Category: Food

We tend to leave our favorite South Asian treats as just that — treats. Daily consumption of deep fried samosas and pakoras, unlimited corn cutlets, naan, puris and other scrumptious, spicy, savory chaat (snacks) would go straight to belly and bum, so we’ve been avoiding Indian food and other restaurants, including the ubiquitous “takeaway” — quite a feat in the UK — and mostly eating at home. Avoiding the deep fried South Asian foods, though, doesn’t meant that we eschew those tasty flavors altogether. Oh, no, not us. Not ‘The Bean People,’ who have that twenty-five pound sack of pintos in the corner. No, we can’t do without our dal.

It was somewhat tricky to find dal at first — in the UK they are called by the old-fashioned named ‘pulses,’ and though that is indeed what they are, we looked for dal or lentils under the heading of ‘beans’ and were directed to …hundreds of the canned variety. After we got that sorted, we were mostly absorbed in the task of selecting which variety to purchase.

Lentils or lenticchie as the Italians refer to them, or the varieties known as dal are — amazing. Lentils first came to the U.S. in 1916, through the efforts of a Russian German minister, who brought them from his homeland and planted them in Farmington, Washington (This according to the United States Dry Pea & Lentil Council [and who knew we had one of those?!]), and planted a single acre of them. They were eagerly purchased by farmers who were Seventh-day Adventists — a religious denomination which is largely vegetarian, so of course they were in the market for sources of protein. (Did you know there were vegetarians that long ago?)

So, there’s our introduction to this humble food which has, in 100 grams, as much protein as 134 g. of beef – without the cholesterol or saturated fat. Of dry beans, the lentil is second only to the soybean in protein content. One cup of boiled brown lentils provides 38 mg. calcium, 356 mg. phosphorus, 72 mg. magnesium, 360 mcg folic acid (90% RDA!), 6.6 mg. iron, 731 mg. potassium, and a full 10 grams dietary fiber. (Dal are skinned and thus lower in fiber than other varieties. )

Considering that peoples of Near East, European, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean lands have all used lentils to enrich their diet, we know there must be some truly tasty recipes out there (just think of poor Esau!), and the idea that it was called “the poor man’s meat” in the 19th century just shows you what they knew. Dal is good stuff!

Incidentally, dal (or dhaal = dhal = dhall = daal= same thing) is the term for lentils which have been skinned or split. They cook in only fifteen to twenty minutes, and tend not to keep their shape. Brown, black and green lentils apparently work well in salads, since they don’t fall apart. For non-skinned lentils, soak for an hour, then cook for 12 to 15 minutes. The basic rule of thumb á la St. Julia (Child) is 1 cup dry lentils (or 6 ounces) makes 3 cups cooked; cook uncovered in 4 cups of water for best results.

The nicest thing about lentils is that there are myriad varieties. Don’t like traditional brown lentils? Fine. Try red or pink. Yellow. Or the green French ones. Or black. They’re plentiful and common and they’re as quick cooking as a pot of rice to go with them.

We bring about three cups of water and a cup of split red lentils to a boil for twenty minutes along with one chopped onion, and a cup of diced carrots as well as 1 tsp. turmeric powder, curry powder, ginger, and 2 tsp. cumin, along with red pepper flakes to taste. We sometimes add 1/2 c. of coconut cream to give it a bit of fat (because lentils do need a tiny bit of fat to taste their best. You may want to add a teaspoon of olive oil.).

Another variation is to add chopped tomatoes, green chilies, chili powder and a 1/2 tsp. of mustard seeds to brown lentils, as tomatoes and cumin work well together too. Please note that salt is not added; even using dal with no skin to toughen it’s not a good habit to get into adding salt to beans!

Simply serve your dal with rice or naan or couscous or pita bread… and enjoy.

How do you like your lentils?

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There’s nothing for bronchitis like Thai bird chilies.

Seriously. Lung-crud doesn’t stand a chance against those searing spices. Loading a bowl with some of this tasty, spicy soup will cure what ails ya — or else. It’s comfort food, a simple bean soup, loaded with onions and smoky spices and then cooled off with bits of rice, bread, or cottage cheese. Spicy beans are definitely a taste of California, a Latin American echo of home.

Pinto beans aren’t as easy to find in Glasgow, since this is the land of kidney and butter beans — and when our first guest cheerfully brought us a twenty-five pound bag we knew we had to showcase them — and justify the weight of his luggage! This month’s No Croutons Required challenge is to make a spicy soup, and pinto beans make a perfect base for that.

Creating a bean soup means cooking dry beans, and that’s a process in and of itself. Many people aren’t clear on how to do that, and prefer to use canned, which is a shame, because cooking beans from dry is easy. Simply sort them — first so that you’ve found all the bits of dirt and small stones, and then for broken or cracked beans which have lost their skin and will make them taste stale. Then rinse them in running water to clean away any dust and soak them in boiling water for at least two hours, covered. If you’ve washed them first, there’s no need to drain the water. You can begin to cook them right away. We use a crock pot, but you can simply follow directions and simmer them on the stove.

We add two medium onions or one large one, four to five cloves of garlic, and six Thai bird chilies. Yes, six. If you’re less into spicy, certainly adjust accordingly. You may, for instance, choose to add only three chilies and a tablespoon of chipotle powder, which is also tasty. Please also note that no salt has been added. Never add salt until the beans are cooked; the skin will toughen and the flavor will suffer, because salt pulls moisture out of the beans and into the water.

