There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
The texture is your problem, though. There's nothing like like a slab of dead animal muscle. You know how to fix that? Make something that normally uses ground or very finely cubed meat. Then you can chop up vital wheat gluten or seitan really small. Then saute them and put a splash of soy sauce in there to deglaze and let it evaporate. The rest is up to the sauce.
I personally love tofu and think it's a shame some people view it only as a meat substitute. Mapo Tofu, for example, has silken tofu and ground pork celebrating each other to great effect. It's particularly useful accompanying eggplant and other vegetables/grains to provide a texture contrast (imagine silken tofu with cracked spelt in a spicy fermented bean sauce). Flavorwise, it's a great canvas since firm/medium tofu tends to absorb certain flavors around it. Fry firm/medium cubes up and you have yet another texture!
The only combo I've found to be awkward is a plain tomato sauce, as the tofu doesn't really absorb the tomato juice. They kinda just sit together. This can be addressed by incorporating other liquids and spices into the mix, such as coconut milk, to make a tofu coconut-tomato curry.
As for Indian, it's very regional and everyone's mum makes it differently so you'll get a lot of variations. So you generally want to become familiar with certain ingredients and spices so you can leverage them to personal taste. Take this Madras chicken recipe: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/7100/myree-s-chicken-madras.aspx
The key ingredients are the ginger-garlic combo (not quite a trinity), cumin (#2 spice in the world), cloves, cardamom, coriander (cilantro seeds), turmeric. If you're not familiar with these spices, they're somewhat earthy but very fragrant. Cardamom and coriander are a bit piquant/spicy so you may want to go easy on it at first. A little bit of turmeric adds a lot of color, what many people perceive as the orange-brown "curry" color. Coriander seeds don't do that thing cilantro leaves do to people with the OR6A2 gene variant where they think it tastes like soap, so don't worry about it.
Also listed is Garam Masala, a semi-standard powder mix. I usually make this myself but you may want to obtain a pre-mixed one as a baseline reference (Madras powder is available as well). It's some of the same characters (The 4 c's: cumin, cardamom, coriander, cloves), as well as black peppercorns, fennel seed, cinnamon, star anise, and mace. Another spice you should get familiar with is called Asafoetida. It smells fetid but when it cooks down it adds a rich leek-like flavor.
Then there are the chilis. You can use fresh chilis, whatever you can find at your local market, like jalapenos, and dried chili like cayenne. Fresh will be a lot brighter, dried will tend to build up and linger.
All of these spices benefit by being toasted whole, then ground into powder. The toasting activates oils and other fragrant molecules. I grind them in a Thai granite mortar and pestle. You can dedicate a coffee grinder to it if that's not your style. Cumin, in particular, begs to be bloomed. Smell and taste the difference and you won't want to go back to pre-ground.