Posts Tagged ‘Vegetarian’
Aloo sorrel
This could be a case of me reinventing “Runny eggs and soldiers” …
Sorrel isn’t something you buy at the grocery stores here. They pop up in spring mixes, but they aren’t available in a bunch. I have been growing red veined english sorrels for the last few years. They had started with a skinny seedling and spread. Now I have three pots in my courtyard and some growing wild in the yard. They are hardy. They are pretty to look at. I have been adding them to Zhingyalov Hats (Armenian flatbread) along with other store bought greens. More recently, I learned that they are the same family as South Indian gongura. My local South Indian restaurant, Varam, makes a mean gongura chicken biryani.
The sorrels in my pots needed picking. And I didn’t want to get store bought greens and make Zhingyalov Hats. I also had a leftover Idaho boiled potato from the low fiber diet last week. This recipe is inspired by flavors of South India (gongura theme), but made the way northern Aloo Methi (fenugreek) is made (what I am familiar with).
With one large potato, one small chopped onion and a two cups of cleaned and chopped sorrel, this is a side dish for two. Chop and pan fry the potatoes in one tablespoon of coconut oil. The goal is to get some color on the potatoes so it looks nicer on the plate. You will want to use the pan that you would typically use when frying potatoes. I am using my iron kadai – it is an Indian wok that is smaller and heavier than Chinese wok. Set the potatoes aside, salt them to taste. Add one more tablespoon of coconut oil to the pan. Now add 1/2 tsp of fennel seeds. Once they are toasty and aromatic, add the chopped onions and let them caramelize. If you have curry leaves at hand, fresh or dry, you can chop/crush a few and add to the frying onions. I ran out and picked a fresh stem from my curry leaf plant, it is thriving in the yard thanks to our friend, Sudha, who trained the plant to tolerate Bay Area weather. If you prefer a little heat, add a chopped green chili and fry. If you want heat but don’t have green chili, you can use dry red chili, but I prefer adding dry chili to the oil along with the fennel seeds to get toasted chili flavor. Finally, add the sorrel and fry. Add salt to taste. At this point, add 1/2 tsp of coriander power. If you have other flavorful southern masala or garam masala, you can substitute the coriander powder with that. I did have some home made sambar powder at hand so I used that. Once the aroma is released, add the potatoes. At this point, you can smash some of the potatoes. Toss a bit to coat the potatoes uniformly and serve. I had a flax seed podi in my fridge that I scattered on top. I served the potatoes with a desi style plain omelette.
Sambar masala has fenugreek seeds in it, hence it gives the dish a faint hint of aloo methi taste. It is also a little tangy from the sorrel and very aromatic from the coconut oil and fennel. Last time the sorrels needed picking, I had made gongura pappu, a classic recipe from the Telangana cuisine. While both lentils and potatoes are forgiving ingredients, I prefer this recipe over the lentil dish. Partly because my gut continues to be sensitive to Indian lentils. Partly, potatoes and egg make for a fun balanced breakfast.
A Kashmiri winter dish
Two summers ago, I grew a bunch of vegetables in my front yard. Outcome – I ended up with way more than I could eat, so I was drying. Mostly herbs. But that got me curious about dried vegetables. About the same time, I had learned about Kashmiri dried vegetables, Hokh Syun (link). For Kashmiris, it used to be necessity back in the days when snow would isolate villages and homes. Now it is a childhood memory food for most. For me, it is curiosity. So I dried some in my trusty dehydrator – eggplant and bottle gourd. Both were store bought but the vegetables were unusually tender, so I could pretend that they were from my kitchen garden.
I have been meaning to cook these dried vegetables for a while, and I finally got around to making the dried eggplants, wangan hachi, earlier this week. I rehydrated the dried eggplants in salted boiling water – they were nearly cooked in the process. Like Bengali cooking, Kashmiri cooking starts with heating mustard oil to smoking point and then cooling down to normal heat. I dropped a couple red chilis, a generous pinch of cumin seeds and let them splutter. Then I added sliced onion and minced garlic and let them soften. To that I added the powdered spices (turmeric, kashmiri chili pepper, fennel) and let them lose their raw aroma. And to all that I added the rehydrated eggplants and a splash of hot water. The eggplants were so soft that the vegetable took on a bhartha consistency. Once the liquid cooked down, I added a bit of milk and let the vegetable medley reach a consistency I wanted. And finally, I acknowledged that I had run out of cilantro leaves.
I paired the sabzi with a ragi (finger millet) roti and yogurt raita.
I have been trying flatbreads with a variety of gluten free grains. One of my prized possession is a countertop mill. It allows me to buy grains and mill on demand, it lengthens the freezer free shelf life compared to buying whole grain flour. Ragi roti is wonderful when you add a bunch of onion and make a super soft dough. I used cooked leek tops instead of raw onion. I flattened the soft dough on a hot griddle with wet hands to shape a rough flatbread – I call it roti, but flatbread is more appropriate. These flatbreads are thicker than roti and take some time to cook. I don’t use ghee when making flatbread, but I imagine what it would taste like if I added ghee instead of neutral oil.
Again, I have never eaten Hokh Syun before, so I only had my imagination to rely on. The eggplant had a strong eggplant flavor. The mustard oil had given it a desirable pungency. It reminded me of bhartha without the smokiness.
The vegetable was great with the flatbread.
Here is to mother’s day!
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Above is post-lunch drink. Chill the fluids – Blanton’s bourbon and Fever tree ginger ale. Combine half a bottle of ginger ale, gingerly, with an ounce of chilled bourbon. Sit back and enjoy this slightly sweet, slightly gingery, slightly heady cocktail.
Lunch was a gluten free but otherwise a very Indian meal, something any mom would be proud to serve to her brood – buckwheat fritters with potato curry and raita. Sorry no photos – food disappeared before I had a chance to wipe oil off my fingers!
Make a potato curry. If you have a pet recipe, go with it. What you are looking for are curried potatoes with lots of light gravy, not the dry kind. Make a raita – for this meal, plain yogurt with a good dose of black salt is perfect.
To make the buckwheat batter, to 1 cup of buckwheat flour, add a teaspoon of salt, tablespoon of mango powder and 1 tsp of dried pomegranate seeds. Mix, add one cup water and stir until smooth batter forms. Buckwheat and sour flavor are brilliant together, so don’t skimp on the mango powder. This can be made up to a few days ahead. Preferably let the batter sit overnight.
Bring 2 or more cups of oil to about 350F in your favorite deep frying vessel. I am loving rice bran oil. Any high temperature oil is fine. Keep a paper towel lined cookie sheet in 250 degree oven. This is to keep the fritters warm while they are made in batches. Drop a tablespoon of batter at time in the hot oil. Fry unti the bubbles minimize. Transfer to cookie sheet. Depending on the size of your frying vessel, you may be able to make up to 6 fritters per batch.
Ideally you want to serve the fritters as soon as they are cooked. But you can indeed keep the fritters warm in the meantime. Serve fritters with potato curry and raita for a not run-of-the-mill meal.
Lentil bombs
Moong Daal Vadi
OK, thats not what they are called. But I am tired of the spelling variations – vadi, badi, bodi…
So what is this bomb?
