Bad Home Cooking

Rustic home-style whole-wheat cakes (or when pancakes go terribly, terribly wrong)

I can do pancakes from scratch. Usually.

They've become a Sunday morning tradition here. The pancake page from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, stained and wrinkled with use, is now permanently taped up on my cupboard. And because I grew up on processed crap and am hell-bent on my children having some good memories of their mother in the kitchen, I refuse to use Bisquick or some other pancake mix. Nope, I'm a purist. It's all flour, eggs, milk and butter for me, (and gently warmed maple syrup) or it's nothing at all.

I thought I had my game down on this one. My kids even duke it out for the test pancake.

So I can't rightly say what happened yesterday. I have theories, though.

• I used wheat flour instead of white flour. Only a passing thought to better health; I actually bought this because it was all they had left at TJ's.

• I stirred the batter perhaps longer than I should have, which I understand is a no-no when it comes to pancakes. Something about the gluten bonding with vigorous stirring and ruining your chance for light and fluffy cakes?

• Probably should have used a bit more milk, too.

Tragically, I knew even before glopping the thick batter out into $10 Target fry pan that my pancakes were not going to be all they could be. Not even what they should be. But I couldn't stop now, with hungry kids expecting breakfast.

Even as they fried up thick and brown and very un-pancake like, I fought back the urge to apologize. Maybe if I didn't say anything, they wouldn't notice.

They noticed. "How did you manage making them gooey on the inside and crunchy on the outside?" asked the girl who had slept over that night.

I was feeling pretty bad. Pretty sucky. E.J. came over to pick up his kid and I had to admit to him that no, his daughter, under my care, had not yet been served anything edible that morning. I told him of the pancake debacle.

"How'd they taste?" he asked.

"Not bad," I shrugged. "They just didn't remotely resemble pancakes. Too thick and..oat-cake like."

"Maybe the problem is the name. Maybe you should just say you made thick oat-cakes and call it a success."

"huh...." I hadn't thought of this tactic.

"In fact, you should call them something like, 'rustic home-style whole-wheat cakes.' And you made those perfectly, right?" 

E.J., no surprise, works in advertising.

And so that's what I did, dear readers. My rustic home-style whole-wheat cakes (cooked slightly longer under slightly lower heat to eliminate the gooey middle) were enjoyed by all. A happy childhood memory, for at least three children.

I was still too embarrassed to let E.J. try one.

Hubris me

I told you so.

A few weeks ago I tried to make this delicious artichoke frittata from a recipe mailed to me in the old-fashioned manner by my friend Elfini. The last time I made it I created not so much a frittata as a scramble, but it still tasted good, and smelled even better. Second time's a charm, I thought, and with all the ingredients miraculously on hand, I set out to whip it together one evening.

But the second time wasn't a charm, and for reasons I can't articulate I made such a mess of things I ruined my old non-stick pan beyond repair. You can imagine what the actual frittata/slop looked like. I didn't even bother trying to clean the thing. Into the trash bag it went.

This proved all the nudge I needed to go ahead and buy that $100 All-Clad fry pan. Not only would I be buying a quality piece of cooking equipment, one that would serve me well for decades to come, but I would also be doing my part to stimulate the economy. There was no downside to this splurge, I told myself. I ordered it online the next day.

I was underwhelmed when I received the actual pan. It was bigger than I expected (you'd think I'd have a better mental picture of what 12-inches is. Then again, dimensions have never been my strong suit.) It also was lighter than I expected a $100 pan to be. All in all, it looked downright ordinary. No matter, I told myself. It would redeem its worth many times over.

The first thing I did was fry up some tortillas for my kids' quesadilla dinner. You can fit a whole tortilla in that sucker. It did this job with aplomb. It also presented several grease stains that proved quite hard to wash off. Stains on my new pan. It was like noticing the first dent in your brand new BMW. I felt sorta sick to my stomach.

I avoided the fancy new pan for another week. Several times I went to make an omelet and, remembering how I'd spurned my trusty old pan in lieu of this trophy usurper, decided to make something else entirely.

