging them. She gets major cred because she was even with it enough to get a picture. We scare ourselves, yes.