LenDills

Situation: You greedily buy two bunches of rare dill and look for suitable recipes. Then you find out there isn't much that you can make with the ingredients already at home. By this time, a few days have passed and some of the green dill has begun to yellow. You save what's good, use up some in salads and the rest in dal.


As swiftly as that dal was made, so swiftly is this post being written.

Boil/pressure cook 1 cup of toor dal with a little more than a cup of water and a drop of oil.

Mash with a pinch of turmeric and salt to taste.

Add a cup of dill, cut, and cook for about 5 minutes - if it's too thick, you can add a little water to thin it out.

Heat 1-2 tsp of oil, temper with a tsp of mustard seed, 1/2 a tsp of cumin, 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic

My suggestion is to not overload this dal with too many spices, so that the taste of dill comes through. That's why I haven't added any chilli powder.

This is my entry to MLLA-17, which I'm hosting this month for Susan. I am away for a week but keep those entries coming, I will acknowledge them when I resume blogging.

MLLA My Legume Love Affair Dill Lentils

My Legume Love Affair - 17

This month, I will host My Legume Love Affair. As many of you know, this is a well-known-in-the-blog-world, bean-centric event, created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook.

Here's what Susan has to say about the event: "For those new to the event, your choice of recipes is very broad. As much as legumes are most commonly known as fresh or dried beans, peas, lentils and pulses, they are also the sometimes edible pods that contain these seeds. Add to the list alfalfa, fenugreek, peanuts, carob, tamarind and other members of the Fabaceae or Leguminosae family, as well as derivatives such as tofu, and you'll have a hard time focusing on just one. All courses and cuisines are welcome, as long as legumes are the dominant ingredient. (Please note: In France, vegetables of all sorts are known as légumes, and are not included in this event.)

To participate, please:

Post a new recipe or a newly posted one from your archives, linking to this announcement, as well as Susan's announcement here with the following details to me [srablogATgmailDOTcom] by November 30 although I will accept late entries if the round-up is not yet posted:

Please say MLLA-17 in the Subject field of your e-mail

The details I need are these:

Name

Blog Name

Name and URL of Your Recipe Post

Location: Optional

Photo: 400 wide

~~~~~

Use of the logo is optional. Participants can send in more than one recipe per cook as well as those submitted to other events. Those who do not blog are also welcome to join and will be included in the random drawing. Friends and family of hosts are not eligible to win.

Prizes:

1) Susan is offering Beard on Bread, as the prize for the lucky one in the random drawing. She will ship it worldwide.

2) Another prize is the Hurst Bean Box - A case of six bags of your choice of Hurst Bean products, suitable for every diet, generously provided by Hurst Bean. (Due to shipping restrictions, this prize can only be awarded if the winner is a US resident.)

I expect to have the round-up online in the first week of December.

My Legume Love Affair MLLA 17 Bean Event Pulses Legumes Lentils Peas

Legumes, And a Bit of Cheese

A few weeks ago, our air-conditioner went kaput and we spent as much of the day as we could outside our house. Quite a few air-conditioned stores that day saw us wandering about aimlessly, touching and feeling the goods, never buying. Our last stop before we went to dinner in another air-conditioned place, was a bookstore. Or rather, as large bookstores tend to be, a books, music and gifts store.

For a while now, my favourite bedtime reading has been cookbooks, when mysteries and chicklit are hard to come by, and though my conscience knows I don't need any more cookbooks, I succumbed when I saw this well-produced book called Pumpkin Flower Fritters on Bengali cooking. I told myself that it had recipes my other Bengali cookbooks didn't, paid for it, and walked out without daring to look at it any longer in case the guilt got compounded.

It turned out my justifications to myself were well-justified - it DID contain some recipes that my other books didn't. Here's one recipe that I tried from it - it's unusual in that paneer/cottage cheese is mixed with moong dal, delicately flavoured, very heavy, and I don't think I'll try it again.

It's not really this yellow!

Warning: The quantities here make A LOT!

Roasted split moong dal: 250 gm
Paneer: 15-16 pieces
Potatoes: 2-3, medium-sized, cubed (The book recommends 8-10 small new potatoes, halved)
Chopped ginger: 2 tsp
Green chillies: 8-10

Crush
Cardamom: 2-3
Cinnamon: 3-4 pieces

Tempering
Red chillies: 2-3, broken into pieces
Cumin seeds/jeera: 1 tsp
Fennel: 1/2 tsp
Bay leaves: 2

Sugar: 1 tsp
Salt, to taste
Oil: 2 tsp
Ghee: A little

Boil the dal in hot water. Cook till half done. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a pan, fry the paneer pieces and remove. Fry the potatoes.

Add to the dal, and boil till cooked. Add half the chopped ginger and sugar.

Heat more oil in the pan and add a little ghee.

Add the red chilli pieces, cumin seeds, fennel, and bay leaves. Now add the rest of the ginger and the crushed garam masala.

Add the dal.

Bring to a boil and add the panee pieces and green chillies.

Simmer a few minutes.

This goes off to Susan's My Legume Love Affair, hosted this month by Annarasa.

MLLA Paneer/Cottage Cheese Lentils/Moong Dal Potatoes Vegetarian Bengali Humour

Sunday humour, Bengal hangover

Once in a while, we visit an Uncle and Aunt who live at one end of town. Uncle is always exhorting us to bring a spare set of clothes, stay over and go to work right from his home but we've managed that just once. Aunty whips up a feast of home-made stuff typical of the cuisine we grew up with but yesterday, they both felt five home-made dishes weren't enough, so supplemented that with four Chinese dishes that they ordered in!

In any case, this was a problem of plenty, compounded by the fact that I'd carried along one of my dishes for them to sample. I'm still on a high from my Calcutta trip and the last couple of days have seen me trying my hand again at Bengali food, which I used to experiment with earlier. Funnily enough, I found parwal in my vegetable store the day after I came back from Calcutta, and bought a few other vegetables to make the shukto and charchari that are so typical of Bengali cuisine. While most of those vegetables are waiting in the fridge, I put to use the one coconut that I retained from a bounty of about 10 that were presented to me last month. It had dried neatly inside its shell and I finally cut it up into pieces and put it in the fridge. I had planned on buying some chicken to make a Kerala-style chicken curry with coconut chips that my friend S introduced me to, but the bird proved elusive, so I made this dal instead.

I had made it for a potluck years ago, when some of us still had the schedules for one without much planning - and it had been much appreciated. Now all I needed to do was buy some raisins, brush up on the recipe and my chholar dal would be ready! I couldn't make out which of my two Bengali cookery books I'd referred to all those years ago, but one book didn't mention the coconut and raisins and neither mentioned whether the dal had to be cooked to a mash or to soft but grainy - I went for the latter as that's what I remembered.

I did away with the 2 tsp of sugar that was mentioned in the recipe and added more raisins than prescribed. I didn't powder the spices as was required. Amidst hoots of laughter over a funny anecdote narrated by Uncle, we savoured this mild and mellow dal. Aunty said it was "variety ga undi", a famous Telugu-English expression for anything unusual, the Spouse said it tasted like prasadam (food made for rituals, as offerings to the deity and worshippers) and Uncle picked out the pieces of coconut and ate the rest.

And the funny anecdote: Well, a visiting nephew of Uncle's was about to reach for a cup of coffee which was on the table when Aunty said, "Oh, God! Chee Chee! That's for your Uncle, don't take that! We'll make other coffee for ourselves!" "You do exaggerate, Mama!" I said, giggling. But Aunty piped up honestly, saying, "No, I DID say that, I think," and also giggled herself, setting us off on another round of laughter. It must have been the sugarless/diet nature of the coffee that provoked that outburst, but it was so funny listening to my Uncle who narrated this with a mixture of amusement and indignation.

