Not Very Indian Dinner

Our friends from Bollywood Kashmera Shah and Krushna were in the town so we decided to invite them to dinner. We also invited Tim who introduced them to us. Just about dinner time I received a call from Harsha who was calling from the top of a Griffith Park Mountain he had just climbed. He was in town. I invited him to join us for dinner but didn’t tell him that Kashmera and Krushna were coming.

He was very happy to see them and was tickled to meet two Bollywood Stars!
We planned to grill steaks but realized that we would need some vegetable offerings for those that don’t eat meat. We also grilled a Salmon. The steaks of course were Dry Aged Porterhouse Steaks from Harvey Gus Meats. They are the best!

We found an absolute fantastic cauliflower recipe from a cookbook we had purchased on our last trip to India. It is called GOBI JALFREZI (Cauliflower blended with tomato puree and vinegar) the cookbook is called: The Art of Indian Cuisine by Rocky Mohan. It calls for tomato paste but we have frozen oven dried tomatoes this summer and defrosted and used them. It was far better than any tomato paste. We liked the idea of frozen tomatoes so much, we plan to go to the farmer’s market and buy a lot of tomatoes this weekend and freeze some more.

Tim brought a Bollywood Cake for dessert.

After dinner we played some Bollywood Dance Music and Krushna and Kashmera showed us some dance steps. They promise to teach us some more. We would really like to learn!

GOBI JALFREZI
(Cauliflower blended with tomato puree and vinegar)
From Rocky Mohan The Art of Indian Cuisine

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. Cauliflower (phool gobi) / broccoli florets
1/2 cup Clarified butter (ghee) / refined oil
4 Red chillies (lal mirch), dry
1 1/2 tsp. Cumin seeds (jeera)
Salt to taste
1 tsp. Peppercorn (kali mirch) powder
2 tsp. Ginger (adrak), juliennes
1/2 cup Tomato (tamaiar) puree
1 Tbsp. White vinegar (sirka)
1 Tbsp. Coriander leaves (hara dhaniya), chopped

METHOD

Heat the clarified butter / oil in a wok (kadhai); add the dry red chillies, then stir and add the cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the cauliflower, salt, peppercorn powder, and ginger. Stir well. Cover the wok and reduce the heat. Cook on a slow fire until almost tender.

Add the tomato puree and white vinegar. Cook until the cauliflower becomes tender. Garnish with coriander leaves.