Sooji for Upma in the Oven

Unroasted

Closeup of the grain

After 10 minutes, closeup. Notice the slightly darker colour of the individual grains.

Notice how the whole looks the same as the original. You have to look closely to see the subtle colour change. 

Stir to redistribute the darker browned bits around the edges with the paler bits on the insides. 

Notice the clumping? This is normal. It will go away with more roasting. 

Stir, stir, stir. Then, put back in oven for 5 more minutes. 

Tada! Roasted. 

Upma. Supposedly a simple, quick dish. Lies. It's not a simple dish if you have to stand there roasting sooji for the rest of your natural life. It is the task that I dislike the most when making Indian food: roasting endlessly. 

For sooji, put the stuff onto a cookie sheet in as thin a layer as possible. For a 4 lb bag, you should need about four home sized cookie trays (or two trays twice). Shake the pans gently to get the sooji in an even layer. 

Bake at 200ºC (around 390ºF) for 10 minutes. Stir well to redistribute the browner edge bits with the paler inside bits. Bake an additional 5 minutes.

Done.

Flash Gaajar Halva

The traditional version of this recipe involves large quantities of dairy, huge tubs of sugar, and ages of time spent in boiling, reducing, and stirring, along with plenty of anxiety about not burning the whole mess. This version takes about ten minutes or so. My friends Anjali and Rehmah were at my house, eating lunch. Someone mentioned sweets of some sort, and Rehmah instantly got a craving for some kind of sweet. I didn't have much else in the house, so I knocked this version out very quickly, both to calm Rehmah's cravings, and to make sure that Anjali got to taste some too (as she was about to head out for a hot date that night).

The name was not my idea. It was Rehmah's.

For the record, you had a Pakistani lady (Rehmah) and a Punjabi lady (Anjali) who loved how the dish turned out. That's how I knew it was a keeper.

1 pound carrots, grated
1 TB neutral flavoured oil (peanut, canola, corn)
2 cardamom pods, crushed
3 TB granulated sugar
1 1/2 TB cornstarch
2 cups coconut milk

In a pot, combine the carrots, oil, and cardamom. Sautee the carrots over high heat, until they are softened. While the carrots cook, whisk together the cornstarch and the coconut milk.

Once the carrots are softened, add the sugar, and stir it through. The sugar will melt rather quickly, and get caramelised. The carrots will turn a slightly darker colour too. This is what you want to happen, so don't worry when it happens.

Once the sugar is caramelised and lightly browned, add the coconut milk and cornstarch mixture. Bring the liquid to a full rushing boil, and continue to boil for one minute with constant stirring. Turn off the heat, and allow to cool down to room temperature before serving.

Make your food taste restaurant quality delicious.

The food you get in a restaurant tastes the way it is for various reasons. One is the seasoning. Another is the collaboration. Another is the presentation. I'll get into each, so that you all can dish out a very festive meal when the time comes for it.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of seasoning your food. I'm not even talking about herbs, spices, or anything fancy or esoteric. Just plain salt will ensure that your food tastes right. When it comes to seasoning starchy foods (rice, pasta, potatoes, etc), season as they cook, so that they have a chance to get the salt into there. If it's vegetables and the like, feel free to season once it's done cooking, so that you don't end up with over-salted vegetables. In cases of soups and stews (and especially daal), I tend to wait until the last minute to salt my food, because I don't want to have to account for evaporation and the like throwing off the amount of salt that I've added. Unless you have a recipe that specifies an amount, wait until the end, add a bit of salt, see if that improves things, and keep adding in small amounts until you get to where you're comfortable.

Some people argue that it's better to leave the food unsalted, so that the folk who like more can add more, and those who don't like as much can leave it out. This is good in theory. Unfortunately, in practise, it makes it so that you have the person who's eating leaving things alone to be polite, and quietly choking it down, even though it's bland as hell. I don't know where the stigma behind salting at the table comes from, but it runs pretty strong. Even at home, when my husband and I are having something quick, under-salting is a problem. Rather than adding enough salt to his liking in a dish that's unsalted (which happens by mistake from time to time), he'll flat out avoid it all together until I add some salt to the dish. Then, once he's seen that it does taste good, he's able to adjust up if he wants more than that.

In other words, you need some salt to get the party started, so that people don't avoid the dish all together.

In a good kitchen, there is no space for ego. Yes, there is one person in charge of the whole meal. So what? Everyone can teach you something. No matter how new someone is to cooking, that person still has her/his own opinions on what tastes good. That's why, when we're in a restaurant kitchen, we don't work in a vacuum. Everyone, from the dish person, to the waitstaff, to the line cooks, and the management tastes a new dish. We all give feedback (more salt, too spicy, not enough pepper, not creamy enough, needs more fat, is a bit greasy, odd texture, needs crunch) based on what we like. The person making the dish will incorporate that into the recipe to improve it. It's why a restaurant is able to turn out delicious recipe after delicious recipe.

We're obsessed with food. We talk about it all the time. When we find a new method, or an interesting recipe, the first thing we do is share it with each other. Bossman likes to read magazines and newspapers. He's especially a fan of the food columns in the New York Times, because they provide such a varied set of people with different inspirations. Even if the recipe isn't vegan, we can easily make it vegan. I like YouTube. I like it a lot. My mother and I will watch those cooking channels made by individuals. They've frequently got recipes just as good (if not better) than cookery books. Because they're working in kitchens that are similar to mine (actually, their kitchens are much larger than mine; my home kitchen is tiny), with similar tools, and similar concerns, they'll often come up with neat ideas to do the same thing that I've done a million times. I also enjoy online cooking forums. They'll frequently have other food nerds around, who enjoy eating and cooking. It's a wonderful thing to bounce recipe ideas off a group of people you trust, who will then come back with suggestions to tweak or improve what you've started with.

The point is that even if you don't work in a restaurant kitchen, with multiple brains around you, you can still reach out to others to get that same feedback we get. If you have anyone at all who's interested in food who's helping you to cook, let them taste everything. This is especially good if you have children underfoot. They love to help out (if they're like the children I've met), and are usually thrilled to be asked their opinion on something that you're cooking for a large group. A simple "Hey, can you please check my food for salt", will often be greeted with enthusiasm.

More so than the recipe development or tasting collaboration, a restaurant kitchen has work collaboration. Rarely will I have to make a recipe all by myself, from start to finish, without someone helping me out. Whether it's our amazing dish person, who swoops in and clears off dirty dishes to be cleaned immediately, or my fabulous coworkers, who offer to knock out vegetable chopping tasks, it's a lot more enjoyable to cook when you have help.

Nobody who is helping you is doing an unimportant job. My job would be impossible without someone to help me clean up. I worry about the dish person if he's a little late, because it will bring our production to a screeching halt if we don't have someone who's around to enthusiastically keep the place sparkling clean. Similarly, at home, I really like it when there's someone who's there to keep the dishes from piling up (and pile up they do!), so that at the end of the night, it's a question of just washing the serving plates and the eating plates, rather than the myriad preparation bowls and cookware. If your guests offer to help you clear up, take them up on the offer! If someone offers to help you out in the kitchen, have them do something that will let you concentrate on other tasks that only you can do.

There are times when my boss and I will head into the kitchen together to make something. It's not that the other cooks don't know how to do the tasks I'm doing. It's not even necessarily that they're so busy that they can't lend a hand. Sometimes, the two of us just need some time by ourselves, to talk and get work done at the same time. This happens at home too. When I cook with someone, we tend to talk about things that won't come up in regular conversation. There's a bond that we form over that food preparation that isn't quite the same as any other bond. Something about working together to reach a specific goal just makes that task fun, and meaningful at the same time.

Either way, the point is that if you can get (or recruit) help when you're cooking, by all means, take it.

Finally, there is the point that in a restaurant kitchen, common tasks will be done en masse. If we need to have peeled onions (which we do), we'll peel a 50 pound bag at once, so that the next person going in to reach for onions has some already peeled. If we need chopped ginger and garlic, we'll make 5 pounds at once, so that we'll have chopped ginger or garlic ready and waiting (although here that 5 pounds will only last a day or two tops, you can keep about a couple of heads of chopped garlic, and a palm-sized knob of chopped ginger around for about five days in the fridge). We keep bunches of parsley already chopped, and waiting to go into things as a garnish. In other words, we do the boring bits during the slow times, so that when the crazy times hit, we aren't wasting needless steps on preparing the starting ingredients. It takes me just a few seconds to roughly chop an onion. Once that's done, and I already have chopped garlic and ginger, along with my salt, oil, and a pot, I can get pretty close to any recipe started with the sauteeing or sweating of the onions within a minute or so of prep time (especially since the onions are already peeled). Once those onions go into the pot, it's just a few more seconds of gathering additional ingredients to make my food.

In other words, if you're about to embark on a major holiday spread, have those recipe starters (onions, garlic, chopped celery and carrots, chopped ginger) ready and waiting for you. If you are doing the prep work just a day or two before, feel free to chop the onions, and put them into a zip top bag. Then chop your root vegetables, and soak them in cold water. That way, when the day of arrives, you just have assembly work to do.

Finally, at a restaurant, we pay attention to how your food looks. This isn't just about plating things beautifully. It's about the entire dish itself. For example, if you make a stew or soup, and everything is brown and dark coloured, we'll frequently put something in there to break up that colour monotony. If you have millet, sweet corn, and squash, you're going to end up with something that looks monochromatic. In cases like the millet example, I'll throw some kind of green vegetable into the mix (maybe some broccoli, or chopped kale). If I'm making something of any green, brown, or yellow, I'll generally throw some red in there. There's a reason that so many restaurants will have red peppers in the food: it really pops with red without bleeding onto anything else. When you have beets, or tomatoes, it tends to leak onto other foods. When you have bell peppers, however, you have a sharp blast of colour that's self-contained.

There are many things you can do at home to make your food look and taste as good as the food you get outside. For sure, some restaurants that you go to will bump up the fat content of any meal that they serve you. This is especially true of fast food or chain restaurants. There are diners where they bring in pre-made, mass-produced frozen meals, which they just heat up to serve you. However, people still cheerfully eat them. This is not the sort of "nicer tasting at restaurants" food I'm talking about. I'm talking about those places that make healthy, delicious food, consistently. That's why I didn't just tell you to throw fat at your cooking until it yields.

If you don't have local friends or family who are interested in food, find people online. They exist! If your children are uninterested in helping you cook, at the very least get them into the kitchen with you to taste the food as you cook, so that they get an idea of how a recipe can be tweaked to make it work for you. Especially in the case of massive parties and festivals, have multiple people give you feedback on your dish, until it's exactly where you'd like it to be.

And finally, know that even when you make mistakes, you learn something new. That in itself is a valuable enough reason to get into the kitchen and get to cooking. 

Lunch time!

Puri, chana masala, raita.

Sprouted Corn & Brown Rice Blinis

EDIT: I thought that my mother would be horrified, but it looks like she's proud! 

another version of adai. but definitely different. kudo MY SON. i keep doing stuff like this to traditional recipes. go dinu.
love you
amma

I love you too, Amma! 

I learnt about blinis while watching this English cooking show called The Two Fat Ladies. Anyone who's lived with me for any length of time will tell you that I obsessively watched cooking shows, and between Julia Child and The Two Fat Ladies, I was fairly happy to while away hours upon hours of time in front of the television. Fortunately, my mother classed cooking shows under "Educational TV", so she didn't really bother much while I would spend all that time watching those shows.

You see, I was always more fond of reading than watching TV, and what TV I did enjoy watching generally involved nature documentaries on PBS, cooking shows on PBS (both Julia Child and Lydia Bastianich were favourites), and when we finally got cable, cooking shows on the food channel. I loved watching the Discovery channel, and looking at all those exotic places that the crews would go to, and watch the narrator quietly explaining what was going on.

So, while we were limited to 2 TV shows per day, there was no limit to the amount of educational TV we were allowed to watch. And, of course, no limit to how much reading we were allowed to do. Even while grounded, my mother would never curtail my watching of documentaries. There's a reason why my mother rarely resorted to grounding. She found that assigning extra chores was a much stronger deterrent.

But I digress (as usual)! On the episode where they were doing this cocktail party for the Brazilian ambassador to England, Clarissa did blinis. She had these darling little miniature pans that she fried them up in, and at the end, served them with sour cream and caviar. I never did get around to making them on my own, because they involved buckwheat flour, which I couldn't easily get my hands on at the time. Fast forward to a few years later, and I'm in New York, living as a vegan, working in a vegan restaurant. I thought back to that episode, and watched it again, thinking to make something interesting and vegan for a special.

It involved large quantities of butter (melted, so I could easily use oil), then milk (soymilk), then eggs with whipped egg whites. I stopped myself, because it was getting to the point where half the recipe was being substituted, and just watched the show, and let the matter drop. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I started seriously thinking things over. What is a blini, in essence? It's a slightly fermented batter, made of buckwheat and all purpose flour, combined with some kind of fat, and pan-fried. Easy, right? So what makes the eggs and such necessary? Buckwheat flour and wheat flour will have a tendency to not form a firm cake on its own. It should have bubbles in, because it's fermented overnight, but it wouldn't have enough structure and body to stand up on its own.

What does have enough structure, that is also fermented, and doesn't require binder to stay together? DOSA. The South Indians have been making fermented batters since time immemorial. In fact, they even make unfermented (but sprouted or soaked) bean batters to make various pancakes. Why couldn't I just use a base of a fermented bean and rice batter, stir in cornmeal for structure, let that all ferment for a very short time (enough to rehydrate the cornmeal), and then fry it off? It should work, right?

Off I went.

6 cups brown rice
2 cups urad daal
3 cups chickpeas
2 TB fenugreek seeds (WHOLE)

In one bowl, soak the chickpeas in 12 cups of cold water. In another, soak the brown rice in 9 cups of cold water. To the rice bowl, add the fenugreek seeds. Soak the rice and chickpeas overnight. The next day, soak the urad daal for 2 hours in cold water. While the urad daal soaks, drain the chickpeas and rice, and let them hang out in a bowl, drained. Two hours later, when the urad daal is soaked, drain it as well, and let it sit as well. You'll want your beans and rice to hang out for four or five hours so that they can sprout. That evening, grind SEPARATELY the chickpeas, urad daal, and rice, with enough water to get them down to a fine paste.

