Anita's Culinary Odyssey

Mama's Rajmah!

2011-04-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

My husband has been hounding me to make Rajmah at home. It's his favorite; he calls it the vegetarian version of lamb curry, because it's so spicy and heavy in protein. I was never really into it, because I used to think the red kidney beans were too starchy. Then, I tried the red beans at this local Puerto Rican restaurant and was converted. You just have to make sure you wash and drain the beans well before cooking, so the extra starches come out. It is just so salty and delicious with rice; it's heaven. This recipe is the Indian equivalent of red beans and rice. You will need a slow cooker for this particular preparation of the beans. This recipe utilizes a 3.5 qt. cooker, but double the ingredient quantities for a 5 qt. cooker. Also, it has the potential for EXTREME HEAT. A dollop of plain yogurt on the side wouldn't hurt for the weak of heart.

Equipment needed: Slow cooker and Blender

Cooking time: 10 hours on HIGH setting, 2 hours on LOW setting (slow cooker)

Serves: 4

Ingredients:
1. 1½ cups of dried red kidney beans
2. 1 red onion roughly chopped
3. 8 cloves of garlic (you can use less if you don’t like garlic)
4. 1½-in. cube of ginger (does not need to be peeled)
5. Good amount of sesame oil (about ¼ cup)
6. 4 fresh green chilies (seeded if you want to reduce heat)
7. 1 tsp. turmeric
8. 1 tsp. red chili powder (or to taste, if you left the green chilies with seeds)
9. 1 tbsp. garam masala (available in gourmet grocery stores in the international section. If you can’t find it, it can be omitted)
10. 1 tbsp. cumin powder
11. 1 tbsp. coriander powder
12. 5 cups of water
13. Salt to taste
14. Chopped red onion, cilantro, and green chili for garnish, if desired

Preparation:

Put the kidney beans and red onion in the slow cooker. Set aside.

In a blender, mix the garlic, ginger, and green chilies into a paste. Gradually pour the sesame oil into the blender while the ingredients are mixing to smooth out the mixture. Once you have a smooth paste, add the turmeric, red chili powder, garam masala, cumin and coriander powders. Continue blending until well mixed. Add a touch more oil if needed.

Take the paste and pour it over the beans and onion in the slow cooker. Add about 1 tsp. of salt on top of the ingredients, and then add the water. Give everything a good mix and then close the cooker. Start the time for 10 hours on HIGH setting. After the 10 hours, give the pot a stir and check the salt. Add salt if needed, and then close the cooker, turn to LOW setting, and cook for another 2 hours.

For garnish, you can chop some fresh cilantro and a little bit of raw red onion and sprinkle it over the top. Check the salt before doing so and make sure it’s properly seasoned before sprinkling the garnish. For a more decadent variation, you can also add a tbsp. of heavy cream halfway through the cooking process. This will also reduce the spiciness of the dish.

Serve with Basmati rice mixed with fresh finely chopped cilantro.

Harini's "Fried 'Tata" Frittata with Leeks and Green Peas

2011-02-11T10:00:00.002-08:00

I developed this dish because my cousin, Harini, the family's newly anointed bride, requested a yummy frittata recipe, so I had to deliver. Before we start, you should know that this name is deceptive and purely for aesthetic effect--no potatoes were "fried" in this recipe; only baked. Frittatas are similar to quiches ..In fact, I don't quite know the difference, nor does it seem like Wikipedia knows the difference, but perhaps they are more like a cake or a ginormous omelet (PS "ginormous" is a word per MS spell check). I also made mine with special Indian-spiced veggies to give an Indian-take on a classic Spanish dish. I also (Ta-Da) created this recipe all by myself. Not one recipe book was consulted in the making of this recipe :) :) :) It's a moment of pride when someone who has no artistic skill whatsoever creates an enjoyable thing from scratch; that feels like art!

What I will say is that I have seen cooking shows in the past that use this particular technique of slicing and arranging the potatoes. I purchased a mandolin slicer to slice my taters into wafer thin circles. If you don't have one or want to purchase one, you can adapt by boiling and peeling your potatoes and then (once cooled to room temp or colder) cutting them into chunks before putting it into the egg batter. Traditional frittatas have chunky taters anyway.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. olive oil
light cooking spray
1 Russet potato
1 red onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 green chilies
1.5 cups sliced leeks (1 leek = 1 cup about--you can adjust amt of leeks to taste)
2 tbsp cumin seed (1/2 tsp. keep aside for potatoes mix)
1 tbsp fennel seed
1 tsp turmeric powder (split into 2 separate amounts--half for masala and half for potatoes)
1 tsp red chili powder (split into 2 separate amounts)
1 tbsp. coriander powder
1/2 tbsp. garam masala powder
1 tomato
1 cup green peas (frozen or fresh)
8 large eggs
1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
salt
pepper
fresh chopped cilantro

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Wash the leeks extremely well. Leeks are delicious and look like someone took a magnifying glass and put it over a scallion. I generally find that leeks are really dirty when you first buy them--literally with dirt. You want to wash the hell out of them. A trick I learned from "Big Daddy" on the Food Network is to chop them up the way you want them and soak them in water for a bit and then drain. It worked well in this recipe. No dirty scallions up in my fried tata! It should get out all the gunk. So slice your leeks into about 1/8 in. slices all the way to the ends. Soak them in water in a bowl and set aside.

