Mushroom Soba Noodles

Here's a quick favorite I make when I am tired of the dals and the subzis and chapatis but want something nutritious I don't have to order in.
My Mushroom Soba Noodles are a version of a recipe I learned years ago from a friend who'd worked in a restaurant in India that served Chinese food: a brand of Indian Chinese food, of course, which, as any Indian will tell you, is in a delicious class by itself.

Of course, some of the ingredients here like the rice vinegar were not easily available in the India of that time, so we managed with regular vinegar and soy sauce. For this version I used bottled green chili sauce, which I love, and tamari, which has a richer, more complex flavor.

I also used soba noodles which are made with buckwheat for this recipe, although I've made it in the past with plain old spaghetti or any other, fairly thick noodle.

A wok works best to make fried noodles, and make sure yours is screaming hot when you start, and have all your veggies prepped and ready because you do have to work fast. Also, I used eggplant and crimini mushrooms here, but you can just as easily use peppers, baby corn, green beans, broccoli...you get the picture.

So here it is. Enjoy!

Mushroom Soba Noodles

Ingredients:

1 lb soba noodles, cooked in boiling water until al dente and drained

1 tbsp canola or peanut oil

1 tbsp ginger, grated

1 tbsp garlic, minced

1 onion, sliced

10-12 crimini mushrooms sliced (can substitute with button mushrooms)

1 small eggplant, cut into small, rather thin slices

2 tbsp green chili sauce (adjust to your taste)

Approx 2 tbsp or more rice vinegar

3-4 tbsp tamari (again, adjust quantity to your taste)

Heat the oil in a wok until it is smoking hot.

Add the onions and stir for a moment, then add the eggplant and stir around for another couple of minutes.

Add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring constantly, until they soften and the eggplant is quite tender.
Add the ginger and garlic and stir for a few seconds.

Add the noodles, green chili sauce and rice wine vinegar. Fry, stirring constantly and not allowing the noodles to stick to the bottom. It is important that the noodles be al dente when you start and not too mushy or else you'll get a noodle paste in your wok.

Drizzle with the tamari and serve hot.

Cute Alert!

It's been a while since I wrote a post on my kids and some readers have been asking for them. So I thought that today, instead of food, I'd lay out a visual pet treat.


My computer is filled with doggie and kitty pictures. Like any dad, Desi is always running behind our kids with the camera, trying to capture those beautiful moments they create in their innocence.
But ignorant as they are about what's going on, each of our kids exhibits a distinct personality before the camera.
Lucy, my German Shepherd, for instance, is heart-stoppingly beautiful, but she is also very shy both around people and the camera. Each time we try to snap a cute pose, she'll put her head down and make it impossible to get the shot we were hoping for. Sometimes, though, she does let her hair down, as you can see!


Freddie, my old baby who's now 15, can barely see and barely hear, so he doesn't care one way or the other what we are doing. What's amazing, though, is how beautiful he still is with his long, skinny, model-like legs and silky coat and one-in-a-million underbite. And all this gorgeousness even though, in doggie years, he's probably a hundred years old!


Pie, my black cat, is full of nervous energy and rarely stops long enough for us to get a decent picture of her. She's also always on the lookout for Opie, who cannot get enough of chasing her, although they've been living under the same roof for six years now.

That leaves Opie, my retriever-chow mix, and Pubm, my calico cat.

These two almost preen for the camera. Opie, with his deep, soulful eyes that talk, has never, in my experience, made a bad picture, and we've got hundreds of shots of him doing something or the other, from playing with his toy, bottom up in the air, tail waving gently, to just sleeping quietly, his ear pressed against the arm of the chair.


And Pubm, who loves to snuggle and sit tight in a place for hours, makes some of the most amazing pictures too. Because she loves to explore, and is always getting into something or the other, we also get some of our more interesting pictures from her.

Hope you enjoyed looking at our kiddos! I promise, there will be more.

Green Beans Paruppu Usili

Another classic Tamil dish, Paruppu Usili, is my post for today.

I love paruppu usili because it makes eating veggies even more fun. In fact, it's like eating bhujias (which share many of the same flavors) without the guilt of eating deep-fried food. What's more, you can make it with a variety of veggies.

I shared my broccoli paruppu usili recipe a while ago, but the green bean version is a true classic. Almost every time I have eaten paruppu usili at a relative's home, it has been made with green beans. And it has always been beyond delicious.

I used haricot vert (French for green beans), which are skinnier and longer than the green beans found commonly in U.S. markets, but feel free to use regular green beans. I'd advise cutting them into really small pieces, though.

I won't prattle on much because I really have to run and watch some TV: with the Olympics, the Democratic convention and the upcoming Republican convention, television hasn't been so much fun in a long time! But first, here's the recipe.

Enjoy!

Green Bean Paruppu Usili

Ingredients:

1 pound green beans, chopped finely lengthwise

1 tbsp canola oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp udad dal (black gram dal)

A generous pinch asafetida (hing)

1/4 cup chana dal (bengal gram dal)

1/4 cup tuvar dal

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 dry red chilies

1/2 tsp turmeric

Salt to taste

Soak the chana dal and tuvar dal in water for at least an hour. Then grind to a paste with cumin seeds, red chilies, turmeric and salt, using as little water as is feasible.

Transfer the paste to a microwave-safe bowl and zap for two minutes. Take it out, turn it around with a fork, and microwave the other side for another minute. The paste should have solidified by now. If it hasn't, microwave it until the paste is set. Set aside.

Cook the green beans until just tender.

Heat the oil in a cast-iron or other skillet.

Add the mustard seeds and, when they pop, add the udad dal and asafetida.

When the udad dal turns lightly brown, add the beans and stir to coat.

Now crumble the ground lentil paste into the pan. Stir, breaking up any bigger pieces with the ladle. Cook until the crumbled lentils starts to turn just lightly brown and no longer taste raw.

Serve hot!

A Simple Star: Spinach Kootu

We have long known, thanks to our wonderful moms, the value of eating spinach. A nutrient powerhouse, spinach is rich in vitamins A and C, folate, iron, calcium and fiber. Like all greens, it is super-low in calories so it's very waist-friendly as well.