Then last Saturday the Drama Tween and her girlfriend who'd spent the night came to me wanting pancakes for breakfast. It was 8 a.m. and I was lolling about, enjoying a delicious lie-in like the slattern I am. I was all too quick to say yes when they said they wanted to make the pancakes themselves. She's made them before. And my drowsy mind was pleased at giving my daughter another opportunity to practice cooking for herself. I fell back asleep.

When I woke half and hour later I washed my face and noticed my son in his room playing Nintendo. "You haven't had a pancake yet?" I asked him. He scowled and made a face. "They're too busy being silly down there." Uh oh.

The smoke was already wafting up the stairs.

The front room was hazy with the kind of smoke that comes from burning food. I arrived in the kitchen and stared not at the flour all over the floor, nor at the 13 bowls and plates in various stages of use set around the counter and table. Not even the broken eggs and opened milk on the countertop gave me pause. No, all I could see then was my $132 All-Clad 12-inch stainless steel fry pan, smoking like a hot spring on my stove, bits of batter burning black to its sides.

I made a noise that doesn't often occur in nature. I can't describe it other to say that my up-until-then jubilant daughter suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights.

"My pan," I whispered.

My daughter cringed, looking at me with huge green eyes. "I'm sorry...?"

I turned off the burner and stared at the pan silently. Was it too hot to put under cold water immediately? Or by waiting would I merely bake in the damage? I truly didn't know. So I stood there and looked at it while my girl got more and more upset.

"Mom! I'm sorry...Talk to me! MOM?"

I knew then that I am the sort who was never meant for high-end crockery. I realized I was being punished for my hubris, for being rash and tossing out what worked in my household for that which is shiny and new...and not adaptable.

The girl was about to start crying so I hugged her hard. "It's not your fault," I said. "You didn't know it wasn't non-stick and I should have supervised a little."

She brightened a little. "Well and I had a little trouble with the measurements, too," she said, holding up a tablespoon she thought was a teaspoon. "The batter didn't turn out like it was supposed to."

Sigh. So much like me already. "Well you'll never learn if you don't burn a pan now and then," I told her. We cleaned up together then went out to the local diner for pancakes. The next day I bought a $10 non-stick pan at Target.

As for Ms. Fancy Pan, I put serious elbow grease into getting the burned grease and batter stains out of it. And although it doesn't look new and shiny anymore, true to promise, it's a pan that's hard to kill. Maybe it will fit in just fine here after all.

I'm not using it again though until I have somebody to supervise me.

Queen of bland

I'm not a dull person. Ask anyone, even those who profess annoyance at me. I'm snarky, opinionated, excitable. Either relentlessly upbeat or dramatically downcast. Quirky, chirpy, zesty, pissy. You can call me many things, but you can't call me bland.

So how is it I manage to continually create meals that are flavor-free?

Last night I found and followed the recipe for vegetarian chili, favorite weeknight fare of my cousin's three kids. With black beans, bulgur, cumin, chili powder and tomatoes, it doesn't sound possible that this could be anything other than flavorful and delicious, does it?

But then I get my beefy mitts on it. And somehow, all flavor is miraculously removed. I could probably make a good living working at an institutional home for the aged, cooking healthy and exotic dishes that all taste of nothing. 

Here's the recipe, which I scribbled down from a magazine clipping on the back of a sheet of paper. I followed it almost exactly...except for a few bits I'm just now noticing in the typing it out...

Barley? Not bulgur.....hmmm.

Anyway:
Vegetarian Chili

2 tsp canola oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped red pepper
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 (4.5 ounce) can chopped green chilies
2/3 cup uncooked quick-cooking barley
1/4 c up water
1 can (15-ounce) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 ounce) no-salt diced tomatoes
1 can (14.5-ounces) veggie broth
3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
6 tbsp sour cream
6 lime wedges
18 tortilla chips

Heat oil in a dutch over over medium heat. Add the onions and red peppers and saute for 3 minutes. Add the chili powder and next few ingredients thru the bulgur-which-is-supposed-to-be-barley.

