OK, I am not Indian, but I cook Indian vegetarian food.
I use recipes from "The Vegetarian Epicure". Anyway if the recipe calls for 1/2 tsp of cayenne, I put in 1/8 tsp. I keep all the other ingredients the same.
I love potato curry, chickpea curry, cauliflower curry, raita, spinach paneer, but I use tofu instead of paneer and add a little soy sauce and sesame oil to flavor the firm tofu. (I used to use paneer, when Giant carried it in the frozen food section, but it is not available anymore.)
I buy Naan at Trader Joes.

BTW, I'm not vegetarian either, but I love South Indian food, and learned to cook when I was vegetarian. The key is not to make it too spicy and I find it is the cayenne that makes it too spicy for me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are they Indian?

They are not Indian. I am. DH is not.

Difficult

Of course. (Chaat-hungry DH here.) But the right snack can really start the meal off right!

Chaat is lovely, but it is what we have for a snack. It would make for a good appetizer, but plan on serving more dishes.

OP here: thank you for all the suggestions. Will post what I make and what feedback it got.

Yes! That's it. I just remembered. Those things are great. Also, papri chaat is generally a hit. (With me, anyway.)

Anonymous wrote:Non-Indian DH here. I'm very fond of rajma. (spelling?) And what's the kind of chaat where you start with little round puffed balls that are about the size of golf balls? You make a hole in the top and then put in potatoes, tomatoes, yogurt, cilantro, and some kind of watery sauce? Those things are awesome.

And for non-Indian IL's, if you're doing bhindi, definitely fried.

Pani Puri or Gol Gappa, same dish just different names depending on the location in India.

Non-Indian DH here. I'm very fond of rajma. (spelling?) And what's the kind of chaat where you start with little round puffed balls that are about the size of golf balls? You make a hole in the top and then put in potatoes, tomatoes, yogurt, cilantro, and some kind of watery sauce? Those things are awesome.

And for non-Indian IL's, if you're doing bhindi, definitely fried.

Not awesome. The food reek that makes a house difficult to rent/sell. See the thread on this.

Nobody asked you, and this isn't the real estate thread. GTF away.

OP, not sure what type of Indian you usually make, but kumror korma is usually a hit when we have guests.

Anonymous wrote:Oh please. There is no food reek that makes a house difficult to sell. Thanks for the thinly veiled racist/xenophobic comment though.

This.
That poster has a bizarre fixation.

Anonymous wrote:Oh please. There is no food reek that makes a house difficult to sell. Thanks for the thinly veiled racist/xenophobic comment though.

Removing cooking odors from rental prior to selling it

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/445752.page

Anonymous wrote:Oh please. There is no food reek that makes a house difficult to sell. Thanks for the thinly veiled racist/xenophobic comment though.

Seriously. Anyway she's not looking to rent or sell, she's having people over for dinner. Geez.

My husband loves it when I cook Indian food on my work from home days. (We are not Indian but I love to cook Indian food, though I'm sure it's not nearly as good as what y'all make.) He walks in the door and immediately starts sniffing the air. Same for non-Indian stews or soups. Anything deeply flavored is going to produce an aroma.

You want stink -- latkes are the worst. We make them only once a year because the smell lingers for weeks. It's pretty awful. The deliciousness of the latke is not really worth the nasty fried oil/potato smell that greets you 10 days later.

Oh please. There is no food reek that makes a house difficult to sell. Thanks for the thinly veiled racist/xenophobic comment though.

^^ way, way off topic PP, even for DCUM.