Tarka Dal

If you've ever been to an Indian restaurant in North America, you've probably seen tarka dal on the menu. Almost always a bowl of yellow lentils cooked and mashed to a thick soup-like consistency, the name tarka dal is actually a generic term for any cooked dal tempered with a a final addition of seeds and spices fried in hot oil — the tarka — to give it a simple but elegant finish.

This version of tarka dal uses toor dal, otherwise known as toovar dal or split pigeon peas, which I find are a slightly sweeter and more full-textured dal than most. With very little preparation or cooking time, this tarka dal is an excellent addition to a full-course Indian meal, or makes a quick and simple but lovely Indian supper by itself with rice and a green salad. If you'd like to serve it in bowls almost as a soup, as I find most Indian restuarants do, add another 3/4 cup of water to the dal while cooking to thin the consistency.

Tarka Dal

Dal:

1 cup toor dal
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon ghee or olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
3 hot red or green chillies, slit down one side
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Tarka:

1 tablespoon ghee or olive oil
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon split and skinless urad dal
4 dried red chillies, crumbled
1 small onion, cut lengthwise into thin wedges
2 cloves garlic, slightly crushed
6 curry leaves
1/8 teaspoon asafoetida

Rinse the toor dal thoroughly and combine with all the other dal ingredients except for the salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and let simmer for 1 hour or until the dal is very soft and the water is mostly reduced. Remove from heat, stir in the salt, and purée to a thick soupy paste with a hand-blender or potato masher. Set aside.

Heat the ghee or oil for the tarka in a small frying pan over medium heat. When hot, toss in the black mustard seeds. As soon as the seeds start to sputter, usually a few seconds depending on the intensity of the heat, add the urad dal, chillies, onion, garlic and curry leaves. Stir fry for a few minutes until the urad dal turns reddish-brown. Toss in the asafoetida, stir once, then pour the tarka into the dal and mix.

Serve hot or warm over a bed of white rice, or in bowls if adding extra water. Serves 4.

Baked Mushroom Risotto

For all their lovely creamy textures and rich flavours, I suspect that risottos would be a far more popular part of everyday dinners if it weren't for all the fuss and stirring of their traditional reduction-based cooking methods. But as it turns out, slow baking controls the release of the starches on the outside of the risotto rice grains that give risottos their creaminess almost just as well as the typical slow and repetitive stop-pour-and-stir methods, and of course it makes cooking them so much easier that there should be almost nothing to deter you from trying it.

This idea comes Delia Smith's Vegetarian Collection, whose baked mushroom risotto I've adapted to make it even richer and more mushroom-y. Serve with Chickpea and Cabbage Soup for a warming and satisfying winter meal.

Baked Mushroom Risotto

1/2 ounce dried mushrooms, any dark variety
2 cups boiling water
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
8 ounces portabello mushrooms, stemmed and chopped into 1/2-inch dice
1/2 celery stalk, chopped
1 cup arborio rice
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup vermouth
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 ounces fresh parmesan cheese, grated
2 ounces fresh parmesan cheese, shaved
fresh ground black pepper

Soak the dried mushrooms in the boiling water for half an hour to soften.

Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 150° and chop the other ingredients. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan or wok over medium-low heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook gently for 5 minutes. Now stir in the portabello mushrooms and celery. Leave aside while simmering to prepare the now softened dried mushrooms.

Drain the dried mushrooms in a fine strainer over a bowl to reserve the soaking liquid. Squeeze excess liquid from the mushrooms by hand, then chop finely. Add to the other mushrooms and vegetables, and continue to cook gently while the mushroom sweat their juices out — about 20 minutes. While they are cooking, put a large oven-proof casserole dish in the pre-heated oven to warm.

Add the rice to the mushrooms and vegetables and stir well to give each grain a coating of butter. Pour in the water, vermouth and the soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms and stir in the salt. Raise the heat to moderately high and bring everything up to the simmering point.

Transfer the mixture to the warmed casserole dish and stir only enough to spread evenly over the dish's surface. Place uncovered in the centre of the oven and cook for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and gently stir in the grated parmesan, being careful not to break the rice grains. Raise the heat to 175° and return the risotto to the oven. Cook until the liquid has evaporated — depending on the size of the casserole dish and the surface area of the risotto, this may take between 15 and 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and stir in fresh ground black pepper to taste. Cover with a dish towel until serving.

Serve as soon as possible garnished with shavings of parmesan cheese. Serves 6 to 8 as a side dish.