Here's where I think I didn't write something down right.

Add the water? Bring to a boil? And then I guess you add the beans, tomatoes and veggie broth? Simmer for 20 minutes, then stir in cilantro.

Serve with sour cream, lime wedges and tortilla chips. I didn't do any of that.

Now two notes that may have contributed to a lack of flavor but which can't account for the complete absence of flavor: I didn't use the green chilies because I know that would kill off any chance of my kids trying this dish. And I used crap supermarket chili powder in a jar instead of the Indian chili powder I didn't know I had in my pantry.

Yeah, and that little mix-up with the bulgur/barley. I still liked the texture just fine. If only it tasted like something.

Contrary to what I expected, the Drama Tween took one bite and handed the bowl back to me. "Not," she said.

"Not what?"

"Not good." She left the room. Later she had a box of Cheese-Its for dinner.

The boy, however, ate half a bowl. I thought the appearance would throw him for sure. But apparently 8-year-olds like flavorless slop.

I ate a bowl, greatly annoyed by the non-flavor. Especially when I'd over-salted the hell out of a simple bowl of pasta just a few nights before.

I'm going to try this one again, but with a whole lot more cumin. Maybe some coriander and tumeric thrown in there...and the Indian chili powder. I don't know about the barley. Maybe the bulgar soaked up all the flavor and barley wouldn't? How would I know this?

So there you go. Call me anything. Call me a bad home cook, even. Just don't call me if you want anything tasty. Although there are a few Cheese-Its still around.

I can't find my kitchen...

This is the kind of month it's been:

I returned from a visit to New England with recipes in hand. My cousin's amazing white bread, which my son has taken to calling "that bread," which is, according to him, "crunchy on the outside and soft and warm and good-smelling on the inside."

I can't find the recipe.

I was going to make her incredible Newport-style home-made granola.

I can't find the recipe.

Her kids' favorite quick week-night meal, vegetarian chili?

Can't find the recipe.

All I have for you is a cautionary tale about "seasoning expertly," in which I attempted an ad hoc pasta dish using butter and fresh thyme...and killed it with half a handful too much sea salt.

I don't even have a photo to show you.

But bear with me. Between crazy crazy crazy work and travel and more work and then falling victim to my kids' terrible flu, I can be forgiven for being just a little more disorganized than usual. I am digging out from under. A real post is in the making.

I promise. Now wish me luck in finding my camera...

Pesto...Chango!

I didn't even know what pesto was until I was at least 25. I doubt my mother knows what pesto is to this day. That's the kind of kitchen I was brought up in: processed food from start to finish.

But I am trying to make up for lost time. Eventually I will learn how to dice an onion neatly. One day I will know how to make an aioli sauce that won't burn through people's stomachs. And some day soon I will figure out how to make my own pesto.

But probably not today.

Last week my cooking coach, Kelli, arrived at my door with her two children and a basket of freshly-picked basil from her garden. "I'm just showing up at people's houses asking if they can use any of this," she grinned, sounding like the green fairy. She shoved three great handfuls of green and purple basil at me. "Here," she said. "Make some fresh pesto."

My kitchen filled with earthy pungeance. "Pesto. So you grind this us with pine nuts and some kind of cheese and olive oil, right?" The best cooks I knew made their own pesto. It was a sign of savvy. A proof of skill. I had never even considered attempting it myself.

"Actually I make it without cheese or pine nuts, and it comes out just as good," she said. "Just make a paste out of six garlic cloves, add a little oil, then pack your food processor tight with the basil and chop it up."

"It's that easy?"

"It's that easy."

I wasted no time. I fished out the blender I hoped would substitute for a food processor and washed and chopped the basil as best I could. I peeled six cloves of garlic and threw them in with a dollop of olive oil. By happy coincidence they blended into a paste. Feeling optimistic, I then packed the rest of the basil leaves into the blender.

