Tag: south indian

A mighty need

Thursday after work, since I had the car, I headed to Performance Bicycle to pick up some tubes and because I’d never been there before. It’s kind of huge, lots of stuff. After that I popped over to REI to use up my dividend that I’d apparently already used up. For some reason I was feeling super bloated and crappy. This got translated into “go buy a big pile of food for dinner from Chat Patti.”

Chat Patti used to be my go to way back when I was just vegetarian. Then a couple of years ago I found out that vegan friends found plenty of tastiness there as well. So I pop by every once in a while when I’m up that way. Especially since we’ve lost track of our favorite South Indian chef.

This is a very casual place. Cafeteria-style, order at the counter, get to go or eat there. Usually rather than trying to make some kind of decision, I just get a veggie thali, hold the dairy and let them put whatever on it. And for $8.99, the amount of food is ridiculous.

The thali usually comes with a dessert, but they all have dairy, so she put something else in there to replace it, not sure what though. The down side of me not picking things out is that I can’t really tell you what they are. And, of course, it’s going to make it hard for me to order some of these things again. Like this. I’m going to call it Indian nachos. A pile of fried with a variety of sweet chutneys on top. So freakin’ good.

 

 

 

 

The next box contained 3 chapatti breads, a potato pea samosa and sambar (I think.) The leftover chapatti survived nicely overnight in the fridge and refreshed in 15 seconds in the microwave to go with my lunch the next day.

And, the next box had rice, chana masala and some bean thing. See what I mean?

And here’s what I ended up eating for dinner:

A normal person might’ve gotten three meals out of this but I devoured the leftovers for lunch. It’s probably a good thing this place isn’t convenient. Nothing here was crazy spicy, but I have had food that’ll make you sweat here before. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

South Indian Food Love

You know, it actually took moving to Atlanta before I had really good South Indian food. The few places I tried in San Francisco in the 90s were definitely of a Northern sort, and gringoed to boot. I will say that I’ve been back to SF since and discovered perfectly lovely South Indian food between Union Square and the Tenderloin.

Atlanta, though, has a ton of South Indian options. Even so, sometimes I like to cook it. I’m too lazy to bust out enough dishes to fill a thali, but recently I did manage two dishes and dosas. I think a full out scratch recipe for dosas isn’t hard, but making them from a box, a box less than $1, is way easier. It’s pretty tasty for a mix and will do when you’re feeling lazy from making two other dishes.

Both of these dishes come from Healthy South Indian Cooking. This is not even a vegetarian cookbook, but it has many, many vegan recipes. I’ve gotten so I don’t mind some meat recipes. Usually they can easily be veganized.

This is a blurry Potato Okra Mandi. I accidentally made two things that were pretty soupy. D’oh. This one is full of sour tamarind goodness. I’m not usually a fan of okra, but they don’t slime up in this dish.

I thought Beans Kootu was more dry last time I cooked it. Heck, it probably was. At least it wasn’t a full on soup. Sugar snap peas in a coconutty bean sauce.

And here it is all together with the dosas.

Speaking of Indian stuff in Atlanta, one of my favorite places to stock up on supplies is Taj Mahal Market. Spices, beans, mixes, chutneys, thali, etc. This week I made a quick trip up there during lunch for black mustard seeds and came back with that plus red lentils, tamarind paste, saffron, black salt, coconut milk, two dosa mixes, young jackfruit in brine, roasty tasty (peanuts covered in a bean flour coating, not fried) and rose spread:

Even if you don’t need anything, it’s worth stopping in for a browse.