[Sca-cooks] Hindu Recipe?

[Lilinah]

Helen wrote:
>We have a new guy in the office who is of Indian extraction and Hindu by
>faith.
>That means that he is a strict vegetarian and of course, there are those in
>the office who cannot fathom this way of faith or life, and ::sigh:: 
>give him a
>hard time about it.

Not all Hindus are vegetarians. The primary restriction is no beef. 
However, he may be Brahman caste, and they are often vegetarian. If 
he's from a very strict and high caste family, he may eat only food 
prepared by others of the appropriate caste and relationship.

Indian food is HIGHLY regional, and EXTREMELY varied. And unless you 
know where he's from (or his family), just-any-joe-random-curry may 
seem weird and non-Indian to him.

What should work is just about any dairy dish.

A cheesecake could be shared with him and your co-workers.

That's that ubiquitous dip thingy - where people pour, mmm, i don't 
quite recall, i think it's Heinz Chili Sauce (or something like it) 
and some other stuff, over a slab of Philadelphia cream cheese, and 
serve it with some sort of stiff chips (you could get pita chips 
instead of tortilla chips...).

Then there's a wonderful Indian dessert called ras malai - i bet you 
could find a recipe in the web. The kind made where the milk is 
cooked down is much better than the kind made with powdered milk.

Other tasty Indian sweets are firni and keer - two different 
"puddings" made with milk and rice - one with cooked rice and one 
with rice flour - flavored with rose water and cardamom - and topped 
with a sprinkling of crushed undyed pistachios.

For main dishes - but not necessarily from his family's region - 
there's mattar paneer (peas with panir, a kind of fresh cheese) and 
saag paneer (spinach with panir) - either one is eaten with cooked 
white rice.

Also, I'm not sure where in the South you are, but i bet there are 
some quite tasty local vegetable dishes that don't involve meat that 
you could make.

As someone who was a vegetarian back in the late 1960s when the US 
was NOT vegetarian friendly, and who has a daughter who has been a 
vegetarian since she was 12 and who got a hard time from her dad's 
wife for a number of years about her vegetarianism, i can sympathize.

-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita