We Have Our Two Winners For The Chaunk and GitaDini USA Spice Kits and Dabbas!

  
   Thanks to everyone who signed up for The Chaunk's  free newsletter and participated in our very first giveway. The great people at GitaDiniUSA have donated two Spice boxes, aka Dabbas, and we are sending along a Chaunk 8 Pack Indian Spice Kit to two lucky winners.

   Our two winners drawn this morning via randomresult.com  numbers generator:

Fieena Zvenyach

and 

Jackiesav

   I'm going to be sending each of them an email notifying them of their win. Thanks to everyone who signed up and we'll be doing more giveaways, and special offers for our subscribers, so join The Chaunk newsletter and share the spice!!!

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Introducing "The Chaunk", Our Store is Live, And Our Indian Spice Kit Now Available Online.

                                            photo by Phil Jimcosky                                                                                               
   When I served an Indian lunch last fall to Steve Sando, Paula Wolfert, and Alice Medrich  at our house in Sonoma, the last thing Alan and I ever expected was to get into the Indian spice business. We earn our living as screenwriters and most of the spice involved with that has been trying to keep things on a PG13 level (most but not all ) of the time.

   I started my journey into the world of Indian food 26 years ago, when I was diagnosed with cancer. I was a vegetarian at the time (yeah, I know) and while having chemo I decided to up the game to macrobiotics. What I actually did was cut out most of the vegetables that I loved following very strict rules. It was getting harder and harder to find something that made me want to eat, since it's tough taking an Italian away from the "deadly nightshades" aka, tomatoes, eggplants  etc. When my oncologist at Cedars Sinai asked me why I wasn't eating, I went into this long explanation about chemo, macro food, and the evils of deadly nightshades. I finally admitted I hated what I was eating, I was starving for something tasty.

   He said,"Well, why not eat a more ayurvedic diet"

   "Huh, what's that????"

   "Indian food. Do you like Indian food? That's a good healthy food"

   "I love Indian food... but cook it myself??? Can I do that???" That quickly became "Why not cook it myself?" " I can do that!".
 
   I started the learning process. It helped that Alan had traveled and stayed with friends in India quite a bit, and that his big sister, my sis-in-law is an Indologist and had worked and lived in India and studied Indian cooking.  She came out from NY, helped get me set up and I was off to the races. I began to seek out Indian markets in Los Angeles. One in particular, where at the time I was the only non-Indian shopper. Remember, this was 26 years ago. The Indian ladies I met there I think were amused that I was poking around, asking questions, and into everything. When I kept coming back, buying more stuff, asking more questions, they finally started talking to me, showing me things, making suggestions, giving me things to taste. I became a regular. I wanted to try doing and making everything I could.

   I cooked every day and over the course of 3 years basically cooked my way through Lord Krishnas Cuisine the bible (for me at least) of Indian vegetarian cooking. Alan always says that for those 3 years he had something different practically every day....all from the same cookbook. It was sort of a Julie and Julia experience... only Indian. As I cooked I expanded my repertoire to include non vegetarian food. I started canning my own chutney, grinding my own spices. In short I turned our Santa Monica house into a mini-Indian restaurant. I cooked for friends, and word got out and I started get asked to cook for others. You can read my bio to see who some of my diners have been.
 
   Healthy Indian food became a passion, something I loved to share with anyone interested. When we moved to Sonoma aka Foodie Heaven, I started growing a lot of my own produce. In 2009 I started this blog as a way of sharing the food that captured my heart. Alan started photographing the food and cooking process in order to show how to proceed. In the midst of our writing work it's always been my passion project. The thing that relaxes me, and gives me instant gratification. I learned that if I want to be happy, I have to make people laugh, and I also have to feed them. That's what The Chaunk is all about, passing along the adventure of Indian food and giving people the tools to start cooking it themselves.

   So when Paula, and Alice told me I needed to do something with my Indian cooking and Steve Sando suggested perhaps spices would be a good way to start, we put together this spice kit. This box contains all the hard to find "stuff" that makes first time Indian cooks tempted to chuck it all and just order out. These are the spices you won't find in your common garden variety  Supermarket which are found in nearly all Indian dishes.

   The recipe cards are simple, and easy to follow. In this case they're  vegetarian dishes that have been popular at our house with family and friends. They're quick to prepare without a lot of fussing and they can be served as part of a more ambitious Indian meal or will also work well on a plate with any meat, fish, or rice. There's nothing too difficult to master. This is one of the recipes: Peanut stuffed Chilies.

Here's an excerpt about TheChaunk.com from the current issue of  Craft By Under My Host :
by Erin Jimcosky

     If there is one thing that Kathy Gori, blogger behind The Colors Of Indian Cooking knows, it is her way around an Indian kitchen. So when she and her husband (and food photographer) Alan Berger decided to start a spice company, American foodies cried "Huzzah". One of the biggest difficulties people find when trying to learn to cook Indian food is simply in finding the ingredients. The Chaunk has turned a daunting task into a breeze. The kit comes with eight ridiculously fresh and fragrant spices and recipes to help you use them. I love the adorable spice containers that are pretty enough to reuse, and as it happens they sell refills, so you’ll be sure to keep them in use.  Follow along on Instagram as I cook and share recipes from The Chaunk. To find out more about The Chaunk and the diversity of Indian spices, look for my Indian Spice Lexicon in this issue. The spices included in the kit are as follows: garam masala, black mustard seed, kalonji, kashmiri chili powder, methi leaves, amchur powder, cinnamon sticks and dried red chiles.

