I’ve always thought this was one of the worst-looking food dishes I’ve ever seen. Brownish-red slop with lumps in it. Totally awful. Then I tasted it.

That was, oh, 5 years ago, give or take. I’ve realized since then that your perception of food’s appearance is highly dependent on your experience with and enjoyment of the flavour. Now I see the same slop and think about how marvelous the deeper red colours are, how rich it looks with cream floating on the top. I understand now how black gram’s luxuriously creamy texture is one of the finest selling points of this dish.

Like other lentil dishes, the cooking method features a technique called tadka, also known as tempering. Tadka is the technique of frying whole spices in oil (which releases the spice’s essential oils) and then pouring the flavoured oil over the dish. I do this backwards, usually, frying the spices in oil, then pouring the dal into the oil. It’s kind of dumb that I do this, because it inevitably causes some liquids to shoot at me from the hot oil. But I always seem to get stuck in a position where I am forced to do this by not using my cooking pots in the correct order. Next thing I know, I’m pouring dal and cooking water into a very hot frying pan. Sigh. I will attempt to describe a safer, more correct method below.

Also, if you’re using dry lentils, remember to soak them overnight. They are very different in size and therefore have much different cooking times if you are boiling them from their dried state. If they’ve been soaked, they will both cook much faster. Read the first step below for more information.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup whole urad dal (black gram)
• 1/4 rajma (red kidney beans)
• 5-6 cloves garlic
• 0.5″ knob of ginger
• 1/4 cup ghee
• 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
• pinch of asafoetida
• 1/3 cup crushed tomato
• 2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1 1/2 tsp salt

Serve with: Indian breads, rice, tandoori-something

What you will need: medium to large-sized pot for boiling water and cooking lentils, small frying pan for tadka, measuring cups and spoons, knife and chopping board, bowls for soaking lentils, plastic wrap, potato masher

Directions:

1. Rinse and soak lentils: The first step is measuring out the lentils and kidney beans into a large bowl, and filling the bowl with cold water – you will need to rinse the dust and loose particles out of the legumes. There’s often a fair amount of this and it may not be apparent, so swirl your hand through the beans. You’ll notice the water gets cloudy. You’ll want to drain this gross water and add new water. Repeat this rinsing process about 3-4 times until the water runs pretty clear. Cover the beans with water one last time, seal the bowl with plastic wrap and put into your fridge overnight.
2. Or, you could just buy lentils and beans in a can. Assuming you know where you can buy black gram (urad dal) in a can. I’ve never looked for it, honestly. Indian stores seem to like to stock huge piles of dried legumes, so deal with it.
3. Ready to cook? OK. Drain the soaked lentils one last time. Add 3 cups of water to your medium-large pot, and turn on the burner to high to get the water boiling.
4. While your water is heating up, finely chop the garlic and ginger into one giant pile. Split that pile in half. Half of it goes right into the water as it heats up.
5. Add the soaked lentils to the water as well. And get that water to a boil.
6. Once the water starts to boil, let it cook for a few minutes, then turn the heat down to a simmer (where the surface is rippling and swirling, but not full-on bubbling). Let it simmer for 25 minutes or so.
7. Do something for 25 minutes. I suggest writing an email to your parents. It’s Christmas. Wait, check the lentils after 10 minutes, is there enough water in the pot to cover them? No? Add a bit more if you have to. Keep it simmering. When the lentils cook, they will absorb water, in addition to some of the water escaping as steam. This means you have to watch the water levels and make sure they stay high enough to keep the lentils covered.
8. Hey, go back and check the lentils. Like, spoon a few out, blow on them to cool ‘em down and then eat them. Are they soft? Not crunchy? Make sure you test a kidney bean as they may require a few extra minutes of cooking. The black gram will actually split its skin when it approaches doneness, so you have a good signal there. It’s OK if the black gram gets soft. They supply the creaminess this way.
9. Lentils are done. Hooray. Lower the heat to medium-low (3 on my dial). Grab that potato masher and smash the beans. Not necessarily all of them, but let’s say 60-80% of them. Most of this dal dish will be a smooth paste-like texture.
10. In a small frying pan, heat up the 1/4 cup of ghee or oil over medium heat. This is the tadka. When the oil is hot, add the cumin seeds, and fry for 5-10 seconds. Add the asafoetida, and the remaining garlic and ginger. When the garlic begins to gently brown, immediately pour the entire contents of the frying pan over the simmering lentils.
11. Also add to the lentils the tomato puree, chili powder, garam masala and salt. Stir the lentils to incorporate all that awesomeness you just added.
12. Simmer the lentils for 20-25 minutes on low heat to spread the flavours throughout the dish, and to cook the tomato.
13. When the lentils are a few minutes from being done, pour in the cream and stir. Check the seasoning. It may need a bit more salt. Adjust as needed.
14. Lentils are done. To serve, you may want to transfer to a serving bowl and garnish it with a splash of cream or even a spoonful of ghee. It’s up to you. It’s certainly saturated with enough fat already.

Sorry, I ended that one on a bit of a guilt trip. But really, this dish is lentils in butter and cream. You wouldn’t have gotten this far if you cared that much about your ass fat. Sometimes, you indulge. It’s OK.

