The Triumphant Return of Tuesday's Tastings - TJ's Butter Chicken Masala

After several months of dormancy, Tuesday's Tastings makes a triumphant return with my review of Trader Joe's Butter Chicken Masala. When I was at my local Trader Joe's about a month ago, I noticed a few new frozen Indian meals that looked like they had some promise. I took a look at the ingredients of this Butter Chicken Masala and saw fenugreek, an herb commonly used in much of India's native dishes including curry. The inclusion of this herb added some credibility to Trader Joe's claim on the box that this was an "Authentic Indian Recipe"so I thought for a few dollars I would give it a try.

After about 10 minutes in the microwave - 5 minutes on defrost, 4 minutes on high, and 1 minute to cool - I peeled back the cellophane cover and was greeted with a familiar smell, that of slow cooked, tender, spicy chicken masala. The basmati rice lacked much of any fragrance and with my first bite I was greeted with some slightly rubbery grains, but the chicken was very tender, very flavorful, and actually quite good. Like many Indian dishes, the chicken was spicy, but not hot spicy, just spices spicy. It tasted very close to some real butter chicken masalas that I've eaten in India and that's a big compliment to Trader Joe. I did find that when I mixed the chicken and gravy (what Indian's call sauce) with the rice, the whole meal was very good and certainly tasted like an authentic Indian recipe.

If you like Indian food, real Indian food, I recommend you pick up some of this Trader Joe's Butter Chicken Masala the next time you're at the market. Once you've had a taste, come back here and leave a comment; let me know what you think.

Happy eating.

Eating Tandoori Chicken in Chennai

When I tell my colleagues that I like going to India, many of them think I'm nuts; twenty hours on a plane and all that air and noise pollution surely can't be fun. My response is usually something like, "I think the food is great and I get to experience things that are unique to that part of the world; India is a fascinating country. And, I like the solitude on the plane." They still think I'm nuts.

Even though I'm in India on business, the trip tends to be all about the food for me. Dinners are usually at restaurants in five-star hotels in the city, like Peshwari in the Sheraton Chola or Lotus Thai in The Park hotel. When we work late at the office, we usually eat at our own hotel, the Fortune Select Palms, in the Zodiac restaurant/lounge. The Zodiac offers a variety of foods, including a buffet full of delicious Indian offerings. My favorite dish however is on the menu, the tandoori chicken, India's version of barbecued chicken. Sure the hotel is in the south and tandoori is a traditionally found in the north, but this chicken is GOOD. It is a statler chicken breast, which means it is the boneless breast of chicken with a drumette attached, covered in spicy goodness, cooked in a Tandoor oven, and served with a wedge of lime and some carrot and cabbage slaw.


I ate this chicken twice during my last visit to India in March and I can't wait to go back and have it again. The chicken is tender, the rub is spicy, and the accompanying mint chutney (not pictured) offers both a cooling and flavorful touch to this dish.

On my next trip I'm going to explore the food stalls that line Old Mahabalipuram Road outside of my office; I may need some Pepto afterwards, but I hope it will be worth it. Remember when you're traveling, follow your nose...and your stomach. Be adventurous in life and at the dinner table.

Author's note: I'm raising money for the The Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to support my recent ride in the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge bike ride. Will you make a donation to support the advancement of cancer research and administration of life-saving cancer treatments?

My Favorite Indian Snack - Pani Puri

My first time going to India was last September and I didn't know what to expect. I traveled by myself and went into sensory overload when I first stepped foot out of the airport. It was 4am local time, it was hot and humid, the air was heavy and polluted, and OMG it was crowded! I made it to my hotel in one piece, took a long nap, and met my colleagues at the office later that morning.

Just prior to dinner on my first night, I was introduced to a tasty little snack called Pani puri. Literally this means water in fried bread but it is so, so much more. Pani puri is a very popular street snack in India where you will often see small carts loaded high with puri, the fried dough bread, and crowds of people surrounding the carts slurping these tasty treats one after the other. My last trip to India was this past February and I made sure to have at least a few pani puri every night, in my hotel. I did not get to try the pani puri from a street cart - maybe next time.

