WIAW—Indian food edition

Remember on Friday when I mentioned I’d be attending a fabulous vegetarian Indian feast on Saturday?  Well I did, and I liked it.  A lot!

So I’ve decided to feature it for this week’s What I Ate Wednesday courtesy of Peas and Crayons:

Our hosts, Priya and VJ, were modest in their undertakings and thought I may have oversold their meal plans they had in store.

I assure you, I did not.

The food was 4 courses and each dish was delish!

The drink de jour was like a watermelon mojito (fresh squeezed watermelon juice, lemonade, ginger ale, and mint).  So refreshing!

[Priya] We started off with a sprout bhelpuri which is typical Bombay (now Mumbai) street snack. It is usually made with spiced chick pea fritters, spiced puffed rice (you can buy bhel mix at an Indian store) & we added sprouted mung dal for a healthy touch (green gram: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_bean)  along with boiled potatoes spiced with chaat masala, tomatoes, red onions,  green apples (my modification), pomegranate (also my modification) & cilantro. All the ingredients were mixed together with some dates/tamarind chutney (sweet) and some coriander/green chili chutney (tangy/spicy).

[Priya] Next course: Pav Bhaji..again street food but more substantial than bhelpuri. ‘Pav’ means bread and ‘bhaji’ is vegetable. The story goes that it was created to cater to the needs of textile mill workers back in the day. Rather than a traditional Indian meal of roti/rice, daal and vegetables, this was meant to be a lighter meal on the go (not so true given all the butter/ghee that goes into it!)

[Priya] Next up: Naan pizza.. no great back story there. But our pizza had a tomato-mango chutney as the base with some red pepper flakes & pepper for spice. Topped off with paneer and mozzarella cheese that was tossed in EVOO with some red pepper flakes, cumin powder & cilantro. We added fresh arugula & basil for the garnish.

[Priya] Dessert course: VJ’s blackberry-blueberry pecan crumble. Actually the truth is, we are not skilled enough to make Indian desserts. The really good ones involve making your own sweetened paneer which can be a disaster if the milk splits! So we didn’t dare go there

Yeah, obviously I didn’t write those awesome descriptions.  My favorite was probably the 2nd dish, Pav Bahji and Zach said his was the bhelpuri – but it was so hard to decide? 

Thanks Priya and VJ for hosting us and serving us well!!!

Are you a fan of Indian food? What about Indian fusion (kind of like the naan pizza)?

What’s on your mind for this What I Ate Wednesday?