General Cooking Thread

[uNicedmeMan]

We have a place to discuss all things grilling (thx Solty) but I have some non-grilling food preparation questions. In an effort to not drift on the grilling thread, welcome to the General Cooking Thread! Feel free to discuss any and all things concerning food preparation, I'll start it off.

I've recently jumped into Indian cooking and procured a bunch of whole spices (cumin, coriander, mustard seed, saffron, amchoor powder, nutmeg, tumeric, asafoedita powder, need to get star anise and a few other things). I've been grinding the whole spices with a mortal and pestle which is super cool (coriander smells insanely good when freshly ground).

My questions are this:
1- Does anyone cook much Indian? If so do you have problems with lingering odors? I'm thinking that as long as I open up windows and turn on the hood I'll be fine provided I don't cook Indian every day.

2- Asafetida (Hing) has a nickname "Devil's Dung" and it's quite deserving. I put it (unopened) in a cupboard and it stunk it all up, it is now resting in the freezer. After I open it I think I'll put the whole container in a glass jar in the freezer.

Now my asafetida question: I'm reading that asafetida is a great Antiflatulent and I want to include it in my black bean burgers for this purpose (and to replace onion and garlic). I am afraid to do this because the asafetida doesn't get to smelling/tasting good until cooked (generally sauteed in ghee) and I will be adding it to the patty uncooked. The patty will be grilled / baked / fried later on but will the asafetida already taint my burger?

Thanks and sorry for the long post. I'm also very interested to hear any and all of your favorite recipes.

[uNicedmeMan]

Also, has anyone attempted to make ghee? I'm going to do so tonight using these instructions

[JR]

Too lazy to find the chili thread so I'll just drop this suits almost anything quick tip: Lingham's Garlic and Ginger Chili sauce out of Thailand tastes heavenly, especially with chicken and pizzas, veggies but really it seems to suits anything I've tried it on. Oatmeal porridge is almost the sole thing along with ice cream that I haven't tried it on. I think after eating chili ice cream that it would work fine with ice cream too

[JHern]

I had a neighbor in Paris who was from a remote village in northern India, and it was his first time living away from home. He would go to the markets, pick up all sorts of wonderful fresh ingredients, and then whip up these huge feasts for all his neighbors. We had a great time, even the French among us declared that they would go vegetarian if they could have food of that quality all the time.

[uNicedmeMan]

Ghee creation was successful aside from a small spill.