You can make this a vegan dish, I suppose, by substituting a vegetable oil for the ghee, and a thick non-dairy milk for the cream (or simply omit it altogether).

You could subtitle this post “Or, a recipe that uses all that fresh coconut meat you just produced, because you followed my previous post’s instructions like the awesome person that you are.” Yes, it’s a shrimp curry that features fresh coconut. This is loosely inspired by South Indian spices and ingredients, and requires a medium amount of work because, hell, I like doing work in my kitchen. Why do you have to have everything done so fast?

So, in addition to preparing fresh coconut (you can substitute dried coconut for fresh, but with this kind of recipe I recommend you do not, since the fresh coconut is the star of the plate) I’ve also roasted and ground a special masala to spice the dish. The overall flavour is sharp, slightly sweet, and fresh. We’re talking about green peppers, rich coconut meat and shrimp in a curry spiked with black pepper, cinnamon, curry leaves and mustard seed. The grated coconut also adds a nice texture to the dish, as well as a colourful appearance. I’ll skip an extended introduction and get to it, since this will take a bit of time, even if you’re prepared your coconut in advance. If you absolutely do not have a way to grind whole spices, you could try using powdered spices, but keep in mind you will have to adjust the amounts!

Ingredients:

• approx. 16 large raw shrimp, shelled and de-veined, tails on, defrosted in bowl of cold water
• 1 medium-large onion
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 1 green pepper
• 1 medium tomato
• 1 cup of grated fresh coconut
• 2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2″ of cassia bark or cinnamon stick
• 1 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 tbsp loose curry leaves
• 2 tsp whole coriander seeds
• 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric

Serve with: rice

What you will need: spice grinder or mortar and pestle, deep frying pan, knife and cutting board, measuring cups and spoons, wooden spoon/utensil, small plates or bowls for organizing

Directions:

1. Roast the whole spices: Turn a burner to medium (4-5 on mine) and put a frying pan on it. Once the pan is hot, add the whole spices (cassia bark/cinnamon, black peppercorns, curry leaves, coriander and cumin seeds) and roast them until they’re fragrant, but not burnt. Maybe just a minute or two, or maybe even less. Watch the cumin and coriander seeds for colouring – once the coriander and cumin appear browned or reddish, you should be good. Carefully transfer the roasted spices to a plate to cool for about 10-15 minutes.
2. Prepare your vegetables: Slice the onion in half, and then slice each half into 1/4″ thick strips. Put aside. Finely chop the garlic and put aside. Cut the green pepper and tomato in bite-sized chunks. Measure out the coconut and keep ready.
3. Make the masala: In your spice grinder of choice, add the cooled whole spices, along with the Kashmiri chili powder and turmeric. Add a bit of cayenne if you like it a bit hotter. Grind the mix into a medium-fine powder.
4. Now we’re ready to get cooking. Put the oil into the frying pan and turn the heat up to medium (5 on my dial).
5. Once the oil is very hot, add the tsp of mustard seeds, and fry them briefly until you hear some of them pop. They’ll make a cracking Rice Krispies kind of sound.
6. Immediately add the sliced onion, and fry it until it’s softened and the edges are browned. About 3-5 minutes.
7. Add the garlic and fry it for a few minutes.
8. Add the green pepper and fresh coconut, and stir everything together to coat all the ingredients with the oil.
9. Add the masala, and stir the mix to coat everything evenly with spices. Stir-fry this mixture for 2-3 minutes.
10. Add about 1 to 1.5 cups of very hot water, and bring it to a gentle boil in the pan. You want just enough water to fill out the body of the curry. Adjust as you see fit.
11. Add the shrimp, tomato, and salt. Bring the liquid to a simmer, and cook the curry for about 5-7 minutes or until the shrimp are done to your liking.
12. Check the seasoning and add a bit of salt if you prefer, then serve immediately with rice.

Delicious fresh coconut. Plus, lots of fiber!

So, let’s say you have a coconut. Maybe you bought it, maybe it was a gift. Maybe you smuggled it out of a tropical island on a speedboat. Doesn’t matter – you’ve got this coconut, and it’s hard as hell. You want to get inside it, and get into that creamy coconut heaven but you just. Can’t. Crack. This. Damn.

But wait, let’s take a step back. Before you open your coconut, is it even worth opening? Sometimes store-bought coconuts have already gone bad and most stock people in, for example, Sobeys have no idea when those nuts are off. Here’s a few tips:

1. Avoid nuts that have mold on the outer shell.
2. Avoid nuts that have any cracks in the shell, as cracks are where mold can enter.
3. The shell should not be soft in any place.
4. Pick up the coconut and compare it to others. Preferably, choose one that feels heavy for its size.
5. Shake the coconut. Do you hear sloshing? This indicates there is water inside, which is a very good (although not perfect) indicator that the nut has not spoiled.

These are the things you can do prior to buying the coconut. It’s a good idea to increase your odds of selecting a good coconut, because you still have a lot of things to do before you can use it. Don’t waste your time and money betting on low coconut odds.