This is the ideal stew to make right when you’ve made a batch of beans, as it takes advantage of the extra liquid that tends to be left over. Once you have a pot of cooked, flavored but unsalted beans, you can get creative. For our Sopa de Frijoles Picantes we add:

• 10 white mushrooms, sliced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 Quorn burger patties, or equivalent veggie burger patty, sliced thinly (should be strong on the protein, not one of those that’s big on grains, or else it’ll fall apart)
• 2 cups spicy beans, heavy on the juice
• 3 Tbsp white flour
• 3 Tbsp olive oil

1. Sautee mushrooms & onions until tender.
2. Add sliced burger for a brief sautee.
3. Move everything to the sides of the frying pan.
4. Add flour and oil to center of frying pan, to make a roux.
5. Let roux cook until slightly changed in color – not a dark roux, but not a white one, either.
6. Add beans, mix everything around, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Kidney or black beans can be successfully substituted into this soup — just add a tablespoon of olive oil to recreate the creaminess of pintos. We served our soup in sourdough bread bowls — deliciously tender with coconut milk and shreds of tart apple, which make it a good bread for savory or sweet toppings. Apples might seem a surprising ingredient for sourdough bread, but without cinnamon or raisins, they can still be a neutral enough ingredient to offset a deeply sour dough. This bread was perfect with the spicy bean soup and creamy Port Salut cheese, and will also go nicely with a fruity honey or jam as well. The coconut milk was just an experimental ingredient that worked out beautifully. Yum. Spicy, sinus-searing soup, and tender, flavorful bread. Wish you were here…?

Pictured here is a complete version of this hat, and the beginnings of a freehand version of the same. The first one had to be finished up in silk, as all of the nubbly cotton yarn had run out – yes, this hat takes quite a bit of yarn. It is a nicely shaped hat, though, so we decided that we needed another – and one that’s knitted from the top down, rather than the bottom up, so that we can try it on for size along the way and there won’t be the risk of it being anything but snug. True, it’s not as cool as soup … but it’s what we’re up to whilst recuperating!

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So, this month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was to make French Bread a la Julia Child. Well, we love us some Julia here at Wish I Were Baking – so we followed the recipe … mostly. We did include a bit of whole wheat flour, rather than simply making plain old white bread. Yes, we know, that’s a break with the rules … but we also know that we’ve got to eat the stuff, so we figured we could include a bit of whole-wheat flour without departing from the spirit of the thing. So. Voila! French Bread, a la Julia Child.

Do check out the rest of the people who’ve actually followed the recipe at Daring Bakers Blogroll. We’ve a house guest, so we’re traveling all over the country this week, and could barely scrape together the brain cells to realize that it’s time to do the Daring Baker thing. I’m sure that the rest of the DB’s have done a better job of writing this thing up, so go visit them!

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Finally! After weeks of saying “Sure, we’re going,” but being daunted by the wind/rain/sleet/hail/dark of night, we finally had SUN, and thus made our way to Matthew’s Foods, which turns out to be only a little over a mile away from our flat, and it takes up four storefronts (yet NONE of the cab drivers or anyone we talked to knew where it was. Go figure). We didn’t know, or we’d have been there way before today! (It’s near some steam-spewing distilleries and the dire neighborhood of Possil Park, however, a neighborhood we’ve seen on TV shows about bad areas of Glasgow, so we’ll be going there in the MORNINGS, and moving through the area quickly!) It was SO NICE to go into an Asian Market and see familiar foods — limes, taro root, all manner of greens and Chinese pancakes for mu-shu. And the tofu — oh, the rows and rows of tofu of all firmness and silkiness, in blocks and tubes. (Yes, we got followed around the store by a grim looking Chinese man after we took pictures of it, but oh well! I’m sure they think we’re just some other weird foreigners…)

An exciting discovery in the tofu aisle made us stop dead: Glasgow has a tofu factory. The lovely, FRESH tofu was priced out to be £2.88 / kg instead of the £5.52 / kg we have found at Tesco or Asda (a curse be upon their name). So, we bought tofu … and can we say how wonderful it is? It’s not the hybridized “firm silken” stuff, found in the Blue Dragon cartons, nor is it the super “firm” we’ve gotten from Calderon Foods, it’s … well, the right tofu! Fresh, medium firm, non-GMO, made locally and far less expensive!? … Altogether it’s good stuff!

No field trip is complete without purchases of foods you don’t really need but want anyway. Not the “eggplants” (see why Americans call them that now? I know – here they’re aubergines, but there IS a reason for the name!), nor the pickled squid nor the massive taro roots nor the heads of wheat — or some sort of herb — or the slabs of rock sugar made it into our basket (we might have picked up the squid for a picture but it looked scary). We splurged instead on hunks of coconut dried in sugar, dried bean curd sheets, hot and spicy seaweed and delicious mae ploy sauce. Those are the flavors of many a quick stir-fry of the past. (And, no, we didn’t buy any Thai Betel nut … but we thought of some friends at home, who’ve lived in Thailand, so had to take the picture. We doubt you can buy Betel nut in the US, as it is a mild narcotic, and repeated use rots the teeth to black stubs. Lovely!)

It was funny to find bowls that match a Chinese bowl we have here that friends picked up in Japantown in San Francisco ages ago. Which just goes to tell you that you can find a little corner of Asia anywhere in the world. Thank GOODNESS. We hadn’t realized how much we’d missed it.

As you can see, we had a marvelous lunch!

Okay, here’s a quick thought for our UK readers: what’s a brand of jam that you know of that isn’t too sweet? We usually enjoy St. Dalfour, but tried to find a local product and purchased Mackay’s ginger and rhubarb jam — and wow is that stuff sweet! What do the rest of you buy when you don’t have the fresh berries and all to make your own jams?

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