Dal Makhani

Beans soak for 8 hours before cooking

This is one of my favorite dal dishes. Dal is the generic word for lentils, makhani means buttery. So literally, this dish means buttery lentils and it can definitely be made with a lot of butter and cream and can get a tad heavy. It needn’t though, and the recipe below is light on the fats. It is basically black gram lentils (whole urad dal) and kidney beans (rajma) cooked with tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cream and a few spices. So it’s pretty rich in protein and fibre.

This dish is originally from the north Indian state of Punjab and like most Punjabi dishes, is a hearty dish – even if you do not use that much cream. This is mostly because the whole urad lentils and kidney beans together are fairly heavy pulses. The ginger in the dish definitely helps counter the heavy feeling one may have after eating this. So don’t be miserly on the ginger in it!

Some notes before you start:

1. While you can cook the black gram lentils + kidney beans in a pot of some sort, a pressure cooker works wonders.
2. Make sure you really clean the black grams and kidney beans before starting to cook, since often these are really dirty. Put them in a strainer and let water run through, while you use your hands to clean through the grains.

Finally, this is a dish that requires some amount of preparation and takes longer to cook than most other dal dishes, but when well made, it’s a real treat! It’s best served with tandoori breads – like tandoori rotis or naans, paranthas or even with rice.

Here are ingredient portions for 2-3 people:

• A cup of black gram lentils (whole or sabut urad dal)
• 1/3 cup of kidney beans
• 3 medium tomatoes
• Olive oil or vegetable oil (your choice of cooking oil)
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger or 1 tablespoon ginger paste
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic or 1 tablespoon garlic paste
• 1/3 cup heavy cream, or more to taste
• Red chilli pepper powder to taste
• 1.5 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 1 heaped teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 heaped teaspoon coriander powder
• A few cilantro leaves, to garnish (if you want to be that fancy)
  

  Cooking the pureed tomato with a little oil, to thicken it

And this is how we do it:

1. Soak: mix the lentils and beans in a large pot, cover with water to at least twice, thrice the height of the lentils and beans and soak overnight. Eight hours is good.
2. Clean: after soaking, clean the mixture as described above.
3. Pressure cook: Add the cleaned up lentils and beans to a pressure cooker, add 1 1/3 cup water, 1 teaspoon salt and mix thoroughly. Close up the pressure cooker. Cook up to 6 whistles (your pressure cooker might be different). Take off heat after the whistles, let it sit till the pressure comes down.
4. Puree tomatoes: Wash and quarter tomatoes, blend. (You might need to add a wee bit of water to get the blending going).
   

   All done!

5. Heat a little bit of olive oil or vegetable oil in another pan, add the ginger, garlic, cumin and coriander and as it starts crackling/browning add the pureed tomato. Mix thoroughly. Cook on high heat, stirring occasionally so the volume comes down and the puree gets thicker. The paste will go from pink to red.
6. From the pressure cooker, add the softened up, cooked lentil-bean mix to the pan with the thickened tomato puree. Mix thoroughly. If upon opening the pressure cooker there was too much liquid left, drain it, but do not drain away all of it. You might even want to keep it in a glass nearby to use in case you need more liquid to cook in later.
7. Mix the tomato puree + spices with the lentil – bean mixture thoroughly, add the red chilli powder, remaining salt if needed and mix thoroughly, stirring occasionally. Cook on high for a while and then lower the heat to medium.
8. Add the cream and mix in thoroughly, cook on medium heat and let it simmer. Later shut the heat, let the excess liquid evaporate. Mix it up thoroughly before serving.
9. And yeah, if you want it to look fancy, sprinkle those cilantro leaves on top before serving.

 

Paneer Jalfrezi+

Well, the plus is because this is my take on paneer jalfrezi, which is a familiar dish in Indian restaurants. But as is the case with most Indian restaurants, the version there tends to be too red, too tomato-ey, sometimes too spicy and definitely too oily, with a nice little layer of oil on top.

So mine’s gonna look different: this time I even took a pic of how it came out!

Here we go: this is probably going to feed two hungry, or three not so hungry people. Pair this up with a light riesling (yeah, pretty stereotyped here, I am afraid!). Add naans or chapatis to eat this with!

Ingredients:

• Vegetable or canola or peanut oil to cook in
• 2 medium onions
• 1 teaspoon of garlic paste, or equivalent cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of ginger paste, or equivalent amount of fresh ginger
• 1-2 medium bell peppers or a large one
• 1 large or 2 medium sized tomatoes
• 1 large or 2 medium sized (yellow or green) squashes
• 1 pound of paneer, fresh if possible.
• Spices: 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1/3 teaspoon turmeric powder, 1/3 teaspoon red chilly powder (preferably Indian, and quantity to be adjusted for taste), 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon coriander powder, 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

Method:

1. Alright, start off with the usual frying of onions till they become translucent, the cumin seeds till they crackle and pop, then the ginger and garlic too so they release their flavor into the oil. After they’ve been cooked in a bit, lower the heat.
2. Add chopped tomatoes with the juice, fry till they get nice and smushy. Raise the heat back up first, then lower it so things don’t burn
3. Add the bite sized chopped bell peppers and then squash, raise the heat a bit to help them cook a bit faster and then lower it so they don’t burn.
4. Add all the spices, mix ‘em up well with the rest of the food.
5. Raise the heat, add chopped bite sized paneer, mix it in thoroughly.
6. After cooking the mixture above for a while, add some water (not too much, say, the water should be under the level of the food by an inch, half an inch inside the pan), raise the heat on high.
7. Cook on high till the mixture comes to a boil, keep stirring and let it cook on high for a few minutes.
8. Lower the heat to a slight simmer and cover and let it cook till the paneer cooks through. Occasionally check on it and mix the whole thing up.

Last thoughts: the cumin seeds add a nice crunchy feel but you can omit them or reduce them in quantity if you don’t like that sort of thing. Also, I added the squash since I like squash and I also like to add lots of veggies to my food.The traditional jalfrezi does not have that.You can add peas and or corn too – they add volume and a wee bit of sweetness. These would go in between steps 5 and 6 above.

 

Vegetable Risotto

Yet another of my big pot o’food dishes with plenty of veggies and good stuff thrown in.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chick peas
• 1 medium/large green squash
• 2 medium bell peppers
• 4 carrots
• 3 celery sticks
• 1 green apple
• 1 large or 2 medium onions (yellow/white)
• Arborio rice (2 cups)
• Butter (2 tablespoons)
• Light olive oil
• White wine (I like Pinot Grigio)
• Freshly ground black pepper, (sea) salt
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Optional spices – cumin powder, coriander powder

Put it all together:

1. Cook the chick peas with a 1/3 teaspoon salt.
2. Chop the vegetables and the apple up.
3. Saute the onions in the main pan/pot with 1 tablespoon butter and saute the other vegetables in another pot on the side with light olive oil (don’t overheat)
4. After the onions have become translucent, add the other tablespoon of butter in the pot, add the 2 cups of rice, saute that too.
5. Slowly add 2 cups of white wine into the pot and cook the sauteed rice-onion mix in it and cook for a while.
6. Add the chopped green apple and cooked chick peas (drained) in the main pot, stir a few minutes.
7. Add the sauteed vegetable and 2 cups of water into the mix, along with the salt (about 1 teaspoon, more if needed later), freshly ground black pepper (about 0.75 teaspoon), and the other spices (1 teaspoon each of the cumin and coriander powder if you want). Mix thoroughly, stir it in, cook as rice soaks up the water and the vegetables and apple cook in the liquid.
8. Cover, lower heat and let it cook, return occasionally to pot to ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot or burning.
9. As rice softens up and cooks and vegetables seem cooked, add the freshly grated Parmesan cheese and stir it in well.

 

Kind of Veggie Korma.

This is yet another plenty of veggies in the same meal kind of dish I love making. I like thinking of it as Veggie korma, but it’s way different from what you’ll encounter at Indian restaurants.

Ingredients

• Peeled, washed, chopped carrots (6 medium sized)
• Shelled, washed Peas (1/2-3/4 lb)
• Peeled, washed, chopped (normal white/yellow) potatoes (4 medium sized)
• Washed, chopped green beans (1/2-3/4 lb)
• Raisins (1 snack box – 1.5 oz)
• Spices:

1. Salt
2. Mustard seeds
3. Turmeric
4. Coriander powder
5. Red chili powder
6. Chopped ginger/ginger paste

Other stuff:

• Grated, dessicated coconut (about 3-4 tbsps)
• Plain yogurt (3/4 – 1 box : a box is about a liter, right?)
• Vegetable oil/cooking oil as you like

Method:

1. Start up: In a big, non stick pot, add 1 to 1 and a half tablespoon of cooking oil. High heat. When it heats up, add a handful (ok ok – don’t panic – here, a handful = 1 tbsp or so) of mustard seeds. They should start crackling if the oil is good and heated. Keep frying them till most of them have changed color. Do not let them burn either (this will be evident if they start smoking/blackening)

2. The first veggies: Add the chopped potatoes, green beans and carrots. (they go in first since they take the longest to cook) Admire the sizzling sounds, and then use a nice non scratching wooden spatula/stirring spoon to stir them up with the mustard seeds.

