Harvest Cooking

I have been doing some (not enough) cooking from fresh garden ingredients.  I used my radishes and swiss card and bell pepper to make the quinoa flax utthapam from Veg Inspirations.  I love healthy stuff. I made the batter from Usha's recipe (except I left out the cooked rice because I forgot to put it in).  It's been a bit cold here so it took a bit longer to ferment, but I was patient.  Then I sauteed my veggies and some black salt and mustard seeds and poured the batter on top.  This is exactly the opposite of how the recipe calls to make the dish, but the veggies I used definitely benefit from a quick saute.  The batter was pretty thick so I turned down the heat to low and covered the pan and let it cook slowly.  It turned out thick and hearty.  Mine came out thicker than the utthapam one might get at a restaurant and with a stronger flavor from the quinoa and brown rice.  But I like strong flavors, so that worked out OK for me.  Of course I ate it with coconut chutney.  It really is a meal in itself.
This morning, I made ... guess what... idli out of the batter.  No surprise that they came out great.  Took a bit longer to steam (about 20 minutes) than traditional idli. Of course I ate it with coconut chutney. 
I also make a nice coriander parsley chutney using a recipe from Manjula's Kitchen (Hari Chutney).  I have lots of parsley in the garden, so I did a half coriander half parsley chutney, but otherwise followed the recipe.  Came out great.  After I tasted it I went out to the back yard and sprinkled a packet of coriander seeds into a portion of a freshly dug bed.  Coriander is so easy to grow here, the perfect winter herb.  A few years ago I made the mistake of harvesting the seeds from our coriander while sitting on the lawn.  A month later and our lawn was sprouting coriander from the stray seeds.

I think I need to try something completely different from the things I have been cooking.  Not sure what that might be yet.  I haven't made a korma yet, so maybe...

Our New Friend Fish Tenga

There is something weird going on with our taste buds lately when it comes to fish. Lisa has made two of the most fantastic dishes back-to-back and while I have come as close to one can in terms of falling in love with a food, Lisa has not had quite the same reaction. I think it comes down to where your expectations are set. This adventure has raised the bar for us, maybe a little more for Lisa.

Fish tenga is a light and sour fish curry from northeast India. We used salmon for this with some tomatoes and potato. Thinking it over, we think we would have used sweet potato rather than a regular yellow potato. This was made based on a G. Ramsey recipe. There is a seemingly better recipe on healthy living India's web-site, which offers a spicy version of the dish.

http://www.healthylivingindia.org/2009/03/fish-tenga-recipe-spicy-tomato-fish.html

We will give this one a go and see if there is a desirable difference.

Cheers.

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Fish Tenga
from Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape

4 salmon steaks
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 tbsp of mustard oil
some coriander
2 green chillies (no seeds and chopped)
ginger to taste
5-6 garlic cloves (peeled and chopped - I would have gone with more garlic on this one)
1 tsp of ground tumeric
200 ml of H2O
1 large potato
4 tomatoes
Some fancy caster sugar as a way to pep this up, I don't think it needs it.

To cook:
Rub the steaks with salt and pepper, heat the oil in a pan and cook the steaks for about 2 minutes on each side. You will want to brown them.

The ingredients can be blended in a bowl or mixer and then used as a paste. You will want to add this mix to the fish and allow it to simmer for a bit with the tomatoes and potato added in (say 10-15 minutes).

A moment of haiku

I had a haiku moment last week.  Here is the poem that resulted:

An evening cloudburst!
That redtail is flying fast
Toward a patch of blue

Any literary types out there feel free to comment...gently.

I had another moment this morning.  I wanted coconut chutney, but really wanted something quick to make.  Thinking on my feet, as I do, I heated a tablespoon of oil in a saute pan and toasted a teaspoon or so of mustard seeds, then I threw in a half cup (or a little more) of shredded dried coconut and a quarter cup of soy flour.  Toasted that up and put it in a bowl.  chopped up one of my smokin' hot serranos, and mixed that in to the coconut with a bit of salt and a pinch of hing (asafetida).  Stirred in some yoghurt and enough water to make a pourable consistency.  Can I make a haiku out of that?  Let's see...


