Lasoon Urad chi Dal (Garlicky Black Lentil Dal)

This is a very simple, fairly quick-cooking dal of skinned split black lentils (mapte beans). Iyer advises that, in a pinch, moong dal (skinned split mung beans) will also work.

Since I wanted this to be a one-pot dinner, I added a bit of spinach to my dal, just to give us something green on the plate and round things out a bit. I think it worked quite well, but the spinach is, of course, both optional and not part of the original recipe.

Photo goes here.

Lasoon Urad chi Dal

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 1 c. skinned split black lentils (mapte beans/urad dal)
• 3 c. water
• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 2 Tbsp. ghee
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds
• 1 onion, halved and sliced
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 1/2 Tbsp. garlic paste)
• 3-4 fresh green serrano or finger chilies, cut into 5mm slices
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• ~1 c. chopped frozen spinach (optional)
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Rinse the lentils thoroughly.
2. Place in a pot with the water and bring to a boil.
3. Skim off any foam that forms and stir in the turmeric.
4. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, melt the ghee over medium-high heat.
6. Add the cumin seeds and sizzle for 5-10 seconds.
7. Add the onion, reduce heat to medium and cook for ~5 minutes.
8. Add the garlic and chilies and cook for another minute or two. Set aside.
9. Once lentils are just tender, scrape the onion mixture into the pot and stir to combine. Swish out the pan with a little water¹ and stir that into the pot as well.
10. Stir in the salt and spinach (if using) and simmer, uncovered, for another 5-10 minutes.
11. Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice and cilantro.
12. Serve over rice. Preferably with a side of papads/papadums.

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¹ The original recipe called for using a full cup of additional water to rinse out the pan, but I wanted my dal to be fairly thick, so I just used a small amount of water for the pan since I felt like the cooked lentils were already at a good consistency. ^Back

Reiver found a soup recipe online the other day and we decided to give it a go. It's very simple, but did make a tasty soup. Although I'd be tempted to swap out the turmeric for ras el hanout next time.

While I tried to stick pretty close to the recipe for my first time making it, I did end up making a few small changes. I used whole (skin-on, bone-in) chicken thighs rather than skinless, boneless simply because that's what I had on hand. I used a much smaller quantity of dried herbs instead of the large quantity of fresh because, again, I was working with what was on hand. And I dumped in a bunch of frozen spinach toward the end of cooking, just to give it a vegetable and make it a little more nutritionally complete. I also left out most of the olive oil since I felt that there was sufficient fat from the chicken skin.

Red Lentil Soup with Chicken

Ingredients

• 600g chicken thighs
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 onions, halved and sliced
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced (or 2 Tbsp. garlic paste)
• 2L water
• 1 chicken bouillon cube (optional)
• 1 1/2 c. skinned split brown lentils (red lentils/Egyptian lentils/masoor dal)
• 1 tsp. ground turmeric (and/or ral el hanout for a more complex flavour)
• 1 c. fresh mixed herbs (parsley, dill, mint, etc.)
• 1 c. chopped frozen spinach (optional)
• 1 c. plain yogurt
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Directions

1. Pat the chicken dry and season to taste with salt and pepper to taste. (I recommend ~1/2 tsp. of each.)
2. Heat the oil over medium to medium-high heat.
3. Add the chicken, skin-side down, and sear until skin is crisp.
4. Flip the thighs over and sear briefly on the other side.
5. Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside.
6. Add the onions, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until soft and caramelized (~30 minutes).
7. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes.
8. Return the chicken to the pot and add the water and bouillon cube (if using).
9. Increase heat and bring to a boil.
10. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until chicken is cooked through (~15 minutes).
11. Shred the chicken and return it to the pot, discarding the skin and bones.
12. Rinse the lentils and add them to the pot along with the turmeric (and/or ras el hanout, if using).
13. Simmer until the lentils are just tender (~10 minutes).
14. Stir in the herbs and spinach (if using), adjust seasoning to taste, simmer for a minute or two, then remove from heat.
15. Stir the lemon juice into the yogurt and set aside.
16. Serve the soup topped with the lemony yogurt.

I needed some Old Bay seasoning in a hurry, so I just grabbed the first recipe I could find off the Internet. I had to improvise slightly due to limited supplies on hand, but I'm actually fairly happy with how it came out. I think it was a bit more vibrant than the commercial Old Bay I bought a few years back.

Update: Now that I'm not in so much of a hurry, I've had a chance to look at some other Old Bay recipes and I found one from Daring Gourmet that looks quite interesting. It includes most of the same spices as the Kitchn recipe, but in different proportions. Although it does swap out the ground cayenne for red pepper flakes and uses sweet paprika instead of hot paprika. It also includes several spices that the Kitchn recipe omits. These include: ground ginger, mace, allspice, and cardamom. I think these sound like interesting additions and may experiment with adding some or all of them to my current mix.

I've left the first recipe I used here to reflect what I actually did. But I am going to post an alternate recipe below it that leans a little more on the Daring Gourmet approach.

Ersatz Old Bay

Slightly adapted from The Kitchn

Ingredients

• 2 dried bay leaves
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. celery seeds
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp. white peppercorns²
• 1 Tbsp. hot paprika¹
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1/2 Tbsp. mustard powder
• 3/4 tsp. ground cayenne (optional)
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Directions

1. If desired, lightly toast the bay leaves in a dry pan until they become brittle and fragrant. This will enhance the flavour slightly and, more importantly, should help them grind more readily.
2. Combine the salt, celery seeds, peppercorns, and bay leaves in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.
3. Add the paprikas, mustard, cayenne (if using), cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg and stir to combine.
4. Store in a cool, dry place, preferably in an airtight container.

Variations

Alternate Old Bay (milder, sweeter, more bay-forward)

Ingredients

• 5 dried bay leaves
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. celery seeds
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp. white peppercorns
• 1/8 tsp. cardamom seeds (from green pods)
• 1 Tbsp. sweet paprika
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. mustard powder
• 3/4 tsp. ground cayenne
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder (optional)
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder (optional)
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. ground mace
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice

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¹ The original recipe calls for a bunch of hot paprika and a little ground cayenne. I didn't have any hot paprika, but I did have ground Kashmiri chilies. So I just replaced the hot paprika with Kashmiri chilies and omitted the cayenne. It still seemed to come out a good deal spicier than commercial Old Bay, but I quite liked it. That said, I would use a light hand when applying it to recipes. I think that, given the increased spice level, you may end up finding you don't need quite as much as you would the commercial stuff. ^Back
2 The bag of peppercorns I had were a mix of black, white, and pink and I didn't have any separate white peppercorns, so I just used a full tsp. of the blend. Since the mix was mostly black peppercorns, this meant that the balance was slightly off, but I figured it'd be close enough. ^Back

Aloo Gobhi (Potato and Cauliflower Curry)

I had originally planned to make a lamb curry to go with the leftover dal for dinner tonight. But the cauliflower that I'd gotten for the next night didn't really fit in the fridge and it was late enough that I didn't really want to try to start working on the lamb at that point anyway. So instead, I made aloo gobhi tonight and will try to take another crack at the lamb tomorrow.

This is a fairly uncomplicated version of the dish. Iyer also provides a "restaurant-style" version that incorporates a few more ingredients and is a little more complicated to put together. But I just wanted simple tonight, so I stuck with the basic potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes, and spices rendition.

Photo goes here.

Aloo Gobhi

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. oil
• 1 Tbsp. ginger paste
• 5 tsp. garlic paste
• 450g potatoes, cut into 2cm cubes
• 2 tsp. bin bhuna hua garam masala
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
• 450g cauliflower, cut into 3cm florets
• 1 small (~400mL) can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Heat the oil over medium heat.
2. Add the ginger and garlic pastes and stir-fry for 30-60 seconds.
3. Add the potatoes, garam masala, salt, and turmeric and stir-fry for 2-4 minutes.
4. Add the cauliflower and tomatoes (with their juices)¹ and stir to combine.
5. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Sprikle with cilantro and serve.

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¹ I like to swish the can out with a few Tbsp. of water just to make sure I get all the tomato out of the can. Not strictly necessary, but I figure the little bit of extra water doesn't change the consistentcy that much and I might as well not waste the extra little bits of tomato out of the can. ^Back

It's feijoa season again! So I'm taking the opportunity to try to tick off a few more recipes.

This sponge was very unusual. It starts with making an Italian meringue! You then beat the egg yolks into your marshmallow-y meringue, followed by the dry ingredients. It also contains a somewhat alarming amount of ginger. And uses mostly corn starch (cornflour), rather than regular white (wheat) flour, as the main component of the dry ingredients.

I've made a lot of cakes that incorporate beaten egg whites. And a few that incorporate a French (uncooked) meringue. And I've seen icing and pie recipes that call for cooked meringues (like Swiss or Italian). But I've never seen a cake that uses a cooked meringue before. It was unusual, but did seem to work quite well. The Italian meringe was very stable and took the egg yolks nicely without a noticeable loss of volume. And the resulting sponge was very very light. Reiver noted that it had a very slight graininess to it, but I'm not sure whether that was down to the meringue, the cornflour, the ginger, or something else entirely.

The original recipe calls for splitting the sponge and filling it with whipped cream and feijoas. And, while there's nothing wrong with this approach, it does mean that you need to eat the whole cake fairly promptly. So, as an alternative, Reiver suggested that we just cut and top individual wedges of sponge to make it easier to enjoy over the course of a few days.

