Here is a very simple version of a dish that, in one form or the other, is very common across large parts of India. Normally, I make it very simply, with just cabbage, onion and potatoes, frying the potatoes first and cooking the cabbage so that it still retains a lot of snap. In this instance, however, I was in the middle of using up a lot of stuff in the fridge and pantry that needed to be disposed of before leaving town for a bit; and so I threw in some sweet potato and a cup of chopped tomatoes. It turned out quite well. And so here is the recipe so I can remember what I did and do it again. It’s still a very simple recipe and past the (minor) hassle of chopping the cabbage there’s not a whole lot to it. And if you don’t have sweet potatoes on hand, regular potatoes will be fine too. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Vegetarian
Roasted Squash with Ghee and Garam Masala (Thanksgiving 2015)
As mentioned earlier, I am doing an Indian Thanksgiving this year (please construct your own ironic, historical joke). I’ve already posted the recipe I improvised for spicy cranberry chutney; in place of the roast turkey I’m going to do braised turkey drumsticks in the style of a Kerala “roast” (I’m going to do a dry run with a couple of drumsticks tomorrow, and if it turns out well I’ll post that recipe on Tuesday); I’m also making a Bengali-style sweet pulao in place of stuffing; and I’m making two dishes with roasted squash: one a spicy and sour soup with tamarind and coconut milk, and the other this mash with ghee and garam masala. I made a test batch today and it came out quite well. I might tweak it a bit for the main event but so that I remember what I did here’s the base recipe. Continue reading
Cranberry Chutney (Thanksgiving 2015)
We host a dinner every year for our friends who are in town for Thanksgiving. I usually do the classic meal centered on roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce etc. (plus lots of add-ons). This year I”ve decided to Indianize the meal. My friend Sandra says that immigrants incorporating the flavours of their source cuisines into Thanksgiving meals is a longstanding Thanksgiving tradition in its own right, but the truth of the matter is after 22 years in this country I’m a little bored of eating (and in the last decade and more, making) more or less the same meal. Sure, I’ve brined and spatchcocked the turkey and improvised different spice rubs; sure, I’ve made various different stuffings and cranberry sauces—but this year I wanted to go further. And so here is the core of this year’s menu: turkey “roast” in a Kerala style; pulao in place of stuffing; spicy and sour roasted squash soup with tamarind and coconut milk; mashed roasted squash with ghee and garam masala; and this cranberry chutney. I made a test batch this week and it came out quite well. Continue reading
Tangy Sweet Potato with Cumin
Is this the simplest recipe I’ve posted so far? It may well be. Very few ingredients—none of them hard to find, most probably already in your pantry; easy prep; and past the the first few minutes on the stove you can mostly ignore it till it’s done (and that’s in not very much time either). The interplay of cumin and sweet potato is what this is about—a little bit of chilli powder adds a spicy counterpoint and if you have a lime and/or chaat masala on hand, squeeze and/or sprinkle them over at the end to give it a tangy kick as well. A very good side-dish with dal and chapatis, but would also go very well with roasted meats made in a non-Indian style. In fact, I’m considering serving it alongside turkey at our Thanksgiving dinner this year (and I’m also considering Indianizing the roast turkey this year—more on that later). Continue reading
Chickpea-Potato “Chaat”
On Thursday I posted a recipe for a simple tamarind chutney. Here now is a recipe that it plays a central role in. You can make the chutney while the components of this one cook and it’s very easy to pull the final dish together. This has all the flavours of chaat—I put the word in quotes because it’s not a classic chaat; you might just as easily think of it as a chickpea-potato salad with Indian flavours. It will feed two as a main dish and 4-6 as a first course or snack. As always, I use Rancho Gordo garbanzo beans which require no soaking, cook incredibly quickly anyway and have a wonderful sweet taste and great texture. If you’re using chickpeas from some other source you will have to adjust the cooking time to their reality; if you are using canned chickpeas please don’t tell me about it. Continue reading
Spicy Roasted Cauliflower
Some of my non-Indian friends complain that my recipes are too complicated and/or call for too many ingredients that they don’t have in their kitchens and/or take too long to pull together. This is weakness and I don’t usually like to reward weakness but here, anyway, is a very simple recipe for cauliflower roasted with spices. There’s minimal prep work and once the oven is at temperature it takes only 20 fuss-free minutes to be ready to eat. Never say I never did anything for you, you ungrateful bastards.