But the real reason I grew to love Spinach was its fabulous taste, ease of cooking, and versatility. It is easy to wilt spinach to tenderness in seconds, making it a hurried cook's best friend. What's better, it goes with almost anything. Spinach parathas, spinach rice, spinach dal...you name it, and there's a way to cook it with spinach for an easy health buzz!

I grab up fresh spinach when I can find it at the market, but I always have some frozen spinach on hand for those quick weeknight meals that need to be both tasty and healthy. My recipe for today is Spinach Kootu, one such favorite. A classic Tamil dish, Spinach Kootu takes just minutes to put together.

The Kootu goes great with rice, although I love nothing more than eating it with a hot chapati. I like it so much, in fact, that when I have it on hand, I snack on it straight out of the refrigerator. Yum.

Spinach Kootu

Ingredients:
1 16-oz package frozen chopped spinach, zapped in the microwave for a few minutes until tender (it took around 5 minutes in mine to thaw and cook it)

1 tsp canola oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp udad dal (black gram dal)

1 tomato, diced

Salt to taste

Grind together:

1 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds

2 dry red chillies

1/2 cup coconut milk or 1/4 cup fresh coconut shreds

In a saucepan, combine the ground masala and the spinach. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer five minutes.

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Add the mustard seeds, and when they sputter, add the udad dal.

Fry the dal until lightly golden and then add the tomato. Cook for another minute until the tomato begins to break down.

Pour on the kootu. Add salt to taste and serve hot.

Almond Kheer (Rice Pudding)

Desi has an incorrigible sweet tooth, and after I went vegan, he was, I think, secretly worried for it.

But soon enough I started experimenting with vegan alternatives to baked goods like cookies and cakes and got better and better at them with time. However, Indian sweets, to which most of us from India are unreasonably addicted, were another matter altogether.

While the role of non-vegan ingredients in baked goods is complementary or even purely functional-- they serve as binders or help with the rising, etc-- milk plays a central role in Indian sweets. In fact, most Indian sweets, with the exception of jalebi to my knowledge and some lentil-based kheers (a fluid Indian pudding), are dairy-based. At the very least, they call on you to add a dollop of ghee here and there which gives them their unique flavor.

Some sweets are easier to veganize than others: Sheera, for instance, which I blogged about not so long ago. Kaju Katli is another favorite Indian sweet that's not at all hard to make without any dairy ingredients.

But today, I want to share my recipe for vegan kheer. The ingredient proportions I follow for my kheer are actually meant for rice pudding, but I like my kheer thick and rice pudding really just is kheer, minus a few spices and flavorings.

I used almond milk, my preferred dairy substitute for Indian sweets because of its thick, rich consistency and wonderful nutty flavor. Soy milk is not as good an option because it does have a rather unique and strong flavor that enhances some baked goods and pancakes, but would not be as pleasant in the kheer.

I also added some cardamom which is my favorite spice and which lends a beyond-sublime flavor to sweets.

The kheer turned out quite amazing. It looks a little browner than regular rice kheer, but that's because I use turbinado sugar which is brown and also because I added a bit of vanilla extract which I love in anything and which is particularly dashing in kheer.

Desi, who has been going around claiming he's "cutting down on sweets," couldn't keep his hands off this kheer, and proclaimed it as good as the original. Good enough for me!
Almond Kheer

Ingredients:

3/4 cup basmati rice

1 1/2 cups water

4 cups almond milk

1/2- 3/4 cup sugar

1-2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup almonds and cashew nuts chopped (you can use one of the other)

2 tbsp golden raisins

3/4 tsp cardamom powder (seeds from about 10 pods, crushed)

1 tbsp canola oil

Heat the rice and the water until they come to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 10-15 minutes until the water is absorbed by the rice.

Add to this the almond milk, vanilla, and 1/2 to 3/4 cups of sugar, depending on how sweet you want it to be.

Let the kheer simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened. Let it remain a little fluid because it will thicken as it stands.

Heat the oil in a small skillet.

Add the nuts and stir until lightly browned. Add the raisins and cardamom powder and stir for about a minute.

Pour over the kheer.

Enjoy!

Tip: This kheer tastes great warm, but I love it most chilled.

Minty Eggplant Masala

This minty Eggplant Masala is something I threw together one weeknight when I didn't have much time to fuss with a new recipe, yet wanted to try something different.

I love mint. It's cooling properties are priceless in summer, and what's more, it's a wonderfully unfussy herb that grows with minimal care. I had planted some mint years ago, and when we moved, I brought it with me and plunked it into a corner of my backyard. It comes back year after year, giving me more goodness than I can handle. In fact, right now, it's threatening to take over the entire vegetable patch.

In Indian cuisine, mint is a commonly used herb. In our kitchen, it comes second only to coriander or cilantro in frequency of use. It's great in chutneys and marinades, but the easiest way to get a hit of minty fresh goodness is to use it as a garnish in curries and subzis. You cannot miss.

For my Eggplant Masala, I blended the mint with the other masala ingredients and cooked it. Its soothing flavor dovetailed nicely with the spices and the sweetness of the jaggery. I also broiled the eggplant first because that gives it a velvety texture and also helps reduce the cooking time because the eggplant can cook in the oven during the time you put together the rest of the recipe.

So here it is. Enjoy!

Minty Baingan Masala:

Ingredients:

2 medium eggplants, preferably with tender flesh like Italian or Lavender Touch, cut into 3/4 cm-thick rings.

1 cup mint leaves

1 tbsp canola oil + 1 tsp

4 cloves

4 cardamom pods

1-inch stick of cinnamon

1 tbsp coriander seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp red chili powder

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1 medium onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, sliced

2-3 tbsp jaggery (unrefined Indian sugar), grated

Toss the eggplants with about 1 tsp oil and a pinch of salt and arrange in a single layer on a non-stick rack (you can use a baking sheet, but a rack is more effective in preventing the eggplant from sticking)

Broil in the oven for between-10 minutes or until the eggplant is lightly browned and almost tender

Meanwhile, heat half of the 1 tbsp of oil and saute the coriander, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom for about 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Drain and remove from the pan to a blender.

In the same skillet, saute the onions and garlic until browned on the edges. Also remove to a blender.

Add the tomatoes to the skillet and toss for a couple of minutes until they begin to soften. Add to the blender along with the mint leaves.

Blend the ingredients, adding a little water, until they make a fairly smooth paste.

