Sour lentils Lucknow style

... or Lakhnawi Khatti Dal

I picked this up from Classic Indian Cookery by Julie Sahni and I first made it because I had tamarind pulp anyway (for making pad thai), but I've returned many times since and it has become a regular dish around our house.

Ingredients:
- 250 g pink lentils
- 1,25 L water
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 inch piece if ginger, finely chopped
- 1 heaping tbsp tamarind pulp
- butter
- 1 tbsp garlic paste
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- salt

The lentils were brought to a boil together with ground turmeric and finely chopped ginger.^[1] After simmering, partially covered, for 25 minutes, tamarind pulp was added^[2] and cooking was continued for about 15 minutes. At this point I am usually happy with the texture and simply season it with salt before serving.^[3]

While the lentils finish, butter was melted and when starting to brown added garlic paste, paprika and ground cumin - the spices were stirred into the butter in the hot pan before transferring to a bowl.

The lentils are served with the spiced butter (stirred into the lentils just before digging in), freshly chopped coriander, raita, chutney, rice, and flatbreads.

^[1] In my experience, when lentils first start to boil they tend to foam a lot and need a lot of stirring at this point in order for the pot not to spill over - after a few minutes this foaming subsides.

^[2] The original recipe calls for dissolving the tamaridn pulp in boiling water and straining it to rid it of fibrous strings - but all the brands of tamarind pulp I've bought have been too highly processed to contain any fibrous material to be removed by straining. Hence I use the tamarind directly.

^[3] The orignial recipe calls for beating the lentils to smooth the puré. I never bother with this.

Pad Thai

Honestly, I never even considered trying to tackle such a dish as Pad Thai before reading about it in Matthew Amster-Burton's Hungry Monkey. But now it's become something that I find relatively easy and enjoy doing.

Ingredients:
- 200 g (6-7 oz) rice noodles
- water
- peanut oil
- 4 eggs
pad thai sauce:
- 30 g (1 oz) tamarind paste
- 10 g (0.4 oz) palm sugar
- 1 dL (0.4 cup) boiling water
- 30 mL (1 oz) peanut oil
- 1.5 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp rice vinegar
toppings:
- fresh coriander leaves, chopped
- scallions, chopped
- peanuts, chopped
- fresh green chillies, chopped
- lime juice (squeezed from a wedge immediately before eating)
additional optional toppings:
- shrimp, cooked
- tofu, sliced and fried
- chicken breast, fried and sliced
- fresh mint leaves, chopped
- zucchini, chopped
- bean sprouts
- rucola (rocket)

The rice noodles are divided into portions of equal size and soaked in warm'ish tap water (separately) for some 15-20 minutes while cutting the toppings and preparing the pad thai sauce.

First I make the pad thai sauce - tamarind paste and palm sugar are placed in a bowl and added boiling water. This is stirred from time to time to dissolve both. (I've read that some brands of tamarind paste will require straining, but with the brand I use (Pantai Norasingh) everything dissolves - and the palm sugar tends to be lumpy, so dissolves more easily in the hot water). The rest of the sauce ingredients are stirred into the pad thai sauce.

When softened, the rice noodles are strained.

Peanut oil is heated in a large frying pan - when hot 2 eggs are added and stirred for half a minute before adding one portion of drained rice noodles and half the pad thai sauce (make sure to stir it just before as it tends to separate). The eggs and noodles are stirred in the pan until the liquid is absorbed, then transferred to a plate. Then the other portion is prepared similarly. Both portions are garnished with the selected toppings.

Sometimes I use a hot and sweet chili sauce instead of fresh chillies.

Bloglagged 3

It's been quiet around here lately - unusually quiet.

Since my last posting our daughter was born and we've moved again (still in the Stockholm area).

Days just fly by. It's not that I don't have time for cooking these days (I'm tempted to add: obviously .. but maybe that isn't all that obvious) it's just that I'm not finding the time for sitting down and writing about it. This is something that I hope will change in the future, but I have no idea when things will start happening around here again or how much activity there'll be.

Maybe one day - when/if things start happening around here again - I'll be posting some recipes inspired by this book I recently received as a little surprise gift. I am looking forward to reading it.

BBC: Bacon, Bean & Cabbage (Soup)

I'm behind here - this was something I cooked in the fall (which I'd say is a much more appropriate season for this dish). Once again with heavy inspiration from James Villas I went for a soup combining some of my favourite ingredients: bacon, beans and cabbage..

I'll trust him on his claim that this is a Serbian soup. The original recipe calls for green cabbage, but I went for red cabbage - more on this in a bit.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (~ ¹/₂ lb) bacon^[1]
- 2 yellow onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 medium large head of red cabbage, chopped
- 2 L (~ ¹/₂ gallon) beef broth
- 3 cans cannellini beans (drained)
- flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

The bacon was fried in a large pot until a good amount of fat had been rendered out of it, then removed from the pot. The onions and garlic were rendered soft in the bacon fat before adding the cabbage together with beef broth, beans, bacon and parsley. The pot was brought to a boil and allowed to simmer for 45 minutes before serving.

I found the soup delicious, but I have to admit the red cabbage gave the soup a special colour. A colour I personally have no problem with but which I can see why some people might not like. So I guess going for white cabbage or maybe even kale would be a good idea.<sup>[2]

[1]</sup> I used thinly sliced bacon, which I think was a mistake - I think this recipe would work better with diced bacon.
^[2] I'm not sure Villas means kale when he writes 'green cabbage' (which is what think of when I use that term). I think maybe he means what I'd call white cabbage - but there's no picture for this dish in his book, so I am not sure.

Carne de res con sol

One day I was flipping through my copy of Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico looking for inspiration, when I noticed the recipe for Carne de res con sol - ground beef with cabbage. After trying it out, I decided I would like it better by adding a little ground cumin and allspice to the recipe.

And so, with slight modification from Diana Kennedy, it goes...

Ingredients:
- 360 g (~ 13 oz) ground beef
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ¹/₄ tsp allspice
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 jalapeño (w/ seeds), diced finely
- 800-900 ml (~ 3.5 cups) cabbage, chopped finely^[1]
- fresh coriander, chopped
- oil
- ~ 1 dL (~ ¹/₂ cup) water
served in:
- hard taco shells

Crushed garlic, salt, black pepper, cumin and allspice was mixed into the ground beef (using the hands), which was then allowed to stand while chopping the other ingredients.

In a pan, the onion and chilli was cooked in a little oil for 1-2 minutes before adding the tomatoes. When most of the juices from the tomatoes were absorbed the spiced meat was added to the pan. When the meat as browned, the cabbage, fresh coriander and water was added. After about 15-20 minutes of cooking over medium heat with occasional stirring, the amount of liquid was reduced significantly (but not completely gone).

I like serving it in hard taco shells.

^[1] Personally I like it equally well with white or red cabbage, but Mrs. Throat-Erator finds the dish visually unappealing with red cabbage.

Yggenyk Cookies

When I was a child one of the stories I really enjoyed was the story about the yggenyks (which are three-legged birds) stealing the round tower in Copenhagen. The yggenyks then demanded a ransom of yggenyk cookies for returning the popular tower. The book even had the recipe for authentic yggenyk cookies - complete with a warning not to leave the window open when baking them since yggenyk might get attracted by the lovely scent. I, of course, loved these cookies as a child too.

Earlier this year, I felt like making yggenyk cookies myself and googled the subject. This is when things got complicated. Spellings varied 'yggenyk', 'yggenyg', 'ykkenyk' and I suddenly had three fairly different recipes all claiming to be the recipe for authentic yggenyk cookies. The three recipes were quite similar except for a few key issues: one didn't include eggs (seemed at the very least unusual), another didn't include any obvious leavening agent, while the last one called for both eggs and hartshorn.^[1]

It seemed the confusion stemmed at least partly from the fact that the author had in fact given two different recipes for authentic yggenyk cookies - one in the book I remembered, and another one in the book in which the yggenyks steal the queen's palace in Copenhagen demanding a cookie ransom (yes, a fairly similar plot).

