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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 18, 2024 19:12:12 GMT
It’s always good to talk about chaats.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 18, 2024 20:30:48 GMT
I had to look up chaat since I'm so unfamiliar with Indian food. One thing that confuses me a little is that it's described as snack food or street food, but quite a few examples shown online would be what I'd just call food. I mean some of it has to be served up with a spoon, so not finger food. Does that mean the designation chaat is for dishes more likely to be found on street side stands or the like?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 18, 2024 20:47:12 GMT
Roast chicken, stuffing, a few pigs in blankets for the chaps, roast potatoes, brussel sprouts, carrots, peas and gravy. I made a sticky toffee pudding for afters but we were too full...Jeff is talking about having some for supper but I'm still podged.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 18, 2024 21:19:20 GMT
Does that mean the designation chaat is for dishes more likely to be found on street side stands or the like? In short, yes. A lot has to be eaten with some form of spoon/fork but there are others, like pani puri (puri is "a deep-fried breaded sphere" and pani means water from what I remember, could be wrong though) which is just served on a plate in the hand and you eat it whole. Then there are the normal samosas, pakoras, toasted sandwiches and many others that you just buy and eat standing up. I rarely eat in a restaurant in India, one reason being I can't see the kitchen, but also there is a lot more variation in street food than restaurant food. But even then there are more dishes you can shake a stick at. Now though there is a growing number of fast food places that there never was that specialise in street food so you can also sit down in a building and eat it. Pani puri. They are about 2 or 3 Rupees each. You'd get maybe up to 30 of them for 1 USD. There is a variation at the end where you just break up a load and add stuff to it then you'd eat it with a spoon. The big doughnut shaped thing is a mildly spiced mashed potato though there are as expected a number of different fillings depending on the location like chickpeas - To finish, this is one of my 'go to' items of street food (or a variation of it). It's mild potato curry wrapped in dough, fried and accompanied by a chick pea curry and 'salad'. You'd get about three now for a USD. Maybe two. It's a while since I've been. Aloo is potato, paratha is the style of bread, chole is chick peas -
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 18, 2024 22:11:30 GMT
Wow! I needed that video as I was not envisioning how "water", i.e., something wet worked with a crisply fried something. That whole operation is mind-boggling, not least because it's being carried out right there on the street and so tidily. The aloo paratha is something else I was not envisioning correctly -- I can see why it would be a go-to for you! Everything shown looks so appetizing.
Cheery, are all your Sunday dinners so full and festive?
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 19, 2024 11:41:04 GMT
I buy frozen uncooked flat paratha dough (imported from Malaysia) regularly. Each one is separated by a thin sheet of wax paper. It puffs up in the frying pan and there are any number of things that you can pile on it.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 21, 2024 10:49:10 GMT
Cheery, are all your Sunday dinners so full and festive?
In the winter we usually have some sort of roast meat or poultry for Sunday's main (often only ) meal. Favourites are chicken or beef. Jeff prefers beef. Its the only meal that our son sits down and eats with us (aside from when we order takeout). I love cooking loads of vegetables...often I'll cook 5 or 6 (just a little of each) as I for one would happily just eat the veg! If it's beef I'll cook yorkshire puddings, if it's chicken I'll add pigs in blankets and stuffing.
Russell's diet is appalling because basically he's told to eat what he can hang on to..he has to go steady with fibre and basically he lives on bland stuff, mostly carbs. Sunday roast is the only time he eats eggs (in the yorkshire) or protein in the pigs in blankets...he's not a big meat/poultry eater but will happily eat 6 pigs in blankets!
As the weather warms up in late spring I dont tend to cook big roast dinners, but Sunday dinner is always a special meal, one that we all eat together.
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Post by whatagain on Feb 21, 2024 11:28:21 GMT
We had Osso Bucco. That is one of my favourite dishes and although I consider I cook it better than Mum did my wife made it 2 days before so that it can be reheated - the more the better. Miam.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 22, 2024 1:47:01 GMT
Kerouac, I'd be all over that dough if I could get it. Sounds like a great way to elevate a few vegetables or boiled shrimp or something into an interesting meal.
That's a lovely tradition, Cheery, and some fine eating as well!
I don't remember the last time I had osso buco, but remember how much I like it.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 22, 2024 17:15:43 GMT
I am taking a risk with a puff pastry conconction tonight. I had a lot of leftover pork, so I ground it up with an onion and a lot of garlic, mixed in two eggs, bread crumbs and various spices. I had rectangular puff pastry so I cut it in four and heaped the ingredients on each square. Added a slice of processed cheese on top of each one and then covered it with a second sheet of puff pastry. I made diagonal slits across them because I didn't feel like making chimneys.
I put two of them in the freezer already and will put the other two in the oven later this evening.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 22, 2024 17:22:22 GMT
Okay, without starting a war ~~~ processed cheese?! You live in France, for heaven's sakes!
