I went to India Oven again with a friend of mine, and I ordered Makhani Paneer, a dish I'd seen on the menu before but had yet to try. It consists of pieces of homemade cheese cooked with mushroom pieces in a creamy tomato based sauce flavored with saffron. I wasn't sure what to order with it, but when I spied Bhindi Masala on the menu, I asked my friend if he liked okra, and he replied that he loved it. This masala is okra cooked with red onion, tomato, ginger, and other spices (definitely cumin). These two dishes together turned out to be a perfect pairing. The cheese dish was soft but the cheese itself was mildly chewy. The okra and onion in the other dish were a little crunchy. The cheese dish was slightly sweet and had a honey-like flavor which was likely from the saffron. The okra dish was really savory; it was also a little oily and definitely had a good dose of healthy turmeric in it. So the textures and the flavors of the two dishes paired really well, and even the colors did too: orange, green, and white from the rice, the colors of the Indian flag. We also had some garlic naan bread with our meal. We ordered the dishes spicy, and the spice level we got was just perfect: not too spicy at first but the heat built as we ate, which is when our Taj Mahal beer came in handy.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: June 23, 2021.
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This is one of my favorite currys, and I realized today that I didn't have it documented. So I went to my favorite Indian restaurant in the valley, and it paid off with the best paneer cheese I've ever had with spinach curry. It was soft and delectable. I ordered my dish with garlic naan, and the garlic on the bread enhanced the flavor of the blended spinach. I had my lunch with my go to Indian beer: Taj Mahal. It's just hoppy enough and malty enough to be a pleasant accompaniment to a curry that I ordered spicy.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: June 19, 2021. Sam's is the only Indian restaurant I've come across that offers paneer naan, which is naan bread stuffed with crumbled homemade cheese along with onion and cilantro. I decided to order it and then had to decide what to order with it. I chose fish masala because I don't belong to the school of chefs who think that fish and cheese don't go together. The masala sauce was made from a coarsely pureed mixture of tomatoes, bell pepper, cream, and spices (almost certainly fresh ginger was in there). I ordered it hot, which means spicy. There were at least a half dozen approximately one inch cubes of boneless mahi mahi in the sauce, but for me the fish was the protein vehicle with which to enjoy the amazing masala. The stuffed naan bread was quite moist, but dunking it into the masala was the way to go for maximum flavor. This was a noteworthy take out lunch for sure.
Location: Sam's, 61380 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, California. Date: March 6, 2021. There were two inspirations for me to cook a Pakistani menu at a friend's home. I was gifted a whole filleted Alaskan wild salmon from the Alaskan owner of Smokin' Burgers in Palm Springs, and I had picked up some packets of Shan brand spices on a recent trip to San Diego; I used the recipe on the back of each packet to make my meal. I used the Lahori Fish Mix for the salmon. This mix has wheat flour in it to coat the fish as well as spices like ginger, black cumin, green mango, clove, and cinnamon. I cut the fillets into cubes, coated them with the mix, and left them to marinate for a half hour before frying the pieces in coconut oil. I used the Butter Chicken packet to flavor the chicken breast pieces which ended up, after marinating with yogurt, in a rich tomato sauce with butter and cream. For the vegetable dish I used the Pav Bhaji spices. This was a mixture of salt, red chili, coriander, cumin, black pepper, green cardamom, dried mango, and some other spices and ingredients. It's very spicy and has some fruity notes to it. I used it with the recommended mash of potato, cauliflower, and green peas, but I left the peas whole. I made some Raita for the meal, which is yogurt with grated cucumber, chopped mint, and salt and pepper to taste. It's used in India to cool the spiciness of the curry dishes. I also bought some Sweet Mango Chutney to add a sweet element to the meal. I thoroughly enjoyed trying my hand at this, and the diners seemed to appreciate my effort.
Location: Private Home, Redlands, California. Date: November 7, 2020. This naan tandori flat bread, which I hadn't seen on other Indian restaurant menus before, is stuffed with a ground coconut and cashew mixture, and it's brushed with honey. The menu also said raisins, but I failed to see or taste them; however, the bread was sweeter than I was expecting, so all the better if the raisins weren't there. I ordered this sweet naan accompanied by raita (Indian yogurt with cucumber) and mango pickle (made of small green mangoes, pits and all). Apart from sweet, the toasty clay oven baked naan was nutty, the pickle was crunchy, salty, and spicy, and the raita was sour, cooling, and great for dipping the sweet bread into. While I wouldn't want to eat Peshwari naan all by itself, the combination I got made for a delightful take out lunch.
