A Condiment by Any Other Name
Lunch today was a new experience.
After having gotten remarkably caught up with things at work, and having discovered that the salad line in the cafe was closed today, I decided to make it an off-campus lunch day, so to speak. I encountered some issues trying to turn left onto Oak Lawn Ave (they have a lane closed for utility work again, it seems), so, deciding that utility work was as good a fate as any to subject my lunch destination to, I turned north onto Stemmons Freeway instead, eventually arriving at one of my favorite Indian restaurants up in Las Colinas (longer distance to drive than most things around here but quicker trip due to the freeway).
Mayuri has a lunch buffet that rivals that of just about any Indian restaurant I've ever been to. The fact that they have Medhu Vada and Idli on the buffet keeps me coming back for more.
Sometime since I've last been there, it turns out, they've started experimenting with Indian Chinese food, and have now added a few dishes to the lunch buffet.
As a quick aside, if you (understandably) thought the cuisine reference was a typo, I assure you, it's not. I met the same confusion upon first noticing a little place in Richardson called Bombay Chinese. "Since when was Bombay in China?!?" According to this allegedly relatively new food trend, now it is.
The concept is sort of like some of you other children-of-the-late-1970s may remember when mom would totter out of the kitchen each evening with the pseudo-ethnic recipe of the week: Super Mexican Casserole (which was like meatloaf with cheese and sour cream), or Italian Delight (which was like meatloaf with basil and tomato sauce), or Meat Surprise (which was like, um, meatloaf). You'd have little luck finding Italian Delight anywhere remotely near a real Italian, and likewise I'm not sure what anyone in China would make of Indian Chinese, but the Indian Chinese combination at least results in some pretty interesting ideas.
The general notion is to take a generic Chinese dish like fried rice, chow fun noodles, or stir fry, and prepare them relying more heavily on traditional Indian ingredients and spices. Instead of Chinese broccoli, bamboo shoots, wood ear mushrooms, or water chestnuts, substitute cauliflower, chilies, chilies, chilies, and chilies. Spicy, no matter what. Obvious crossover ingredients like ginger, onions, cabbage, peas, carrots, and so on are also common.
The dish I fell in love with today was something similar to this. It was oily, hot, (did I say hot? wow), and very very tasty.
It definitely goes on my list of things to try to make at home sometime. (I'm also trying to think of how this concept could be worked into the Second Annual Iron Chef competition which is due to occur any time in the next several months).
This brings me to my other observation today.
I was pleased enough that there were actually multiple recipes of Veg Manchuria on the web (especially if willing to spell creatively: Vegetable Manchuriya, Veggie Manchiria, and so on), but was perplexed by the ubiquitous "Ajino Moto Powder" ingredient (same creative spelling rules apply). Spice? Sea vegetable? What is this stuff?
Some creative-spelling-tolerant web searching uncovered this.
So it's MSG. Or, better yet, expensive name-brand MSG. How weird is this concept? Like asking for the salt and pepper as the "Morton's and McCormick's" or something. Maybe calling baking soda by its Arm & Hammer brand name is a somewhat reasonable equivalent? I don't know. 2 cups King Arthur, 1 tsp Clabber Girl, mixing in some Land O'Lakes? It's just odd.
Regardless, although MSG has taken a lot of very public criticism the last couple of decades (along with a host of other artificial food additives), I still hadn't predicted this particular brand-name twist.
"Don't worry, kids. No, it's not MSG — it's only Ajinomoto. Yeah, that's right. Go on and eat the rest of your Chicken Fried Manx, then."
It's a food additive. It has no flavor of its own. It gives some people the vomits and the sweats. I imagine one brand does these things about as well as the next — not really sure what all the glamour is all about. . . .
(Incidentally, an old girlfriend of mine used to abuse that "Accent" stuff like crazy, too, under similar misconceptions about its contents — or lack of concept, perhaps more accurately. She used to even sprinkle it on her salads. The activity sort of hijacked an innocent little salad and made its flavor something akin to eating the lettuce out of a microwaved Big Mac, if you can imagine. Ick.)
