Two experimental dals

A few weeks ago, Jon and I went to an Indian neighborhood in Chicago for dinner and grocery shopping. (Also window shopping at some very posh sari boutiques!) In addition to a variety of other products, we ended up with 24 pounds of various beans. Hence, I am on a mission to eat more dal. With the weather getting cooler and cooler, this seems like a good time for it.

The first dal I wanted to try was "val dal," which are apparently skinned and split lablab beans. Helpful, I know. I had never seen it before, and I was intrigued because the beans are bigger than most beans that are split but looked like they would cook more quickly than whole beans. I decided to go rogue on the val dal and just make something up entirely. I always feel nervous about coming up with my own spice ratios for Indian-type dishes because I'm worried I'll do it wrong. But I decided that was kind of silly, so I just went for it. I used "Balti" curry powder from Penzey's, which is not as fragrant as a lot of curry powders and I think works well with root vegetables, along with whole mustard, fennel, and cumin seeds. I might not have used quite enough spice overall, but I thought the ratio worked well.

Another experiment I did was comparing cooking times of a bean I had never made, beets, and potatoes. I didn't think they would all magically have the same cooking time, but I put them in at the same time because I didn't know which ones would be done sooner. It turned out that the potatoes basically melted into the sauce by the time the beets and dal were ready. Now I know.

Oh, one more thing: The Indian cookbook I have calls for mustard oil for most of the dishes. I had never seen it in a store, so I've always used generic vegetable oil instead, but I found it in the grocery store last night and decided to use it today. As I returned the oil to the pantry, I noticed that it is labeled "for external use only." I didn't want to either poison us or waste perfectly good food, so I looked up "mustard oil external use only" on google, and it turns out that some people think it's not safe due to high levels of some kind of fatty acid. Apparently it's been a big controversy. I'm in the "it doesn't seem to have killed the Indians yet" camp, so I left the dal cooking.

The end result was pretty good. I think I will spice and salt it more heavily next time, but it was nice to experiment a little, and I really liked the beets in with the beans. I think it would be great with kale or mustard greens, and I would probably ease back a little on the mustard oil because it's more pungent than I thought it was based on smell. On the whole, though, it was a pretty successful experiment.

The second bean I played with was "urad dal," which is split black lentils. I made a pretty simple dish with the dal, tomatoes, kale, and just some ginger, turmeric, cumin, and coriander to spice it. I couldn't quite decide whether I wanted it to be soupy or dry, so it's somewhere in between. Once again, I probably could have spiced it a little more heavily. I have trouble knowing what the ratio should be of water/beans to spice when I'm cooking without a recipe. Jon loved this one. It was good comfort food for a chilly night.

Val dal with beets and potatoes

2 tbsp mustard oil

2 tsp balti seasoning or curry powder

1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds

1/2 tsp whole fennel seeds

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp ginger, minced

1 large beet, cut into small cubes

1 medium potato, cut into small cubes

1 cup val dal or other bean

3 cups water

Heat the mustard oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the seasonings and stir to coat with oil. Add the onion and ginger and cook for a few minutes. Add the beet, potato, dal, and water. Cover, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until beets and beans are done to your liking. You may have to add more water during the simmering process.

We served this with curry powder basmati rice. It's very simple: melt 1 tbsp butter in a small saucepan. Add 1/2 tsp curry powder, stir to distribute, and then add 1 cup of rice and stir to coat with butter and curry powder. Add 2 cups water and 3/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook covered until rice is done.

Urad dal with tomatoes and kale

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

2 tbsp minced ginger

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1 can whole tomatoes, including juice

1 cup urad dal

2 cups water

Heat the oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes. Add spices and saute for about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and juices, dal, and water. Raise heat to bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer, stirring and breaking up tomatoes occasionally, until dal is cooked to your liking, 30-40 minutes. You may want to add more water while it cooks. I don't think I actually measured, so the amount in the recipe is just an estimate.

This is one of our other treasures, that yummy breat-freshening stuff you sometimes get at Indian restaurants. It has candy-coated fennel seeds and other stuff in it. Yum!

Japanese spa salad

This recipe is from the September issue of Vegetarian Times. They call it Tofu and Cucumber Salad with Sesame-Ginger Dressing, but I call it Japanese spa salad because it seems like the kind of thing someone would give you at a spa where you went to get "detoxifying" treatments and maybe do some yoga and meditation. It's a great summer salad because it requires absolutely no cooking and makes you feel refreshed. It's definitely not summer here, but I ate it for lunch today because it is so quick to make, especially if you don't bother with the recipe's dressing. (Just drizzle some soy sauce and sesame oil on it instead.)

The brand of soft tofu I have is Phoenix Bean, and it's made here in Chicago. I highly recommend it. It seems beanier than most tofu I've had. According to Yelp, one can go buy their tofu directly from the factory. I'm excited to go there sometime and try their other tofus.

This salad is satisfying without being filling, and it makes me feel light and energized.

Japanese spa salad

Makes 1 salad; multiply recipe as necessary

4 oz. soft tofu, sliced

1/2 avocado, sliced

2 inches cucumber, sliced

1/2 sheet nori, crumbled

1 tsp sesame seeds

Dressing (makes enough dressing for several salads):

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup rice vinegar

3 tbsp minced fresh ginger

1 tsp sugar

Mix dressing ingredients together. Arrange tofu, avocado, and cucumber on a plate. Sprinkle nori and sesame seeds on top. Drizzle with dressing.

Storing my cookie cutters

A friend on facebook mentioned that her mom had their cookie cutter collection hanging on their wall when she was growing up. I decided that would be a fun thing to do with my cookie cutters too. I have a few embroidery hoops lying around from when I used to screen print, so I used one as a frame. I might get super-fancy and paint it later.

This is what it looks like with the rest of the stuff on our kitchen wall:

Those are a poster of exotic fruits and vegetables in Danish and some French food postcards that I taped to a piece of poster board. I'm very pleased with the food-related decorations.

Earl Grey shortbread cookies

This is my second time making this recipe for Earl Grey shortbread cookies. The tea flavor is subtle but nice. I have never been a fan of shortbread cookies, but having a little extra flavor is nice, and I find them much tastier homemade than store-bought. The second time I made them, I changed up the method just a little both to account for the fact that I have a mixer but not a food processor and to make them rolled cookies instead of a log that would then be sliced. The rolling process was pretty time-intensive. I don't know if shortbread is meant to be rolled out, and it was kind of sticking to both the cutting board and the rolling pin. Flouring the pin didn't seem to help, so I'm not quite sure what the best way to deal with that would be, besides just being patient.

I didn't mind taking the time to roll them out since I just got a bunch of cute cookie cutters, as you can see in the above picture. I'm not sure what all of them are. There's definitely a dog, but there's also another one that's either a dog or a sheep. There is a hippo, too. That's nice. The one in the top left is either a foot or a bird that's sitting down. I kind of think it's a foot, so maybe it goes with the shark and umbrella as kind of a beach-themed set.

Earl Grey shortbread cookies

2 tbsp loose-leaf Earl Grey tea

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

In a coffee grinder or small food processor, grind the tea until it's not powdered but a bit more broken up than it started. Mix tea, flour, and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.

Using a mixer or wooden spoon, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and stir to combine. Refrigerate until ready to roll out and cut into fun shapes. (Alternatively, you can follow the original recipe's suggestion that you roll the dough into a log, wrap in saran wrap, refrigerate, and cut into discs.)

Bake at 375 for 12 minutes, or until turning golden brown. Allow to cool on the baking sheet a few minutes before transferring to cooling racks.

Cucumber-melon rocket pops

This is a work in progress. A few weeks ago, it was pretty hot, and I had half of a delicious melon. I'm not actually sure what kind. It was yellowish on the outside and light green on the inside. It was reminiscent of honeydew, but not quite the same. In any case, it was great: sweet, not too hard or soft, fragrant. We ate a lot of it just as melon, but I also wanted to try a fruit pop with melon. I also had a cucumber that had seen far better days and would have headed to the trash if I hadn't found a use for it. Cucumber and melon are friends, so I cut out the bad bits and added it to the melon. Earlier in the day I had impulse-bought some Tyku liqueur, which has melon and citrus flavors, so I decided to do something similar to the grapefruit-Campari pops I posted back in June. I blended up the melon and cucumber together, added a little sugar and Tyku, and froze them.

They're pretty good. They have a lot more texture than most pops because they're whole fruit rather than juice, and I like the texture a lot, but the mixture separated in the freezer, so the tip of the pop tastes sweet and alcoholic, but the rest of it is milder and has more chunks. I don't know how to keep it from separating, since I think it happens in the freezer before it freezes. Something I would tweak the next time is to add pineapple juice. I think the intense sweet-acid taste would be great with the cucumber and melon. I would probably leave out the alcohol as well. It definitely made a difference, but I don't know if the effect was better than it would have been without the alcohol. I could, however, see this going in the frozen cocktail direction with tequila or gin in place of the liqueur. Anyway, here's the recipe as I made it.

Cucumber-melon pops

2 cups cubed green melon

1 cup cubed cucumber

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 cup Tyku liqueur

Blend melon and cucumber together. Add sugar and liqueur. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.

Liptauer cheese spread

I saw this spread on 101 cookbooks months ago and have been wanting to try it since then. I finally got around to it a couple weeks ago. It is delightful on this thinly-sliced rye bread we like. I call it German health bread, but I don't think that's its technical name. We changed the recipe a little bit because we don't care much for capers, and we had green onions instead of shallots. The spread ended up a little salty. I think next time I will see if I can find a less salty goat cheese. I didn't add any salt, so that and the pickle were the only sources.

Liptauer cheese (adapted from 101 cookbooks)

8 oz goat cheese, room temperature

4 oz butter, room temperature

2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp carraway seeds

1 green onion, sliced

1 tbsp diced pickle (we used standard dill, but I think a sweet pickle would be nice too)

Mix goat cheese and butter in a medium mixing bowl. Add paprika, mustard, and carraway seeds. Fold in green onion and pickle. Serve on bread or crackers.

Personal salad focaccia

Jon had the brilliant idea of personal focaccia salads, so we made that for lunch today. I don't think I cooked them quite enough, but they were pretty good. We saw figs on sale, so I sliced one up and put it on the focaccia before it cooked, along with some goat cheese. I also sliced one up for the top. Honestly, I felt like the cooked ones might have been a little too desserty. I'm on the fence about it. The concentrated sweetness was a little weird with the other salad ingredients, but the fig and warm goat cheese thing was pretty great. Maybe make one with and one without, and see how you like them.

Personal Salad Focaccia

Delicious lunch for 1.

1/4 recipe focaccia dough

2 figs, sliced

Goat cheese

Mixed greens

Basil leaves

Sliced avocado

Sliced red pepper

Sliced cucumber

Sunflower seeds

Pumpkin seeds

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Prep dough according to directions in this post. Before baking, put one sliced fig and some goat cheese on dough. Bake at 450 degrees for about 12-15 minutes, or until dough is golden. Top with the rest of salad ingredients. Dress to taste with oil and vinegar.