Pabla Indian Cuisine

Mithai
Pabla Indian Cuisine, 6.99/lb

Pabla Indian Cuisine is a restaurant, grocery, and confectionery that traces its roots as a family business back to a restaurant that opened in India in 1947.  The Renton outpost has one big distinction:  its kitchens and products are certified kosher, opening it up to a whole new client base. 

Among the housemade mithai are familiar favorites such as milky rasgulla (top left) and creamy kalakand (top right), as well as confections featuring fruit and nut flavors including cherry (bottom right) and cashew (bottom left). 

Pabla Indian Cuisine
364 Renton Center Way #C60
Renton WA
425/ 228-4625

Punjab Sweets

Mithai
Punjab Sweets, $4.75-10.99 per pound

When food writer Jeffrey Steingarten compares Indian sweets to cosmetics, I'm with him--but only up to a point. While he concludes that, ”The taste and texture of face creams belong in the boudoir, not on the plate,” I'd happily eat these rich and luxuriously perfumed desserts in any room of the house. 

Aptly enough, the glass cases (below) full of housemade mithai (literally "sweet things") at Pujab Sweets in Kent are as artfully arranged as eyeshadow samples at Sephora. This small shop regularly makes more than 20 different varieties, including (above, from top) besan (creamy yet earthy fudge with toasted chickpea flour), rose burfi (delicately floral fudge), rasgulla (fresh cheese soaked in syrup), coconut roll, and kalakand, (a moist but crumbly cream cake).  

The most prevalent ingredients are dairy products such as whole milk, cream, cheese, and ghee (clarified butter), and a wide range of grains, nuts, and pulses, which are used both whole and ground into flour.  Cooks can manipulate the flavor of these staple ingredients by cooking or toasting them, or by adding ingredients like coconut, rosewater, cardamom, saffron, or chocolate.  Finally, the mithai are formed with care--balls are rolled by hand, sheets are cut into regular rectangles or diamonds--and perhaps given a finishing touch, such as a sprinkle of crushed nuts or a patch of edible silver leaf. 

Mithai are an essential part of many Indian occasions and observances; although many recipes are achievable for home cooks, the labor involved, multiplied by the quantities required for big events, add up to a strong demand for professionally-made mithai.  Since 2001 the Kent valley community has been able to count on Punjab Sweets, a combination confectionery and vegetarian restaurant begun by Iqbal and Gurmit Dha and Iqbal's brother Jasbir Rai and now helmed by the Dhas' daughter, Harpreet Gill.  You can order hundreds of pieces for your wedding or Diwali celebration, or pick up a small assortment to try with your afternoon tea. 

Punjab Sweets
23617 104th Ave SE C  Kent, WA 98031
253 / 859-3236

Mukhwas

Mukhwas

Mukhwas is to South Asian restaurants as starlite mints are to all-American, all-you-can-eat buffets. Dispensed from bowls conveniently placed near the register, these sweet little breath-fresheners also have digestive properties that can take the edge off a heavy meal.

In India and Pakistan, there are about a thousand different mukhwas recipes, most based on fennel or anise seeds. Mukwas can be sweet or savory and often includes aromatic oils such as peppermint or cinnamon. Some mixes look deceptively like confetti; others, like potpourri.

Although I've eaten plenty of mukhwas since starting this blog, it had never occurred to me to write about it until today, and I'm motivated mostly by the need to work through a weird experience I had on a day trip to Bremerton, WA. At a deserted downtown restaurant, I had some of the most delicious Indian food I've ever eaten, paired with what might be the most contemptuous service I've ever experienced. Our chana masala, palak paneer, and garlic naan were superlative--perfectly spiced and full of small but recognizable chunks of fresh and flavorful ingredients. Our server, on the other hand, was consistently hostile and brusque--but earned style points by having mastered the art of refilling water glasses without taking her eyes off the blaring TV on the far side of the room.

