Vegetable Curry

Delicious curry that's so close to India! If only I had a curry plant going, this would be pretty much the real thing. One day soon! This again is one of the recipes that Gopal made for me and my roommates when he and his family came over to show us Americans how to cook the Indian way. I still haven't perfected my chapati technique, but hopefully one day soon!

Vegetable Curry
from Gopal

Ingredients:
2 Tbs. oil
green chilies (optional)
1/2 medium red onion
1 handful curry leaves
2 green bell peppers, diced small
1 medium russet potato, diced small
1 roma tomato, diced small
1 small handful cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup coconut paste
1 Tbs. ginger/garlic paste
1 tsp. tumeric
1/4 tsp. black pepper
salt to taste

Instructions:
Note: After each ingredient, stir and saute for a minute or two before adding the next.

1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat.
2. Add green chilies (if using), onions,  cilantro, and curry leaves.
3. Add bell pepper, and potato. Cover with lid and let saute for an additional minute.
4. Add tomato, and saute for 3 minutes. Add coconut paste, ginger/garlic paste, tumeric, black pepper, stir well, and cover with lid to cook for 5 minutes.
5. Season with salt to taste, and serve with chapatis.

Chapatis
from Gopal
makes about 12 chapatis

Ingredients:
3 cups whole wheat flour + more for sprinkling
1.5 cups water
1 tsp. salt
oil or butter (optional)

Instructions:
1. Add flour and salt to a bowl and stir to combine.
2. Make a well in the center of the flour, add water, and combine with hands. Knead 5 minutes. Add more water or flour as needed, until all flour comes off the side of the bowl but dough isn't sticky.
3. Divide into 12 balls, and press each one flat by pressing hands together tightly and twisting palms in opposite directions to make compact disks.
4. Let each ball set for 5 - 10 minutes before rolling out
5. Put some flour on the counter, cover both sides of a dough ball, and roll out to about a 5" diameter circle. To roll: roll back and forth one time on a side, flip and turn 90 degrees and repeat. 
6. Pre-heat a skillet to low heat. Add a rolled-out chapati, in crease heat to medium, cook for about 1 minute, flip, then turn head back to low and cook until dough-color has left. Flip back and forth a couple times until black splotches appear on the air bubbles.
7. If using oil or butter, drizzle or spread on chapate with the back of a spoon after the first flip.

Vegetable Biryani with Riata Sauce

This was one of my favorite dishes in India. I pretty much celebrated every time we got it for lunch (instead of our same daily-meal of rice, sambar, chapatis, and similar-tasting curry. Delicious and healthy, but the same thing every day makes a foodie cranky). Since all of our food was delivered I really didn't cook much at all, save for our Thanksgiving day feast. So, to learn how to cook Indian food, we had our amazing, kind, and gentle care taker Gopal come over with his beautiful family and teach us how to cook a few Indian dishes. Gopal pretty much made up these recipes himself, and they're amazing so I'd like to share them with the world.

I finally had the opportunity to make this dish for an Oscar party last weekend, where all the guests were assigned a dish from a country represented in the Oscars. By fortunate coincidence, I got India (from Life of Pi)

Unfortunately, it's fresh curry leaves and fresh double-beans are not stocked in the supermarkets during the winter in the mid west. SO, i substituted curry powder (so not the same thing, I know) and canned red kidney beans (or I would have, if I had realized that I don't actually own a can opener, a fact I have apparently been oblivious of since I moved into my new apartment 3 months ago x.x) Since this is an Indian recipe, you can pretty much substitute/remove/add any vegetables or seasonings you want to this. These are just the ones my dear old Gopal choose to use in his version of biryani.

Note: It's easiest to just prepare each vegetable as you go along instead of preparing all before starting.

