Tag: vegetables

Easy Masoor Dal

Rice and bread are both rather bland foods. If you are a vegetarian, you don’t have the option of adding chicken to that pot of rice or topping your bread with beef gravy or barbecued pork to add some flavor. That may partly explain why dal was invented by some imaginative cook on the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago. The earliest references to vegetarianism from India are older than those from ancient Greece, which we find in the Odyssey, thought to have been composed about 800 B.C.

While never in the majority, a significant minority of ancient Greeks and Romans were vegetarians. The people of eastern and northern Europe who conquered the Roman Empire, however, were hunters who liked their venison. Vegetarianism virtually disappeared from Europe until the Renaissance when European scholars rediscovered the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome.

Vegetarianism in the United States was practiced by a few small Christian communities in the 18th century, and a few notable Americans were vegetarians. Among them was Colonel Thomas Crafts Jr., who was the first person to read the brand new Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the old state house in Boston.

Another was Benjamin Franklin, who became a vegetarian at the age of sixteen, but later began eating meat again occasionally. Franklin has more to answer for than abandoning his youthful enthusiasm for vegetables or burdening us with wise sayings like “Eat to live, and not live to eat.” He introduced tofu to the American colonies in a letter to John Bartram in Philadelphia in 1770. He sent some soybeans and passed on instructions of how the Chinese made “tau-fu.”

India, where vegetarianism apparently originated, is home to most of the world’s vegetarians—at least 250,000,000 people. There are far fewer in the United States, but one of them happens to be our grandson.

He is the person who first told me about dal. Dal (also spelled daal, dhal or dahl) in Hindi may mean lentils or a thick spicy stew made with lentils. Masoor dal means red lentils. The lentils contribute some important proteins missing in rice and wheat, and the spices add interest to those bland foods. Therefore, dal is not only good for you, but also makes things taste good—a perfect combination.

With a quarter of a billion people eating dal in India, there may be a million different dal recipes. Here is one that is easy and delicious.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup red lentils
2 cups water plus more if needed
3 T vegetable oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground turmeric
1/4 tsp. ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1/2 to 3/4 cup finely chopped tomato

PROCEDURE:

Rinse the lentils and put them in a two or three quart saucepan. Add about two cups of water, enough just to cover the lentils. Bring them to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the lentils are tender, about twenty minutes. Skim off any foam as the lentils cook. Add more water if necessary, so you end up with a thick soup. Remove the lentils from the heat until you are ready to add the spice mixture.

While the lentils are cooking, peel and mince the ginger root and garlic and finely chop the onion. Put about three tablespoons of vegetable oil into a small skillet. Stir in the onions and sauté them over moderate heat for three or four minutes until they are translucent but not browned.

Wash and finely chop a small to medium tomato while the onions are cooking.

Reduce the heat to low and add the minced ginger, garlic, salt, turmeric, cayenne and cumin seeds to the onions. Cook this spice mixture for four minutes, then stir in the chopped tomato. Continue simmering and stirring the mixture for another three or four minutes to soften the tomato.

Stir in the garam masala, then stir the spice mixture into the lentils and bring the dal to a simmer. Simmer it for a few minutes to blend the flavors, stirring often to prevent scorching. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve over rice for a main dish or as a dip for eating with naan as an appetizer.

NOTES: The best places to find red lentils are food co-ops or Asian markets.

Some people add chopped cilantro and more spices to their dal. My advice is to start with this recipe and try adjusting it to suit your taste the next time you make it.

You can substitute butter for all or part of the oil for cooking the onions and spices.

Some recipes omit the garam masala, perhaps because like me, those cooks didn’t know what it was. It will, however, enhance the flavor of your dal.

Garam masala is a mixture of spices that Indian cooks make themselves or buy from a spice merchant. There are many versions ranging from mild to blazing hot. Curry powder, for instance, might be called a mild garam masala. Traditional garam masala starts with whole peppercorns and other seeds and spices which are toasted then ground into a powder, but you can make a pretty good imitation with spices you probably have in your spice rack.

