A Glowing Tandoori Chicken Tale
My old shopping haunt, Redner's in Columbia, is now a Musser's Market. It is much cleaner place now with better food, more help, but less of that biker ambiance that I had come to love about Redner's. Lina didn't like going there because it was kind of icky like a man's bathroom. The old Musser's in Columbia is now a bargain food outlet. It is truly a food chain here. A store moving out, a store moving up, and a store moving in...the ecosystem of food retail.
The proprietors of this new bargain food outlet are these two really awesome Indian ladies. One is older and one is younger. Actually, I am not sure who owns the place officially. I think it is a family venture that the ladies work at while their husbands work other jobs to probably keep the store afloat until it is self-sustaining. Fortunately, rent-wise, it is hardly Park Ave, NYC.
I stopped by a week or two ago to see what the deal with the new place was...from the outside, there is no indication that it is Indian-owned. When I walked in to peruse the goods, there was really nothing to set it apart from other stores in its genre (same old mass-produced agribusiness crud) but the ladies did tell me that they were going to have a corner of their shop that would have Indian spices and foods soon and that got me a bit excited. I think that I kind of amuse them in that I am so into their culture and food. Maybe they take it as a compliment.
I have been hankering for some good Indian food since chatting with the Dell rep in India a few weeks ago when my laptop crashed. In the hour or so it took to run all of the diagnostics, I got to know the guy pretty well. We chatted about a lot of stuff. At one point he mentioned that the Indian food that he eats is 5 times hotter than what we can eat at Indian restaurants here! Five times! I instantly licked my lips imagining the scorching burn in anticipation.
So, I gave the ladies my email and told them to send me a message when the Indian stuff arrived. I got the email so I made a run up there. While not fully established yet, the Indian corner is starting to flourish. I purchased a Tandoori Chicken BBQ mix, bought some other ingredients that I needed from Mussers, and rushed home to cook it all up.
The Tandoori Chicken BBQ mix was like a $ 1.09. There was Indian or Arabic writing all over it so I presumed that was a good sign of authenticity. I got the rice cooker going and got down to work. The older Indian woman had warned me to only put half the mix in as it would be surely too hot for my taste. I solemnly nodded in agreement to be respectful but knew full well when I got home, I was putting it all in. Heat baby, heat! Indian food is wonderful...the yogurt provides a creamy and luxurious texture. the spices blow your face apart. It is an interesting combination. Not unlike Thai in that way
BTW, I am making Thai tomorrow night for guests...the expanded Stauffers of Kissel Hill, kind of a Lancaster County version of Wegman's, has a decent size section for "ethnic" stuff. Plus, I discovered today that they stock Fair Trade and Organic Sumatra coffee from Green Mountain Roasters so I will come back again like a pilgrim to Mecca. Their organic produce is much too inflated cost-wise to buy, though. You know when I place sells one piece of fruit or veggie, and wrap it all up like a snooty child going out into the cold, that it is going to be expensive.
The Tandoori Chicken turned out great. The food critic loved it. It is surely a wiser option than going down to that Taj Mahal Place down towards Lancaster that costs close to a hundred dollars for two diners. That is a farce. But, It is called the Taj Mahal after all. Must be an inside joke.
I was disappointed to see on the side bar of the Tandoori ingredient box though that they include artificial coloring. Vibrancy is an indication of a food's nature, spices, and cooking technique. Color should be natural. Too have something fake in the mix just seemed to me to be unnecessary and even deceptive. Kind of like hypocrisy...looking just a little too bright to be real. Less shine, more substance, please. It made the food glow but more like the fission process with uranium. The mix was manufactured by a company called Shan in Pakistan. And the Pakis are a nuclear power and don't really like us much. Hmmm...maybe I should get a Geiger Counter just to be safe.
The proprietors of this new bargain food outlet are these two really awesome Indian ladies. One is older and one is younger. Actually, I am not sure who owns the place officially. I think it is a family venture that the ladies work at while their husbands work other jobs to probably keep the store afloat until it is self-sustaining. Fortunately, rent-wise, it is hardly Park Ave, NYC.
I stopped by a week or two ago to see what the deal with the new place was...from the outside, there is no indication that it is Indian-owned. When I walked in to peruse the goods, there was really nothing to set it apart from other stores in its genre (same old mass-produced agribusiness crud) but the ladies did tell me that they were going to have a corner of their shop that would have Indian spices and foods soon and that got me a bit excited. I think that I kind of amuse them in that I am so into their culture and food. Maybe they take it as a compliment.
I have been hankering for some good Indian food since chatting with the Dell rep in India a few weeks ago when my laptop crashed. In the hour or so it took to run all of the diagnostics, I got to know the guy pretty well. We chatted about a lot of stuff. At one point he mentioned that the Indian food that he eats is 5 times hotter than what we can eat at Indian restaurants here! Five times! I instantly licked my lips imagining the scorching burn in anticipation.
So, I gave the ladies my email and told them to send me a message when the Indian stuff arrived. I got the email so I made a run up there. While not fully established yet, the Indian corner is starting to flourish. I purchased a Tandoori Chicken BBQ mix, bought some other ingredients that I needed from Mussers, and rushed home to cook it all up.
The Tandoori Chicken BBQ mix was like a $ 1.09. There was Indian or Arabic writing all over it so I presumed that was a good sign of authenticity. I got the rice cooker going and got down to work. The older Indian woman had warned me to only put half the mix in as it would be surely too hot for my taste. I solemnly nodded in agreement to be respectful but knew full well when I got home, I was putting it all in. Heat baby, heat! Indian food is wonderful...the yogurt provides a creamy and luxurious texture. the spices blow your face apart. It is an interesting combination. Not unlike Thai in that way
BTW, I am making Thai tomorrow night for guests...the expanded Stauffers of Kissel Hill, kind of a Lancaster County version of Wegman's, has a decent size section for "ethnic" stuff. Plus, I discovered today that they stock Fair Trade and Organic Sumatra coffee from Green Mountain Roasters so I will come back again like a pilgrim to Mecca. Their organic produce is much too inflated cost-wise to buy, though. You know when I place sells one piece of fruit or veggie, and wrap it all up like a snooty child going out into the cold, that it is going to be expensive.
The Tandoori Chicken turned out great. The food critic loved it. It is surely a wiser option than going down to that Taj Mahal Place down towards Lancaster that costs close to a hundred dollars for two diners. That is a farce. But, It is called the Taj Mahal after all. Must be an inside joke.
I was disappointed to see on the side bar of the Tandoori ingredient box though that they include artificial coloring. Vibrancy is an indication of a food's nature, spices, and cooking technique. Color should be natural. Too have something fake in the mix just seemed to me to be unnecessary and even deceptive. Kind of like hypocrisy...looking just a little too bright to be real. Less shine, more substance, please. It made the food glow but more like the fission process with uranium. The mix was manufactured by a company called Shan in Pakistan. And the Pakis are a nuclear power and don't really like us much. Hmmm...maybe I should get a Geiger Counter just to be safe.
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