Chole is on the stove. Making it for a friend who is incapacitated atm. #Chickpeas
When I made this at xmas I wanted some Punjabi Chole Masala at the last minute. The only one I could find was a 500g pack. We will have lots of chole this year.
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The Charred Eggplant and Peas is cooking and smells delish (see thread above). Rice is in the cooker. I have a spicy cauli dish.
I love the description of the dish from Yamuna.
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Charred veggies have become all the food fashion in the last couple of years, (eg charred cabbage has done the rounds of Soc Med) but Bengal has been doing it for far far longer.
Yamuna Devi explains (From Lord Krishna's Cuisine).
She continues with a range of charchari recipes, one of which I am cooking tonight, using eggplant and peas.
(There are other Indian recipes that make use of accidentally charred/almost-burnt food and leftovers.)
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Today, also while waiting for my friend to arrive, I trimmed up the leaves of the doddapatre, eliminating marked and old ones and removing good ones from the thick stems. Then washing them.
I found out last year that the large leaves take a LONG time to dehydrate, so this year I have chopped them in the food processor. I often complain about the uselessness of my large food processor for small batches, but for large ones it is magic. It took 2 * 1 second pulses to turn the whole container full of leaves into finely chopped leaves.
They are in the dehydrator now. The house has a healthy, camphor'ish aroma.
Doddapatre is a beautiful musty herb and spice smelling of camphor and is well known in the East and the West. See the post above in this thread for a whole range of names it goes by.
Plants are commonly grown in household gardens and the leaves are nibbled on to protect against coughs, colds and related illnesses.
The leaves have many traditional medicinal uses, not only for the treatment of coughs, sore throats and nasal congestion, but also for a range of other problems such as infections and inflammation, rheumatism, headaches and flatulence.
The herb is also used as a substitute for oregano in the food trade and food labelled “oregano-flavoured” may well contain this herb. The leaves can be used in salads, rasams, bhajji, infusions and other dishes.
My grain/lentil/bean of the day today is whole Mung Beans. How I love their earthy flavours. I made an Indian style soup using a recipe for whole mung bean dal that I've made before. Just cooked it longer with more water. Lots of onion, ginger, garlic, chilli, cumin, etc etc. Needs salt! I cooked it in the IP. Oh boy it is good (I am on my second bowl).
Mung beans always taste so comforting and nourishing.
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Dal made for dinner with red lentils (masoor dal), moringa leaves and other greens from the garden, spices, souring agent, onion, garlic. So Delicious! Red lentils are under-rated.
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I pruned the doddapatre* for dehydtrating. The house smells like camphor now, in a nice way.
* It has many other names, like Indian Borage, Mexican Mint, Cuban Oregano, and Spanish Thyme. In India, it is also frequently called Ajwain Leaf (or Patta Ajwain), because of the scent altho it has nothing to do with the true ajwain.
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I have had fun today and last night playing with semolina flour (rava) that I fermented. While this is am unusual idea in most parts of the world it is definitely not in India, particularly the fermented pancakes and related dishes of South India. These are usually freshly ground batters that are fermented without using an extra starter.
🌾 What I did was a little different to India, in that the rava was fermented on its own using yoghurt as a starter, which worked really well. I was inspired by reading about fermented soy flour and later about one of the techniques for fermenting oats.
🧑🍳 From the fermented flour I made a sort of upma, some rava dosa and some rava utthapam. And OMG, the utthapam was amazing! 💃💃💃 (It is the same batter as dosa, cooked smaller and thicker and topped with finely chopped chilli, onion and tomato. I had cumin seeds and chilli in the batter as well.)
It is a good start, and fermented flours might become part of the Kitchen's repertoire.
One day I want to make pasta with fermented semolina flour.
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I put up some semolina flour to ferment overnight and it seems to have done well (flour+water+yoghurt/any starter and cover jar with a woven cloth or similar). I'll make upma from it later today.
The Garlic Eggplant Wedding Pickle is fermenting vigorously - to burp the large jar I cover with a towel and open slowly to prevent liquid spurting everywhere. I have to burp 3 times per day but it is the first morning one that is the most likely to expel some liquid.
For some reason, the smaller jar, while vigorous, is not as likely to bubble over. Perhaps some gas is escaping anyway.
Next time I'll make these with a fermentation lock.
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I made a couple of things today, to feed my friend who was helping with the garden.
Very early I made a the yoghurt vine leaf pie that I have spoken about before. My name for it is "Baked Yoghurt Encrusted with Vine Leaves". It is a yoghurt mix with onions, many herbs (mint, tarragon, fennel, parsley, dill), onion, and rice flour to thicken the yoghurt.
This mix is placed (a thin'ish layer) in a terracotta dish that has been lined with grape leaves. The leaves are wrapped around the side and over the top of the yoghurt, and an extra leaf or two are placed on top. The top is brushed with oil and sprinkled with some breadcrumbs or polenta, and sesame seeds, then it is baked before being slightly cooled and cut into wedges. It can be eaten warm or cold.
Because the oven was already on I baked some leeks at the same time. This is a slow, foil-covered bake until the leeks are very tender and delicious, and then browned slightly on top.
The lunch spread was completed with a simple garden salad and some ferments.
***Recipes: The yoghurt pie appears in a couple of places. It is called "Yoghurt and fresh herbs wrapped in grape leaves (Asmapitta)" in The Foods of Greece by Aglaia Kremezi, and in The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean by Paula Wolfert. Ottolenghi has a version in Plenty - a whizzed up version for sure. He calls it "Vine leaf, herb and yoghurt pie".
The leek recipe comes from the 30-day Fermentation Challenge by Shockey - she encourages the eating of leeks, onions and other onion-related veg as being very healthy for us. (This is not a fermented dish.)
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Ganga