India Gourmet

Posted on 09/07/2013 by Randomly Edible

I find it difficult to even type the words “India Gourmet” without my stomach gurgling. Their chicken tikka masala naan wrap is probably in my top 10 favorite foods of all time. I say “probably” because I am not organized enough to actually have put together such a list, so we’ll never know for sure.

Neener neener. You guys are still waiting in line, but I have my wrap already.

” More meat, less feet. That’s my kind of bird.”

India Gourmet – *gurgle* – is a food vendor that shows up at various farmers’ markets around the Bay Area. They currently attend Santa Clara’s weekly shindig on Saturdays, and they can also be found at the Campbell farmers’ market on Sundays; they have also been known to make a showing in San Francisco, San Leandro, and San Jose. Whatever you have scheduled for this upcoming week, cancel it. It’s well worth the effort to seek this place out, trust me.

One of each please. No really, one of each.

I’ve tried about half the menu at India Gourmet, mostly just to say that I have. Everything they make is great, but the chicken tikka masala… Holy schnikes. It’s an exceptionally creamy and flavorful version of the dish, and not too spicy. I would consider it mild, but some people I know (*cough* pansies) think it’s closer to medium. The chicken itself is absolutely divine. It’s 100% white meat, cooked perfectly, and contains absolutely no unidentifiable chewy bits. More meat, less feet. That’s my kind of bird.

The naan is made to order right on the spot using a gravity-defying cylindrical oven thing. I’ve been told this mysterious appliance is called a tandoor, but to me it will always be R2-D2’s friendly naan-making cousin. This magical flatbread droid makes me very, very happy.

Help me Obi-Naan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

When you order up a wrap, you get several generous scoops of chicken tikka masala ladled over a heap of lovely rice (to soak up all the saucy goodness) and rolled up in a fresh naan straight out of the robot’s head. Like many other ridiculously awesome foods, this thing is messy. Peel back as much of the foil as you dare, take a bite, and hang on for dear life. You are all but guaranteed to be wearing curry on your clothing within a few minutes, but you won’t care. Once the incredible flavor of the naan wrap hits home you will probably begin laughing and crying at the same time or, if you’re me, you’ll just slump to the floor in a drooling, euphoric stupor.

India Gourmet earns an exceedingly rare perfect 16 out of 16 curry-colored shirt stains. Get in your car, buy a plane ticket… Just do whatever it takes to pay India Gourmet a visit.

India Gourmet
(415) 751-0505
www.indiaclayoven.com

This is bucket list material, no question.

Experimental pizza roll

Posted on 09/04/2013 by Randomly Edible

I nearly named this recipe “pizza doh” because it really didn’t look like it was going to turn out, but in spite of itself it ended up being something humans can eat. My better half described this recipe as “a fun way to eat pizza”, and I think that description is spot-on. The entire process of preparing this was equal parts recipe and experiment, and the results were favorable enough that I’ll be making this again.

Skip to the short version

” The tube detonated with a doughy ‘wump’ “

As usual, I did not come up with this idea myself. I was not influenced by any one recipe – simply browsing through dozens of “pizza roll” and “rolled up pizza” recipes available on the interwebs was enough to get an idea of what to do.

Ingredients:

1 tube Pillsbury pizza dough
1 metric ton shredded mozzerella
1 gaggle pepperoni (I’m pretty sure they come in gaggles. If not, they should)
green olives to taste (Read: The whole jar.)
olive oil
Italian seasoning
1 jar premade pizza sauce

Directions:

Set your oven to 375 degrees F. Lay out a sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and mentally prepare yourself to open the tube of pizza dough. I know that opening the tube sounds simple, but it didn’t go so smoothly when I tried it. Perhaps it would have helped if I had read the directions, or perhaps I am exceedingly sub-par when compared to whatever Pillsbury considers to be the lowest common denominator. Regardless, when I pulled the little triangular tab, the tube detonated with a doughy “wump”, shredding the pristine sheet of rolled up pizza dough that was once inside. Super. If this same exact thing happens to you, welcome to the slow class – there’s an available seat right here next to mine. Do your best to patch together the tattered dough remnants into something vaguely rectangular and place it on the sheet of foil. Try not to dwell on this humiliating moment.

Add a layer of pepperoni directly onto the Frankendough, covering as much area as you can. Next sprinkle some shredded cheese…. No, not sprinkle. Sprinkle is too small of a word to describe how cheese is applied. Heap some shredded cheese on top of the pepperoni in an even layer. Wait, you’re saying. WAIT. Where’s the sauce?? Aha! That’s all part of the plan. The sauce comes later. Much later. For now just keep your socks on and do what I say.

Add any other toppings you like at this point, namely green olives. Lots of ’em. I’m not sure if any other pizza toppings actually exist, but if they do feel free to use them I guess. You can also dash a bit of Italian seasoning over the top of everything as well, and maybe add some garlic powder and Parmesan if you’re feeling extra sassy.

It ain’t pretty, but even an ugly pizza can be a good pizza.

