What's Cooking? Currying Cabbage

We may have lost an hour of the weekend (or repaying that loan we took during the Autumn), but it is starting to feel like spring! Sunshine and warmish weather in DC meant people began to emerge from their hibernation, hanging out at grassy knolls and our urban parks. At the same time, we are still in a bit of limbo-land as far as fruits and vegetables grow. First plantings of the year are right around the corner, but we continue to eat roots and apples harvested in late fall, or the hardy greens that survive winter weather (or greenhouse-grown cherry tomatoes...oops). As such, my typical market basket right now looks very much the same from week to week.

Now, I do maintain my fridge shelf full of produce, needing a little bit of attention. Yet, with a full day of yoga and training for that not-so-distant marathon, I didn't have much time to play around in the kitchen this weekend. And let me tell you, when I have little time and cabbage as my ingredient of the night, things can get a little uninteresting. Luckily, I was feeling some creative juices flowing and decided bring some Asian inspiration to this staple winter vegetable. Unfortunately, as we learned a couple of weeks back, spices (and coconut, for that matter) are largely imports from tropical countries, from the mysterious 'Far East'. While during the spring and summer I try to stay pretty staunchly in the locavore camp, winter can be particularly daunting in the final month without some infusion of a little flare.

Coconutty Curried Cabbage (serves 2)
1 tbs coconut oil

1 tsp mustard seed 

1/4 yellow onion, chopped

1 tbs grated fresh ginger

1 large clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin

1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne

1/4 cup dried, shredded coconut

1/4 cup chopped cashews (optional)

1/2 small purple cabbage, cut into strips

salt to taste

1 tbs lemon juice
water as needed

1 cup Butler's soy curls (completely optional...)

1. Heat coconut oil in a medium skillet on medium heat until melted. Immediately add mustard seeds and onion, cooking until mustard seeds begin to pop.
2. Remove from heat, add in spices, ginger, coconut, and nuts, stirring until completely covered. Place back on heat.
3. Toss in cabbage, salt, and lemon juice (it keeps the purple vibrant!). Cover pan and allow to cook until cabbage is fork tender, stirring every 5 minutes or so. If you are adding in some sort of protein, you can do so after about 15 minutes.
4. Serve warm, perhaps with some quinoa, rice, or even naan!

Check out more tasty delights on Wellness Weekend.

Cookbook Mondays: Best of Bloodroot V.II

Cookbooks come in all shapes and sizes. There are the hard-bound volumes, with glossy pages, and crisp photos. There are thin-paged tomes, with more words than your favorite epic novel. Some have illustrations; some have stories. While I love beautiful food photography, the cookbooks I keep returning to are pretty unassuming, low 'fluff' guides to cooking good food.

The Best of Bloodroot Volume Two: Vegan Recipes is one of those. Born out of a small veggie restaurant out in Connecticut, this cookbook has a very DIY attitude to food. It is organized by season, which is fantastic, and has a really great variety of cuisines. The other nifty bit is that a large portion of the baked goods call for a sourdough starter...not your usual chocolate cake!

I gave okra a shot - my first time prepping it! It is suspected that okra originated in Africa (or possibly south Asia), and spread to the U.S. along with the 17th century slave trade. You can probably see how it has become a staple of good ol' Southern home cooking! Too avoid the sliminess that follows cooking the mucilaginous seeds, a quick fry is recommended. I tried the 'dry roasted okra' in the book, modifying the spices slightly. My version is included below:

3 lbs baby okra
2 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 1/2 tsp curry powder (or your own mix of turmeric, cumin, coriander, etc.)
1 1/2 tsp salt

1. Stem and slice okra in about 1/4 inch pieces. Heat oil over medium heat and cook until crispy. The hotter the oil, the faster it crisps. DON'T add water.
2. Season okra in the last five or so minutes and let spices cook into it. Serve warm with some tasty grain (quinoa?) and curried mung beans.

What else can I do with okra?

Pickle it!
Fry it!
Braise it!
Gumbo it up times two!
Or just eat the darn thing raw!

What an exciting adventure!

