With grad school, adventurous cooking has not happened as much as usual. Of course, I still cook. It's like breathing for me, a non-negotiable. But the adventure has left. I've been making a lot of salads with salmon and rice and beans. Not much that is post worthy.
Now that my crazy first semester is coming to an end, I've been getting the cooking itch and thought I might once again start documenting the food I make.
And so, that is how we arrive at my lunch today. This past weekend, a good friend made Dave and I a wonderful home cooked meal. At dinner, we were discussing some top restaurants in San Francisco and Dosa came up. The one time I ate there, I had a truffled tikka masala dish that stuck with me. I love tikka masala sauce. As a non poultry eater, I rarely get to enjoy it since the dish is nearly always Chicken Tikka Masala. Dosa gave me a unique vegetarian option and it has been stuck in my mind grapes.
Indian food is not a type of food I am very comfortable making, but fearlessly I decided to try. A quick Google search of vegetarian tikka masala pulled up dishes with sweet potato and garbanzo beans. I just wasn't feeling it. So, I used a mix of sauce recipes that I found and threw in my own "tikka" (bits and pieces).
As a test to see how it went, I made a bento for my co-worker using the tikka veggiemasala. He is a buddhist monk, has lived in India, and is a fellow cook that loves to make adventurous vegetarian food.
I have been wanting cauliflower lately, so decided to add it for crunch. In an effort to make the dish a bit healthier, I went with Sacramento Tofu Company's extra firm tofu instead of paneer (available at Whole Foods).
I quickly fried some brown basmati rice in ghee (brown basmati is what I had on hand), then transferred it to the rice cooker. While the rice cooked, I sauteed an onion and the head of cauliflower in some olive oil. In another saucepan, I cooked up the masala sauce. Then I added the tofu to the sauce before combining all of the ingredients in the dutch oven to simmer on low for about 10 minutes. About the time I finished, the rice was wrapping up.
Fairly easy! All in all it took me about 45 minutes start to finish to make the dish. And lunch today tells me that overall, the dish worked out.
Asking my co-worker for feedback, he tells me that dish is a little powder heavy. He's promised to help me with the Indian method of cooking which will help the sauce to turn out a little more authentic and smooth.
The sauce recipe is below. You could use tofu, paneer, potatoes, sweet potato, peas, garbanzo beans, fake meat...whatever tikka you wish. Enjoy!
To make the masala:
In about 1 tablespoon of ghee (clarified butter), add
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ground fennel seeds
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
(I only had whole, so I later strained the sauce)
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon of sugar
OR
3 tablespoon of pre mixed Garam Masala
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 teaspoon corriander
1 tablespoon of sugar
*** If you like it hot, I'd add spice here. As a total spice sissy, I'll let you pepper experts figure out what kind of heat to add***
Add one can/jar (28 oz) of plain diced tomatoes. Stir the pan making sure that the sauce does not stick. Once you have simmered for a bit, add your 1 1/2 cup of cream and once again stir. At this point, you can also add a little fresh chopped cilantro.
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