Leek and Peas Masala:
In a medium skillet, heat 2 tbsp. olive oil. Once oil is hot, add 1.5 tbsp. cumin seed and all the fennel seed. Once spices are fried, turn temp down to medium and chop up your red onion and add. Let the onion fry a bit, and once they turn a little brown, chop and add garlic and green chilies. Mix these well until fairly cooked. Then add your remaining dry spices - 1/2 tsp. of turmeric, 1/2 tsp. of red chilly powder, all of the coriander powder and garam masala. I know it sounds like a lot of chopping, but it's pretty standard when making a masala/curry. I recently received a Cuisineart chopper as a gift. I haven't chopped in 3 months, so this didn't feel like extra work. I STRONGLY recommend getting one of these choppers--it cuts your cooking time in half. To this recipe, a lot of people might want to add ginger--which is common in masalas. Feel free to do that--I just didn't because I wanted more garlic flavor than ginger.
Once you've fried the garlic/onion/chilly masala, puree the tomato and add that to the mix. I prefer it pureed, but you can just chop it and add it in--however you usually make masala paste! If you want to add just chopped fresh tomato, fine--let it cook a bit, which softens the tomato, and then mash it with your spatula or wooden spoon. You could also puree everything but, you will lose the chunky texture that is common to a frittata, so I would not recommend that, although the flavor will be similar.

Once you've got a masala paste going, add your cup of peas. If frozen, you'll have to let it cook in the masala for a little extra time. Meanwhile, drain your leeks and wash again in a sieve or colander. Cook the veggies in the masala for about 10 minutes, mixing from time to time. Add salt to taste. It'll look like this:

Don't worry if it's a little spicy. The spice will dilute in the egg batter and after cooking. OK this part is done. Make sure you LET THIS COOL to room temperature. It's going into a raw egg batter, and you don't want scrambled eggs before you begin baking, so let it cool.

Potatoes:
In a separate bowl, slice your potatoes with a
mandolin slicer into wafer thin strips. This is what
it will look like:

Once sliced, you'll want to add your reserved spices to the potatoes: that is, 1/2 tbsp. of cumin seeds (dry roast these in a pan for a few minutes before adding), 1/2 tsp. of turmeric and 1/2 tsp. of red chilly powder. Add a pinch of salt and pepper as well to taste. Mix these well. Once you've mixed the spices into your raw sliced potato, you want to spray a circular cake pan with cooking spray. Then arrange your sliced potatoes in a clockwise pattern going in concentric circles from the center to edge of the pan. Once you've arranged them in circles going one way, start arranging them again in a counter-clockwise position. You want about 2 layers of sliced potatoes, with a few slices left to go twice around the sides. This is what it looks like:

Pop this guy into the oven for about 13 minutes. This is called "blind baking" like when you bake a pie crust by itself preliminarily before adding the filling and baking again, so your crust isn't soggy after the final product comes out of the oven. After blind baking, it should look like this:

Alright, again, let this cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, start getting out your eggs and cilantro. You want to take 8 eggs and beat them till you get a smooth batter. Adding 1/2 cup milk adds a little volume and smoothness to the batter, without the added cholesterol. Chop up a handful of cilantro leaves finely and add that in as well. Add a dash of salt and pepper to this if you want, but it's not necessary if your masala mixture is well- or over-spiced. Once your masala mixture is cooled down, you can add it to the egg. It will look like this:

Now once you've made sure your blind baked potato is cooled, you're ready to poor in the egg batter into the potato. Pour it in and bake it in the 375 degree oven for 40 minutes or until golden brown. After the first 30 minutes, check it every 5 minutes to make sure it's not overcooking. You want it undercooked in the center. Switch your oven to the Broil setting at the end of the baking. Broil it now for 4 to 5 minutes until the egg is fully cooked and the top is golden brown. Pull it out of the oven. Once the pan is cool enough to touch, place a flat plate on top of the pan and flip the frittata over so the potato part is on top. You should get something like the picture I posted at the beginning of this post.

Once you top it with cilantro and/or fresh red onion, it will look like this:

Serve and enjoy! Have it with the usual condiments you serve with samosas or omelets. I recommend ketchup or tomato chutney. Taters and Tomaters are a natural combination, so you can't go wrong. Happy recipe-ing!

Madras Chicken Curry

2011-01-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

This was tonight's dinner. It started with a tic I had to try my new slow cooker. I tried looking up slow cooked Indian chicken recipes...all seeming like too much work. Then I remembered I had a new spice that I have never tried: Madras Curry Powder. Rather than let it roll for 5 hours in the slow cooker, I thought I'd try the Madras Curry Powder in my standard chicken curry recipe, and wow did it come out good.

Reading up on Wiki about Madras Curry Powder, it doesn't seem like there is anything special about it that makes it uniquely South Indian. The one I have is Nirav brand, and takes on the same color and smell as the West Indian yellow curry powder you find in regular or gourmet grocery stores. That's why I was curious about it frankly...I thought, I like West Indian curry, but it's really different from regular Indian curry..I wonder how it would taste if I used it in my chicken curry. The result was REALLY good, I have to say.

I didn't do anything different with the usual spices I add--though I omitted the garam masala. Didn't want to over-spice.

Ingredients:

1. Canola Oil

2. 1 tbsp. cumin seeds

3. 1 tbsp. black mustard seeds

4. 10 curry leaves

5. 1 red onion - finely chopped

6. 6-7 cloves of garlic - finely chopped

7. 1-2 inches of ginger root - finely chopped

8. 3-4 green chilis - chopped

9. 1/2 tsp turmeric

10. 1 tsp. red chili powder

11. 1 cup of dry, unsweetened shredded coconut

12. 2 tbsp. madras curry powder (Nirav brand)

13. 2 tbsp. coriander powder

14. 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

15. salt and pepper to taste

16. 2 tomatoes, pureed

Preparation:

Total cooking time is about 1-1.5 hours

Chop the onions, garlic, ginger, and green chilis. Set aside. It's even better if you can puree the garlic/ginger. I threw everything into an electric chopper and got finely diced.

In a big pot, heat the oil until very hot. Add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once the cumin is toasted brown, add curry leaves. Let them sizzle.

Add the onions. Let them sweat and cook until translucent. Toss them around and let them cook. Then put in the garlic, ginger and green chilis. Let these cook for a minute too. Then start adding spices. Make sure the heat is at medium when you start cooking the spices. Add the turmeric, red chili powder, curry powder and coconut. Let them mix around for a bit. If you're not a fan of the texture of dry coconut, that's not going to go away at the end of cooking. In lieu of shredded coconut, you can use lite coconut milk--about half a can--to be added close to the end of cooking, before simmering. DO NOT add both coconut milk AND shredded coconut. You can add a little more oil also at this point, if all the garlic/onion have absorbed all the oil.

Once you've got your masala mixture going, chop the chicken into 1-inch cubes and toss them into the pot. Add salt and pepper at this juncture. You can even season the meat before adding it into the pot with salt/pepper. That will cause the seasonings to stick to the meat through the cooking. Once the chicken is added, toss the whole mixture around. Let it cook for 4-5 minutes, while frequently tossing.

Once the chicken looks white, add the pureed tomatoes. Let this new mixture now cook for about 1-2 minutes. Once the tomatoes are warm and well-incorporated into the masala, then add about a 1/2 cup of water and bring to a boil. Make sure the water is also well-incorporated into the masala.

Once you've brought the pot to a boil, turn heat down to Low and cover. Let the chicken simmer for 15 minutes covered. After 15 min, stir it around and make sure it's not drying out. If it's drying out, add a little more water--about 1/2 cup, just so it doesn't dry out again. Simmering generally brings up water, so you should not have to add too much water. If you see it drying out, it means your heat is probably too high.

After you've stirred it around, cover it again, and simmer it for another 20-30 minutes. After that, the chicken should be fully cooked and tender. You can garnish with cilantro for a fresh finish.

The Comeback Dish: Seggsy Margherita Shakshouka

2011-01-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, well it's been a while since I last posted...I had a backlog of dishes that never made the blog--partially due to culinary frustrations, lack of space in my micro-kitchen, some element of cooker's block, etc. But of course, now I need to get back in the swing. Let me know your food curiosities--Indian or general--and I will research and post!

So this dish is inspired by Italian and Middle-Eastern cuisines. The word "Shakshouka" is of Tunisian origin--it's basically a dish of egg and tomato with spices. The spices are fried with tomato and eggs are cracked on top and left to cook in unbroken, "sunny side up" form.

I added my own stuff to it, like roasted garlic and eggplant, and made it more Italian, to resemble a Margherita pizza, but with no crust and with eggs. I also didn't add spices, except for salt and pepper. My flavors came from the vegetables and basil. This is odd for me, since Indian food is so spice-heavy, but sometimes it's nice to taste what you're eating. After I made this, I was like, I need to stop being so spice-obsessed.

And it's sooo prettttyyyy...!

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 a large eggplant, or 2 Japanese eggplants
2. Olive oil - eyeball it, but you shouldn't need more than 1 cup
3. 2 cloves garlic
4. 1 small onion (I prefer red onions these days - SOO much more flavor), chopped
5. 1 can diced tomatoes
6. 4-7 basil leaves
7. salt, pepper
8. 3-4 eggs
9. 2-3 slices fresh mozzarella cheese
10. Optional - red pepper flakes
11. Optional - other "toppings"/vegetables: olives, artichoke hearts, mushrooms - you would not need to roast these veggies, but just cook them down and season before adding the tomatoes and eggs.

Preparation:

This is SO EASY, a frat boy could do it. First, pre-heat your oven to about 375 F. Once oven is ready, chop the eggplant into fairly large pieces and sprinkle salt on the fleshy parts (not skin, because it doesn't absorb salt). After salting, rub enough olive oil over the eggplant pieces to cover them. Pop them in the oven for about 30 minutes or until well-roasted. Check on it every 15 min to see how well-done it is, because ovens vary, so you don't want to burn them.

Once your eggplants are roasted, start heating some olive oil in your skillet. Make sure you use a big enough skillet that it feels like the size of a small to medium pizza--maybe 12". Once hot, add the whole garlic cloves. This flavors the oil, without creating an overly strong garlic flavor. The other ingredients are mild, so you don't want to overpower with garlic, unlike in Indian food, where you can mask the garlic in spices.

Keep turning the garlic so it doesn't burn. Burnt garlic is nasty and strong, so keep it movin. Once the oil is hot and garlic roasted, add the chopped onions and eggplant. If you're adding red pepper flakes, add those with the garlic, before you add anything else if possible. Get the onions and eggplant going until the onions are sweatin' brown. The eggplant should be cooked at this point. You may want to add a little more olive oil, if all the oil has been absorbed by the onion and eggplant. Season with salt and pepper.

Then, mix in the diced tomatoes. Taste what you have to see if it needs additional seasoning. Add seasoning (salt and pepper) as necessary. Don't stir it around too much--just enough to mix the veggies through with tomatoes. You want a caramelization on the sides of the pan of tomato, once all the water has cooked off. You may need two 14 oz. cans of tomatoes depending on how big your pan is and how many eggs you plan to add. You want a nice bed of tomato, so add another can if you feel you don't have enough with 1 can, or if you decide you want more vegetables. The tomatoes have to cover your vegetables in the pan.

Once the tomatoes are caramelizing on the sides of the pan, it's time to add some eggs! Crack the eggs open, yolks in tact, into the pan (or into a bowl so as to remove any shell that breaks off before pouring it into the pan). Crack about 3-4 eggs into the pan according to how much space you have in the pan. Let the eggs cook about 30 seconds with the cover on the pan. Then, lay your fresh mozzarella slices onto the pan too and cover again. The above picture is the cheese-less version, but I made a cheese version the other day, and it's FAB. Once the eggs are cooked (poached, not fully cooked through to yoke), turn off the heat. Now lay the basil leaves artfully over the pan.

Beauty in a pan. You'll want to take toasted french bread or olive bread and just eat it out of the pan.

Spinach Quiche Squares

2010-10-03T11:01:00.001-07:00

These smell amazing when they're baking and are a really satisfying breakfast food. The cheese and savory herbs also add a lot of hearty flavor. The nice thing about this recipe is that it's flexible for you to tweak to what your desired flavors are. If it's just for a casual weekend morning breakfast, you can incorporate your favorite omelet ingredients and just bake it like a quiche rather than frying like an omelet. I made these vegetarian, but they might taste good with some bacon too. If you want to serve it at a more formal affair for guests, then these ingredients are classic, not overpowering, and hard to mess up!

1 1/2 bags of frozen spinach (about 3-4 cups), thawed
2 shallots chopped
2 tbsp. garlic chopped
olive oil

Fry the shallot and garlic in the olive oil. If you're adding bacon, then chop it into small squares and add it at this time. I wouldn't add more than 1.5 to 2 strips, so that the bacon flavor doesn't overpower the other lovely but subtle flavors. Thaw the frozen spinach in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Add to the garlic/shallot fry and continue to fry the spinach until cooked. If using bacon, then wait until the bacon is cooked to add the spinach.

For the egg batter:
9-10 eggs
1 cup ricotta cheese, strained overnight in a strainer placed over a bowl so excess water is extracted
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
salt to taste
1 tsp. black or white pepper
1 tsp. dried rosemary

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix the ricotta and Parmesan together until incorporated. Add the eggs and beat with a hand mixer until you get a smooth yellow batter. Add nutmeg, salt, pepper, and rosemary to season once the batter is smooth. Once the spinach is done, let it cool for 5-10 minutes and fold it into the egg batter. Make sure it's not piping hot, so it doesn't scramble the egg in your batter! Mix it together with your spoon.

Rub the bottom and sides of a 9x15 baking pan with a thin sheen of olive oil. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake on the bottom rack of the oven for approximately 40 minutes or until browned on sides and fork in center comes out clean.

Some variations might be cutting onion into strips and caramelizing it, and then adding it separately to egg batter from cooked spinach. Caramelized onion would be awesome in this recipe, especially if you add bacon.

You can serve with Tabasco and sour cream, or just Tabasco.

Some woes too

2010-09-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of days last week were terrible food-wise. Maybe after the Singapore noodles, I got cocky and turned wannabe-pro, but i started making things up left and right in non-comfort zones, and it blew up. I'll give you a taste (by pun only) here:

My local grocery store somewhat rarely has lamb in the cut that we like, so when they have it, I stock up. I bought the lamb last week sometime, intending to use it over the next few days, but it got so busy that I didn't cook. Fearing that the lamb would go bad, and knowing that my disapproving mother would be visiting from Thursday through the weekend, I had to get rid of the lamb by Tuesday. First unwise choice of the week: I wanted to make something "inspired by David Rocco," outside of my comfort zone of Indian food, without following an actual recipe. Second, I wanted to throw in fresh herbs I've never cooked with before, because "they taste good in the lamb I have in restaurants." Third, the David Rocco recipe that I wanted to use as my starting point involved braising the meat in Chianti for 2 hours; the problem is, on the show he used REALLY GOOD Chianti. I went out and bought $13.99 Chianti on some liquor store schmuck's recommendation. Regarding cooking with wine, the good chefs always say don't ever cook with wine you wouldn't drink on its own. I obviously know this, so I don't know why I hastily came back home with this terrible stuff, but I just did. Narain didn't particularly care about the time; he was doing his own thing. I guess the thought of braising for 2 hours when it was already 6pm and I hadn't started cooking daunted me, as I was anticipating starting dinner around 9-10pm.

Basically the Chianti-braised beef recipe goes like this: fry some onions and garlic in olive oil. Dice about 2lbs. of meat into 1-in. pieces and sear with the garlic and onion. Then pour in about 2 cups of Chianti--just enough to cover the beef/lamb. Bring the wine to a boil, add salt, lower the heat to med-low and simmer for 2 hours. I substituted lamb, because I don't like cooking beef at home. But I figured, they're both red meats with similar flavors, so it'll be fine.

My maverick additions included adding a bunch of fresh thyme and Italian parsley. To me, Italian parsley is to Italian food what fresh coriander is to Indian food. The look and smell are very similar, so I figured its use must be just like coriander in Indian--that is, added liberally at the end of the cooking process. Of course, I wasn't completely right about when to add it, as I found some recipes online that put the parsley into the dish during the cooking process.

I was careful with the thyme, though, because I have added fresh rosemary liberally to dishes in the past and I HATE when it overpowers. Rosemary is a very strong herb, so since I didn't know much about thyme, I was careful. At the same time, I thought, I just had lamb with garlic and thyme at an Italian restaurant a week ago, and the thyme was all over it and it didn't taste bad...so maybe I could add lots of it and it will add flavor. The herbs thus went in with the searing lamb and garlic/onion. At first, I wanted to be artsy and left the thyme on the vine, but then I thought, well those vines are probably not pleasant to chew on, so let me rip the leaves off and spread it around. Ultimately, I don't think the herbs mattered. They certainly weren't overpowering and they did add flavor. The problem with the dish was the Chianti, which was so bitter that I couldn't truly enjoy the dish, although the lamb itself was lovely and tender after the 2 hour braising process.

The final taste was OK. It was edible. The biggest issue was the bitterness of the Chianti. Lesson learned is that you MUST use GOOD TASTING wine if you're cooking with wine as your gravy base. It's imperative. If your wine is too dry or bitter, then you're screwed. If you're just adding a glug or 2 for a kick, I think it's better than if you're adding a cup or more of the wine to boil down as a braising liquid. It's really really important. If I had used a better Chianti, this dish would have been really smooth. Even the liberal and amateurish use of herbs turned out FINE compared to this overpoweringly bitter wine.

Well that's all for my massive NOTE TO SELF.

Singapore Street Noodles with Fried Egg

2010-09-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

This recipe was inspired by Ching-He Huang's Singapore noodles from Cooking Channel. I made it my own by using grapeseed instead of peanut oil, adding garlic and shallot, halving the turmeric, adding more fresh and dry red chilis, and adding the fried eggs at the end. The original recipe also uses bean sprouts, which would have been fantastic, but unfortunately, they didn't have any at the grocery store, so I had to mix it up.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 chopped shallot
1 tbsp. chopped garlic
1 tbsp. grated ginger
2 fresh red chilis
10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp. ground turmeric
3 1/2 ounces diced smoked bacon
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 handful julienned carrot strips
3 1/2 ounces cooked chicken breast, shredded (lamb or beef would be awesome too)
8 ounces dried vermicelli rice noodles, pre-soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained
1 tbsp. dried chili flakes
2 tbsp. lite soy sauce
2 tbsp. oyster sauce
1 tbsp. some kind of white vinegar (regular, rice, or cider vinegar)
1 egg, beaten
Dash toasted sesame oil
2 spring onions (green), sliced
2 additional eggs fried sunny side up, as a side.

Directions

Heat the oil in a wok or pan, and when hot, stir-fry the ginger, garlic, shallots, red chilis, mushrooms and turmeric for a few seconds. Add the bacon, and cook for less than 1 minute. Add the red bell pepper, carrots, and bean sprouts and cook for another minute, then add the cooked chicken, and stir well to combine.

Add the noodles, and stir-fry well, for 2 minutes, then season with the chilis, soy sauce, oyster sauce and vinegar. Stir to combine. You have to work it quite vigorously to get all the ingredients mixed with the noodles, which overwhelm at first.

Add in the beaten egg, stirring gently until the egg is cooked through, less than 1 minute. The egg kind of disappears into the dish; you don't see strips or anything really, but that egg flavor is really good. Then, season with the sesame oil. Sprinkle over the spring onions.

Fry sunny side up eggs in a separate pan. Make sure the center is still a little uncooked. Serve the egg as a side to the noodle once you plate (not pictured). Add Sriracha sauce too if you like.

Response:

We LOVED this dish. It reminded me of hole in the wall Asian restaurant food. The most labor-intensive part is shredding chicken; it's really easy to do but time-consuming. Cooked chicken has a natural pattern of lines and you just pull it apart along its natural lines. It's also really fun to cook vermicelli noodles...you don't need boiling water, just hot water. It's great. This meal also made me realize that I need to cook with bacon more often! What got me really excited was that I got to try out my new Wusthof chef's knife,using it for everything from the chicken and bacon to the spring onion. Sliced through like a dream! This is a good dish for having friends over or to eat really really late night after a night out.

I think I'm going to use this dish to invent some chicken or lamb coconut semia. Semia is basically Indian-style vermicelli noodles. Cook it up upma style with some mustard seeds, green chilis, tomato, dry roasted coconut, OGG...it will be wonderful. Yum! Next time.

Happy Recipe-ing.

Indian Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2010-09-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 4, 2010
Indian BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich

One word: Yummmmmmmm.

My greatest hurdle of late has been weening myself off of the recipe book dependence. I think the most liberating thing for a home chef is knowing enough tricks to intuit a recipe without looking at the book! It boils down to (pun intended) knowing what combination of ingredients work; you are confident enough in your culinary learning that you can guess what will taste good. The most intimidating arena for the more-than-novice-but-less-than-expert cook, however, is fusion food. I know that ginger/garlic/onion/red chili powder/cumin/coriander is a no-fail combo in Indian cooking. But throw it in with bbq sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and beer?! What's gonna happen? Well I know Indian spices always complement tomato. BBQ sauce is a sort of derivative of tomato (esp. if you have ketchup in there). Moreover, if it works in quesadillas with adobo spices--like smoked chili powder, cumin, onion/garlic powder, paprika...maybe it will work with Indian spices, like cumin/coriander/dry red chili powder. It seemed like there would be enough overlap for the combination to work. A total crap shoot, but it's only by being a little eccentric with these dishes, will I develop something great and unique. And by experimenting, I can take it even further and try other fusions too. Spices are pretty global after all. Cumin, for example, is used abundantly in Indian, Latin, and Middle Eastern cuisines. Chili powder of course, is incredibly diverse; people sun-dry chilis all over the world for fantastic smoky flavor in dishes. Types of chili vary by climate, so you get such a variety of flavors for what is essentially the same element. When I visit India, my grandmother always has hundreds red chilis laid out on a sheet, drying on the roof.

The combination rocks. We had the pulled pork sandwiches, with some chocolate cake I baked from scratch (including icing), and some sweet iced tea! It was totally southern, (with a little Indian fusion).

The recipe for the Indian pulled pork is as follows:

Ingredients:
1 bottle of light beer (anything you have in the fridge. I used Red Stripe)
2 tbsp. papaya nectar or canned papaya hand-crushed to equal 2 tbsp.
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup good store-bought or homemade BBQ sauce
1 tbsp. cumin seeds
1 tbsp. coriander seeds
3 dry red chilis
About 2 lbs. of pork tenderloin or 4 pork chops
1 onion roughly chopped
2 generous rounded tbsp. of roughly chopped garlic
1-2 tbsp. roughly chopped ginger
oil for frying
salt to taste
1 tsp. red chili powder
hamburger buns or whatever bread you like to eat with pulled pork
garnish with onions and chopped green chili if desired

Utensils needed:
spice grinder, blender, 2 saute pans, 1 big pot, 2 forks for pulling the pork

Pour the beer, papaya, ketchup, Worcestershire and bbq sauce into a big pot and cook on medium heat until well mixed and semi-boiling. In another pan, heat oil and saute onions, garlic, and ginger (OGG) until onions turn translucent. The more caramelized the OGG, the better. In another small pan, roast dry red chilis, cumin, and coriander seeds (meaning NO OIL), until they smell smoky and hot, and then put into a spice grinder. Grind the roasted spices and add 2 tbsp. of the grounds to the bbq sauce, reserving the remaining spice mixture for later. If your OGG are cooked, then put them into the blender and blend into a paste, oil and all. I know I said in an earlier post that I don't generally make pastes, but this is the exception, because there's already plenty of texture in pulled pork, and I like the sauce to be smooth, so the main texture comes from the meat.

Add the OGG paste to the bbq sauce. Keep that going on medium-high heat so it gets blended and cooked well. Chop the pork chops in half or so and add to the bbq sauce pan. Turn heat to medium-low and cover. Slow cook the pork for 40 minutes. After slow cooking is done pull out the pork chops and lay them onto your cutting board or a clean stain-proof surface. At this point, with your 2 forks, fork apart the pork (which should be tender enough to break apart), and pull it into linear pieces. Try to fork it into as thin as pieces as you can.

Once all the pork is forked apart, add the forked pork back to the bbq sauce. Stir and incorporate the pork back into the sauce until well-coated. Cook back on medium heat for about 10 minutes. In the same pan in which you fried the OGG, add a little oil and fry the remaining ground spices until aromatic. Add the fried spices to the pork. Add the additional tsp. of red chili powder, and salt to taste. Let cook for another 5 minutes and voila!

You can toast your buns or eat them at room temp. After toasting the buns (which we did), scoop a heaping amount of the pork onto your bun. Chop a little white onion and a green chili and put it on top of the pork. Enjoy.

Anda Curry with Aloo (Egg and Potato Curry)

2010-08-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

Dish for Monday night, August 30, 2010: Ripa's Anda Curry with Aloo, Baltimore, MD

This is a gravy dish. Serve with rice or roti/toasted pita. Plain Yogurt is also a good complement for most Indian savory dishes if you like to mitigate spiciness. The recipe was given to me by a friend who happens to be from the Bengal region of India (eastern coast). The sugar at the end is common in a lot of dishes of North India, particularly in Gujarat, where it is most common to combine savory and sweet flavors in dishes. In fact, Gujaratis are known for using an ingredient called "Gor," also known as "jaggery," which is basically a raw, molasses-type sugar in many of their main dishes. I think it's concentrated juice of sugar cane where molasses has not yet been extracted.

Regarding the recipe, I think it's a great dish if you want the essence of egg in a curry, but not the full flavor. The addition of the potato really neutralized the egg flavor. Also, I used only 1 potato, but it gave the gravy an excellent consistency. When I first started cooking Indian food, I would often make the mistake of adding water to tomato-based gravy dishes at the end before slow cooking, and this would make the final product a little too watery. I always like to make sure gravy is thick and no water is visible. If it appears watery, I usually slow cook it for additional time with a lid on the pan, until the water boils off. Now, I rarely add water at the end, mostly because tomatoes have so much water already in them, that you don't even need to add additional water once the tomatoes start melting in the pan during slow cooking. The addition of boiled potato to this dish however, really made the gravy thick. I think the egg yolk also contributed to that actually, because when you slice the hard-boiled eggs and stir them into the pot, the egg yolks incorporate with the masala, and you really only see the whites. When my husband makes his egg curry (which I'll definitely post, because it's awesome!), it is without potato, and you taste yolk a lot more prominently. I chose the recipe because I was intrigued by the egg-potato combo and I just really like the flavor of boiled potato.

The other key ingredient in egg curry is CUMIN. Roasted cumin is absolutely delicious when used generously in this dish. First, it's highly aromatic, but the flavor also goes very well with tomato-based curries. Note how the recipe calls for 1 tbsp. of cumin seeds as well as 1 tbsp of cumin powder. In addition to that, I added 1 tsp. of fried cumin seeds at the end for an extra kick, as part of the "tadka," which is basically what we do at the end of the cooking process to infuse additional flavored oil and spice to the dish. In a separate pan, just add oil and fry 1 tsp. of cumin only. Once fried, pour it along with the hot oil over the pan containing the egg and potato dish. It adds awesome extra flavor. Hot oil with freshly fried spices over a prepared dish where the main spices are already incorporated is superb! But of course, tadka is best when done just before serving.