After discussing the matter with my external consultant^[2] I opted for the recipe including both eggs and hartshorn... and was somewhat disappointed with the resulting cookies. They were not as hard as I remembered them, and in hindsight I guess I used too much hartshorn (the recipe calls for 'a pinch'^[3]). Some time went by and I tried again - the result was better, but still not quite to my satisfaction. On the third attempt I was finally learning to use sufficiently little hartshorn for the cookies not to rise too much.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (9 oz) granulated sugar
- 250 g (9 oz) margarine, chunks
- 100 g (3.5 oz) dark chocolate chopped
- 3 eggs
- pinch of salt
- pinch of hartshorn
- 500 g (18 oz) flour
optional coating:
- 130 g (4.5 oz) milk chocolate

The margarine was cut in chunks and worked into the sugar using a ladle.^[4] The eggs were stirred in one by one, and then the chopped dark chocolate. Salt and hartshorn were added and lastly the flour was stirred in in three portions.

The dough was rolled into 50 balls which were placed on two baking sheets and baked sequentially on the top rack at 200 C (400 F) for 16 minutes each. Once out of the oven the cookies were transferred to a rack to cool.

The cooled cookies were flipped upside down and the bottoms were coated with melted milk chocolate (melted with three 20 second pulses in the microwave oven). The milk chocolate was allowed to harden before storing in cookie tins.


The resulting cookies were much like I remembered them (if still less hard), although the grown-up me has to concede it's basically just a chocolate chip cookie. I'm not sure I'd bother with the milk chocolate bottom coating next time - it didn't add that much to the overall result.

^[1] Hartshorn = Ammonium bicarbonate (aka 'powdered baking ammonia').
^[2] i.e. my mom.
^[3] In Danish 'a pinch' is 'en knivspids' - i.e. "as much as lies on the tip of a knife".
^[4] This part is clearly easier if the margarine is allowed to warm to room temperature first.

Bacon, Beef & Blue Cheese Stew

I see I haven't been particularly diligent about my promise to follow up here with dishes from the bacon book I got a while back. Well, time to do at least something about that.

Browsing aforementioned book, a beef, bacon & blue cheese stew caught my attention, and decided to have a go at it - with some minor modifications.

Ingredients:
- 125 g (4.4 oz) bacon
- 3 large onions, coarsely chopped
- sunflower oil
- 1.13 kg (2.5 lbs) beef cubes
- 8 tbsp flour
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) Bedarö Bitter^[1]
- 5 dL (2 cups) beef broth
- fresh thyme
- dried rosemary
- 3 leaves bay laurel
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- salt & pepper
- blue cheese^[2]
- bread for serving

In a large pot, the bacon was fried over medium/high heat till crisp, then removed from the pot. The heat was reduced to medium/low and the coarsely chopped onions were added. The onions were cooked with occasional stirring for over an hour till caramelised - actually I think this part need some optimisation: the recipe said to caramelise the onions at low heat for 20 minutes, but this appeared to be far too little for proper caramelisation - then onions were removed and the heat upped to medium/high and oil was added.

The beef cubes were coated in the flour, and browned in the pot after removing the lightly caramelised onions. Then the beer and beef broth were added. After stirring well (to ensure that no lumps of flour were still stuck to the bottom and sides of the pot) the thyme, rosemary, bay laurels, vinegar, salt and pepper were added and the were onions returned to the pot. Contrary to the recipe I was following I did not return the bacon to the pot at this point. The pot was brought to a boil, covered and let simmer for two hours.

The stew was then served with crumbled bacon and crumbled blue cheese on top - and a piece of bread on the side. The reason I didn't add the bacon before simmering for two hours, but instead afterwards was that I wanted to retain some crispness in the bacon.

It was truly delicious - very intense flavours and quite a heavy dish too. I'm strongly considering trying this again with some mashed potatoes and a green salad on the side.

^[1] Obviously not essential which ale - I'd go for any good, strong IPA.
^[2] The original recipe recommended Maytag (from the US) blue cheese, and I used Swedish Kvibille Ädel (30%), but any good blue cheese sufficiently hard to crumble should work.

Pizza dough

A certain kind of laziness has come to an end: in California, I always bought the pizza dough at Trader Joe's because it was good (and cheap too) and so never bothered to make the dough myself. This option was gone after leaving the US. In the stores in Switzerland, I could only get pizza doughs that weren't as good as those sold by Trader Joe's (and more expensive too) - but at least they were fairly convenient as they came pre-rolled and I didn't have to roll the dough.

