Hi everyone,

I take a break form my paper-writing business and would like to tell you about a simple and tasty dish I cooked yesterday. It’s a wee variation from a dish found in my bible (see previous post), which is based on cabbage and split yellow peas.

You’ll need a small/medium cabbage, half a cup of moong dal and a third of a cup of urad dal. In terms of spices, you’ll need about 1.5 tsp of black mustard seed, 1 tbsp of ground coriander, 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder, 3 garlic cloves, some oil, a chunk of fresh ginger (I like it grated), some chopped almonds and a couple of handfuls of baby spinach.  Ah, and somegaram masala, naturally Before doing anything else, wash 4-5 times the beans in plenty of water and finely chop the cabbage.

Let’s get started:

- put some oil in a big pot (I use an enameled cast-irin pot), add the ginger, coriander, fenugreek, mustard seeds and garlic and let whole thing get hot and frying (add a bit of water if it gets sticky)

- throw in the beans and the cabbage, add a cup of water and bring to a boil. Cook for 5 minutes

- reduce the heat and cook the whole thing until creamy (about 30 minuutes). you can add water if you feel that it gets too dry

- add the spinach leaves and cook for an extra 5 minutes

- add the almonds and a bit (1/2 tsp) of garam masala

- serve at once, with rice or polenta or grits and enoy

Unconventional, right? Indian food is not limited to choicken with a spicy yellowish sauce. This dish is very indian. Delicate,  mild, different, simple. you can cook it when back from work in less than an hour and will stuff you nicely.

The original is on page 286 of the “bible” (buy it! it’s worth it)

See yous!!!

Hi all yall,

I’m back for part deux. This time I’ll talk about my “beans and lentils” collection. Again, until recently, i only thought about these guys as plain an boring colored things to boil. Slowly started experimenting wuth few “unconventional” varieties, ie ones that we don’t really use in our western cuisine, and that was a good thing to do. Explosion of different flavors and aromas. Taste. Not boring. Colorful. Beautiful for both the eyes and the taste buds. Mmmmmhhhhh

So, here we go:

From top left to bottom rigth: Moong Dal, Urad Dal,  Moong Split Peas, Urad Chilka, Masoor Dal and Red Chori.

The beauty of these guys is that they do not really need to soak overnight, as other beans do. I just wash them 4-5 times and put them in thepot “as is”.

I usually tend to make combinations of these guys, when preparing dishes. I like to overdo it with Masoor Dal (usually 1 cup) and then 0.5 cups of any other bean. I also use chickpeas a lot, but those are nothing “special” and you can find tem anywhere.

Well, these are my beans and lentils. Soon for some nice ways on how to use them

Have a nice week-end und

Tschuess

Hi everyone. I’m back, after being away for a while. just too much work to do. Who thought that unemployment would be busier than employment. Weird.

In this post, I would like to talk about Indian food, which is a big passion of mine. Before moving to Glasgow in 1996, curry was for me just a yellow powder that you would add to chicken and rice. Nothing too fancy, nothing to really write home about. Never covered as a staple of my food consumption. Then I moved up north, where the aboriginal diet is shite and unhealthy. Other source of nutrition were curry houses and indian take aways. Go once and go twice, I started getting the feel for “real” curries (I guess that real can be only use for what you eat in India) . We tried Ashoka a few times  but my favorite remains Mother India, in Sauchiehall street.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that I love curries. And Hanne does too, meaning that we eat a lot of them at home, on a weekly basis. We are currently making a lot of beans and lentil based dishes, as they are cheap and very easy to make. I do get my inspiration from what I call my culinary bible, which is this cute book called “1000 Indian recipes” by Neelam Batra. I recommend it to anyone.

Before getting into some recipes that I kind of “modified” form the above bible, I think I’d first like to show you what ingredients I used. First of all, spices. No kitchen should be without these guys:

These are the minimum requirements: Turmeric, Garam Masala, Chili powder, Cumin seeds, Cumin powder, Curry madras, Fennel powder, Cardamom powder, Mustard powder, black mustard seeds, Green cardamom pods, Black cardamom pods and Kokkum black. I might have forgotten a few. I’ll change that later. There are many many more spices and herbs that are used in Indian cuisine, but I can say that these are the essentials.

I am a huge fan of turmeric and of green cardamom pods. I try to use them as much as possible, even though many people say that turmeric does not taste of anything and the pods are a veeery aquired taste. They are pretty disturbing if you are not used to them, epsecially if you chew on one.

So this is it for the spice rack. Next will be the legumes. get ready for some colorful photos

Bye bye for now