Cooking Indian Food with Nitin

Our last day in India we took a cooking class from a local in Delhi, Nitin. We spent the majority of the afternoon (about 6 hours) with him in his home and had a wonderful time. When we chose this class it felt like the perfect combination for us: Megan would get to talk and interact in a small group with a local, and Christopher would get to cook and learn new foods; respectively, our favorite parts of India. We were right!

After some “get to know you chat” we started by making appetizers.  We made a cilantro chutney, which is a spicy yet refreshing green sauce. Next we battered and fried some green chilies, potatos, onions and bread. This dish is called onion pakora or green child pakora, depending on what you batter. The batter has a lot of flavor as it has carom, cumin, hing and other spices in it. We finished by making masala tea.

We sat down to enjoy the first course and great conversation. Nitin had many questions about America and we were happy to tell him. He loves movies and has seen quite a few American movies, which was a fun topic.

Next we went on to make the main course. We started with the most complicated, Channa Masala. This has been one of Megan’s favorite dishes in India. It is a flavorful chickpea dish made in three separate steps.

We also made a red dal. This is a red lentil and channa dal dish with onions, tomatoes and seasoning. It is a common household dish in India. The most interesting step was blending the tomato, onion, and garlic, then frying with the spices in the oil. It starts as an unappetizing:

But after adding the tomatoes and cooking for a while, becomes this, which is added to the cooked lentils and water to bring flavor.

To finish our main course we made chapatti. This is a mix of a pita and tortilla at home. It is quite delicious and helpful for scooping up the Indian food. Nitin’s brother Nicky came to help; he is called the chapatti champion! Chris took a try at flipping the bread and did quite well.

We all sat down to enjoy our food at the table. Great conversation continued about weird English words (ant vs. aunt), politics and American slang. Megan’s stomach has not been feeling well and Nitin took great care of her. He brought stuff from the pharmacy as well as a soda to help. It really helped and she was able to spend the whole time in his home. He went out of his way to be sure we were comfortable. ❤️

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• India