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 22, 2024 18:22:57 GMT
It's very popular here, particularly in the fast food industry. I confess that I looked at the package to see if it was actually cheese, and it is or they couldn't use that word, although the #1 ingredient on the list is "butter." You will be happy to know that the date limit for consumption is spring 2025, so it must be good.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2024 0:57:11 GMT
Oh well, butter ~ that's okay, then! I guess my second dinner might be the same as my first dinner/breakfast, which I ate around 3 pm. That was oversized seashell macaroni with caramelized onions and big shrimp. The leftovers are still setting on the stove, so eating it would be a no-brainer. Or should I have the overly dry roasted chicken I bought yesterday?
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 23, 2024 14:05:26 GMT
Mrs M has gone away this morning on a business trip so I'm having leftovers for dinner. And I'll be eating it out of the tray as she isn't here to shout at me. Reheated in the oven, mashed potato, fried onions, baked beans, gravy, tinned corned beef added for protein and a soft white roll to mop up the inside of the tray -
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Post by fumobici on Feb 23, 2024 14:58:35 GMT
La Vache Qui Rit is as French as can be and isn't real cheese. Loved it when I was little.
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Post by fumobici on Feb 23, 2024 15:04:11 GMT
That's England in a tray, Mark.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 23, 2024 15:51:12 GMT
That's what I thought when I took hours slaving over a hot stove to put it together. Or at least twenty minutes in the oven including the time taken to open the can of corned beef. That's also why I posted it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2024 16:36:34 GMT
To think of all the blood, sweat, & good intentions which have been expended on an entire anyport thread to refute the notion that British food is bad, and then you go & do this!
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 23, 2024 17:16:59 GMT
"Bad" is subjective. It tasted wonderful though does look like a dog's dinner.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 23, 2024 17:18:59 GMT
I don't like baked beans but admit that (left to his own devices) my beloved would love Mark's tray bake.
Ive been rummaging in the freezer...pork sausages wih mashed potato and onion gravy for us tonight. I've done myself a bag of veg in the microwave....OH will have more of the mash...
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 23, 2024 17:24:25 GMT
I must admit that I have had that processed 'cheese' on a burger and liked it. I don't buy it tho....
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 23, 2024 17:55:37 GMT
Processed cheese has its uses. I actually used the burger version last night and it still qualified as cheese or the word could not be used on the packaging in the EU. There is not yet a country where I have not seen La Vache Qui Rit or some of its spurious imitations. You even find it on Arab airlines.
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 24, 2024 14:12:57 GMT
That's England in a tray, Mark. That’s more Mark’s England in a tray..
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Post by whatagain on Feb 24, 2024 14:28:29 GMT
I would ask to be paid to eat tinned corned beef again.
My fave canned food is couscous.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 24, 2024 16:33:24 GMT
I have nothing against corned beef, but strangely enough the only stores that sell it in Paris at least are the Chinese stores. This isn't surprising since Spam is also considered wonderful in Asia. If I am not mistaken, this all comes from after WW2 when the only meat products available to most people in Asia were corned beef and Spam, causing it to become a glorious comfort food.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 24, 2024 16:46:57 GMT
It's thirty years since I was full time in the UK so I understand some aspects of food may well have moved on. I know what I like though.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 24, 2024 18:21:34 GMT
Somewhere on anyport there is a whole conversation about corned beef. Canned corned beef is available in the US, as is canned corned beef hash. But the main way I ever ate or prepared corned beef in the US was the real thing -- a brine-cured brisket of beef. You buy it in the supermarket -- it's in a sealed thick plastic bag which includes a packet of spices. The beef is boiled for at least a couple of hours with the spices. If making corned beef & cabbage, potatoes, carrots, & cabbage are added at their respective times. This dish is hugely popular for St. Patrick's day.
Real corned beef is so vastly superior to canned corned beef that it's almost a shame to talk about them in the same sentence.
What mystifies me is that corned beef seems to be something that originated in the UK, probably long before there was a USA. But all Americans and Canadians know and appreciate it, whereas you all back in the old country seem to be fans of the canned stuff.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 24, 2024 18:52:49 GMT
The Irish didn't breed cattle for beef, they were used for the milk and for labour. When Ireland was "conquered" the new beef market promoted growth in cattle in Ireland for the British to consume. The came a ban (don't remember why) on live cattle being exported to Britain so as the salt tax in Ireland was a tenth of that in Britain, Ireland started 'corning' their beef and selling it to us. Ireland also sold it to Europe and the Americas. There was also some tie up with the Jewish way of salting beef with spices that made it attractive. I think canning it was mainly for military purposes and necessitated changes to the recipe and even though you can get 'proper' corned beef in the UK it never became as popular as elsewhere because of the availability of all the other meats we could have anyway. Something like that.
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Post by bjd on Feb 24, 2024 18:58:22 GMT
I just looked corned beef up on Wikipedia. Allegedly, the canned stuff was originally developed for the military and, as Mark says, the Irish exported lots of corned beef.
I have never actually tasted corned beef, canned or otherwise, and think it was more a British/Irish kind of thing.
Interesting that the word spam is used for junk mail in the computer world.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 24, 2024 19:35:47 GMT
Tonight I had coquillettes with butter, garlic, parsley and shallots.
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