i lived a majority of my life never having had indian food. my concept of it barely existed, probably amounting only to seeing a curry chicken salad at a steakhouse (back in the day), and the bastardization that that was. i don’t even remember the first time i had indian food, but all of a sudden i knew about it and ate it and wanted more. my feeble attempts to make it at home have never amounted to much. there is always so much flavor and depth that i can only imagine comes from hours of cooking and intense knowledge and understanding of indian cuisine.

in the left picture: ginger, serrano chilies, brown mustard seeds, and cumin seeds

in the right picture: bay leaf, asafoetida, turmeric, and coriander

i recently got a copy of lord krishna’s cuisine: the art of indian vegetarian cooking, and picked out a recipe involving mung beans and cabbage. there were no onions or garlic in the recipe, i noticed later, and i did have to pick up cumin seeds and asafoetida for my experiment. asafoetida is a really strange and overpowering spice. part of its latin name (”foetida”) refers to its sulfurous odor, and has been called various vulgar forms of “devil’s poop” in many languages. i got a bit in the bulk section yesterday and had to put the baggie inside another baggie inside some tupperware because the smell kept leaking out! i only used about 1/8 tsp to make this dish, and this has definitely been one of those times where the difference between a pinch and no pinch mattered greatly. cooked, it mellows out a lot, but it is definitely there as an indescribable flavor amongst the other spices. i bought a relatively large amount, so i will have to seek out some more recipes using asafoetida.

the dish itself: interesting, but kind of strange to me. i definitely should have made a half batch, and wouldn’t rule it out in the future, but only as a side dish. i was craving an onion-y, tomato-y curry and some rice to go with it… but since i spent over two hours on this, i had to make do with a chili tortilla from trader joes:

i think next time i try indian food, i am going to stick with a curry, before trying out other things. though i might try to make some naan or parathas! one tip i do know, however, is that you aren’t ever to buy curry powder from the store. make and toast your own curry spices! you will be so thankful for your existence.

the upside to the food part of my night was getting invited to dan’s to make cupcakes with him and michael. at first we were only going to make gingerbread cupcakes, but while those were baking we decided on some double duty and made chocolate cupcakes as well, with the most amazing and salty-sweet peanut butter frosting i could imagine. cupcakes save the day once again!