indian night

we're having guests over and it's my husband's birthday. for his special meal he requested indian food. i don't cook much indian so i dug around on the internet for some recipes.
indian style ice cream
if you've never had kulfi you are missing out. it's super rich and damn tasty. best of all it's stupidly simple to make. i poured mine into popsicle moulds. when it was time to serve the ice cream i plunged the moulds into boiling water for a few second and then used a fork to fish the ice cream out.
mods i made to the original recipe- skipped the nuts and used whole cardamom pods instead of powder. you can skip the pods too, they don't really add much.
pilau rice
the husband really likes pilau rice so i dug up a recipe and made him some. mods to the recipe: i used 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon because i couldn't be bothered to buy sticks. i didn't bother crushing the cumin seeds and i used 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme. tasted great.
samosas stupidly easy to make just very labor intensive. lots of rolling and folding and stuffing. i made these up the night before, deep fried them and kept them in the fridge. when it was time to eat i put them on a baking tray in the oven for 10min. mods to the recipe: i used frozen mixed veg instead of lamb. i cooked some onion and finely diced potato in a pan for about 10min, add 2 cups frozen mixed veg and followed the rest of the recipe. these turned out awesome.
i also did a couple dips for the apps.

sweet chili sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 red chili
1 green chili

add the water and sugar to a sauce pan, stir and heat on medium. let the mixture boil away, it will gradually reduce and thicken. when the mixture coats a spoon and has the consistency of cough syrup, take off the heat to cool. deseed the peppers and thinly slice. add slices to the sauce just after you remove it from the heat.
ok notes about this sauce. it can be dangerous to make. boiling hot sugar water will burn the crap out of you if it gets on your skin. chili peppers are hot, use gloves or pay the price. make sure you wash your hands very well after touching them or you will be sorry. if you screw up and over cook the sauce like i did, don't worry. i let the sauce sit on the counter over night and it separated out. the chilies and some clear liquid floated to the top while the granulated sugar sunk to the bottom. i just poured off the chilies and liquid and it tasted fine.

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cucumber raita
1 cup of yogurt(i used greek)
1/2 small onion- as finely diced as you can
about 1.5 inches of cucumber finely diced like the onion
salt, pepper, mint, cumin, chili powder, lime juice
(i do all my seasoning my taste and sight.) mix the onion, cucumber with the yogurt. add the rest of the stuff until it tastes nice. start off with like  a tablespoon of mint and 1/4 teaspoon of the cumin and chili powder
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raita is good with samosas or as a veggie dip