Kheema, moong dal and chapatis

Back to the book! I made three recipes from the Jaffrey cookbook for dinner last night: kheema, a spiced ground beef dish; moong dal, a classic North Indian lentil recipe; and chapatis, a simple bread which I've done a few times before. Jaffrey recommends this combination, and I can see why-- the flavors mingled really well together. Also, they're both simple and good for leftovers, so we're pretty much set for next week's lunches now.

The dal has to simmer for an hour and a half, the kheema has to simmer for an hour, and the chapati dough has to rise for at least 30 minutes, so I made the dishes in that order.

The dal recipe is actually incredibly easy. I've made some fairly complicated dals in my time. When I first went on a gluten-free diet after being misdiagnosed with celiac disease, I was totally broke and didn't know what was safe to eat, and pretty much survived the first month on dal and rice. It's nutritionally fantastic and very versatile, but it can be an intricate pain to make. Not so much this dal. Anyone with a pot, a pan and an hour and a half can pretty much do this one with their eyes closed.

Get yourself some moong dal. The lentils should be split open, dark green on the outside and light yellow on the inside. Put 10 oz. in a pot with two pints of water, and boil. Clean the scum off the top with a strainer. Throw in a few cloves of garlic, some ginger (no need to chop), turmeric, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and chopped cilantro or parsley if you have it (I didn't). Turn down the heat, cover but leave a little vent open, and leave it for an hour and a half, stirring every ten minutes or so. Try to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. I was sure, initially, that this would run out of moisture, but it didn't. About ten minutes before it's done, throw in one lemon's worth of juice and some salt. Then, right before service, melt ghee in a pan-- about 3 tbsp-- and put in a pinch of asafetida and an equal amount of whole cumin seeds. When the asafetida starts to snap-crackle-pop, pour the whole thing into the dal. Sprinkle with a handful of fried onions and serve immediately, with a lemon wedge on the side.

While that's simmering: kheema. I halved the recipe, because two pounds of ground beef is too much for two people. This has both warm spices and a bit of heat. First, you need to fry some onion half-rings, because both this recipe and the dal are finished with them. Just put them in hot oil and keep stirring until they get nice and brown. You don't want them to burn. Make sure you start taking them out of the pan just before they are done, because these little suckers are slippery and you don't want them burning while you're still struggling to get them out of the pan.

Keep the oil from the onions. Throw in two bay leaves, a cinnamon stick and six cloves. Once the leaves change color, throw in a finely chopped onion, three cloves chopped garlic and a spoonful of chopped ginger (I admit it, I used the emergency ginger jar). Keep those going until things are just barely starting to brown, then add your classic North Indian spice mix-- ground cumin, coriander seeds and turmeric. Mix and fry. Then add a tablespoon of plain yogurt and stir that in very quickly. Give that a minute, then put in one chopped tomato. Fresh would be great, but I was out so I used canned chopped tomato, which actually works beautifully and even gives a slightly more consistent texture. Next time I use fresh, I think I'll run it through the food processor!

Give that a few minutes, then add the meat, chop it all up with your flipper, mix well with the sauce and let it start to brown. Then add your warm spices: mace, nutmeg, cayenne and salt, plus a few ounces of water. Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer for an hour, stirring every ten minutes or so. If you are not making chapatis, what you can do at this point is go zone out in front of Law & Order, and get up at every commercial break to go and stir your pots. (I know, it's an awful show, but I'm addicted. You never know what character actor will show up-- Aasif Mandvi was on last night! Aasif-- if you're reading-- call me!) About halfway through the simmering, put the fried onions in (reserving some to top the dal) and stir. That's it.

Now for the chapatis. I was worried about having enough time, so I had Joe do most of the kheema prep while I kneaded chapati dough. I needn't have worried-- I had time to spare, as it turned out. Chapatis are the easiest Indian bread I've tried-- spelt flour and water in about equal parts, knead for 8 minutes, let rise for half an hour. Knead again, divide into 8 balls. Roll each ball into about a 5-6 inch circle, flouring all the while. To cook, put the chapatis, one at a time, on your very hot tava or cast iron pan. Once they solidify and start to get brown, grab with tongs and hold over an open flame until they puff. Brush with a bit of butter, and repeat with the next chapati. These ones came out fluffier than previous chapatis-- we had some excellent puffing action this time.

All this should be served with rice, by the way. We still had some of this rice left over, so we tossed it in the microwave and it went perfectly.

So: rice, kheema, dal with a lemon wedge and fried onions, chapatis, Wild Goose IPA. Both the kheema and dal had a kick to them, more so than a lot of the food I've made from the Jaffrey book so far. Joe and I found our sinuses clearing by the end of the meal, but it wasn't so hot that the flavors were disguised. We were amazed at how well the flavors complemented each other.

I wasn't sure I'd like this dal. When I was growing up, most of the veggies we ate were of the frozen-microwaved variety or the slimy-okra variety, and I didn't like them one bit. My stepbrothers still tease me about the time I gagged over a bowl of peas. It's only recently, under the tutelage of a former-vegetarian husband and Indian vegetable-eating friends, that I've started learning to like my vegetables. (My friend Gagan's mom's okra blew my mind.) But I'm still a bit leery about anything green and savory. So when I was cooking these lentils, and they were very green with lots of brown liquid, and they smelled sort of pea-like, I was worried. But once I added the spiced ghee, I started to relax. And by the time it got to my plate, I was thrilled. The vegetable-ness of the lentils is balanced with the richness of the ghee, the heat from the spices, the tang of the lemon juice and the sweetness of the fried onions. The lemon juice, in particular, really made the flavors from the spices bright and vivid. There's a lot going on in this deceptively simple dish, and I have to say that I am now looking forward to eating this particular vegetable. I hope you're reading this, Mom!

Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee

Last week, the New York Times ran a great article on how to make cold-brewed iced coffee. Unfortunately, that article is now for sale at $4.95 as a "TimesSelect" article, and I still haven't convinced myself to subscribe to NYTimes.com, so I'm afraid the link won't be much help. But I'm going to tell you how to make this stuff, so screw the Times and its for-profit archive.

The article explains that cold-brewed iced coffee is way better than the usual stuff- it's less bitter, and its flavors are more complex. I'm a big iced coffee fan, but I'd never heard of this before, so I was intrigued. One of Joe's coworkers also swears by cold brewing, so we decided to give it a try.

Iced coffee is usually made in one of two ways:

(a) you brew a pot of coffee, let it cool and pour it over ice; or

(b) you make a few shots of espresso, dilute them with cold water, and pour it over ice.

If you are fortunate, your local coffee shop will have some simple syrup on hand for sweetening-- otherwise, you'll find yourself sucking unmelted sugar crystals through your straw, which is not (everybody say it with me now!) good eats.

Cold brewing, however, is done thusly:

Get yourself a big glass jar-- a Mason jar would be perfect. Fill it with 4 cups water and 3/4 cup of medium-course ground coffee. (We got ours at La Colombe, a well-loved local roaster.) Cover it and let it sit on your kitchen counter overnight (at least 12 hours).

Strain it twice-- use a really fine strainer if you can. The Times recipe recommends "a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth." We didn't have any cheesecloth, so we tried a paper coffee filter, but it broke pretty quickly. Joe (who did the actual work on this one) used our fine-mesh strainer, but found that the coffee still had a lot of sediment. Fortunately, I have a very resourceful husband. He took the top from our super-neato coffee maker, which has a very fine mesh filter, and filtered the coffee through it into a thermos.

This makes a coffee concentrate-- you dilute it to drink it, unless you're way more hardcore than we are. The Times recipe calls for a one-to-one ratio of water to concentrate, but we found that a two-to-one ratio of coffee to water was about right.

Joe also made some simple syrup-- great for iced coffee and also for cocktails. This is really easy-- get yourself equal parts sugar and water. Put the water in a pot to boil. While it's heating up, start stirring the sugar into it in small parts until it dissolves. Bring it just to a boil. You'll know it's ready because it'll be cloudy, and then suddenly start to clear up-- that means it's done. Put it in a squeeze bottle and use it for everything.

So: the finished product. Add your water to taste. You can drink this black even if you're not normally into black coffee-- it really isn't bitter. I still prefer mine with half-and-half and simple syrup. The result was a surprisingly flavorful coffee. We both used to think it was sort of silly how people would talk about a coffee as having 'chocolate notes' or some such wine-like descriptors, but now I kind of get it. This is good stuff.

Joe's coworker also recommended making ice cubes with this stuff, so that you can ice your coffee without it getting all diluted at the end.

Another yummy option is to add sweetened condensed milk for what my corner coffee shop (which is wonderful, by the way) calls a Thai iced coffee. They charge four bucks for it there, and this is way, way cheaper in addition to being really delicious.

Quick Chicken Molé Tacos

I wasn't going to blog this dish-- it's just too damn easy-- but then, maybe that's what you're looking for. This is a staple in our house; it's pretty much what I make when I don't feel like cooking. It is neither authentic nor Slow Food, but it is quick and tasty, and gluten-free as well. My friend Lynn was over last night, and we needed some ballast before going out for martinis, so this is what I made.

1 lb boneless chicken filets
Trader Joe's Red Molé Sauce
Shredded cheddar cheese (told you it wasn't authentic!)
Sour cream
Corn tortillas

Chop some chicken into 1-inch cubes. I used chicken filets from Trader Joe's-- a boneless cut is easiest. Heat a small amount of oil in your cast iron pan, just enough to cover the bottom. Throw in the chicken and let it start to brown. When it's not totally raw anymore, add a few generous spoonfuls of molé and stir to coat the chicken. (I'm looking forward to learning to make my own molé, but TJ's will do for now; you can also get good ones in the Goya aisle at your local grocery or Latin American foods store, but they won't be gluten free like TJ's is.) Cook, stirring periodically, until the chicken is cooked through.

Meanwhile, if you have a gas stove, you can make your tortillas tasty. Put a tortilla directly on the burner and put the flame on medium. Use tongs to flip it once it gets just a little charred. Try not to let it catch on fire. Do this until all of your tortillas are toasted and just a bit crispy.

(If you don't have a gas stove, put your tortillas on a plate, cover with a moist paper towel and microwave for about 30 seconds.)

Assemble tacos and top with sour cream and cheese. Tomatoes, lettuce, or guacamole are also good; if you want to be a little more authentic about it, top with chopped cilantro and raw onions. Serve hot, with cold beer.

Beef Roganjosh, Sweet Rice, and Pooris

All from the Jaffrey cookbook, which is turning out to be an excellent textbook. First of all, I should mention that this dish is really supposed to be made with lamb, but we didn't have any. Madhur Jaffrey says that stew beef is an acceptable substitute, and lucky for me, there it was in our freezer. So: beef roganjosh.

This is not a weeknight dish. (I made it on Memorial Day.) After you do about 45 minutes of cooking, it has to simmer over a low flame for an hour, so make sure you have lots of time for this one!

I made the poori dough first. This dough has to be made ahead of time, more so than chapatis or parathas—it has to rise for 1 1/2 to 3 hours. You can also store it in the fridge for 24 hours, which seems like the thing to do if it’s a weeknight. The dough is like paratha dough, except that it’s half whole wheat (spelt, in this case) and half white flour (gluten free, for me). I was a little worried about how the GF flour would perform—I was using Bob's Red Mill instead of Mr. Ritt’s, and sometimes it doesn’t behave as well. But I have no complaints here. It kneaded and rolled just as normally as I'd hoped. Set that aside and got started on the roganjosh.

For once, I didn’t use my cast iron pan—I was saving it for frying pooris. I just used a regular nonstick skillet. You get the oil hot, fry your first round of spices (cloves, peppercorns and a chili), and brown the meat. When the meat comes out, set it aside and fry your onions in the oil. In another pan, roast chopped blanched almonds, coconut, coriander seeds and whole cumin seeds until they all turn a nice toasty brown. Into the mini-blender: garlic and ginger, turmeric, water, and the roasted spice mixture. Get it good and smooth, and put it back into the pan with the onions. Fry for a spell, then put in your tomatoes and water, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or so. Then you can put in the meat, along with some salt, turn down the heat, pop a lid on top and make your other dishes. Just check it every so often.

Next: sweet rice! This dish smells SO GOOD while it’s cooking. Like Christmas. Mmm. You put some oil in your pot and throw in some whole cloves and peppercorns. They will pop in your face, so stand back. Then put in your sliced onions and let them get light brown and a little bit crispy on the edges. Next, add your rice and warm spices (allspice subbing for mace, nutmeg and cinnamon) and keep stirring it dry so it doesn't stick to the pan. Then add your beef broth and put a lid on it for 15 minutes. After that, stir in the brown sugar and give it another 20. Start checking toward the end to make sure it doesn't burn. Make sure to smell it when you check it, because it's wonderful. If you have children, have them smell it so they'll have good memories when they grow up. It smells THAT good.

Finally, pooris! I’ve had good luck with my Indian breads so far, but I was sure these would be harder. We heated a few inches of oil in the cast iron pan, and while that got good and smoking I started rolling out the pooris. When I separated the dough into 14 balls, as Jaffrey instructs, they were so tiny that I was sure I'd made a mistake. I flattened them into itty little cookie shapes and started rolling them. I got them really thin. Joe put one into the oil, and POOF: a poori! The first few were too crispy, but once we got the timing right (about five seconds) they were perfect. We got them done just as everything else was ready to eat, because I am awesome.

Joe and I sat down to eat, and we were very, very happy. The roganjosh and rice went well together, and both were very warm and satisfying. This would be a good winter dish. And the pooris—man, those things are addictive. This was definitely the most flavorful bread I’ve tried so far. SO GOOD!

I’d invited Gagan to come over and tell me what his Indian palate thought, and he couldn’t make it at dinner time, but he showed up a little while after we'd finished and I made him a plate, with the two pooris I'd managed to stop myself from eating. He liked it! His criticisms: it could have been hotter (next time I'll leave the pepper in during simmering) and the sauce could be thicker. But he thought everything tasted delicious, and was very nice about hiding his surprise! I consider that success...

