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Indianapolis Star
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indianapolis Star
INdulge: It's grilling season. Greek-style kebabs were best thing I ate in Indy this week.
With Memorial Day weekend behind us, the Midwest has entered arguably its most important and culturally salient time of the year — grilling season. While I have every intention of celebrating the next few months with untold numbers of hamburgers and hot dogs, for this week's INdulge I tipped my cap to the grilling tradition of another region. This is: When I envision a quintessential cookout, the image isn't complete without a few shish kebabs. The practice of jabbing a stick through meat and throwing it on a fire strikes me as one of mankind's top innovations, up there with antibiotics and crop rotation. For an exemplary taste of that storied culinary technique, consider the kofta kebab platter ($17) from Noor Café at Keystone at the Crossing. More: A year after after The TRAP closed, Chef Oya teaches the next generation of Indy chefs Kofta is a class of meat dishes found across the globe, most notably in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Minced meat is kneaded with spices, herbs and sometimes grains or aromatic vegetables to form a dense, complexly flavored mass. Noor Café, which specializes in Greek and Indian food, shapes beef and spices into a log roughly the size of a kosher dill pickle, spears it with a flat wooden skewer and grills it until it's zebra-striped with char. The kofta's thin browned crust hides a compact, springy interior that releases juice like the gratuitous close-up of a cheeseburger in a fast-food commercial. A garlic-heavy seasoning blend delivers supremely savory mouthfuls with a touch of heat. The kofta's spice resembles that of raw onion or freshly cracked peppercorns, less of a lingering burn and more like a swift kick in the mouth. Noor Café's kofta kebabs come atop a multicolor jumble of grilled vegetables and basmati rice with a small Greek salad on the side. But the kofta is the headliner, literally dripping with cookout flavor, albeit from a cookout a few thousand miles east. Kofta is a loanword borrowed from India's Hindustani and Iran/Persia's Farsi that translates to 'pounded meat.' The earliest known kofta recipes appear in Arabic cookbooks written around the 10th century, though the dish has since been embraced by several cuisines including Greek and Indian. Kebab, meanwhile, likely originated in Ancient Persia as a word broadly used for roasted meat. Previously in INdulge: Italian sandwich at new SoBro Mediterranean restaurant is best thing I ate this week Nowadays, at least in the United States, we tend to think of all kebabs as shish kebabs (şiş means "sword" or "skewer" in Turkish). One popular shish kebab origin story tells of medieval Turkish soldiers who roasted meat on their swords over open fires during military campaigns in Anatolia. More realistically, shish kebabs were likely around long before then — pointy sticks and fire historically haven't been hard to come by — but I can't fault anyone for sticking with a reasonably plausible and, frankly, pretty cool-sounding story. Regardless of their exact history, kebabs remain a shining example of what can be accomplished on hot metal grates, and Noor Café's kofta (with zero disrespect to Indiana State Fair vendors) is as good a food as you could hope to find on a stick. It's the sort of dish that makes even a proud city mouse like me sorely miss the unimpeded grill access I had growing up in the suburbs. While I can't imagine my landlords would love it if I put a charcoal grill in the middle of my 600-square-foot apartment, a good cookout is a good cookout. There's got to be a loophole in my lease somewhere. What: Kofta kebab platter, $17 Where: Noor Café, 3315 E. 86th St., (317) 200-8128,
Indianapolis Star
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
Indy 500 concession item from westside Argentinian spot is best thing I ate in Indy this week
We're mere hours from the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500, where 33 of the world's fastest drivers will battle for IndyCar immortality while roughly 350,000 other people consume a lot of grilled meat and light beer. If you plan to be among the sold-out crowd at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, sooner or later you'll need to refuel. The IMS will be full of strong snacking options, including: Fried stadium flavor meets centuries-old culinary technique in the empanada, which you can purchase from Che Chori near Turn 1 at this year's Indy 500 and year-round from its drive-through restaurant just east of Speedway. Unable (and frankly, somewhat unwilling) to limit myself to one variety of empanada, I sampled multiple for this week's INdulge. Know before you go: IMS, Aramark unveil new concession items for 2025 Indy 500. As you may already know, an empanada is a savory turnover-like pastry with likely origins in 7th century Galicia (the northwest region of Spain) and Portugal. The term empanada comes from the Spanish verb empanar, which essentially means to envelop in bread. Empanadas can be baked or fried and come with an impressive variety of fillings. Those at Che Chori ($4 each) look totally textbook: palm-sized half-moons with honey-colored crimped edges and hundreds of little surface bubbles where steam strained against the puff pastry. That pastry vanishes between your teeth with an almost cartoonish chomp, revealing a densely packed jumble of flavors depending on what's inside. What's inside ranges from traditional to whatever word you would use to describe Che Chori's bacon cheeseburger empanada. But the staple stuffing I chose, which you can expect to find at the 500, is Argentine chorizo. When I've spoken previously with Che Chori owner Marcos Perera, who grew up in Argentina, he's talked about chorizo like a cinephile discussing Stanley Kubrick's filmography — deeply reverent and mildly obsessive. The restaurateur cares deeply about spiced sausage (always great to be among like-minded people) and that is evident in his chorizo empanada. It's a hyper-palatable savory mash of sausage, onions and cheese, exactly what you're looking for in a Hot