Indian cooking

I didn't realize India was a particularly cold country but they make food great for cold weather and we try to stay away from the foods we'll have for the holidays, so (attempts at) Indian, Chinese, and Mexican cooking fill our house with not so traditional holiday scents in December.

Indian food has been the hardest for me to figure out, partly because I haven't found a good Indian restaurant in the area. I find restaurants, ones that I like anyway, are a great way to figure out what to look for in recipe books and what to do to fix recipes that don't work out to my tastes. I have a couple of curry cookbooks, but so far have not been satisfied with the results. And it has everything to do with the sauces. I think a lot of it is getting the right mix. Each recipe and dish is okay, but finding the right stuff to accompany it/each other has been elusive and I get either too much sweet stuff, or too much savory, and need a better balance between them.

I'm sure part of it is that India, like many big countries, dues not have one set of food, but once it comes to America, the sources and combinations become mixed and the balance gets off kilter. Nor can I tell from the names whether the names are regional terms or those defining special dishes. Tandoori, for example. My mind associates with breaded and fried things, but the "Tandoori Spice Blend" I have is quite sweet, wtih Cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, coriander, cumin, and black pepper, not necessarily in that order but still with a taste not unlike mulling spices. Garam Masala is even sweeter. And "Curry" spice blend is not help at all. They vary considerably and the only common ground between them is that it is warm, yellowish, and savory, with plenty of turmeric. What goes with...? I've found garlic, cumin, fenugreek, coriander to be the most common but none of the combinations I've tried have given me that rich complexity of flavor that I find in a good restaurant.

Still, I enjoy experimenting and all of them add variety to even the most bland of foods and warm the belly afterwards (and many aide in digestion as well). While some of the recipes call for complex methods of preparation (which I suspect help give the spices time to blend or otherwise sort themselves out for a better flavor as much as being necessary for any other reason beyond tradition), some are no more complex than making rice and adding a bit of vegetables and spice (One recipe the family tolerates as "normal" is just rice and cauliflower with allspice. Another that they find interesting in appearance but a palatable side dish is saffron rice: put the saffron in the water while you bring it to a boil before adding the rice. It takes at least half a dozen strands to give it anything but that wonderful yellow color). Add a little butter or oil afterwards.