This is, again, a hybrid recipe that deploys Indian spices and an American approach to vegetables. The resulting flavour is very North Indian though.
Continue reading
Moog Dal with Vegetables
In the first dal recipe I posted I listed mushoor dal, chholar dal and moog dal as the Bengali dal trinity (kali dal is a Punjabi thing). Here now is a recipe for moog dal (or mung dal in most other places). I have to admit that as a child this was my least favourite dal but I’ve grown to like it a lot as an adult.
This is the way my mother makes it most of the time, with peas and carrots Her use of tomatoes may seem to be a non-Bengali addition (my mother’s cooking, as I’ve mentioned before, is inflected heavily by the fact that after their marriage my parents have lived almost entirely outside Bengal); but my mother, who is currently visiting, tells me that the use of tomatoes in this dal was common in her mother and aunts’ Calcutta kitchens.
Bandhakophir Chorchori (Stir-fried Cabbage)
Chorchoris are sometimes referred to as the Bengali analogues of Chinese stir-fries but they’re not exactly the same thing. Vegetables are fried in in a hot pan with spices but after water (or some other moist ingredient) is added the cooking is finished without much further stirring, letting the bottom layer crisp up a bit. The final dish is mostly dry (no gravy/sauce). That’s the general rule anyway. When I’m cooking cabbage in this general way I don’t let it get too tender as I like my cabbage to be a little crunchy. Anyway, it’s a very simple dish and you can cook other vegetables in much the same way (pumpkin, cauliflower etc.) or in combination. And you can also add some diced potatoes and even some small shrimp to this cabbage version. Continue reading
Alur Dom/Dum Alu
Alur dom (in Bengal) or dum-alu (in the Hindi belt) is a popular dish made in a variety of ways across India. The name implies cooking on “dum”, or in a tightly sealed vessel so that the potatoes cook in their own “breath”, so to speak; in practice, however, it’s rarely prepared that way in most homes. At least the potatoes are rarely cooked entirely on “dum”. This is certainly the case for this recipe, which comes to me from one of my aunts who is one of the best cooks in the extended family and has a very successful, small catering business in Calcutta. Ideally, you’d eat it with luuchis (luuchis are a lighter, fluffier version of puris) but it goes very well with parathas and rice. Indeed, match it with some chholar dal and rice and you’re all set for a great vegetarian meal. Continue reading
Palak Paneer
This is another Indian restaurant favourite and like many Indian restaurant favourites it is usually made in restaurants with a gallon or so of cream. Home-made versions have a much lighter touch and, as in my version below, often leave out the cream altogether. This means you can actually taste the spinach and paneer—a radical concept, I know. Again, palak=spinach; you can make this with a combination of greens and if you do then you’ll have saag paneer (saag=leafy greens).
There are two major components to good palak paneer: good spinach and good paneer (ideally, home-made). If you have those two it’s hard to go wrong. You can tweak the other ingredients (proportions and texture) to your liking and make it entirely your own. You can even add some cream, I suppose, but to my mind palak paneer is best when it’s pureed spinach and soft home-made paneer that are the source of the velvety richness. Continue reading
Bhindi-fry
Okra is not a universally beloved vegetable in the US, primarily due to its reputation for becoming slimy when cooked. This was not an idea I’d encountered before coming to the US. It is eaten all over India but no one seems to complain about this quality. This is not because Indians like slimy vegetables but because in the ways that most Indian cuisines prepare it it doesn’t turn slimy. This is the case in this fairly simple recipe as well. The key is to keep it away from moisture. Dry the pods thoroughly after washing them; slice them with a dry knife on a dry cutting board after they are completely dry and you’ll barely see anything mucilaginous at this point; after that cook them quickly and add a bit of acid (mango powder in this case) and any slime that develops while it is cooking will dissipate. Read on for more detail and photographic corroboration. Continue reading
Kali Dal
This is the classic Punjabi dal that doused with cream and butter appears on Indian restaurant menus as dal makhani (more or less). This is a home-style version that skips the cream and butter and actually lets you taste everything that’s in it. As you can probably tell from the picture it is a creamy dal but the creaminess comes from the lentils themselves (a portion of which you mash). It’s not just healthy on that account though: as it uses a lentil/dal that is unpeeled it is chock full of fiber.