Don't worry about how much water you're adding. The batter will not end up watery at the end, because you're going to add other stuff to this as well. Once the three pastes have been formed, mix them together thoroughly with a few pinches of salt. Then, in a warm draft-free place, let the batter ferment (covered with a towel) overnight. If your oven is empty, and turned off, just leave it in there. Make sure to put it into a container large enough that if the mixture expands, it has plenty of room to expand. You want a container at least double the size of your batter.

On hot days, you'll only need about four hours to ferment the batter. On colder days, like in the winter, you'll need overnight at the very least. This is OK. If it IS a hot day, and you won't have time to get to the batter by the time it's done fermenting, feel free to refrigerate it, and ferment it for a day. It'll take longer, but you won't harm the taste any.

Then, when it's all fermented and bubbling away, you'll want to add your additional ingredients, based on what you have. For this particular recipe, I had some good quality stone ground cornmeal. I added that, along with ginger, garlic, salt, black pepper, and sweet corn kernels. I mixed everything together until it was a the consistency of a loose dough. Then, I thinned it out with water enough to get it to pancake batter thickness. You want it thin enough that the batter will spread when it hits the griddle, but not so thin that it becomes a crepe.

This is the most important step, after the fermentation of the initial batter. Because you've added fresh ingredients, you need to give the batter a second ferment, and a chance for the cornmeal to rehydrate in the batter. This way, when you cook it, you won't wind up with overly crunchy bits of cornmeal. It's not pleasant, trust me.

Let the batter ferment and rehydrate for at least four hours. This will get the cornmeal completely hydrated and make the eventual product have a light and fluffy inside. Finally, you're ready to go. Unlike blinis, which will spread on you (and therefore require a small pan in which to fry them) this batter will stay coherent. Heat up your largest griddle to about 400°F, and add some fat of your choice (I used Canola oil). Spoon the batter onto the griddle, spacing them about 2 finger's width apart. You want them a little spread out so that they have a chance to cook up on their own, and not meld into one giant mess. When you see the bubbles forming on the top of the cake, and popping, you'll notice the colour change from a milky white to a pale yellow. That's about when you're ready to flip. Carefully flip the cakes over (stabilising them with your hands, as necessary), and cook on the other side.

Much like a traditional blini, you'll see little holes forming on the cakes, and you'll have a very crispy inside with a light and slightly sourdough tasting inside. They will get more and more crisp as you fry them longer and longer.

If you want a thinner blini, with a more crepe like taste, feel free to grind the feremented batter (containing the corn kernels) in the blender until it's smooth, and spread the batter down with your spoon so that it's thinner.

I feel like the combination of the corn, with the corn kernels, and the ginger and garlic, and the black pepper and salt just have an amazing taste. You bite in, and you get a little hint of sweetness from the corn, a bit of sourness from the fermented batter, and that wonderful garlic and ginger.

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You could, if you have it, use chives, parsley, chopped leafy greens, or whatever other vegetables you like. I just used corn, because summer is almost gone, and I want to enjoy corn while I can. Instead of cornmeal, grits work just as well, as does semolina. It's really important to use the brown rice, because it actually does sprout, and gets improved with the long fermenting. And chickpeas give structure very well, without resorting to weird egg replacers and the like. The fenugreek seeds help the batter to ferment, as does the urad daal. After that, the cornmeal gives the texture a really nice boost, and keeps the cakes high enough.

Allergens

When I started working at the restaurant, I began noticing that in nearly every item on the menu, there were little symbols, like "gf", or "ns", or "sf". Bossman and I talked about it, and I mentioned how amazing I thought that the convention of marking clearly on the menu what is and isn't safe for the big allergens was. It's the same reason that we get the restaurant Kosher. Same reason that we try to aim for making specials that are safe for as many people as possible: it's just good hospitality.

My mother has been cooking for years. She's been cooking for so long that she does little things without even realising that she does it. For example, when it's a new person coming to her house, she quickly assesses who they are, where they're from, what kinds of things they may enjoy, and their level of spice tolerance. She'll still make one or two things suited to the rest of the family. However, for the guest, she'll make sure that the food is accessible to as many people as possible. She won't use the weird, bitter, or strangely textured vegetables. She'll avoid anything too spicy, or too difficult to wrangle. She'll stick with things that have excellent flavour, but don't have loads of hot peppers or black pepper.

Then, once the person has come over a few times, she'll adjust as necessary. However, for large groups of people, such as when she makes food for the temple potlucks, or for large gatherings of friends, she'll still stick to those basic rules: no major allergens (dairy, gluten, soy), no challenging flavours (very bitter, or very hot and spicy), and lots of flavour.

So when I came to Chow, it was like coming home. When I have guests coming over, I do the same thing. I'll ensure that I make something that everyone can enjoy. If a friend of mine is gluten intolerant, I don't make just one thing for that person. I'll try to make the whole meal gluten free. Why? Because to see that look of happiness when they can eat (almost) everything on the very well-filled table is gratifying. You feel good, knowing that you've made that person feel special. Meanwhile, the people who aren't gluten intolerant can still enjoy gluten free food! Everyone wins!

When you do have a friend with a* diet issue, please just challenge yourself to do everything in your power to cater to that person, and have the whole meal follow that plan. At the end of the day, what does it hurt to just try it out for a bit, and see where it leads you?

*Notice the "a" diet issue. I'm not asking you to turn into a hospital, where folks who are deathly allergic to soy, gluten, nuts, grains, raw vegetables, coconut, spices, oil, and herbs ALL AT THE SAME TIME feel like they need to have you jumping through hoops. There comes a point where someone just starts making stuff up, or where you're just not able to accommodate them. If your body hates you that much, I can't really help you. I'm willing to learn, of course. So if you are one of these folks, let me know what you eat, and I'll see what I can do.

Beans & Rice: Switching it up

I saw a complaint from someone who was trying to eat cheaply, while eating healthy, so s/he was going heavy on the beans and rice thing, and starting to get bored. It's a fair enough critique of eating very cheaply: things can sometimes get repetitive or tedious, and you don't know quite how to break out of your rut. There are a couple of things you can get started doing, so that you can add interest to your beans and rice meals, while still keeping on a tight budget. This person said that they'd been able to get enough money to add a couple of spices to their beans and rice, and were able to splurge on adding animal products (which, frankly, are way more expensive than vegetables that will give more bulk and interest to the meal), so I'm allowing myself the addition of a few vegetables into this mix, to keep things interesting.

First, you really need to familiarise yourself with a basic daal tarka. I don't mean the complex ones involving multiple layers of spices, and all kind of vegetables. I'm talking your basic, starter edition.

