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nourishing the body

greg

Subcontinent Inspiration

I just love Indian food and especially love the cuisine from South India. I don’t make Indian food that often but I am often inspired by the wonderful spices and flavors of the Indian subcontinent to flavor every day food. I toss curry powder into my tuna salad. I add asafoetida to my chili. I mix hot spicy Indian lime pickle to my mashed potatoes. The flavors just make your mouth sing. Anyway, I was rummaging through my cupboards looking for something to make for dinner with dal on my mind and I found my container of yellow split peas that I picked up at our local Indian market. I guess I am all out of dal. But these were just the thing I needed to create a vegetarian dish that was fulfilling and tasty. Also on the major ingredient list was cabbage and some coarse bulgar wheat. Yes, I know – not really traditional Indian, but the flavors and textures were good. I didn’t measure anything exactly but I’ll try to describe how I made this dish and what went into it.

I started by heating a large heavy bottomed pot and added some olive oil. Ghee would have been better but olive oil is healthier. The first thing to do was to fry a bit of urid dal and mustard seeds in the hot oil. The mustard seeds pop like popcorn, so you need to put a lid on it. Careful not to let it burn. The urid dal gives small little crunchy bites in the dish. I would guess I added about a tbsp of urid dal and not quite a tsp of mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard popped I added a chopped onion along with lots of chopped garlic and ginger. This was cooked for a few minutes until the onions began to soften. I then added about 1.5 cups or so (a couple handfuls?) of yellow split peas to the pot along with a spice mixture. Again, I didn’t measure but I’ll tell you what I added. I had ground up some whole spices in the coffee grinder that I keep just for spices. Into that went a couple of cinnamon sticks, about 4 pods of cardamon, a couple tsp of corriander seeds, a couple tsp of cumin seeds, a tsp of black peppercorns. I also added some Madras curry powder to the pot along with a few dashes of asafoetida powder, some tumeric and some red chili powder. Oh, I also season with salt along the way. Basically add as much of any ingredient as you like to taste. In a dish that cooks for a long time it is important to add a lot of spice to flavor everything well.

After cooking for just a minute the spices started emitting a wonderful aroma. I added about 6 cups of water and a few dashes of rice vinegar. Lemon juice would have been nice but I didn’t have any on hand. The split peas were cooked for about 20-30 minutes until they started to soften. I added a cup of coarse bulgar wheat to the pot along with a whole head of cabbage that had been chopped up. This was covered and cooked for another 20 minutes or so, stirring every now and then, until the cabbage was all wilted down and the split peas had a nice cooked but not mushy texture. The bulgar absorbed nearly all of the liquid so this was not a soupy dish.

Along with the meal I served some poppadom – an Indian style thin crispy cracker like bread. You can by them in dried uncooked rounds in your local Indian grocery. I used to fire them quickly on the grill or even on my stove top but on the advice of a good Indian friend, these can be done to perfection in the microwave. Just nuke them for about 1 minute and they crisp up nicely.

Rhubarb Jam

We’re not done with rhubarb yet! Our rather cool season has kept it tasting good. I don’t see an end to it anytime soon. My rhubarb is the green variety. Not as pretty to look at as the red rhubarb, but it tastes just the same, if not better. I decided to make some rhubarb jam. So easy to do and so tasty. I just took 4 pounds of chopped rhubarb and 4 cups of sugar together in a big pot. I added a tsp of pectin. It doesn’t really need much as rhubarb has a fair amount of pectin naturally. This was cooked down for about an hour or so until it was at the thickness (when cooled) that I like for jam.

I preserved the jam by processing in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes to seal the jars. I didn’t have very many small jars but these pint jars did the trick.

The jam doesn’t have to be canned. You can always freeze it in jars. Leave some head space for expansion. The jam will last for a few weeks in the fridge.

Warmed up this makes an amazing rhubarb sauce for ice cream too.

Rhubarb Custard Bars

These are SO good. Every year my neighbor’s mother always asks for rhubarb from my garden. She always brings over a few bars of heavenly goodness after she transforms my sad old green rhubarb into pure pleasure. She gave me the recipe recently and I’ve made them myself. Not for the diet conscious, that’s for sure, but these are so worth it, it doesn’t matter.