Photo goes here.

Ginger Sponge with Feijoas and Cream

Slightly adapted from NZ Women's Weekly

Ingredients

• 4 eggs, separated
• 6 Tbsp. sugar
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 7 Tbsp. cornstarch (cornflour)
• 1 Tbsp. soft (plain/standard/cake) flour
• 5-6 tsp. ground ginger, divided
• 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
• 300mL heavy (35%) cream
• 1-2 Tbsp. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar
• 2 c. feijoa flesh, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and line the bottom of a 23cm (9") springform pan with baking paper. Do not grease the sides of the pan!
2. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks.
3. Beat in the egg yolks.
4. Sift in the cornstarch, flour, 4-5 tsp. of the ginger, and the baking powder and gently fold to combine.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
6. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 25 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and drop onto counter or floor once or twice (to help prevent it from sinking in the middle, apparently).
8. Allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes.
9. Run a knife or spatula around the sides of the tin, then remove the sides.
10. Turn cake onto a cooling rack and carefully remove the bottom of the pan and peel off the baking paper. Allow to cool completely.
11. Add the icing sugar and the remaining ginger to the cream and beat until stiff.
12. Either split the cake and fill it with the cream and chopped feijoas, dusting the top with icing sugar as desired, or top individual slices with cream and fruit.

Beef and Potato One-Pot Rice

It's been a while since I've watched any Aaron & Claire videos or tried any of their recipes. This one-pot rice is from one of their more recent posts, and looked quite appealing. Plus, we already had all of the ingredients on hand!

I did mess it up slightly by trying to scale the recipe up. We had 450g of beef rather than the 300g the recipe called for, so I just bumped it up to a 1.5x batch. It still came out tasty. But it took much longer to cook than stated in the recipe. Next time I think I'd just stick with the standard recipe and go slightly heavy on the beef if I had a larger amount available.

Photo goes here.

Beef & Potato One-Pot Rice

Slightly adapted from Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

Rice

• 2 c. uncooked white rice (pref. short-grain)
• 2 c. water
• 3 Tbsp. soy sauce¹
• 1 Tbsp. mirin
• 1 tsp. dasida (or other bouillon powder)
• 1 Tbsp. oil
• 300-450g ground beef
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 green onions², chopped (whites and greens kept separate)
• 225g white or cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 2 Yukon Gold potatoes, diced
• salt and pepper, to taste
• pat of butter³

Sauce

• 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. mirin
• 1 Tbsp. gochugaru (Korean chile flakes)
• 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
• 1 green onion, green parts only
• 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

Directions

1. Rinse the rice, then add enough water to cover by at least a cm or two and set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, combine the water, soy sauce, mirin, and dasida and set aside.
3. Heat the oil over medium heat.
4. Add the beef and cook for ~2 minutes, break up, and cook for another minute or so.
5. Add the garlic, white parts of the green onions, mushrooms, and potatoes and stir to combine.
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. Cook for 5-6 minutes.
8. Drain the rice and add it to the pot.
9. Stir to combine and cook for a minute or so.
10. Pour in the seasoned water, scrape the bottom of the pot, stir well, and bring to a boil.
11. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook for 15 minutes.
12. Meanwhile, mix up the sauce by combining the soy sauce, mirin, gochugaru, sesame oil, green onion, and sesame seeds and mixing well. Set aside.
13. Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Do not uncover!
14. Remove lid and fluff rice.
15. Sprinkle with green parts of green onions, top with a generous pat of butter, and stir them in.
16. Spoon into bowls and top with sauce as desired.

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¹ I used a mix of 2 parts light soy to 1 part dark soy. ^Back
2 We were short on green onions, so I just used 1 yellow onion in place of the white parts of the green onion and then added the green parts of some green onions at serving. ^Back
3 I only just realized that I completely forgot to add the butter. Whoops! ^Back

This salad is meant to be made with grated, freshly roasted beets. I didn't have any fresh beets and didn't really have the energy to roast, peel, and grate them anyway. So, instead, I used tinned, sliced beets and just julienned them for the salad. I'm very pleased with how this worked out and would absolutely do it again.

Polish Cold Beet Salad

Slightly adapted from Everyday Healthy Recipes

Ingredients

• 1 (450g) can sliced beetroot, julienned
• 1 apple, peeled and grated
• 1 small red onion, minced¹
• 2 dill pickles, grated²
• 2-3 tsp. oil
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes before serving.
3. Adjust seasoning to taste.

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¹ I didn't have any red onion on hand, so I just used some dried onion flakes in my salad. ^Back
2 Since my beets were already pickled, I just used two small/baby dills in my salad. If you're using unpickled beets, then I'd recommend using 3-4 baby dills or 2 larger ones. ^Back