Vegetable Biryani
from Gopal

Ingredients:
5 Tbs. oil
1 handful fresh curry leaves
1 small red onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips and then halved
3 small carrots, cut into 1/4" thick half moons
2 handfuls of green beans, chopped until 1/4" circles
1 small russet potato, diced
large handful of fresh double-beans
1 handful cilantro, chopped
2.5 Tbs. ginger/garlic paste
1/2 cup coconut paste
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
green chillies (optional)
3 cups basmati rice
1 Tbs. salt, divided

Instructions:
     Note: after each individual item is added to the pot, stir to incorporate new ingredients and cook for 1 minute before adding the next ingredient.

1. In a bowl, soak the rice. Dice the potato and soak in a separate bowl, same with the double-beans.
2. Heat the oil on medium heat in a stock pot
3. Add curry leaves, onion, bell pepper, carrots, green beans, potato, and double beans. Cover with lid and let cook for 5 minutes.
4. Drain rice and add fresh water to soak.
5. Add garlic/ginger paste, cover, and let cook for 2 minutes. Add coconut paste, cover, and let cook for 2 more minutes.
6. Add 2 tsp. salt and cover. Then add diced tomato and cover.
7. Add 6 cups water, turn on high heat, add remaining 1 tsp. salt and bring to a boil.
8. Drain rice, add to pot, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring every 5.
9. Set pot aside with lid on for 15 minutes.
10. Serve with raita sauce.

Riata Sauce
from Gopal

Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1/2 medium red onion, diced small
500 mL yogurt
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup diced cilantro

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients and serve over biryani.

Moroccan Spiced Carrot Hummus

Winter has been raging on here in the Midwest. This shot was taken on top of 2 or so feet of snow. x.x To fight the snow and the cold that kept me home on this particular day, I soaked some chickpeas and whipped together this hummus during lunch time. Easy, quick, and delicious! And the spices will take you to a place far from this snowy tundra : )

I sautéed my carrots instead of boiling them and this made them more so chunks. I tend to prefer my hummus more chunky anyway, but I included directions from the original recipe for the smoother hummus lovers.

Moroccan Spiced Carrot Hummus
from Healthy. Delicious.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups carrots, peeled and cut into coins
1.5 cups (1- 16 oz. can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup tahini
1 lemon, juiced
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 Tbs. cold water
1 Tbs. olive oil, plus more for serving
1 Tbs. Ras El Hanout (I used this recipe)

Instructions:
1. Add carrots to a small sauce pan and cover with water. Boil about 10 minutes, until very soft. Drain and set aside.
2. Pour rinsed chickpeas onto a kitchen towel and cover with another towel. Rub together to loosen skins on the chick peas. Pour chickpeas into a bowl and cover with water. Remove the skins that float to the top, stir the chick peas, and remove the additional skins that float to the top. Drain chickpeas.
3. Pour drained chickpeas into a food processor, add carrots, and process together until they form a paste. While running, add tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. Continue to process until combined.
4. Continue running and add water and process for 5 minutes, or until desired consistency has been reached. Add olive oil and ras el hanout and pulse to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.
5. Server with drizzled olive oil.

Butternut Squash Cheddar Galette

This was my first galette, and it was savory! I kind of associate galettes with sweetness, because I see so many recipes for sweet fruit ones, but this savory one was great. Perfect for packing lunches, and since the pie crust is rolled so thinly, you get more filling per pie crust (and therefore less butter per serving : ) ) This was also the first real think I've cooked since I started my new job (!!!). I'm not used to cooking so little, but I'm surprisingly drained after getting home from a whole day of training (after busy weekends of helping my parents out). Definitely hoping that I get some more energy to cook after work, and I think I will once I've completed training and the weather gets nicer/brighter.

I used about 1/4 the original recipe's measure of olive oil, so if you want to use the full 1/4th cup, feel free, I just feel it would be too greasy like that, but as you can see, my butternut squash was a little wrinkly (but still delicious). Up to you!

Butternut Squash Chedder Galette
slightly adapted from Domestic Deborah

Ingredients:
1 recipe pate brisee/pie crust (I used Martha Stewart's recipe)
1.5 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup aged white cheddar, grated
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. fresh sage, minced
1 tsp. salt
black pepper to taste
1 large egg yolk + 1 Tbs. cold water


Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 375F.
2. Roll out pastry into a 12" circle. Place on a large baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and refridgerate until ready to use.
3. Combine butternut squash, onion, cheddar, olive oil, sage, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl and fold together until mixture is reasonably consistent and lightly coated in olive oil.
4.  Mound filling onto the pie crust and spread out evenly, leaving 2" of pie crust all around the edges. Fold edge of crust over the filling.
5. Whisk together egg yolk and water, and brush onto crust.
6. Bake for 45-50 minutes (or more) until crust is golden brown and butternut squash is cooked (it may not completely soften and that's fine).
7. Let galette cool for 30 minutes, then serve

Fried Plantain

Fried plantain is one of my favorite island foods. So naturally sweet and delicious and, if fried right, soft on the inside and crispy. You want your plantain to be pretty much completely black on the outside before using it. Of course, you can fry your plantain when green or yellow, and that will be much more of a potato-y substance, and you can cook with it/flavor it accordingly. But in my opinion, the black, sweet plantains are the best.

Fried Plantain

Ingredients:
1.5 Tbs. butter
1 black plantain

Instructions:
1. On medium-low heat, melt the butter in a frying pan.
2. Cut plantain at an angle so the slices have a longer surface area (or you can cut length-wise into quarters if desired)
3. Evenly place plantain slices in the pan. Each must be on it's face (you may have to cook in batches)
4. Cook each slice until golden-brown on the bottom, rotating some from outside of pan to inside if needed. Flip each piece as it caramelizes onto it's other side and caramelize other side. Make sure there's extra butter in the pan on the edges of the plantain. If it gets too dry and plantains start sticking, add more butter.
5. Set plantains aside once golden-brown on both sides.

Raw Coconut Milk (and how to de-husk a coconut)

Ahhh.... on of life's simple pleasures: gathering your own food. One of my favorite things to do down here in Grand Cayman (where the family house is) is to gather ripe coconuts, de-husk them (a process in-and-of it's self (shown below) ) and make tasty things with them. Last time I was here, I wasn't nearly as much of a foodie as I am today. In preparation for this trip, I researched some coconut recipes and the first and fore-most is making coconut milk (or cream), the base of so many things today. Coconuts have gotten very popular as of late (coconut milk, cream, and oil in particular) in the health-food and vegan communities, so I've actually been very excited for near-infinite access to coconuts (well, as much as I can find, gather, husk, and process).

Raw Coconut Milk
from Kitchen Apparel

Ingredients:
2 cups water (below 115F for raw)
1 mature coconut, husked, de-shelled, and peeled

Instructions:
1. Blend flesh of coconut and 2 cups warm water together in a high-speed blender for a few minutes until milk is frothy and chunky.
2. Strain liquid out into a container using cheese cloth (or paper towels). Once all liquid is strained hand-squeeze the pulp until all the milk has been released and the pulp is dry and powdery. Discard powder.

For Coconut Cream:

Instructions:
1. Cover coconut milk and place in fridge overnight. The cream will float to the top, so carefully strain out into a separate dish to obtain coconut cream.

How to De-husk a coconut:
1. Obtain a ripe coconut: Brown/orangey on the outside, preferably tree-ripened.

2. Shake coconut and check to see if coconut has milk.

3. If you hear some good sloshing: congratulations! This coconut is (probably) good to use.

4. With a good strong hammer, use the nail-puller side to make a line down the side of the coconut, from the indent (where it hung from the tree) to the base. Make a series of these, following the natural indents in the coconut long-wise. Don't hit too hard, you don't want to puncture or crack the coconut within.

 5. Once you've made these lines, wack the nail-puller side into the top indent, and pry off one of the sections you just outlined.

6. Continue this with the remaining sections. you may need to divide some up to make thinner strips, depending on how tough the husk is.

7. Eventually you'll have all the husk sections off, pull off the extra fibers, and voila! You have successfully uncovered a coconut.

