by 80 Proof
First thing Gansie asked to see in BS’s Brooklyn apartment this past weekend?
The Spice Rack.
Menu
Spicy
by BS
We here at ES headquarters are pretty obsessed with spices. Put any one of us in front of even an average supermarket dried spices aisle, and don’t expect to get out of there anytime soon. On one particularly productive workday, gansie compiled an excel spreadsheet listing every spice she owned. She forwarded me the document and asked me to review and advise in case she had missed anything. I think I remember the phrase “I only have four sea salts listed and I know I have more than that.”
My point is, we have problems. But my other point is, spices are frickin amazing. You just sprinkle this magic little dust on your food, and it is instantly spicy, savory, salty, sweet, or some beautiful combination of all of the above. It almost feels like cheating.
While searching for the perfect spice to redden up my dahl, I happened upon a quirky little package of ume-shiso sprinkle, described on the bag as how:
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by BS
Photo: 80p, clearly.
Spicy lentil dahl is the overlooked stepchild of any fancy Indian dinner, often lost between the savory samosas and the heat-packing curries. Poor, lonely dahl is even overshadowed by its own dipping vehicle, the wonderfully crisp naan.
But dahl, (also spelled daal, dal or dhal) is quite delicious in its own right, and I recently got to thinking it can’t be too hard to cook at home. Now, as you all know, I’m not really one for careful, planned-out testing of recipes. Usually I just take something tried and true, crush some pine nuts on top, throw in a weird fruit, and proclaim myself a genius. But for my dahl experimentation, I decided to go all Cooks Illustrated on ya’ll and try this baby until I got it perfect.
My online research revealed a wide range of recipes, but general agreement on the basics. Red lentils are the best, and they are boiled up with water, onions, garlic and spices, then covered and steamed just like rice. This epicurious recipe is a pretty typical example.
The main controversy comes over how to break up the lentils. Some say to soak them overnight beforehand; others insist the dahl must be blended in a food processor afterwards. I tried both and found them equally effective. (Obv. the blending is less time consuming.) Although if you prefer your dahl thick and chunky rather than sleek and smooth, neither method is necessary. Pictures of both creamy and chunky varieties coming up…
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by gansie
Editors Note: Okay, so I can be pretty judgmental. For example, when women either (a) don’t have their nails painted, (b) have chipped nail polish or (c) only paint their toe nails in the summer, I immediately think less of them. Now of course, some of my best friends are negligent polishers, but that doesn’t mean I forgive them for being an absentee nail painter. See my point? I’m ridiculous.
When I first met Maidelitala all I knew was that she was a vegetarian and didn’t eat cheese (but, the cheese is no fault of her own – she’s a self-IDed “lactard.”) With the no meat, no cheese thing I thought I would have nothing to talk to her about. But, as I very soon learned, she loves to cook and makes really amazing veggie, cheese-less food. So as a part of my own learning process – learning to accept non-carnivores—here is Maidelitala. Oh, and she’s also a very exciting dancer. But that’s another story.
Since I was a wee tyke, one of my very favorite things to eat in the world has been a perfectly cooked plate of fresh broccoli (not raw, not overcooked.) Thus you must imagine my abject horror at Bush the Senior‘s shameful show of disdain for the cute little green trees and my chortles of delight when the Broccoli Farmers of America dumped a wheel barrel of the herbaceous crop on the White House lawn back in the day. Ahhh those were the days, when wheel barrel rolling terrorist farmers could get close enough to the White House to play practical jokes on the mouthy geezer who called himself Commander-in-Chief of this outfit…
Anyway, one of my very, very favorite ways to cook this veg-edible is Taiwanese style with sliced, slow cooked bean curd (a variation on a recipe taught to me by a not so dear roommate – not that she was bad… she was just a really, really loud talker and kept all sorts of pig products in every orifice of the fridge, which was super offensive to my veggie sensibilities. Regardless.)
Even if bean curd is something you really would rather avoid eating (it wasn’t so long ago that the word bean curd made me think of regurgitated legumes,) I promise this is a delicious, simple dish and the broccoli alone is worth making. Believe me, I’ve been a veg-head since I was 10 – I know what I’m talking about.
Read on for this special veggie edition of ES
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