Orange County Register

As I said in a post earlier this week about Indian and Pakistani food, my view of the fare has been fairly closed-minded. For so long, I’ve considered the dishes of my native land - curries, cooked meats and flat breads - to be of limited varitey, only differentiated by the people who made it.

Then I went to the Clay Oven in Irvine where standard Indian isn’t what makes it to your table, it’s simply the jumping off point for seasonal cuisine so creative that it’s changed the very concept of what Indian food is, at least to me.

For the purpose of full disclosure, I’ll say that owners Praveen and Geeta Balsal, who used to own the now shuttered Bombay Duck in Laguna Beach, knew we were coming because they had recently sent me an E-mail about their tandoori turkeys ($54.99), which can be ordered year round, but are obviously most popular during Thanksgiving and Chrismas time. Praveen even cooks them halal or kosher if need be.

While we were there for the turkey, we also wanted to try a couple of other things. Praveen insisted on a tasting menu for us, bringing out small plates of out-of-bounds Indian that should not be missed.

A good number of the herbs, fruits and vegetables are even grown in the garden of the Balsal’s Irvine home and the dishes, Geeta Balsal says, are designed to take familiar flavors and do something new with them.

Like Royal Khyber, most dishes run $15-$23, but a quick scan of the menu gives light to the experimentation in this kitchen. While scant stalwarts appear - daal, jalfreezy and chicken tikka are the limited few - the majority of the menu features the same ol’ Indian with a twist (habanero vinadloo with lamb or chicken, tandoori jerk chicken, shahi quail, mozzerella and sun-dried tomato naan).

And that’s kind of how we arrive at tandoori turkey.

Before we can talk bird, let’s talk oven. This tandoori oven is the same one Praveen’s been using for over 20 years at his restaurant and it shows. To make the turkey, first the skin is pulled off and then it’s rubbed down with spices including cinammon, cloves, cardamom, two types of cumin, ginger, garlic, cilantro and fresh herbs. Everything is left to marinate for three days before getting cooked for 45 minutes in this 650-degree oven.

It’s stuffed with cranberry-vegetable pilau and is served with a side of cranberry chutney, which unfortunately wasn’t on hand yet. The rice is fantastic, especially the chewy, tart cranberries that are plentiful here. We try slices of the breast meat, which is well-spiced and flavorful throughout. The turkey is moist and juicy, which is a bonus when we’re talking white meat. I could easily see this turkey, between 12-14 pounds, getting devoured at the dinner table.

While the tandoori turkey is the most stunning of the dishes we try, it doesn’t hold us back from picking apart a trio of samosas, sea bass and … tandoori baby back ribs? Check out the other dishes in this Clay Oven slideshow.

Clay Oven
15435 Jeffrey Road #116
Irvine
949-552-2851

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