It's time to be cheap again, since Mister and I keep failing at it. So here's a list of lentil recipes that I want to try.
Daal Makhni
Khichuri
Mushur Daal
Black Lentils with Caramelized Onions
Mujadara
Red Lentil Soup (what I'll probably make tonight as I have bread to make)
Showing posts with label lentils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lentils. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Snackie That Almost Wasn't
So my darling friend R has an amazing recipe for Daal er Bora or what she calls Lentil Puffs. The recipe looks fairly simple: soak lentils, mush lentils with onion, chili and seasoning, shape into balls, and fry. Sounds amazing, eh?
So I soak the lentils for 30 mins at first, as I'm on a schedule.
Prior to draining the lentils, I chop a couple of small red onions.
However, when R recommends the food processor (which I don't have), I figure I'll just mush it by hand. A fork, a wooden spoon, and a potato masher later, I figure I'll toss it in my mortar. This is even more of a pain in the ass, although it slowly does the trick.
I throw my hands up, and decide to nap instead of snack before work.
Before heading to work however, I throw the lentils and onion back into water (I know, I'm not supposed to soak the onions, but they were mixed by this point). Coming back from work, I try to mash again -- to no avail.
Fully frustrated by now, I decide to cook the damn lentils, and make the paste from fully cooked and mashed lentils. I cook the lentils with a smidge of water (as I don't want it thinned out at all!), stirring constantly.
After about 30 mins, I turn the heat off, and add some spices (cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and paprika), and let it cool and solidify.
When the lentils cooled, I heated some oil, and put the lentils in by teaspoonful. However, this also failed, as the lentils merely became oil colored brown by the addition of lentils.
As I am determined to eat this snack by the gods, I added a copious amount of potato starch, and put by the teaspoon onto a cookie sheet which was popped in the freezer.
I also took this opportunity to have a tea break.
When cleaning up the mess on the stove, please feel free to spill half of the oil mixture ON the stove, making a larger mess to clean.
Stove cleaned, I heated more oil and removed the fully frozen lentil balls from the freezer. Hesitant, I dropped one into the oil.
It fried, it fried, and it kept its shape! Victory! I happily fried the rest of them.
Verdict: WAY less potato starch. As Mister pointed out: starch thickens when cooked. These had so much starch that you could taste it. Not fun. But, still fried and fairly tasty.
So I soak the lentils for 30 mins at first, as I'm on a schedule.
Prior to draining the lentils, I chop a couple of small red onions.
However, when R recommends the food processor (which I don't have), I figure I'll just mush it by hand. A fork, a wooden spoon, and a potato masher later, I figure I'll toss it in my mortar. This is even more of a pain in the ass, although it slowly does the trick.
I throw my hands up, and decide to nap instead of snack before work.
Before heading to work however, I throw the lentils and onion back into water (I know, I'm not supposed to soak the onions, but they were mixed by this point). Coming back from work, I try to mash again -- to no avail.
Fully frustrated by now, I decide to cook the damn lentils, and make the paste from fully cooked and mashed lentils. I cook the lentils with a smidge of water (as I don't want it thinned out at all!), stirring constantly.
After about 30 mins, I turn the heat off, and add some spices (cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and paprika), and let it cool and solidify.
When the lentils cooled, I heated some oil, and put the lentils in by teaspoonful. However, this also failed, as the lentils merely became oil colored brown by the addition of lentils.
As I am determined to eat this snack by the gods, I added a copious amount of potato starch, and put by the teaspoon onto a cookie sheet which was popped in the freezer.
I also took this opportunity to have a tea break.
When cleaning up the mess on the stove, please feel free to spill half of the oil mixture ON the stove, making a larger mess to clean.
Stove cleaned, I heated more oil and removed the fully frozen lentil balls from the freezer. Hesitant, I dropped one into the oil.
It fried, it fried, and it kept its shape! Victory! I happily fried the rest of them.
Verdict: WAY less potato starch. As Mister pointed out: starch thickens when cooked. These had so much starch that you could taste it. Not fun. But, still fried and fairly tasty.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Random Food
So one of my goals has been to learn random cheap-ass meals. To that goal, I enlisted the help of an Indian friend and she taught me this awesome egg curry thing. I made her version of mushur daal last night (easy peasy folks). Thus far, I am finding cheap ass Indian food pretty easy.
A recent post on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op has a great video for how to make Bi Bim Bop (which is Korean stir-fried rice). It looks really, really simple.
I'm coming the the conclusion that most food is pretty simple to do -- it just requires the effort of doing it! My other highly trained observation is that a lot of the difference between food styles is simply the exact way in which you cook it, and the seasoning/sauce.
If you'd handed me the ingredients that are used in any of the recipes above, more than likely, I'd throw it all in a pot together and call it done. Probably tasty too.
I guess what I'm doing in my quest for meals is not to learn recipes, but to gather procedures. Reading gardener's posts allows me to realize that glut is something I need to know how to deal with. Hopefully, I'll do ok.
A recent post on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op has a great video for how to make Bi Bim Bop (which is Korean stir-fried rice). It looks really, really simple.
I'm coming the the conclusion that most food is pretty simple to do -- it just requires the effort of doing it! My other highly trained observation is that a lot of the difference between food styles is simply the exact way in which you cook it, and the seasoning/sauce.
If you'd handed me the ingredients that are used in any of the recipes above, more than likely, I'd throw it all in a pot together and call it done. Probably tasty too.
I guess what I'm doing in my quest for meals is not to learn recipes, but to gather procedures. Reading gardener's posts allows me to realize that glut is something I need to know how to deal with. Hopefully, I'll do ok.
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