An Indian Cooking Class with Rinku

Last Friday my daughter and I enjoyed a lovely Indian cooking class with Rinku Bhattacharya, a special blogger friend and excellent cooking teacher.  She took us through the paces to prepare a complete Indian meal consisting of garlic cumin rice, saag paneer ( creamy spinach wth cubed Indian cheese), naan and tomato cardamom chicken curry. Her downstairs cooking class kitchen was soon filled with the aromas of heavenly Indian spices.  Rinku clearly explained each step as we chopped, pureed and kneaded our way along.

The basmati rice exuded its distinct fragrance and the bright green saag paneer bubbled along developing its perfect texture.  The naan mimicked its tandoor counterpart even though it was made on a pizza stone in a hot kitchen oven.  The deep flavored sauce of the chicken curry, redolent with cardomom, hot chilies and fresh cilantro had been gently tamed by its overnight marinade.  Then, best of all, we sat down to eat all this marvelous food.   Rinku capped off the afternoon by taking us to Bhavik, an Indian grocery store in Elmsford.  Of course, we pick up all the ingredients we needed to recreate these dishes as well as a few more.

Tuesday we made all the dishes at home as well as dal and a snack made with puffed rice, hot peppers, toasted sliced almonds and fried onions. Very addictive.  It did take quite awhile to put all this together, but we had learned so much and the results were truly delicious.