East of Easter: Masala Dosas

Mmmm, dosas. Delicate pancakes made from a batter of fermented rice and lentils, stuffed with curried potatoes and served with a dollop of coconut chutney.

WARNING: File under "special holiday dishes that require at least one day of advance prep." Seriously, I'm talking 8 hours of soaking and 16-20 hours of fermentation.

And you'll probably need to make a trip to your local Indian grocery store for ingredients: urad dal, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida, etc. And you might be inspired to stock up on additional goodies (like the largest jar of amchoor powder in the whole store, to make authentic versions of masoor dal and bhindi masala).

We referenced both Madhur Jaffrey's classic cookbook (currently obsessed with it) and this page for the dosa, potato curry, and chutney recipes.

Simple red lentil dal (updated)

I'm a little afraid of embarrassing myself but here goes... This was a good faith effort to recreate the way that my friend Anu told me her family makes dal. I don't know how authentic my reproduction is but it always tastes really great to me, savory and just a little bit sour.

Red Lentil Dal
Serves: 2-3

1 cup red lentils
1 small yellow onion diced
4 cups water
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp coriander
1 tbsp fresh ginger minced (or 1 tsp powder)
1-2 cloves garlic minced
1 chili or red pepper flakes
1/2 lemon

Bring water to a boil in a medium pot. Add washed and picked over lentils, onion, tumeric, and about a teaspoon of salt to the water. Let it return to a boil, and then turn down to low and cover. Simmer for about 15 minutes -- just until the lentils are tender.

In a medium saucepan, add 1 tbsp neutral oil over medium-high heat. Add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds and cook for about a minute until they start to pop. Add the garlic and ginger, coriander, a few dashes of chili pepper flakes, and after another 30 seconds or so the lentils. Continue to simmer for 10 minutes so it will thicken up a little bit (you can smush some of the lentils with a wooden spoon to thicken it a little or I sometimes add a teaspoon or two of corn starch). Squeeze the juice from half of a lemon over the top, and adjust the salt to taste.

Serve with basmati rice and homemade naan (or even easier chapati pictured here), mmmmmmm

UPDATE: Replaced the photo on Sept 8, 2010 with a batch with a much better consistency.

Channa masala

And so the weekend comes to an end. Today I slept in and rode my bike to the park and laid in the grass and read and bought a blueberry smoothie and marmite and cooked this! It was a good day.

The channa recipe is from Smitten Kitchen (I stole the idea for the first picture from SK too, though I like to imagine that I would've thought of it independently with the spices all assembled. Also, who knew paprika and cayenne looked so different). I was a little bit worried because I only had about 3 cups of chickpeas and for some reason decided not to adjust the seasonings, and about halfway through it seemed like it was maybe going to be crazy over the top spicy, but it worked out pretty perfect. I made another batch of naan too, as I suspect I am doomed to do frequently from here on.

And now, I am going to do what I can to stave off Monday

Veganaan

I don't know what your experience is with Indian food, but for me it seems like naan is always the limiting factor. I had been wanting to try making it for a while, and with the tremendous amount of leftover aloo gobi, today seemed like a perfect opportunity. Given my disastrous history of pancake making, I had some reservations, but this turned out great!

I got the recipe from my best friend's girl (who can be found here). They have definitely established themselves as good people to turn to for advice on vegan cooking.

The one with the cauliflower and potatoes

Cauliflower was one of the few vegetables I would eat as a kid and still one of my absolute favorites. Broccoli gets a lot of press--deservedly so--but of the cabbages nothing soaks up flavors like cauliflower. So unsurprisingly I love aloo gobi, but from looking up recipes online I'm getting the impression that the saucy, tomatoey aloo gobi I love is not quite real aloo gobi... Nevertheless, delicious

I more or less followed this recipe.

Materials

• 1 small onion diced
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 peeled and cubed yukon gold potatoes
• 1 head of cauliflower broken into florets
• 14 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 serrano pepper, diced (I like to take out seeds from half the pepper)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp tumeric
• a clove of garlic
• tsp of fresh ginger
• small bunch of chopped cilantro
• salt

Assembly
This ends up being a lot of food. If you have a large, deep sauce pan that would be perfect. I used our dutch oven (after first pouring everything from a medium pan into a large pan and then the large pan into the dutch oven). In any case, heat the oil over medium heat for a few minutes and add the onion, cumin, and a pinch of salt. When the onion is translucent, add the chopped pepper, tomatoes, tumeric, garlic, and ginger and mix thoroughly. Then add the potatoes, cauliflower, and a tsp of salt, mix it up so the veggies are coated, and simmer for 20-40 minutes (it was closer to 40 for me). While it's cooking, you can add a little bit of water if it is getting too dry. When the potatoes are done, stir in the cilantro and adjust the seasonings to taste.

Potatoes and spinach

We finished out the week with a super easy recipe from Vegan Dad for sort of an Indian-inspired aloo saag sort of thing. The flavors were good, but I didn't love the soft texture of the potatoes against the vaguely slimy texture of cooked spinach. I think next time I would like to try not peeling the potato and browning it a little before adding water.

And with that we took care of almost every ingredient on the shopping list from last weekend (the broccoli quinoa at the bottom was an alternate -- its avocado ended up in a brown rice burrito and the lemon made its way into a hot toddy).

I am still amazed how much money we saved and more importantly how much better it was not to have to finish work and spend an hour figuring out and procuring dinner every single night. I have to say I'm feeling a little bit inspired