a good pot of lentils

Back in December Bon Appetit posted a so-called food lover's cleanse, with a bunch of healthy veggie-laden recipes that were supposed to appeal to well, food lovers, while still being good for you. Sounds like a win-win, no?

dal nirvana and chicken vindaloo

So I've tried making Indian food a one or two times in the past, but I didn't really do it up right. There are a lot of different spices common in Indian cuisine that I don't normally have around, and even though a little goes a long way for spices, they are always so expensive! As a result, my previous attempts always fell a little bit short. They were tasty, but not quite as flavorful as the genuine article.

This might have continued indefinitely had it not been for my lovely roommate Laura, who emailed me one day to say that she was making some spicy chicken vindaloo for our friend Matt, and would I like to join them? Well, I had a recipe for some lentil "dal nirvana" that I had been meaning to try, so I offered to make that to go with it.




Both of these dishes are pretty common examples of Indian cuisine, at least from what I've experienced of it. The chicken is cooked with potatoes and a spicy tomato and onion sauce. The lentils are boiled with tomatoes and Indian spices. This particular recipe appealed to me because it was finished with some cream and butter for added richness, and cilantro, which I pretty much love in anything. We decided to serve them both with white basmati rice.

Laura went all out for this dinner, which meant we had a new set of Indian spices to play with: coriander, cardamom, turmeric... we even ground up our own garem masala with cloves and pepper and stuff. It was pretty exciting. I particularly liked the smell of the coriander, which I had never smelt on its own before. It was really fragrant in a way I can't quite describe. A very clean, fresh scent, it was almost citrusy.

Laura and Matt tackled the chicken while I made the lentils. I was a little bit worried while they were making the sauce. The spicy pungent mixture was so pungent that I was literally crying when they threw the garlic, onions, tomatoes, fresh ginger and spices in the blender. Luckily, it mellowed on the stove, with all the thick paste cooking wayyyyy down so it was just coating the chicken and potatoes rather than drowning it. A little patience made it all possible.

Similarly, my lentils looked like soup in all the water and canned tomato juice, but after an hour on the stove it was nice and thick, infused with some extra garam masala which I took the liberty of adding.




I don't know if I'd say that the dal lived up to its nirvana name, but it was very, very tasty, and both dishes actually tasted like real deal Indian food. I was proud of us for making such an ethnic meal. Laura gets major kudos for springing for the exotic spices. And now we've got them on hand for any future Indian endeavors!

tomato and lentil dal with tadka

indian food from my italian kitchen!

I've been feeling a bit uninspired in the kitchen yet, but I do have a bit of a backlog of yummy things that I just need to work up the enthusiasm to tell you about. Here it goes:

OMG, I made Indian food! I know I'm being silly, but for me this was so exciting. As we all know, my culinary comfort zone is largely Italian, with a bit of (largely-Americanized) French, Chinese and Mexican thrown in to mix it up a bit. I don't cook Indian food. Period. Until I tried making this tomato and lentil dal with tadka.

Though I was initially intimidated, I learned that just because you don't know the first thing cooking a particular regional cuisine doesn't mean that you can't pick it right up. In fact, part of what moved me to try my hand at this particular dish was the recipe's assertion that it was something that anyone could make whether or not they were familiar with Indian spices. In other words, perfect for someone like me!

Now, despite the success of this dish, I can hardly claim to be an expert of Indian cuisine. So, feel free to correct me if I say something egregiously wrong as I attempt to explain what I made. To the best of my knowledge, dal is a very common Indian dish made from stewed lentils. The lentils are boiled, and then to serve you add the tadka, which is basically Indian spices fried in ghee. (If you're me and your supply of clarified butter has run dry, you can also use oil.)

The recipe was pretty basic. Lentils, water, tomatoes, salt and tumeric are brought up to a boil and then left to simmer until cooked through. As that finishes, a variety of exotic Indian spices, garlic and small cherry tomatoes are cooked in hot oil. I assume this releases the fragrance and essential oils of the spices. You mix the tadka into the lentils before serving.

I used some beautiful tomatoes from the food co-op, and the rest of my French green lentils from that sad orzo salad. I also decided to add chives to the tadka in addition to the garlic. This probably wasn't at all authentic, but I had some left over from my fantastic corn and tomato pie, and I figured they would give the dish a needed splash of green color.

The preparation of this dish was very easy, and everything came together effortlessly. Unfortunately, I did have to make some concessions to the bareness of my pantry, which is seriously lacking in the cool spices department... I didn't have asafoetida, I didn't have tumeric, I had curry powder, but not curry leaves, and only regular mustard powder where it called for black mustard seeds... Fortunately, I did have cumin seeds and cayenne pepper, so I just used those and curry powder and hoped for the best.

Considering that I was working with a limited range of spices and that this was my very first foray into preparing Indian food, I am sure it was only a weak imitation of the real thing. However, I've gone to quite a few Indian restaurants, and I thought it tasted like it was in the right ballpark! Even though I didn't have of the more exotic spices, the combination of cumin, curry and cayenne was definitely very different than my normal flavor profile of garlic, onion and cheese. Haha. I really enjoyed the slight spiciness of the dish, and as I ate it I couldn't get over the fact that I had prepared something that tasted so foreign. It's kind of pathetic, but for me, this dal counted not only as a success, but as a minor triumph!