Cut the grilled eggplant rings into quarters

Heat the remaining oil in the skillet.

Add the ground masala and stir for a few minutes. Then add the eggplant. Simmer together on low heat, about 10 minutes, adding some water if necessary to keep the sauce slightly fluid. Add the jaggery.

Add salt to taste. Garnish with coriander if desired.

Serve hot with chapatis or rotis.

Tip: This tastes even better the next day.

Rice Salad with Warm Potato Subzi

I saw a recipe for an Indian-style rice salad by Mark Bittman in the New York Times' weekly Dining In section and I knew I just had to try it.
Indian cuisine is replete with pilafs and biryanis and prepared rice varieties, but a rice salad? That sounded different. Besides Desi will eat anything with rice in it, so I had my back covered, just in case.

The salad I ended up making was heavily modified from the original, both in the method as well as the ingredients, but the idea was the same. For one, Bittman recommends cooking the rice like pasta, in a lot of water, and draining it out: something that Indian women too did once long, long ago.

I guess the idea is to retain the separateness of the grains. I couldn't be bothered with all the boiling and draining on a weeknight, so I just made the rice in my wonderful rice cooker which does a pretty good job of keeping the grains separate.

I also used sambar powder instead of the curry powder that the recipe called for because, hey, what on earth is curry powder? I know it's available in stores and all that and I've seen recipes for it online, but I for one never knew of anyone in India that cooked with curry powder. In fact, there is no one standard powder used for making curries in Indian cuisine. Instead, a variety of unique spice blends are used, from garam masala to goda masala to panch phoron to sambar powder and rasam powder and a whole lot many more.

And to anyone that's still under this misconception: no, curry powder has nothing to do with curry leaves. Read what Wikipedia has to say about curry powder here.

To get back to the point, I used sambar powder, although feel free to use curry powder if you want to, and light coconut milk instead of regular. I also added zucchini instead of green peas recommended by the original recipe because I'd just picked up some fabulous ones at the market. I think red or green bell peppers or corn or even cherry tomatoes would be great in this dish.

I must say, I loved the salad. The flavors of coconut milk, pepper and wine vinegar in the rice were subtle but delicious. I served the salad with some leftover eggplant curry and a warm potato bhaji, made Maharashtrian style. Just thinking of it now makes me drool.

Rice Salad

(Adapted from the New York Times' Dining In section)

Ingredients:

2 cups long-grain white rice like basmati, cooked so the grains remain separate. You can do this in a good rice cooker or by sauteing the rice in a teaspoon of canola oil and then adding twice the amount of water as rice. Let it come to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover with a tight-fitting lid and then let it cook for another 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it sit, unopened, for another 10-15 minutes. Then open and fluff grains with a fork using a gentle hand.

1 zuccini, cut in a small dice

1 onion, cut in a small dice

3/4 cup light coconut milk

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1-2 tsp sambar powder (can substitute with curry powder)

1 tsp ground black pepper

Salt to taste

2 tbsp mint or basil, chopped

Mix together the cooked rice and the vegetables.

Put the coconut milk, rice wine vinegar, sambar powder, pepper and salt in a blender and blend about 30 seconds.

Pour this over the rice and vegetables. Add the mint or basil. Mix gently with a fork taking care not to smash the grains of rice.

Batatyachi Bhaji

Ingredients:

5 medium red potatoes, scrubbed clean and then boiled, with their skins on, until tender, then diced.

1 tbsp canola oil

1 tbsp udad dal (black gram dal)

1 tsp cumin seeds

A pinch of asafetida or hing

2 green chilies like jalapeno or serrano, minced

1 tbsp grated ginger

1 sprig curry leaves

1 small onion, diced

Salt to taste

In a cast-iron skillet, heat the oil.

Add the cumin seeds and when they sputter, add the asafetida and udad dal.

When the dal turns lightly golden, add the green chilies and ginger

Stir quickly, then add the onions.

Cook until softened, about 3-4 minutes.

Add the potatoes and stir to coat with the spices.

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for another 3-5 minutes.

Serve hot!

Tendlichi Bhaji

When I was growing up, Ivy Gourd (tendli or tondli in Marathi and kovakkai in Tamil) was on the dinner menu at our home fairly often. Small, finger-shaped and green, tendli is a rather bland vegetable which, for a cook, can be a good thing because it offers a blank canvas to showcase the flavors of some simple spices.

To my mind, tendli's most valuable asset is its wonderfully crunchy texture. Even cooked, it retains a deeply satisfying snap that I love.

I don't cook tendli as often as I'd like to, chiefly because I don't get a chance to make frequent trips to the Indian grocery store which is a fairly long drive away and which is the only place I can find it. Also, it is a little labor-intensive to prep the vegetable.

Still, when I do find it, I cannot resist this wonderful veggie. For this bhaji I cut the tendli into small rings. It doesn't take that much longer, and it also helps cut the cooking time. Plus, it makes for a pretty presentation.

So here's the recipe for my tendlichi bhaji. A simple, nutritious and easy recipe for a quick weeknight. Enjoy!

Tendlichi Bhaji

Ingredients:

About 3 cups tendli, washed, ends cut off, and sliced into rings

1 tbsp canola or any vegetable oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp udad dal (black gram dal)

1 sprig curry leaves

1 tsp red chili powder like cayenne

1/2 tsp turmeric

Salt to taste

2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped

2 tbsp grated coconut for garnish (Optional. I didn't have any on hand when I made the bhaji this time but it's a wonderful addition.)

Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds and then the udad dal.

When the udad dal starts to brown, add the curry leaves and stir quickly. Add the chili and turmeric powders and stir for a few seconds.

Add the tendli rings and stir well to coat.

Add salt. Cover and cook on a low flame, adding water if necessary, about 15 minutes or until the tendli is tender enough to your liking.

Garnish with coriander. Sprinkle some grated coconut on top, if using.

Eat hot with rotis or as a side dish with rice and dal.

Dosa: Lentil-and-Rice Crepes

When my sister-in-law, Padmavathy, or Paddu, who lives in Madras, spent a few days with us recently, I was thrilled to bits, partly for a selfish reason. Paddu is one of the best cooks in our family, and I was eager to learn as much as I could from her in the kitchen.

