It’s been almost two years since my last chana masala recipe and that seems like a dangerous length of time. I still have a large stock of Rancho Gordo’s desi chana—which I don’t think they are carrying anymore or planning to bring back. When I cook them, I tend to cycle between the three recipes for those chickpeas that I’ve previously posted (here, here, and here). Of late, however, I’ve hit upon a variation that I like quite a bit more than those. Part of it is that the preparation involves a not unusual method of cooking the chickpeas with a bit of baking soda. This helps them soften up very nicely (and much quicker than without even in my old-school pressure cooker). The masala meanwhile is made very tangy with a fair bit of tamarind and cumin (along with other spices). It’s very tasty indeed and I recommend it highly. If you don’t have a large stock of desi chana and don’t have easy access to an Indian store, you can just use regular Rancho Gordo garbanzos (but you may not need to use the baking soda in that case). Whichever variety of chickpeas you do use, I think you’ll like it. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Rancho Gordo
White Bean Stew with Coconut Milk
This recipe came about largely because in mid-November of last year I purchased a large and extremely attractive bunch of cilantro from the green market at Hmong Village in St. Paul. Not only did the cilantro have the thickest parts of the stems attached, it also had the roots. I used half the roots to make a fusiony beef short-rib curry and came up with this recipe to use up the rest along with the rest of the thick stems. If you can’t find coriander root near you, just use more of the cilantro stems—the flavours are not the same but it’ll make for a tasty variation. Another important ingredient here is one of my favourite beans carried by Rancho Gordo: alubia blanca. These small, white beans cook up very fast, even without soaking, and have a delicate flavour that goes really well with the flavours of the coconut milk and the green puree. And the creamy texture of the beans likewise matches the texture of the stew. Now, you might ask yourself if this is an Indian dish. I’m not aware of any traditional, regional dish that resembles this (though, as always, it’s a large country and I’ve only eaten a very small fraction of its foods), but as far as I’m concerned the approach is very Indian. You can categorize it as you like. Continue reading
Roasted Cauliflower and White Bean Salad
Here is a somewhat unusual recipe from me. It is for a warm salad, a genre I rarely make as the centerpiece of a meal but then when I do I wonder why I don’t make it more often. It’s not the first such recipe I’ve posted—see also this Bean Salad with Artichoke Hearts and this Octopus and Chickpea Salad—but it might be my favourite. It’s very tasty and comes together very quickly with a nice mix of flavours and textures. As always with my bean cooking, I use Rancho Gordo beans. I recommend something like their Ayocote Blanco bean for this but you can’t go very wrong with any of their other white beans or with their Flageolets for that matter. This recipe only uses two cups of cooked beans and rather than cooking them for this recipe, I recommend saving two cups of beans you’ve prepared for another purpose (such as this Lamb and Bean Stew). Good tomatoes are a must. I’ve been using Jaune Flamme tomatoes from my garden: these are roughly ping pong ball-sized and have a wonderful sweet and slightly tart flavour. If you don’t have any at hand substitute the best cherry tomatoes you have. The other important thing is to crisp up the cauliflower nicely. I use a cast iron pan and a hot oven to caramelize the tops of the florets without the whole becoming too soft. The florets are coated in ground cumin first and this adds a savoury warmth. Continue reading
Lamb and Bean Stew
Here is a recipe for a delicious stew of lamb and beans that I have made variations on a few times this year. It ends up a sort of hybrid between Indian preparations of dried beans and southern European stews/braises. As always, I use Rancho Gordo beans. My preference is to use large white beans (I’ve made it with Ayocote Blanco and Large White Lima) but smaller beans like their Flageolet or Alubia Blanca will work just as well. For the lamb I like to use lamb neck. We get our lamb neck (and other cuts of lamb) from the excellent Goette Farms in southern Minnesota. I realize lamb neck may not be easily available everywhere. I like it because the neck bones make for excellent flavour in the stew as the meat slowly becomes tender. If you don’t have lamb neck available use whatever bone-heavy cut of lamb you can. Continue reading
Rajma, Take 5
Yes, this is my fifth recipe for rajma—what’s your point? I am forever tinkering with my rajma masala. And when I recently saw dried pomegranate seeds on the shelf at my local desi store (here in the wilds of southern Minnesota “local” means “20 miles away”) I grabbed some just for this purpose. A good rajma masala needs some sourness and pomegranate seeds are a good way to get it. If your local desi store doesn’t carry them, or if you don’t have a local desi store, you can find them on Amazon [affiliate link] or doubtless at many other online outlets. Or I suppose you could sub amchur/dried mango powder. It’s also true that you could save yourself a lot of hassle and just use a good commercial rajma masala—there is no shame in that. Of course, if you’re going to do that you don’t need to read further as the main thing that distinguishes my rajma recipes from each other is the masala I use for them (well, there are other differences too but this is the one that really counts). Continue reading