Nothing. What was ground and pasty on the bottom stayed on the bottom. What was leafy and grean (or purple) stayed on top, un-pureed. Typical. I couldn't bear to throw away all that fresh basil. Clearly I would need a plan B.

I had just thrown out my old mini food processor a few days before, in a fit of home organization, because it was found to have been cracked. Again, typical.

So I scraped everything out into a big Tupperware container and put it in the fridge, resolved to just buy myself another mini food processor later that day. Two days later, my kids fobbed off on Audge for three hours, I got my chance and ran to Target, only to find they didn't have the brand I wanted.

By the time I came home with the appropriate mini processor, the garlic paste had congealed around the leaves, so I tried tossing the whole mess together, like a salad, to spread it about. Maybe I should add more garlic, I wondered? But then the pesto might be too garlicky, and you know how squeamish I am about seasonings

Instead I stuffed the processor full of leaves, locked the lid and hoped for the best. I pressed the button and poured a little olive oil into the top because I'd seen people do this before. Presto! Chango!

Grainy green glop. And a kitchen that looked as if a bush had exploded within.

Dolloped over pasta for dinner later, it didn't taste like much, other than green. The girl didn't care for it. The boy wouldn't touch it. Again, I was left to consume my dish on principal.

OK. So pesto isn't that easy. There's a reason it's a showcase for skills. When I get those skills, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, I'm prepared to try again and repeat as necessary until I get it right. I think this will be my next cooking class. Kelli? Got any more basil?

The picture tells the story, don't it?

Back in the day, a friend in high school watched me make a mess of a simple skirt I was trying to make for the Renaissance Faire, and summed me up thusly: "For such a creative person, you're really bad at a lot of things, aren't you?"

I was. And I remain so. This applies to cooking. To gardening. Relationships, time management, car maintenance, project follow-through, hair care, personal finance, arts and crafts and photography.

I mention the latter because the ability to take a decent photo is a skill every food blogger should have.

Up until this weekend, I told myself that the food bloggers who are known for their photography, such as Deb at Smitten Kitchen, were enjoying the best part of the food blogging pie. Deb's blog is her showcase for her mad mad photog skills (there are times when licking the computer screen seem appropriate) and her extraordinary talents in the kitchen. She has fans in the thousands, and deservedly so.

I'm no photographer, and I can't really cook, but I can write about the disasters that befall me, and that, in my humble opinion, was my own little sliver of the pie, although admittedly the part that would otherwise end up in the trash.

But this weekend that changed. And I believe I'm going to have to do something about taking a better photo.

I had written about vegetable couscous for Slashfood, as part of its Memorial Day Weekend package. You remember, the Sure Thing? The delicious and lovely concoction that will make you a hit at any potluck you attend? Trouble is, I didn't have a photo, and when I went and pulled somebody else's photo off the internets I was told no. I got busy with other things until Saturday, when I remembered I was supposed to fix the post with another photo.

With no time to wrap my head around Creative Commons rules or rummage through Flickr, I thought the easiest remedy would be to make the dish myself, and take a picture.

I made the dish with no problem. But then it came time to photograph, and you can see what I came up with. A new low, indeed.
 







Not one of probably 30 shots came out decently enough to use. I had to skulk back to the internets and find an approximation that was OK'd for public use.

I think it's time I put a little thought into my future as a food blogger. Maybe it's time to get another, more able camera. (When and if I do, Jen at Oishi Eats has the perfect camera bag for me...purse whore that I am) Or barring that, perhaps I should tap friends who shoot, like Elfini, for example, for some tips on how best to capture my creations in pixels. After all, if I'm offering up mediocrity, the least I can do is make it look good.

Would you love me then?

Cod cakes redux: A lot of work for bland

In as much as I have an "audience" for this blog, a lot of you have asked me with a sort of knowing wink and conspiratorial nudge, whether I don't embellish my culinary screw ups for the sake of fodder.