Once you get your coconut home, take a closer look at it. On one end of the nut, you will see three darker dots in a triangular formation. These are called the eyes.

They kind of look like ghost eyes.

I learned on the internet that there is a secret to these. That is, that one of these eyes is softer than the other two, and can be pierced fairly easily. This is the Achilles heel of the coconut. The first step in cracking this coconut is piercing the soft eye, and draining the water out of the nut. You can do this with any long, tapered piece of metal. I used the piercing end of a meat thermometer. I’m guessing you could use a coated nail or a thin knitting needle (if you don’t care that it gets bent). In any case, attempt to poke your chosen tool into each eye in sequence until you find the soft one. Once you find it, bore a hole into the center of the nut, and wiggle the tool around to widen the hole as much as possible. Remove the tool, and get a cup. Holding the nut over the cup, with the eyes facing down, shake the water out into the cup.

The next step is tasting the water. Take a small sip. If the water tastes OK (coco-nutty, fruity, mildly sweet, etc) you’re good to go. If the water is totally nasty smelling and tastes the same, stop. Your coconut is bad. Let’s assume it’s fine, though.

This is where things get fun. Preheat your oven to 400 F.

Once preheated, put the drained coconut directly onto the middle rack, and bake it for 10-15 minutes until the outer shell definitively cracks. Instead of attempting to whack a coconut open with the blunt side of a cleaver (I don’t even own a cleaver), we use a hands-off approach. Much less stress. The shell cracks under the heat of the oven.

Take the coconut out of the oven, and let it cool for 10 minutes. Ideally, when the shell cracked, it also separated from the interior skin slightly. This isn’t a guarantee, though, so you have a minor amount of work ahead. The next step is the removal of the outer shell. You may be able to pry this apart and finish breaking the shell with your bare hands. If not, get a large standard (flat-head) screwdriver to pry the shell apart. Most of the heavy work is already done, so this should be a relatively easy task. Some of the flesh may have stuck to parts of the broken shell. You can use the same screwdriver to pry the flesh chunks off the shell once you get inside the nut.

Once the shell is gone, you’re left with a handful of coconut pieces.

But, see, it still has the outer skin on, which is rough and undesirable. You’ll need to peel this off. It will come off easily with a vegetable peeler – the coconut meat has the hardness and skin texture of a squash, approximately. Once you get the pieces peeled, you have delicious, fresh, white coconut, ready for… whatever.

There’s so many things one can do with coconut meat. You can grate it, and use it as you would dried coconut – it provides a much better, richer coconut flavour than the dried stuff. You can process the meat with very hot water to extract coconut milk. You can slice it thinly and make roasted coconut chips. Grated or sliced fresh coconut meat is used in a number of curries. I’m going to use my latest coconut to make kerisik, a paste produced from fresh grated coconut that’s been dry-roasted until it’s golden. It’s used to provide a deep, rich and nutty flavour to Malaysian and Indonesian curries. It should provide the incentive to have a go at Laksa.

Or you could just eat it. Either way, left on its own it will only last a few days in the refrigerator, so do something dramatic with it!

There are actually dozens of recipes for this snack online, with few variations from one to another. I suppose, then, it’s not essential to write my own, but damn it if these aren’t one of the tastiest mid-day snacks ever. I have to write about them. More importantly, I have some information to add about plantains.

You see, plantains look a lot like bananas. They should – they’re the same species. There’s one major difference, though, and that is bananas usually aren’t cooked, and plantains usually aren’t eaten raw. In fact, raw plantains are only truly edible when very ripe (whereas some people even prefer green bananas, which is weird). That brings me to the other key difference – bananas are considered to be overripe when heavily blackened, whereas plantains are just entering ripeness when they start to blacken. Before plantains blacken, the fruit inside is not sweet or soft, but very starchy and hard, requiring lengthy cooking to become edible (like a potato, in some respects). The plantains pictured below are the ones I used to make ethakka appam, and they were decently ripe, requiring little added sugar to be enjoyable.

Conventional banana wisdom might have you throwing these plantains out, or reserving them for banana bread only. Nope, they are just getting tasty at this point. You’ll also notice that black plantains are still fairly firm to the touch, whereas black bananas often fall apart completely under mild pressure. Suffice to say, you absolutely cannot think about plantains the way you do about bananas.

I bought these plantains about 2 weeks prior to using them, and they were greenish at the time. They take a while to ripen. You will have to wait for plantains, because stores mostly stock unripe fruit (because it travels better). In fact, the only stores I’ve seen stocking black-ish plantains (ie. plantains you can actually use right away) are Indian stores.

Anyway. Ethakka appam. Appam roughly means bread, ethakka for plantain. What it is, however, is basically battered and deep-fried plantain pieces. My future father-in-law (who hails from Kerala) served these to me last year, and they’re an object of high esteem in my fiancée’s heart. It’s a Keralite snack; we ate these in the afternoon, before dinner. We ate so many that dinner seemed inconsequential, truth be told.

They are amazing when made with ripe plantains and fried to perfection. Crispy on the outside, soft and sweet plantain flesh on the inside, melting in your mouth. The batter is scented with cumin seeds, coloured with turmeric, and lightly sweetened. So simple, yet so good. I’ve cut the flour with a bit of rice flour for crispiness, but if all you have is regular flour, use a full cup of it and get frying.

