Indian Food Extravaganza

With all the glorious food that we were devouring in Sao Paulo, we decided to cook up a minor feast (by our standards) of Indian food at home, for our hosts. Of course, neither of us had cooked up all that many minor feasts before so if anything a minor adventure was to be had.

At least we easily settled on a menu - it was to be a full spread. Starting off with either Papdi chaat or Bhel depending on the ingredients available, followed by stir-fried Okra with potatoes, Chhole, Carrot salad, Rice and finished up with Gazar Halwa.

We found all ingredients necessary at an extremely well stocked supermarket called Pao de Acucar, but didn't quite estimate the time well. We had dawdled in Parque do Ibirapuera and the Bienal exhibition a little too long and so by the time P. and M. returned, we were still cooking! Fortunately though, our first-time attempts, with modifications for ingredients (and time!) not available, at tamarind chutney and gazar halwa turned out perfectly fine. The substitute for papdi that we picked up at the supermarket held up well under yogurt and the late addition of jeera (cumin) and bay-leaves to the rice didn't go south either. All in all, the food was good and the cooking and eating of it was fun! Even though, ahem, we say this ourselves. The food was also bolstered by the very solid bottles of wine - Brasilian ones - that P fished out.

To P. and M. - this was just a teaser, there's more awaiting on your future trip to India!

P.S. Erm, late revelation, but the carrot salad was a late addition because we had too much carrot for the halwa!