This recipe makes about a quarter cup of medium hot garam masala.

INGREDIENTS:

1 T ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

Mix the spices together very thoroughly and store the mixture in a cool, dry place.

Smoked Sausage Soup

Among the many reasons for admiring Julia Child are her sensible observations about the privacy of the kitchen. From her I learned that the broken cake or tart that refused to slip smoothly out of the pan will look fine and taste great once it is frosted or covered with plenty of whipped cream.

When half of something she was flipping in the skillet ended up on the range top, she simply used a spatula to scrape things back into the pan and observed, “Who’s to know?” It was Julia who taught me that things like crepes have both a public and private side.

Most of all I learned that the cook’s job is to make food that looks inviting and tastes good, not to explain exactly what goes into it. For instance, if the chef told you that the eggplant Parmesan on your plate was made with raw cow’s milk you might think twice about eating it, even though he was assuring you that he used genuine Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese in the recipe.

Perhaps this explains why there are so many secret recipes: We all have prejudices about food that can interfere with our enjoying some wonderful dishes. Take rutabagas as an example.

It is hard for me to understand how people can reach adulthood without learning to love rutabagas. That’s probably because I grew up in northern Wisconsin, prime country for raising rutabagas. Cumberland, Wisconsin, just an hour’s drive north of New Richmond, celebrates the harvest of this vegetable with a Rutabaga Festival each August. You might want to mark your calendar for the weekend of August 21st this year.

My guess is that someone who grew up in Alabama might wonder why I don’t swoon over boiled peanuts. Or why I don’t dream of rattlesnake steaks broiled over Texas mesquite when I am longing for some comfort food like Mom used to make.

My mother hated all snakes and killed them when she could. She had read the Bible and knew that snakes were her enemy. That probably explains why I don’t miss rattlesnake on a menu. The fact that rattlesnakes are not found very far north in Wisconsin might also be a factor, though I remember her shooting a large pine snake that could have fed the family for a day or two.

On the other hand, rutabagas grow like weeds up here. When my father was a boy, my grandfather planted a couple of acres of rutabagas every year. Grandma Rang cooked them for the family and Grandpa chopped them up and fed them to the cows in winter. Dad said the cows really liked them.

My mother put rutabagas in soups, mashed them with potatoes and boiled them like carrots. I don’t remember rutabaga pie, but it’s possible that she simply didn’t tell us what was in that slice on our plates.

Which brings me back to Smoked Sausage Soup and Julia Child’s admonition, “Who’s to know?” because the secret ingredient in this soup is a rutabaga.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 lb. smoked sausage
1 small rutabaga
2 medium carrots
2 medium potatoes
1/2 small onion
4 beef bouillon cubes
4 1/4 cups cold water, divided
2 tsp. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. brown gravy sauce (optional)
Parsley (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

PROCEDURE:

Peel the rutabaga and potatoes and cut them into about a three-quarter inch dice. Clean and chop the carrots into half-inch pieces. Peel and coarsely chop the onion. You should have about one and one-half cups each of rutabaga and potato and one-half to three-quarter cup each of chopped carrot and onion.

Put the vegetables into a three quart saucepan along with a quart of cold water, four beef bouillon cubes and a dash of freshly ground black pepper. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer partially covered for about twenty minutes. Cut the sausage crosswise into half inch slices and add them to the soup. While the soup is coming back to a simmer, dissolve the cornstarch in a quarter cup of cold water. Add the cornstarch to the soup and cook for three or four minutes.

If the broth looks too pale, add a few drops of brown gravy sauce at this time.

Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve the soup by itself or with a salad and sandwiches. If you wish, garnish each serving with some chopped parsley.

NOTES: This recipe makes five generous servings, but you can easily increase the recipe. One simple way is to use the whole ring of sausage, an extra cup of water and one more bouillon cube to make eight servings.

When I use thin-skinned potatoes to make this soup, I just scrub them well. If you have someone in your family who you think might object to eating rutabaga, peel the potatoes. That way, if someone asks, “What is this?” you can say, “Maybe a piece of potato?”

Who’s to know?