Starting at one of the shorter sides, carefully begin rolling up the whole mess into kind of a large mutated burrito. Lightly rub the top with some olive oil and a dust bit more Italian seasoning on top to help hide the horrific scars. Stick it in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

I don’t remember putting a hand grenade in this before baking it.

Ah. Well this is awkward. Quickly, cut the roll into slices before anyone notices that the whole operation has gone pear-shaped. At this point, just pretend like everything that has happened so far has been according to plan. The more confident you seem, the less likely guests will be to question your methods.

Serve the roll slices with some warmed up pizza sauce (for dipping) and try not to burn off all the flesh from the roof of your mouth.

Well hey, that didn’t turn out so bad afterall.

tl;dr

Experimental pizza roll

Ingredients:

1 tube Pillsbury pizza dough
1 metric ton shredded mozzerella
1 gaggle pepperoni
green olives to taste
olive oil
Italian seasoning
1 jar premade pizza sauce

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Open tube of dough and lay on a flat surface. Layer on pepperoni, cheese, olives, and any other toppings you like. Roll up dough and pinch trailing edge against roll to seal. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle Italian seasoning on top. Bake for 25 minutes or until top is golden brown. Slice roll and serve with heated pizza sauce.

Oh Boba!

Posted on 08/27/2013 by Randomly Edible

Against all odds, I’m a big fan of bubble tea. I usually don’t like squishy things, and I absolutely detest weird gunk floating around in my drinks… and that just about exactly describes what bubble tea is. For a slightly more specific definition, I decided to plagiarize Wikipedia:

Bubble tea, also known as pearl milk tea or boba milk tea, is a Taiwanese tea-based drink invented in tea shops in Taichung, Taiwan, during the 1980s. Most bubble tea recipes contain a tea base mixed with fruit or milk. Ice-blended versions are usually mixed with fruit or syrup, resulting in a slushy consistency. Most bubble teas come with small chewy tapioca balls (粉圓, fěnyuán), commonly called “pearls” (珍珠, zhēnzhū) or “boba” (波霸, bōbà).

Why exactly I like this stuff so much I have no clue, but it seems I’m not alone in the world. When I discovered that Oh Boba!, an independent non-chain bubble tea shop, was opening right down the street, I was pretty excited.

This shop is located more-or-less right across the street from Santa Clara University, and for that reason alone I am confident that they’ll do just fine as a business. Oh Boba! is not a very large establishment but the interior is neat and clean, if not a bit spartan, and the staff is always friendly and attentive. The outside of the building, unfortunately, is quite hideous; please do not let that fact deter from you visiting. The vast ugliness of the structure is of course the fault of the property’s landlord, in whose general direction I scoff repeatedly. This building has literally the worst stucco I have ever seen. It looks like a cement truck exploded inside a roller disco.

It’s a rock climbing wall! No, it’s a fingerpainting!

” It looks like a cement truck exploded inside a roller disco “

Once inside, thank goodness, you will see a huge menu of drinks (as is the way of most bubble tea shops) and a handful of food items as well. You can choose from hot or cold beverages, slushes, snow (like a slush, only with milk), and a variety of teas. They also make a wickedly strong Vietnamese iced coffee which contains enough sugar and caffeine to make you run laps around the ceiling. It’s divine. I also highly recommend trying a strawberry banana slush, and the chocolate snow is very good as well. Oh, and don’t forget the regular old milk tea, that’s awesome too. Come to think of it, just try everything.

I don’t understand how the lids work. It’s witchcraft.

Prices are just shy of five bucks a drink, which is pretty standard for this sort of thing. The high quality of the beverages more than makes up for the sting in your wallet, and you can also get a buy-ten-get-one-free card going while you’re there.

I rate Oh Boba! a stellar 262 Strange and Delicious Chewy Things In My Drink out of a possible 298, making it very much worth anybody’s while to give this place a try.

Oh Boba!
1000 Lafayette Street
Unit F
Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 248-1289
www.ohboba.com

It’s fruitier than eating Carmen Miranda’s hat.

No-bake peanut butter bars

Posted on 08/25/2013 by Randomly Edible

I have met people who claim that they don’t like peanut butter. Allergies are one thing, but simply not liking it? Ridiculous. I assume these same people enjoy pulling the wings off of butterflies and farting in elevators, and I want nothing to do with them. This recipe is not for those people, it’s for the rest of the normal humans in the world who love the bejeepers out of some PB.

Skip to the short version

” Nobody wants your fingers in their dessert. Focus.”

This is another one of those recipes of which there are a thousand slightly different versions, and nobody knows who came up with it first. The first time I came across this recipe was on this website; I have adjusted the preparation and some of the quantities slightly. The real beauty of this recipe is its simplicity, ease of preparation, and minimum number of ingredients. An added bonus is that the finished product is maddeningly delicious and will throw you into an immediate sugar-and-peanut-butter induced coma.

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about half a box of crackers)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup salted butter, melted
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 bag chocolate chips (11oz)

Directions

Take a bunch of graham crackers and smash the crap out of them. You can use a blender or a food processor, but I find that a plastic bag and a wooden spoon work just fine. Leave the peanut butter alone – don’t eat any of it. I know it’s tempting, but just put it somewhere out of sight for now. Where were we? Graham crackers. Once you have pounded two cups of crumbs into oblivion, dump them into a big bowl. Add the brown sugar and powdered sugar and whisk together thoroughly.

