Pongal

I can't say that I've cooked a lot of Indian food before but when I came across this recipe on www.thekitchn.com I couldn't resist trying it out. It's basically an Indian porridge. I did however make a few adjustments to the recipe. First off, I've started using more whole grains in my cooking ever since I started taking this class on nutrition and health, so that meant substituting the white rice for brown rice. Brown rice has about 100x more flavor than white rice (and is obviously way better for you). Brown rice does take longer to cook than white rice though, so I omitted the initial lentil soaking in the recipe. Also, the recipe only called for a 1:4 ratio of lentils to rice so I decided to increase that ratio to about 1:3.

I also caramelized some onions as a topping for the porridge. To the spice mix, I added a little minced ginger and a finely diced chili. I cooked the spices quickly in butter and vegetable oil (I had no ghee and didn't feel like making any). Next time, I would probably increase the amounts of each spice by about 1.5 times more than what is called for in the recipe. The recipe also doesn't specify this, but I finely chopped up the curry leaves before cooking them. Also, if you plan on making this recipe, do not omit the fresh curry leaves! They should be easy to find at a local Indian market and I found that they were a really integral part of the dish.

I roasted a little broccoli to go with the pongal but any other vegetable would do. Finally, I served it with a little plain yogurt. Wish I had some of my mom's favorite mango pickle to go with the pongal. Anyways, this recipe was sooo easy and sooo delicious. I would highly recommend it to anyone!

A Variation on Succotash with Wilted Dandelion Greens

When I woke up at 6am on my first day back from the big Euro trip, the only thing I could think to do was to make this lemon curd tart with olive oil from gourmet magazine. I had never made it before, but had been thinking about the recipe for a few days. A few hours later, my parents and I took a trip to the new farmers' market that opened a few weeks ago in our neighborhood. The selection of vegetables was very limited but we managed to pick up a few things for lunch and dinner. When we got back home from the market, I prepared a little open-faced sandwich with melted manchego cheese, homemade aioli, pickled shallots, a fried egg and arugula from our garden. I'll post about the tart and the sandwich later, but I was the most excited about what I came up with for dinner.

Recipe for about 5 people

First, I sliced up about a pound of potatoes into bite sized pieces about the same size as the fava beans. I sautéed them in a combination of butter and oil until they were just about finished cooking.

Next, I was lucky to have the help of my mother and of my friend Amanda to peel the skins off of the fava beans. This took us a while, but at least we had some cocktails to sip on. I used about 3 cups of the beans.

Next, I cut the kernels off of three corn cobs.

I diced up 2 poblano chilis, one serrano and one jalepeno, along with about half of a large onion.

When the potatoes were almost done, I added in the onion and chilis. Around this time, I started sautéeing some garlic in olive oil in a large pot for the greens.

After about 5 minutes, I added the corn and fava beans to the potatoes and then maybe 5 minutes later I started cooking the greens (they only take about 3 minutes to cook).

Me cooking:

More butter doesn't ever hurt:

We served it with some chalula hot sauce. It was incredibly delicious!!



The End.