To make this snack, a small hole is pressed into the top of the hollow fried bread and filled with a mixture of mashed chickpea (or potato), coriander leaves (cilantro), fresh green chilies or red chili powder, cumin, minced onion and black pepper. The 'water' is a mixture of tamarind, chili powder, cumin, salt and black pepper and is spooned into the dough with the chickpea/potato mixture. Pop this snack into your mouth and crunch, a combination of sweet, spicy, savory and delicious will hit you all at once. This is definitely one of my favorite Indian snacks and I can't wait to go back for more.

Eating Indian at 35,000 Feet

Hi, I'm here. It's time to clear the backlog and share some of my recent travels. After departing Edinburgh in February I headed to Chennai, India for a week and a half. I have a lot to share about my Indian experience but I first want to share my British Airways experience. This was my second trip to India in six months, both times flying British Airways. I remember from my trip in September that the food on the plane was actually good, making the 11 hours from London to Chennai a little more bearable.

Shortly after spotting the London Bridge on my way up and out of London, lunch was served: Saag Paneer with lime pickle, a garden salad, and Rachel's Organic Divine Rice. Saag is a spinach and mustard leaves based curry and paneer is unaged, acid-set, non-melting farmer's cheese, it's like cottage cheese that has had all the water squeezed out and pressed into a form. The salad was a nice mix of red, orange and yellow peppers with some tomato, cucumber, red onion and iceberg lettuce. Pickles are common with every meal in India. My lunch was served with lime pickle but other varieties like mango pickle, garlic pickle and mixed pickle are also very common. On my first trip to India, I came home with a few jars of garlic pickle. It's very much like chili paste, very spicy, very tart, only manageable in small doses, but very good. I mix a little with rice or eggs, but I digress. Rachel's Organic Divine Rice is a traditional Indian rice pudding; it's delicious.



Later on in the flight, an hour or so we landed in Chennai, "breakfast" was served. Breakfast was pakora and paneer with a piece of lemon cake, some grapes, and some lemonade. The pakora in this meal was cauliflower, dipped in gram flour and deep fried. It was served with cubes of paneer and this tasty morsel, seen on the left of the dish, made from spinach. I'm not sure what it was, but it was very good.


We landed in Chennai less than an hour after breakfast, it was around 1am local time. After cruising through security - I had to go through a metal detector after passing through immigration and just before getting into the baggage claim area. I'm really not sure what the point was, my carry-on went through the x-ray machine with no one watching the monitor, and the metal detector lit up as I passed through it. No one sitting there even noticed. So I walked on, grabbed my luggage, and headed out into the warm, humid night of Chennai. My driver was there waiting to take me to the hotel. I was in Chennai, again.

Stay tuned for some delicious tidbits from South India.

Sometimes travel IS required

Have you ever traveled to a foreign country and ate or drank something that you just loved? Did you long for it when you got home ? I have. I am specifically speaking about my recent trip to India. The food just blew me away. Between the hand-made breads, the lentils, and all the delicious foods made with rice flour, I came home and missed the food. It's been hard for me to find restaurants in and around Boston that have many of my favorite food items from India. I've found some restaurants to get my masala dosa fix, but I miss panipuri and haven't been able to find it around here.

My point here is that it's possible to find a lot of the foods from your trip once you get back home, but sometimes they aren't the same. Case in point, Kingfisher beer. A brew native to India and available here in the United States, sort of. I noticed while I was in Pondicherry, India enjoying the Kingfisher pictured below, that the label on the bottle said it was for sale in the state of Pondicherry only. When I had my next Kingfisher, I was in Chennai, a city in the state of Tamil Nadu. The label on that bottle stated that it was only to be sold in Tamil Nadu. I was told that these sales restrictions have something to do with taxes and restrictions on inter-state distribution.


So now I'm home and I go out for Indian food. The Kingfisher beer that is available for sale here in the USA is brewed and bottled in Saratoga Springs, New York, under license from Kingfisher. The beer tastes noticeably different here, and while still a good beer, it is not as good as those I had while in India.

So you see, for a real Kingfisher, travel IS required!