2 cups of dried beans, soaked and cooked (buying dried beans will drop down the cost considerably from the cost of tinned; if you don't have the time for soaking and boiling, use red lentils, split peas, or brown lentils, which will cook up just as quickly.)
1 TB canola or other vegetable oil (don't substitute olive oil; its smoke point is way too small to allow the popping of spices)
1/2 tsp cumin seed (do not substitute powdered)
1/2 tsp coriander seed, lightly crushed  (do not substitute powdered)
1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric powder (if you can't find turmeric powder, use 1 tsp of curry powder)
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups water (either the cooking liquid from the beans, or fresh water if you threw them out already)

In a pot, add the oil, and heat it over highest heat. When the oil is hot enough that a bit of smoke escapes the surface, you're ready to add the spices. Add the coriander seed, wait about 30 seconds, and add the cumin seeds. These seeds will pop like mad. This is OK. When the popping has subsided, add the onion, and stir well to combine in the fat and spices. Add the turmeric powder after the onion cooks for about two minutes (still on highest heat). Once the onions are softened (not browned), add the cooked beans, the water, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine. Taste for seasoning, and adjust as necessary.

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Why did I start in on this? I wanted to start somewhere, so that we're all on the same page when I discuss the variations. Because, you see, the variations are endless.

If you're not able to afford a lot of different things, buy one or two of each veg at the store, which won't amount to much money, and do some of the following.

- When you add the onions, augment it with one carrot, one chopped jalapeno (or other chile) of your choice. I remember when I was really broke one time, and wanted some chile peppers in my daal, and I went to the store. I bought 3. They cost about $1.50/lb, because they were out of season. The 3 chiles came to a few cents. I just needed one or two for each day, and I couldn't afford a full pound at the time. The cashier gave me an odd look, but let me get what I wanted.

- Instead of the chile pepper, substitute a red, green, or yellow pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. It'll give the lovely spiciness of a chile peppers while adding a fair bit more bulk and colour.

- If you see it on sale, add a couple of ears of corn to the pot after you add the beans.

- If you have it, add 2 chopped plantains (skin and all) to the cooked onions, right after the onions are tender. All of a sudden, you'll have a potato-like vegetable added in, while still giving you a lot more nutrition than a plain white potato will give you. The plantain skin, when stove-roasted, gives a very interesting and tasty texture that I really hope you'll try.

- If you can find it, add 3 chopped chayotes to the cooked onions, and sautee them until they're soft.

- Before adding the cumin and coriander seed, add about 1 tsp of black or white mustard seeds to the hot fat, and slam on the lid. The mustard seeds will pop like mad, smell amazing, and add a whole different dimension to the dish.

- After popping the cumin and coriander, add 1 tsp of either white or black sesame seeds. Again, you'll boost the iron content, and add lots of taste. This is such a family favourite that my mother adds sesame seeds to her popping spices quite frequently.

- Add any kind of dark leafy green that you can find at the store, from spinach, kale, collard greens, mustard greens, radish greens, escarole, endive, watercress, etc.

- If you're using large beans (kidney, black turtle, white, adzuki, chickpeas, etc), drain them after cooking, and dry roast them. There's a recipe in the book, but the basic concept is to just pop the spices, add some cooked and drained beans, add turmeric, salt, and chiles, then toss them around in the pan until they're roasted on the outside, and creamy on the inside. The beans get a completely different texture and flavour. Everything takes on a much different feeling.

- If you're using the large beans, and brown rice, try a brown rice & beans salad. Add chopped raw onions, some canned, frozen, or fresh corn, a diced tomato, diced cucumber, diced bell pepper, some shredded carrot, the juice of one lime, some salt, cumin powder, cilantro, and some salt and pepper. The beauty of the salad is that during those hot summer months, you can eat it cold, and add pretty close to whatever vegetable you like in the mix, and still keep things interesting. In fact, you could even toss that salad with a bunch of lettuce leaves to bulk it out a bit, and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, and you're ready to eat!

- Mash cooked beans and rice together, along with sauteed onion, garlic, a bit of carrot, and seasoning of your choice, then press into flat patties to bake at 350 for like 20 minutes or so. Eat over a green salad.

The sky is the limit when it comes to beans and rice, especially when you start pulling from other cultures, like Jamaican Rice & Peas, or Costa Rican Gallopinto, or North Indian daals, or Louisiana Red Beans & Rice. There are hundreds of other varieties, especially when you expand your budget to include different spices, spice blends, etc, different kinds of interesting vegetables (just buy one or two if you're broke), different beans, and different rice.

Chickpea flour pancakes

This morning was a little rushed, so I did a batch of mini Besan Puda. The recipe from Manjula's Kitchen is what I used as inspiration. I added lots of garlic (chickpeas love garlic), grated potato, and grated carrot. I used the smallest holes on the grater so that the veggies cook quickly.

Breakfast

Puri and red lentil daal.

Adai

Adai is a newly discovered thing in my house. My mum used to make it for me when I was a kid, but I didn't appreciate it so much, because I preferred dosa, which really is more kid-friendly. However, as of late, I've been making Pa Jeon, or Besan ka Puda, or those little Paniyaram. All of which are delicious, and all of which challenge my conceptions of what a savoury crepe type dealie should be. I especially was moved to change my mind about adai after eating some of the Besan ka Puda, as it's essentially the same thing, but made from the raw ingredients, and with the chance to ferment a little.

Traditionally, you do not have to ferment an adai batter. That's the charm of it in the first place. You can set the beans and rice to soak, and slap that bad boy onto the griddle immediately. I prefer my crepes a little more fermented, because I like the flavour better, so I decided to ferment. You may choose not to. The choice is yours.

I personally prefer it with the mix that I've come up with. You can actually alter the mix to your own likes and dislikes. If you don't have toor daal, use moong daal. If you don't have either, use split peas, and it'll get you there. The essential part is that you make it with at least equal parts lentil to rice.

Unlike dosa, Adai is not so popular for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it's more expensive by a long shot. Traditional dosa calls for a 4 parts rice to 1 part urad daal mixture. This means that if you buy the cheapest rice, and the urad daal on sale, you can generally knock out a batch for a family of six with very little money. Adai, on the other hand, calls for much higher quantities of lentils. In my version, there are even more lentils than rice!

For another thing, because of the heft and "stuff" found inside of adai, it's not as popular with the kids, who like the diaphanous and crispy dosa, because they don't have much chewing of little bits to get through, and they can easily eat a couple and feel comfortable. An adai, on the other hand, is filling. It tends to be one of those things that you can have one, maybe two of at the most. Because it's so nutritionally dense, you tend to feel full faster, and stay full much longer than if you were to eat a dosa.

Finally, it's not as amenable to being folded over. It's a hefty little crepe. You can't fold it easily like you can a dosa. It doesn't take to fillings so much as it takes to the stuff already folded into the batter.

All that being said, if you don't mind the extra expense of making adai, you will be greatly rewarded. For one thing, it's much easier to handle the batter grinding. Unlike dosa, you need not grind the rice and beans down to a fine puree. You can get away with a bit of grit in the batter. You can also add all kinds of different things to the batter, and still turn out OK. You can sub out part of the rice for oats, or buckwheat, or even millet and still turn out something that's very tasty. You can sub out the daal for actual whole beans, like mung beans or chickpeas, and it'll still be delicious.

