If there’s anything I’ve learned about Bangladeshi cooking at this point, it’s that it is not only delicious, it’s also usually pretty spicy. Sometimes I have to literally pick out the chilies.
This week we made butter chicken using one of the spice packets that Nate bought at the Bangladeshi market. It was good, although a bit spicier than I’d anticipated. During the course of eating dinner, we managed to use up all the kleenexes in the vicinity.
I was telling my officemate about the shit-ton of Bangladeshi spice mixes that we have at home, and she mentioned that she was going to make a curry but didn’t have any curry powder. “No problem!” I said, “I’ll give bring you a spice mix to use!”
I brought her a spice packet from the box labelled “quorma,” and she made it that night for dinner. Later I got a text from her saying that the curry was “really good” and “really spicy.”
Uh-oh… how spicy is really spicy? Then she said “I couldn’t eat it all, my mouth is on fire.”
Oops. I felt terrible.
Apparently her husband sat there eating dinner with sweat rolling down his face.
I apologized repeatedly, and she advised me to only use half the spice packet when we make the quorma, which is definitely advice I’ll be taking to heart.