Ingredients:

• 4 ripe plantains
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup rice flour
• 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp salt
• vegetable oil

What you will need: deep frying pan, slotted spoon, knife and cutting board, mixing bowl, whisk, measuring cups and spoons, paper towels, serving plate

Directions:

1. Put the deep frying pan on a burner. Add enough oil to fill the pan about 1.5 inches deep. Turn the heat on to medium (5 on my dial) and wait for it to get hot. Maybe check my notes on deep-frying while you wait. It will take 10-15 minutes, probably. Put a shirt on, too. Seriously.
2. While you’re waiting for the oil, prepare the batter. In the mixing bowl, measure and add the flours, sugar, spices, and salt. Whisk them to evenly blend the ingredients. Add to the flour mixture 1 cup of water. Whisk this to form a smooth batter. Use the whisk to break up any flour clumps. If it needs more or less water, adjust the thickness by adding water or flour to the mix. You want it about medium-thick. Thin enough that it runs and drips easily, but thick enough that it will hold to the plantain.
3. Once you have batter ready and oil that’s hot, you’re ready to cut the plantains. I find the plantains much easier to peel once I’ve already sliced them. Cut the ends off, then cut each plantain in half length-wise. Then cut each half-piece in half width-wise. The result is that each plantain produces 4 pieces, each about 3 inches long with a half-circle cross-section. Grab an edge of the peel and pull it off around the piece of plantain.
4. Your oil’s gotta be hot by now. In batches of 4 pieces (1 plantain’s worth at a time) dip the pieces fully into the batter, and quickly slide them into the oil. Use the slotted spoon to move and rotate the pieces in the oil. They will need to be cooked approximately 2-4 minutes on each side, until the batter turns golden. A trick that I’ve noticed is that once the ripe plantain flesh inside gets cooked, it softens and releases some moisture. This moisture will hit the oil and make a distinct sizzling sound (different from the general frying noises of the batter itself). Once you hear that, you’ll know the fruit inside is probably cooked, and will be nice and soft. Don’t wait for that to happen, though, if the batter is burning.
5. Once the pieces are cooked, remove them to a plate lined with a few layers of paper towels. Repeat the process with the next batch, and so on.

Eat these things when they’re still hot and fresh, they’re amazing! If you have leftovers, they reheat nicely in the oven, but really, you’re not going to eat every last one? C’mon. Stop kidding yourself.

Alternate names: asafetida, devil’s dung, stinking gum, hing (India)

The first thing you need to know about asafoetida is that foetida is Latin for “stinking” or “ill-smelling” (the word “fetid” comes from the Latin). Asafoetida stinks. Like sulphur. It’s not pleasant.

In its natural state, it is a gum – sap from several species of Ferula (Giant Fennel) are harvested and allowed to dry into clumps of sticky resin. You can find containers of these dried clumps at some Indian groceries, but what you should look for is “compounded asafoetida”. This means they’ve ground the dried asafoetida already, and mixed it with other ingredients like starch or flour (mine is mixed with rice flour and gum arabic, for example). This makes it very easy to use – a pinch of this compound (or roughly 1/4 tsp) is all any dish will require (estimated 4-5 portions).

The smell of the product, however, is a concern, I’m sure. Here’s the bad news first: asafoetida will contaminate things left near it. It needs to be stored in an airtight container and the things you place next to it should be as well. Be careful handling it – if you touch it with your hands, you will need to wash them or your hands will smell like rotten eggs for a little while.

The good news: the compounds responsible for the sulphuric smell evaporate under heat. Basically, as soon as you throw this in the pan, the stink will begin fading. There is little reason to worry about the smell invading your food.

The best news: cooked asafoetida imparts a unique, delicious flavour to dishes. It is something like a garlic-onion flavour, but more complex and rich. It’s no surprise that this ingredient shows up in piles of vegetarian and Ayurvedic cooking (it has a number of proven medicinal uses).

My favourite ways to use it are in lentil dishes and with greens like spinach or mustard. It can be used in many other ways, though, including adding it to boiling water or soup, or adding it to batter or dough. It works well in pickles, fish dishes and lentils or beans.

It is said to prevent flatulence, which some people worry about when it comes to beans, so there’s some food for thought.

About 3 years ago, I purchased a large bag of dried chana dal from Loblaws, having no idea what chana dal was, or what to do with it. What I did know was “lentils are healthy and I should be eating some lentils”. So I took this bag home and tried out a recipe from an Indian cookbook I had.

It turned out mostly terrible. Not only have I learned that the cookbook in question routinely calls for 50% of the salt needed to make anything taste good, the preparation steps were vague about how to cook the lentils themselves. Over the next few years, I tried the dish a few more times with mixed results – the lentils were too hard, not seasoned well, too dry, etc. Of course, it didn’t help that I had never actually eaten dal before. All I had was a picture of something that looked pretty good, and some brief descriptions of the finished product. I have this problem often.

