Anne Noyes Saini

Newsstand

01/13/14 10:00am

Desify: The Indian Bar Food Smuggling Edition

From Chennai with Love: Pavakkai (bitter gourd) chips dusted with hing and pepper

At home, I keep Indian salty snacks at the ready when sipping a refreshing brew. But when I go out, I’m stuck with the usual over-salted nuts and bland, fried bar snacks. Even Indians—who enjoy their salty snacks with milky, sugary chai—seem unaware of this potentially brilliant pairing.

Would it be weird to smuggle in some chana jor garam the next time I head out for a pint? Not if everyone’s doing it. Beer-swilling spice lovers, unite…and let the Indian bar food smuggling begin! (more…)

bar food, beer, chaat, Desify, India, namkeen, snacks

Recipes

12/09/13 10:00am

Desify: Enter the Empanosa

by Anne Noyes Saini

Frankenfood mash-ups are everywhere these days (ahem, Cronut-mania and gonzo ramen burger lines). So Desify is jumping on the bandwagon and offering up yet another improbable, over-engineered edible creation.

Introducing: the empanosa, an Argentine-style, baked empanada made with Indian roti dough and stuffed with Indian leftovers (like a samosa, get it?).

Indian lentil and vegetable dishes lend themselves to mashing, so it’s easy to get them neatly tucked into packets of dough. Making the wrappers with Indian roti dough is a healthier option than typical empanada wrappers, which are usually very rich (hello, butter or shortening). (more…)

Argentine, Cronuts, Desify, empanada, Indian, leftovers, pumpkin, samosa

C+M Guide

12/03/13 10:15am

How to Order Authentically Spicy Thai Food

by Anne Noyes Saini

Zabb Elee’s crabtastic Lao papaya salad.

Welcome to the fourth installment of C+M’s ongoing series of audio guides on how to order authentically spicy food in ethnic restaurants. As a service to C+M readers I’m compiling a series of audio guides demonstrating phrases in several relevant languages, which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

If (like me) you’ve ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version), this series of audio features is for you. We’ve already covered Korean, Indonesian, and Hindi / Urdu; this week’s lesson: Thai.
(more…)

Anne Noyes Saini, audio guide, Elmhurst, spicy food, Thai

Recipes

11/26/13 10:00am

Desify: The Thanksgiving Leftovers Edition

by Anne Noyes Saini

One man’s Thanksgiving leftovers are another woman’s Indian snacks in the making. Here’s how you can resurrect your Thanksgiving leftovers with some “East meets West” mash-up action. It’s easier than you may think to turn leftover mashed potato into spicy aloo tikki and pie crust trimmings into baked matti.

Matti, crisp rounds of fried dough seasoned with mild spices, are a favorite winter snack in North India. At Thanksgiving, we save the trimmings from our pie crust and use them to make a baked version of matti (shown at top). The butter-rich pie crust is fatty enough to give them a nice flakiness and rich flavor without deep frying. (more…)

aloo tikki, Desify, Indian, leftovers, matti, pies, Thanksgiving

C+M Guide

11/19/13 10:28am

How To Order Authentically Spicy Indian and Pakistani Food

by Anne Noyes Saini

Front: hot green peppers (called mirch in Hindi and Urdu). Back: ground red pepper.

Welcome to the third installment of C+M’s ongoing series of audio guides on how to order authentically spicy food in ethnic restaurants.

As a service to C+M readers I’m compiling a series of audio guides demonstrating phrases in several relevant languages, which can be used to navigate ordering situations fraught with tricky cultural and language barriers.

If (like me) you’ve ever tried to order a spicy dish in a restaurant and been refused (or served a clearly less spicy version), this series of audio features is for you. (more…)

Anne Noyes Saini, audio guide, Indonesian, spicy food

Jackson Heights

11/01/13 3:10pm

Desify: Mountains of Diwali Sweets This Weekend

by Anne Noyes Saini

A small army of mithai awaits hungry Diwali revelers at Maharajah Sweets.

If you have never experienced the pre-Diwali rush in New York’s South Asian sweets shops, you have two more days to partake of mountains of sugary, nutty, dairy-rich mithai (sweets, in Hindi).