This dosa recipe was one I picked up from her. I have always loved dosas and have my own recipe that makes pretty darn good ones. Still, it always seems like a long process. This recipe, from Paddu requires fewer hours of soaking time, after which you can make the batter and cook all the dosas your heart desires.

I am still beating myself on the head because I didn't bring back with me a wet grinder for dosa and idli batter when I went to India recently. So as always I made the batter in my blender which doesn't grind it as fine. I do like the slight graininess because it gives the dosa an extra crispiness.

I used short-grain rice for the dosa, and there were two kinds of dal, udad and chana, that went into it, along with poha (flattened rice) and methi seeds. I spread the dosas very thin and crepe-like because that's how both Desi and I like them. They turned out quite amazing. Thanks, Paddu, for a keeper recipe!

This recipe goes to the Well-Seasoned Cook Susan's second helping of A Legume Love Affair.


Paddu's Dosa

Ingedients:

2 cups rice (I used white, but you can use brown. Just double the soaking time)

1/3 cup poha (flattened rice, available in Indian grocery stores)

2 tbsp chana dal (bengal gram dal)

1/2 cup udad dal (black gram dal)

1/2 tsp methi seeds

Salt to taste

Soak in water all the ingredients except the salt for at least 4-5 hours and more if you have the time. Drain.

Blend the rice-dal mixture, in several batches, adding enough water to make a smooth batter that's runny enough to spread into a crepe, but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Heat a cast-iron or non-stick griddle. Using a ladle with a rounded bottom, pour some batter into the center of the griddle and, in a quick but smooth motion, spread outward in concentric circles. Don't be afraid if you make holes: just add a small drop of batter to patch it. In this case, practice definitely makes perfect and trust me, you'll get the hang of it soon enough.

Pour a few drops of oil around the dosa's edges. This really helps give it that crispiness I love. Once the underside is golden brown, loosen the dosa gently from the skillet and flip over. If your griddle was hot enough to begin with, this step will be very, very easy.

Cook the other side for a few seconds, giving more time if your dosa is thicker. Serve hot with some sambar or chutney or both.

Enjoy!

Let The Fur Fly

I don't know if any of you feel the same way, but I for one get hopping mad when I see one of the country's most respected publications make terrible decisions on what to run in their pages.

I'm talking about the New York Times' Fashions of the Times magazine that came with the newspaper this Sunday and which, as always, was lined cover to cover with fur ads, a photo feature showing models draped in furs, and a full-page Times logo fashioned with fox fur.

The magazine is a once- or twice-a-year publication, although I am not really sure because I usually don't give it a second glance, precisely because of its fur fetish. And while I realize the magazine would be produced by a completely different set of people than those who work on the newspaper, I still would like to hold it to the same high standard that I hold the newspaper to. Which means I expect its editors to be responsive to the growing awareness of the cruelty so inherent in the creation of fur, instead of acting like they've been asleep for the last 50 years.

Fur is not just a completely unnecessary fashion accessory, it is unnecessarily cruel. You can read more about the bone-chilling practices that go into breeding, raising and killing animals for fur here. Besides, I for one cannot figure out why anyone -- leave alone a fashion magazine produced by a leading newspaper--would believe, in this day and age, that fur is fashionable. Fur looks good on the animals who were born with it. Period. People wearing it only look pathetic and gross.

Maybe the New York Times should be renaming the magazine because they certainly are not keeping up with the times. How about Fashions That Are Way Behind the Times?

Tomato Chutney

Years and years ago, my hubby Desi and I worked as journalists in Bombay. In fact, we first met on the job. After we were married, we moved to an apartment in Thane, a lovely and then laidback city just outside Bombay which is now part of its booming urban sprawl.

After deadline, we'd often take the last train home from Victoria Terminus and it would usually be past 2 in the morning when we got home. As anyone from India can relate to, we were rarely alone. We'd tag along other journalist friends or we'd have visiting relatives staying over. There always was a lot of cooking and eating involved in the middle of the night, and even at that hour it was always fun.

At 3 am in the morning, I learned how to make aloo parathas from my dear friend Seema. Another time, a friend who'd worked at a top restaurant in the city, taught me how to stir-fry noodles. Sometimes, we'd cook a big pot of biryani, break out the liquor and dance into the morning.

One fairly frequent visitor to our house in those days was Sampath, Desi's older brother, who lived in Pune and would sometimes visit Bombay on business. Sometimes, when Sampath got home before us, he'd cook for us. His favorite dish to make was tomato chutney. We were always more than thrilled to eat it.

Rich and tangy, tomato chutney is a traditional Tamil dish. Sampath made it so well, I can remember the taste of his tomato chutney today, so many years after. I have often made it in my kitchen since. And when I found my neighborhood grocery store selling tomatoes at a bargain this week, I couldn't help but stock up on armloads of it with the intention of cooking up as much tomato chutney as two people can possibly eat.

So here it, my very special tomato chutney that never fails to remind me of times and places and people so far away but never forgotten. Hope you enjoy it too.

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients:

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tsp udad dal (black gram dal)

1 tbsp canola or other vegetable oil

7-8 medium well-ripened tomatoes, diced

2 small onions, diced

1 sprig curry leaves

2 green chilies, minced

2 tsp sambar powder (you can use chili powder if you don't have any sambar powder on hand, Use 1 tsp or less depending on how much heat you can handle)

1/2 tsp turmeric (optional)

1 tsp canola or other vegetable oil

1 tbsp jaggery (unrefined Indian sugar, available in Indian grocery stores. You can leave this out, but I love the slight sweetness it adds to the dish)

Salt to taste

2-3 tbsp chopped coriander leaves for garnish

In a skillet, heat the oil.

Add the mustard seeds and blackgram dal. When the seeds sputter and the dal turns
lightly golden, add the onions and green chilies and stir for a minute.

Add the tomatoes, the sambar powder, the turmeric, and the curry leaves.

Stir well. The tomatoes will almost immediately start expressing their juices. Allow them to cook on medium-low heat for as long as it takes for most--but not all-- of the juices to evaporate. The tomatoes should have broken down completely.

Add the jaggery and salt to taste. Cook for another minute, stirring.

Add the coriander and turn off the heat.

Enjoy hot with some chapatis or rotis or with sambar and rice.

