26 January- Cooking #5

Today was my team's last actual day of cooking. We will be coming text Tuesday, but only to taste the Southern Cooking team's lunch. So Wednesday in class we were finally able to agree upon a more balanced menu after Dr. Sloan pointed out some of our weak spots. We took away one of our chicken dishes and replaced it with a rice dish and cucumber salad.

Aften and I volunteered for the bread because we had made the biscuts last time so we thought we could handle the Naan bread. However, after going to the store and coming back to our apartment to bake we realized just how different the Indian bread was from the buttermilk biscuts. The recipe itself was lacking a lot of descriptions. Because the yeast needed to rise for four full hours we baked the bread in our apartment the night before. We had to set the thermostat to 80 degrees in order to make it warm enough to allow the yeast to rise. So we sweated it out for this bread, but when we started to take it out of the oven we knew something was wrong with it. I have never eaten naan before, but the pictures online reminded me of pita bread. And as you can tell from the top picture, our product did not look like pita. We still wrapped it up and took it this morning to show Dr. Sloan and Dr. Nowatka. Dr. Sloan saved the day because he had bought the ingredients for a different recipe that only called for the yeast to rise for one hour. We were given the option to try Naan bread again or just scrap it from the menu, but we were determined to get this bread righ so we did it again and the product is in the picture believe. Aften and I received many compliments from Dr. Dunlap, so I believe it was a success the second try. The rest of our team cooked Chicken Korma which was delicious but I would have liked it a little spicier. Aloo gobi, which was a spicy potato and califlower dish that I got two helpings of it was so yummy. Cucumber salad, which balanced out the spicy meal with it's coolness. The Indian rice that was perefect with the Chicken Korma. Mango Lassi, which was the mango dessert smoothie that I also loved! Overall, this was my favorite meal because it seemed the most like a complete meal. Every dish really complimented the others. I definitely will try to cook Indian cuisine more often after this good experience today.