3. The spices: Add one and a half teaspoons of salt, one and a half teaspoons of coriander powder, 1/3 teaspoon turmeric, 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder (or less or more depending on how hot you want it), 1 level teaspoon of ginger paste and mix it all up real well.

4. Consolidation: Keep stirring for about 3 minutes or so. Add some water = a little less than what would cover up the entire mess in the pot. Lower the heat, cover the pot after making sure nothing is burning at the bottom of the pot and come back after a 5 minutes or so. (come back sooner if you are paranoid like me and want to keep reassuring yourself that nothing really is burning at the bottom of the pot and the water is not all gone.

5. Peas and raisins: Add the peas and raisins in now, stir them in well, probably a little more water – cover (keep doing this till your veggies have cooked/softened – but obviously not gotten mushy – we do not want that to happen)

6. Almost there: When things have almost cooked, and very little water remains, add the grated coconut and stir it in real well. Turn the heat back up and cook with the grated coconut for a couple of minutes on high heat. Add the yogurt (more sizzles), cook for another two-three minutes.

7. Serve with your choice of flatbread or rice.

 

Mulligatawny Soup/Stew

In general, I love making big pots of food that have lots of stuff in them, keep well and are tasty! It’s a throwback to the good old grad school days, but even during these days of working it’s useful to have leftovers around, eh?

Usually I make such dishes when friends are around, that adds to the fun in the kitchen. Especially if they bring wine with them and we cook and drink wine at the same time.

My friend Nilima came up from the city a few weeks back and we made Chicken Mulligatawny soup/stew.She asked me for a recipe, and this is an attempt to nail ‘a recipe’ down. This is hard for me since I never remember exactly how I make anything – so try the recipe below at your own peril! Sadly no pics at the moment.

Traditionally, the name and origin is from Tamil Nadu, India. The literal translation is ‘pepper water’ and I am told in early days of the Raj, the Brit cooks needed to throw the kitchen sink into a dish to feed their burgeoning armies and this hearty soup was born. Now, there are tons of variations – both in terms of whether it’s a thin soup, a thick one or even thick enough to be a stew; and even in what the ingredients are. So presented below is pretty much my take on it.

And oh, if you are a Seinfeld fan, you might remember this soup was immortalized in the Soup Nazi episode.

Ok, so here it is:

Ingredients: (should be able to feed 4 folks with a good appetite!)

• 1 pound of chicken (preferably boneless chicken breast)
• 2 medium white/yellow onions
• 1 medium green apple
• 1 pound of carrots (about 4-5 carrots)
• 1 pound of celery (4-5 sticks)
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 green squash (if you’re a veggie overdose kinda person, like me)
• 1 cup basmati rice
• Spices:

1. 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2. 1 tablespoon cumin powder
3. About 1 tablespoon salt (but obviously vary to taste)
4. 1.5 tablespoon coriander powder
5. 1.5 dessicated coconut powder
6. 0.5 tablespoon (Indian) red chilly powder
7. 0.5 tablespoon black pepper
8. 1 teaspoon garlic paste (or equal in cloves)
9. 1 teaspoon ginger paste

Putting it together:

1. Ingredient preparation step: Chop the chicken, carrots (washed, peeled), celery (washed), bell peppers, green squash into bite sized pieces. Chop the onions and the green apple thin/small
2. The saute step: Saute onions till they soften/brown/become transluscent. As they are doing so, make a little space in the middle to add the garlic and ginger and saute that with some more oil. Make another space for cumin seeds to saute those too – till they start crackling and brown. Don’t let anything burn. If they do, mix garlic, ginger, onions, cumin seeds all up, let them saute together.
3. Prepare the veggies and meat: Sometimes microwaving the carrots with some water for 3-4 minutes will make them soft enough to cook through better. Saute the celery, bell peppers, green squash in another pot. Saute the chicken in the first one (with the onions et al). Once the veggies are sauteed enough, throw them into the first pot.
4. Spice it up: Add the spices. Cook it all together for a bit, mixing it all well together. Stir. No water yet.
5. Add the rice and green apple, mix it too, stir.
6. Add slowly a couple of cups of water, mix, bring to boil.
7. Let it boil for 4-5 minutes.
8. Lower heat, cover and let the whole thing simmer for a while. Keep returning once in a while to ensure nothing’s getting burnt.
9. As water gets absorbed, taste, adjust for salt/spices.

It’s all done by the time the water is absorbed. Make sure the rice is cooked and that the chicken is cooked through.

And oh – to make it entirely veggie, you can replace the chicken with chick peas (in which case add 1 tablespoon of dry mango powder to the spices), or any lentils in general.