You can also fold in an endless variety of add-ons into the batter. Adai batter is extremely forgiving. You have some leftover chopped onions from the main dish you were making? In it goes! You have some extra grated carrots from the salad? Throw it in! You like to boost up the nutrition value by adding ground flax seed (as I did in this recipe; flax seed isn't traditional, but it's most delicious)? The batter will be better! The sky's the limit with regards to the flavouring options.

Add to this the fact that you can serve it with any kind of sauce (mint, cilantro, tamarind-date), chatni (coconut, mango, tomato), or stew (sambhar, rasam, kootu)/vegetable (curry, poriyal) that your brain can think of, and you're talking about a very useful little dish to have on hand.

Bear in mind that I did this to suit my tastes, and you may want to leave out the optional ingredients. Don't worry. I won't be offended! I personally like the addition of the urad daal, because it helps to keep the batter stronger and more coherent. I like the flax seed, because it means that I can thicken the batter after grinding with plenty of water. My blender isn't very powerful, so I need to add extra water to get it all ground down to my liking.

For the batter:

1 1/2 cups brown rice
1 1/2 cups toor daal
1/2 cup urad daal (OPTIONAL)
1 TB fenugreek seed (OPTIONAL)
4 cups water

Soak the ingredients for the batter for 3 hours. If you're adding fenugreek seed, and using brown rice, like I am, soak it for 6 hours, and you'll end up with better results. If you're using urad daal, like I am, please only soak the urad daal for about an hour.

Then, after the soaking process is done, add the mixture into the blender, in 1 cup increments, with about 1 cup of soaking liquid at a time. The reason to go in small batches is so that you don't strain your blender. We're not in a rush here, and this recipe makes a large batch of batter.


At the end of the blending, you'll end up with a batter like the one pictured above.

At this point, if you're using the fenugreek seed, take the batter and set it into a container on your countertop to ferment overnight. If you're not bothering with the fenugreek, don't bother to ferment. The fermentation step is strictly because I like the taste of it, and because I wanted adai for breakfast the next day, and not dinner that night.

When you're ready to fry off the adai on your skillet, you can add in your additions.

Additions:

1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped ginger
1/4 cup chopped curry leaf
3 green chilies (OPTIONAL)
2 - 3 pinches of asafoetida (OPTIONAL, if not using onion)
1/4 cup flax seed (OPTIONAL)
Any other veg you'd like

Mix the additions into 4 cups of batter, and salt to taste. Grind the flax seeds in a coffee grinder until it's a powder. Stir it into your batter. You'll have a cup or two of leftover batter to use later. The batter will be very thick and should bubble a little bit if you fermented it overnight. If you need to, thin it out with a bit of water. You want it to resemble a thick and chunky pancake batter.


Because I didn't go shopping this week, I didn't have much in the way of additions. I wish I had some coconut to fold in. That would have been lovely. I just added the ginger, onion, and curry leaf.


Using a 1-cup ladle, pour the batter onto a hot skillet (heated over medium high heat), and spread the batter around in concentric circles until it's about 1/4 inch thick. Don't worry about getting it crepe thin. It's never going to be super thin, because of the add-ins. This is OK. I'm using a nonstick skillet, so that I don't have to add very much fat.

Using a squeeze bottle, or a small spoon, put a few drops onto the perimeter of your adai.

When to Flip?

Look at the picture of the adai after it's sat on the skillet for about 30 seconds (click the image if you want a larger version). Notice how most of the surface looks mostly translucent? Notice how some of the "peaks" look a much more opaque white colour? The opaque bits (that I've circled in the image) are still not cooked all the way through. You want the bottom of the adai to be browned, and the top to be almost completely cooked before turning. At this point, I've still got too many uncooked bits, so I'm not going to turn it over yet.

Finally, once the adai is mostly cooked on the side you can see, flip it over, and look at the other side:


Isn't that beautiful? Flip it over a couple of more times until it's browned to your liking, then serve.

Set up big pressure cooker for small cooking.

In the body of the pressure cooker is lentils with enough water to cover them. The first bowl in the stack has barley, and its cooking liquid. Atop that, I set the little trivet that came with the pressure cooker. Atop /that/ are some red potatoes, with a scant 2 cm of water in. There'll be plenty of steam in the cooker, so I need not even bother with it, but I don't want the potatoes sticking to my bowl. I then put the lid and weight on the whole mess, set it over high heat, and set my timer for 40 minutes. (Next time, I'll go with shorter time, because the potatoes got overcooked). Then I walked away, and heard the pressure cooker get to full pressure at like 6 minutes or so. Then, I dropped down the heat to low, and let the timer run out. I did a quick release. Honestly, if I just did like 20 minutes, I could have still done a quick release with no problems. I was just stupidly nervous. Boo.

My friend Christy Morgan, of Blissful Chef fame, is maintaining an ongoing pressure cooker party on her blog. Please check out this link for more info on cooking other stuff in pressure cookers! She's got lots of creative ideas for cooking in my style: whole ingredients, lots of produce, and minimising premade stuff. Check it out!

Lemon Rice Recipe

OK, so I checked the book, and couldn't find lemon rice in it to save my life! Noooooo! Sorry guys. Here's a guesstimation of the recipe. You may want to adjust it to your own needs. I'm giving it how I make it on a usual basis. There are many different ways to do it, so your mileage may vary.

Yes, it does freeze wonderfully. To thaw it out, take it from the freezer, give it a good sprinkling of water, and nuke it till it's thawed and hot through and through. This works best with long grain rice that is NOT hot. What my mother (and I) do is to cook the rice in the rice cooker, then spread it out onto a surface to cool off. It doesn't need to get cold, but it needs to be cooled down so that you can easily mix it with your hands.

Do not skip that step. If you mix the rice when the rice is piping hot, you'll end up with mashed rice, and that's not pleasant for anyone. The ideal consistency of the rice is a little on the soft side, but still separate. To do this in a rice cooker, add in slightly more water than the amount of rice you're using calls for. It's just a scootch more than usual (maybe a 1/4 cup of total extra water for four cups of rice). It'll get your rice to that slightly chewy consistency, but the rice won't be mushy.

Finally, the best way to mix it all together is with your hands. Any stirring or serving utensil will mush the rice too much. With your hands, you can gently break up large clumps of rice into individual grains. To do this correctly, pick up the large clump of rice, and place it between your two palms. Gently make a rubbing motion, as if you were trying to warm up your hands slowly. Rub back and forth over the surface of the rice clump, and watch the grains magically separate without getting mushy! No fork or spoon would do that.

The substitutions I'm making here are in concession to the fact that most people aren't using the same brand of sesame oil that I'd be able to get in Chennai (Idhayam, for those who are curious). Instead, I use the hulled sesame seeds to approximate the flavour. Hulled sesame seeds are the typical ones you'll find in the store. They have a shiny smooth surface. Unhulled sesame is fine, if that's what you have. They come in black or light brown, and have a coarse outside. If you're using unhulled sesame seeds (light brown) or unhulled black sesame seeds, add them in with the cumin.

Yes, you can use brown rice, but I feel like it's never as separate as white rice. This isn't an every day food. Splurge and have the white rice. Brown rice with mixed spiced rice dishes (coconut rice, tomato rice, lemon rice, tamarind rice, etc.) is pretty nasty, but I'm not going to stop you if you absolutely insist on having it with brown rice.

