2 posts tagged “indian food”

From my adventures in Indian cooking not too long ago, I have jars upon jars of Indian spices. Good thing for me, I love Indian food. Not too sure how my neighbors feel about all the pungent spices wafting in the air. They tell me that they can smell everything I cook in their bathroom. Bizarre, right? I always tell them that I'm glad that it's not the other way around. :)

For this dish, I ground a spice mix of coriander, ginger, garam masala and mustard seed in my mortar and pestle. After cooking the spices in a little olive oil, I sauteed some mushrooms, zucchini, long beans and red bell pepper. I added a little bit of vegetable stock just to moisten my curry. As always, I was trying to support local farms, so everything except for the mushrooms were from the farmers market. I also found some lovely, large sea scallops to add protein to the meal. These were from Bristol, but I have been seeing small bay scallops in the shell at the FM that I've been meaning to try. I cooked the scallops in the curry for a few minutes just before serving it all along side a steaming bowl of brown jasmine rice. This is definitely my kind of meal. Flavorful, spicy and so satisfying to scarf down.

I'm thinking some vegetable biryani for my next Indian dish. Purple, I bet you have a killer recipe. Are you dying to share it? Anybody?

I warned you guys that the Indian food obsession was far from over.  I made a palak paneer, which is essentially a spinach and paneer (Indian cheese) curry. I substituted regular ol' frozen spinach with some fresh, hearty, just-in-season heirloom Bloomsdale spinach. You know I gotta put my own farmers' market twist on everything. :) While doing some Indian cooking homework, I stumbled upon this video with instructions for moong dal dosas (Indian crepes). Perfect. I had just bought a giant 4 lb bag of moong dal with the expectation of using them in my new found love for Indian cooking. Can you say overzealous shopper/eater?


I soaked my moong dal overnight, food processed it and added water and salt to make a nice thin batter. A few minutes on a hot oiled skillet yielded a crispy, nutty crepe that I instantly fell in love with. I served this for lunch with some leftover pakoras. I'm so happy about my new food discovery and so is mah belly. Thanks again Purplesque!

Yikes... I still have about 3.75 lbs of moong dal... any ideas?