To this I say, come over and let me cook you a meal. You will be underwhelmed at best, and at worst, forced to accompany me to the corner Panda Garden and pay for half the Kung Pao chicken take-out.

In other words. I still suck. I don't make any of this up.

Take Friday night, for example. I got it into my head to try my hand at cod cakes again. The flamenco guitarist told me the right way to do it, the Andalucian way, was to make them without potato. That was the way his father had done it. I took the bait.

I found the right kind of cod, the sort they sell in a little wooden box at a big price  I bought good olives and the fixings for a salad. Since I was at the fancy store, I bought a $6 loaf of bread with walnuts and cranberries. Through it all, I was imagining a delicious and simple tapas meal; a lovely way to kick off the weekend. When I came home, I searched the internet for a recipe that didn't include potato. I came up with one from the Food Network's Emeril Live show. I came up with a few others, including one in a Spanish cookbook. Every recipe offered a slightly different way of cooking the cod, so I decided to wing it.

Let's cut right to the chase, shall we?

First, I over-soaked the cod.

Generally, one must soak salt cod in water for at least 24 hours (preferably 36) changing the water a number of times, or else the fish is simply too salty to eat.

Because I stopped paying attention around Valentine's Day, I soaked my cod for almost three days. I didn't think it could hurt. But I realized my gaffe after I'd cooked the stuff and found it almost entirely tasteless. I'd say like cardboard, except that I imagine cardboard has better flavor. Perhaps it's not my fault. Perhaps I'd purchased inferior cod. I am too inexperienced in this realm to say.

Perhaps. But I bet you've never met someone who soaked all the salt out of the salt cod. Now you have.

The experiment went downhill from there. I didn't have the right kind of parsley. I played fast and loose with this recipe, which I'm not even going to detail here, which was easy enough except that I'd already cooked the cod, per another recipe. Then my blender wouldn't blend the ingredients correctly for some maddening reason that I chalked up to growing negative energy. (I realized after the fact that it's missing a piece). The "dough" didn't seem right, but I pressed it into little tablespoon-sized balls and dredged what I had in heavily seasoned flour, hoping to add some flavor back in. I heated the better part of a new bottle of olive oil in a heavy saucepan.

The result: Cod turds hardly worth the effort of chewing.

Tony had arrived after sitting in traffic for two hours. L.A. traffic is a lousy appetizer, and nobody was in a good mood anymore. My kitchen was wrecked. There was very little wine. And now this.

Don't look so glum, Tony said after trying one of the miserable nuggets. These taste pretty good, considering how bad your last try at cod cakes turned out.

The final insult. He'd ranted over how good those were at the time, since at least they had the flavor and texture of potato covering my mistakes. These wretched little mistakes were greatly inferior, and I knew it and he knew it, but he was not prepared to cop. All I could do was smile weakly and accept the platitude. At least there was salad and bread and olives to supplement. Maybe now was the time to chug the last of the two-buck Chuck.

The weekend ultimately improved, although the remaining cod turds did not, even after resting in the refrigerator overnight.

I've resolved to do any further experimentation in secret. And when I can bring it up to edible, I'll unleash my efforts on those brave enough to try. In the meantime, I'm not cooking anything but pasta for the household. Everyone involved should be greatly relieved. 

Soup Swap: The procrastinator

Has this ever happened to you?

Get in your car to go to the store to buy ingredients for a dinner party of sorts, at your house, the next day. Realize you forgot your ingredient list. Decide you can wing it at the store.

Go to Trader Joe's, buy the ingredients you need for a certain soup you're going to try again.

Get home. Deal with kids. Find the list and realize you didn't buy several key ingredients.

Drive to Ralphs. Buy more ingredients, but fail to find several items, such as fresh oregano and bay leaves. Note the price of eggs.

Drive back to Trader Joe's to buy cheaper, better eggs. And they'll probably have the herbs you need, too.

Find that Trader Joe's doesn't have the herbs. And there are only two checkers open, and you're in a hurry, and hell, you can come back and buy the eggs tomorrow.