Grilled steak and new potatoes cooked in their jackets; dessert waffles

It’s summer! We broke out the grill last night. Joe grilled a couple of ribeyes to medium rare while I made these potatoes from the Jaffrey cookbook. These were easy and good, if a bit salty, and we have lots of new potatoes left, so I expect to be making these a few more times in the near future.

Jaffrey says that new potatoes in India tend to be really tiny, less than an inch in diameter. I’ve seen potatoes that tiny at my favorite farmstand at the Reading Market, so I’m going to have to try it with those, but last night I had the standard American new potatoes. We diced them for this recipe. (Don’t peel them, though—that’s where all the nutrients lie!)

In the mini-blender: chopped fresh ginger, turmeric and water.

Incidentally, did you know that turmeric turns bright red if you spray it with an ammonia-based cleaner? I discovered this while cleaning the kitchen this morning. Neat.

Now for the phrase that pops up in every single post on this blog so far: Get your cast iron pan nice and hot. Heat some vegetable oil and toast whole cumin seeds until they change color. Then add the ginger paste and fry for a minute. Add the potatoes and fry them for 5 minutes. Jaffrey says to keep scraping the bottom of the pan during this stage, and trust me, she is not kidding. That ginger really wants to stick, and it probably wants to burn, so you have to use some elbow grease while you’re stirring and scraping. I had Joe stir for a few minutes just to rest my arms. Once it’s been 5 minutes, add the chopped coriander, lower the heat and give it another 5 minutes, scraping all the while.

Then add your magical potion of salt, garam masala, ground coriander seeds, lemon juice, water and cayenne pepper. Cover, put the heat on low and simmer. Jaffrey says 25 minutes, but my potatoes were tender and ready to go at 20.

We served these potatoes as a side with our steaks and drank the last of the Yard’s Saison. They were really tasty, but I thought they were too salty—next time I won’t add as much salt as she recommends. Maybe dicing the potatoes allows them to absorb the salt more easily than if it was on their unbroken skins?

(Things to buy on payday: lamb, spelt flour, whole cardamom pods, fenugreek, tamarind paste, fennel seeds, black onion seeds, and BEER.)

After dinner, as we were relaxing, digesting and watching the Henry Rollins show on IFC, Joe had a brainstorm and raced into the kitchen to make these dessert waffles. (You see why I married this man?)

Gluten-Free Dessert Waffles

2 cups gluten-free flour (I recommend the mix from Mr. Ritt’s GF Bakery in South Philly)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp GF baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ¾ cups milk
6 tbsp vegetable oil
2 eggs
Chocolate chips to taste
Chocolate ice cream

Mix well until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips. Let sit for 5 minutes and pour ½ cup of batter onto heated waffle maker. When cooked, serve with two scoops of chocolate ice cream. Garnish with chocolate sauce, powdered sugar, berries, or whatever else turns you on. I recommend splitting this among two or more people; it’s really rich.

Next up: beef roganjosh (I didn't have lamb), sweet rice and pooris.

Chicken Parmesan with gluten-free bread crumbs

Joe got home before me tonight, so he was on dinner duty. It's been a long Monday, so he went for Italian-American comfort food-- chicken parm.

You know how to make this, right? Dip your chicken in egg, roll it in bread crumbs, brown it in a skillet, put it in a baking dish, pour tomato sauce over it, slice some mozzarella on top, stick it in the oven. Serve with pasta (I like quinoa-corn pasta). Not that hard.

The challenging bit, if you're wheat-free, is the breading. When I lived in New York, I bought gluten-free bread crumbs in the baking section at the Union Square Whole Foods. Unfortunately, none of the Whole Foodses (?) here carry that brand, the name of which escapes me. If you're looking for GF bread crumb options, two ideas:

-Philly Whole Foods stores DO carry a brand called Southern Homestyle Tortilla Crumbs. They're GF and tasty, but they do have a very distinct corn flavor. Great for breading fish or pork chops, but they don't blend into Italian dishes the way ordinary bread crumbs do.

-To make your own GF bread crumbs: Get yourself a loaf of GF bread. The best and most neutrally flavored you can find. Whole Foods' Gluten-Free Bakehouse makes a good sandwich loaf. Food For Life loaves are decent, but the fruit-juice-sweetened ones have a sweet flavor that's almost grape-y. Trader Joe's GF English muffins aren't bad-- they crumble too easily to be practical for sandwiches, but are great for making bread crumbs.

Crumble your bread into your food processor. Give it a few pulses until it's reduced down to crumbs. Spread them out on the bottom of a metal pan (with sides, please) and pop them into the oven for ten minutes or so. This isn't an exact science, so keep an eye on them. When they're nice and toasty, use them however you please.

They don't keep for long, so don't make more than you think you'll use in a day or two.

UPDATE: According to Joe, Food For Life bread does NOT work well for this. He recommends letting the bread go a bit stale before doing this.