It’s hard to believe it’s already been four years since Portland got Indian Street Food in the form of Bollywood Theater. It was then when Troy MacLarty, then a veteran of Chez Panisse and experienced with the kitchens of Italian restaurants, got tired of waiting for someone else to open the Indian restaurant he wanted to go to. He knew there was more variety and flavors in Indian cuisine then the creamy curries that were typically offered at Indian restaurants. Just like Italian food, he knew there were regional specialties that were being missed that shouldn’t be.

So he decided to go ahead and offer it himself then if no one else was going to. He thought it would be a small restaurant, maybe breaking even at 30 covers a night. Little did he know in a few years, he would be serving about a thousand a night at two restaurants.

Since 2014, Bollywood Theater has expanded to a second location, from the original at NE Alberta to a larger one at SE Division, and this second location is my favorite with its huge patio out to the street and roll up garage doors which to me. The connection to the outside of this location to me gives it a bit of an authentic “street feel” with the extra contribution of car noises and exhaust while still sitting underneath sparkling stringed lights. It also just feels a lot roomier with its two floors inside of seating.

Inside, it is colorful and bright with all sorts of posters and ads on the walls and knick knacks on shelves, and there is a Bollywood movie playing on one wall. The open kitchen lets you get a little peek of the magic to make your dishes and drinks. Since the SE Division location is so much bigger, I don’t think you feel as cramped / cozy as the NE Alberta because the bar is long and out of the way of the ordering line for food, and sitting there you can look directly into the kitchen to watch (you can see the bar behind Chef Troy in the last photo).

Particular to the SE Division location a mini grocery store boasting Indian ingredients in case you want to make a dish at home. The way various products are intermingled and stocked so close to each other is exactly like what I remember seeing in the stores on a part of Devon Avenue, a famous street in Chicago known for being a pathway to many ethnic neighborhoods including a 10 block strip of South Asian restaurants and Indian/Pakistani shops, a community like a Little India instead of a Chinatown. I think this type of product arrangement is part of a centuries old trick to slow you down as a customer to look at every item individually instead of efficiently just getting what you came for by spotting it immediately on neat shelves, ha ha.

One food adventure on top of the new Indian street food that Troy wanted to bring (as well as still offering a few curries and thali meals) that Bollywood Theater also offers is that they also try to incorporate Northwest local ingredients and create an Indian take using that ingredient. “What would an Indian make if they had asparagus there” for instance was a question; and these answers are posted on the ever changing Specials Board. So make sure you check it out for unique Northwest and Indian mashup combinations, such as this Grilled Asparagus with a rich curry made with fresh tumeric, green garlic, and cream topped with a sweet raisin and almond chutney.

In today’s post, I’m going to re-share a few recipes Chef Troy shared with a media/bloggers group when I was fortunate to get some time In the Kitchen with Bollywood Theater recipes and Chef Troy.

He talked us through the making of Paneer and then, the paneer can be used in his recipe for a Mixed Dal, Fava Bean and Paneer Pakoras, which you can serve with Rhubarb Strawberry Achaar. He also shared the ingredients and steps to his favorite dish on the menu, the Dahi Papri Chaat.

If you get a little dizzy as you read the list of ingredients – don’t worry, I felt the same way the first time I took an Indian cooking class and we spent a couple hours just to make paneer makhani, dal, and paratha. Even though we had only asked for two dishes, we couldn’t have made anything without several specialized spices that she brought in little baggies. You can find some of these spices officially on display and offered inside Bollywood Theater too. Chef Troy has even worked with Reluctant Trading Experiment to offer their special masalas. The Reluctant Trading Experiment one of the big spice importer for Bollywood Theater to bring them flavors direct from India.

Anyway, for me pretty much after that Indian cooking class, I decided I would let the experts at the restaurants stock all the spices and do all the work in making all this stuff on my behalf. And Bollywood does make almost everything from scratch – just look at in the kitchen at all the various homemade masala spice mixes they have.

So feel free to just go straight to Bollywood Theater to order the dish instead.

