Chole

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Chole is a spiced chickpea dish that is ubiquitous in India. They say there are as many chole recipes as there are North-Indian families. I’m not North Indian and I’ve been searching for a good chole recipe for a long time.

This variation of a recipe by “your food lab”- the Tasty videos of India (link below) comes very close to what I think are perfect chole. A trip to the Indian store for the spices is essential. I had to buy the Chana masala (I got the MDH brand).

Pressure cook- on high for 30 min

1 cup chickpeas soaked for 24 hours- drained

In a tea ball or cheesecloth – 1 tsp peppercorns, 3-4 cloves, 1-2 Black cardamon pods, 2 bay leaves, 1 inch cinnamon

2 tea bags

4 cloves garlic – crushed

½ cup onions- sliced

1 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)

1 tsp baking soda

Add 2 quarts of water

In a pan:

Melt 2-3 tbsp butter

Add 3 tbsp of Chana masala and 2 tbsp of cumin-coriander powder

Cook for 3 min or so

Add 1 can of tomatoes – puréed

1tbsp of ginger

Cook for 10 min or so

Add pressure cooked chickpeas with their water (removing the tea bags and the spice bouquet)

Cook for 20 minutes

Stir in 1 tsp of amchur powder (dried mango powder) and 1 tsp of garam masala and 1 tbsp of kasuri methi (crushed fenugreek)

Salt to taste – this recipe needs a lot of salt

Garnish: raw onions, chopped preserved lemon, slivers of garlic

Serve with roti or naan or rice or griddled multigrain pizza dough (store bought) which tastes a lot like naan except its whole grain.

https://m.facebook.com/yourfoodlab/posts/2002122406771755/

Mushroom Barley Burgers

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This is my favorite vegetarian burger – the barley makes it particularly toothsome. Mollie Katzen’s “the heart of the plate” is a fabulous vegetarian cookbook.This recipe is adapted from a recipe in that cookbook.

Start with 1.5 cups cooked barley (boil barley with plenty of water for 30 min to cook and then drain-use the water to make barley water lemonade). Cook ¾ cup onion, ¼ lb finely chopped mushrooms and 1.5 tsp garlic in olive oil till dry and slightly brown. Deglaze with 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and add to barley. Mix in ½ packed cup shredded mozzarella, ½ cup finely chopped cashews, 2 eggs, 6 tbsp all purpose flour, salt and pepper and mix well

Add some oil to your non stick griddle and use non stick spray on your measuring cup and on your spatula. Measure out ¼ cup of the batter onto the griddle- flatten with the spatula into burger shape. Cook for around 5 min each side till brown.

These are great in burgers with your favorite toppings and in tacos in place of meat

Spanish tortilla

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Spanish tortilla

 

Exactly like Melissa Clark- I’ve always been wary of any dish that starts with 1-2 cups of olive oil and I’ve been unimpressed with the Spanish tortillas I’ve eaten in tapas bars (vegetarian food is always an afterthought in these places)

 

But on a sunny Sunday morning, when you are waiting to hear from the on-call resident to see if you have to go back to the OR- it’s a perfect distraction. And most of the oil does get poured off.

 

I followed the recipe linked below. I chopped 3 large Russet potatoes (equal size cuts) and finely chopped one onion and poached all of it in enough oil to cover the potatoes for 15 min on gentle heat till the potatoes are soft and the onion is golden( I did add one dried chili to poach in the oil). Drain some of the oil – add 6 eggs to the potatoes with salt and pepper. Cook on the stove top till set and then in the oven (375F) for 10 min or so till set all the way through. I skipped the flipping over part and added 2 sauces , one is my tomato chutney and the other was a yogurt, parsley, garlic, olive and some of the drained olive oil sauce.

 

All I can say is that I’m really sad I waited so long to make this. This may have been the best brunch dish I’ve ever eaten. It should be great for brunch guests as well- everything can be done in advance till the eggs are added.

 

 

 

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/dining/a-potatos-postcard-from-spain.html

 

Hanoi style Vietnamese Tofu

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I have followed Mark Bittman for years and I mourned for weeks when he left his Minimalist column. So I was delighted to learn recently that all the purple carrot recipes are online and searchable. This is a delicious caramel sauce – better than his NYT published recipe. I made this almost exactly as the recipe specified except I added some chili-garlic paste at the end to the adult plates. Very very good and refreshing

 

https://www.purplecarrot.com/plant-based-recipes/hanoi-style-tofu-with-vietnamese-caramel-rainbow-slaw

Lilian’s lemon bars

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Lemon Bars

 

I adore desserts that combine sweet and sour flavors. This is unsurprising when you consider that I’m Maharashtrian with an inherited love for srikhand. These lemon bars with their shortcrust cookie base and gelatinous lemon top are fantastic.

I found the recipe at the back of a Nancy Atherton book I’d read over a decade ago- the book called these Lilian’s lemon bars.

 

Cookie base:

Heat oven to 350. Cream ¼ cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of butter. Add 1 cup of all purpose flour and mix till crumbly. I use my kitchen aid and make sure everything stays cold. Press down into the bottom of an ungraded 8×8 inch pan and bake for 15-18 min till light gold

 

Lemon topping:

Meanwhile combine 2 eggs, ¾ cup sugar, 2 tbsp flour, ¼ tsp baking powder, 2 tsp lemon zest and 3 tbsp lemon juice. Whisk till smooth and non-lumpy. Pour over hot cookie base and back to oven for about 15-20 min till edges are brown and center is set

 

Cool and sprinkle with icing sugar. I cut these into small bars – about 25 or so.

No Knead Focaccia

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Kenji starts this article stating the absolute truth “It’s difficult to make good bread today, but it’s darned easy to make hot, fresh, world-class bread tomorrow”. I should know, I have made lots of average bread when I’ve tried to bake the same day. I’m a huge fan of no-knead bread and I will always be grateful to Mark Bittman for popularizing Jim Lahey’s technique. I use the recipe in “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day” by Jeff Hertzberger. A long slow rise that works the gluten for you and develops a rich sourdough flavor, a closed Dutch oven to mimic the steam in professional ovens – it’s genius. I’m all set with the basic boule recipe. My focaccia though doesn’t always turn out the way I want- till now. Kenji’s recipe works for the most part- I had to add 30-50 cc more water, the dough has to be moist and tacky at the end. He made his focaccia with olives, rosemary and pistachios. I made mine with vegan hot dogs bits, rosemary and olives. My top started to burn at the 550 F temp- I covered it with some foil. Next time I’ll start the baking with the foil cover and remove it 10 min in. Still a delicious bread- I served it with spinach soup.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/how-to-make-the-best-olive-rosemary-pistachio-focaccia-bread.html

Farro Bhel

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In my never ending quest to marry healthy food with street food- I discovered farro bhel.

Farro is an ancient whole wheat grain that cooks up beautifully in the rice cooker. 3 cups of water to 1 cup farro and the rice cooker does its thing in 30 minutes or so.

Tamarind Chutney: My recipe is approximate and involves boiling ½ cup of tamarind pulp with 1/3 cup of jaggery, 1 cup of water, 1 tbsp of cumin powder, 2 tbsp of dried ginger powder, salt, 1 star anise pod, ½ a stick of cinnamon and ½ tsp of black pepper till the consistency is syrupy (around 20 minutes).

Green chutney: Grind chillies and cilantro together with salt

Other Bhel ingredients- boiled potatoes, raw onion, cilantro and sev

Mix! Its Bhel for dinner

Deep dish pizza

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I do pizza once a week, generally with store bought dough. I do my deep dish pizza in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil on the bottom. I push in pieces of vegan hot dog and olives into the dough so the dough can bake up around them like a focaccia. Today I did a sauce of ricotta mixed with olive oil, salt and pepper and topped it with onions, jalapeños and corn. Oven 450 for about 20-25 min. I grated some Parmesan on top. It’s not healthy but it’s very good.

Jeera Rice (Cumin rice ) with vegetables

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This is my standard “exhausted after clinic” dinner- prep time: 5 minutes, rice cooker time: 20-30 min

 

1)rinse 1 cup of long grain basmati rice twice

2)remove rice cooker bowl (the cheaper ones let you do this), add 1 tbsp vegetable oil or olive oil and heat till it shimmers

3) add one at a time at 5 sec intervals :1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 pinch asafetida, ½ tsp turmeric , 1-2 red chilies and 3-4 kadipatta or curry leaves (I didn’t have any today- it’s ok)

4) add rinsed rice and wait till you can smell the rice toasting (1-2 min)

5) add 2 ¼ cups of water to rice

6) add a cup of your favorite frozen veggies (today – I added peas, corn and beans)

7) add salt till the water tastes as salty as the ocean or more poetically as salty as your tears

8) return bowl to rice cooker and let the rice cooker do its thing

9) serve with yogurt or raita (that’s the protein component of the dish)