Cooking Lesson

A. and I love spicy food. I'm not talking mildly spiced food like you get at Chi Chi's or some other Americanized ethnic chain restaurant. We like authentic food where the dishes are honest-to-goodness mouth-on-fire, nose-running, water-gulping spicy and if the name of the dish includes the word "angry," so much the better. We are quite fond of Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and above all... Indian. We are hoping one day to take a vacation where we can eat our way through India.

But I also like to cook. Through experimentation and a little help from my half-Greek husband's relatives, I think I have gotten pretty good at Mediterranean-style cooking. But it has been my dream to learn to cook Indian, or at least a mean curry. I have tried experimenting, but something has always gone wrong. I had about come to terms with the fact that if I want Indian, I will just have to go out to eat it (oh, darn!).

However, as luck would have it, A. has a friend (E.) who is from Pakistan and according to E., Pakistani and Indian food have many similarities. A. had told E. about my curry experiments gone bad and somehow, managed to talk E. into making us dinner so that I could learn how to make a proper curry. Of course, E. is a bachelor and his cooking knowledge is somewhat limited, but A. figured it would be enough to give me an idea.

So last night, I got my first lesson in curry making. Though A. had told E. we like spicy food, E. was a little concerned that what we considered spicy wasn't really spicy at all... I can understand his concerns, overall German and American foods are pretty bland... given this concern, he chose to make a medium-spicy Yogurt Chicken. And let me tell you, it was tasty! :)

I observed the entire process and took notes on paper concerning the ingredients and the process, but also made mental notes about some things I would probably change. (For example, I would probably use a little less salt and little more garlic.) After I a buy a few things I don't have I am eager to try making curry again.

And on top of it all, E. offered to have us over again so I can learn more Pakistani recipes... I can hardly wait!