Indian Night with Fireworks

Wine:

Santomas Koper Malvasia Slovinia2004
Bugey Cerdon Rose Sparkling Wine NV
Amber Knolls Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
Karly 2005 Amador County Orange Muscat


We decided to cook another Indian dinner. We are reading lots of Indian novels and watching loads of Bollywood movies. In addition we are trying to learn to speak Hindi from Pimsler Language CD's. All of this is in preparation for our trip to India next year.

If you want read some great novels about India (all available from Amazon), we really have enjoyed:

A Suitable Boy
Shantaram
Sacred Games

For Bollywood Movies from Netflix try:

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
Rang De Basanti
Dil Se
Fanaa

Billy had hurt him self hiking so we haven’t been playing Mah Jong for a few weeks. We decided to invite Billy and Kevin over hoping he would be well enough to play. After all, building a Tile wall takes a lot of work. In addition, Billy alerted us that there were fireworks at Echo Park in honor of The Lotus Festival. We figured we could eat first and then drive over and watch the fireworks.

It was a warm night and we ate outside. We started with appetizers of a great
Date Fig Nut Bar we purchased from The Cheese Store of Silverlake. In addition we hade some Sausage we had purchased from them. They were selling a new (at least to us) Blue Cheese Spread from the Farmstead Cheese Company of Point Reyes. It was very tangy and nice. We will definitely get it again.

For the main course we made 3 different dishes that were all easy to make, in-fact we started cooking at 5:30 and were ready to serve at 6:30. From The Cheese Store we picked up a great rice from South Africa. They have several different flavors and we used the Sun-Dried Tomato Breyani Rice from Cape Malay. The brand is called Spice and all things nice.

At Gelson’s Market they have Indian Sauces in the cold deli. The company is named: Maya Kaimal. We bought the Vindeloo and the Tikka Masala. We made Chicken Vindeloo by simply cutting fresh chicken breasts and sauting in Clarified Butter then adding the Vindeloo sauce! Nothing else! We had a cauliflower, we broke it into small floret’s and steamed for a few minutes, not letting them get to soft. We then added them to the Tikka Masala sauce and heated creating a great Tikka Masala Cauliflower. It was all delicious and spicy! We served it with the rice. It proves if you have good ingredients you can assemble a dinner quite fast!

It was a great easy Indian dinner! We also had several different importedChutney’s and Pickles from India Sweet and Spice that we served with the dinner. In addition, while we were at IS&S we purchased Nan Flat Bread that was in their cold deli. We reheated the Nan and it was wonderful. Better than pita bread.

In addition to the Indian food, Billy had made Bar-b-q ribs! He brought them over and we served them with the dinner. They were great!

We drove over to the fireworks, got there just in time and watched the show. We then returned to our house.

For desert we had a Coconut Cake from Lark Bakery that just opened in Silver Lake. I am sure they will improve in time. Kevin and Bill had brought a great dessert wine.

Billy was by then feeling ready to play some Mah Jong, which of course he won!