Rhubarb Custard Bars
(Thanks to Arliss Thomas)

Crust:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup margarine (I use butter)

Filling:
2 cups sugar
7 tbps flour
1 cup whipping cream
3 eggs, beaten
5 cups chopped rhubarb

Topping:
1 8-oz pkg cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup whipping cream, whipped

In a bowl combine the flour and sugar. Cut in the margarine (or butter) until it is coarse. Press into a greased 9×13 baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes. While the crust is baking prepare the filling by combining the sugar and flour in a bowl. Whisk in the cream and eggs. Stir in the chopped rhubarb. Pour the filling over the crust and bake at 350°F for 40-45 minutes or until the custard is set. Cool completely. For the topping beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Spread over the cooled bars. Cover and refrigerate.

Savory Rhubarb and Lentil Soup

I like savory rhubarb dishes and my rhubarb corner in the garden is overflowing with bounty right now. I was thinking about soup since I just bought a nice new Le Crueset soup pot on sale from amazon. A quick google search pointed me to just the inspiration I was looking for. I found a recipe for Rhubarb-Lentil Soup with Crème Fraîche. My proportions were slightly different and I made it from what I had on hand. The soup turned out really wonderful. The rhubarb completely disintegrates in the soup. If you didn’t know it was there you probably wouldn’t be able to identify it as rhubarb but it does add a foundation of tartness that is so important for this recipe.

Here is the ingredient list for my savory rhubarb lentil soup:

1 cup green lentils
1.5 cups chopped onions
1.5 cups chopped carrots
2.5 cups chopped rhubarb
6 cloves garlic
3/4 cup white wine
3.5 cups chicken stock
2 pinches dried thyme
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
4 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tbsp fresh dill

First the lentils. I used dried green lentils and presoaked them with boiling water for 15 minutes to soften them and speed up their cooking.

The rhubarb, carrots, onions and garlic were all finely diced or chopped.

I started with a hot soup pot (I really love this Le Crueset!). A tbsp of olive oil and the onions and carrots went in first. These were seasoned with salt and pepper and sautéed for about 5 minutes until the onions were starting to soften nicely.

Next the rhubarb and garlic were added. These were cooked for 3-4 minutes until the rhubarb started to soften and disintegrate.

Here’s what it looked like after the rhubarb was broken down.

I deglazed the pot with the white wine (2004 Santa Rita sauvignon blanc from Chile). The chicken stock and lentils were then added. I threw in a couple of bay leaves and a pinch of thyme. The soup was brought up to a boil, covered and allowed to simmer.

After about 40 minutes the lentis were nicely cooked through. I took about 1/3 of the soup mixture and puréed it in a blender until smooth. This was added back to the rest of the soup.

Instead of crème fraîche I used plain yogurt. This was mixed with fresh dill and dollopped on top of the soup. I also served a side salad with stawberries and walnuts. The greens were dressed with a bit of the yogurt/dill and some balsamic vinegar.

Pretty darn good pizza dough


I like my sourdough pizza’s that I’ve made in the past, but I have to say I am pretty impressed with the pizza dough recipe my wife recently found. She found it looking for a breadstick recipe for our son. First, let me give credit where credit’s due. The recipe came from the blog of Amy Clark at momadvice.com. The recipe is a take on a Pizza Hut dough copycat. Now, just like Amy, I don’t really care for Pizza Hut crust. It is way too greasy for me and seems to be too airy. I liken it to a sponge that has been dipped in the deep fryer. So, I was a little bit skeptical when my wife said she was making a dough similar to Pizza Hut. I was quite surprised, however, that it came out GREAT. The recipe is unique in that it uses both yeast as well as baking powder. This gives it a bit more lift in the oven and makes for a great texture. Not too airy like Pizza Hut and definitly not greasy. It still had a nice chewy texture but was easier to bite than my typical pizza dough. I have to say it is a winner. The pizza you see above was made with this recipe but a little more than half of the flour was whole wheat. Often I find whole wheat crust tends to be tough but this one turned out great. It was still easy to bite with a great flavor. The first time we tried this recipe it made a dough that was way too wet. This time we added a bit more flour and it was perfect. Of course flour hydration varies a lot depending on the climate. You may want to play around with it. I like my pizza dough a little bit on the wet side anyway.

Pizza Hut Style Pizza Dough

1 1/3 cups water
2 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp cornmeal
3 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp yeast