Coconut chutney
Do you think you can make it
In just three minutes?

OK, not bad.

I ate it with leftover quick oat idli.  What a good breakfast!
No pictures with this post.  Just use your inner eye to imagine the hawk flapping, flapping in the suddenly chilly rain, flying west to what it hopes is a dry warm tree.
Smell the toasted coconut, feel the heat of the chilis, hear the popping of the mustard seeds in the hot oil.  Taste the smooth yoghurt.

Tilapia, It's Not Just for Tax Shelters Anymore

Tilapia, a virtually boneless freshwater fish, historically was a great tax shelter vehicle. The housing structures could qualify for all types of government subsidies, including energy credits. Losses for the start-up years were also a sure thing, with plenty of delicate fish to go around for Southern Hush Puppies and Fried Fish bake diners. Not any more. The Federal government has generally clamped down on most of the tax benefits of farming Tilapia. And, as more chefs discover its versatility as a "non-fishy" fish staple, you'll see it in a host of different ethnic dishes. Tonight was one such occasion. Lisa had prepared a grilled spiced Talapia, the recipe for which you can find here under grilled snapper. Unlike prior attempts there was not pre-salting. There is a Seinfeld episode where Jerry goes to Poppy's restaurant and orders the duck which is "oh, so succulent." This was exactly the case here (without the horrid bathroom incident in the TV show - we wash our hands unlike Poppy).

So, we recommend you play around with Tilapia in some of your dishes (i.e. the cooking of it and not actually playing with the fish) and see where it takes you. We have one more piece left which probably won't make it past breakfast on Tuesday.

Cheers

Abondanza!

Abundance!  That's what we have in our garden this fall.  I trimmed the basil and parsley and there was a ton!  Several big radishes, two big butternut squashes and the swiss chard and okra are going strong and, HOORAY, my serrano peppers are smokin' hot.  So naturally I had to think of ways to use it.  I tried to make a basil chutney, but I'm not sure how I like it.  Made it with walnuts, lemon juice, serrano, and ginger.  Not the greatest, but maybe I'll pour it into some vegetable soup tomorrow.  The parsley on the other hand, that was good.  Now, I am into macrobiotic cooking and I have this favorite recipe for a tofu parsley sauce to serve over linguini that I am just addicted to.  So I took my inspiration from that and put threw some parsley, umeboshi paste (that's the macro B part), some salt and water to blend and blended gently until the parsley was just chopped fine (like a cilantro chutney).  Then I heated a good bit of olive oil and tempered some mustard seeds.  Stirred that into the parsley.  Interesting.  The parsley and umeboshi (which is salty and pungent) blend with the mellow olive oil and rich mustard seeds.  Nice with a plain papadam.  Should be good with a roti.

veggie utthapam

quick oat idli

radish and chard utthapam

macro parsley chutney

I also have been making some things from a lovely blog called Veg Inspirations (link at left).  Usha, the blogger, creates healthy innovative dishes that are just yummy.  I tried her quick oat idli.  Oh, boy.  In addition to being quick to make, with no fermentation required, they are toasty and filling, rich in healthy fiber, and just so cool.  I want to make her quinoa flaxseed utthapam this week.  I have been making utthapam this week as I fermented a nice urad dosa batter and have been using carrots, radishes, chard, and bell pepper (all except the carrots from my garden).  I love utthapam.  It's basically a thick dosa with vegetables cooked in.  So good.  Kind of like an Egg Fu Young without the egg.  I've got lots more to blog about but I need to wrap  this one up.  So, catch you on the next post.

Akbar Turns Biker Bar

Akbar, who was 13 when he took the Mughal throne in Deli, was a patron of the arts including paintings (especially murals) and literature. My friend Jeff and I took an adventure to a place bearing Akbar's name at lunch time today. This was a scene in the making for a Larry David Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. The wait staff more resembled a collection of biker bar rejects than one you would expect in a restaurant in a more tony area of town. When ordering a chicken dish I asked the waitress if the chicken was chicken breast and she asked me what I asking about her breasts. When we tried to explore what types of breads they offered, since they were not listed on the menu, she inquired why we were asking about her breasts? Maybe an LA thing? Or maybe they hired wait staff with the worst possible hearing in the world? Odd to say the least. The food was not particularly memorable although Jeff ordered a lamb vindaloo that looked OK.