Savory herb, black pepper and parmesan shortbread

I think you all may have already noticed that I really like baking. I do. I used to be a Daring Baker, for crying out loud. But I had never baked savory cookies before.I tagged this recipe after seeing it on L.’s blog, Bake or Shake. Her cookies looked delicious and one just can’t go wrong with cheese and herbs. Oh, and butter. That’s just impossible. :)I made these to give as a gift and to be

Eggnog & Rum French Toast

Or, Booze for Breakfast!

Stopping at the Lusitania Bakery in London the other day to pick up a loaf of their wonderful Portuguese bread, I found that I had arrived too late and had to settle for their day-olds. That was no real loss, because the bread is still soft and delicious after a couple of days, but when the lady at the counter suggested that the day-olds are perfect for French Toast it got me thinking…

Earlier in the day I'd picked up some eggnog, and as I was driving home with my groceries thinking about the bakery lady's idea to use my loaf of Portuguese bread for French Toast, it occurred to me — why not use eggnog instead of milk to make French Toast? And as everyone knows that eggnog just isn't quite the real thing without a little tot of rum added, the idea of an eggnog & rum French Toast kept sounding better and better until I had to make it the next morning. I'm glad I did — the gentle hints of rum and winter spices made it about the best French Toast I'd ever tasted.

This would be a perfect dish for a Christmas morning breakfast, and if you don't like the idea of using rum so early in the day, you can substitute it with a couple of dashes of rum or vanilla extract. If you're more ambitious than I am, you can make your own traditional eggnog to use in this recipe and, of course, to serve later on but, for Canadian readers at least, President's Choice has a new and especially creamy eggnog without artificial flavours or colours that I very much recommend. I used Portuguese bread for my eggnog & rum French Toast, but of course thick slices of any kind of bread — French, Italian, or any other simple baker bread — will do just as well.

Eggnog & Rum French Toast

1 cup eggnog
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons dark rum
dash of ground cinnamon
dash of ground nutmeg
6 thick slices of bread
butter for greasing the pan

Heat a large cast-iron frying pan on the stove over medium-low heat. Meanwhile, beat the eggnog together with the eggs, rum and spices. When the frying pan is hot, lightly grease the surface with butter.

Trawl each slice of bread slowly through the eggnog mixture to let it soak in slightly, then place on the frying pan. Fry for a few minutes on each side until golden brown.

Serve hot from the pan with fresh maple syrup and berries.

Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla-Cream Filling (Homemade Oreos)

There are certain things that we know are great way before we even see/hear them.Take Kanye West, for instance; I knew who he was (after Katrina and his TV statement) even though I did not know any of his songs. The minute I read that he had recorded a song featuring Daft Punk I knew it would be amazing – and I wasn’t wrong. To make things even better, the guys are on the video, too! How cool is

Chickpea and Cabbage Soup

This chickpea and cabbage soup has been a winter favourite of mine for years. Loaded with vitamins and minerals, the stewed flavours of chickpeas and vegetables combined with just a little spice makes for a very simple, nutritious and delicious cold weather beater.

Chickpea and cabbage soup

3/4 cup dried chickpeas
4 cups water
2 tablespoons water
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1 small cabbage, shredded
1 tomato, diced
2 cups vegetable stock
1 large potato, diced
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
juice of 1 lemon

Soak the chickpeas overnight in 4 cups of water in a medium saucepan with a little yogurt whey or lemon juice. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and cover. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until the chickpeas are soft and tender. Drain the chickpeas and set aside the cooking liquid. Using a potato masher, crush some of the chickpeas.

In a large saucepan, cook the onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons of water over medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until the onions are soft. Stir in the cabbage and tomato, cover, and cook for another 10 minutes or until the cabbage is cooked but not falling apart. Remove the vegetables from the pan into a bowl and set aside.

Return the saucepan to the stove and add the potato, vegetable stock, and reserved cooking liquid from the chickpeas. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, stir in the chickpeas, vegetables and remaining ingredients, and simmer for at least 10 minutes to let the flavours mingle, or let the soup simmer for up to an hour before serving.

Serve hot in a big, warming bowl with a grain dish or fresh bread. Serves 8.

Spaghetti with basil, smoked ricotta and roast bell pepper

I’m always interested in new ways of cooking pasta.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love fresh tomato sauce (I only use homemade) but pasta gives you so many possibilities that it’s almost a sin not to try other sauces and ingredient combinations.

If you are in a hurry and have to put dinner together quickly, this is a really good recipe: you can take a shower while the peppers are roasting