   There are more products and a cookbook in the works, but "The Chaunk" seemed a great place for us to start. So, pay us a visit at our online shop TheChaunk.com and follow us on Twitter @TheChaunk check out the Instagram pictures at thechaunk and when you start cooking Indian food, visit us at Pinterest  and  share your pictures with us.  I hope you'll join me in exploring the world of Indian Cuisine, even after 26 years for me there is still so much to learn.

Vadouvan, Custom Blended Especially For You

    A couple of years ago on my birthday Alan took me to Strange Invisible Perfumes in Venice (that's California not Italy) and had a custom perfume made for me. Now I'm not a real perfume kind of person. I like clean. I like citrus. I like subtle. I was so glad when the disco days of White Musk were behind me, and don't get me started on Patchouli. I'm totally down with John Cusack on that.

Get Your Patchouli Stink Outta My Store

   But there was something really special about having something made just for me. It's kind of the way I feel about a lot of stuff. It's why I started getting into making as many things as I can from scratch. The custom touch. It's what those tony British banker guys are always talking about when  they mention bespoke suits and bench made shoes. Well, I thought, what about some bespoke spices? Custom made just for me. Of course I was going to have to make them, but what the hey.., that's what I do, right?
   One of the basics in any sort of cooking is spices, and Indian cooking uses a lot of them. Spices and spice blends. Curries and masalas. Panch purans and chaunks. Anyone wanting to cook Indian quickly learns that curry powder out of a box does not a curry make, and every good Indian cook has their own special blend of spices. It's similar to the "gravy" found in Italian American homes. Everybody's family has their own special way of making it.
   After toasting and grinding spices for Indian food for the last 21 years, I thought I'd pretty much seen it all. And then I met Vadouvan. If I hadn't taken on the challenge of attempting to add an Indian twist to Workman Publishings' Bastille Day Celebration of Richard Grausmans' French Classics Made Easy I never would have heard of Vadouvan.
  So just what is this mysterious Vadouvan? In doing my research into the connection between Indian and French cuisine, I discovered a spice blend that found it's way back to Europe from the Subcontinent. Unlike the curry powder that the Brits took away, the French came up with a chunky blend of onions, shallots, leeks and assorted roasted, toasted, ground spices. But that's where the specifics end, because Vadouvan can be customized and tailored to one's individual taste. Pinning down one basic recipe is pretty nearly impossible.

Indian Vadouvan Watercress Soup

So here's how I  made my vadouvan:
 Chop  up:
  3 onions
  3 leeks
  12 shallots
 Drizzle them well with olive oil.
 Spread them onto a parchment paper-covered cookie sheet.
 Roast them in a 350 degree oven for about 1 and 1/2 hours.

Stir them around occasionally so nothing sticks and burns. When they're nice and caramelized, take them out.

  Meanwhile while all that's going on, dry toast in a skillet:
   1 Tbs of urid dal
   1 T of coriander
   2 T of cumin
   10 curry leaves
   1 tsp of ground cinnamon
   1 tsp of turmeric
   2 dried red chili peppers
   4 tsp of mustard seeds
   1/4 tsp of ground cloves

 After the spices are toasted, put everything into a spice grinder or blender and whirl it into powder.

Mix the ground spices into the caramelized onions etc.

When the mixture is blended, give it a taste. Add in a bit of light brown sugar, 1 tsp at a time until the spice mix has a nice, hot, spicy, blend with a sweet finish. Or not. You may like it just as it is, or want to put in some salt. You may choose to add garlic cloves to the onion mix or leave out the leeks. It's up to you. It's that kind of recipe. Vadouvan keeps for a month in the fridge in a nice tight jar. In the freezer it will last 6 months.
   But now the big question. You have your vadouvan, what to do with it?  Well, it can be added to sauces a tablespoon or teaspoon at a time. It can be put into dips or soups, and it can also be put into what goes into soups. Which is exactly what I did with it.
   I took Richard Grausman's  recipe for French Watercress Soup which you can find here.
I decided to make a sirkhand out of plain yogurt.  (Take a cup of yogurt and place it in a yogurt strainer suspended over a glass. Let it drain for at least 4 hours, or until it's slightly thickened.)
  You may also use thickened Greek style yogurt.
  Whip the sirkhand until it's creamy and add in a nice dollop of vadouvan. Swirl a tablespoon of this mixture into each serving of soup.

 That's it. You're done. You've added Indian flavors to a French classic.

 So there it is, a simple spice that you can put your own personal imprint on. Have fun. Coming up next Green Beans perfect for a Summer lunch. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori