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).

Vegetable Soup and Papaya Salad (Sabji Shorba & Papita Salaad)

These were both very popular with my partner. I figured he would like them. The salad was practically Mexican: papaya, avocado, lime, honey. The recipe calls for Jerusalem artichokes, or "sunchokes," but the grocery store didn't have them. Thank goodness for iPhones! I was half ready to buy regular artichokes when I decided to Google them. Turns out they are completely different things. A Jerusalem artichoke, it turns out, is a tuber. The internet suggested turnips as a possible substitution, so I went with that. When I returned home, I checked the cookbook, which suggests jicama or celeriac. Those would have been nice, but the turnips turned out just fine.

The soup was a bit of an adventure. I hadn't noticed that the recipe calls for a pressure cooker. No alternate instructions. Yamuna simply assumes that you have a pressure cooker. It turns out that I do have a pressure cooker, but I'd never used it. I got it from my aunt about a year ago, but there's no instruction booklet, so I had to just go with intuition. Fortunately, it's pretty much idiot proof. Its a newer pressure cooker, and electric one, so it doesn't have the little rocker piece. Instead, it's all digital and pretty self-explanatory.

The soup was great. A million ingredients: tomatoes, carrots, celery, potatoes, zucchini, corn, green beans, spinach, and whole barley, wheat, and rye, plus two kinds of rice and split green peas. Yum!

Pickled Jalapeños (Har Mirch Achar)

Not a lot to report. Last weekend was a vacation weekend. We hiked with some friends nearly to the summit of Mt. Hood. It's strange that I grew up in the shadow of that mountain and yet never imagined hiking to the top of it...

When I got back home, I made a point of finally pickling the jalapeños I'd bought at the farmer's market a week earlier. I chose the more complicated of the two recipes for this dish. It involved dry roasting some black mustard, cumin, and fenugreek seeds, grinding them into a powder, adding some more spices, and stuffing the chiles with the spice mix before pickling them in mustard oil and lemon juice. My previous experiences with grinding fenugreek had not gone well, but it seemed to grind up easily after the dry roasting. Should be ready after a week. I can't wait to try, although it looks like this is a spicy one.

Chickpeas in Tomato Glaze, Spinach, Fresh Fruit, and Tomato Soup (Tamatar Kabli Chana Usal, Sak, Phal Chat, and Tamatar Shorba)

More dinner guests. A good friend and a couple who recently moved to Eugene from Utah. The double batch of Khichari that my partner made me make for dinner on Tuesday was still only have eaten, so I served that again, reheated, rather than make a new dal and/or rice. Still really good. There was also still tomato chutney and raita left over. There wasn't a lot of raita, so I filled it out with the last of the leftover plain yogurt. Oh, I also repeated the tomato soup from last week. Still good. It was nice to make it again, and I kept the cream from separating this time.

The Chickpeas were a repeat. I've made them before, and loved them. They did not disappoint this time around. The dish was one of the first I ever made using fresh curry leaves. I've always used Yamuna's substitution of lime juice before, but this time I actually got the Chat Masala that the recipe calls for. Definitely made a difference. And, another new ingredient for me. The key ingredient in Chat Masala, by the way, is mango powder.

The spinach is a delicious dish (another repeat) with sauteed cashews and currants and slices of ginger. Scrumptious. For dessert, I opted for fresh kiwi and berries in a delicious citrus dressing that Yamuna lists under "Phal Chat."

I tried to make a Coconut & Mint Chutney, but ran out of time. I got as far as opening the coconut, prying the flesh out and grating it. That was an ordeal.... I also blanched some almonds. That was a trip. Never peeled an almond before. Both new experiences, but no chutney yet.

Rice & Mung Dal Kichari, Sesame Yogurt Potatoes, and Spiced Green Beans (Gobhi Moong Dal Khichari, Masala Barbatti Sabji, Ekadasee Til Aloo Bhaji)

Dinner with guests. We had a new coworker and her husband and daughter over, and another friend who's partner is out of town. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal.

I made the Sesame Yogurt Potatoes, which is one of my favorite dishes not just in this cookbook but ever. I've made it over and over again for years. In fact, for close to a decade it was the only dish I ever made out of this cookbook. I'd never made it with homemade yogurt before, though. Yum.

The Spiced Green Beans were another repeat. I'd made that dish earlier this summer. Very tasty.

Which brings us to the new dish. Rice and Mung Dal Khichari with Cauliflower and Peas. A Khichari, according to Yamuna, is "a nutritious stew featuring dals and rice, heightened by exquisite spicing." I've never made or had anything quite like it. Rice and dal in the same dish, with vegetables. I was a bit worried about it, because the dinner time changed at the last minute from 7 to 6, so I had to start cooking everything at 4:30, with only and hour and a half. The recipe requires up to an hour and a half just for the final part of the khichari. Since I'd doubled the batch, I had to wait for two cups of rice and just over a cup of dal to cook in 14 cups of water. I thought it might be done about the time the guests left. However, Krishna must have been looking out for me, because it finished up after maybe 40 minutes and was done in time for dinner. I also accidentally added the ground coriander for the beans into the Khichari. Still, the Khichari was tasty. Not my favorite dish ever, but very good. And it went nicely with the tomato chutney.

Tomato Chutney and Carrot, Cashew, & Date Raita (Tamatar Chatni & Gajar Kaju Raita))

Guests over last night. I make the tomato chutney the night before. It came out very well. My first experience using jaggery, and Indian sweetener. It comes in little blocks, but the recipe call for it in tablespoons. I think I used too much. The chutney tastes like a sweet, seasoned catsup. Not bad, but I'd probably prefer it a little less sweet. I used the jaggery in the raita the next morning and grated it first so it approximated granulated sugar. That made for easier measuring.

The raita was great. Now, again, I'm not someone who likes yogurt usually, but the homemade yogurt was very different. Not as tart, smoother, fresher tasting. I got to hang it in cheesecloth to drain for a few hours and then combined it with the dried dates, carrots, cashews, jagger, and other seasonings. It came out wonderfully.

Mango Jam (Aam Murabba)

Revelatory! I am getting use out of my enamel stock pot. I stayed up late last night to make the mango jam. Not too difficult, and it's delectable. Finished at 2:30 a.m. Today, we're going wine tasting with friends, and I will bring along my jam with some crackers and cream cheese.

Then, tonight, I'll tackle raita and chutney.

Yogurt, Ghee, and Lime Pickles (Dahi, Sada Ghee, Nimbu Achar)

Okay, yogurt is not too hard to make, but you have to have the right equipment. I do not have the right equipment. Namely, a 2 quart dish I can put in a luke-warm oven without spilling boiled milk all over everything in sight. The yogurt is in the oven now, where it has been for the past two and a half hours. In another two and a half hours, I'll check it to see if it's done. I am fully expecting to have botched it.

All told, the process of making yogurt and ghee took about twice as long as I was expecting. The ghee turned out okay, I think, although it's a small batch. My food processor can't handle more than a pint of liquid at a time, which means I can only make half a pound of butter at a time. Rather than do two batches of butter for one batch of ghee, I tried a half-batch of ghee. That, however, meant a fairly small amount of ghee for a fairly large amount of work. Oh well, it smells and tastes good. Slightly nutty, like butter candy without the sugar.

The pickled limes were amazingly simple. Right now, they are cooling before I seal them up. Then, in a month or so, I can taste them and see if they came out okay. The hardest part of the recipe was sterilizing the canning jars. Well, actually, the hardest part is setting it out in the sun every day for three weeks...since I live in Oregon, in the woods, where there is no sun. I'm still thinking about how to substitute for warm sunlight.

Well, I'm exhausted and this all took way to much time, so I'm leaving the pickled jalapeños for tomorrow, along with the mango jam and the chutneys and raita for Tuesday's meal. Since my partner and I are going wine tasting tomorrow, I'm not sure when I'll find the time for everything. Wish me luck.

Shopping

Today was a shopping day. Five hours of it. I realized yesterday that I wasn't going to make it through 500 and some recipes in a year if I didn't make around 10-12 per week. This past week I managed six. Not so good.

So, this weekend I'm planning on making some pickles, jam, ghee, and yogurt. Chutney on Monday, and then we're having friends over for dinner on Tuesday. That should get my count up. I needed a nonreactive pan to pickle the limes in, so I went to Hartwick's (an upscale kitchen store) and got an enameled stainless steel stock pot by Le Creuset. Fifty bucks! Later, I was at the Mexican/Middle Eastern grocery and saw enameled pots for $15. Live and learn, I guess.

Overall, it was a day of buying many things. I started at the farmer's market and stocked up on chiles and green beans, carrots and tomatoes, cauliflower and cilantro. Then, I went to Hartwick's for the pan and some canning jars (I got two, one for each of the pickle recipes, but forgot to get one for the mango jam....just realized that). I also got some nice tongs and a few other things. Next up was the Mexican/Middle Eastern grocery.....where I bought a coconut. Never bought one before and I'm a bit nervous about it. Also got key limes and a mango. I had to go to another store (Down to Earth) for cheesecloth, because Hartwick's was out. Then, off to Vishnu's for jaggery (giant, brown sugary-salty cubes), kalonji (which Yamuna calls "nigella seeds"), and sesame oil.

Should be an interesting few days. Tomorrow: pickled lime, pickled jalapeños, homemade yogurt, and mango jam.

PS--I had wanted to make gooseberry chutney, but couldn't find gooseberries anywhere. I know I saw them at the farmer's market last week. The woman at the supermarket said they have a short growing season. Guess I'll have to wait until next August to try the gooseberry chutney....

Homemade Butter (Makhan), Tomato Soup (Tamatar Shorba), and Cucumber & Ginger Salad (Adrak Kheera Kachamber)

OMG! I made butter. The recipe looked easy and Yamuna said it was easy. Still, I didn't really believe that it would be easy. It was like jumping into a pool. The hardest part was making the decision to do it. Then, it was easy. And delicious.

I cooked with it, including this delicious herbed butter (with cayenne, mustard, horseradish, and salt and pepper) that went into the soup bowls before the soup. The soup. The SOUP! Stupendous! Miraculous! I could eat it all day every day. It had a pleasant heat, with pepper, ginger, cumin, and two hot peppers (one red, one yellow). Lots of tomatoes, an apple, some cream, a rue. Yamuna notes that the Bengali recipe has clear European influences. I assume that's the rue. Whatever, the flavor was unique and wonderful. The only problem was that the half and half separated. I hate that. Didn't affect the flavor, of course, but I wouldn't want to serve it that way to guests.

I couldn't find "cassia leaves" for the soup anywhere. The internet says they are also called tejpat. Anyway, I went to the Indian grocery (Vishnu India Imports). The lady looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for cassia leaves. I said they were like bay leaves and she sold me some bay leaves. The package spells them "bey leaves" and they are imported, so maybe they are cassia/tejpat leaves. The internet also says they are called "Indian bay leaves," although they are not related to bay ("laurel" in Spanish). Maybe I'll check the Middle Eastern/Mexican grocery downtown the next time I'm there.

To go with the soup, I made a salad. Cucumber, ginger, split mung dal, and lemons. It was okay, but nothing to write home about. Not like the soup. I also made some frozen dhosa. I didn't have cash when I went to Vishnu, and there was a minimum charge for credit cards. So I got some frozen dhosa and a mango. I'll have the mango later. The frozen dhosa were nice.

OMG! I made butter. I don't think I'll ever buy butter again!

Daikon Radish w/Greens, Mung Dal, and Sautéed Rice (Mooli Sabji, Sada Moong Dal, and Khara Chaval)

Wow. Okay, I'm someone who will avoid radishes in salads. I eat around them. I don't think I've had a daikon radish (mooli) since I was a kid in Japanese class in the 4th grade. This dish was amazing, though. Once they were steamed and fried in mustard oil with chard, the radishes were transformed. Wonderful.

I didn't use ghee for this (1) because I haven't tackled the ghee recipes yet and (2) because Yamuna gives me the option of mustard oil, which I've never used before. (Mustard oil, she writes, would likely be used for this dish in Kashmir.) As soon as it was heated, it gave off a wonderful fragrance of mustard. The other key ingredient was ajwain seeds (the package says ajman). Incredibly and distinctively fragrant. I'd never used them before. Along with the Mung Dal, that made for three new ingredients for me that I had to purchase from the Indian grocery. I think the woman who works there will be getting to know me.

The dal was delicious. My partner kept going back for seconds and third until there was almost nothing left. The rice...delicious, but less successful. I used brown basmati instead of white, so I think the recipe wasn't quite right. The rice ended up overcooked and a little soggy. I need to experiment with that to get the timing right. I've used a rice cooker my whole life, so this is not a skill set I've developed. Still, the addition of lime juice to the cooking water and the frying of the rice before cooking (in vegetable oil instead of ghee) made for a magical flavor.

All told, the meal was great. Revelatory flavors all.

PS-I had to make one other substitution. The recipe calls for radishes and chopped radish greens. Since the store did not sell the radishes with their greens, I followed Yamuna's suggestion and substituted rainbow chard. In the future, I think I would use mustard greens.

The Deal

Okay, this is one of the most unoriginal blogs ever. That's fine, you don't have to read it. Like everyone else, I saw Julie and Julia and was inspired to cook my way through a cookbook. Here's the catch, though, I'm a vegetarian. No aspics, no duck boning, no lobster boiling, no boeuf bourguignon. And braised cucumbers are not a meal. So, Julia Child was out. I'm Chicano and could go for Mexican food, but the vegetarian options, while yummy, are not exactly as year's worth of challenging recipes. So, I looked through my cookbooks and came across Yamuna Devi's The Best of Lord Krishna's Cuisine.

I've never found a bad recipe in it, but also haven't wandered very far into it. Two friends--one from Bengal, the other from Orissa--independently confirmed that it is the best Indian vegetarian cookbook out there. A quick perusal of on-line reviews confirmed this. India has a wonderfully rich and developed vegetarian cuising, and Devi does a great job of discussing its history, principles, and techniques. The book has about 170+ recipes, so I thought, this should be a snap. After all, I have a busy schedule and travel a lot, so Julie's 500+ in a year seemed a little unreasonable. Here's the catch, though. It turns out that The Best of Lord Krishna's Cuisine is made up a selections from the real cookbook, Lord Krishna's Cuisine. The shorter one, while more manageable, misses a lot. (The whole breads section, for example.) So, I should really commit to the 500+ recipes in the larger edition, which I obtained yesterday from Powell's.

I'll try to fill out more about the book and my plan later. I am starting today, though, September 1, 2009. I chose a dish I've never made before: White Radish with Chopped Radish Greens (Mooli Sabji), with Sautéed Rice (Khara Chaval) and Simple Mung Dal Soup (Sada Moong Dal).

Here goes!