The two locations of Bollywood Theater tomorrow, May 24, will be donating 15% of all sales at both Bollywood Theater to Camp Ukandu. Since 1986, Camp Ukandu has been fulfilling its mission of bringing joy and hope to children living with cancer, their siblings, and their families at no cost by providing “outrageously fun” camp experiences while being a a safe and secure environment for kids to be kids without being defined or limited by cancer.

Now let’s look at the dishes, and the Bollywood Theater recipes!

As a note, one thing I was struck by when learning from Chef Troy is that he kept giving us samples of everything during the cooking process so we could see and feel and taste what it looked like at each stage. Watching in the kitchen, I also saw constant tasting (they have a lot of individual sampling spoons, don’t worry) even though they must have made some of those things a hundred times by now but they still tasted to make sure it is up to standards, even if it’s just toasted nuts, every time. So don’t forget to keep tasting to check whenever you are cooking, whatever you are making, and no matter how often you have made it before.

Mixed Dal, Fava Bean and Paneer Pakoras with Rhubarb Strawberry Achaar

Ingredients:

• Paneer
  • Whole milk
  • Heavy Cream
  • Salt
  • Sugar
  • White Wine Vinegar
• Mixed Dal, Fava Bean and Paneer Pakoras
  • 1 cup chana dal
  • 1/4 cup masoor dal
  • 1/4 cup urad dal
    
  • 3 tablespoons chickpea flour
  • 1 tablespoon rice flour
  • 1 teaspoon garam masla
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1 teaspoon red chile flake
  • kosher salt to taste
  • water as needed
  • 1 cup paneer, crumbled (see paneer recipe above or just purchase it from Bollywood Theater or other Indian market)
  • 1 cup fava beans, blanched, peeled, and rough chopped
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1/2 mint bunch, roughly chopped
• Rhubarb Strawberry Achaar
  • I’m going to cheat here because Portland Monthly already published this, so just go there and get the ingredients and recipe

Directions:
They make this paneer times a week (almost every other day) making 50 pounds each batch in a huge steam kettle and measuring the temperature precisely so it’s not too soft or too hard. They also cut the paneer while it’s still warm. For the paneer, the ingredients listed are going to make over 50 pounds of cheese though Chef Troy says it reduces well. You probably want to reduce this to just a gallon of milk, so you get about a pound of paneer.

Place milk and cream in a steam kettle. Add sugar and salt. Bring to 210 degrees over high heat, stirring often. When it reaches 210 degrees, shut off heat and add white wine vinegar. Allow to separate completely, stirring in the beginning and then let rest without stirring. Drain the curds from the whey, and then place to drain further in cheesecloth, with weight added after adding all your ricotta to press out additional whey. The pressing portion to firm out the paneer is what differentiates paneer from ricotta!

The steam kettle they use is pretty impressive. Did I mention they have to do this huge 50 pound kettle worth of cheese four times a week because they use that much paneer?!?

As they were separating out the curds on the cheesecloth, I wanted to eat a bowl full of that fresh paneer. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m a big fan of their Paneer Makhani (a house paneer in a rich tomato cream and cashew curry). It’s like a nod Italian food but gets rid of the middle man of pasta with the dish and goes directly to the tomato sauce and cheese. If you get the Paneer Makhani as a Thali Meal at Bollywood Theater instead of a small plate, it is served with Saffron Rice, Sambar, Dal, Raita, Paratha and Green Chutney for a complete meal.

For the pakoras, which are a popular fried ball like North Indian snack…

Soak dals overnight, drain and grind in food processor to a rough paste. Set aside.

Mix chickpea flour, rice flour, garam masala, cayenne, and chile flake with enough water to make a batter.

Add to dal mixture and add lemon zest, paneer, fava beans and mint. Mix thoroughly, add salt to taste, this will take more salt than you may think. It should look a little like this:

Form into balls and deep fry in medium hot oil. Drain pakoras on paper towels to remove excess oil. Serve with the room temperature Rhubarb Strawberry Achaar.