After having gotten remarkably caught up with things at work, and having discovered that the salad line in the cafe was closed today, I decided to make it an off-campus lunch day, so to speak. I encountered some issues trying to turn left onto Oak Lawn Ave (they have a lane closed for utility work again, it seems), so, deciding that utility work was as good a fate as any to subject my lunch destination to, I turned north onto Stemmons Freeway instead, eventually arriving at one of my favorite Indian restaurants up in Las Colinas (longer distance to drive than most things around here but quicker trip due to the freeway).
Mayuri has a lunch buffet that rivals that of just about any Indian restaurant I've ever been to. The fact that they have Medhu Vada and Idli on the buffet keeps me coming back for more.
Sometime since I've last been there, it turns out, they've started experimenting with Indian Chinese food, and have now added a few dishes to the lunch buffet.
As a quick aside, if you (understandably) thought the cuisine reference was a typo, I assure you, it's not. I met the same confusion upon first noticing a little place in Richardson called Bombay Chinese. "Since when was Bombay in China?!?" According to this allegedly relatively new food trend, now it is.
The concept is sort of like some of you other children-of-the-late-1970s may remember when mom would totter out of the kitchen each evening with the pseudo-ethnic recipe of the week: Super Mexican Casserole (which was like meatloaf with cheese and sour cream), or Italian Delight (which was like meatloaf with basil and tomato sauce), or Meat Surprise (which was like, um, meatloaf). You'd have little luck finding Italian Delight anywhere remotely near a real Italian, and likewise I'm not sure what anyone in China would make of Indian Chinese, but the Indian Chinese combination at least results in some pretty interesting ideas.
The general notion is to take a generic Chinese dish like fried rice, chow fun noodles, or stir fry, and prepare them relying more heavily on traditional Indian ingredients and spices. Instead of Chinese broccoli, bamboo shoots, wood ear mushrooms, or water chestnuts, substitute cauliflower, chilies, chilies, chilies, and chilies. Spicy, no matter what. Obvious crossover ingredients like ginger, onions, cabbage, peas, carrots, and so on are also common.
The dish I fell in love with today was something similar to this. It was oily, hot, (did I say hot? wow), and very very tasty.
It definitely goes on my list of things to try to make at home sometime. (I'm also trying to think of how this concept could be worked into the Second Annual Iron Chef competition which is due to occur any time in the next several months).
This brings me to my other observation today.
I was pleased enough that there were actually multiple recipes of Veg Manchuria on the web (especially if willing to spell creatively: Vegetable Manchuriya, Veggie Manchiria, and so on), but was perplexed by the ubiquitous "Ajino Moto Powder" ingredient (same creative spelling rules apply). Spice? Sea vegetable? What is this stuff?
Some creative-spelling-tolerant web searching uncovered this.
So it's MSG. Or, better yet, expensive name-brand MSG. How weird is this concept? Like asking for the salt and pepper as the "Morton's and McCormick's" or something. Maybe calling baking soda by its Arm & Hammer brand name is a somewhat reasonable equivalent? I don't know. 2 cups King Arthur, 1 tsp Clabber Girl, mixing in some Land O'Lakes? It's just odd.
Regardless, although MSG has taken a lot of very public criticism the last couple of decades (along with a host of other artificial food additives), I still hadn't predicted this particular brand-name twist.
"Don't worry, kids. No, it's not MSG — it's only Ajinomoto. Yeah, that's right. Go on and eat the rest of your Chicken Fried Manx, then."
It's a food additive. It has no flavor of its own. It gives some people the vomits and the sweats. I imagine one brand does these things about as well as the next — not really sure what all the glamour is all about. . . .
(Incidentally, an old girlfriend of mine used to abuse that "Accent" stuff like crazy, too, under similar misconceptions about its contents — or lack of concept, perhaps more accurately. She used to even sprinkle it on her salads. The activity sort of hijacked an innocent little salad and made its flavor something akin to eating the lettuce out of a microwaved Big Mac, if you can imagine. Ick.)