Sweet Saffron Rice with Currants & Pistachios, Green Beans in Yogurt-Cashew Sauce, and Pineapple & Green Peas in Almond Broth

(Meetha Kesari Bhat, Barbatti Tari Sabji, & Ananas Hari Matar Shorba)

This time, the green beans stole the show. Yum. The original recipe calls for a yogurt-poppy seed sauce, but Yamuna says either white poppy seeds or chopped cashews. I opted for the cashews to finish off my stock. The yogurt sauce was absolutely delicious, with chiles, ginger, cumin seeds, and cilantro. Fried and yummy.

The pineapple was so fresh and delicious that it was a shame to cook it. Fortunately, I learned how to cut up a pineapple from a friend while we were in Trinidad last spring. The combination with the peas was nice. A key ingredient in the broth was saffron. Blanched almonds, cashews, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, and grated coconut went into making the almond broth. Quite subtle and good.

The rice was a new favorite of mine, although it turned out much sweeter than I expected. As a result, we ate it separate rather than putting the pineapple dish with it as I had original planned. It involved three different pans. One for the rice, one for a cardamom-saffron syrup, and one for toasting almonds and raisins. A lot of work, but a delicious rice dish.

White Radishes with Pumpkin, Plantain Clusters, and Chickpea-Spinach Salad (Mooli Kaddu Foogath, Khasa Kacha Kela Bhaji, and Kabli Chana Palak Salaad)

Okay, this is a meal I made a couple of weeks ago for two colleagues while my partner was visiting family in Mexico. October 22, I believe. The star of the meal was definitely the Radish-Pumpkin dish. The fried daikon radishes (mooli) again turned out yummy. This time seasoned with ginger, cumin, black mustard, fenugreek, curry leaves, hing, cayenne, turmeric, coriander, and a new ingredient for me, amchoor. Together with the pumpkin, it was delicious.

The shredded plantain clusters tasted link fried plantain. This dish also had hing--in the form of seasoned butter. I think in the future, I'd leave that out. It just made the dish too greasy. Also, I chose a pan without nonstick coating, and they kind of stuck, despite a lot of oil. That was frustrating.

The salad was delicious. It even kept for the next day, but not beyond. Since it's a large recipe, I think in the future I will not make this salad unless it is for a very large group or as the main dish. Tasty, though, with chickpeas, celery and mustard seeds, hing, and a number of vegetables and other dressing ingredients.

The special ingredient for the evening was hing (asafetida), which turned out to be in all three dishes.

Pumpkin Pakora with Crushed Coriander Seeds (Kaddu Pakora)

Another late post. I made this last Saturday (Oct 17). My partner had been out of town and was back for one day before heading off to Mexico for a week and a have. To commemorate our day together, I made pumpkin pakora. Peeling and slicing pumpkin was an experience. I'd never really cooked with pumpkin before. I'd carved it, and I'd poured it out of a can into a pie tin. So, actually working with the vegetable was interesting. Like the zucchini pakora, this one seemed to need salt. Also, I think it needed a hot chutney (we had only the sweet tamarind one). They were good, and we finished them all, but I think slightly more ripe pumpkin, more salt, and a hotter chutney would have made this meal perfect.

Pickles

I forgot to mention this before. At the midweek meal (Oct. 7 or 8, posted on Oct. 11), we broke into the pickles. The jalapeños were DELICIOUS. OMG. Never tasted anything so ridiculously flavorful. They were HOT, though. Poor guests. They were clearly in pain, yet kept having more because they were so yummy. :-)

Eventually, we came up with the strategy of dropping the chiles into the soup for extra flavor and some insulation from the heat. I should have made a raita that night.

The limes were also tasty, but not as distinctive. To be fair, Yamuna suggests that they need several more months to peak, whereas the chiles are good after one month.

Mustard-Flavored Vegetable Soup, Tomatoes in Yogurt, and Tamarind Chutney (Laphra Vyanjan, Tamatar Raita, & Meetha Imli Chatni)

Okay, I'm behind on posting. I made this meal on October 11, when we had two friends over. The soup recipe allows you to choose "4 or 5 vegetables." I had a beet in the refrigerator, so decided to use that, along with carrot, celery, green beans, and, I think, zucchini. The beets dominated. It was sort of an Indian borscht . . . although, in the words of one guest, "better than borscht." It was very tasty. Not exactly "mustard flavored," I have to say, but delicious nonetheless. I blanched my first peanuts for the recipe.

That tomato raita went very well with the soup. Just added a dollop and it smoothed out the soup and made it even richer. If I redid this recipe, I would probably use cherry tomatoes instead of regular.

The tamarind chutney was, frankly, a bit disappointing. Not terrible, but it was a fair amount of work to rehydrate and strain the dried tamarind, but the result wasn't what I think of when I imagine a delicious tamarind chutney. There's another tamarind chutney recipe. I'll try that one next time.

Pakora and Halva

Okay, so we had friends over again, as I said in the last post. A colleague and her husband, who is a director and was briefly back in town after filming in Iowa. Against my partner's better judgment, I decided to try something completely new: Pakora.

First, I finally made the Mint Chutney (Podina Chatni) I've been threatening to make for weeks. To make things easier, I found frozen grated coconut, so I don't have to repeat the coconut ordeal again. The chutney was delicious.

It accompanied Zucchini Pakora with Crushed Peanuts (Louki Pakora) and Bell Pepper Pakora with Nigella (Kalonji) Seeds (Simla Mirch Pakora). The pakora each used different batters, so it ended up being a fair amount of work. They worked perfectly, though. The batter coated perfectly and didn't come off in the frying. I was nervous about frying things. Never really battered things and fried them before. It probably would have been easier with a deep fryer, but the frying pan was fine. Having a thermometer and some silicone tongs helped considerably. As to the flavors, the kalonji batter on the bell peppers was definitely tastier, while the peanut-based batter seemed to need a little salt.

For a main course, I repeated the yummy vegetable soup in the pressure cooker. But for dessert, I decided to try Indian Halva. Yum! I was not optimistic, since I'm not a fan of Indian desserts, but this was scrumptious. Probably more raisins next time.

Back in Business: Kitchen Remodel

Well, plans have been seriously derailed by an impromptu kitchen remodel that was ill-timed with the beginning of the fall term. The combination of a changed schedule and an upended kitchen put me completely off-track with the cooking plan, but I'm back again this week. Had to invite friends over in order to make the last push to clean things up and dust off my pots, but it worked and we had a nice mid-week dinner with friends (next post).