So I went and had myself some dal, and I discovered clues that would help unlock the puzzle of cooked lentils. A few things, for example: ground lentils have thickening properties, asafoetida cannot be underestimated as an ingredient, and lentils taste gross without salt. I went back to this recipe, re-wrote the ingredients and the preparations – finally, I have a process that delivers good dal every time.

Wait, you may be asking yourself, WTF is asafoetida? WTF is chana dal? These are good questions. I will post about asafoetida in the future. It is an interesting ingredient, to say the least. Chana dal are split black chickpeas, with the seedcoat removed. They look very similar to yellow split peas and some recipes will suggest the two are interchangeable. I disagree. Split peas turn to mush and break apart under heat much faster than chana dal does. I don’t advise using them in this recipe. I also don’t advise using chickpeas since black chickpeas (kala chana) are much different/smaller than the chickpeas we are familiar with. Look for chana dal – it is not too hard to find assuming you live in Toronto, which is a completely asinine thing to assume.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry chana dal
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 onion
• 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenna powder (optional)
• cilantro garnish (optional)
• salt to taste

Serve with: roti, rice, vegetables

What you will need: medium-sized pot (enough to hold 8 cups of water or so), medium-large frying pan, cutting board and knife, measuring cups and spoons, wooden spoon, potato masher

Directions:

1. You will need to rinse the dal. Measure and put them in the cooking pot and fill the pot halfway with water. Swirl your hand through the dal. You will probably notice bubbles in the water. Change the water and repeat this process a few times, until the bubbling effect fades. This will avoid foaming in the cooking process. While you’ve got your hands in the dal, inspect the peas briefly. Sometimes like-coloured stones get mixed into the bags (I assume they sneak past the sorting machines by virtue of being the same size and weight) and you may not enjoy eating stones.
2. Drain out the last change of water, measure 3 cups of fresh water and add this water to the pot. Add the 1/2 tsp of turmeric and a tsp of salt and stir. Turn the heat up high to set the water boiling.
3. Once the water is bubbling, lower the heat to medium-low (4 on my dial) and let the lentils simmer for 30 minutes. This is a great time to chop that onion into, let’s say, half-inch squares. Also, if any foam rises to the surface of the lentils in the first 10 minutes of cooking, try to skim this off if you can.
4. Check the lentils a few times during cooking to adjust the temperature of the water if needed. You don’t want rapid boiling here since you want there to be water leftover at the end. Still, you also want the water to hot enough to be cooking the lentils quickly.
5. After 25-30 minutes, check the lentils. By check, I mean taste. Can you bite through them easily? Are they soft but not crumbling? Then they are done. If they are too firm, or dry-tasting when you bite them, continue cooking them. During this period, put the frying pan on a burner and turn the heat up to medium. Add the oil to the pan.
6. If your lentils are done, turn off the burner and remove them from the heat. Use a potato masher to mash the lentils. If they are soft, they should break apart easily. You don’t want a puree (or maybe you do, I don’t know) so try to mash them about 50% of the way to a puree. You want a lot of the lentils to be broken, but still have plenty of solid ones left for texture. Alternatively, you could take about 2/3 of the cooked lentils and run them very briefly through a food processor to achieve this effect. I like the masher because I can precisely control how mashed they get.
7. In the now-hot frying pan, add the tsp of cumin seeds to the oil. Add the asafoetida to the oil, too. Add the cayenne if you’re using it. Let these fry for about 10 seconds or so, then add the onion. Continue frying the onion until the squares have some browned edges, and have softened. Maybe 3-5 minutes or so. Enjoy the aroma of frying cumin and onion. Marvel at the unique qualities of asafoetida. Seriously, this is magic happening.
8. Now your frying pan is full of fried onions and seasoned oil. Pour the cooked, mashed lentils and all the remaining water from the pot into the frying pan. Stir everything together to incorporate the oil into the lentils. Be careful to not splash hot water or oil onto yourself, scarring your body and horrifying your loved ones. Check the salt, and add more if needed.
9. Another judgement call: the mashed lentils will have thickened the liquid in the pan. You may have to add more water to the pan to get the consistency desired, which is thick, but decidedly liquid. Stew-like, even. Alternatively, you may have too much water, in which case, simmer the lentils briefly and the water will cook off in a few minutes.
10. Once you get the right consistency, your lentils may be served. Garnish with shredded cilantro leaves if you’d like, or not.

Your leftover dal will almost assuredly thicken in the fridge. Expect to add a fair amount of water if you’re reheating leftovers.

Lentils are healthy and you should be eating some lentils.

We were out looking at possible wedding venues a few months ago, and were at what has turned out to be our choice location: The Sheraton Parkview. Like many venues, they deal with The Host, a popular Indian caterer in the Toronto area and, as luck would have it, The Host has a restaurant location directly below the Sheraton in an underground mall. A perfect chance to “test” some wedding menu options!

One of our meal picks was a tawa paneer dish – paneer pan-fried with peppers and onion. It was good, and seemed simple enough to make at home. I gave it a few whirls and had quality results each time (it also works well with mushrooms) but I got the idea to build a sauce base for it as well, thinking I was inventing a brand new curry. I wasn’t – what I was actually doing is making a jalfrezi-style curry.

