Tonight I went to Ashok's place for dinner with Chef Neil. Interestingly, he doesn't do the cooking at home; his wife does... We ate until we were full. Then we ate more. Then we had another meal.
The first dinner consisted of two meat dishes and a side of fresh vegetables. One meat dish was almost like turkey burgers - it was ground up chicken thigh, so I was told, with finely chopped onions, peppers, and a bit of spice, made into thin hamburgers and served with mint-chili chutney. The second meat dish was like a stir fry, with 1/2 inch wide lengths of red peppers, chick breast chunks, onions, cilantro, and a lot of kick. The vegetable plate had lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, daikon, red onion rings, and a few chili peppers, with a dash of chaat masala atop of it all.
The second dinner consisted of palau rice, daal tarka, curried cauliflower and potato, and hot buttered rotis. I've wanted to watch somebody make rotis ever since I tried to make them myself... The dough was a simple mix of whole wheat flour, water, and salt. Moist, but not very sticky. Rolled into a ball, then flattened by hand, dipped in flour, and rolled to 3/16" thick. Tossed into a hot pan for a minute, flipped for 30 seconds, then place on a wire rack that hovered above a bare stove element on medium-high... this caused the rotis to puff up really well. I can't remember if they were flipped while on the wire rack. After puffing up, they were removed and buttered. The daal tarka was made with red lentils and also with black lentils - both split and whole. I'd never seen black lentils before, but that's what they are... black lentils.
We also got to sample some homemade yogurt, which was excellent. I'll have to try making it sometime. It's made by boiling regular milk, then mixing it with a bit of sugar, salt, a little lemon, and probiotic yogurt (that acts as a "seed") and letting that sit in a warm spot overnight.