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A sign outside the home of Christian and Gunjan Gilbert advertising their takeout business says “Tandoor Indian Food.” At times, it gets misinterpreted.
“People think it means Native American,” Christian says.
The confusion is somewhat understandable. While call-center operators from India now regularly help Mainers with their computer questions, few Indian-Americans like Gilbert live Downeast. She has been asked “What tribe are you from?” more than once.
Two years ago, the Gilberts started on a two-person mission to introduce Indian culture to Downeast Maine—through food. Their takeout food business, called Tandoor Downeast, (which they operate each evening after they return home from their full-time jobs at the Jackson Lab) is just one way they help teach people about Indian culture. Gunjan Gilbert has also taught adult education classes in Indian cooking, and will take part in a world cooking camp for middle schoolers later this year. “By bringing in the cuisine, you’re bringing in cultural awareness,” she says.
In the kitchen, Gilbert stirs broccoli with such gusto that only centrifugal force keeps vegetables from escaping the pan. She pauses between stirrings to point out red-tinged salt, dark-purple peppers, and jaggery, a brown sugar sold in blocks. “You have to kind of chip away at it,” she says, using a knife to chisel out a sample. (The sugar tastes lighter than other brown sugars, but stays on the tongue longer than white.)
A native of Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, Gunjan attended college and graduate school in the American Midwest, and moved to Maine to work at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor in scientific services. It was there that she met fellow Jax employee Christian Gilbert one afternoon during a company-organized hike. The two hit it off before the hiking group left the parking lot. They started dating, and soon she introduced him to home-cooked Indian food. Christian had never eaten anything quite like what Gunjan fed him. Now that they are married, most of his meals are Indian, right down to bean sprouts for breakfast. “It’s just part of life now,” he says.
As the pair tells their story, Gunjan continues to cook. Soon their ornately carved dining room table, a souvenir from a recent visit to India, is crowded with serving dishes, each filled with enough food to be a meal in itself: stir-fried broccoli and green beans, spiced black-eyed peas and mixed beans in sauce, whole-grain flatbreads, basmati rice, hot pickled mango, and a refreshingly simple tomato and cucumber salad.
The variety of the meal seems to surprise Gilbert. “Many times I don’t know what I’m making until I’m making it,” she says.
Before it’s possible to figure out what to heap onto the plate first, Gilbert is already handing out full plates of food. It wouldn’t be a real Indian meal any other way, she explains.
“Part of an Indian dinner is, ‘May I serve you?’”
She serves with a dancer’s grace, her hands, arms, and shoulders seeming to tell a silent story while she dishes out portions. There’s silverware at each place setting, but it’s hardly needed. Food is easily herded and scooped to the mouth by chunks of flatbread. “Grip and grab,” Christian says, reaching for another tasty bread utensil.
Dinner conversation invariably turns to food. They keep a garden because she grew up used to fresh produce, this despite living in a city in India the size of Portland. Though India’s cities are famously urban and chaotic, they still retain agrarian roots, with people still shopping daily at farmers markets for fresh produce. Gunjan reminisces about wedding feasts that last for days and coming home from school for noontime meals.
But she concedes that globalization has changed the way India eats. Many Indians now work nights, which wreaks havoc on traditional mealtimes. Eating on the go has become popular and American chains like McDonalds and Pizza Hut have sprung up to meet the new fast-food demand.
While her food is not “fast food,” as it is made to order, it is packaged to go—much like the century-old practice called tiffin, where light lunches are delivered to India’s workers by deliverymen called dabbawalas. While an evening takeout business, Tandoor Downeast will deliver on request. It’s not uncommon for Gunjan to put in four hours in the kitchen each night after a full day’s work at the lab. Christian says the pace doesn’t faze her.
“She’s relentless,” he says, sopping up the last of the sauce on his plate with a chunk of flatbread. “She never gets tired of it!”