I enjoyed cooking this meal, and writing about it reminds me how much I enjoy the creative process both in the kitchen and in writing about it later for garlicus maximus. Hopefully this will help get me back in the groove in the kitchen and on my blog.

master meals, week 1: jimmy bradley's orzo lentil salad

So today's post introduces our first weekly feature on Garlicus Maximus: a dinner featuring a recipe from one of that week's Top Chef Masters competitors. I'm calling it Master Meals. (I'm sorry if that's unspeakably corny, but I kinda like it.)


Nathan's Top Chief pose

I've been a fan of Top Chef since its second season, and it actually was a big influence on me as I began cooking more and more. The Masters spin off is arguably better than the original, as the chefs are way less bitchy and competitive. Much of that stems from the fact that they are established and successful chefs, and are playing for charity, rather than to jump start their careers with nationwide exposure and prize money. There also seems to be a great camaraderie between all these culinary giants, and it is great to see how much they all respect and admire each other's different cuisines. The challenge of our Master Meals will be to find recipes from these great chefs that can be easily prepared by the home chef, aka Nathan and me. Needless to say, I don't expect we'll be making anything of molecular gastronomist Wylie Dufresne's, but I hope we can find some cool things to cook.

The season actually started last week, but I had a job interview so Nathan and I were not able to prepare our first Master Meal until Sunday night. While finding the time to cook was tricky, selecting a cheftestant was easy. My parents took us to the Red Cat for my birthday last month, and we were just blown away by the Jimmy Bradley's food and the restaurant as a whole. I especially loved that everything I read about Bradley's approach to cooking and dining echoed what we had experienced at the Red Cat. A "purveyor of straightforward, occasionally irreverent, food, and contagious conviviality, all of it wrapped up in an attitude-free package"? Yep, that was our meal in a nutshell. Not to mention the incredibly solicitous and helpful staff! As Bradley said himself in this (otherwise somewhat boring) interview, "All of my restaurants are chef-driven. Everything starts from the kitchen. My places aren’t about what’s fabulous, exclusive, and snooty. Customer service is a top priority, too. I concentrate on anticipating guest needs and recovering when we fail — we need to know what you need before you need it, and when we do make a mistake, we should be able to make up for it easily." I can say from first hand experience he's made that vision a reality.

For our Jimmy Bradley Master Meal, I found this recipe for Lentil and Orzo Salad. It seemed easy but tasty, with tomatoes, cucumbers, toasted almonds and fresh herbs. I basically picked it because I was intrigued by the french lentils, which Nathan's stepsister Helen had recently blogged about with great enthusiasm. I didn't know where I'd get them, but I happened to take Matt to the Chelsea Market on Friday, where recent addition the nut box was serendipitously selling them for only $2.50 a bag. Because the dish called for mint leaves, it seemed natural to pair it with lamb chops, which we rubbed with mustard, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper before pan frying. I also decided that I needed to try my hand at mojitos, my favorite cocktail, the result of which was incredibly exciting and satisfying and summery. We rounded out the meal with some cumin roasted carrots, which I'll be covering in depth on another post.


lamb chop, orzo, and a sprig of mint

As much as I would have liked our inaugural Master Meal to be an unqualified success, the recipe wasn't all that exciting. I wouldn't call it a dud, necessarily, but it was a little bland and forgettable. Nathan and I both felt that the lentils seemed out of place in a pasta salad, like they were a very conscious attempt to add protein to a vegetarian dish. The toasted almonds were a nice touch, but there were so few of them that they were easily overlooked. It also probably didn't help that the out of season tomatoes were flavorless pink mush. I also would have added way way more basil, and maybe some red peppers or a crumbly cheese or something. As Nathan pointed out, it's easy to make a good orzo salad, and we could easily improve on this one, perhaps even at the Whole Foods salad bar. I'm sorry to say that I wouldn't recommend this recipe.


orzo and french lentil salad

Unfortunately for Bradley, his time on Top Chef Master's went much the same way. While his seared lamb carpaccio salad was beloved by the judges, they found his partner, Gorvind Armstrong, had a prepared a rather dry and boring lamb chop. Sadly, the team finished in third place. I had been rooting for Bradley to move on to the Champions round, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of winners, Tony Mantuano and Susan Feniger. Meanwhile, for a Bradley fix I can just head back to the Red Cat, or try swinging by the Harrison. As for the rest of the French lentils, maybe I'll try Helen's sausage recipe before the weather gets much warmer.

Tonight's episode looks like it is featuring some heavy hitters, and I'm looking forward to it. After work, Nathan and I are meeting at the Columbus Circle Whole Foods to shop, and then we'll head up to his place to cook, eat, and "watch what happens." We've already selected our second Master Meal, and I'm excited to say we'll be preparing a dish by the one and only David Burke! Stay tuned to find out what it is!