The Land of Fire and Water

India. The largest democracy in the world. The second most populous nation. As of 2003, 42% of the population is strict vegetarian (no eggs) and much of the remaining are simply less strict (FAO). Though much has changed in seven years, including the prevalence of meat, dairy, and eggs in the diet of wealthier households, the country's undernourished population is still moderately high.

That said, there are a lot of exciting and innovative agricultural projects taking place across the country. One of the organizations that does incredible work on agriculture in developing countries, the Worldwatch Institute, recently documented two encouraging stories in rural areas of India.

The first touches upon an issue on which I mused for Blog Action Day: water. Agriculture largely depends on this resource, and frankly, if we don't start using the water available to us wisely, we will (and already have) start feeling the repercussions in the form of conflicts and famines. India, with many drought-prone regions, is trying to be proactive about this problem and is implementing a more-integrated watershed management strategy - using water-conserving technologies and appropriate agricultural practices.

Nearer and dearer to my heart is the topic of the second post on the blog. It discusses the failings of rice harvests on land cultivated via slash-and-burn methods in northeast India. As with this agricultural method in many tropical regions, in India jhum (the local name) worked well on a small scale with few people. But it requires extensive land in order for the nutrient-poor tropical soils to replenish over decades...and India is not sparsely populated! So, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is providing assistance to these farmers to shift to methods that are more sustainable in the long-term.

So I hope I have left you a little more enlightened, and hungry for me. Hungry you say? Well, in light of my choice of topic today, I concocted a lazy-girl's version of baigan bartha (sadly, not for tonight's dinner, as I was out collecting material for a post next week). This dish takes about 30 minutes from start to finish and requires one pan and no separate roasting of the eggplant!

Cheater's Baigan Bartha (eggplant curry)

1 medium eggplant (Asian is preferred)

1/4 large onion

1 cup chopped tomatoes in juice (used my jarred tomatoes!)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Pinch cayenne (optional)

2 tsp vegetable oil

1. Chop eggplant into 1/4 inch cubes. Salt and let stand.

2. Heat oil in frying pan over medium-high heat. Add mustard seeds and wait until they start to "pop." Add roughly chopped onions.

3. Cook onions until they start to get translucent. Add eggplant. Cook until starting to get soft (you may have to add some water occasionally).

4. When it starts to soften, add tomatoes and spices. Cook covered until eggplant is really soft.

5. Serve warm over rice...or with that tasty sweet potato naan. mmm.

Here is a more traditional baigan bartha recipe, if you are more into that kind of thing.

Dare to Bake … or rather, Steam!

Wow, does time fly! It is already the end of April, and time for another Daring Baker's Challenge to come to a close.

Let us preface this post by saying that I’m a bit of an Anglophile. I fantasize about Jane Austen’s English country-side; British (well, the slew of UK and English-influenced) accents make me melt; And, words like ‘lovely’, ‘rubbish’, and ‘cheers’ seem to work their way into my vocabulary. But I never felt particularly drawn to classic British cuisine – it always seemed too meaty and fatty.

Well, who knew that this period of my life was about to come to a close? The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

First of all, what is suet? It is a “hard, flaky fat” from cows or sheep that is not going to make an appearance on my blog. While I applaud the use of every part of the animal if you are going to make the choice to consumer meat, I think I will stick with my vegan version.

Ok, ok, let’s talk pudding, instead. No, I did not make a creamy dish of the Jello-style chocolateness that more appropriately goes by the name of custard. In England, pudding generally refers to desserts, in addition to any dish cooked in a pudding bowl or pudding cloth and steamed or boiled (but sometimes baked). This boat I’ll jump on; I have been dying to try a steamed cake for a while now! That said, I may have gone a bit steam crazy…

The first and my favorite was a savory (*gasp*) pudding with Indian influences and a protein-filled crust. All of my recipes serve two (portion control...so that I don't become a chubby little blogger), but can pretty easily be scaled up!

Savory – Aloo Gobi Pudding

Crust

¼ cup besam or garbanzo flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

½ tbs mild flavor oil (like canola)

1/3 cup water

Filling

¼ large onion, coarsely chopped

¼ cup peas

1 med potato

½ tbs vegetable oil

1 clove garlic

pinch of mustard seeds

¼ tsp curry powder (with turmeric and cumin in it)

1 tsp tomato paste

water as needed (left over from boiling potatoes)

1. Mix crust ingredients together until all ingredients are incorporated and the dough easily forms a ball. Stick in the refrigerator while you make the filling.