Return home. Open a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and decide to try recipe anyway.

Realize you do not have enough red lentils
.
That means you will have to go to Little India tomorrow, to buy more red lentils. Maybe they will have bay leaves. Probably not oregano, though.

After a glass of wine, decide to start a test batch of soup, with half the ingredients, just to get an idea of what it might taste like. The Soup Swap you've been planning for is tomorrow, and you really meant to start this soup before now. After all, 11 women, including several current and former PTA members and local pillars of the community will be in attendance.

Realize, after you start washing the lentils, that not only do you not have several key herbs, you don't have any vegetable stock, either.

Realize with a certain sinking feeling, that Trader Joe's is now closed, and you can't bear driving back to Ralph's or Von's.

Remember the Aunt Vere's Slush you promised various pillars of the community. Realize you don't have several key ingredients for that, either.

Curse yourself bitterly. Decide the best course of action is to drink more wine and deal with it all tomorrow. Remember that Kelli told you it was OK if you don't have a soup to swap because, after all, you're lending your house for the cause.

Soup swap is TODAY! Stay tuned.

The wrong spot

Synopsized from the film, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," (1981).

Indiana Jones and his Egyptian archeologist friend Sallah meet up with an old Arab man who will read inscriptions on their medallion, which will presumably tell them where the Ark of the Covenant lies buried. The Nazis, who are also looking for the Ark, have their own version of the medal.

OLD MAN: (running his finger around the medallion) This is a warning...not to disturb the Ark of the Covenant.

INDY: Just what I need...How' bout the height of the staff? Did Belloq get it off of there?

OLD MAN: Yes. It is here.  (we see his crooked finger reading the inscription along the bottom.) It says it is...ten jamirs high.

SALLAH: About 75-inches.

OLD MAN: Wait! I am not finished....(he turns the medallion over and continues to read:) ...And one jamir to honor the Hebrew God, whose Ark this is.

Indy and Sallah look at each other.

INDY: Belloq's staff is seven and a half-inches short...They're digging in the wrong spot!

If you're of a certain age, you know where the picture goes from here. I recreate this scene here, however, because it is a terribly apt analogy for what went wrong with a simple Alfredo sauce the other day.

It's all about reading the directions wrong. Or, put another way, it's about digging in the wrong spot.

Alfredo sauce is one of those basics any decent cook can whip up, given the proper ingredients in the fridge (and why else would you keep heavy cream on hand?). Indeed, even though it's a stretch to call yourself a decent cook, you yourself made it a few months back, to surprisingly lovely results.

Alas, the second attempt, made a few weeks ago, was not so successful. So spectacularly unsuccessful that one friend will laugh at you and make the comparison to the above-mentioned cinematic scene.

Here's what happened:

Because it was midnight and you were more than halfway through a bottle of wine, having yet another bitter disagreement with the handsome and passionate but often vexing man in your life, you probably weren't in the best frame of mind for assembling ingredients. Of any kind.

But he requested and you agreed, to make the Alfredo sauce. You lugged out Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and eventually found the pages you were seeking. The recipes for pasta with butter, sage and Parmesan and its variation, fettuccine Alfredo sit on pages 140 and 141 respectively.

You stared down at the open book for several blurry moments, and decided that the recipe for Fettuccine Alfredo, which starts...reduce the butter to two tablespoons...was a literal variation on the recipe for pasta with butter, sage and Parmesan on the other page, which calls for six tablespoons, or 3/4 stick of, butter.

So because you were drunk and upset, you dropped in a whole stick of butter. And you concluded that the words...reduce the butter to two tablespoons really meant, reduce the butter, as in, cook down, until your stick of butter is reduced to two tablespoons.

You never paused to consider whether this was actually possible in the physical world.

You managed to find your saffron, added two eggs and 1/2 cup heavy cream and one cup of grated Parmesan. You lost all track of how long you'd been cooking the butter, yet you continued drinking and yelling. Eventually you dumped all of the above into the boiling butter reduction and stirred vigorously.

