It's been nearly a year since I shared any recipes on this Blog. Mea maxima culpa! We spent part of August most of September 2022 in Britain and Scotland. Then we came home and a week later Hurricane Ian came ashore and knocked us silly!
We personally didn't suffer much damage. Our friends, however, live on the river, and had over 4 ft of water running through their house! They lived in our Poolside Cabana AirBnb space for six months while gutting the interior and rebuilding their house. Lots of trauma and adjustments to the new way of things by everyone within 50 miles. People in Fort Myers now have at least a little understand of the PTSD that we veterans have endured... For my part, cooking became, for the first time in ages, a chore, not a creative challenge (except having to feed 4-5 people every day).
But things have changed and more or less returned to the new normal. Sally is retiring at the end of September. She and Holly are visting Turkey and Greece in September. Sally is also planning a long trip to India in January of 2024 with an Indian doctor friend of hers. Although I won't be going, we've been watching a lot of Indian documentaries and exploring some of the regional dishes. So I present
An Indian Trio
A curry, by one definition, is any Indian dish which features a spiced oil in which major ingredients are cooked, and a separately spiced "gravy" in which those ingredients finish cooking. Here are three such curries which are NOT 'rip yer face off' hot, but very flavor filled. Indian dishes seem complicated to Westerners because they have so many spice. But if you look at the recipes, and triage the spices first, they're not hard at all.
Rajma Dal
Rajma Dal (not Taj Mahal) is one of the most popular, "comfort food" dishes in India -- Red Kidney Bean Curry. Not particularly spicy, but full of the quintessential flavors of the subc0ntinent. The Indian version of Caribbean Beans & Rice if you will. Simple and tasty.
2-3 cups cooked large Red Kidney Beans cooked with some turmeric; or two, 15oz. cans of the beans and 2 teaspoons of turmeric added to the other spices.
1-2 Red Onions, chopped
4-5 cloves Garlic
1" finger of fresh Ginger julienned or chopped
1 Tbsp Chili Powder or to taste
1 tsp Garam Masala
4 oz plain Yogurt or Skyr -- not low fat. Indian yogurt is full-fat, thin, a high content of whey.
Basmati Rice to serve
Lime juice to serve
Mince and mash together the garlic and ginger into a paste -- or make a bigger batch, use your food processor and refrigerate the leftover paste. You can also buy this blend at Indian markets but it's easy enough to make.
Fry the onion in a splash of oil until it's getting soft. Add the Garlic-Ginger paste and stir to combine. Cook a minute or so, then add the Chili Powder and stir again. Cook another couple minutes.
Add the Garam Masala and Yogurt, combine well, then add the beans (and turmeric if using) and perhaps some water if needed. Simmer 10-15 minutes until the beans are heated through. If you need to thicken the mixture, mash some of the beans against the side of the pan and stir them back in.
Dum Aloo Restaurant Style
Aloo, as you learned before, means 'potato' in Hindi. Dum refers to a slow-cooking style where the pot/pan is covered and the edges sealed with a ribbon of dough to create a low-pressure moisture-retaining cooker. "Restaurant style" here refers to a Kashmiri version of the dish made without tomatoes and with only a small amount of garlic. The ingredient list looks daunting, but take the preparation in stages and this dish is actually very simple.
1 cup of frozen Peas. Reserved
2 lb Baby Potatoes -- white or red. Skin on or peeled, your choice. Can't find little ones, cut up larger spuds. Stab them with a fork to let flavors in, and either boil or microwave until nearly done but not totally soft. Drain and cool. Meanwhile make the paste and spice blends:
Onion Paste -- make in advance
15 Raw Cashews soaked for 15 minutes in boiling water to cover
1 cup diced Red Onion
2 cloves Garlic chopped
1 tsp Fennel Seed
1" finger of fresh Ginger chopped
1/4 cup plain Yogurt
Put this in your food processor (minus the yogurt) and take for a spin. When nicely reduced, add the yogurt and spin again to make a smooth paste. If you buy jars of Ginger-Garlic paste, you can just add it to your food processor along with the fennel and cashews.
Spice Blend #1 -- make in advance
2 tsp ground Cinnamon or 1" stick
2 tsp ground Clove or 3 whole cloves
1 tsp Cardamon Seeds
2 small Bay Leaf
1 tsp Caraway Seed
Spice Blend #2 -- make in advance
1 tsp Turmeric
1-2 tsp Chili Powder -- as hot or mild as you like
1 tsp Coriander Powder
1 tsp Garam Masala
Cooking the Dum Aloo
You can, of course make a simple flour/water/salt dough to seal a lid to a pan. The idea is to get a low-pressure sealed container where the food cooks slowly in its own juices. I use a tight-lidded electric skillet or stove top skillet. Some people even bake their Dum curries...
Start with 2 Tbsp oil and heat on med. high (350F). Add Spice Blend #1 and fry the spices for a couple minutes to flavor the oil and release the aromatics.
Reduce heat to 300F and add the reserved Onion Sauce. Stir and cook a couple minutes until the off-white sauce turns light brown.
Add Spice Blend #2 and stir to mix it in. Cook for a minute or two.
Add the potatoes, reserved peas and 1 cup of water. Stir to combine:
Serve with Cumin Rice, Lentils, or Nan bread (or even flour tortillas).
Saag Aloo
This is for all you spinach lovers out there! You often see Saag Paneer on Indian restaurant menus, which is spinach and cubes of a special cheese. This Saag (means 'leafy greens') dish combines spinach, or any mix of leafy greens, with potatoes. Often seen as a 'dry' or stir-fried dish in restaurants, this version is a 'standard' curry preparation -- a spice-infused oil used to fry the potatoes, and then a separately spiced pureed, wilted spinach 'gravy'. Here we go!
1+ lb Potatoes -- I like baby potatoes halved or quartered but you can also cube regular spuds
1 bag (9 oz) fresh Baby Spinach. Use fresh spinach, frozen just doesn't cut it.
1 large Red Onion, chopped
Spices
Yogurt
Wilt the spinach with 1/2 cup of water and juice of a Lime, in a large skillet. Remove and reserve spinach and its liquid. In the same large skillet --
For the spiced oil:
3 Tbsp oil
4-5 cracked Green Cardamon pods
1/4 tsp Cumin seeds
1/4 tsp Turmeric
1/4 tsp Coriander
* Heat the oil in a deep skillet, then fry the spices for a couple minutes to release the flavors and infuse the oil.
* Add the potatoes, 1 Tbsp Chili Powder, and fry for about 5 minutes.
* Add 2-3 Tbsp Ginger-Garlic Paste (50/50) and spread throughout.
* Add the onion and continue frying until the potatoes are fork tender and the onion softened.
Remove from the skillet and reserve.
To make the Gravy:
1/2-3/4 cup Water
1/2 cup Full Fat Yogurt
2 tsp Garam Masala
Reduce the skillet to low heat. Add the reserved Spinach with its liquid, Water, Yogurt and Garam Masala. Stir to combine. With an immersion blender puree the mixture.
Add the reserved potato/onion mix to the gravy and simmer on low for 15-20 minutes to warm the potatoes and help them absorb even more flavor.
Cowboy Caviar Casserole
Made this for our New Year's Eve Brunch to incorporate black-eyed peas for luck in 2023. Normally Cowboy Caviar is a chilled salad, but I wanted a hot meal not cold. So...
