The Yarnarian cooks Indian

I have this immense love of Indian food.  It started many many years ago when friends took me to an Indian restaurant in Kenilworth, NJ.  Oh my gosh!  What tastes!  What textures!

Fast forward to a couple of years ago.  So, now, I can no longer eat anything very spicy.  No chilies, no over-abundance of black pepper, not bland, but nothing that will stir up my miserable GERD.  If I eat something with chilies, no matter how mild, or how much yogurt with it, I will wake up at 2 AM with a massive attack of GERD.  I can't breathe, the bile is scorching as it comes up, etc, etc.  Believe me when I tell you that no chilies are worth that misery.  Yes, I've had an endoscopy.  Yes, I know how to control this illness with diet and a healthy sleeping position.  But I miss Indian food.

If I go to an Indian restaurant, and there are tons of them in my neck of NJ, I can't get non-spicy food.  The waiters always tell me that "It's very very mild".  Yes, for you, but any of the dreaded chilies will do a number on me.  No more Chand Palace with the most amazing vegetarian food in existence.  Bummer.

But I can cook my own food and leave out the offending ingredients.  Nope, it isn't what someone from India would like, no zip, no incredible taste, but I can eat it and enjoy it.  The thing is that chilies have taste, not just heat.  I figured this out a few months ago when I had a teensy piece of a samosa that had a teensy bit of chili in it.  Argh.  But as my mouth dealt with the heat, I realized that there was a smoky pepper taste that I loved.  So, being the daughter of Hungarian Jews, I know my paprika.  Nope, not the spicy one, but the noble sweet one.  Édesnemes in Hungarian stores.  Not the icky stuff you get at the supermarket, but the real bright, very tasty paprika.  If I substitute this paprika for the chilies or cayenne, it gives me a bit of the brightness but not the heat.  Not a bad solution.

I've always had Indian cookbooks, a couple by Raghavan Iyer, Madhur Jaffrey, etc, etc.  I've been adding new ones as I go along.  We bought an Instant Pot back in late December, and now I use it almost exclusively for Indian recipes.

So, after this very long introduction, let me show you what I made an hour ago:

This is Jackfruit with channa dal,  from Manali Singh's Vegetarian Indian Cooking with your Instant Pot.  Left out the chilies, put in a tsp of paprika.  Used whole spices 'cause I now have them.  It is beyond wonderful!  I had some of it for lunch with roti and my tastebuds are still singing.  We went to Patel Bros to buy the canned jackfruit.  Weird stuff but amazingly tasty.  Who knows what I'll make tomorrow.