I’ve moved a lot. 9 places in 7 years, last I counted. Over 30 roommates. With the good comes the bad. In one I only had a mini fridge but in another I had a gas stove…until I got asked to leave because the landlord wanted to move back in with his psychologically troubled girlfriend and clearly that apartment was step one on the road to recovery. I’ve lucked out with access to food processors and kitchen aid blenders, but also been limited to stove-top dining and plumbing problems. Living room? Who needs that when you can stuff in an extra roommate to save rent? Mice? Don’t worry, they’re friendly. Drunken frat boys bursting into your room at 3am on a weekly basis because you’re not allowed to have a lock (“the staircase is behind the other door”).
So when I moved recently, I went about my tried and true method of settling in – cooking. Once you establish your level of comfort in the kitchen the house starts to feel like a home. And comfort for me isn’t stew or pasta, or even soup. It’s dal. Indian lentils spiced with no fewer than 4 delicious, aromatic things. I misplaced my mortar and pestle and there’s no blender or coffee grinder around, but dal is adaptable. It’s warm, and easy and since I travel with my spices the recipes often only require me to have a few items on hand – dried goods, things that I don’t need to go out and buy after a long day or unpacking when all you want to do is sit down to a warm meal and not think about when you’ll be moving next and how much you’re not looking forward to it.
So I made dal, and that usually means I look to my Indian cooking guru Madhur Jaffrey’s appropriately-named latest best-seller. Because I am “at home” with her, and I was “at home” myself. Not in a house, a home. There’s a difference. One is where you sleep. The other is where you live. This is a recipe book for living. And this food is my life’s comfort.
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But I wanted something in the same vein but new for a new place. No going in circles. I’m very destination-focused. I’ve already worked my way through a good few of the lentil (dal) recipes in the book, so I turned back to culinary explorers Duguid and Alford and their book “Mangoes and Curry Leaves” and found a southern dal sambhar with fenugreek and tamarind that usually accompanies dosa or uttapham or idlis, but works just fine on its own. A little more work to soak and sieve the tamarind, but worth it.
Sambhar With or Without Drumsticks
Ingredients:
1/2 cup toovar dal (or toor dal. This is essentially what makes it sambhar, but you could use split yellow peas if you absolutely had to), washed until the water is clear, and drained, black bits removed
6 cups water
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp tamarind pulp (soak the tamarind in 1 cup boiling water for 30 minutes. Mix with a spoon when you add the water to access as much of the tamarind flesh as possible. Then after 30 minutes press it through a sieve with the back of the spoon and scrape the pulp from the bottom of the sieve into a bowl or container. If it’s too watery just use a little more than 2 tbsp in the recipe. Too watery means it’s like a juice, not a pulp. Freeze any extra)
Optional 1/2 lb eggplant, cut into two-inch pieces (the original recipe calls for Asian drumsticks which are a long, green, slender vegetable that you eat by sucking out the tender flesh on the inside. They’re only available at special Asian grocery stores, and I didn’t go looking. I also skipped the eggplant, in fact…)
1 tbsp raw sesame oil or vegetable oil (that’s what I love about this book – a lot of the recipes call for sesame oil, not canola or other junk. Sesame has a lot of flavour that we usually think of with Chinese or Japanese cuisine, but works very well with Indian)
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
pinch of asafoetida powder (this smells kind of like onion and garlic together, but it’s so good for digestion that even if you think it smells repugnant, don’t skip it. It comes in a shiny clump that you grate finely, or in powder form. I prefer the clump version so you can grate it fresh)
5 dried red chilies, stemmed and seeds removed (be careful if you’re a wimp. I decided to experiment with some smoky dried chilies I had instead of the small red ones. It wasn’t bad. Good for a change. There are so many different kinds of chili peppers it’d be a shame to not try out something different from time to time)
15-20 fresh or frozen curry leaves (didn’t have fresh or frozen, so I used dried. Not as good, I guess, and it probably made the dish more bitter and less delicious, but next time…)
1 1/2 tsp salt (seems like a lot, but you need it)
1 cup spinach leaves (optional)
1 cup leftover potatoes, chopped into 1″ or 2″ pieces (optional)
Directions:
Measure everything in advance. Definitely make the tamarind pulp in advance.
Bring the washed dal to a boil with only 4 cups of the water and the turmeric. The turmeric is what makes the lentils more digestible so please, please don’t skip it unless you think your digestive system needs a workout and you’re ready to be uncomfortable for awhile.
Reduce heat and simmer, partilally covered, stirring from time to time for 1 hour or until the dal is tender.
Use an immersion blender (or transfer in batches to a blender or food processor) to blend partially. The recipe says use a whisk or a potato masher but that doesn’t do anything. Just makes another utensil to clean. You can also just leave the dal as is.
Heat the sesame oil on medium-high heat in a large pot. When hot, add the mustard seeds, fenugreek and asafoetida. Count to 30 and lower the heat to medium. You want to mustard seeds to start popping before you lower the heat, so make sure they’re completely coated in oil and not too crowded.
Now add the red chilies, curry leaves and salt and cook and stir for 1 minute.
Add the 2 tbsp tamarind pulp and 2 last cups of water. Bring to a boil and add the optional eggplant pieces and simmer for 20 minutes. If you skip the eggplant just add the tamarind and no water. Then add the mashed dal and up to 1 cup of water to reach your prefered dal consistency. Soupy is okay if you’re serving on rice. Thicker is better if you’re serving with flatbreads. I chopped up and added some leftover potatoes to make it a bit heftier and more like a stew. No rice needed.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes to combine the flavours. Add the psinach 2 minutes before serving to soften but retain flavour and nutrients.
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