Stop eating the peanut butter. Stop it. You won’t have enough for the recipe if you’re going to be a little piggy.

Melt the butter and add it to the dry ingredients, and add the vanilla as well. Yes, you are allowed to touch the peanut butter now. Add a cup to… No. To the bowl, not your face. I’m serious. It goes in the bowl. There, I knew you could do it. Stir everything up until it’s an even consistency and scoop it into an ungreased 9×13 baking dish.

Oh sweet, sweet heavenly peanut butter mixture. You speak to me.

Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler. If you don’t have one of those then carefully CAREFULLY melt them in the microwave. It’s a surprisingly tricky business. Use half power and nuke for one to two minutes tops, monitoring closely. I recommend stopping every 20 seconds or so and giving the chips a stir to see how they’re doing. Once the chips are mostly melted (but there are still a few solid chunks) they are done. Just keep stirring until the remaining solid bits melt and you’re good to go.

Listen to me. Put the peanut butter jar down. No more for you. None. And stay out of the chocolate. Nobody wants your fingers in their dessert. Focus.

My chocolate senses are tingling.

Using a rubber spatula-scraper-thingy, spread the ooey melted chocolate evenly on top of the layer of pure peanut buttery heaven. Go slowly and do your best not to get any peanut butter bits in the chocolate or else all your friends will know you’re incompetent, and they will point and laugh at you in mockery. (Note: If this situation occurs, tell your friends they can go get bent and that you’ll keep all the peanut butter bars for yourself.)

Refrigerate for at least an hour. Cut, serve, gloat, and enjoy the sugar coma.

Nobody cares if you cut them straight or not. They’re just interested in the peanut butter.

tl;dr

No-bake peanut butter bars

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about half a box of crackers)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup salted butter, melted
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 bag chocolate chips (11oz)

Directions

Crush graham crackers to the consistency of coarse sand, whisk together with brown sugar and powdered sugar. Add melted butter, vanilla, and peanut butter and stir well. Spread in an even layer in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. Top with melted chocolate, refrigerate for at least one hour, slice and serve.

See also

Tater Tot casserole

Posted on 08/24/2013 by Randomly Edible

My wife Shawn and I have a lot in common, especially our tastes in cuisine. We particularly enjoy comfort food type dishes, and we have quite a collection of recipes in this category. We tend to cook these dishes while we are camping (we have a 5th wheel RV trailer the size of Iceland and an equally massive redneck truck to tow it with), so we have dubbed this sort of food “trailer trash”. We love the heck out of it.

Skip to the short version

” If you’re a wimp, top with the recommended two cups of cheese “

This recipe is fits squarely into the above category, and we couldn’t be happier about that. It’s apparently a classic, but it’s a new one on us. The version we initially came across was this one, but you can find unsurprisingly similar recipes here, here, and here. It includes all the cornerstones of blue collar cooking, namely meat, cheese, potatoes, and cream of chicken soup. There is no way this can suck.

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef (We prefer to use ground turkey. Get over it.)
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 can (10.75oz) cream of chicken soup.
1 small package (16oz) frozen Tater Tots
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. If you don’t know what “F” means, I’m not going to explain it. That’s your fault for not paying attention in school. In a skillet, sauté the onion in a little butter and olive oil. Add the ground beef and cook until browned. If you prefer a bit more onion-y-ness in your food, brown the beef first and add the onion after. Or, if you are feeling particularly lazy, you can use dehydrated onion instead.

Stir the cream of chicken soup into the ground beef mixture, salt and pepper to taste, and spread evenly in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. Top with the frozen Tater Tots in whatever form of symmetry makes you feel good about yourself. In a related side note, do not attempt to eat a frozen Tot – they are crazy disgusting when not cooked. I’ve heard. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the Tater Tots are golden brown. Don’t worry about the cheese, we haven’t forgotten it. That comes next.

omg cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese

Remove casserole from oven and, if you’re a wimp, top with the recommended two cups of cheese. If, on the other hand, you feel more fiercely independent and confident in your kitchen abilities, add three cups of cheese. OR FOUR. Don’t let some stupid recipe tell you how much cheese is enough – that’s your decision dammit. Once you have added the appropriate amount of cheese, return the casserole to the oven and bake until the cheese is golden brown and bubbly, say 5 or 10 minutes.

Serve with a nice… Actually, you know what? Screw the side dishes. This has everything in it already. Just eat it!

Trailer trash heaven on a plate.

tl;dr

Tater Tot casserole

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef or turkey
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 can (10.75oz) cream of chicken soup.
1 small package (16oz) frozen Tater Tots
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Sauté onion in butter and olive oil, add ground beef/turkey and cook until browned. Stir in cream of chicken soup, salt and pepper to taste, and spread evenly in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. Top with frozen Tater Tots and bake for 30 minutes or until Tater Tots are golden brown. Remove casserole from oven, top with cheese, and return to oven for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

See also

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: