Tamarind Rice and Okra Masala

Well, the holidays are here once again, which means that opportunities to overeat abound.  Since I just bought a pair of skinny jeans the other day (my first-ever time shopping at Old Navy), I'm going to do my best to restrict any holiday excesses in my kitchen to the big day (T minus 11 and counting) and to making stuff for the various parties we've been invited to.  Thankfully, my pantry is always well-stocked for making Indian food that's tasty, filling AND won't stop me from wearing the new jeans when we go out for New Year's.

Lately I've also been loading up on pantry items because I needed a break from all the cooking and juicing I'd been doing in order to keep the veggies in the fridge from spoiling.  With the exception of a bag of celery that Steve bought on sale last week, I soon found myself with an overabundance of dry goods that needed to be addressed.  One of my go-to recipes in this situation is the tamarind rice recipe from Healthy South Indian Cooking (p. 138).  Since I had a bag of cut okra in the freezer, I decided to make the okra masala from the same cookbook (p. 253) as a side dish and substitute a couple of celery stalks for the diced onion since it was the only fresh veggie in the fridge yesterday.  I made a few more tweaks with both recipes, but they're still pretty close to the originals.

Word to the wise: not for the first time with the tamarind rice, I followed the directions about soaking the split peas and then adding them to the hot pan uncooked, and (like before) I wished I hadn't.  Have you ever made six-bean soup from dried beans and some of the thicker beans didn't cook all the way through?  The result I get with the split peas is a little like that.  Not so undercooked as to render you flatulent for the rest of the day, but just a little too chewy.  I have to make a note about that in the book and just use some chopped nuts instead the next time.

As always with Indian recipes, any ingredients you've never heard of can be found at your neighborhood Indian grocery store.  Some ingredients you have heard of can also be bought there for less, like big bags of turmeric for two bucks.  If you haven't already been, check 'em out!


Tamarind Rice:
1 cup brown rice
1/3 cup yellow split peas
1 tbsp tamarind paste
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup canola oil
8-10 curry leaves
3 dried red chili peppers
1/2 tsp asofoetida powder
1-2 tsp black mustard seeds
1-2 tsp urad dal
3/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chutney powder

Cook one cup brown rice in two cups of salted water, covered with a tight-fitting lid, until all liquid has been absorbed, about 30-40 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool at least 15 minutes.  (If using white rice, use 1.5 cups of water per cup of rice.  It's also better to make it several hours or one day ahead so it can dry out and not get mushy during the cooking process described below.)

Soak yellow split peas in 1 cup of water for one hour.

Blend tamarind paste, salt and 1/4 cup of warm water in a small bowl and set aside.

In a large saucepan or wok, heat oil over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, add the curry leaves, red chilies, asofoetida, mustard seeds and urad dal.  Cover and cook until mustard seeds pop and urad dal is golden brown.  (If the pan is hot enough when adding these ingredients, these items will cook fast.  Watch the urad dal and dried chilies in particular to make sure they don't burn.)

Drain the water from the split peas and stir them into the saucepan, stir-fry for one minute, then add the tamarind mixture and stir well.

Add the turmeric and chutney powder and stir for one minute.  Add the rice and stir until all ingredients are combined.


Okra Masala:
2 tbsp canola oil
1/4 tsp asofoetida powder
1 tsp black mustard seeds
2 tsp urad dal
1/2 cup chopped onion (this is where I substituted celery)
2 cups frozen (or fresh, if you have it ) cut okra
1/2 tsp cayenne or to taste
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1 tsp salt or to taste

Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat.  When oil is hot, add asoefoetida, mustard seeds and urad dal.  When the mustard seeds pop and urad dal is golden brown, add the celery and stir-fry for 3 minutes.

Add the okra and spices and stir-fry for another 5 minutes.  Add the tomato sauce and salt (if needed; some tomato sauces are saltier than others), reduce heat, cover and simmer until okra and celery are tender, another 5-7 minutes.

Back in the kitchen

...after nearly a month of not blogging and hardly cooking.  It's not that I didn't cook at all, but on the rare occasions that I did, I simply replayed favorites like the sweet potato spinach praram and pasta salad or just made a plain Greek-style spinach and feta salad.  The rest of the time, when I wasn't up for making anything, it was either frozen dinners or chips and hummus.  Clinicals are over, and I've had a little more time to cook this week.  That's a good thing, because I'm back to having a lot to work with and not a lot of time before it goes bad. 

Bring on the Indian (-style) food.

Yesterday I dispensed with a couple of carrots and a big bunch of cilantro by making something like chickpea soondal but with carrots and cilantro and no coconut.  Easy peasy.  I was afraid that the big bunch of cilantro I had would be too much for two chopped carrots and one can of chickpeas, but it actually came together really well and the leftovers were just as good in today's lunch.  I cooked up just enough brown rice to mix with both of the generous helpings I got from it.

Tonight I made palak tofu.  The inspiration was actually a frozen dinner that Steve buys sometimes called Mattar Tofu.  It's a vegan version of mattar paneer that uses tofu instead of the cheese.  Well, I just happened to have an unopened bag of spinach and half a block of tofu leftover from the last time I made the praram, so I made the palak tofu using those ingredients plus a few seasonings I always have on hand:

3 tablespoons canola oil
3 dried red chilies, torn into pieces
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon ginger paste
9 ounces fresh spinach
1 onion
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon Madras curry powder (medium hot?)
8 ounces extra firm tofu, pressed and sliced into 1-inch squares

Heat the oil over medium-low heat, add the next three ingredients and saute until fragrant (just a few minutes). 

Meanwhile, puree the spinach and onion in a blender or food processor until smooth.  Add to the ginger-garlic mixture in the pan.  Add salt, curry powder and tofu, stir well, cover and cook until onion flavor no longer overwhelms the dish, about 15 minutes.  (Avoid the temptation to over-salt it before it's done; the onion flavor will cook out.)

Serve over rice.

Lemon rice with cucumber and tomato salad

Still had a bunch of stuff in the fridge after making the lentil soup the other night, so Indian seemed like the easiest way to use it up.  I nearly went with Greek again but figured I should make something different for variety.  Both of these recipes are in Healthy South Indian Cooking by Vaivaran and Marquardt, but I had to make some adjustments to their recipes based on what I had (e.g. no cilantro).  It went about like this:




Lemon rice:
2 cups water
1/2 cup dry yellow split peas
1 cup water
2/3 cup jasmine rice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp canola oil
4-6 curry leaves
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp chutney powder

Bring two cups of water to a boil.  Add yellow split peas, stir, cover and simmer on medium heat until tender, about 20-25 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

Next, bring 1 cup of water to a boil in a separate pot and add rice.  Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook on medium-low heat for 12-15 minutes or until all water has been absorbed.  Fluff with fork and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, salt and turmeric and set aside.

A few minutes before the yellow split peas finish cooking, heat oil in another small pot over medium heat.  As soon as it is heated, add curry leaves, mustard seeds and urad dal.  Cover loosely and cook until mustard seeds begin to pop and urad dal turns brown. 

Add the drained yellow split peas to the aromatics, stir well and cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Add the lemon juice mixture and chutney powder and stir well.  Add the rice, stir and remove from heat.
***

After making the lemon juice mixture and sticking that in the fridge, I still had a few minutes of down time from the rice, during which I made the accompaniment.






Cucumber and tomato salad:
Half of one large tomato, diced
Half of one large cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper
1 green onion, chopped

Combine all ingredients except the green onion in a mixing bowl.  When ready to serve, garnish with chopped green onion.

I served Steve with the items side-by-side and stacked mine.  As far as I can tell, it turned out well both ways.  And Steve was pretty hungry by the time it hit the table, so I didn't have to package a ton of leftovers.  This was pretty much how I ate all summer in 2006, when I started training for my first half- and full marathon.  Would that I could be so skinny again!  Well, hopefully I'll be upping my weekly mileage pretty soon to get ready for a spring half, which should help.  And I plan to keep eating healthy at least until Thanksgiving arrives.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty hungry now...Hungry enough to eat a deep-fried Snickers bar, which I've never done before...maybe this year I'll make it to the State Fair?