2. Boil some water and add potato. Cook until JUST fork-tender.

3. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add mustards seeds and fry until they start to 'pop'. Add onions. Cook until translucent. Add garlic, potato, and peas. After a few minutes add curry powder, tomato paste, and a little bit of water from the potatoes to lubricate. Turn off heat.

4. Take out your crust. Chop off about 1/3 of the dough. Roll each into a circle, one that will cover the bowl you are using to steam (mine was the smallest size glass mixing bowl), and the other to fit on top. Place first circle in the bowl. Dump in your filling. Place second circle on top and seal the edges.

5. Ok, I don't feel like explaining the actual steaming process, so I will defer to this explanation to get you started! Sound good? Mine took an absurdly short period of time to cook, so just be flexible...

My starter has been feeling neglected lately! Here it is after a couple days of pampering out of the refrigerator. Mine is a little less that 100% saturation (50/50 water/flour)

Sweet – Upside Down Rubarb Sourdough Pudding

Inspired by Best of Bloodroot Vol. II

1/3 cup goopy starter (~75-100% hydration)

1/3 cup water

2-3 tbs oil (I used walnut)

½ tsp vanilla

1/3 cup unrefined sugar

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1/3 cup cornmeal

Zest of one orange

1 tbs agave nectar

1 tbs orange juice

3 large rhubarb ribs, chopped

1. Mix starter and water until well combined. Add other liquid ingredients, zest, and sugar. Combine dry ingredients and then mix well (but not too much) with the wet.

2. The last three ingredients are for the topping. Mix those together and then fill the bottom of two greased ramekins. Evenly distribute the batter. Then steam!

Sweet – Gluten Free Chocolate Pudding

¼ cup unsweetened chocolate almond milk

1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs coconut creamer

2 tsp kahlua (or 1 tsp vanilla)

1 tsp red wine vinegar

2 tbs agave nectar or 2 tbs brown sugar (add an extra tbs liquid)

1 ½ tbs cocoa powder

10 g good quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, shaved

GF Baking Mix:

3 tbs cornmeal

3 tbs rice flour (white or brown)

2-3 tbs almond meal

1 tbs tapioca flour

1 tbs potato starch

½ tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1. Combine all ingredients except the "baking mix" and chocolate shavings. Try to make sure the cocoa powder is well incorporated.

2. Add dry ingredients. Mix in the chocolate shavings - or you can put 5oz in the center of each pudding (fill half batter, add chocolate, cover with second half batter).

3. Pour batter into two greased ramekins. Steam!

If anything, this challenge has converted me to a steamer. This method locks in the moisture, creating a decadently lush cake to dig your fork into. While it doesn’t create the lovely crust that baking does – and for that reason, brownies will always be baked – it can yield a gooey center and puddingy goodness. Plus, it is just so hard to screw up!

A Bite of India in Sammamish

I love Indian food. It's a fact. When I come home (or stay home for extended periods of time due to unemployment), it is a longstanding tradition for my mother and me to enjoy the spicy delicacies at one of the local Indian lunch buffets. Well, it has been a while since I have satisfied this particular craving. Just the other day my sister - who happens to be in Londontown for the year - was despairing over the lack of tortillas and the plethora of naan in her life! I, on the other hand, couldn't imagine a better situation.

So, on one of my usual escapades through food blogs, I was absolutely thrilled to discover The Bread Baking Babes. Once a month they put out a bread baking challenge...and this month was none other than NAAN, brought to us by Cookie Baker Lynn. Tonight I tried it out - halving the recipe and subbing 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour and 1/3 cup besan (garbanzo flour) to kick things up a bit. It came out surprisingly well - "it tastes like naan" according to my dad! I served it up with some saag tofu and curried cabbage. Thanks BBB for a fun challenge, and I look forward to baking with you all again!

Anywho, lots been happening in the kitchen lately, so stay tuned for updates!