Besides making paneer from scratch, the most intimidating parts of Anupy Singla’s recently published book, “The Indian Slow Cooker,” is the chapter on meats.
That’s because most of these recipes don’t involve simply dumping ingredients in a particular order into a crock pot.
Instead, there’s a fair amount of prep time included. But the result, at least with my first attempt, is well worth the effort.
I had an early day Thursday so when I got home I opened up the book to the recipe for chicken vindaloo. I’d already purchased all the ingredients over the weekend and time was running out on that chicken.
Here’s what I learned:
- Eight large onions thinly sliced takes up a much larger pan than I initially expected.
- I will need to go to the gym before I’ll have the muscle power to grind pepper corns, mustard seed and rock salt into a powder. Instead, I dug up an old coffee grinder, cleaned it out and, voila, powder.
- Even using the smallest amount of peppers can generate a lot of heat…more than my kids could stand. They loved the aroma of what was in the pot, but I’ll have to try some of these recipes sans peppers if I really want them to get a taste for Indian food.
- Boneless chicken breast may be the more healthy meat alternative, but after six hours in a crock pot, even infused with so much flavor, it was dry and unappealing. I may try this again with boneless thighs.
- The full recipe makes a ton! Too much for me and Sim. But this week, that turned out to be a good thing.
Last night, I walked over to my neighbor’s house with a tub of our leftover vindaloo and basmati rice. Along with some leftovers she heated up, we were able to cobble together a nice meal for ourselves and our husbands.
The kids had mac and cheese.
Next time, I may halve the recipe in a smaller crock pot and eliminate the hot peppers to see if I can get the kids to enjoy these flavors as much as we do.
Virtual Farmgirl 