Now, I made this with homemade paneer, but I won’t hold it against you if you went for the store-bought stuff. Especially if it was on sale for 3 dollars like the last time I visited BJ Supermarket. What a steal. Anyway, this recipe is really simple, with big spice flavours. I used a balti-style masala for the garam masala here, so adjust the amount as you see fit.

Ingredients:

• 2-4 tbsp vegetable oil
• 225 g / 0.5 lb of paneer
• 1 medium-sized green pepper
• 1 medium-sized onion
• 2 ripe tomatoes (I used 2 large plum tomatoes)
• 4 large cloves of garlic
• 0.5″ of peeled ginger
• 1-3 green chilies, seeds and stems removed (optional)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1-2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• 1 tsp salt
• cilantro garnish

What you will need: large non-stick frying pan, knife and cutting board, measuring spoons, some kind of stirring utensil, tongs or spatula, paper towels, bowls for organization, small food processor (optional)

Directions:

1. Mise-en-place: Prep all vegetables prior to beginning. Cut both the pepper and onion into 1″ cubes (or a bit smaller) and put aside together. Peel the garlic and ginger, cut the tomato in smaller chunks, (seed the chilies and rough-chop, if using) and process them all together into a smooth paste. If you don’t have a food processor, rough-chop the tomatoes and finely chop the garlic and ginger (and seeded green chili, if using). Measure the garam masala, turmeric, cayenne, and salt into a small bowl together.
2. Fry the Paneer: Line a plate with a few sheets of paper towels. Cut your paneer in triangles (isosceles or scalene preferred, nerds) about 2″ width maximum and about 1/3″ thick. I do this because fried cheese triangles look prettier than half-inch cubes. Heat up the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat (5 on mine). When the oil is hot, lay out the triangles – I have no idea how many there will be, maybe a dozen? – in an even layer. Fry both the large flat surfaces (I like to use tongs to handle the cheese and avoid splashing oil, but use whatever you’re comfortable with) for a few minutes or until you get some nice golden brown crispness happening. This is going to add a nice texture to the final product – a crisp/chewy element to contrast with the sauce. When the paneer is nicely fried on both sides, remove them from the oil and lay them out on the paper towel-plate to drain excess oil.
3. Now the easier steps. Keep the pan and oil hot on medium heat. Add the tsp of cumin seeds and fry them for about 15-20 seconds until fragrant (but not burnt – they shouldn’t go black, otherwise pour the oil out and start over with new cumin)
4. Once we’ve flavoured the oil, add the chopped onion and green peppers. Fry the onions until translucent, hopefully with some golden brown edges. While waiting for this to happen, smell the delicious aroma of cumin-oil frying onions and peppers. This make take 5 minutes or so.
5. When the onions have coloured a bit, pour in the blend of tomato, garlic and ginger. Be careful doing this. If your oil is crazy-hot, the liquid from the tomato will pop and splash back at you. It will not be pleasant.
6. Into the tomato sauce, add the garam masala, turmeric, cayenne and salt mixture. Stir it! You may need to add 1/2 cup of hot water as well, depending on how much water the tomatoes have in them. Or wait until after step 7 and add a few splashes of water to keep a nice sauce texture.
7. Bring the sauce to a gentle boil, then lower the heat to med-low (2-3) and simmer until the tomato cooks, darkens, and develops a deep flavour – about 20 minutes.
8. Once the sauce is tasty, add the paneer triangles into the sauce. Gently, so you don’t break them into pieces. I do this by sitting them on the surface, then spooning sauce over top of them, rather than attempting to stir the cheese in with a spoon. Let the paneer triangles simmer in the curry for 5 minutes, just enough to bring them up to temperature.
9. Spoon into a bowl and garnish with a few tbsp of chopped cilantro.

Eaaaaaaat.

Cookie: Rose Water and White Chocolate

Cookie Recipe: tant au tant mixture, 1+ tsp neon pink colour, added pinch of salt to meringue, otherwise basic recipe

Baking Details: my oven at 360 F (need to test heat with oven thermometer) for 10 minutes

Filling: white chocolate ganache (4 oz white chocolate to 3/8 cup 18% cream) + 1/2 tsp organic rose water, steeped cream with 3 green cardamom pods

Environment: July 10th, 10 pm, very humid, 30 C

Notes: I wasn’t going to bake today because I was tired, but it was extremely humid outside and just about every macaron blog on the internet warns you not to bake macarons on overly humid days. Which means it was a perfect day to bake macarons! I need to know exactly what will happen in my kitchen if I need to bake 650+ macarons and the weather is not ideal. Will they fail utterly? I also changed the core recipe to include the half-and-half mixture traditionally called for – equal parts sugar and almond flour in the batter. Increased the food colouring added due to poor results previously. This is my first attempt at ganache in my life.

Positive Results: The tant au tant makes a huge taste and texture difference. The cookie is less sickly sweet and more almond-y. The David Lebovitz-style recipe I was using hurt my teeth to eat more than 1 or two wafers, plus the cookie itself had a taffy-esque stickiness/stringiness to it that I didn’t prefer. This cookie had a better crumble inside. The colour is perfect. The ganache was good. I may need to reduce the amount of cream to add more body to it (need to research ganache). Need to cut back rose water by 25-50% – it was tasty and not soapy, but perhaps a bit too indelicate for a macaron. Also need to expose more white chocolate flavour, and figure out how to get cardamom flavour infused as well.

Negative Results: The batter cracked while baking, which meant the feet did not fully develop. I believe this was the fault of the humidity (the second batch, which was out on the table for 10 extra minutes, cracked even worse) as the internet tells me cracks of this nature result from the batter not being dry enough on the shell. i had no cracking issues prior with the same method (using David Lebovitz’s technique – piping the batter and immediately baking with no drying time – which has worked perfectly for 3 previous tests), so either it is the humidity or the fact I changed the ratio of sugar to almond. It is most likely the humidity.

Next Steps: Re-test this ratio under ideal / normal weather conditions to establish the master wafer recipe. Test ground cardamom in the wafer for subtle cardamom flavour. Adjust ganache recipe. Once master wafer is made, need to establish master chocolate wafer version. I will definitely need a mixer on baking week to produce the meringues as I still get tired by the time I whisk two egg whites successfully.

Me and my bright ideas.

I’m getting married next year in June, and we’re in the planning phase – booking a venue, arranging vendors and the like. One thing we have to consider are “guest favours”, because it is not, apparently, good enough to offer guests 5 hours of open bar service, entertainment and a great meal – you also have to give them a take-away trinket worth a few percent of the cost of the rest of the evening. Why? I do not know, but you do.

Early in the Spring, we did a small tour of Toronto-made macarons, and blogged about it here. I’ve had a growing fascination with the cookies since I first tried them in Paris last summer. Lemon macarons in particular. I love them. Anuja enjoys them enough to suggest we offer them as our “guest favour”. We canvassed our favourite bakeries and got some price estimates and had it in our mind to go ahead with this plan, at a cost of about 4-5 dollars per favour. Total: approx. $1,600. Sheesh. That would provide 2 cookies in plastic packaging, with a tag attached (that we would make ourselves), for about 300-350 people. Pricey, yeah? Yeah.

So, one day I’m surfing the internet looking at food things, as usual, and I start looking at recipes for macarons. I’ve always wanted to have a go at making them because they’re pretty, and I rarely make anything that has a specific aesthetic appeal (curries don’t always look so great or have high presentation value) but after studying the recipes and doing some rough calculations in my head, it definitely seemed like you can make macarons for much cheaper than the stores sell them. This is the case for most store/restaurant foods, of course, but macarons have a special distinction for being over-priced simply because they have a reputation for being hard to make (a reputation that is only partially justified). I assume, then, that we are paying for the baker’s skill, but if I could produce a homemade macaron of even satisfactory quality, the cost would be about 20% of the professionals’ cost.

I ran the numbers, and sourced out costs for printing labels (virtually free since I have access to printers and paper cutters at my job), plastic sleeves, and bulk baking supplies and I figure I can produce 700 cookies, wrapped in plastic and labeled with custom tags for under $350. Depending on how cheaply I can find almond flour (the most expensive ingredient, by far) that number could drop dramatically. The real costs, as usual, are time and effort, and required skills. Well, we have a wedding planner to handle most things, so we have plenty of time, and I have a year to learn the macaron inside and out.

I can do it. I can do this.

In fact, I have already started. I’ve baked macarons 3 times now (the photo is the second attempt – looks great, but I baked it for far too long and it was hard… but pretty enough for a photo!), and I’m very close to achieving a cookie consistency that is quite good. I have to devise two flavours of ganache/cream filling, and perfect the colourings. I would like to have a final product that features two cookies: one coloured with one of Anuja’s wedding theme colours (there are 4, and each of her 4 bridesmaids will wear a sari in one of these) and the other a chocolate macaron with a shell encrusted with edible gold glitter. Anuja loves gold glitter, what can I say?

But I need supplies. And a kitchen scale. And new baking sheets. Maybe a mixer (there’s only so much meringue I can beat in one day, after all). I need to make a spreadsheet and create a master ratio. I need volunteers to help. And a cake decorating kit.

But I can do this. I am doing this.

This recipe is going to get a bit ridiculous. Fair warning. I was heading out into the Ontario farmlands with my two friends, Jim and Andrew, to record a rock and roll album at Chalet Studio, and since we were staying overnight, we needed to bring food. One problem: Jim is a stubborn vegan, and Andrew leans vegetarian (or at least, he did) so I built a hybrid vegan biryani out of recipe ideas for 3 or 4 vegetable curry and rice dishes. The end result was pretty great: a spicy-hot tomato curry infused into richly flavoured baked rice, with large pieces of potato, cauliflower, and carrot mixed throughout. The whole thing was topped with fried cashews and raisins, and lidded with phyllo pastry (egg-free, naturally).