4 cups of long grain white rice, cooked and cooled on a plate or cookie sheet
2 tablespoons peanut, canola, or corn oil (NOT sesame oil)
1/2 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon hulled sesame seeds
2 stalks curry leaves (optional; do not ask what to substitute. If you don't have them, don't use them, full stop.)
1 handful of peanuts, cashews, or slivered almonds (optional)
1 piece of ginger, about the length of your thumb, grated (NOT peeled)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Juice of 1 lemon + zest
Salt, to taste (I usually end up sprinkling on a generous bit with the cooking rice, but the final dish often has so much flavour that I don't even miss it when I forget to add salt)

Traditional Method:
Cook the rice using your favourite method. I trust my rice cooker, and will default to that.

When the rice is down to room temperature, start making the spice blend.

In a deep pot, heat up the oil. It won't hurt anything if you add a bit of extra fat, because it'll just give the rice a nicer flavour. You want the oil to get very hot, to the point of smoking. Not smoking hard, but when a small wisp of smoke escapes the surface of the fat, you know you're golden.

Add the mustard seeds, and STOP. They will begin to heat up, and pop and crackle like mad. This is very good. If the mustard seeds do not pop, they will taste just awful. Wait for the mustard seeds to pop well before adding anything else, as they take the longest to cook. If you don't hear popping, the oil is not hot enough. Wait until you hear a wild, crazy popping crescendo, and then subside a bit. Then you know the fat is ready for the next step.

Add the cumin seeds, and wait for them to pop as did the mustard seeds.

Here is where the roads will diverge. If you have hulled sesame seeds, wait for the cumin seeds to subside in their popping before adding the sesame seeds, then add the sesame seeds, and allow them to pop. If you do not have hulled sesame seeds, and are using unhulled brown or black sesame seeds, add the sesame seeds at the same time as the cumin. If you have hulled split urad daal, this would be the time to add it. Most people don't have it, so I haven't included it in the list. However, if you do have the stuff, bonus!

While this mad popping is going down, feel free to stir the pot with a wooden spoon, or lift it up from the flame, and swirl it about gently.

This first step takes about a minute in total, once the fat gets hot. It happens extremely fast. If it's not happening quite so fast, your fat is not hot enough. Traditionally, you would add the asafoetida to the mix once the last spice has begun to subside, but in this case, I'm leaving it out, because most people can't even pronounce it, much less stock it in their spice cabinet. Just know that if you have the stuff, now's the time to whip it out.

Once the sesame seeds pop (they really don't need to pop completely, as the cumin and mustard seeds did), add your curry leaves if you have them. If you don't have them, just skip this step. In all honesty, the bulk of the flavour is coming from the lemon and the other spices anyway.

If you have nuts, add them after the curry leaves. Again, this is a purely optional (although deeply delicious) step. Don't fret if you don't have them around, as there have been times when the only thing separating my lemon rice from regular rice is the hint of sourness that I got in there somehow (more on that later).

Once the nuts are toasted (if you added them, otherwise, pretend you're doing this right after the sesame seeds), add the turmeric. Stir it through well, and make sure that the turmeric cooks for about 30 - 45 seconds over the heat. If it doesn't cook well, turmeric has a horrible taste. Finally, add the grated ginger, and turn off the heat. Ginger cooks extremely quickly, and does not require the flame to be on. Slam on the lid, and walk away from the stove. The ginger will cook in the residual heat.

While you wait for the ginger to "cook", zest and juice your lemon. Feel comfortable in knowing that your ginger and spices won't burn, because the stove is off. Life is good.

Open the lid of the spice pot, and pour in the lemon juice and lemon zest. The heat from the pot and spices will give it just enough to bring out the maximum lemon flavour. Stir the spices and juice together. Evenly sprinkle the spice/oil/juice mixture over the cooling rice. Take some rice up into the spice pot, and swirl it around to get out every last bit of that spice blend that you worked so quickly to make. Before tossing everything, give the rice a gentle sprinkling of salt.

Now, with your hands (wear gloves if you've got a recent manicure, as the turmeric will stain) toss the rice gently with the spice blend. You will know that the salt is evenly mixed through when all of the rice is evenly coloured yellow by the turmeric. Neat trick, right?

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Variations There are many times when the situation is less than ideal. I may have forgotten to buy the lemons, or the lemon juice, and I've got all of a teaspoon of the stuff lying around. I can't find my ginger, because I used it in something else in a fit of inspiration. I used up the last of the nuts the night before while sitting on my duff, and watching Golden Girls. Either way, life can sometimes end up in ways you don't want for it to end up.

1) If I'm running extremely low on lemon juice, I sprinkle in a small dab of citric acid (which can be found in bulk in most Indian stores) to amp up the lemony taste. Citrc acid keeps forever, and is good for when I've not got the time to make lemons happen.

2) I was once at my friend Mikeypod's house. We wanted lemon rice, but he didn't have time to cook rice ahead of time. Instead of panicking, I used the pilaf method. After cooking the ginger (on high heat), I added in the rice, and gently tossed it through till it was transluscent. This took the better part of two or three minutes, but it was worth it, as it smelled of gently spiced nuts. Once the rice was tossed through, I added the amount of water that the rice needed, and let the water come to a full rolling boil. I slammed on the lid, and turned down the heat to as low as the stove would go, and let it cook through for about 25 minutes. It was done to perfection.

3) When I run out of ginger, I don't panic at all. That's when I slide in a few cloves of smashed garlic, or a bit of chopped onion. As I come from a Brahmin house, this is strictly Not Done, but seeing as how my family does eat garlic and onion, many of those recipes are done from tradition or not having garlic or onion lying around. These days, however, I find that it's easier to keep garlic or onion in stock than ginger, which tends to turn on me rather quickly.

Mid Week Feast

Kale with coconut milk, curry powder, and scallions. I put the beets in there to cook, because the greens were done too fast. Baked at 350 for 45 minutes.

Broccoli with coconut oil and sesame seeds. Tossed in a bit of cumin powder and turmeric powder. Baked at 350 for 20 minutes.

Beet greens, stewed in a bit of water and their own juices. Seasoned with ginger and garam masala. Baked for 25 minutes.

Snow peas with ginger and mint. Tossed in a bit of oil, and baked for 20 minutes.

Rasam. It's in the book.

All said and done, the prep time took the longest, because washing and chopping all those masses of vegetables in a tiny kitchen can take some time, but after it was all put together, it took five seconds to dump everything into the oven. That was well worth it. If you were making this for two people eating one meal, it would only take like 10 minutes of prep, and then dump everything in the oven. The broccoli and snow peas may be done in the microwave, if you wish. The beet greens as well. The kale really needs the oven to develop proper flavour. I didn't get to see the kale finish cooking, because I had to leave for work, so I asked Steve to turn off the oven when it beeped. He said it was fantastic.

Mid week feast.

I don't know if this will become a regular feature, but I guess I'll give you guys a peek at this week's mid-week feast. It's a special cooking I do during the middle of the week, to lift up my spirits (because I love to cook), and Steve (because it gives him something of a change, and makes the house smell nice). This week's mid-week feat was simple, but tasty.

I had a few yuccas lying about, along with a few heads of cabbage, some onions, a lot of garlic, some tomato, and sweet potato. I peeled and chopped up the sweet potato (1 large one) into large (about 3 cm cubed) pieces, and set it in a pot of cold water. I set it onto the stove to boil. While that water came up to heat, I peeled the yucca, and set that in a pot of cold water. Set that on the stove to boil as well. Then, I chopped up 1 1/2 heads of cabbage, and the onions I had left. Then I minced up a head of garlic. I then got to cooking. By the time the onions, garlic, and cabbage were prepped, the sweet potatoes were just tender.

That's when the magic started to happen. On went some oil into a screaming hot skillet. In went some mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and sesame seeds. In went a bit of coconut oil, to fortify the smell and taste of the Canola. The house started to fill up with the heady aroma of the coconut oil, and the lovely spices. In went the sweet potatoes, a hefty hit of salt, and a bit of turmeric, black pepper, and cinnamon. I rounded it out with a good scraping of nutmeg.

I then continued to cook the sweet potatoes until they developed a rich, decadent crust on them. They browned every so nicely. I had to drop down the heat to medium low, and let them sit for a few minutes to move them around, but so what? The crust was developing. Then, I finished it off with some garlic, onion, and flaked coconut. That only boosted the smell even more.

By that point, the yucca was done. So I drained that, and chopped it up. In that same wok, I threw in some more oil, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds. When they popped, I dumped in the cabbage, along with some salt, and black pepper, and some red chili flakes. I sauteed that around for about ten minutes. That went off the heat into its serving bowl.

Finally, I had the chopped yucca, some tinned beans, the rest of my onions and garlic, and a hankering for a hearty stew. In went the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and coriander seeds (crushed) with the screaming hot fat. In went the onions and garlic. When they browned, I threw in one tin of drained and rinsed black eyed peas, and a tin of pink beans (with the liquid it came in). I sauteed the beans around in the hot oil and spices, and slated it generously. Then in went the yucca, the yucca's cooking liquid, and some red chili flakes. The smells got even more heady, as the yucca cooked up, and the spices got more aromatic.

While this whole thing was going down, I had a pot of rice going in my rice cooker. All said and done, it took about 40 minutes from start to finish. Hope this inspires some of you to try your own mid week feasts.

Add garlic and ginger at the end, please

I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: add your garlic towards the end of cooking. I've seen the cost of garlic skyrocketing like everything else in the stores. And, just like everything else, we can find ways to maximise the way we use said ingredient. If it's oils that are costing a fortune (olive, sesame, etc.), we can use them only as finishing oils, and in sparing amounts. With garlic, the magic is in adding it at just the right time to get the punch you want.

If you don't like strong garlic flavour--

Wait a minute. If you don't like garlic, what're you reading this for? Don't use it!

No, I'll be serious now. If you're not a huge fan of the sharp, strong garlic taste, add it in the mid-point of your cooking. Say for example that you're making a tomato sauce or something similar. Instead of sauteing the garlic with the onions, and missing out on having the garlic give any impact at all, just use less than the recipe calls for, and add it after you add the tomato. It's when you cook it in oil that the flavour disperses and weakens.

So now, suppose that you're a huge fan of garlic. Mince it up as finely as you can, and go ahead and add it as close to the end as possible. You'll taste the garlic, and smell it as soon as it gets to the table. In fact, if you want to use the mortar and pestle to grind it down to a paste, and go from there. It'll be all the more strong, and taste all the sharper.

This goes double for ginger. I myself have advocated cooking ginger along with the aromatics, but I've found that it cooks extremely quickly. It cooks even more quickly than garlic! Add ginger at the very last minute possible, once you've grated it finely, and you'll taste it clearly in the end result.

Chickpeas are awesome in general.

I was in the vegan chat room today, and got to chatting with someone from Australia, who was just starting out her exploration of the humble, yes awesome, chickpea. She's been roasting them in the oven, and spending upwards of half an hour on the process, as the oven takes its own sweet time in making the roasty magic happen. I gave her a detailed explanation on how to roast chickpeas on the stove. She seemed shocked that it only takes a few minutes!

You can hear the results of the conversation here, on the new podcast episode. It was basically me catching up with my listeners, by reading their emails, and then plunging in head-first into chickpea heaven.

You start with a screaming hot skillet, some oil, some mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and sesame seeds. I get into more detail about the conditions of the whole thing in the podcast episode, and in the cook book, so either way, read up or listen up to the whole popping spices deal before attempting this. If you don't have the book, listen to the pocast which is free. Either way, you'll get the idea.

After the seeds are popped, throw in the well-drained chickpeas WITH NO AROMATICS. Aromatics kill caramelisation of your ingredients. They exude water, and increase the cooking time. This is supposed to be a quick five minute thing. Besides, adding aromatics adds to your prep time. Bother with that stuff when you don't care about time!

Then, you roast the chickpeas on high heat for about five minutes. If you want them more brown, keep going. Do not fear oil! Stove top roasting is a bit more oil intensive than oven roasting. If you see the skillet drying out, add a bit of extra oil, until the chickpeas are slightly shiny from the oil, and keep roasting. You won't get that beautiful brown unless you use a bit of oil. If you are watching your calories, read on, and I'll explain how to do them in the oven.

After the five minutes (or however long you decided to roast them) is up, turn off the heat, and let the chickpeas rest for a minute, while you contemplate how to eat them. They're excellent in a pita pocket, with some alfalfa sprouts, cilantro, and tomato. They're good over hot steamy rice. They're quite nice all by themselves, as a snack. You can use them as croutons over a salad. You can add a cup or two of water, and make it a soup (to thicken up the soup, either mash with a potato masher or grind in a blender about 1/2 of the chickpeas). I discuss other possibilities in the podcast.

If you are watching your calories, and want to reduce the amount of fat, use the following ratio for 1 pound of cooked chickpeas:

1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt, to taste

Mix the oil, sesame seeds, and turmeric powder into a spice paste. Toss the spice paste with the well-drained chickpeas. Arrange them onto a baking sheet, so that they have a fair bit of space between them. For me, a pound of chickpeas takes two baking sheets. Your sheets may be bigger or smaller. The idea is that you don't want to crowd your baking sheet, or else the chickpeas will not roast on all sides.

Sprinkle generously with salt, to taste. Let them roast in the oven for about 20 minutes (at 180ºC or 350ºF), and check and see if they're brown enough for your liking. Feel free to shake the pans a bit to turn the chickpeas over. Also, feel free to rotate your pans. Some ovens have "hot spots", and you might do well to move the baking sheets around your oven, so that they can all get cooked evenly.

If they are brown enough to your liking at 20 minutes, remove them. If not, keep roasting them until they're at the brownness and crispness of your liking. The longer you let them go, the more they dry out, and the more brown they get.

If you find that they are taking too long to roast, chances are that you're crowding the pan, and having them steam first, then roast. Make sure there's plenty of breathing space for the chickpeas in the pans.

