This is a tomato based lamb soup flavored with Indian spices. I ordered it spicy, but I found it to be so mild that even my sister could have enjoyed it (maybe). It had green peas in it, little bits of lamb, and some celery. It was a touch sour, a little sweet, somewhat spicy, and it was creamy deliciousness. If I remember right, this was my first lamb soup in an Indian restaurant, and it's a winner.
Location: Monsoon Indian Cuisine, 555 S Sunrise Way, #107, Palm Springs, California. Date: September 9, 2023.
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These are homemade Indian cheese fritters in chickpea batter that are fried in oil. There were four fritters that came with a tamarind sauce that was sweet and sour, and I also ordered a side of sweet mango chutney which was great with the fritters. The fritters were mostly cheese with a fairly thin layer of batter. While not the best appetizer I've had, it was interesting and loaded with easy to eat protein.
Location: It's Taste of India, 13104 Palm Drive, Desert Hot Springs, California. Date: August 26, 2023. The first time I had this dish, traditionally known as murgh makhani, was at an Indian restaurant in Lima, Peru; however, it didn't match my definition of noteworthy. The dish I had today, at one of my local Indian restaurants, was a chef's special, and it was truly delicious. The chicken was tandoori (marinated and baked in the famous clay oven), chopped up and sauced. The sauce was made of onion, tomato, butter, and spices. It was buttery but not greasy, a touch sweet, a touch sour, nicely spiced, and somewhat creamy. It was garnished with cilantro, as is traditional, and I ate it with garlic naan bread.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive (Mission Plaza), Cathedral City, California. Date: June 14, 2023. Paneer Bhurji is scrambled homemade cheese cooked with onion, tomato, peas, ginger, garlic, and in my case, a good dose of turmeric. It was garnished with chopped cilantro. The scramble was quite a bit like scrambled egg but with more of a chew. The onion slices still had some crunch to them, which I liked. I ordered it spicy. It was a somewhat drier dish, but it was so tasty that it was mouthwatering. I had it with ajwain paratha, which is an Indian whole wheat flatbread that was folded over and had ajwain seeds inside. Ajwain, known as carom in English, supposedly tastes like caraway, but I found those small seeds to be more like a cross between caraway and mint. They are known to greatly enhance digestion, and now I believe it. This Indian restaurant is in my home town, and a number of people recommended it. My dish was too big for me (what you see is just half of it), but it was so delicious that I ate it all anyway.
Location: It's Taste of India, 13104 Palm Drive, Desert Hot Springs, California. Date: June 3, 2023. I've had more than my share of dishes featuring Paneer, which is homemade Indian cheese, but I still love coming across one I haven't tried before. Shahi Paneer was advertised on the menu as “crumbled homemade cheese in spicy cream sauce”. The cheese was definitely more cut than crumbled, it had a nice chew to it, and the sauce was somewhat sweet as well as spicy and creamy. Between my two friends and I, we ordered three dishes, but one of my friends and I agreed that Shahi Paneer was the best of the three.
Location: India Oven, 85875 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: April 4, 2023. Paneer is Indian style fresh cheese, and this dish is a refreshing sweet and sour with sauteed but still crunchy onion slices and bell pepper along with the chilli sauce. Vinegar must have been one of the ingredients like it is for vindaloo, and I tasted cumin seed. The menu described this dish as homemade cheese with special spicy gravy with roasted herbs, but the crunchy veggies and the sour flavor make it much more than that. This was a chef specialty, so I'm not sure of your chances of finding it in other Indian restaurants, but should you come across it I would urge you to try it, especially on a warm day.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: September 15, 2022. This was another great duo from India Oven. The Pasanda Newab was a Chef Special, and it was sliced lamb cooked in a cream curry with yogurt and nuts. I paired the lamb curry with Pudina Chicken. This was boneless chicken pieces cooked in spiced mint gravy. There was some sweetness to the creamy yogurt dish and some sourness to the chicken in mint. It was a wonderful contrast. There were some crunchy nut pieces in the lamb dish that I think were probably cashew. My friend and I ordered both dishes on the spicy side, and we enjoyed them with naan bread baked in the tandori oven and basmati rice, the long grain and nutty tasting rice from India.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: March 16, 2022. I've used Shan brand butter chicken spice before, but not with chicken sausage. What I did was to saute onion and garlic in butter, and then I added the Pakistani spice mix and the sliced sausage with peas, peeled tomato, and yogurt. I cooked fingerling potatoes separately and added them to the curry to make a complete one pot meal. It was creamy, spicy, a touch sweet and sour, and very savory.
Location: Private Home, Desert Hot Springs, California. Date: January 18, 2021. My friend Joe came back to the valley specifically to eat at India Oven, and once again we found a very tasty pairing of two Indian dishes. He chose the Mango Lamb and I picked one of the Chef Specials: the Punjabi Kaddi (usually spelled kadhi). The pieces of boneless lamb meat were cooked in a mango flavored gravy. The sauce was quite sweet but luckily we asked for it to be spicy, and the sweet and spice together was intensely delicious. The lamb meat was very tender and the lovely lamb flavor had permeated the mango sauce. Kaddi is a vegetarian dish that is basically yogurt cooked with herbs and spices; in this case it featured fenugreek. It also contains gram (chickpea) flour, in some cases as a fried fritter called a pakora, but in our case as more of a dumpling or vegetarian meatball. The dish had some tang to it from the yogurt, and it was very savory, which contrasted well with the sweet mango sauce with the lamb. We had garlic naan bread to sop up the sauces.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive, D-8, Cathedral City, California. Date: October 20, 2021. I think that in other Indian restaurants this is often called Vegetable Korma, but at Monsoon they use both vegetables and fruits. Navratan means nine gems, and it traditionally contains nine vegetables and fruits, though sometimes the nuts in the sauce are included in the nine ingredients. The version I had contained nine vegetables and fruits cooked with onion in a smooth and creamy cashew nut and almond gravy. I was able to identify all nine vegetables and fruits: green beans, peas, carrot, baby lima beans, mango, zucchini, cauliflower, coconut, and pear. I ordered it with Onion Kulcha, which is naan bread stuffed with onion and flavored with spices. I detected ginger, thyme, and fresh cilantro. The bread was evenly charred in the tandoori oven. While I waited for my curry, I was brought the Indian version of chips and salsa. It consisted of a whole papadum (like a very thin and crispy tortilla made from beans instead of corn) and two dips: a tomato and mango salsa, and a sweet mango chutney; both had a little spice to them. The creamy curry had a little sweetness to it from the fruit, and it was very mild. It was delicious, but next time I'll ask for more spice.
Location: Monsoon, 555 S Sunrise Way, Ste 107, Palm Springs, California. Date: July 31, 2021. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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