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Indianapolis Star
13 hours ago
- General
- Indianapolis Star
INdulge: Traditional Nigerian stew with rich history is best thing I ate in Indy this week
Juneteenth, which commemorates the day the last slaves of the Confederacy were freed in 1865, has come and gone. However — if you'll allow me a brief moment on my radical, extremist soapbox — one could argue you don't need a federal holiday to support Black-owned businesses in your community. Among those businesses are Indianapolis' various West African restaurants. For this week's INdulge, I sampled a sliver of that robust culinary tradition with: If you're unfamiliar with Nigerian food, I suspect you could wander up to just about any restaurant that serves it, order a dish completely at random and end up with a memorably flavorful surprise. For an idea of where to start, consider the ayamase at Jollof Buka on the Near Westside. Black-owned restaurants: 40 to check out in the Indianapolis area Ayamase (aye-ah-mah-shay) is a thick sauce made with a blend of green peppers (usually bell peppers and/or unripe chilies), aromatic vegetables, hard-boiled egg and irú, fermented African locust beans. Various cuts of meat are also a common ingredient; Jollof Buka prepares its ayamase ($16.95) with shreds of turkey and chicken. These components are cooked in bleached palm oil, which has a distinct yet hard-to-place flavor I can best describe as hardy. The ayamase has a semi-dry, fibrous consistency similar to other spice pastes like Mexican salsa macha or Indonesian sambal. It packs a slight vegetal sweetness thanks to the peppers, while the meat and egg make it a well-rounded, savory meal. Though the stew is not especially spicy, an overly ambitious spoonful won't go unnoticed on the way down your throat. While not as well-known as jollof, Nigeria's national dish of spiced rice from which Jollof Buka gets its name (buka is a term for a casual restaurant in Yoruba, one of three major languages spoken in Nigeria), ayamase is extremely popular in the West African country. Unlike centuries-old jollof, ayamase has likely only been around for about a hundred years. The most popular origin story for ayamase tells of a woman living in the small Nigerian town of Ikenne named Felicia Ajibabi Adesina, who in the 1920s developed a sauce of peppers and palm oil to serve at her food stand with Ofada rice (ayamase is often referred to as Ofada stew). Supposedly, Adesina's short-tempered husband would often get into scraps with neighbors, prompting concerned friends and family members to call him Mase, a Yoruba word that means 'don't' — as in, come on, man, don't hit him. In turn, Adesina's wildly popular sauce became known as obe aya Mase, meaning 'Mase's wife's sauce,' and eventually just ayamase. Previously in INdulge: Why do dads love to grill? This BBQ dish was best thing I ate in Indy this week While the fun stories behind our favorite foods typically fall apart under scrutiny, the legend of Felicia Adesina actually seems to hold up. It's the only historical explanation for ayamase I can find, including in one of Nigeria's oldest independent newspapers, The Guardian. Amid a lack of contrary evidence, I'm content to believe the tale of Adesina's fiery entrepreneurial spirit and similarly combustible husband. Whoever its inventor, ayamase remains a strong representative of Nigerian cuisine. Though summer generally doesn't stir cravings of hot, spiced stew, I'd say a visit Jollof Buka is worth the sweat. What: Ayamase, $16.95 Where: Jollof Buka, 2501 W. Washington St., (317) 384-1575, In case that's not your thing: Jollof Buka's menu caters to diners of widely varying curiosity levels, so it's OK if you're totally new to Nigerian food. The jollof with jerk chicken ($18), fried spiced chicken wings ($9) or vegetarian okra soup ($16.49) should all ring reasonably familiar to the Western palate. Meanwhile, more adventurous eaters can swing for peppered ponmo (cow skin cooked in chili paste, $16) or the spicy goat stir fry called asun ($16, weekends only).