Here in Sweden, I bought what looked to be a similar product exactly once - that dough was such a disappointment, that I decided to finally start making my own pizza dough. Thus, dug out my copy of Tyler Florence's Eat This Book and found his recipe. Below follows my description of how I converted the recipe to the use of fresh yeast (which I prefer, although here in Sweden one can buy both fresh and dry yeast).

Ingredients:
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) lukewarm water ^[1]
- 25 g (ca. 1 oz) fresh yeast
- 500 g (ca. 1 lb) flour
- 2 + 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp salt
- durum flour (for rolling)

UPDATE:
Scaling everything up by a factor of 2 is more convenient - that way I use one pack of fresh yeast and get dough for 4 pizzas.


The fresh yeast was crumbled in the lukewarm water and stirred before adding 2 tbsp olive oil, and then the flour in portions. The first half of the flour was simply stirred in using a spoon, then 1 tbsp salt was added and the rest of the flour was kneaded in by hand - when all the flour was added the dough was kneaded some more. The resulting dough should be smooth and elastic, and when pinched neither crumbly nor sticky. The ball of dough was transferred to another bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil, coated with the oil, covered with film and left standing in a warm place for about 1 hour to rise.

The dough rose to about the double volume (or perhaps a little more) and was parted in two equally large portions, which were rolled using durum flour and placed on baking paper on baking sheets. This portion made nicely for two 25 cm x 35 cm (10" x 14") pizzas. Today I topped them with tomato-garlic sauce, dried ham, artichoke hearts, fresh basil, and mozzarella. After some 15-20 minuted in the oven at 200 C (400 F) they were delicious - I'm never going back to other doughs after this...


^[1] made from 1 dL boiling water and 1.5 dL cold tap water

Beans - Revisited

I guess I was aware that canned beans are already cooked - but it certainly wasn't very much on my mind back when I wrote this post. In fact, it's fair to say this fact wasn't on mind at all until I moved from California to Switzerland and was suddenly faced with a sharp decline in the available options of canned beans in the supermarket.

Not to be discouraged (well, in truth I have come to crave beans on a fairly regular basis) I started shopping for dried beans and read up on the subject of how to cook dried beans, primarily in my copy of Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico. What I learned was that cooking times would be dependent on the type of bean, their state of drying, and whether or not they were pre-soaked. Pre-soaking, apropos, was considered decidedly un-Mexican. hmm...


As illustrated I armed myself with black beans, pinto beans, red kidney beans, and white beans .. and patience. Then I started cooking, varying the method a bit every time. And by now, after I don't know how many times of cooking dried beans from scratch I present my guide on it.

As in my original post on the subject, there are two fundamentally different versions: with or without bacon. With bacon starts by frying some bacon in a large pot, then adding onions - without simply cooks the onions in a little oil. Either way, when the onions are translucent, beans, water, and chillies (whatever I happen to have) are added, and the pot is brought to a boil. While boiling, keep an eye on them - you don't want them to foam too much, nor to dry out (especially some of the longer cooking times might require additional water).

As mentioned the cooking times vary quite a bit, so I've tried setting it up in a little table:


Cooking times are approximate - once the beans are fully cooked they will be pleasantly soft. At this point, I reduce the volume by cooking uncovered at medium-high heat with occasional stirring.


Et voila... lovely beans, to be eaten with all the lovely Mexican fare that makes my exile from California more tolerable. As a side note, I've found that it's nice to sometimes cook a large batch, freeze the rest, which can then be quickly warmed up later.

UPDATE: The text above does state that cooking time is dependent on state of drying - the black beans I've bought in Sweden so far need only a little over an hour of cooking after overnight soaking.

Tabbouleh

To aid us in our quest for cooking more middle eastern food, we bought another book, Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food, to get more inspiration.

As it turns out our copy of the book is flawed by a production error - more specifically the same set of pictures appears twice, leaving us guessing as to which pictures we are missing. Amazon.com wasn't able to tell us whether it was just or copy, or their entire set - so instead they refunded us the value of the book, and let us keep it at the same time. Hooray.

First up in a string of post on the subject is a variation on tabbouleh, one of several bulgur salads.