Location: Sam's, 61380 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, California. Date: June 13, 2020. Sam's menu states that vindaloo is potatoes cooked in a sauce made of onions, tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, and spices. All the other types of curry at Sam's can be ordered mild, medium, or hot, but the vindaloos can not be had mild; naturally, I ordered mine hot. Vindaloos come with various proteins, such as chicken, shrimp, or lamb, but I ordered the vegetable vindaloo, which is something I hadn't seen before on other Indian menus. Apart from the potato, that had taken on the color of the sauce, my curry was loaded with green beans, zucchini, and carrot; I also found one piece of cauliflower in it. There was a surprise: apart from the well cooked potato, the other veggies came al dente! While this is common in Chinese cuisine, I thought it was rather unusual for Indian food, but I appreciated that the veggies were not cooked to death. The curry came with perfectly cooked basmati rice, and I ordered a side of raita to cool things down a bit. The raita, which is Indian style yogurt, had a lot of grated cucumber in it, and I found some cumin seeds and a piece of a bay leaf in the rice. My take out curry was very spicy, as vindaloo should be, but it was worth the pain.
Location: Sam's, 61380 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, California. Date: May 9, 2020. I met a fellow at a bar in Palm Springs who told me that Sam's in tiny Joshua Tree had the best Indian food, including Indian pizza. Then the pandemic came, and I figured I'd have to put off going to Sam's; however, I found out that they are open for take out, and so today I did the thirty minute drive to Joshua Tree and got me what they call Curry Pizza. You can choose from three sauces: basic curry, korma (basic curry with cream), and coconut korma (which uses coconut cream instead of dairy). There are also three different spice levels to choose from; I chose hot, but though spicy, it wasn't at all overwhelming. I placed my order by phone from the parking lot, but I had a hard time understanding the thick accent. I thought he said there was chicken tikka on the pizza, but it turns out that he was just telling me my options. I asked to add cilantro, and when I picked up the pizza, it turned out that cilantro was my only topping. The smell wafting into the parking lot from the little restaurant, which seems like it's connected to a liquor store, was amazing, and when I bit into the pizza, the korma sauce lit up my taste buds like no other pizza sauce ever has. There was plenty of mozzarella cheese and the cilantro topping was nice, but with this pizza it's all about the sauce.
Location: Sam's, 61380 29 Palms Hwy, Joshua Tree, California. Date: April 25, 2020. This Indian curry consisted of boneless chicken pieces in a mango gravy with a hint of mango chutney. It was a creamy tomato based gravy with mango pulp added. It was garnished with tomato pieces and chopped cilantro. I ordered it spicy, so it was sweet, spicy, fruity, and it had some ginger root pieces that were delightful to bite into. My friend ordered the Lamb Mango, and it was basically the same but with boneless lamb pieces instead of chicken. The lamb had a fairly strong taste which was good as it stood up nicely to the sweetness of the curry sauce. This was my first experience with mango curry, and I really like it.
Location: India Oven, 35875 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: March 4, 2020. For this delicious Indian dish, eggplant was roasted in a clay oven and cooked curry style with tomatoes. I love eggplant when it's well cooked, but I dislike it intensely when it isn't. This eggplant was so soft it was almost like it had been pureed. There was lots of onion in it and some green herb. It was a touch sweet, very spicy (that's how I'd ordered it), and there was some sourness from the tomato. It was garnished with fresh cilantro, and it was served with basmati rice that had whole cumin seeds added to it. I enjoyed the burst of flavor when biting into a cumin seed while eating the rice.
Location: India's Clay Oven, 228 West Hospitality Lane E, San Bernardino, California. Date: February 13, 2020. This food is from a street stall at the Thursday night farmer's market in Redlands, California. I chose Baby Eggplant in Tamarind Sauce and Lima Beans in Spinach; this second dish gave me the protein as it was all served over rice (rice and beans making a complete protein). I also wanted the Cabbage Cashew, which would have helped to make a better picture, but they didn't have it. I didn't taste any tamarind in the eggplant (tamarind should be quite sour), but all the food was soft, succulent, and spicy. I love eggplant as long as it's well cooked (and this was cooked so well that even the eggplant peel was very tender), but with Indian food it's all about the spices, and this vegetarian street food came through with great spice. I spilled some drops of curry on my T-shirt, and it left the yellow stains of healthy turmeric. Because of my camera's flash, you can really see the yellow color in the picture. The food was a little oily, but the taste was delicious, and it was nice to eat it outside in the fresh evening air.
Location: Curry Leaf, Thursday Night Redlands Market, State Street, Redlands, California. Date: October 17, 2019. |
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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