The Jury?

And the outcome of last night's first foray into Indian cooking?! Success!!

By far, one of the best parts of the meal was going out and buying the ingredients. We walk five minutes to our neighborhood "grocery" -- a row of tiny stores tied together uniformly by big government-standardized signs. We ask the first place for dal. They don't have any, but instead of scoffing at us for the silliness of our question like other places do, this store clerk leads us a few stores down. It's so tiny that I've never noticed this place before -- looks more like a tiny storeroom than a shop itself. We stand at the tiny counter, pulling out our list of ingredients.

We ask for 1 kg of yellow dal, and he brings out about five different types. We point to taur dal, and he keeps bringing out more. OK, yellow and black dal it is! Next is rice, which he brings out with the same efficiency, albeit fewer choices. We then ask for about five more ingredients -- cumin powder, chili powder, dried red chilies, etc... he's quick and no-nonsense, and we like him a lot! As he finds us the various spices, I look around his shop. On the ground, he has about a dozen enormous bags almost overflowing with various types of lentils. The tiny shelf space is utilized amazingly efficiently, stacked almost to the ceiling.

We pay for these supplies, which will likely last us a month's worth or more of cooking. Rs 375, or about $8!

Before reaching home, we get a lesson in Indian entrepreneurship. Realizing we need small containers to store all the open spices and lentils, we stop by a small kiryana shop. They realize what we need, but don't actually sell it. So they rummage through their shop, finding anything that resembles this, and sell it to us for about 10 cents each!

Back home, we're ready to start. The pressure cooker takes a while to get used to (note: there's a reason for the arrow on the lid!), and takes more time than expected (note: it helps to put the flame on high!). Meanwhile, the rice has overcooked (note: it doesn't take very long to cook rice!) But the dal is delicious, and we've added some sauteed mushrooms as well.

All in all, a successful Indian meal. Already excited to experiment some more!