In North India, Diwali (aka, the Hindu “festival of lights”) is a celebration of the triumph of good over evil in the Ramayan, a famous Hindu epic. Families gather to share special meals, clay lamps (diyas in Hindi) and firecrackers are ablaze everywhere, and countless boxes of sweets are exchanged. (more…)

Desify, Diwali, India, Maharajah Sweets, South Asia, sweets

Recipes

10/14/13 2:00pm

Desify: Indian-Italian Comfort for Your Inner British Student

by Anne Noyes Saini

I first learned to cook during the year I studied in England. University students there typically fend for themselves in dorm kitchens, rather than relying on meal plans.

With little free time and even less money, most of us took to dumping readymade soups or canned beans over toast or pasta. If we were feeling fancy (or starved for protein), we crowned these starchy, carby meals with a fried egg.

That experience left me with an abiding kernel of culinary wisdom: Any light dish can be transformed into a stomach-filling meal simply by adding pasta.

Enter my Punjabi mother-in-law, who re-educated me in the kitchen and taught me Indian home cooking. Thanks to her, I can whip up a full meal from my usual pantry staples (i.e., lentils, rice, spices, garlic, and ginger) and a few stray vegetables (e.g., onion, tomato, potato, carrot). If only she’d been there, in England, to save me from British student food (and my own culinary incompetence). (more…)

British, comfort food, daal, Desify, Indian, Italian, lentils, pasta, Punjabi, vegetarian

Queens Eats

10/07/13 10:03am

Desify: Delving into Dhokla at Floral Park’s Real Usha

by Anne Noyes Saini

Eating at Real Usha Sweets and Snacks is out of the question. There are no tables in this tiny Indian snacks and sweets shop in Floral Park. There’s barely enough room for more than a few people to squeeze in around the ordering counter.

But there are many good reasons to brave the cozy, rustic conditions at Real Usha (not to be confused with the larger, sleeker Usha Foods down the street)—chief among them: khaman dhokla ($3.50/pound). A beloved Gujarati snack, these savory “cakes” are made with ground and fermented chana daal (i.e., lentils made from de-skinned black chickpeas). After a day-long fermentation, the ground lentils are seasoned lightly with salt, sugar, lemon juice, and a pinch of turmeric; then steamed. (more…)

Desify, dhokla, Floral Park, Gujarati, Indian, mithai, Real Usha Snacks and Sweets, sweets

Road Trip

09/30/13 10:14am

Desify: The Jersey City Mall Food Court Edition

by Anne Noyes Saini

Not a doughnut: Fluffy, light medu vada from Thali.

Taste of India and Thali are located smack in the middle of the food court in Jersey City’s Newport Centre Mall. But they’re worlds apart from the usual greased-up, Americanized mall food joints. (After all, Jersey City has a huge South Asian community, so the folks frequenting this food court know the good stuff from the rest.)

A chaat a day keeps the doctor away: Taste of India’s exceptionally light bhel puri.

Skip the steam table filled with the usual bright-hued, oil-slicked sub-continental fare and order a la carte. Taste of India’s bhel puri combines diced tomato, onion, boiled potato, and cilantro tossed with peanuts, puffed rice, crunchy fried bits, salty-fiery spices, and a tangy-spicy-sweet duo of chutneys. The ultra-flavorful chutneys are the secret here. If you’ve never tried mint chutney that actually tastes like mint, you’re in for a real treat.

For a more substantial snack, try the dahi puri—a North Indian spin on pani puri that replaces spicy water with tangy yogurt and that same zesty blend of chutneys and spices. It’s easily the best version of this chaat (that I’ve found) in New York. (more…)

chaat, Desify, food courts, idli, Indian, Jersey City, medu vada, Newport, Taste of India, thali

Jackson Heights

09/16/13 9:53am

Desify: A Famous Indian Snack Pops Up in Queens

by Anne Noyes Saini

Mumbai’s famous beach snack, bhel puri, is easy to track down in Indian chaat shops in New York City. But other snacks from Maharashtra—the state on India’s western coast that is home to the megacity—are much harder to find on this side of the world (though not impossible).

Maharashtrian food is amazingly flavorful—drawing on staple ingredients that impart bold flavors: peppery curry leaf, ginger, cilantro, tangy tamarind, jaggery (unrefined cane sugar), fragrant coriander seeds, savory cumin, and coconut. I love this cuisine and wish it were more prevalent in restaurants. (more…)

bakarwadi, Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale, Desify, Indian, Maharashtra, namkeen, Patel Bros., Pune, snack

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