Houston Chowhounds Event: Tour of Little India

Last Saturday we attended our first Houston Chowhouds event. Shubhrah Ramineni took us on her "Tour of Little India.” We had a southern Indian lunch at Shri Balaji Bhavan, bought spices and chutneys at India Grocers and satisfied our sweet tooth at Bombay Sweets.  The turnout was great for a hot summer walking tour. 


Truth be told, we were almost certain that surrounded by uppity foodie types. But the Chowhounds were anything but. Everyone was amazingly friendly. We're looking forward to seeing everyone again at the dim sum cooking class at Café Chino on 7/24. All-in-all the Little India tour was an awesome experience that definitely made Indian cooking feel more accessible to us.

Shri Balaji Bhavan

Samosas. Crunchy with a spicy masala filling. We loved the sweet and tangy tamarind chutney so much that we bought some at India Grocers later that day. 

Mango Lassis. This sweet, thick and creamy concoction was refreshingly cool on our palate after a mouthful of spicy food.

The onion and masala dosa was enormous. We sopped up the savory gravy provided with our crispy dosa. The dosas we had in San Francisco honestly are still the best and most flavorful we've had, but these definitely weren't bad. 

A full house. Just about everyone pictured is a Chowhound.

Laxmi Sarees

India Grocers

 We love Indian cuisine, but cooking with such complex spice combinations at home has always intimidated us. Shubhrah walked us through the grocery store, carefully describing different products on the shelves and giving us tips on which items we should stock our pantry with.

Shubhrah gave helped us pick a good starter set of spices to add to our spice drawer.  We picked up turmeric, cumin seed, ground coriander and cinnamon sticks. Shubhrah was right -- spices at Indian Grocers were much more economical than at the grocery store. $2.99 at Indian Grocers buys you 2-3 times the amount of spices you’d get at a regular grocery store for the same price.


We also bought a couple boxes of ready-made spice mixes: a box of garam masala and tandoori chicken masala. We bought them mostly for convenience sake, but apparently it's pretty easy -- though tedious -- to make your own. Your best bet is to make a large batch of the stuff and store it for later use. On a related note, we learned that the term "curry powder" is a fluid one; it widely varies in terms of composition. Box mixes are great for the novice, but creating your own spice combinations of course adds variety to your dishes as you tinker with ingredient ratios and find, for instance, that Home-made Curry Powder A works best on Recipe X as opposed to Home-made Curry Powder B. 

Bombay Sweets

There were so many sweets to choose from, it was hard to pick just one! So we packed ourselves a variety box instead.

Tandoori Chicken and Vegetable Biryani

We were pretty stoked about putting to use all the spices we purchased at Indian Grocers, so we cooked up an Indian dinner on Monday night. We poked holes with a fork into three chicken breasts to allow for better penetration of the spice rub. After cutting the breasts into chunks, we rubbed the tandoori chicken seasoning on the chicken, skewered and marinated them for 4 hours, brushed them with olive oil and then grilled them. Here's the recipe we used for our simple vegetable biryani.

The tandoori spices didn't turn red like the instructions indicated, but looks aren't everything. The chicken was delicious. It was aromatic and had a slow burn. (On a side note, tandoori chicken is traditionally served with lemon slices, but we totally forgot to pick some up at the store. Next time.) The vegetable biryani was warm and complex.

In short, it was mission accomplished! Indian cooking wasn't nearly as difficult as we had built it up to be. Once you prepare a ready arsenal of spices, it's as easy as following a recipe.

Many thanks to Shubhrah and the Chowhounds once again for demystifying Indian cuisine. Please check out Shubhrah's website and upcoming cookbook on quick Indian cooking.