You came up with something that looked like...well...like something you might find in a tomb that has been sealed for 2,000 years. You only dimly realized this was not edible, so you threw some Parmesan cheese over your grossly overcooked pasta and fed that to the guitarist sitting at your table. Then you staggered upstairs to pass out.

In the morning, you ventured back down to your kitchen to regard the horror of your own concoction. Two Advils and a cup of coffee later, you reflected on what it means to not follow instructions. And you considered why you continue to dig in the wrong spot.

Update: I really do fancy archeology. And the flamenco guitarist apparently, is not afraid to die. So I'm gonna dig in and make Fettuccine Alfredo again tonight. But with iced tea libation instead.  It's gotta turn out OK tonight, wouldn't you think?

Hello Dal-y

My day job involves writing and editing about business. On Tuesday the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point, far more than the quarter point cut Wall Street and other financial pundits were expecting.

I know you don't care. But I get sucked in. It's a byproduct of the gig.

I also want you to know that a newly lowered interest rate has no effect at all on my ability to cook.

To wit: Last night I took it into my head to make a nice chana dal, using lentils I bought in Little India over the weekend (I also bought some bindi. And some burfi. Say the latter with a little roll of the tongue when you get to the middle of the word. Now, try channeling Homer Simpson: "Mmmmm. Burfi....")

Back in the day, when I lived in New York City and worked long into the night, I would run out at dinnertime and get me a big tub of chana dal from the Indian take-out place down the street. Oh, those chickpeas in a masala sauce, dumped over a bowl of saffron bashmati rice, oh, how they sustained me.

I have never been able to replicate that taste, of course. But that has never stopped me from trying, repeatedly, over the years.

This chana dal was not from chickpeas, but small yellow lentils. The recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking says that of all the dals, this one has perhaps the "meatiest" taste, and that at its best, it also has a gentle sweetness. Given my level of ability, I couldn't hope for any sweetness, but I figured I could go for meaty.

Here's the recipe, (Indian Cooking, page 127)

1 1/2 cups chana dal (you really can only find these in Indian stores. Otherwise, yellow lentils will do, but they will break down differently.

5 cups water

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

2 thin slices of un-peeled ginger (whoops, I peeled them. No matter.)

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp garam masala

3 tbspns ghee or veggie oil

1/2 tsp. whole cumin seeds

1 or 2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4-1/2 tsp red chili powder

Wash the dal and pick through it until the water runs clear. Put it and 5 cups of water into a heavy pot and bring to a boil.  Remove any surface scum with a small sieve. Add the ginger and turmeric and cover, leaving the lid just slightly ajar, and boil gently for a little more than an hour or until the dal is tender.

Stir every five minutes or so during the last half hour of cooking to prevent sticking. The water will cook/absorb away. Remove the ginger slices. Add the salt and the garam masala.Stir to mix.

Heat the ghee or veggie oil in a small frying pan. When hot, put in the cumin seeds. A few seconds later, throw in the garlic. Stir and fry until the garlic pieces are lightly browned - just a moment, really. Put the chili powder in and immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour the contents into the pot with the dal. Stir.

Serve over bashmati rice.

Meaty? If you like your meat on the dryish, chalky side, sure. Probably through my inattention, too much liquid was boiled off/absorbed, and my chana dal was pretty dry. I might add a cup more water next time, just because I prefer my dal on the soupy side.  Also, I accidentally dumped half a teaspoon of garam masala into the mix when the recipe calls for a fourth of a teaspoon. So my chana dal was kinda spicy, too. 

But it was edible. And as faithful readers of this blog know, that is a benchmark I am only too happy to reach, when I can. The kids were asleep in any case, and there was no one to feed but myself. I even finished up the leftovers the next day.

Perhaps I'll try this again when the Fed next cut the rate, sometime in October, they're saying. Unless the greenback is completely worthless by then in which case maybe I'll relocate to an ashram and learn how to make dal from the masters.