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5 l/2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour, plus extra for kneading
2 l/2 cups millet flour
1 cup white flour
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (110°F)
(Note: add an extra 3/4 cup of water if using whole wheat flour)
1 1/4 tsp. sugar
2 cups yogurt
2 tsp. salt
4 Tbs. oil
Combine yeast, 1 cup of the warm water, and sugar in a small bowl and stir to dissolve. Set aside until mixture is foamy and doubled in size, about 10 minutes. Sift all flours and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add remaining 1 cup warm water (1 3/4 cup if using whole wheat flour), yeast mixture, yogurt, and 2 Tbs. of the oil. Mix ingredients until dough pulls away from sides of the bowl, forming a ball. Coat a large bowl with remaining oil and place dough inside, turning to coat with the oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set it on the counter until dough has doubled in size, about 8–16 hours. Preheat oven to 500°. Punch down dough and transfer to a floured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Preheat baking sheet 10 minutes. Divide dough into 15 equal pieces, roll each one into a ball, flatten to desired thickness, and place 2 loaves on heated baking sheet, spacing them about 1 inch apart. Bake until they puff up, 10–15 minutes. Transfer loaves to a wire rack to cool; repeat with additional loaves.
--------
Gunjan's Basics
Here are Gunjan Gilbert’s beginner’s essentials for cooking Indian food:
Good curry powder
Always read the ingredients on the label and then decide if you like the mix or not. There are some good varieties available in supermarket and natural food product stores.
The right rice
Indian cooking requires long white grain rice or basmati rice.
Play with peppers
Add yellow and red bell peppers to just about any dish to bring in more colors.
Go light with oil
Use a light vegetable oil. Avoid using olive oil, as it has its own unique flavor that can sometimes hinder the true taste of spices.
Know your beans
You can have any variety of beans, from split yellow peas to kidney beans. Here is an easy recipe for spicy beans: Take 2 cups of black-eyed peas, 1 chopped onion, 1 cup of water, 1 tsp. of garlic, salt and pepper as desired, 1–2 tsp. of paprika, 1 small tomato, 1 Tbs. of oil. Heat a cast iron pan on medium heat. Add all the above ingredients and let simmer for 1/2–1 hour on low heat. You can also add some chopped red peppers for more color.
Spice it up
Don’t be afraid to experiment. Remember, spicy means flavorful, not always hot. When adding spices such as curry powder, just start with a little bit at a time.
“People think it means Native American,” Christian says.
The confusion is somewhat understandable. While call-center operators from India now regularly help Mainers with their computer questions, few Indian-Americans like Gilbert live Downeast. She has been asked “What tribe are you from?” more than once.
Two years ago, the Gilberts started on a two-person mission to introduce Indian culture to Downeast Maine—through food. Their takeout food business, called Tandoor Downeast, (which they operate each evening after they return home from their full-time jobs at the Jackson Lab) is just one way they help teach people about Indian culture. Gunjan Gilbert has also taught adult education classes in Indian cooking, and will take part in a world cooking camp for middle schoolers later this year. “By bringing in the cuisine, you’re bringing in cultural awareness,” she says.
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In the kitchen, Gilbert stirs broccoli with such gusto that only centrifugal force keeps vegetables from escaping the pan. She pauses between stirrings to point out red-tinged salt, dark-purple peppers, and jaggery, a brown sugar sold in blocks. “You have to kind of chip away at it,” she says, using a knife to chisel out a sample. (The sugar tastes lighter than other brown sugars, but stays on the tongue longer than white.)
A native of Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, Gunjan attended college and graduate school in the American Midwest, and moved to Maine to work at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor in scientific services. It was there that she met fellow Jax employee Christian Gilbert one afternoon during a company-organized hike. The two hit it off before the hiking group left the parking lot. They started dating, and soon she introduced him to home-cooked Indian food. Christian had never eaten anything quite like what Gunjan fed him. Now that they are married, most of his meals are Indian, right down to bean sprouts for breakfast. “It’s just part of life now,” he says.
As the pair tells their story, Gunjan continues to cook. Soon their ornately carved dining room table, a souvenir from a recent visit to India, is crowded with serving dishes, each filled with enough food to be a meal in itself: stir-fried broccoli and green beans, spiced black-eyed peas and mixed beans in sauce, whole-grain flatbreads, basmati rice, hot pickled mango, and a refreshingly simple tomato and cucumber salad.