Smoky White Bean Stew
We split a pig from a local farm with friends a couple of times a year. While the meat is processed into cuts we specify there always seems to be one big package of smoked ham hock that makes it into our order from the processor (the excellent Dennison Meat Locker in, well, Dennison). These tend to hang out in our massive chest freezer for a while till I remember that I can use them when cooking dried beans. And I remembered I had a pack just last month while looking at my last packet of Large White Lima beans from Rancho Gordo. Their Royal Corona beans get all the love, but I quite like the Large White Limas too. I improvized a simple stew in an Indian style. By which I mean not that this is a traditional Indian dish per se but that I approached it the way I would if making a more traditional Indian bean curry: I cooked the beans till almost done, made a rich masala base while the beans were cooking, mixed the two and simmered it all till they were done. The few spices I used were Indian as well—zeera/cumin, methi/fenugeek, tez patta/dried cassia leaves, Byadgi chillies [affiliate link] and haldi/turmeric powder. There’s no reason really that you couldn’t call the finished dish a curry but as I mostly ate it out of bowls by itself I’m calling it a stew. Continue reading
Rajma, Take 4
Yes, it’s true that all my rajma recipes are basically variations on each other. You’re welcome.
This is my fourth recipe for rajma, the Punjabi kidney bean dish that has become increasingly iconic in recent years in American foodie circles interested in Indian food (you can find the others here, here and here). This is a good thing. Rajma is a force for good, especially in cold climates. And it is a rather versatile dish, being very compatible with rice, with chapatis, with parathas etc. and also very amenable to being eaten by itself out of a bowl. I make it all the time here in Minnesota, varying—as is my annoying wont—the ratios of spices and other ingredients each time. And whenever I hit upon a version that I particularly like I share it with you. But do you thank me? No. Well, maybe you thank me, but do you send me money? No, you don’t, you shameless, ungrateful swine. Continue reading
Christmas Lima Beans with Coriander and Roasted Cumin
Punjabi-style rajma remains my favourite Indian way of making beans but when you cook beans as often as I do it’s difficult to resist changing things up. The major form these departures take for me tend to do with the mix and proportion of spices. While I do very much enjoy the robust blend of spices that goes into proper rajma (really very well achieved by using a commercial rajma masala mix—affiliate link), bean recipes that emphasize particular spices work very well too. Such, for example, was the recipe I posted almost exactly a year ago for white beans with cumin and ginger. This recipe is, as you will see, built on the same template—except instead of the darker, richer flavour of cumin in the spice mix there is the floral scent of coriander seed. The cumin comes in at the end roasted and powdered and sprinkled over the finished dish. It all comes together very well for a perfect bow of winter beans. Give it a go: you won’t regret it. Continue reading
Masoor/Mushoor Dal Variations
This post is for my fellow members of the Rancho Gordo Bean Club Facebook group. Bean Club members are currently receiving their November boxes and included in them is a legume new to Rancho Gordo: masoor dal, aka split red lentils. I consulted a little bit on some of the text on the packaging (I didn’t ask for payment) and I believe one of my recipes may possibly have gone out with the newsletter in the box. Or maybe not. You’re thinking I should know. Well, it’s a bit of a scandal but I’m in the Bean Club Facebook group even though I am not a member of the Bean Club (this—as I think I have mentioned before—is on account of certain photographs I have of Steve). Anyway, some Bean Club members are finding themselves in possession of masoor dal for the first time and so I thought I would put together a compendium of simple recipes—most already posted on the blog—for them to have at hand as a resource when starting out making Indian-style recipes with it. There is no need to thank me. That’s the kind of generosity and helpfulness I am famous for. Continue reading
Lobia Masala
You may have seen—or missed—my post last week about the booklet of bean recipes I recently wrote for Rancho Gordo. This recipe is not in the booklet—which you can download directly here if you’re so interested (don’t worry, it’s free). It features Rancho Gordo’s black-eyed peas or as they’re known in North India, lobia. Lobia is eaten elsewhere in India as well—in Maharashtra, for example, where it is known as chawli—but growing up I only knew it as a Punjabi ingredient/dish. Unlike rajma it wasn’t made in our house but I always looked forward to eating it in the homes of Punjabi friends. This recipe is not a traditional Punjabi recipe per se, though it does broadly resemble Punjabi preparations. I tend to cook lobia in much the same way in which I prepare rajma, with a robust blend of spices that complements its more vegetal character. Which is to say if you don’t have black-eyed peas handy this recipe, which is how I most recently cooked it, will work well with many other beans as well. Give it a go. Continue reading
