Tuesday Review: Arora Creations
I am pretty sure handsome husband thought I was joking when I said we would be eating brown rice and broccoli all week, as a favor to our bodies after a few nights of beer, pizza and potato chips. Granted, it isn’t the most romantic meal for a wedding anniversary, but there was a lot of love in those veggies.
I don’t recall where I first found Arora Creations, an Indian spice blend, but I can’t create Indian food without it. The Bhindi Masala was perfect last night when I wanted to cook not-so-fresh green beans and I wanted them to have a lot of flavor. The spice blends come packaged in a flat pouch, each enough to make one side dish–about a pound of veggies.The packet says it serves six, but only if you had other dishes.
You won’t find dehydrated onion bits or super-pasteurized shelf-life food, these packets are nothing but magic spice dust. It doesn’t take that long to make an authentic Indian dinner, the rice cooks itself while you do the hard labor of chopping onions and the veggie of your choice. Two of the dishes, punjabi chloe (chick peas) and rajmah (kidney beans) require little more than canned beans.
Arora Creations also has an organic line as well as spice blends for meat (Chicken Tandoori and Chicken Tikka Masala) and fish (Goan Fish Curry) dishes–these work equally well on tofu and tempeh. All the blends are vegetarian.Some are a wee bit spicy, so where the directions say to use the whole packet, I would recommend staring with half and added more to taste as you go along.
Dhiraj Arora first played with his mother’s spice blends as a college student in Ann Arbor, MI. He had such a hit on his hands, he decided to take a stab at a flavorful entrepreneurship after graduation, instead of a lucrative temp job or further education.
I paid $4.95 (gulp) for my Arora spice blend yesterday at a local health food store. The same mix is $2.99 at AroraCreations.com, the organic mixes are $3.99 online. The website will also direct you to where you can purchase them locally for dinner tonight.
