It was my turn to host book club this month, so last Wednesday I had everyone over. While it's not required, sometimes if one of the books has a specific theme, we try to match the food to fit. The book I chose, Unaccustomed Earth, is about Indian-American families (book review to come later this week!), so I decided to make Indian food to fit the theme. Almost all of the recipes I used were from the cookbook 660 Curries, a favorite of mine. I had never used the appetizer curry chapter before, so I was excited to try some of the recipes out!
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The first thing that I did was go to Uwajimaya, an Asian grocery store, to get some of the more exotic ingredients: tamarind, and poori shells. I also picked up some pomegranate molasses, and buckwheat soba noodles, not for my book club food, but because I'd been wanting to try them in other recipes.
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Sweet and Tangy Tamarind-Date sauce.
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Sprouting Lentils for the Potato Dumpling recipe.
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Draining Yogurt to make Yogurt Cheese.
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The final result (from top left): naan (flat-bread), poori shells stuffed with potatoes and chickpeas, potato dumplings with a sprouted lentil-onion filling, cilantro-mint-chili sauce (the green one), tamarind date sauce (the brown one), breaded fried yogurt cheese, and a bit of hummus. The hummus isn't strictly Indian, but it goes pretty well with everything, and the mild flavor helps to balance out the heat in some of the other food. Over all the food was really good, and everyone seemed impressed with my mad cooking skills! My favorite thing was the dumplings; I think that they will find their way back onto the menu before long!
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