The preparation is a simple one. You cook the dal with water, salt and turmeric till it’s done, then add a prepared “tadka” to it, and continue to simmer until you’ve reached the desired consistency, which is achieved when the dal is soft to the bite but still easily holding its shape. I cook the dal itself very quickly in my terrifying Indian pressure cooker—but it will be easy enough to cook it normally on the stove-top; if you have a new-fangled pressure cooker you’re on your own (I don’t understand how those things work). Continue reading
Matar-Paneer
Yesterday you made paneer (you did, right?); now here is something to make with some of that paneer.
Matar-paneer (literally peas-paneer) is a fairly ubiquitous dish on Indian restaurant menus in the US but, as with almost everything on most Indian restaurant menus in the US, often drowned in cream. The recipe below is a version of the basic way in which it is made in most homes in North India: a tomato sauce with clean, bright flavours that offsets the paneer nicely, with the peas providing textural contrast.
It is a very easy recipe, calling for not very many ingredients, most of which you probably have on hand, with a very light touch with the spices. Continue reading
Home-Made Paneer
Various paneer dishes have become quite identified with Indian food in the US but I’d wager that most Americans have never eaten anything better than mediocre paneer. The versions served at every Indian restaurant I’ve ever eaten it in in the US have in fact been worse than mediocre, whether served in a braised dish like palak paneer or fried as pakoras: it’s invariably hard and dense. I suspect most restaurants don’t make their own paneer or that if they do that they make it in mass quantities ahead of time and rarely use it fresh. Then again, paneer made well doesn’t always need to be fresh—as you’ll see, the recipe below freezes very well.
Anyway, if you like eating paneer in restaurants you should really make it at home; it will be a revelation. And if you think making paneer is some sort of higher-level skill, you’re wrong: if you’re capable of bringing milk to a boil and then stirring it you have mastered the two steps of making paneer. That’s pretty much all there is to it: bring milk to a boil, add an acid and stir as it splits the milk. Once the milk has separated into whey and lumpy curds you strain it, cover it with a weight and in as little as 10 minutes you have paneer ready to eat or cook with. Continue reading
Shaak/Saag, Two Ways (Indian Home Cooking Week 2)
Alu Palak
You’ll often see the word saag (shaak in Bengali) used as a synonym for spinach in the US. In fact, saag/shaak refers to any kind of leafy greens. Thus spinach (palak in hindi, palok-shaak in Bengali) is only one kind of saag/shaak and various other kinds of leafy greens (from mustard greens to beet greens to amaranth leaves to water spinach) are eaten as saag/shaak. As far as I know Swiss chard is not grown much (or at all) in India, but unsurprisingly it is very good when used in most saag/shaak recipes (though I wouldn’t use it in recipes that call for leafy greens to be steamed and pureed).
Traditionally, Bengali meals incorporate one shaak dish, and this recipe is for the simplest possible such preparation plus an easy variation. It will go excellently with yesterday’s mushoor dal for a simple vegetarian meal. You could make it with spinach, radish greens, beet greens etc. (or some combination)—I used chard here because it’s what I had at hand.
Mushoor Dal, Bengali Style (Indian Home Cooking Week 2)
In my recipe for chholar dal, with which I kicked off the first edition of my Indian Home Cooking Week series, I hazarded that the triumvirate of dals in the Bengali kitchen comprises chholar, moog and mushoor dals (to use their Bengali names). And for this edition of the series I will begin with a recipe for mushoor dal.
Mushoor dal (masoor in Hindi, banal “red lentils” in American) is not a fancy dal and I don’t know of any fancy ways of preparing it (at least not in Bengali cuisine). You boil the dal, you add some tadka/phoron (or maybe you don’t) and that’s it. But subtle variations in the few ingredients can make a big difference in the final result. This recipe is for how I usually make it, following my mother and especially our cook when I was growing up, with whose name my sister and I associated this dal. For us it wasn’t mushoor dal, but Ram dal. This version of mushoor dal remains my definition of comfort food and in culinary terms it is the constant link from my childhood to now—it may not be the first thing I remember eating (bananas, I think) but it is the first thing I remember loving. But enough about me.
Chapatis and Parathas (Indian Home Cooking Week 1)
Rejoice, whisky people, Indian Home Cooking Week is at an end.
As for those of you who have been following and enjoying these recipes, and possibly looking forward to them, you might recall that I’d promised chapatis, parathas and pickles for the last post, and here I am with only chapatis and parathas. This is how life is. Also, the post will get way too long if I write up the pickle recipes as well and so I’m going to save those for a future post. Stop whining! I’ve already given you so much!
First, a tedious autobiographical detour!