Finger Bowl preparation & use

Finger Bowl preparation & use

OK, this is not a dish.

But if you want your barbeque or dinner to look authentic Indian, you need to close it the Indian way too. Most of the meat & veg. curries uses busload of spices, oil and coloring ingredients. And if you are perfectly following the Indian style of eating, at least the tip of a few fingers will get oily & colored mostly red from the masala (this is how we get caught red-handedly at home when we return after some ‘secret’ dinners ).You can not get rid of it fully in one wash.

To wash this tip of the finger we have the ‘finger bowl’. Basically this is a warm water preparation with a few drops of vinegar in it. And also with a small piece if cut lemon (about ¼ inch) floating in it.

The water is warm (about 50 deg). The lemon (citric acid) helps to de grease finger from the oil. Also the combination of warm water, vinegar and citric acid helps to remove the color (of masala & turmeric) from the finger. A mere napkin alone will not do this job.

Dip the tip of all the oil smeared fingers in the water. Hold the lemon piece. Squeeze the lemon piece keeping the fingers inside the water. Roll it all over the fingers still keeping the tips in water. Leave the squeezed lemon inside the water and dry finger with the napkin.

A Caution Note: If you are doing all this to impress your non-India savvy guest, be a bit careful. At the end of the meals when you give then the finger bowl with a freshly cut lemon floating inside. There is every chance that they will misunderstand this as some sort of desert and may drink. It looks exactly like a drink with a lemon slice resting on the rim of the glass. And they may think that this is the India version of it. One of my friends did this, as this is a predominantly north Indian food custom

But no harm in drinking also, except that your guest will complain that you’ve forgotten to add some sugar in the lemonade