Indianapolis Star
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indianapolis Star
INdulge: Why do dads love to grill? This BBQ dish was best thing I ate in Indy this week
A month after florists and brunch restaurants encouraged us to treat our mothers like the angels they are, the great big capitalist machine offers a different approach to celebrate dad: why not give some meat to the old fart? The bond between grilled meat and the platonic ideal of an American dad is as strong as his stereotypical monstrous calves and as enduring as the combover he refuses to let die. Ahead of Father's Day, for this week's INdulge I explored that relationship with a hefty portion of: Drive past the intersection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 25th Streets with your window down, and you'll likely catch a whiff of the all-consuming aroma radiating from the stout white brick building that houses Bar-B-Q Heaven, pitmaster Ronald Jones' 73-year-old Indianapolis institution. One source of that smoky siren call is Bar-B-Q Heaven's turkey ribs, which I shamelessly scarfed down on a recent visit. Beat the heat with a cold one: 12 Indianapolis breweries to visit this summer Notably, turkey 'ribs' aren't ribs — the mighty feathered terror that is the turkey doesn't yield chest bones with much meat on them — but rather the bird's shoulder blade. Three such slabs comprise Bar-B-Q Heaven's turkey ribs ($16.49 with two sides), which come doused in a reflective orange-red coating of barbecue sauce. The faux rib is as tender as white meat gets, practically ejecting itself from the bone. The sauce, which I ordered hot (you can also choose sweet or mild), livens up the turkey with faintly fruity sweetness and a brief yet punishing flash of heat. Whether from the sauce, mid-June humidity or sheer meat consumption, you're unlikely to conclude a meal on Bar-B-Q Heaven's patio with a dry forehead. We've discussed previously in INdulge how American barbecue is inextricable from Black culture — Bar-B-Q Heaven is one of Indy's oldest Black-owned eateries — dating back to enslaved Africans who adapted the native Jamaican Taíno technique of cooking meat on racks of sticks called barabicu. For today's column, though, I wanted to examine barbecue specifically as it relates to dads. Previously in INdulge: These jerk chicken wings are best thing I ate in Indy this week In the 1950s, the commercial availability of outdoor gas and Weber charcoal grills offered anyone with a backyard the power of the fire pit. Though many early advertisements for grills marketed the product toward America's homemakers, aka mothers and women, the target audience eventually swung to men. Researchers have offered several explanations for why that might be, many of which center around the naturalistic fallacy that men were simply made for meat and fire. Brands were quick to lean into that somewhat dubious (today's scholars suspect prehistoric gender roles were much less defined than originally thought) yet widely embraced belief. Summer is (almost) here: 20+ Indy-area patios for dining and drinking outside Nowadays, you don't have to search too hard online to find some pseudoscientific dreck about how eating meat connects a man to his primal forefathers. The same corner of social media that instructs men to triple their testosterone by guzzling raw milk often bemoans how far we have fallen from our elite hunter ancestors, as if the fellas were out in the tundra throwing haymakers at woolly mammoths all day. It may well be that grill makers and meat producers pounced on that vague association, profiting enormously. American psychologist and marketing expert Ernest Dichter, for one, in 1955 encouraged companies to brand foods as tied to gender identity, such as selling men the idea that meat was inherently manly. Frankly, as someone who grew up in the digital age, I find the line between genuine human experience and manufactured marketing content can blur. There are plenty of so-called masculine activities I do thoroughly enjoy — grilling, drinking beer, reading Hemingway — in a way that feels totally natural, even though I'm pretty sure cavemen never shotgunned a Miller Lite nor read 'A Sun Also Rises.' Moreover, the exact science behind the phenomena doesn't change the fact that many men, dads certainly included, simply love barbecue. The next chance you get, consider celebrating Pops with a heavy-duty clamshell box of turkey ribs, even if that's a minuscule repayment for someone who helped raise you — which, to me, seems like a terrifying and impossibly difficult task. Then again, if it nets you free barbecue once a year, perhaps I do see the appeal of this whole fatherhood thing. What: Turkey ribs, $16.49 Where: Bar-B-Q Heaven, 2515 Dr. MLK Jr. St., (317) 926-1667 and 877 E. 30th St. (closed Sunday and Monday), (317) 283-0035, In case that's not your thing: If it fits in a roasting tray, there's a decent chance you'll find it at Bar-B-Q Heaven. The eatery's ribs ($16.49 with two side) and pulled pork (listed as BBQ on bun, $13) are the headliners, but you can also find uber-tender pig feet ($10.49) and a treasure trove of sides and desserts including thick macaroni and cheese ($3.59 to $8) and chess pie ($4.29 per slice). Though a bit lacking in options for those with dietary restrictions, Bar-B-Q heaven is never short on nap-inducing comfort food.
Indianapolis Star
30-05-2025
- 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.