Double Brown Beans
When making beans my first instinct is to make some version of the classic Punjabi preparation of rajma. This is a good instinct: rajma is one of the great dishes of the world, especially when eaten with chawal/rice along with some pickle. Indeed, you could say that many of the bean recipes that I’ve posted on the blog are variations on rajma. You might say the same about this one as well but it moves a little further afield and into the intersection that exists between South Asian and Mexican cuisines, broadly construed. Both cuisines feature dishes of stewed beans and in general have many ingredients, flavours and textures in common. This recipe, a result of random improvisation in the kitchen has mole in mind along with rajma: one of the key ingredients is dark chocolate, used to thicken the sauce and give it an earthy base. Cumin, coriander seed, cinnamon and red chillies are some of the other crossover ingredients in it. The result is a bean stew or curry that I expect will be more familiar to South Asian palates but might also spark some recognition in Mexican ones. At any rate it’s quite tasty and goes well with rice or chapatis/tortillas or just straight out of a bowl with a big squeeze of lime. Give it a go and tell me what you think. Continue reading
Chana Masala, Take 4
This is my third recipe for chana masala made with the smaller, darker desi chana. Here, in case you missed them, is the first, made with regular desi chana and here is the second, made with Rancho Gordo’s desi chana. I have quite a lot of the Rancho Gordo chana in the pantry and so have been experimenting with cooking times/methods and masala mixes for a while. I think I have now got things to where I like them best. Of course, I’m going to keep tinkering with the mix and proportion of spices because that’s the kind of asshole I am. But I’ve been coming back to this version often—which says something. The thing that I have settled on though is the mode of cooking the chana itself. I started out doing them entirely on the stove-top—as I do with my all other Rancho Gordo bean preps—but the desi chana just take too long. Now that I am in the middle of a teaching term I can’t constantly get up to check and stir and add water and so forth; and so I’ve been deploying my workhorse Prestige pressure cooker—one of those terrifying, shaking-whistling ones. And I’ve been pressure cooking this chana quite a bit longer than I would normally pressure cook beans: about 50 minutes total (see the first note below). I’m sorry I don’t have conversion instructions for whatever new-fangled pressure cooker you might have but the recipe will provide excellent results no matter how you get the beans ready for the show. Continue reading
White Bean Curry
I have previously posted a few other recipes for white beans made in a broad Indian stye. See, for example, this, this, this and this. Looking at these recipes—or, for that matter, at my other Indian bean recipes as well—you might think that they’re all iterations of each other. And you’d be right—that is pretty much what cooking is. You find a general palette of flavours you like and play with proportions and with a few additions and subtractions and expand the range of preparations you make. Today’s recipe for white beans is most obviously an iteration on the recipe I posted in December for “White Bean Stew with Cumin and Ginger”. This one adds more spices and alters the proportions of acid and sugar and ends up a clear relative but with an identity of its own. I make it with Rancho Gordo’s Alubia Blanca beans but if they’re not available when you read this it would be just as good with their Cassoulet, Gay Caballero, Ayocote Blanco or Marcella beans. And if you don’t have any white beans, any other mild bean such as the Mayacoba would work well too. What you want is a bean that will hold its shape and whose pot liquor will let the flavour of the spices come through. I have a block against using the much larger white beans like Royal Corona or Large White Limas in a dish like this but I couldn’t explain why. Just go with it. Continue reading
Bean Salad with Artichoke Hearts
My go-to way of cooking beans for lo these many decades has always been in the form of a stew or braise—be it a curry of some kind (like so, so, so, so, so, so or so, to take just a few examples) or in a non-Indian style (like so). This changed at the end of last year when I cooked up a pot of Rancho Gordo flageolets and used them as a base for grilled pork and poached fish. This acted as a gateway drug of sorts and I”ve been preparing beans more in this style. The recipe I have for you today takes it to the logical conclusion: the beans becoming not the base for something more flavourful placed atop them but the main story in and of themselves. I first made this salad for the New Year’s Eve dinner we shared with the friends we have been podding with (please forgive the unintentional pun) and have since made a few variations. Here’s the “original”. Continue reading
Fun with Flageolets
Last month we split half a pig with a friend. When putting in the cut order we asked for the chops to be cut as thick as possible and some rather thick chops duly showed up. I finally got around to defrosting some earlier this week. I dry-brined them for a couple of days while I figured out what to serve them with. In the pantry were a packet of Rancho Gordo flageolet beans. I’d never cooked flageolets before and didn’t remember purchasing these. But I decided to give them a go anyway.