Pocket-adjacent dish. Elsewhere in Speedway This big, orange Mexican sandwich is the best thing I ate in Indy this week Squash and pumpkin empanadas aren't unheard of in Mexico and South America, but they aren't ubiquitous here in the United States. Che Chori's butternut squash empanada features a hearty whiff of rosemary, creating a Christmas dinner flavor profile that I never realized could come from a deep fryer. Perhaps Che Chori's most traditional option is the ground beef empanada with egg and olives, ingredients commonly found in the empanadas of the Tucumán and La Rioja Provinces. The small dose of olives in Che Chori's beef empanada nicely deepens its flavor with an extra hit of salt and fat. It's not a dirty martini by any stretch, but the funk is there. The ground beef variety was probably my favorite of the bunch, though that might just be because they reminded me of my first magical encounter with empanadas. I was nine years old on a trip to visit my father's cousin in Kansas City, where said cousin's Latin American friend showed up at his house with multiple Tupperware containers full of ground beef and ham and cheese empanadas. Now, my memory of that vacation is a little hazy, but I'd guess I ate somewhere in the ballpark of 38 cold empanadas in the span of three days — a high from which I've never fully recovered. I encourage you to give one of Che Chori's renditions a try on race day. Sure, there will be far more important things unfolding on the oval, but that's no reason to deprive yourself of a decent lunch. Whether in pursuit of the Borg-Warner trophy or the childlike rush of some good empanadas, we're all chasing something. What: Empanadas, $4 each Where: Che Chori, concession stand 11 at Turn 1 on race day, year-round at 3124 W. 16th St., (317) 737-2012,
Indianapolis Star
25-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- Indianapolis Star
INdulge: Italian sandwich at new SoBro Mediterranean restaurant is best thing I ate this week
Trees are leafing, birds are chirping and the mere thought of sending a Microsoft Teams or Slack message feels like an affront to Mother Nature; spring has finally sprung in Indianapolis. To me, few cuisines embody spring like those of the Mediterranean. Drawn by the salty siren call of olives and cured meats, for this week's INdulge I wolfed down: The best thing I ate in Indy this week Seasonal ingredients abound at Corridor, which in January rebranded after a 15-year run in SoBro as Nicole-Taylor's Pasta. The Mediterranean-inspired eatery's spring menu, curated by chef-owners Erin Kem and Logan McMahon, features a treasure trove of bright flavors in the form of salads, seafood and pasta. Because I am who I am, I opted for a sandwich — specifically, the mortadella ($15). Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Classified as a salume — the class of Italian meat products typified by cured pork — mortadella features finely chopped or ground pork with at least 15% fat by volume. Some modern versions of mortadella incorporate pistachios or other fillings; Corridor plays it straight with pink sheets of fat-dotted meat. Sliced to roughly the thickness of a postcard, that meat joins sun-dried tomatoes, salad greens and tapenade, a Provençal French condiment of chopped olives and capers, on Corridor's sandwich, all snugly pressed between hearty slices of toasted Italian bread. After crunching through the gritty exterior of the starch-sweet bread, you're met with the full force of the deli counter. Savory pork and briny tapenade slam against your palate, while a merciful scattering of greens doused with lemon juice softens the blow. Each bite leaves a pungent sheen of olive oil upon your lips, a sort of true love's kiss for people who really get down with cold cuts. Those who grew up celebrating the proud culinary tradition of Oscar Mayer might think mortadella sounds a lot like bologna. And that's no coincidence. Mortadella made in the Italian city of Bologna bears Protected Geographical Indication status, a designation from the European Union that means virtually identical products made elsewhere cannot bear the genuine article's name. Hence, the ubiquitous floppy American "bologna.' Historians generally agree mortadella originated at the latest in Medieval Rome, with early iterations likely consisting of wild boar or donkey meat. Some say the name 'mortadella' alluded to the use of a mortar to grind the meat that winds up in the sausage. Others say the mortar motif was merely a marketing tactic — mortadella roughly translates to 'the death of it' (it presumably being a wild boar or donkey), something meat-mongers probably wouldn't have been quick to advertise. Regardless, mortadella was a big deal in Rome. So much so that in 1661, Cardinal Girolamo Farnese issued a decree that legally defined mortadella products, with later papal decrees outlining gruesome consequences for those hawking fraudulent salumi. As I understand it, today's cardinals have somewhat more pressing matters at hand than policing meat production. Still, I admire their predecessors' commitment to preserving the sanctity of mortadella. I'd like to think old Girolamo would have approved of Corridor's spin, which stuffs the cold cut and other salty, fresh flavors of the Mediterranean into an American sandwich shop package. We only get so many lovely spring days like these in Indiana, so as the Romans would have said: carpe diem. Or for a slightly more attainable goal, carpe mortadella — after all, it'd be a true shame not to seize a good sandwich from time to time. What: Mortadella sandwich, $13 with salad or chips Where: Corridor, 1134 E. 54 th St., (317) 257-73734, In case that's not your thing: Sandwiches comprise a small fraction of the offerings at Corridor, whose upscale counter-service operation runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. A sliver of the restaurant's spring menu includes Pacifico bass with a Moroccan tomato and eggplant spread and unleavened bread ($20), spring pea agnolotti (pasta) stuffed with lemon mint ricotta ($17) and vegan sunchoke fritters ($8). Corridor also features a market (open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday) stocked with Nicole-Taylor's pasta, take-home pizzas and other Mediterranean fare.