I also hand chopped fresh garlic, onion, and ginger. I did not make anything into a paste, just chopped everything finely and fried. I just did that because it's my preference; I like the crunch of the garlic/ginger/onions, and I have found that ginger/garlic/onion pastes leave the masala (or base) without much texture. I pureed 2 fresh tomatoes in the blender. Surprisingly, I also found that the dish got very dry toward the end, but it made sense because the yolk and potato probably absorbed most of the liquid. So, I splashed low sodium chicken broth in it several times, which thinned the gravy and increased the volume. I found also that it required a lot of salt, so that kept going in as well. Finally, because I kept adding the broth, I also found that it was not spicy enough, so I added an extra 1/4 tsp. of red chili powder as well as a chopped up green chili at the end. We ate it with plain yogurt and carrot pickle.

Ingredients:
6 large eggs
1 potato
salt to taste
oil for frying (the recipe prefers mustard or vegetable oil, I often use olive because it's healthier, though olive oil is not traditional to Indian cooking)
1-2 cinnamon sticks
1 large onion
2 vine ripe tomatoes or 1 16oz. can of tomato puree
2 tbsp ginger
2-3 tbsp. garlic (according to taste)
1 tbsp cumin seeds ("jeera")
1/2 tsp. red chili powder
2 whole dry red chilis (I tear them up into the pan)
3-4 broken up dry bay leaves
1-2 tsp of garam masala
1 tbsp of cumin powder
1 tbsp of coriander powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp sugar

1. Boil eggs and potato until eggs are cooked and potato is fork tender. Add some salt while boiling. Make some holes in the potato with a fork for salt absorption. The original recipe called for a pressure cooker, but the times vary on those, so if you're more comfortable boiling, just boil in a regular pot. The pressure cooker took me about 30 minutes to get everything boiled.
2. Make onion tomato paste in blender (alternate: use tomato puree (canned) and
ﬁnely chopped onions)
3. Fry cumin, dry red chilli (powder as well as whole chilli), bay leaves, in oil. (you may
use mustard/vegetable oil) You may add cinnamon sticks if available. Add ginger
garlic paste and onions thereafter. If you are not using a paste let the onions turn
golden brown and follow the steps below.
4. Add garam masala (1-2 tsp), coriander and cumin powders (1-2 tbsp each). Let the masala
turn brown. Add tomato sauce and allow these things to cook well. Stir and fry well till deep brown.
5. Peel off potatoes and eggs till the masala cooks. Add a little bit of turmeric and red
chilli powder. You may also add a little mustard oil to marinate.
6. After the masala is cooked add the potatoes and eggs. Add some water depending
on how thick or thin you want the gravy to be . Add salt to taste. Allow it too cook for a
little while. You may add a about 1-2 tsp of sugar.
7. Allow it to cook for a little while and its ready !!

Kozhy Korambu and Carrot Curry

2010-08-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

Recipe for Sunday, August 29, 2010: Bal Arneson's South Indian Style Chicken (with Dry Carrot Curry on the side)

Preliminarily, I made these 2 dishes because of the extra kick that I thought having the carrot would give the overall meal. I only have a very few cooking tricks up my sleeve, and I must admit my husband is responsible for a lot of them. Not only because he's a good cook, but he's a good eater. He's SUPER picky, but he's also a great critic. For example, in Indian cooking, we often serve side dishes, or subzis, with main dishes. He told me once that you can never have a gravy side dish with a gravy main dish. You have to do one dry and one gravy. This makes a lot of sense because the dry vegetable will add a nice crunch to the gravy-soaked rice and meat that comprise the main dish. This is why I made the dry carrot to accompany the chicken.

I love the way this chicken turned out. I chose this recipe because I noticed that sambar powder was one of the ingredients that comprised the spice mix. My basic North Indian/Pakistani chicken curry in the past has been just chicken, red chili powder, turmeric, coriander powder, cumin, with garlic/onion/ginger, salt, tomato, and a little garam masala and cilantro leaves to garish at the end. The same formula is interchangeable with countless meats/vegetables/lentils. Honestly, it's boring. I'm always looking out for dishes that utilize different kind of spices. Lately, I've tried to choose dishes with at least 1 spice deviation from the above formula; it has to have 1 different spice that I haven't used or I've only used like once or twice. I've stocked my spice cabinet with things like kalonji (onion seeds I think), mace, fennel seed, fenugreek seed, anise seed, ajwain, etc., in the hopes of one day using it in some exotic recipe. Unfortunately, the utility of a lot of these spices has been limited by my amateurism--with the exception of fennel and fenugreek. I do, however, dream of the day when I'll casually adopt them in my weekday dinner repertoire without too much excitement.