3/4 lb dry Black-eyed Peas cooked al dente, drained and cooled (3 cups cooked beans)
2 cups Frozen Corn, thawed
1 can Black Beans, drained & rinsed -- nice when you're too lazy to cook more beans
1 Green and 1 Red Bell Pepper, diced
1/2 Red Onion, diced
1 cup Tomatoes, diced -- tired of dicing, I used a can of Original Roteltm
3 cups finely chopped fresh, stemmed, baby Kale or baby Spinach
1-2 tsp Cumin
1/4-1/2 cup shredded Cheese
optional: diced jalapenos, chopped cilantro, white hominy
Green Chile Vinaigrette
2 tsp Honey
1 tsp Mustard
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
3/4 - 1 tsp Hatch Green Chile Powder (hot)
1/4 tsp Oregano
1/4 - 3/8 cup light Oil
pinch of Garlic Salt
Whisk everything together, Reserve
Assemble the Casserole
In a large mixing bowl toss together all the vegetables. Dust with cumin. Transfer to an 8x12 baking dish and pour the vinaigrette overall.
Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, top with shredded cheese and bake again until the cheese melts (about 10 more minutes). Serve hot with tortilla chips on the side.
My First Flan!
I have a request to make a Birthday Flan for one of Sally's girlfriends. I've never made Flan before.... eaten my share, but never made it. Couldn't risk a fubar on a birthday "cake" so I just had to practice (and eat the result). Found a great, simple recipe for a Chocolate Flan on a Dominican food blogger's page. It turned out great!
The Caramel Sauce
1/2 cup Sugar
Melt the sugar over medium-low heat and stir until it turns golden. Pour into the baking tin and swirl-coat the bottom and sides with the molten sugar (wear gloves)! Reserve.
The Custard
4oz of Semi-sweet Chocolate pieces
1 can Evaporated Milk
1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk
5 Large Eggs
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Orange Extract
Put the eggs, extract and cinnamon in a blender (not a food processor unless that's all you've got.
Melt the chocolate and the evaporated milk together in the microwave. 30 seconds at a time, stirring as you go. When well combined, let it cool a couple minutes so you won't make scrambled eggs, then pour the warm chocolate milk into the blender with the eggs, and take everything for an nice long whirrrr.
Water Bath
Preheat the oven to 350F.
You need a large, deep-ish baking vessel to make a water bath for the flan as it bakes. Put the 8" baking dish in the larger vessel and add about half an inch of hot-but-not-boiling water.
Bake for 50+ minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 30 minutes, then refrigerate for 4+ hours before slicing and serving:
Bring the flan out and let it warm up for 20 minutes or so. Run a knife around the edge to loosen it from the pan. Put your serving plate on top and quickly flip the flan over onto it. Tap the bottom as you gently lift the pan away from the flan. Now slice and serve!
All I can say is WOW! At least as good as any commercial flan I've ever tasted! Worth every bit of effort!
Baked Oatsotto with Butternut & Mushrooms
There's a dish made with rice which we call Risotto -- right? This is the same sort of thing -- made from Steel-cut Oats -- that makes it Oatsotto in my bppk!! Baked, so I don't have to stand in front of the hot stove.
2 cups Steel-cut Oats -- Bob's Red Milltm by choice"
2 cup peeled, large diced Butternut Squash (or sweet potato)
1 cup dice Sweet Onion
8 oz sliced Mushrooms
3/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
28 oz Broth of choice
1 cup White Wine
2 tsp Butter
1 Tbsp Ground or fresh Sage
1 Tsp Black Pepper divided
EVOO as needed
Optional -- 1/4 cup plain Skyr or Greek Yoghurt
Preheat oven to 400F.
In a large skillet, saute the mushrooms hot and fast until browned. Remove and reserve.
To the same skillet, add a splash of EVOO, the squash, onion, a little black pepper, and some sage. Saute until the squash is just coming tender. Add the oatmeal, toss, and continue cooking for a 3 minutes while the oatmeal softens a bit. Add the wine and cook a minute or two more to cook off the alcohol.
Transfer to a 9x12 baking dish, add the Parmesan, broth and water. Spread the reserved mushrooms across the top. Bake for 30 minutes until oats are tender.
For extra richness & creaminess stir in some skyr or yogurt before serving...