By the time we had finished and paid I wanted nothing more than to run for the door, but I made myself take a quick detour past the bowl of mukwas. Then I enjoyed my handful in the more welcoming atmosphere of the street outside. The toasted fennel seeds were so heavily candy-coated that they looked like reject TicTacs, but they were an effective antidote to the bitter taste in my mouth.

In the days since I've thought a lot about this experience and my reaction to it, and I've realized how much of my interest in food stems from its being a fundamentally social product. I work in retail food service, and I acknowledge that it's a challenging field and that everyone (especially me!) has their bad days, but I'm thinking more and more about whether anything can taste equally delicious whether served with a smile or with a snarl.

Although I usually include supplier contact information in my blog posts, I'm going to leave off the name and address of this restaurant. If you find yourself in downtown Bremerton with both a strong psyche and a strong appetite, I'm sure you'll be able to find it.

Indian Sweets & Spices

Indian Sweets & Spices

Another strip mall treasure trove, Indian Sweets & Spices offers groceries, toiletries, a weekend lunch buffet, and a great selection of succulent mithai, Indian confections made fresh on the premises every other day. Whereas many mithai I've had in the past were almost narcotically sugary, ISS's are not quite such a piledriver to the pancreas. They have a mild sweetness that allows flavors like cardamon, saffron, pistachio, and rosewater to flourish.

Here are a few of the dozen-or-so varieties usually available (although I've done my best to match names to pictures, note that ISS is a relaxed place where it is perfectly acceptable to point at whatever you want):




ISS's most popular sweet, gulab jamun, is also a good choice for mithai-curious first timers. Plump, doughy balls of Indian cottage cheese are given a thin brown skin in the deep fryer, then soaked in spicy honey syrup.











Chum chum are essentially oblong gulab jamun, slit open lengthwise and stuffed with flavored, sweetened cream cheese.












Jalebi are big looping swirls of blaze orange dough, deep fried and soaked in sugar syrup.











Gajrela is a North Indian carrot cake, particularly popular in winter. The pudding-like carrot base is topped with pistachios and khoya, a creamy "cheese" made from reduced milk.










Kalakand is a tender, crumbly fudge made from ricotta-like cheese, condensed milk, and sugar, topped with crushed pistachios.





Other choices include laddoo (made from chickpea flour), burfee (creamy slabs topped with edible silver leaf, flavored with rose water and kewra water, a distillate of pandanus flowers), and in the freezer, rasmalai (milk-soaked dumplings flavored with dried fruit and saffron).

ISS sweets range from $5.99 to $7.99 a pound--and they're so dense and moist that a pound notches up quickly. I've found that an assorted box is fun to take along to a party; cut each sweet into smaller pieces so everyone can have a taste.

Indian Sweets & Spices
18002 15th Ave NE
Shoreline WA 98115
206/367-4568

Kulfi

Kulfi/Kulfee/Qulfi
$2.95 / serving

After a delicious dinner of Nepali and Tibetan dishes at Shoreline's Everest Kitchen, the perfect tonic for overtaxed tastebuds has to be kulfi, the famed frozen treat found all over south Asia.

Kulfi is typically made from three dairy products (hey, if one is good...): evaporated milk, condensed milk, and cream. The mixture is boiled with sugar and thickened with corn starch. Flavorings can include cardamon, saffron, fruit, rose petals, and various nuts. Everest Kitchen's house-made kulfi is loaded with cashews and pistachios, tinged with cardamon, and topped with a sprinkling of dried coconut.

Unlike churned ice cream, kulfi is frozen solid, often in small servings. Once frozen, kulfi is dense enough to fight off all but the most determined spoons; ours came to the table sliced into four sections, but still so unyielding I had visions of accidentally catapulting a chunk across the room. But after a few minutes of patience and heavy breathing, the kulfi relaxed into edibility. It was just sweet enough, richly flavored and with a creamy/chewy texture that seemed to owe more to the nuts than the dairy.

The Everest Kitchen, 14561 Bothell Way NE
Shoreline, WA 98155
206/440-0321
www.theeverestkitchen.com