Back to the recipe. The only changes I made were adding a chopped up green chili at the end, using fewer curry leaves (not by choice), and substituting low sodium chicken broth for the water at the end. Curry leaves are extremely common in South India, which happens to be where I'm from, and unfortunately, I realized I only had about seven leaves left after I already started cooking. "No matter" you might say? Nooooo....curry leaves are a cornerstone of the South Indian culinary tradition. They bring a sharp spicy (but not hot) kick to often creamy curries. I was immediately annoyed that I didn't have the 1/4 cup that the recipe called for. In any event, the last change I made was that I slow cooked the chicken. It seems from the video that Bal only cooks the chicken for like 12 minutes. I had it slow cooking for almost an hour--mostly to keep it warm, tenderize the chicken, and let the flavors mix well. I wonder if that dumbed the flavor of the sambar powder down a little...but at the end of the cooking process, the strongest flavor that seemed to emerge was the coconut milk. I love coconut milk, but I'm not sure I like it to be the dominant flavor. That was really the only drawback, and it might have been my own fault for letting it cook for that long. Optimally, I would have liked the sambar flavor to have been dominant, because this dish is pretty much the South Indian dish "Kozhy Korambu," ( கோழி கோரம்பு) or chicken sambar. On the other hand, I was pretty happy with the subtlety of the flavor, because I'm kind of risk-averse when it comes to new dishes, and if I had gone overboard with the spicing, then I would not have had good things to say here, and it would have made for a very bad first post.

A new trick I learned from my husband initially, but then from Bal, is adding kadugu (mustard seeds) AFTER starting the frying of the garlic/ginger/onions. Growing up, my mom always used to fry mustard seeds first before adding any other ingredients to the pan. What this does is make the mustard seeds pop and I always thought that the opened mustard seeds was what spread the flavor through the dish. In this recipe, however, notice how Bal adds the seeds after starting the fry of onions/garlic/ginger. At the end of the segment, when taking her first taste, she says something to the effect of "the mustard seeds are popping open in my mouth." Well shoot! As much as I love my mom's method, having the seeds pop in my mouth instead of the pan makes the flavor in the seeds come out in my mouth, which makes it stronger somehow. I also just like the extra little crunch it gives.

Dry Carrot Curry

This turned out pretty awesome too. It went well with Kozhy Korambu because of the garlic I added. Again, my mom's traditional South Indian recipe forbids garlic, because it's not historically used in our cooking--mostly because my ancestors were strict vegetarians (I don't even think that's the right word for what they were, since there are many vegetarian things even that they don't eat, but they're avid dairy consumers so it's not vegan either)...anyway, garlic was traditionally "frowned upon" because it's a root vegetable, so you kill the entire plant when picking it from the ground. As a result, some strict, strict Hindus wouldn't even use it in their cooking, because of the harm to the plant. The flavor of garlic/onion can also be seen as somewhat incompatible with the cooking, if you're a purist. My grandmother actually revolutionized our home food by introducing onion into the dinner mix. Garlic, she still finds scandalous, but sometimes she sneaks it into rasams for my cousin Govind and I, because it's a bit of a thrill to introduce rebellion into her simple life. In that sense, traditional iyengar sambar (what my ancestors made) DEFINITELY is not made with chicken. When I first learned that such a thing existed, I actually cringed, because it felt a little sacreligious (not that I'm even that religious), but anyway. As I got used to the idea, it seemed more and more yummy (as long as it didn't include the dhal).

Back to the carrot!

The Dry Carrot Curry recipe is as follows:
Ingredients
1. About 2 double handfuls of carrots chopped up
2. 1/4 tsp of turmeric
3. 1/3 tsp of red chili powder
4. 2 tsp of chopped garlic (or less if you want less garlic flavor. If you don' t like garlic, omit it altogether)
5. 1 tsp of black mustard seeds
6. salt to taste
7. oil for frying
Recipe
Add a couple tablespoons of oil to the pan. Put in the carrots and garlic. Fry for 3 minutes. Add the mustard seeds, turmeric, red chili powder, and salt. Keep tossing and frying. When it starts getting dry but not cooked, sprinkle water. Repeat the sprinkling every time it gets dry so the carrot cooks through and doesn't burn. Do not pour water, because it will make the carrots soggy. Total cooking time is about 20-25 minutes.

This is a simple but satisfying addition to the Kozhy Korambu recipe. You can also do potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, turnips or other root veg that will give you a nice crunch when paired with the gravy of the sambar.

Happy recipe-ing!

inspirations

2010-08-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is for me write about my culinary experiences. I have silent dreams of becoming a travel and food writer, and maybe this blog will give me the gusto to take what has long been a passion to a higher level. There are a few reasons I care so much about food: (1) I love every cuisine more than anyone I know (except Ethiopian for some reason, although Zed's in Washington, DC is the one exception); (2) I desperately enjoy cooking for others and seeing their faces when they enjoy my dish; (3) I yearn to learn tricks of the trade; (4) I envy people like Anthony Bourdain and David Rocco who have made careers out of traveling and cooking. Cooking is both entertainment and survival; indulgence as well as simplicity. I love that I can enjoy doing something that is a necessity of life.

Sources of culinary inspiration are everywhere. There are all the restaurants and chefs in New York City and on Food Network/Cooking Channel/Travel Channel, that I like to review and discuss. There are also mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, cousins, and family friends who made age-old classics that we grew up eating, but perhaps took for granted because they weren't necessarily served on a silver platter with mint leaves arranged vertically to make a triangular point on top. I want to document all of the artistry around me in one place, hoping to spawn my own culinary ideas through cooking and writing (my only valuable professional skill in my opinion). The main idea of this blog is for me to try out recipes and see how they turn out. This includes recipes from TV, but also from my collection of "Auntie recipes." I hope to create a museum of traditional regional family recipes that people can refer to so all the classics don't get lost in future generations. Lastly, I want to start making up my own recipes and see if I can actually come up with something good. I think there are enough sites that publish restaurant reviews, so I may stay away from that, but I do like keeping a running tab of fabulous NYC restaurants. In the process of writing, I hope to improve my own cooking and attempt to experience the world of gourmet cooking from the comfort of my own home.