Dahi Papri Chaat

This is one of my two favorite dishes on the Bollywood Theater menu (the other is the Kati Roll, which is like an Indian version of a pita roll but using paratha instead). It’s an explosion of flavors, including the slight creamy yet sour yogurt, the bright spices of chilies, sweetness of the tamarind, soft from potatoes and chickpeas but crispy from the sev and the papri crackers.

Ingredients:

• 36 papri crackers, you can purchase these instead of making the, but the Bollywood Theater recipe for Papri Dough includes
  • 2 cups All Purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 teaspoons nigella seed
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 3 tablespoons canola oil
  • water, as needed
• 1 cup Yukon gold potatoes, cooked and diced
• 1 cup black chickpeas, cooked
• 1/2 cup tomatoes, diced
• 1 tablespoon of Serrano chilies, inced
• 2 tablespoons of red onions
• kosher salt to taste
• 3 cups of drained yogurt, thinned a bit with water
• 1 teaspoon of chaat masala (Bollywood Theater has their own recipe for this, but you can also purchase this spice mix)
• 1/2 teaspoon of Kashmir chili powder
• 2 tablespoons of green chutney, which you can purchase or make using
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 bunch cilantro, leaves and upper stems
  • 1/4 bunch mint, leaves only (about 1/4 cup, loosely packed)
  • 1 clove garlic chopped
  • 1 Serrano chile, seeded
  • 1 1″ ginger, peeled and sliced into coins against the grain
  • 4 1/2 teaspoons lime juice
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 6 tablespoons of tamarind date chutney, which you can make using
  • 1 cup tamarind puree
  • 1/2 cup pitted dates
  • jaggery
  • 1 1″ piece of ginger
  • garam masala, to taste
  • black salt, to taste
  • cayenne, to taste
  • water, as needed
• 3/4 cup sev (the thin crispy noodle topping you can buy or make yourself – of course Bollywood makes their own)
  • 1 quart chickpea flour
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon asafetida
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • water, as needed
• 1/2 cup cilantro, rough chopped

Directions:
For the papri crackers, mix the flours, nigella seeds, and salt. Slowly add oil until mealy. Add water as needed to form a stiff dough. Allow the dough to rest before rolling (you can use a pasta machine for this) and cutting the circles to fry the cracker. I think you can also bake the crackers.

For the tamarind date chutney, simmer the tamarind puree, jaggery, and ginger. Puree and strain. Season to taste with spices.

For the green chutney, in a small dry saute pan, lightly toast the cumin over medium heat until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Blend all ingredients in a blender with enough cold water (ice) to make a pourable chutney. Adjust the flavor with salt, sugar, and lime if needed.

For the sev, mix the flour, turmeric, asafetida, and salt with a paddle. Drizzle in oil slowly as it mixes. Add water until it is the consistency of wet pasta dough. Then, using a special sev pasta maker, drop into oil to fry those crispy little noodle snack topping.

Assemble with the papri crackers first, and then in sequential order down the recipe list – potatoes, chickpeas, tomatoes, chilies, red onions, salt, yogurt, chaat masala, chili powder, green chutney, tamarind date chutney, sev (the crunchy noodles made from chickpea flour paste) and cilantro. Serve immediately while it is still a combo of soft and crispy before the layers soak in too much.

If you’re thinking, holy moly there’s this much labor for a $6.50 dish, now you know why I will just go to Bollywood Theater instead of making this myself. This also really helps you appreciate how much care, detail, and just work goes into what is essentially Indian fast food and a cheap eats restaurant!

Thanks to Chef and Owner Troy MacLarty, the staff of Bollywood Theater, and Broussard Communication for inviting me to In The Kitchen with Bollywood Theater. I was invited as part of a media/bloggers group and also was able to sample some of the dishes after we learned the recipe. However I’ve been to Bollywood Theater before and have always been a fan so I am writing this post because I like them, not because I was asked to or compensated to do so. I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.

A few bonus photos of the paratha in the making: