Reconstructed Dal and Rice

Re-imagining the classic dal and rice: green lentil & basmati patties served with a red lentil dal.

(This is a Main Dish entry into the Lentil Recipe Revelations Challenge: keep reading to find out how to help us win!)

These slightly sweet and crispy rice and lentil patties are the perfect foil for this spicy and smooth red lentil dal.

Sambar Dal and Rice, Deconstructed Reconstructed

Don't be overwhelmed by the lengthy recipe!  Despite the long list of ingredients, this meal is not all that complicated to prepare.  It is time consuming but you can take some simple short cuts:  use leftover rice from a previous meal; use canned lentils for the rice patties rather than getting out another pot; make the sambar powder and garam masala ahead of time (or buy these commercially prepared).  You can mix and form the rice patties before making the dal (up to a day ahead), or while the dal is cooling and before blending.

the sambar powder*:

The sambar dal has a lot of hidden secrets:  the heat of the chilies is
supported by a wide array of spices and seasonings.

10 dried red peppers (hot)
1 tbsp dried red lentil
1 tbsp coriander seed
1/2 tsp fenugreek seed
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
1/2 tsp ground turmeric

Heat a dry cast iron skillet over med-high.  Add peppers, lentils, coriander, fenugreek, and peppercorns to the hot pan, stir together, then reduce heat to medium.  Toast until aromatic and golden being careful not to burn the spices.  Remove from heat and tip into a heat proof bowl.  Allow to cool completely.  Use a spice (or coffee) grinder to grind into a fine powder.  Stir turmeric into mixture.  Store in a clean jar.


the dal:

All the prep work is done.  Red lentils are rinsed and drained; garlic, ginger,
and shallots are crushed, grated and sliced; the sambar powder is
cooled and ground.

1/2 c. dried red lentils
2 tbsp olive oil
2 shallots, finely sliced
a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
4 cloves garlic, crushed
3 tbsp sambar powder 
3-1/2 c. water
1/2 tsp salt
1 lemon, juiced


for the temper:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp asafoetida




Rinse lentils and drain.

Heat oil over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add shallot, ginger and garlic.  Cook, stirring regularly, until shallots are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add sambar powder and stir to coat. There is a lot of heat in the sambar which will contrast wonderfully with the sweetness in the rice patties, but if you are shy of spicy heat, reduce the amount of sambar used by about half.  You want to maintain the complex flavour of the sambar and don't panic, between the temper and the rice patties the heat does dissipate.

Add lentils and stir thoroughly, cooking for 1-2 minutes.  Add water and salt.  Raise heat to med-high and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. 

Remove from heat and let cool. Working in batches, puree the dal in a blender (or use an immersion blender in the pot).  Your dal should be quite thick, and will thicken a bit more. Don't be tempted to thin it out! You still have liquid to add and recall that we are aiming for a sauce, not a soup.

Return dal to its pot and reheat about the same time you begin to cook the rice and lentil patties.  Just before serving, make the temper by heating olive oil over med-low heat; add the cumin and asafoetida, stirring until the seeds are toasted.  

Stir the lemon juice into the dal, then gently stir the temper in but do not fully mix: leave streaks of oil and cumin seed visible.  (Why?  It's prettier that way.)


the lentil and rice patties:

1 tbsp sunflower oil

Using canned green lentils saves you the trouble of washing yet another
saucepan...

1-1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 onion, sliced very thinly
1-1/2 tsp garam masala
1 carrot, shredded
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1/3 c. raisins or dried currants
1 c. canned green lentils, rinsed and drained (or green lentils cooked in advance)
3/4 tsp turmeric
3 tbsp mango chutney
2 c. leftover cooked rice
1 egg, beaten
rice flour, as needed
oil for pan-frying (sunflower or peanut)

Put 1 tbsp of oil and mustard seeds in a cold skillet and heat over medium until the mustard seeds pop.  You might want to have a lid handy to avoid needing to sweep up popped mustard.  When the popping starts to slow down, add onions and saute 1-2 minutes to soften. 

Add carrot, ginger and garam masala to the pan and saute until carrots soften, about 2-3 minutes.  Add raisins, lentils and mango chutney.  Stir to mix well.  Reduce heat slightly and cook, stirring frequently, until the moisture is gone and there is a slight caramelization on the onion, carrots and lentils.

The turmeric gives the rice patty a happy yellow colour.  Plus, you know
when the mixture is well combined because it's fully stained with the turmeric.

In a mixing bowl, combine lentil mixture with all the remaining ingredients  Mix thoroughly using your hands.  You will know it's well-mixed when the rice is all coloured yellow from the turmeric.  The mixture should hold a form when pressed together.  If it's too wet, add rice flour (or cornstarch or potato starch, whatever absorbent and fine-textured flour you have on hand) a teaspoon or two at a time, mixing between additions until you get a slightly sticky mix that holds a shape.

Form the rice mixture into patties with your hands.  Use a small handful (about 2 tbsp) of mix for each patty; this will give you 18-24 patties (depending on the size of your hand and your interpretation of small...).  Dredge in rice flour (or etc. as above) and place on a tray.  Refrigerate for 20 minutes or longer (up to a day) to allow them to set.

Heat a generous amount of frying oil (a thick layer) in a large skillet over medium-high.  The oil is ready when tiny bubbles form quickly around a wooden spoon handle pressed against the bottom of the skillet.  Turn the heat down slightly and cook the patties in batches, until golden brown and crispy on the outside (about 2 minutes per side).  Drain on brown paper.


to serve:

Usually we think of dal being served over rice, but for this dish, plate it the other way around.  Put about 1/2 c. of dal on each plate, place 3-4 rice cakes on the dal and garnish with chopped fresh cilantro.  Serve with onion salad and plain yogurt.

A lemony onion salad and a sprinkle of cilantro add a fresh lightening touch to the meal.

This recipe makes about 6 servings.  Leftovers reheat well in the microwave for an office lunch.  The patties also reheat well in a hot oven and even make a good cold snack. 

~~~

Here on the east coast of the country, we are still being hounded by this long, miserable, cold winter.  We are well and truly entrenched in store-cupboard cooking as we hunker down to wait it out. Dry and tinned goods, preserves, vegetables that store well, frozen things... it doesn't start out sounding like any good could come of it.  Don't underestimate pantry cooking.  And make no mistake, this interpretation of dal with rice is dinner party worthy.  Lentils can be that sexy.  (As an added bonus, a vegetarian friendly meal that won't leave meat-eaters wondering what else there is to eat.) 

We always have lentils in the pantry.  We don't always think "what can we do with these lentils", more often it's "this recipe calls for lentils, I'm sure we have some somewhere".   The Lentil Recipe Revelations Challenge made us start to think about what we can do with these lentils.  This is one of those meals we've had in our back pocket for a while but were spurred to post it by the contest.  So lucky you, thanks to the folks at lentils.ca you can astound your friends with your ingenious interpretation of a comfort classic.  

Now for the shameless self-promotion.  If you like this recipe, please say so!  Part of the contest criteria is  how well received the lentil recipes are.  Leave us a comment on this page telling us how delicious the meal looks.  Go to the Canadian Lentils Facebook Page and "like", "share", and/or comment on our recipe.  Go there anyway, as it's your best source right now to find inspiration for what to do with the lentils you remember in the back of your cupboard... 

(And, man, if we win, we can finally replace that kitchen scale caribougrrl the cats broke.)

An Act of Cod: Indian-Spiced Fish & Chips

An old standard finds enlightenment. 

Fish & chips is an unpretentious meal so cover your table in newspaper, gather everyone around and simply tip the food onto the table.  Eat together, with your fingers, from a shared pile of food.  Trust me.

Pakora Fish & Chips

a note on time management: If you do everything at once, it can take a few hours to prepare this meal (several things need to wait between prep and use). You can break up the work over a few days, doing the prep when it's convenient. The tamarind sauce can be made several days before or can be done the day of; same for the garam masala. The pickled onion should be made at least a couple of hours before serving to allow it to mellow; the potatoes need at least couple of hours in ice water, so prep these at the same time. Both can be made up to a day ahead. The batter needs to sit for a while before using, so mix up the batter and set aside while you do the first fry of the chips, batter and fry the fish (which will stay hot longer than the chips) and then do the second fry for the chips.  I know it sounds complicated, but stay with me, it's worth it.  If your kitchen is better stocked with tools than ours, it might even be easier than I'm letting on.

for the tamarind sauce:

1/2 lb tamarind pods
4 dried hot cherry peppers
boiling water
2 tbsp demerrara sugar (or more, to taste)
1/2 c. cold water (or more, as needed)

Put the tamarind pods and dried peppers in a heat-proof bowl and pour boiling water over them to cover. Cover the bowl with a plate and set aside to let soften. Do some laundry, take the dogs for a walk, change the bedsheets, dig out all your paperwork for filing your taxes... anything... but don't worry about the tamarind for an hour or longer. Run the tamarind mixture through a food mill to separate the skins and seeds from the pulp. This will result in a thick and sour paste. Dissolve demerrara in about 1/2 c. of cold water and stir into the paste. Continue to thin with cold water until it reaches the desired consistency (slightly thinner than commercial ketchup). Use right away or store in the refrigerator until you need it.

for the quick-pickled onion:

1 red onion
juice from 1 lemon
salt, to taste

Thinly slice the onion. I use a mandolin because evenly thin slices make me happy; but slice it in a more rustic manner if you like. Pack the onion into the bottom of a glass jar and add lemon juice and salt. If the onion is not completely covered, you can stir it once in a while or if you are lazy like me, just add more lemon juice or pack the onion down more tightly to cover. Set aside leaving at room temp for at least two hours or store in the fridge if you are leaving for longer than the afternoon.

The spices are toasted when they deepen in colour and become
immensely fragrant. You can buy pre-made garam masala as a time-saver
but you will be so pleased you made your own.

for the garam masala:

2 green cardamom pods
3 black cardamom pods
1/2 tbsp whole cloves
2 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp black peppercorns
6 pieces mexican cinnamon bark (or 1/2 stick cinnamon)

Combine all spices in a dry cast-iron skillet. Heat on medium-high (err on the side of medium... I think of this as south-southeast on my stove knob) stirring or swirling them around in the pan occasionally while heating. When spices become very fragrant and slightly browned, remove from heat. Continue to stir once in a while as they pan cools down. When they are cool enough to handle, grind the spices in a spice grinder (do them in batches as needed). Store them in a glass jar but do not cap until completely cooled.


for the chips:

1 medium-sized potato per person
peanut and/or sunflower oil for frying*
salt
nigella seeds (jeera)

*see notes in the fish section on choosing your pan and checking the temperature

We used Emeril Lagasse's technique for french fries. Before working on the fish, cut your fries and get them soaking... leave them soaking until you have the fish batter mixed.  Do the first chip fry before cooking the fish and the second chip fry after. When you remove the chips the final time, put them in a sieve suspended over a heat-proof bowl to drain the oil. While they are still piping hot, sprinkle them with salt and nigella seeds and toss to coat. The nigella seeds lend a je ne sais quoi that you don't want to skip.



"It came in this morning, love.  Landed yesterday."

for the fish:

1/2 lb. fresh local white fish per person 
1-2 tbsp garam masala
salt

We used cod because locally-caught wild cod is in season, also cod is delicious, but buy whatever local sea or freshwater whitefish is best where you live.

adjust the batter ingredients as necessary, but for 2 lbs of cod (4 servings):

1/2 c. chickpea flour (besan)
1/3 c. whole wheat all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground tumeric
1/4 tsp salt
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/3 c. water
soda water as required
peanut oil and/or sunflower oil for deep frying

Cut the fish so you have 2 pieces per person.  Rub fish with a very thin coating of salt and garam masala. You made far more garam masala than you need, so don't worry about using it up, you want to season the fish delicately, but not overwhelm it.  Put the fish in the refrigerator until you are ready to batter it, but plan to cook the fish within a couple of hours.

Make the batter: Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the lemon juice and water; stir until evenly mixed (all the lumps should be gone).  Add soda water, a little bit at a time, until it reaches the desired consistency.  You want a fairly thin batter but it should still coat the back of your spoon.  Let the batter sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. 

This is a good time to do your first chip fry; use the same pan for the chips that you will for the fish, so choose a pan to suit both purposes. 

The chick pea flour will absorb some water and thicken the batter (but this also means it will cook properly, not taste dry and grainy).  Thin again as needed with soda water.  If you over-thin, add some all-purpose flour to thicken.

Fry your fish:  For deep frying, you need the oil to be deep enough to submerge your food but you also need enough space at the top of the pan to accommodate the change in volume when you add food and allow for bubbling-up as it fries.  So leave a couple of inches head-space.  Choose your pan based on how big your fish pieces are, how many you want to cook at one time, and how much oil you realistically have.  I fried our fish one piece at a time in a small-ish saucepan simply because we we were a bit low on oil.

I fried in a combination of peanut oil and sunflower oil.  I will admit that I would have used only peanut oil if we'd had enough around.  I thought there was more than there was (I've been having that problem lately).  Luckily, we also had some sunflower oil and it has the same smoke-point as peanut oil, so they combine easily for frying.  Use either or both.

We don't have a thermometer, but the good news is deep frying is not brain surgery.  The oil is hot when you can see long streaks in it and if you insert a wooden spoon handle to the bottom, some little bubbles rise up rapidly (for the first go at the chips, the little bubbles should rise up easily and swiftly, but not rapidly).  If you insist on using a thermometer, do the fish at about 375F.  (Emeril says 350F for finishing your fries, but I did ours at the same temp as the fish, more or less).



Fresh cod cooks up moist and flaky and feels like butter in your mouth.
A fantastic juxtaposition to the pakora batter.

Shoo all the pets and miniature humans out of the kitchen, just in case there is a hot oil incident.

In batches, coat the fish in the batter and let the excess drip off.  Lower gently into the oil and fry until the batter is golden brown (about 4-5 minutes).  Agitate the fish once in a while to ensure it doesn't stick to the bottom.  If you underestimated the size of your fish and it isn't completely covered, turn it over after a couple of minutes.  Adjust your heat as necessary so that the batter takes nearly 5 minutes to cook properly.  When cooked, fresh cod will be flaky and moist and have the mouthfeel of butter.  The batter will be crisp and thin and gold like the sun.  (The summer sun, not the winter sun.)

Remove the fish with a metal slotted spoon and drain in a sieve suspended over a heat proof bowl or pan.  

for serving:  

In my opinion, this is a meal best eaten with your fingers from a shared plate.  So, cover your table with a few layers of newspaper.  Tip your sieve full of fish and your sieve full of chips onto the paper.  Serve with tamarind sauce for dipping and quick-pickled onion to cut the richness.  If you eat with people who don't like a mess, you can provide a fork, or just tell them they're in the wrong house.

Guaranteed to be a success.

~~~

After listening to the recent BBC Food Program on fish & chips, we had an epiphany: fish and chips are a canvas, not a prescribed product.  The traditional Canadian presentation is beer-battered and served with tartar sauce, coleslaw and, if you're lucky, a slice of lemon.  Newfoundland has a variation that includes dressing (as in, bread stuffing) and gravy. There's nothing wrong with those formulas, but there's no need to feel stuck to it.

The show made us desperately wish we lived closer to the shop featured in the radio program, because, let's face it, east Indian spiced fish and chips sounds like an astoundingly good idea.  

So we did what we do when there is food we want but can't get: we talked about it for days.  We talked, we debated this type of batter over that, we consulted the miracle of the internet to get a sense of the flavour profiles of fish curries, we hummed and hawed over sides.  We discussed the winter pantry's suitable dried fruits and flours.  

Nigella seeds are so magical we jump at any appropriate opportunity to use them. There was a definite tumeric-garam masala-tamarind theme across the fish curry recipes I read. The batter is modeled on pakora. There are as many pakora batters as there are pakora cooks, so I read a lot of recipes then used this handy guide for making deep fry batter when developing my recipe.

When the concept was well-hatched, we bought a boatload of fresh cod from The Fish Depot.  And by fresh, what I mean is, "It came in this morning, love.  Landed yesterday."  

Then we spent a weekend eating testing fish and chips.  I mean, after all, we have an obligation to be certain that the recipe works, right?

hey.... where did this cat come from?

It's About Time: A Recipe for Moose Curry

There's a lot more to moose than stew and sausage.

Let the moose marinate in the rubbed seasoning while you prepare the remaining ingredients for the curry.

Moose Curry, Variation 1:
Fefe Noir's Been-Lied-To* Moose Curry

*see commentary below

for the marinade:



Measuring out your ingredients into cute bowls will make you happy.

2 tbsp cumin seed
1 tbsp whole coriander
1/2 tsp black mustard
2 tbsp sunflower oil
3 fresh hot red chilies 
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 onion, quartered
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp salt

~ 2 lbs moose blade roast (or other braising part, like the unrecognizable cut of moose from your uncle)


for the curry:

2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 bay leaf
3 whole cloves
small handful of cinnamon bark (or 1 cinnamon stick)
4 green cardamom pods
4 black peppercorns
2 onion, finely diced
4 tomatoes, diced
1-1/2 c. water

Make the marinade: Heat oil over medium-high in a small saucepan; add cumin, coriander and mustard seeds.  Watch them closely until they begin to pop.  Immediately put the lid on the pan, remove from heat so they don't burn, and let them continue to pop.  Leave them aside until the oil is cool enough to handle.

Pour warm (or fully cooled if you were busy with other things and not staring at the pan, waiting impatiently) oil and spices into a blender, chopper, or food processor.  Get a load of this: someone overly generous and now guaranteed to be well-loved, gave us a mini-chopper over the holidays.  That's the most exciting thing to happen to this house since the pasta machine.  Grind up the spices and oil.  Add chilies and garlic, whiz them around until ground.  Add the onions, tumeric and salt and grind again.  

Roughly cut your moose roast, leaving the bone-in.  Don't worry about bite-sized pieces.  First, we'll assume you will serve this to people capable of using a knife and fork and that if not, you'll be cutting it for them anyway.  Second, you want all the good flavour from the bone to be part of your curry.  Embrace the moose juice. 

Combine the moose and marinade in a bowl, massaging the marinade into the moose meat.  Set aside while you prep the remaining ingredients, or for a couple of hours, whichever is most convenient.

Make the curry: Heat about a tbsp of oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Brown the moose meat (in batches if necessary); remove and set aside.

Add 1 tbsp of oil to the pan, and quickly sautee the remaining spices in hot oil.  Add minced onion and cook until golden brown (but not burned).  Take your time, there's no hurry.  Add the tomatoes and cook until softened.  Add the moose meat, scraping any remaining marinade into the pan with it.  Add the water, stir it around a bit, bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for about 2-1/2 hours.  While it is simmering, check occasionally to see if it needs more water.  It's done when the sauce is the thickness you want and the meat is pulling from the bone.

During the meal, be sure to remind everyone to watch out for the whole spices and the bones...  unless you went to the trouble of searching them out and removing them before serving.  (This is much easier if you use a regular cinnamon stick rather than the teensy flakes of mexican cinnamon bark.)

Serve your aromatic moose curry with things you like to eat with your curry.  We heated up some naan, broke open a jar of chili pickle, made a quick onion salad and dished out some plain yogurt.  We won't need to eat again for days.  Ha.

~~~

If you are a hunter, be assured that when you share your meat with other people they are really, truly, grateful.  It is not a wasted overture.  You will win loyal friends for life.

Neither of us hunts (yet, says caribougrrl, but she's been saying that for years), so we rely on the kindness of friends and neighbours  - but most especially a particular colleague and friend of caribougrrl's who always comes through with the holiday gift we look forward to most.  This year especially, because once we had some moose in the freezer, we knew we'd be able to answer to our blog name.

Fefe decided the first moose curry recipe should be a simple one.  Something that could be done without too much effort, without any fancy equipment or experience, without multiple dead-end trips to supermarkets and specialty shops to find the right spices.

Which was how Fefe Noir and caribougrrl ended up in a grocery store not buying anything for the blog-edition moose curry.  Everything used in Fefe's fast and easy weeknight moose curry recipe is a staple in the home, including the hot curry paste. 

What?  You don't see curry paste in the ingredient list?

Right, caribougrrl swore up and down that yes, absolutely, just the other day when she was looking for a new jar of apple ketchup, she had seen at least one jar of curry paste in the cupboard.  Her recollection was very particular... just to the left of the partridge berry jam, right behind the priced-to-sell coconut milk that's been there for a couple of years.  And caribougrrl is, afterall, taller than Fefe Noir and thus can see things in the cupboards with more ease.  So against her much better judgement, Fefe Noir did not put a jar of curry paste into the shopping basket.

Well, as it turns out, the first blog-edition moose curry is not a Monday-night-after-work curry (unless you made it Sunday afternoon).  Not only was there no curry paste, but the fresh ginger had started to wither and rot and we were out of a couple other spices.  What does it say about you when your pantry has obscure mexican cinnamon bark but not even one piece of ordinary cinnamon stick?

So make it up and make do.  Make a good moose curry with what's on-hand, just like so much of the cooking we do.