The variety of the meal seems to surprise Gilbert. “Many times I don’t know what I’m making until I’m making it,” she says.
Before it’s possible to figure out what to heap onto the plate first, Gilbert is already handing out full plates of food. It wouldn’t be a real Indian meal any other way, she explains.
“Part of an Indian dinner is, ‘May I serve you?’”
She serves with a dancer’s grace, her hands, arms, and shoulders seeming to tell a silent story while she dishes out portions. There’s silverware at each place setting, but it’s hardly needed. Food is easily herded and scooped to the mouth by chunks of flatbread. “Grip and grab,” Christian says, reaching for another tasty bread utensil.
Dinner conversation invariably turns to food. They keep a garden because she grew up used to fresh produce, this despite living in a city in India the size of Portland. Though India’s cities are famously urban and chaotic, they still retain agrarian roots, with people still shopping daily at farmers markets for fresh produce. Gunjan reminisces about wedding feasts that last for days and coming home from school for noontime meals.
But she concedes that globalization has changed the way India eats. Many Indians now work nights, which wreaks havoc on traditional mealtimes. Eating on the go has become popular and American chains like McDonalds and Pizza Hut have sprung up to meet the new fast-food demand.
While her food is not “fast food,” as it is made to order, it is packaged to go—much like the century-old practice called tiffin, where light lunches are delivered to India’s workers by deliverymen called dabbawalas. While an evening takeout business, Tandoor Downeast will deliver on request. It’s not uncommon for Gunjan to put in four hours in the kitchen each night after a full day’s work at the lab. Christian says the pace doesn’t faze her.
“She’s relentless,” he says, sopping up the last of the sauce on his plate with a chunk of flatbread. “She never gets tired of it!”
--------
Tandoor Flatbread
Serves 155 l/2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour, plus extra for kneading
2 l/2 cups millet flour
1 cup white flour
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (110°F)
(Note: add an extra 3/4 cup of water if using whole wheat flour)
1 1/4 tsp. sugar
2 cups yogurt
2 tsp. salt
4 Tbs. oil
Combine yeast, 1 cup of the warm water, and sugar in a small bowl and stir to dissolve. Set aside until mixture is foamy and doubled in size, about 10 minutes. Sift all flours and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add remaining 1 cup warm water (1 3/4 cup if using whole wheat flour), yeast mixture, yogurt, and 2 Tbs. of the oil. Mix ingredients until dough pulls away from sides of the bowl, forming a ball. Coat a large bowl with remaining oil and place dough inside, turning to coat with the oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set it on the counter until dough has doubled in size, about 8–16 hours. Preheat oven to 500°. Punch down dough and transfer to a floured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Preheat baking sheet 10 minutes. Divide dough into 15 equal pieces, roll each one into a ball, flatten to desired thickness, and place 2 loaves on heated baking sheet, spacing them about 1 inch apart. Bake until they puff up, 10–15 minutes. Transfer loaves to a wire rack to cool; repeat with additional loaves.
--------
Gunjan's Basics
Here are Gunjan Gilbert’s beginner’s essentials for cooking Indian food:Good curry powder
Always read the ingredients on the label and then decide if you like the mix or not. There are some good varieties available in supermarket and natural food product stores.
The right rice
Indian cooking requires long white grain rice or basmati rice.
Play with peppers
Add yellow and red bell peppers to just about any dish to bring in more colors.
Go light with oil
Use a light vegetable oil. Avoid using olive oil, as it has its own unique flavor that can sometimes hinder the true taste of spices.
Know your beans
You can have any variety of beans, from split yellow peas to kidney beans. Here is an easy recipe for spicy beans: Take 2 cups of black-eyed peas, 1 chopped onion, 1 cup of water, 1 tsp. of garlic, salt and pepper as desired, 1–2 tsp. of paprika, 1 small tomato, 1 Tbs. of oil. Heat a cast iron pan on medium heat. Add all the above ingredients and let simmer for 1/2–1 hour on low heat. You can also add some chopped red peppers for more color.
Spice it up
Don’t be afraid to experiment. Remember, spicy means flavorful, not always hot. When adding spices such as curry powder, just start with a little bit at a time.