I have been experimenting with an Indian omelette that is moving in the right direction: two eggs, a pinch of garam masala, a pinch of cumin, a pinch of red pepper, a pinch of cardamon, a russet potato mashed in, and some pecorino romano to top. We've included a picture below and one thing I must do before this adventure is out is improve my photography skills. A close second is learning to speak Indian biker bar lingo because apparently I missed the conversation or joke at lunch.

Red Lentil Recollections

I love lentils.  There, I said it.  I have always loved lentils.  My mother made the best lentil soup.  But all my life (well, until I was 26), I thought lentils came in only one color - brown; and that lentil soup was strictly vegetarian.  What a shock when I was having dinner at a friend's house and they served lentil soup ... with little hot dogs in it!  I was apoplectic.  It couldn't be...no, not my lentils, being defiled in that way.  A more pleasant discovery, however, was that lentils came in a new and exciting color: RED.  My first grown up cookbook was Vegetarian Pleasures, by Jeanne Lemlin.  I still can turn to the exact page for my favorite recipes in that book without looking them up in the index, that is how much I used that book.  VP introduced me to red lentils.  At that time, red lentils were not so easy to come by; definitely not to be found in the supermarket.  Fortunately, I had access to wonderful varieties of foods in Philadelphia and South Jersey.  I think I found the red lentils either at the Reading Terminal Market or at Healthworks, a little health food store in Collingswood, N.J.  I tried them in a great recipe for dal and I was hooked.  They tasted a bit more peppery than the brown supermarket lentils, cooked quickly (a plus for a working gal), and, well, they were red.  Pink, really, but exotic and alluring.   Much later, I discovered mung beans, but even then, I thought of them as things to be sprouted, not cooked.  With this project, I have been exposed to such a variety of lentils such as I never imagined.  The Indian grocers are lined with row upon row of lentils, split, skinned, whole, ground into flour.  I have so far been using split mung, toovar (or toor), and urad.  There are others that I have yet to try.  I still love brown lentils (as you may have read in earlier posts, I use them in dosas).  I also love all of the other lentils and their cousins, the split peas, and chick peas, and azuki, and ...

Here is my mom's recipe for lentil soup, with a couple of optional additions.

MJ's Lentil Soup

1 cup of brown lentils, rinsed and picked over.
4-5 cups of water
one medium brown onion, chopped
2-3 celery ribs, chopped
1T salt or to taste
a good grind or two of black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fennel bulb (optional)
1T dried dill weed (optional)
1T crushed fennel seed (optional)
(1 or 2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped) optional
three or four leaves of swiss chard, chopped (optional)
lemon wedges and pecorino romano or parmesean cheese to serve

Put the lentils, water, onion, celery, salt and pepper in a stock pot (along with whatever mix of optional items you like) and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat to low and slowly simmer for about an hour or more until the lentils are falling apart.  If you like an even creamier texture, puree one or two cups of the soup and then stir it back into the pot.
You can serve it plain, but my mom served it mixed with cooked vermicelli cut up into one inch pieces, or with rice.  Squeeze the lemon into the soup and sprinkle the cheese on top.  Still my number one meal.


Red Lentil Dal
from Vegetarian Pleasures

1 1/4 cups red lentils
3 cups water
1/2 t salt
2 T Ghee or oil
1/4 t black mustard seeds
1/4 t turmeric
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t ground cumin
1/4 t ground coriander
1/2 t minced gingerroot

Rinse and pick over the lentil and cook in the water for about 25 minutes until soft and smooth.  Heat the ghee or oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds.  cook until the seeds start to pop and then add the remaining spices and ginger and cook two more minutes.  Add to the cooked dal and stir in.
My note: This makes a fairly thick mixture.  You can cook the dal with one extra cup of water for a thinner consistency.

This is my Go To dal for a quick and easy treat.  Nice to add cooked vegetables (such as squash, carrots, radishes, greens, etc., to it as well for a well-rounded meal.