How to Make a Homemade Indian Dinner

Last Saturday, our good friend Riaz made us a traditional Indian dinner. Of course it was phenomenal and I am now begging him to make dinner for us every night! We dined on Samosas, Kabobs with yogurt and parathas (a combination of naan and tortillas). The Kabob recipe is below.  

Ingredients:
-2 lb of ground beef
-1 packet of Shaan Seekh Kabob spice mix
-1/2 onion (chopped)
-2 slices of bread worth of bread crumbs. I like to actually take bread slices and break them into pieces by hand.
-1/2 cup of garlic ginger paste
-Some chopped cilantro, I used about a third of a bunch from the store.

Steps:
-Hand mix beef, spice mix, chopped onions, bread (broken into crumbs), garlic ginger paste, and cilantro in a medium sized pot. Mash it all together like dough until it's thoroughly mixed.
-Put in fridge and let marinate for at least 6 hours but not more than 24 hours
-Fry in skillet with moderate amounts of vegetable oil. Pieces can be hand molded before frying into any size desired.

Riaz notes: "It tastes really good if you do the final step right as you eat it. You can always cook it and then refrigerate it, but then it becomes so-so. The yogurt mix is simply 1lb of plain lowfat yogurt with 1/2 tsp of the chaat masala spice mix. You can also add chopped onions and chopped tomatoes just to make it more interesting."

Not all grocery stores sell commonly used Indian spices. Lucky for you, DC is home to some of the most diverse cuisines and ethnic grocery stores. To find the ingredients for the Kabobs, make your way over to Patel Brothers. With three locations in the DC area (Rockville, Hyattsville, and Fairfax), Patel Brothers is your one stop shop for all things Indian. Riaz also purchased the parathas and samosas from Patel Brothers.

I can still taste the spices and tenderness of the Kabobs and I don't think I can wait for Riaz to invite us over for dinner again!