Now go out and roast some chickpeas!

By the by, this whole entry and discussion with my friend on the chat room was spawned because of the mid week feast I made for Puppy. I've got the picture below and above this entry.

Watermelon.

I just finished eating a giant piece of watermelon. Next to me was my little salt grinder. Now, anyone who's been over to my house to eat at one of my Saturday afternoon food for alls knows that I have a bit of a salt thing. You've probably eaten freshly cut fruit from atop my slab of Himalayan pink rock salt (it's shaped like a brick). You know that I use Kosher salt (and only Kosher salt) in my cooking, and I use coarse sea salt in a salt grinder for salting at the table.

So when I was staring at that little salt grinder, and wondering what would happen, my brain went back to that Watermelon Gazpacho (which is what it's called, but I couldn't remember the name) at Sacred Chow. If they can use salt on watermelon, why can't I?

On went a few ethereal grains of finely ground salt atop my glistening slice of watermelon. It was almost as if the watermelon slice grew more delicious than it already was! How was it possible that I've waited this long for the magic to happen? I'm quite pleased with my little salt grinder.

Storing Grains

My mother had a problem with bugs, which she told me about. All her grain products, and many of her bean products had developed those little needle nosed bugs that some people call weevils, but are really Tribolium confusum, or the so called "confused flour beetle." Yes, it's a species of beetle. They're fascinating little creatures, and have a standard life cycle of egg, larva, pupa, and adult. They can survive on the tiniest amount of grain, and can even survive the freezer.

However, the people who typically give advice on bug management tell you to do horrible things, like put the grain into the freezer for extended time, so that they can be frozen to death. I don't know about you, but I'm not too keen on the cold, and freezing to death doesn't sound like my idea of fun. I think that the best way to avoid eating bugs (although it's funny how squeamish people get about eating bugs, when they have no problem eating other animals, but that's for another day) is to prevent their access to your food supplies in the first place.

This is dead simple to do, as long as you are fastidious about it.

1. If you already have an infestation, don't buy any new grain until all the old grain is completely consumed (by either you or the bugs). I'd suggest just letting the bugs have at, because the eggs are small enough to pass through a sieve, and are too small to be seen easily by the human eye. Better to start fresh, so that you're not taking any chances at all.

2. Clean out any vestiges of grain products left in open surfaces, such as on the counter, in cupboards, pantries, or other storage areas, and any other place you think some grain may have fallen. Thoroughly vacuum your kitchen, to pick up any stray pieces. Go over everything with hot water and bleach. It'll take a while, but it's well worth it if you're looking to start over fresh.

3. When you buy grain, beans, or anything else that these critters like to attack, store them in air-tight containers with as small an opening as possible.

I'll repeat that, in case you missed it: store them in airtight containers with small openings.

What do I mean?

Juice bottles! You know those bottles of cranberry juice or apple juice that you buy from the store? (Or, in some cases, bottles of liquor with a screw on cap.) Those are perfect for keeping out bugs, because you can close them tightly, they don't cost you anything, and they store a LOT of grain.

I can easily fit a 20 lb bag of rice into a couple of one gallon juice jugs. I prefer the clear containers, so that I can see what it is that's inside the container, but you can use any bottle you have.

If you've ever visited my apartment, you'll see bottles of rice, split peas, and other random grains on top of my fridge, bottles of spices in my cupboards, and bottles of other grains in my pantry. The easiest way to get your stuff into those jars is to visit a hardware store, and buy one of those cheap plastic funnels that have a very large opening on the bottom, so that your grain flows through evenly. Once they're in there, it's very easy to dispense.

Those funnels are usually used to get oil into a car, but they work just fine for grain. If you find that the opening that rests in the bottle is too small, grab a serrated knife, and saw off the bottom tip until it's wide enough to admit the grains, but narrow enough to fit the mouth of the bottles. Sand it down a bit with your sharpening steel, some steel wool pads, sandpaper, a nail file, an emery board, or whatever else you have lying around. The point is that you want to avoid the little bits of plastic getting into your food.

If you'd rather not spend the $1 - $3 on the plastic funnel, grab a newspaper, and roll it into a cone with an open end. Secure it with a staple or two, or some tape, and go to town. Or, use one of those party hats, and snip off an end. I used the same party hat for about six months while I was trying to find a better way, and it worked just fine for me.

In fact, I find it awkward to use my grains without pouring them out! The smaller containers are much easier to handle than those messy bags that they come packaged in.

This goes triple for sushi or basmati rice. Both are extremely expensive, and I'd sooner miss out on the attractive packaging that they come in than lose out on the rice itself.

If you have friends that also discard their used juice and water bottles, ask them to save the bottles for you, so that you can reuse them.

WARNING: Ensure that you wash and thoroughly dry the containers before putting any grain into them. Any leftover moisture will encourage the growth of fungus, and will spoil your stuff. Make sure that it's completely dry before using the containers. It's important to was the juice containers, because the leftover sugar will attract ants and other critters. Best to avoid it in the first place!

Why recycle when you can reuse?

Back from CT

On Tuesday afternoon, I made a quick trip out to Connecticut to visit with my mother, father, sister, and brother-in-law. To say that it was quiet out there in CT would be horribly understating the sheer deafening quiet that pervaded everything. The only noises you'd hear were the footsteps of people walking about in the house, and the wind gushing all over ... whatever it is that wind gushes all over.

Suffice to say, I was going out of my head, because that level of quiet feel unnatural to me. There weren't any sirens, neighbours chatting on their front porches, dogs barking, cats fighting, parties going, cars zooming by, or any of the other normal noises of a city. Instead, you'd hear the occasional squirrel skittering off to do its squirrely business, and that's only if you were outdoors.

That being said, there were a lot of trees. Let me treet you to the variety. (hah!)









On the train, there was this sign about being cautious of the gap between the train itself, and the platform. For whatever reason, the icon they used to depict this amused me to no end. For any of you who've ridden the MTA CT to NY train, you'll recognise this immediately.


Aside from that was the food. Ever since my sister started college, she'd started compiling cooking techniques. For me, cooking is easy, because I was at my mother's knee the whole time that she was in the kitchen, performing her magic. I'd watch what she did avidly, and later try to replicate it on my own. Many burned pots later, it'd come out just so, and I would interpret the dish in my own way.

My sister, on the other hand, wasn't that much of a kitchen person. For her to have picked up cooking the way she did (via many frantic, panicked phone calls to my mother) is a great accomplishment, and I'm very proud of her. She's become quite accomplished at making uppuma, and rasam. Other than that, she can do a lemon rice in her sleep, or a cocoanut rice with a little motherly advice. Either way, she'd quite good at what she does. The reason we don't have photos of her food is because we ate it all before I got a chance to snap a few shots off.

Oh yeah. And dosa. Both my mother and sister are adept at churning out a perfect dosa lightning quick, at any time of day or night. That was quite a treat, let me tell you. Having fresh, piping hot dosa directly from the frying pan is a treat that must be experienced at least once in your life.

Today, I'm meeting with a person that Steve introduced me to via email. We'll be discussing how to cook for a huge group of people on $75. They haven't seen what I can do yet!