There's A Weed In My Bowl

Dandelion and Lima Bean Soup

I had long ago heard of the great nutritional qualities of dandelions, those pretty weeds that sprout up all over the place, and that we usually get rid of with an impatient yank, in my case, or with some careful digging, in Desi's (you see who's the loving gardener in the family?).


One of the reasons I'd never thought of eating these is because of the free and open access my three dogs have to our yard which means one cannot just harvest anything growing out in the open, if you know what I mean. Of course, the vegetable garden is fenced and out of bounds.

I have seen dandelion greens occasionally at the farmer's market, but hey, why buy something when you can get it for free? So when some pristine dandelions cropped up in my vegetable garden this summer, I stopped short of throwing them away. Instead, I put them in my soup.


Dandelions have a bitter taste and since I love bitter greens like fenugreek, they held a lot of promise. They are also considered one of the most nutrition-dense greens and are packed with a number of vitamins and antioxidants, and herbalists claim they are a powerful diuretic.

Good enough for me. I had some lima beans soaking, and their creamy blandness sounded like a perfect complement to the bitterness of the greens. I gave the soup a quick turn in the blender at the very end that chopped the greens to small yet discernible bits and gave the soup a smooth creaminess.

I must say, I just loved the dandelions. They tasted mildly spicy and just pleasantly and not overpoweringly bitter in the soup (remember to harvest them when they are young because they grow more bitter as they grow bigger). I stirred in some olive oil into the soup and we ate it with chunky garlic bread. It was delicious. The next day, I stirred in some basil pistou into the leftover soup. Delicious again.

I'm a convert. The next time I see a dandelion, you can be sure I won't be yanking it out mercilessly. Unless it's been out in dog territory, of course.

Dandelion and Lima Bean Soup

Ingredients:

A handful of dandelion greens (leaves from about four plants), roughly chopped

3/4 cup dry lima beans, soaked and sprouted, then cooked until tender

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and stir over a medium-low flame until the onions are translucent.

Add some ground black pepper and salt. Stir in.

Now add the dandelion greens and stir in. Let them cook a few minutes until quite tender. This won't take long.

Add the lima beans and some water, if the soup is too thick. Let the soup come to a boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.

Turn off the heat. Once the soup is cool enough, puree in a blender or with a hand-blender.

Check seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed. Drizzle in some extra-virgin olive oil or pistou.

Serve hot with rolls or any chunky bread.

Enjoy!

Soymilk Pompoms

I love making dinner rolls of all kinds, and one of my favorites are these chubby little pompons which I adapted heavily from a Joy of Cooking recipe.


The original recipe calls for milk, butter and an egg. I replace them with my preferred substitutes: soymilk, canola oil plus a little transfat-free shortening, and some ground flax seed. I have in my pre-vegan days made the original version, and believe me, these vegan rolls are as good if not an improvement, taste- and texture-wise.

Since this is a yeasted bread, it will take a little longer to make than a quick roll like a popover, but it doesn't really take that long at all, and the results are well worth the few hours of waiting.

These rolls are wonderful with almost anything. Eat them drizzled with olive oil, pesto, with some jelly, or just by themselves. They don't last long around my house at all.

So on with the recipe. These are so good, I cannot wait to share them with you!


Soy Milk Pompoms

Mix together and let rise in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large mixing bowl, if making by hand:

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

3 tablespoons warm water

Add to this:

1 cup warm soy milk (Not hot! You should be able to dip a finger into it easily without yelping. Otherwise you'll kill the yeast before it gets to do its job.)

3 tbsp canola oil

2 tbsp transfat-free vegetable shortening (you can replace this too with canola oil but I find the shortening adds a great, flaky texture. Plus, it's better for you than butter because it is lower in saturated fats and has no cholesterol).

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp ground flax seed mixed well with 3 tbsp water

Mix until well-blended.

Now add:

2 cups bread flour

1 1/2 cups white whole-wheat flour

The dough will be slightly moist but not sticky. If needed, add more flour, a little at a time. Knead by hand or on low speed about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth.

Now place in an oiled bowl, turning once to coat with oil. Cover with a kitchen napkin and set aside to rise about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch down the dough, then divide it into 18 pieces. Roll each into a ball and place on a greased baking sheet, about 2 inches apart.

Brush the rolls with some olive oil and let them sit in a warm place for about 1 hour until they are approximately double in size.

Make a wash with 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp soy milk. Brush the tops of the pompoms with this wash: it will give them a beautiful golden-brown color when they are baked.

Bake in a preheated 425-degree oven for about 15 minutes, until the crust is golden-brown. Eat warm. To reheat, put in a 350-degree oven for about 3 minutes (I usually preheat them directly on the rack, but be careful as ignoring them for just a little longer might burn the bottom!).

Enjoy!

I am sending these as my second entry to Sia's JFI: Soya event.

Basil Pizza

Who doesn't love pizza, and we vegans are no different. But it can be a little harder for us to order takeout because even vegetarian pizza is usually covered wall to wall with thick gobs of cheese.
I do say a little harder: it's really not that hard if you live in an urban area. There is at least one great pizza chain in my neighborhood, Z Pizza, that has a number of great vegan pizzas on their menu, and in stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's I can usually find at least one or two varieties that are vegan.

But making one's own pizza has got to be more fun than any takeout or store-bought pizza any day. And it really isn't hard to put together from scratch, nor does it take very long. In fact, we have waited longer for the delivery guy on a Friday night.

I have two basic crust recipes: one for a thin crust and another for a regular one, and in the past I've experimented with making whole-wheat crusts, whole-wheat-pastry-flour crusts and plain all-purpose flour crusts. For someone who doesn't like all-purpose flour, it hurts me a little to admit that the all-purpose does make the best-textured crust, although not the best tasting. And let's face it: half the fun of the pizza (or maybe all of it) lies in a chewy-yet-crispy crust.
I've had my share of pizza oops, although not disasters because they were still edible. While trying out a whole-wheat crust once, loaded with too many mushrooms, the crust turned soft although it still tasted pretty good. The mushrooms, which express too many juices while cooking, were, of course, the culprit. I guess at this point all of you must be going, she didn't figure THAT? Umm...guilty.

I still like a lot of toppings, but when I make a pizza now, I usually bake the crust and cook the toppings (if they need cooking) separately, and then bung them together in the oven for just enough time for them to get to know each other.

Basil is one of my favorite pizza toppings, and I decided to make that the chief flavor ingredient. I used it three ways: dry basil cooked into the crust, a tomato-basil pistou sauce spread over the pizza instead of the usual tomato sauce, and basil chopped and sprinkled all over the crust close to the end of cooking. Sounds like a lot, but it was just enough of a basil hit for me. Divine.

I also caramelized the mushrooms and onions in white wine. If you're making this for kids and would prefer to leave out the wine, do so by all means. I like the sweet fruitiness the wine adds, and it builds up the flavors.

For the crust, which turned out quite wonderful (light and chewy in the center and lightly crispy on the edges), I took inspiration from Priya of Live2Cook who posted this fabulous griddle-baked pizza the other day. She advised me to try white whole wheat flour instead of regular for the crust. Since I had some in my pantry, I couldn't wait to try it.

I did mix in some all-purpose flour, but using at least part white-whole-wheat blunted the guilt as I gorged down slice after slice.

It's all gone now, but I wish I had some more.

Can't-Have-Enough-Basil Pizza

Ingredients:

For the toppings:

Approx. 1 cup basil pistou sauce

1 cup white button mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup white wine

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup basil leaves, torn or cut into ribbons

Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add the mushrooms and onions and stir for a minute. Then add the white wine and salt to taste.

Take off the heat when the wine is all gone and the mushrooms and onions are lightly golden with the sugars from the wine. Set aside.

For the crust (this recipe makes 2 crusts):
2 1/4 tsp yeast

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 1/3 cups warm water

2 cups white whole-wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp dried basil

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

Mix the yeast, sugar and warm water. Let stand for five minutes to make sure the yeast is alive and starts frothing.

Add all of the whole wheat flour, about 1 1/2 cups of the all-purpose, dried basil, olive oil, and salt and knead by hand or in a stand mixer. If the dough is too sticky, keep adding the remaining all-purpose flour until you get a smooth dough.

Place in an oiled bowl and turn the dough over once to coat it on all sides with oil. Cover with a kitchen napkin and place in a warm spot for about 1 1/2 hours or until it doubles in volume.

After it has doubled, punch down the dough, and divide it into two. If you're making just one pizza, this would be a great time to wrap one half in plastic wrap and freeze it for future use. When you need it, just bring it out several hours before and let it sit at room temperature to thaw.

Shape the other half into a ball and let it sit around 10 minutes. Then, on a lightly floured surface, roll it into a round of about 14 inches (this isn't a thin crust but I still roll it fairly thin. Make sure your baking sheet is large enough to accommodate the rolled crust).

Push down around the center with your fingers so you get a slightly raised edge around the pizza.

Dust the baking sheet with cornmeal and place the crust on it. Brush the crust with olive oil and place in a 475-degree oven for about 8-10 minutes until lightly golden. The crust might bubble up in places, but don't worry. It adds to the great, rustic look.

Take the pizza out of the oven and spread the pistou sauce over it. Then layer the mushrooms and onions and finally the basil over it.

Place it back in the oven for another 3-4 minutes.

Cut into slices and dig in!

I am going to send this pizza on to DK of Culinary Bazar who is hosting the wonderful AWED: Italian event.

Lemony Soy-Corn Pancakes

I make pancakes very, very often because they are a favorite breakfast food of Desi's and also of my doggies who cannot get enough of the under-the-table handouts he sneaks out to them. I think it's quite flattering - and promising- that these canines love pancakes that have no animal products in them whatsoever.

To keep my pancakes healthy and to make them more interesting, I often tweak my basic recipe, sometimes to incorporate different healthy flours, and sometimes with additions like bananas or blueberries.

This past weekend, I decided to haul out a bag of soy flour that had been sitting in my pantry for longer than I care to admit. While at it, I looked around for what else I might have that might make for an interesting and nutritious pancake.

Let me confess: when it comes to cooking, I am not the ultimate perfectionist who runs to the grocery store for that last, tiny, perfect ingredient. Instead, I am more of a let's-experiment-with-what-I've-got-on-hand kind of a gal. And when I found some frozen corn and some very nice wholegrain corn flour (not corn meal- the corn flour is finer) I knew I had the beginnings of a very fine breakfast.

I also had in my pantry some lemon extract that I'd picked up on sale with no idea what to do with it, and I decided to use it to flavor my pancakes, instead of vanilla which I'd have normally used.

My Lemony Soy-Corn Pancakes surpassed my expectations. They were delicious and the lemony fragrance and kernels of whole corn made for a delightful surprise in every bite.

This is one recipe that I know is going to be a hot breakfast favorite at our home. What's more, it even passed the doggie test!

Lemony Soy-Corn Pancakes

Dry ingredients:

Mix together:

1/2 cup soy flour

1/2 cup wholegrain cornflour

1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp sugar (I use turbinado but regular or vegan sugar is fine)

1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Wet ingredients:

Mix together well:

1 1/3 cup almond milk (can substitute with soy)

1 tbsp ground flaxseed mixed well with 6 tbsp water

2 tsp lemon extract
3 tbsp canola oil

1/2 cup frozen corn kernels (leave them out at room temperature for around five minutes before adding)

Make a well in the bowl of dry ingredients and pour in the almond-milk-flaxseed mixture. Mix with just a few strokes until the wet ingredients are just moistened. The batter should be lumpy.

On a very hot iron skillet, spray some oil or smear a light film.

Pour 1/4 cup of the batter on the skillet. It will spread into a round. If it needs some help spreading, just nudge it slightly with the bottom of the cup.

Cook until bubbles appear in the center and the sides are slightly dry. Lift a corner gently with a spatula and if the pancake is golden-brown underneath, flip over and cook the other side for another minute or so.

This batter is thick, so remember to cook both sides thoroughly so that you are not surprised by raw batter smack in the middle of your pancake as you're eating it. If you are not sure, you can poke the underside of the pancake with a fork while it is still on the skillet. If batter runs out, you need a few more seconds of cooking.

Enjoy with warm maple syrup or any topping of your choice. Tip: Blueberries go great with the lemony tang of these pancakes.
I'd like to send this on to Sia of that lovely blog Monsoon Spice who is showcasing soy at JFI this month. JFI, or Jihva for Ingredients, was started by Indira of Mahanandi.