On to the recipe now!

Channa dal/Bengal gram: 100 gm/1 cup
Green chillies: 2, slit
Coconut pieces: 1/2 a cup
Raisins: Half a handful
Water: 2-3 cups (and more if you need later)

Salt, to taste

Turmeric: 1/2 a tsp
Bay leaf: 1
Red chillies: 1-2, broken
Cumin seed/Jeera: 1 tsp
Whole clove, cardamom: 2 each
Cinnamon: 1/2-inch stick
Oil: 1-2 tsp

Wash the lentils thoroughly. You can soak them ahead to cut down on cooking time.

In a pan/saucepan, boil the water.

Once it comes to a boil, add the dal. Cook till half-done, then add the salt, turmeric, green chillies.

Cover and cook till done on a medium fire. Add some more water if the lentils are not done. As seen in the picture, they should maintain their shape but should crumble when prodded with a finger. Stir the dal now and then so that it doesn't stick to the pan.

In another frying pan, heat the oil to smoking. Lower the heat and add the bay leaf, cardamom and cloves. Once they sizzle, add the coconut. Let the coconut brown slightly. Add the raisins. Add the cumin and red chillies and wait just until they begin to turn colour, a couple of seconds. Switch off the fire and pour it over the dal.

Cover and simmer the dal for five minutes.

I am sending this to Mansi's Healthy Cooking event. I think it qualifies because I've done away with the sugar (though I do realise some is present in the raisins), the coconut can be omitted if necessary or left uneaten and the oil can be limited to one tsp.


Bengali cuisine Bengal gram Raisins Coconut Channa dal Humour

An Update, A Recipe & A Meme

I’ve been tagged for a couple of memes in the recent and not-so-recent past. Much as I have fun doing them, I can’t always come up with material, and of late, I’ve even been forgetting about being tagged. Memes have their uses – not only do you get to talk about yourself on the very expedient, guilt-free excuse that someone wants you to do it, but they also fill the silence when you don’t have anything much to say.

Rachel of Tangerine's Kitchen tagged me for this meme. Considering I’ve not been honest about the really bizarre side of me, I hope this is at least a halfway good read.

1) I can never read books or watch movies or shows which don’t have women characters in them. I try, especially if it’s a must-read/must-see, but I can never go through with it. I find them extremely drab, and yes, I’ve missed out on a lot of good works this way. I’ve been this way since I was a kid.

2) Similarly, I can never finish self-help books. I’ve borrowed several to read, and they’ve gone right back to their owners. I have one with me right now, which my friend swears is wonderful, but the very layout of the book is putting me off! Bad, because it promises me that if I adopt its teachings, I will get whatever I want.

3) As much as I dislike traveling by autorickshaws (the Indian equivalent of cabs), because of the bargaining and arguing involved, I do. Often, when the driver grumbles on the way, I shout him down with unassailable arguments of fair, just and such virtues, or if he doesn’t return the change, shake my index finger violently at him and curse him that he will lose double that money, then reach my destination and begin worrying that he will somehow wreak revenge on me.

4) I am a worrier. If, for some reason, I catch myself feeling good and relaxed, I worry about that. Didn’t I have something to worry about just a few minutes ago, come on, bring that back, what was that?

5) I’m often accused of being too polite and too politically correct. (My mother won’t agree, of course.) I can be tediously nice but since that’s not naturally me, I sometimes slip and say something that sounds most tactless and clumsy.

6) I am quite opinionated but of late, I’ve been trying to put myself in the shoes of most other people before I criticize them - and it’s become a bad habit. The heat of all this tolerance is threatening to melt all my cherished beliefs and principles, and I’m turning into a dithering jelly of doubt.

7) I used to snack in even numbers. Yeah, so if I had a third chocolate, I'd have to have a fourth, and so on. Happily, I've gotten over that ...

I tag Shyam, of Food in the Main; TBC of The Budding Cook; Saswati of Potpourri; ET of Evolving Tastes; TC at The Cooker; Revathi of En-Ulagam and Bhags of Crazy Curry. Up to you, of course, to take it up or not.

AFAM update: I expect to be busy for a week starting today, and even have to travel for a couple of days next week. I will do the round-up of AFAM-Pomegranate after I return. Meanwhile, here’s a recipe I’m pretty chuffed about, a recent discovery.

I rarely pick up these beans because the ones I get here are mostly pod and very little bean, but I’ve discovered this is a nice way to include them and get over your dislike of just the pod.

Chikkudukaya/Broad beans – ¼ kg, chopped/ 2 cups, boiled till just tender
Toor daal – ¾ cup, soaked for 30 minutes and boiled till soft, but should hold their shape
Dry red chillies – 2-3, broken up
Garlic – 3-5 cloves, minced
Mustard seed – 1 tsp
Urad dal, split and hulled – 1-1/2 tsp
Cumin seed – ½ tsp
Oil – 2 tsp
Curry leaves – a few
Salt and red chilli powder – to taste

Heat the oil in a pan, pop the mustard and cumin.

Add the garlic and as it sizzles, add the urad dal.

Once the urad dal turns colour, add the red chillies and curry leaves.

Turn just once, and immediately add the beans.

Saute well on medium heat. Add salt and red chilli powder, stir well.

Add the toor dal. Mix so that all the seasoning and tempering is well distributed.

Remove from heat.

Variation: Moong dal can be used instead of toor dal. This method can be adapted to many other vegetables, including amaranth greens and stalks.

AFAM-Pomegranate Meme Chikkudukya/Hyacinth bean Toor dal Chikkudukya/Hyacinth bean Vegetarian Chikkudukya/Hyacinth bean Stir-fry