A Sweet Side Dish- Banana Curry

Sometimes I run across a recipe for something and I just know that I have to make it immediately... banana curry was one of those things. It just sounds so WEIRD, you know? 

Well, it was a little bit weird, but it was also a really unique side dish, and I think the sweetness makes it an especially great side for something spicy. 

(You may note I'm not giving you the recipe for the chicken, and that's 

because basically it was ok but nothing particularly special).

This recipe came from Manjula's Kitchen, my go-to source for Indian food. 

What you need:

3 bananas, sliced into pretty thick slices (you don't want them to just turn into mush)

1 tbsp vegetable oil (coconut oil might have also been good)

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1/8 tsp asafetida (hing) (if you don't have this, you could add a little bit of garlic)

1 minced jalapeño (if it's a big one, just use half)

1/8 tsp tumeric

1-2 tsp chopped ginger

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp brown sugar (or mango powder if you have it)

a little water (~2 tbsp)

chopped cilantro, 2-4 tbsp

What to do with it:

(Note: this all comes together really quickly so have everything ready)

Heat up the oil, and when it's hot put in the seeds until they start popping, at that point add the asafetida, turmeric, and jalapeño. Stir it around, then put in the banana, ginger, sugar and water and stir really gently. Don't cook too long, just enough to quickly cook the bananas through, then remove from heat, sprinkle with salt, and gently stir in cilantro. And... that's it!

Even if you're not a meat eater, I think this would be pretty sweet and light for a main course (I mean, there is pretty much no protein), but it's great as a side dish and it's so quick together it's definitely worth a try!

A Bit of Indian Flavor: Chicken Dopiaza

This recipe is tasty and pretty easy- the list of spices is long, but what actually needs to be done isn't all that complex.

Here's what you need...
3 tbsp oil
8 shallots, halved (pick small ones!)
3 dried red chilies
6 cardamom pods
6 black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp ginger paste (this is really useful to have on hand, by the way)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
.5 tsp tumeric
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 can canned chopped tomatoes
2 onions, finely chopped
.5 cup water
4 chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
a bunch cilantro
brown rice, cooked

See, I said it was long, but don't worry! here's what you do with it...
Very slowly cook the halved onions over low heat in 2 tbsp of the oil. They'll turn very soft and golden brown. Put them off to the side.

Now, put the rest of the oil in the pan, and cook the all spices until they are fragrant. This is one of the important tricks, you want to give the spices time to get moisturized in the oil and for the flavor to open up. Put the chopped onions in, cook slowly until soft (its important that they get very soft and brown and mix in with the spices), and then pour in the can of tomatoes (the whole can, with liquid). Simmer this mixture for about 5 minutes until thick. Pour in the water, and then place the chicken pieces in so that they can slowly simmer. When the chicken is approaching being done (how long this will take depends a lot on the size of your chunks), put in the browned half onions and let them simmer about 10 more minutes.

Right before serving, stir in the cilantro, and put it over brown rice. In the picture, you can see some corn, which I'll be posting about later!

Its good stuff... enjoy!

Chana Masala

Recently I went to Trader Joes (aka, my second home), and bought their frozen Chana Masala. Chana masala isn't even in my top tier of Indian food choices (I'm a saag kind of girl), but let me tell you, it was pretty delicious. Of course, having had it in all its deliciousness made me want to learn to make my own (because thats how I am).

So, a perusal of the internets began.I found a number of recipes, but this lady was by far and away not only the cutest of them all, but the biggest influence on my ultimate product.

(I preface this with my usual caveat about how I come from a Nordic people who do not make curry, so everything here is based on me liking stuff, not necessarily me being super authentic and making everything definitively. Plus, I like to experiment too much to make anything definitively, anyways).

SO!

Take a diced onion and slowly saute in some oil. I think that slowness is the key here, so that they get really soft, translucent, and a bit brown.

After they've been going for a bit, throw in a few cloves of diced garlic and some diced fresh ginger (I love ginger, so probably used about 3/4 of an inch of a plug of ginger). Then toss in a diced jalapeno (seeded). Let them cook until the onions are really nice and soft. Put in some cumin and coriander seeds and let them pop.

Now, dump in a can of crushed (crushed! must be crushed!) tomatoes, and stir around. Add 1/2-1tsp tumeric, 1/2 tsp red chili powder, 2-3tsp coriander, and stir it all up and let it cook a bit.

Then, dump in a can of drained chickpeas. Let it simmer for a while- you might need to add a bit of water, but this amount of tomatoes actually provides a lot of liquid. To thicken, just smush a couple of the chickpeas, which will release their starch. After its been cooking and the beans seem soft and the sauce tastes pretty good, add a little salt and 1/4-1/2 tsp garam masala. Right before you serve add a big squeeze of lemon and some cilantro and let that sit a second.

This was goooooooooood. And, cheeeaaaaaaaaap. (if you have your budget cooking basic ingredients, you are almost entirely good to go!).

Aloo Gobi-licious

So, I've been making an ongoing effort to learn to cook Indian food. An important thing to remember about this is that a lot of the resulting recipes are guided a lot more by what I like than by anything having to do with authenticity. I'm Scandinavian. We have no idea how to make curry. So, I can promise that if I post it, I liked how it tasted. If you want the canonical version of something, there are things like this book which I really really want.

At any rate, today we have Aloo Gobi, which I decided to make because I was in the midst of a cauliflower craving (by the way, if you could go back in time and tell my eight year old self that I would one day have an intense cauliflower craving, she'd think you were crazy). Its adapted from this recipezaar recipe.

Stuff you need:
a bit of vegetable oil
1 large onion,chopped
1/2 of a bunch of fresh cilantro, stalks and leaves chopped separately
1 small green chili, finely chopped
1 large cauliflower, cut into pieces of the biggest size you'd like to eat
2 big potatoes, peeled and chopped into 3/4 inch pieces
a can of garbanzo beans (because in addition to cauliflower I wanted protein)
2 cans diced tomatoes
fresh ginger, really finely chopped
fresh garlic, chopped
1 tsp cumin seed
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
2 tsp garam masala

1. Heat vegetable oil in a giant pan. I used my biggest pot and it was totally full by the end
2. Add the chopped onion and one tsp of cumin seeds to the oil (if you don't have actual seeds, you could use regular cumin, but you can get cumin seeds for super cheap in the ethnic section, and they really add something good).
3. Stir together and cook slowly, onions should become nice and soft and golden, and translucent.
4. Add chopped cilantro stems, two tsp of turmeric, and one tsp of salt.
5. Add chopped chilies and then tomatoes.
6. Add ginger and garlic; mix thoroughly.
7. Add potatoes to the sauce plus enough water to just cover. Simmer this for about 10 minutes.
8. Add the cauliflower and garbanzo beans, and cook for ~10 more minutes or until the veggies are cooked. the point of adding the potato and cauliflower separately is so that the cauliflower doesn't get mushy, which is gross.
9. Throughout, make sure that the whole thing has enough water to be mostly or nearly covered, and cook with the lid on.
10. After its all cooked, add two teaspoons of Garam Masala and stir. (why do you add this at the end? I have no idea. if anyone knows, by all means fill me in.)
11. Sprinkle chopped cilantro leaves on top of the curry and stir around.
12. Turn off the heat, cover, and leave for as long as possible before serving.

You'll likely get something like this:


Now, the pot of food this made is HUGE (and, I only used 2 potatoes instead of the 3 they recommended!). I got 8 meals out of it, if I had put it over rice it would have been more.

For people who have been following the series on budget cooking, here is the rundown. If you followed the shopping list and spice list, you'd already have onions, garlic, ginger, cumin, garam masala, tumeric, garbanzo beans and the tomatoes-- you'd just need to run to the store and pick up some potatoes, cilantro, a chili, and a cauliflower (4 things! not bad!). But, lets say you needed to get all of it (other than the spices), because you'd had eaten yourself out of house and home and had no basic food which was my situation. It would cost a grand total of... wait for it... $11.26. (this is counting things that were on the grocery store specials, and generic brands of canned goods. but, I'm assuming you will be a savvy shopper too). In case you don't feel like doing math $11.28/8 servings = $1.41 per serving. A dollar fifty! There are no frozen dinners that are that cheap, and this is packed with things that are actually good for you, plus it is delicious. Also, after you've eaten as much as you want to, you can do the whole frozen lunches thing, like this.

Is this Superbowl Food?

This year I took a break from the Superbowl (although, I did end up watching the end, which was very exciting even for me).

Instead, I made this: Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry and Poppy Seed Roti (from Veganomicon, again). Generally, it went well. The curry is basically red lentils, onion, a wide variety of spices parsnip (to be fair: I do not know the difference between a parsnip and a turnip, never having eaten them growing up. I used one of the two and it worked beautifully. I am also too lazy to google it and determine which one the thing in my fridge actually was, since I'd forgotten since I bought it. It was kind of a supporting player, at any rate). So, the curry was delish! (picture to come). It made a ton and I would totally make it again.

The roti... now, the roti was another story. It was all very promising, and I was so psyched about the results of my previous pita bread efforts, I was very optimistic. Basically, the ingredients are simple (whole wheat flour, cornmeal, poppyseeds, corriander seeds, and a bit of oil. The process of making them, not so easy. It involved a lot of rolling and folding and brushing with oil, over and over. Then, you cook them on a hot pan. I'm not entirely sure whether I did something wrong, or whether this is how they are, but they never puffed up and were just sort of tough. They were ok, but not really worth the effort (sad!).

Here are the roti in their nascent state:


And, here is the whole deal (with brown rice):

Stuffed Samosa Potatoes... mmmm.....

Ok, so for Christmas I got the Veganomicon cookbook written by the good folks over at the PPK. I've been looking through it but finally got around to making something. Having an Indian craving, I started with Samosa Stuffed Baked Potatoes and sauteed spinach and tomatoes. Can I just say, OMG!

Basically, the potatoes are samosa stuffing (potato insides, corriander seeds, mustard seeds, cumin, peas, onions, carrots) put into carved out potato skins and baked again. I love samosas but am on a trying-to-eat-healthy kick which makes their deep fried goodness a little bit too much of a splurge. But, these totally do it! There is one flavor in there (maybe the corriander seeds? or, I also put whole cumin seeds in as my own addition so maybe that is it) that is absolutely the thing that makes samosas taste like samosas to me. I'm thinking its the corriander seeds but I'm not sure. Along with them, I had the sauteed spinach recipe from the same cookbook except this time I added chickpeas for some protein. Holy delicious dinner, batman. This was fantastic! Yowza!