***

Yikes! There's a critter behind the curtain!

Red-Hot Vegan Chili

You've perhaps noticed, especially if you're vegan too, that I do not cook very often with store-bought meat substitutes. To tell you the truth, I've tried seitan, soy meatballs, veggie protein nuggets and almost every product out there meant to satisfy a meat-avoider's nostalgic tastebuds, and while there is some fairly good stuff out there, most of it doesn't quite rock my boat.

I also find that what I miss the most is the spices or flavors in the meat dishes I was used to eating, which very often can be replicated in vegetarian dishes with the same, satisfactory results by using the same spices but with "meaty" vegetables like mushrooms and eggplant instead of actual animal parts.

Meat substitutes can, however, add heft and valuable protein to a vegan meal. One of the dishes I enjoy eating, and which I make with a meat substitute, is my Red-Hot Chili.

This Red-Hot Chili was something I thought of rightaway when Harini or Sunshinemom of TongueTicklers announced her Food in Colors: Red event. This one goes out to her.

I used a veggie protein sausage substitute from Gimme Lean which I found at Whole Foods. I also used beans, which are a traditional ingredient in chili, and eggplant to add more chunky goodness to my version.

We ate Red-Hot Chili piled high on chunky bread with a super-simple salad of cucumber, avocados and onions that's flavored only with red wine vinegar (try it- it's delicious).

Thanks, Harini, for inspiring me to revisit a favorite.

Red-Hot Chili

Ingredients:

1 14-oz package of Gimme Lean sausage-style veggie protein

1 large red onion, diced

1 cup cooked pinto beans

1 medium eggplant, cubed

5 large cloves garlic, minced

1 cups crushed tomatoes

3 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, chopped (Cut down if you don't like your chili too hot. These are important because they add that great smoky flavor. You can find them for a dollar a tin in the Hispanic foods aisle of any supermarket)

2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 tbsp canola/vegetable oil

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and garlic and saute on medium heat until softened, around 3-5 minutes.

Crumble the Gimme Lean into the skillet. Stir until the sausage starts to brown, which may take about 5-8 minutes. Try to scrape up anything that sticks to the bottom of the skillet, but don't panic if all of it doesn't come off: it will come off later when you add the liquid ingredients, and so long as you don't burn it over very high heat, it'll add more fabulous flavor to the chili.

Now add the cubed eggplant and some salt and stir a few more minutes until the eggplant is fairly tender.

Add the beans and the tomatoes and the chipotle chilies.

Stir around for another couple of minutes. Then add 2 cups of water or vegetable stock.

Cook, covered partially, over low heat for around 45 minutes until the chili is quite thick.

Serve hot with salad or just finely diced onions.

Enjoy!

Bulghur Pilaf with Basil Pistou and Baked Cauliflower Bhujias

This summer, my kitchen has been fragrant with basil. For one, my own plants are doing better than they've done in previous years in my kitchen garden, but my neighbor Heather has also been giving me bagfuls of this spicy-sweet herb.

I usually use it as a garnish for curries, in Thai dishes or in pesto, of course, but this week, with some freshly picked basil in hand, I decided to revisit one of my favorite flavoring finds from French cuisine. Pistou.

The most basic version of Pistou, which I love, incorporates just three ingredients. Basil, tomatoes and olive oil. And although it sounds too minimalist, the flavor explosion these three ingredients create together is beyond description. I've seen variations that use parmesan or garlic or pine nuts, or all three, but that would just make the pistou too much like its Italian cousin, the gorgeous Pesto. And that wouldn't be fair, because the Pistou is a star in its own right.

Pistou is traditionally stirred into soups, but it also makes a great sauce for pasta, which is how I most often use it. For a tight night this week, I used it to jazz up a pot of bulghur, or cracked wheat.

I was craving some bhujias and had a lovely cauliflower sitting in my refrigerator, but deep-frying food is not something I often do. I thought I'd try this instead: make a bhujia batter, dip the cauliflower florets in it, and then bake them instead of frying them.

It worked very well, I'm happy to say, and although I'll admit that bhujias are crunchier when fried, these had a lovely, slight crunch to them and an amazing flavor. The cauliflower inside was cooked to melt-in-the-mouth consistency. And I could eat most of it without feeling guilty because hey, I was just eating my veggies.


My Bulghur Pilaf with Basil Pistou recipe goes out to Dee of Ammalu's Kitchen for the Herb Mania: Basil event.


Bulghur Pilaf

Ingredients:

1 cup bulghur, or cracked wheat

2 cups water

A pinch of salt, if desired

Place the ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When the water comes to a boil, cover the pan and let the bulghur cook on low heat around 15 minutes. Bulghur cooked this way has a softer, fluffier consistency. If you'd like it to be chewier, turn off the heat right after the water comes to a boil and let the bulghur soak for about 15 minutes.

Basil Pistou

Ingredients:

2 cups basil leaves

1 large tomato, diced, with all the juices

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt, if desired, to taste

Place the basil leaves and tomato in a food processor and with the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil. The pistou will have a pretty runny consistency.

To put together the pilaf, fluff the bulghur with a fork and then gently stir in as much pistou as you need to get your flavor kick. I used about 1/2 cup and then drizzled some on top after serving because I cannot have enough of its vibrant flavors!

Baked Cauliflower Bhujia

Ingredients:

1 small head cauliflower, sear

1/3 cup of chickpea flour (besan)

1/2 tsp cumin seeds or jeera, coarsely powdered

1/2 tsp red chili powder

1/4 tsp turmeric (optional)

1 tbsp canola oil (or any vegetable oil)

Salt to taste.

Mix together all ingredients other than the cauliflower florets.

Add water and beat with a fork or a small whisk. The batter should by fairly thick, like pancake batter, but not lumpy.

Spray a baking sheet lightly with oil.

Dip the cauliflower florets one by one into the batter, shake off excess batter, and place them on the baking sheet.

Bake in a 375-degree oven about 20-25 minutes until the cauliflower feels tender when pierced with a fork. The outer crust should be lightly golden (note the bhujia will NOT look as golden-brown as when it's deep-fried)

Enjoy hot!

Easy Mint-Smothered Spuds

Potatoes, potatoes every day, and I'd be in heaven.

If only. It's not every day that I can indulge in potatoes. But the luscious spud calls out my name at least a couple of times a week, and I cannot resist. Not least because it is so easy to get something really delicious from a potato in just minutes.

So when I came home from my last grocery trip with a bag of gorgeous Yukon Golds, I wondered what I could do to these buttery-rich babies that would enhance their natural deliciousness. The answer was right in my garden: mint.

Mint, one of my favorite herbs that's used pretty often in the Indian kitchen, is also one that's almost too easy to grow, even for a novice gardener. For one, it survives DC's fairly harsh winter and bounces back each year to reward me with armfuls of fragrant, almost other-worldly and deep-green goodness. Its cooling properties are also invaluable in a summer kitchen.

I love its soothing flavors so much, I could use mint in almost anything. So I decided to use it to dress up my lovely potatoes for a dish that turned out to be not only quick and easy but also quite a find.

My Mint-Smothered Spuds are something I know I will be making again and again. I loved the boldness of the mint paired with the creamy crunch of the potatoes. For all of the few minutes they were around, I surely was in heaven.

Mint-Smothered Spuds

Ingredients:
3-4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes. diced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1/4 cup mint leaves, chopped

Put all ingredients other than the mint in a baking dish. Mix well and spread the potatoes in a single layer.

In a preheated 375-degree oven, bake the potatoes until tender and golden on top, about 20 minutes, although the time may vary depending on your oven and the size of the potato dice.

Remove from the oven and add the chopped mint just before serving. Toss well.

Serve hot or at room temperature.

Food for Friendship: Rasavangi (And A Scaredy-Cat Dog)

Uma, that uber-sweet and talented blogger from Teluguruchi, sent me a secret ingredient for the Arusuvai friendship chain ages ago. But swamped as I was with my trip to India and a crazy workload after I returned, I didn't have a chance to make and post a recipe worthy of it until now.

By now most of you know about the Arusuvai chain and have participated in it, but for anyone that doesn't know, this is a very special idea from the ladies over at the Yum Blog, Bharathy of Spicy Chilly and Bhags of Crazy Curry. Arusuvai, in Tamil, means the six tastes. In this chain, a blogger sends on a secret ingredient to another, and they cook with it, post about it, and send on another secret ingredient to yet another blogger, and so on. It is indeed a wonderful way to make and maintain friendships in our strange world where we usually only know each other by our urls and recipes.

Uma's ingredient came with lots of goodies including a plush poodle for a dog-lover, a lovely bookmark, lentils, and a card. Thanks, dear Uma, for your thoughtful gifts.


Now after all these years of cooking Tamil food, you'd think I'd have guessed the secret ingredient right, but I didn't. I thought it was rasam powder, but it turned out instead to be sambar powder. Oh, well, it does have some of the same ingredients. Anyway, an email to Uma later all was well and I knew just what I would make. Rasavangi.

Rasavangi, a dish that's one of my favorites, features the wonderful eggplant. I know it seems like I'm on eggplant overload right now, but hey, can one ever have too many recipes starring this wonderful veggie? I, for one, don't think so.

For the Rasavangi, I used a variety I planted this year in my tiny vegetable garden. It's goes by the cheesy name of Lavender Touch and has a beautiful white color with lavender streaks and tender white flesh (the one in the picture looks more purple than is typical). Believe me, this eggplant is almost too good-looking to eat.

I used red lentils, or masoor dal, although tuvar dal is the more traditional ingredient for Rasavangi. There's a story behind this: I used to cook the tuvar dal in my handy dandy pressure cooker, because the cooker does a great job of reducing it to the nice, mushy consistency I love in any sambar.

But my big, gorgeous dog Lucy has a tremendous fear of all things noisy, and the hiss of the pressure cooker tops her list. A close second are thunderstorms. Since the DC area is racked by thunderstorms almost every other day in the summer, Lucy is in a perpetual state of panic these days, with her tongue hanging out, tiny whiny noises coming out of her throat. She is so acutely aware of the pressure cooker that she doesn't even wait for the hiss: she recognizes the distinctive clink the cooker makes when I take it out of the kitchen cupboard and put it on the countertop. The next minute I hear her feet thumping down the basement stairs as she flies for cover.


So despite Desi's objections- he feels, guy-like, that Lucy has to get over it- I have tried to minimize my use of the pressure cooker as much as possible. In the past few months, I've found I can use the microwave to cook most lentils, but tuvar dal takes inordinately long and never comes out quite as well-done as I like it to be.

So pink lentils it was for the Rasavangi, and a good thing too, because not only do they cook up in a jiffy, they tasted absolutely wonderful. Uma's sambar powder added a spicy, fragrant flair that took this dish from super to sublime. Thanks, dear friend. And thanks also for your patience.

What's more, Lucy couldn't be happier...well, almost. Mommie can't do anything about the thunderstorms.

Rasavangi

Ingredients:

2 medium eggplants, chopped into small, even-sized pieces

3/4 cup red lentils or masoor dal, boiled until very soft

2 tsp of sambar powder (the Arusuvai ingredient)

1 tbsp canola or other vegetable oil (not olive)

1 sprig curry leaves

1 1-inch round ball of tamarind, soaked in warm water, then crushed to extract juices. Discard the solids.

A generous pinch of asafetida (hing)

2 dry red chilies

Fry in 1 tsp oil and then grind to a smooth paste:

1 tbsp coriander seeds

1 tbsp chana dal (bengal gram dal)

1 dry red chili

1/4 cup coconut shreds

For the tadka or seasoning:

1 tsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 dry red chilies

2 tsp udad dal (black gram)

Heat the oil in a deep saucepan. Add the eggplant and curry leaves and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes until the eggplant is quite tender.

Add the tamarind water, sambar powder, and the ground spice paste and let them boil together for a few minutes.

Add the lentils and simmer 8-10 minutes on a low flame for the flavors to merge

For the tadka, heat the oil in a small saucepan. Add mustard seeds, red chilies and black gram.
Take off heat as soon as the lentils turn golden-brown. Add to the rasavangi.

Garnish with chopped coriander.

Rasavangi tastes absolutely delicious served hot with rice. Enjoy!

***

The Arusuvai now goes out to my dear friend Priya of 365 Days of Vegetarian.