Ingredients:
- 2 dL (4/5 cup) bulgur
- cold water
- juice of 1 1/2 lemon
- 5 tomatoes, diced
- 2 small onions, finely diced
- fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
- fresh mint, chopped
- salt, pepper
- olive oil

The bulgur was soaked in cold water for 10-15 minutes, then drained and put in a large bowl. The lemon juice and tomatoes were added and the bowl was left for half an hour to let the bulgur absorb the juices and turn tender. [1] The rest of the ingredients were mixed in.

Tabbouleh might be eaten as a stand alone dish (supposedly it is traditional to scoop it up with lettuce leaves), or as a side dish.

[1] At this point the texture of the bulgur still seemed somewhat 'uncooked', which was a little worrisome, but in the end the result was just fine.

Lapin au Vin

This week rabbit was on sale at the supermarket so we decided to have our hand at cooking it. Having no experience with this particular meat I sought inspiration in Tyler Florence's Eat This Book, although my approach was somewhat cruder.

Ingredients:
- ca. 650 g (1.5 lb) rabbit (4 pieces)
- 1/2 bottle of red wine
- flour
- salt
- pepper
- oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp honey
- Italian herb blend
- 0.5 L (2 cups) chicken broth

Side:
- 6 potatoes
- 1/2 celery root
- 2 beet roots
- 2 small onions

Salad:
- romaine lettuce
- capers
- sun dried tomatoes

The rabbit pieces were wetted in the red wine, then coated with a mixture of flour, salt, and pepper. The rabbit pieces were then browned in batches in oil in a large pot (turning them over with tongs). While browning the rabbit, crushed garlic, honey and Italian herb blend was added to the wine. After browning all the rabbit pieces (and all removed from the pot) the wine was added to the pot, brought to a boil while making sure to stir up any flour left in the pot from the browning of the rabbit. To this was added the chicken broth, and the rabbit pieces were put back. The pot was covered and allowed to simmer for about one and half hours.

While the rabbit was simmered, a mixture of crudely cut potatoes, beet roots, celery root, and onions (drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper) was baked in the oven at 225 C (450 F) - beet and celery roots require longer time than potatoes to become tender.

This left plenty of time for a quick salad: romaine lettuce, capers, and sun dried tomatoes were mixed in a bowl.

The rabbit was very tender; the meat was practically falling off of the bones. The texture and taste was somewhat reminiscent of chicken, although more 'game'. Overall it became a fall/winter style dish which fitted well with the pouring rain outside. With dinner we drank the other half of the bottle of wine.

Bloglagged 2

Wow - long time, no blogging. The end was quite busy - especially the last 4-5 weeks when I was writing more or less nonstop.

But then the end DID come. So I guess it's Dr. Throat-Erator to you guys from now on.

A friend of mine gave me this nice graduation/going-away gift:



I have a suspicion that as I get back to posting here, I'll be referring to this Bacon Bible from time to time.

Nopales con Huevo

When I first arrived in California some 5 years ago and started examining the goods on offer at the local supermarkets I was quite intrigued to find jars of nopales - i.e. cactus. I quickly bought some and set about trying to incorporate them in my cooking.. unfortunately this all long time before I started this blog and I guess I didn't take notes (well, I didn't find any such around my belongings, anyway).
Having recently purchased Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico (in order to assist my growing interest in the mexican cuisine) and semi-recently discovered the fresh nopales in a local supermarket I've decided - after years of absence - to revisit the cactus with a more authentic touch.
This then happened within the frame of our Sunday tradition of having eggs for breakfast in the shape of Nopales con huevo..

Ingredients:
- oil
- 1 lb (450 g) raw nopales, cleaned and diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
- 1 serrano chili, finely diced
- salt
- 4 eggs
- 6 tortillas

Heat the oil in a skillet, add everything except the eggs and cook over medium heat for about 25 minutes - should be kind of dry at this point.[1] Break the eggs into the mixture and stir till set. Serve on heated tortillas.

While I was quite happy with the result my muse was of the opinion that there was a little too much cactus relative to the other ingredients.

[1] The dryness is kind of important - otherwise the eggs don't set so nicely. Actually here I don't really understand Diana Kennedy's recipe: It says to cover while cooking on medium heat till the mix is dry. Covering tends to keep in the juices a little too well. I ended up covering for the first 15 minutes, then removing the cover and turning up the heat for the last 10 minutes to get them proper dry.