I cooked them very simply with a few small parmesan rinds (and salt added at the end). I drained some on Wednesday and tossed them simply with a dressing of garlic, kosher salt, pepper, olive oil and the last of some lemon-infused white balsamic vinegar. I let the beans sit in the dressing while the pork chops came up to room temperature and got grilled. Once the pork had rested, I sliced it thin and served it atop the warm beans. It was dynamite. Continue reading
White Bean Stew with Cumin and Ginger
My friend Aparna—she of “reading Christie during the lockdown” fame—recently acquired a kalchatti, a traditional soapstone pot used in parts of South India. Ever since then my life has become a living hell. She goes on about it in a nauseating manner on Whatsapp, with hourly odes to its glory, each accompanied by 32 photographs (on average). I have decided to purchase one of my own just so I can shut her up. The problem is it costs the fucking earth to have one shipped from India and the only one I can find in the US at a reasonable price will require me to season it before use—a process that involves a daily sensual massage of the damned thing with turmeric and castor oil for anywhere between 10-25 days. Yes, who am I kidding, I will almost certainly buy it and anoint it in this kinky manner. Until then, however, I have been inspired to break out a far inferior stoneware pot I purchased several years ago from a local Korean store and start cooking in it again on the regular. I made a traditional Kerala-style fish curry in it last week and yesterday I improvised a stew in it with ayocote blanco beans from Rancho Gordo that came out rather well. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Rajma, Take 3
Well, the worst of our national nightmare is over. The orange oaf is not going to go quietly, and he’s not going to go completely—and he’s going to do a lot more damage on the way out—but he’s been fired. No better fate for the loser who hates to lose than to be declared a loser on every TV set in the world (well, prison would be even better). Like everyone else in the US I spent the week unable to think about anything but the elections—and like most people on the Left I spent most of the first two days since the evening of November 3 in a state of dread, bracing for the worst. It began to become more apparent on Thursday that Pennsylvania and Georgia would make the final count in Arizona moot but I couldn’t bring myself to embrace it until Biden’s margins of victory became recount-proof (yes, recounts will happen in a few states but his lead is too large now to be overcome by a small plus/minus here and there). I began to hope yesterday but it was only this morning that I finally unclenched and exhaled. The only thing I did all week—other than obsessively check the vote counts—was cook. Cooking is not always relaxing but this week it kept me from going crazy. I thank my many-armed gods that the week ended the way it did; because if it hadn’t, no amount of good food would have taken that taste out of my mouth. Continue reading
Chana Masala, Take 3
Way back in January, before there was a global pandemic, I posted a recipe for chana masala made with kala or desi chana. These smaller, darker chickpeas (compared to garbanzo beans aka Kabuli chana in India) have, as I said then, been eaten in India much longer than garbanzo beans. They can be prepared very similarly but are far from identical. They’re smaller and their skins are harder and their texture much denser; and their flavour is earthier and not as “sweet” as good garbanzo beans can be. So far, so repetitious. Here’s something new: back in January I’d said that I’d heard a rumour that Rancho Gordo—the Californian purveyor of bespoke beans—might soon start carrying desi chana. 10 months later that rumour has turned to fact. Rancho Gordo’s desi chana will be going on sale around Thanksgiving. If you’re not in their Bean Club (yes, I know) you’ll have to punch other people in the mouth to get them into your cart when they go on sale. (Well, you’ll be shopping online but you can always imagine.) Since I’m special (by which I mean, I know things Steve S. of Rancho Gordo doesn’t want you to know about his whereabouts in April of 1982), I was sent a few packets of these to play with before you heathens get anywhere near them. You can therefore view this as a sort of sponsored post if you like—I can certainly be purchased for less than the price of a few packets of beans. More accurate would be that Steve and I are old friends and that he clearly doesn’t need a D-list food blogger like me to talk him up when he has all of the North American food world falling over itself to praise his beans. At any rate, I’ve made a few different preps with them and this is the one the missus thinks I should share first with the public. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 