Monday, July 23, 2012

Fun AND Educational

Considering I've only had Indian food once or twice in my entire life, I would never have guessed that I would soon be making a version of it at home. However, since I am a firm believer in "when in doubt, put it on a pizza," this recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala pizza seemed too tempting to pass up. Especially since the only mystery ingredient is garam masala. Turns out garam masala is a delicious and fragrant blend of spices which typically includes black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and cardamom. I was able to find a jar in the spice aisle at the grocery store.

This pizza was incredible. It was easy and not at all intimidating, and yet it was somehow spicy and sweet and savory and smoky all at once.

We've been making a ton of Asian-inspired food since I discovered Rasa Malaysia. I've mentioned before that making Asian food sort of intimidated me because I assumed it would be difficult and I did not want to splurge on a bunch of random and expensive ingredients I probably wouldn't use very often. In looking over the recipes though, I noticed that many of them have common ingredients that I can re-use often. So I found a local Asian market and stocked up on oyster sauce, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, and siracha hot chili sauce. It was less than $10 even for large bottles of each and now our pantry is well stocked for almost any Chinese-inspired recipe we crave.

In the last few weeks, we've made chicken & broccoli, egg drop soup, mushroom chicken, and chicken lo mein. I can't get over how easy it is and how delicious. Most of these recipes call for a wok, but I've made almost all of them in a high-sided skillet with happy results.

If you try any other recipes from the site, let me know how they turn out!

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