#mum does suspect that vengeance might have played a part in this one-year old's motions cycle (and ya know not an allergy)

[vengefulcooking]

Today I picked up a cooking sauce, only because it was on discount, you know, please-buy-this-it's-one-step-above-free prices that tell you they're desperate to get rid of something before it hits its date, and I guess anyone who's shopping food in clearance has got to be so confident in their ability to clean out a bottle in under two weeks (or you know, not live alone,), and I am not anyone. I have zero confidence I'll be able to finish it, but I picked it up, even though I am so indifferent to the flavouring I picked up that it might not have existed on my radar at all: butter chicken. Mlehmlehmleh bland, boring, too few herbs and spices; it's just chicken in heavy cream, you've all been duped. Knew I'd be indifferent to it at best and mildly annoyed by its existence at worst, but I bought it. (Have I already made a post about the sheer number of possibilities you have in Indian cooking? Look at the possibilities, and it's not chicken in cream. That's overrated. It doesn't even taste good. I can and will willingly excuse a biriyani. The sheer number of flavours in it all at once; the layering, the way the spices are actually cooked into the rice (unless I'm wrong), or a good, simple, versatile paneer. Any vegetable, even. Oh, south Indian chillis. There's a lot you can do. But I repeat myself.)

Anyway, I tried it, and it's everything I expected. I checked the labellings properly later and noticed that it's a British import (literally why. There are Indians in this country. No wonder they were so desperate to get it off. Especially right now with the delay times, how long does shipping from the UK even take?), which immediately tells helps me sort out a few tastes. (Don't worry, the point of this post is flavours, and the target of this post is butter chicken. No Brits were harmed in the writing of this post.)

As much as the origin of a dish may be India, it changes when it leaves, as does any dish from another country. Based on which parts of India are better represented in another country (or smaller jurisdiction), the flavour of stuff will differ. I made a whole long post about the composition of garam masala, an Indian blend of spices that is used in like half the north Indian cooking you do, and it's sort of like that with most dishes. (Phew, the research I did for that post by the way! I put it up on my proper proper blog (not Tumblr, this site is hanging on to the tag of 'social media' for dear life. It's one rung below. Though, does anyone remember when social media platforms used to be called "micro-blogging sites"? Not one soul says that anymore, we've come a looong way from "the actor confirmed their role in a post on the microblogging site Twitter" to "SM".). Anyway I showed it to my mum and she was proud though she laughed. She'd laugh more if she knew I had a tumblr.)

Anyway, my verdict on this, less so Indian and more British, masala: too many cloves. Too. Maaaaaany. Cloves. for my liking! Cloves and ginger! Possibly cinnamon. Why does anybody like this?? (Fun fact, I don't know if you can look this up, but cinnamon's Hindi name is daalchini, which I guess taken apart would read pulse (general)-sugar. I know cinnamon is a spice but that fact always surprises me a little tbh, given how much I associate it with baking, coffees and all. It's literally in the name! —in at least one language)

My conclusion on this however? Hoo boy, Brits need to discover lemons someday ;)

Edit: It's going to bother me if I just left this post at that, I am here to spread lemon propaganda afterall, aren't I? I might as well teach you right. You don't need to cook with lemons. Lemons are part of the serving (etiquette?), you may in fact have seen them in restaurants if you've ordered Indian. The complete profile would be squeezed lemons along with sliced, salted onions, the salt can be omitted if you like. Do not drain!! Then you can go extra on the salad plating, and pile the lemony onions with chillis [ :) ], carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, sprouts, radish, beetroots; literally whatever you want, but it's gotta be raw/uncooked, and dipped in salty lemon. Then you pick up the wet onion slices and eat them with your main dish. That's how lemons are done, try it!