The concept of the pastry lid is one I borrowed from a sub-section of biryani recipes called “parda biryani”, parda meaning “veil” in Hindi. They typically use a puffed pastry crust for the “veil” but I could not, as it is not vegan-friendly. The store-bought phyllo sheets were. The pastry lid is optional, and I have not included directions in this recipe for handling the phyllo. If you want the pastry veil, follow the directions on the box of a frozen roll of phyllo dough. Use about 6 sheets, lightly oiled in between. Trim the edges of the dough so they overhang your casserole dish by about 1″ in all directions, then tuck the edges into the casserole dish, and add a few 1/2″ slits across the middle of the dough to release a bit of steam.

Well, there’s a lot of work to do here (nothing hard, just a series of simple processes) so let’s get to it. The first section of ingredients is for the vegetable curry. The second shorter set is the large chopped vegetables. The last second is for the spiced rice. Cashews and raisins are optional, but desirable.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
• 1 tbsp finely chopped garlic
• 1 cup plain tomato sauce, unsalted (not pasta sauce! just some kind of cooked tomato puree)
• 2 medium-sized onions, peeled, cut in half and sliced thinly
• 2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 green cardamom
• 2 bay leaf
• 1 tsp North Indian garam masala
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt

• 1 cup of 1-2″ cauliflower florets
• 1 medium-sized peeled potato, cut into 1″ cubes
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 1/2 cup 1/4″ peeled carrot slices

• 1 cup basmati rice
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 small French shallot or small onion
• 2 black cardamom
• 2 bay leaf
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp saffron threads
• 1 tsp salt

• fried cashews (optional)
• raisins (optional)

Serve with: raita

What you will need: chef’s knife and cutting board, measuring cups and spoons, 2 relatively deep frying/saute pans, some stirring spoons, a few large bowls, a handful of smaller bowls (for mis en place), a 9″ casserole dish or something close

Directions:

1. Rinse the rice thoroughly. Check out this video on rinsing/soaking rice. We do this so the rice isn’t starchy and won’t stick together when it’s cooked. Then put the rice into a bowl and cover it with cold water. We’re going to let it soak for an hour or so. While we’re waiting, let’s get all the ingredients ready for cooking.
2. Mise en place: prepare everything you are going to need before you need it. It’s just easier this way. Slice onions, chop garlic and ginger. Measure out the curry’s dry spices into one bowl, and the powdered spices and salt into another. Cut up all the vegetables. Repeat the same for the ingredients listed under the rice, but keep them separate.
3. Let’s say your rice has been soaking for 30 minutes by now. Give or take. Let’s start the curry. Get one of your deep frying pans and add the first 2 tbsp of oil to the pan. Heat it to medium heat (5 on my dial).
4. When the pan is hot, add the 2 sliced onions. Fry them until they start browning, about 10 minutes. Stir them often to prevent burning.
5. Once the onion is brown, add the whole spices (cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaf) and fry them for 30 seconds or so until fragrant. Add the garlic and ginger, and fry for 2 minutes until the garlic loses its raw smell.
6. Add the chopped vegetables to the pan and stir them around to coat them with spiced oil.
7. Sprinkle in the powdered spices and salt (Kashmiri powder, garam masala, turmeric, salt) and fry for 10-15 seconds.
8. Pour in the cup of tomato sauce, and stir all the ingredients together, scraping up any browned onion bits from the pan if you can.
9. Bring the sauce to a bubble, then lower the heat to low (2-3 on my dial), cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. At the end of this time, check the seasoning of the sauce. If it needs a bit more salt, add a sprinkle now. Remove the curry from the heat.
10. The rice has soaked long enough by now. Let’s make it. Preheat oven to 350 F.
11. In the second frying pan, heat the 2 tbsp of oil listed with the rice.
12. When the oil is hot, add the whole spices (black cardamom, bay leaf, cinnamon, cumin) and fry them for 15-20 seconds until the spices are fragrant.
13. Add the sliced shallot to the pan and fry for a few minutes until softened with some light brown edges.
14. While the shallot is frying, drain the rice as best as you can. You want as little water left in the rice as possible. Once drained, add it to the frying pan. The leftover water will crackle quite quickly. Watch your hands.
15. Add the saffron to the rice, and stir the rice into the oil and spices, getting as much of the rice coated in oil as possible. Fry the rice until the edges of the kernels appear translucent. Or a few minutes. Whatever.
16. Add 1.5 cups of water and the salt and stir the mixture.
17. Bring the rice to a gentle bubble, and cook until the rice starts absorbing the water. The sign you are looking for is when the air bubbles popping on the surface leave craters in the rice.
18. Take the rice off the heat.
19. In the casserole dish, pour in about half of the curry. Then layer in half of the rice over top of the curry. Then add the rest of the curry, then the rest of the rice on the following layers. It should go, from bottom to top: curry-rice-curry-rice.
20. Top the rice with cashews and raisins if you’re using them.
21. Add the casserole’s lid, or follow my tip at the top for covering the biryani with phyllo. Either way, cover the biryani and slide it into the pre-heated oven.
22. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
23. When done, remove from the oven (turn your oven off while you’re at it – sometimes I forget and leave it on for an extra hour or two) and let it cool off for 5-10 minutes before serving. Serve with raita (a recipe for raita is here but keep it mind, it’s made with yogurt, vegans, and it is delicious)