Pumpkin Lasagna with Sage-infused Bechamel

This lasagna is a show-stopper. It's what I served at my first official dinner party:

My Bosnian family was moving to Boston (far away from the KC-area!) and one of our mutual friends had a small get-together where we all had snacks and celebrated our Bosnian family.

The Bosnian mother brought a beautiful gelatin cake on of her co-workers made for her. It was from a moulde, but it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen food-wise. I broken vegetarian-edge for it *gasp!*

All the flowers were completely suspended within this thing, and it was 100% edible and (somehow) 100% gelatin-based food-stuffs, with the most delicate flavorings.

The mother is all about local, organic, seasonal natural-foods and since that's been my focus as of late, I proposed that night that I throw a dinner party the following day, as I thought I could whip up something everyone would enjoy : D

Appetizers:
Butternut Squash Tahini Dip with fresh locally-made pita bread (Olive Cafe)

Salad:
Citrus, Feta, Walnut Salad (without the squash)

Entree:
Pumpkin Lasagna (recipe shown below)
Blanched Green Beans with walnuts, walnut oil, and light salt

Desert:
Pear Almond Tart

I was pretty proud of myself after this dinner, not gonna lie. All in my mother's beautiful home and on her nice china (since they both live a few blocks away from each other in the burbs and my apartment is hardly of the dinner-party accommodating size) Though this has made me realize: I'm getting old. I'm addicted to NPR, I seriously enjoy throwing dinner parties, and I'm out-of-my-gourd excited to start working and being completely independent and responsible for myself. But if this is what getting old feels like, SIGN ME UP!

The picture shown above is a re-make (I was far too busy cooking and entertaining to take pictures at the time of the lasagna or the other dishes I made for the dinner), and I made it for my roommate from my Indian study abroad program when I visited her in her family home on Long Island, NY. It was beautiful and snowy, the perfect background for this winter-squash lasagna.

The original recipe calls for the pumpkin to be pureed, but I like it in layered strips for texture-sake. Also: you aren't limited to pumpkin, pretty much any squash would do. My original make of this lasagna was with pumpkin, the second one (featured above) is using butternut squash, as pumpkin was unavailable at the time.

Pumpkin Lasagna with Sage-infused Béchamel
from Gobo Root

Ingredients:
12 lasagna noodles
4 cups sage infused béchamel (recipe below)
1 pumpkin, peeled, sliced thinly, oiled, salted, and roasted
1.5 cups ricotta (recipe here)
1 large bunch Swiss chard, washed and leaves separated from stem
1 cup Parmesan, grated
1 cup mozzarella, shredded

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 375F. Cook noodles according to package instructions. Reserve cooking water and dunk Swiss chard into the water for a few minutes.
2.  Squeeze excess moisture from the chard and cut into 1" pieces. Set aside.
3. In the bottom of the baking dish, spread evenly 1/4th of the béchamel. Arrange 4 noodles over the sauce.
4. Top with 1/2 of the pumpkin slices, then 1/2 the ricotta, then half the Swiss chard and another 1/4th béchamel.
5. Repeat with second layer: 4 more lasagna noodles, last 1/2 of pumpkin slices, last 1/2 of ricotta, and last of swiss chard and last 1/4th of béchamel.
6. Lay remaining 4 lasagna noodles over the top, and sprinkle with parmesan and mozzarella evenly.
7. Bake until top is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Sage-infused Béchamel
makes 4 cups

Ingredients:
4 cups milk
6 Tbs. butter
6 Tbs. flour
a sprig of sage
salt and pepper
ground nutmeg

Instructions:
1. Place milk and sage in a medium sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and pour into a heat-proof bowl to let stand for 10 minutes. Discard leaves.
2. While milk is standing, melt butter in the sauce pan over low heat. Sprinkle in flour and stir quickly until flour has completely combined with butter. Let bubble for a few minutes until roux starts to smell nutty.
3. Turn heat up to medium and slowly add in sage-infused milk, whisking constantly.
4. Let sauce cook until thickened, and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
5. Remove from heat and cover.