Indian Pumpkin Split Pea Stew

Happy September! It's the last day of healthy vegetarian cooking! It's been quite the adventure this past month, walking staight past the meat case, playing with all kinds of edible plants and legumes. It's working pretty well on the diet front, I am weighing in at 132.9 as of this morning, which means I reached the goal of 132.2 to133.2 that I set for myself at the begining of the month. I hope to keep going, though maybe at a slower pace, until I get back down to the wedding weight of 129. I have carefully gone through the archives of this blog and more clearly tagged the low cal recipes as Diet, and the Vegetarian recipes, so that they are easier for you, my wonderful readers, to find if you are looking for such recipe ideas in the future.

I have a very exact cookbook wish list. Very exact, and a little expensive. They range from the Ad Hoc at Home to out of print stuff, from the newest most in-fashion food to the forgotten vintage recipes. Every once in awhile I do sweeps of NY bookstore The Strand to see if I can pick up one of these cheap, and recently I made two big scores.

Ever since Julia Child became the one to democratize French cooking and bring it to the states, people like to figure out who is the "Julia Child" of other sections of cooking, which usually means "wrote the best and most complete cookbook on the subject." I've been hunting for the cookbooks of two such women, Marcella Hazzan, otherwise known as the Julia Child of Italian cooking, and Julie Sahni, the Julia Child of Indian cooking. The comparisons do not hold up that well, as Julia Child was an American who learned to cook French and brought it back with her, these women actually represent the cultures they are teaching you about. They are, however, the women with the most complete cookbooks, and that meant I wanted them.(Funny side note, this isn't just a cooking thing. I recently took an exercise class with the "Indian Jane Fonda". Good class! A lot of dancing.)

The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking I will have to tell you about later, I haven't cooked from it yet. August was, after all, the month of healthy vegetarian cooking, and I kept drooling over the meat sauces. There probably were some healthy recipes in there, but I kept flipping straight to roasts and heavy cream and lots of butter. Don't worry, these recipes are coming. While I have been searching for Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking for quite awhile, that was not the book I stumbled across this past month. Her follow up, Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking stared back at me from the Strand's shelf. I was reading it by the time I was on the subway.

I haven't played much with Indian cuisine since last year's attempt at Chicken Tikka, but now that I own the spices, I notice them cropping up in more and more recipes. Full on Indian cooking might not be hugely popular, but its influence is being found everywhere. Food Network even finally found itself a chef who knows what curry is, though it took them a competition show to do it (Congrats to Aarti Sequeira by the way!) Digging through the book, there were certainly recipes that felt like they would be a bit challenging, or too spicy for my somewhat weak pallate. Finally I stumbled across a recipe that would be more mild, and perfect for a certain Fall fruit now tumbling out of my farmer's market. Pumpkin and Split Peas with Camphor Basil. Will gave me a dubious look as we walked home. "You are going to cook a pumpkin?"

It's true, my previous pumpkin cooking has all been:
A. Using canned pumpkin, and
B. Dessert

And my last gourd chopping experience went badly. Like me staring at a butternut with a knife jutting out of it after a long struggle and wanting to chuck the whole thing in the trash and order Chinese kinda badly. That was the night of the Butternut Squash Lasagna of last October. Things have changed a bit since then though. For one, Will and I are much better with knifes. For another, I am much better with planning. As my beloved friend Stef was going to be in town on Monday night (an Indian food addict if I ever saw one) I made a very wise decision, I chopped the pumpkin on Sunday night. This was not nearly the warfare I had experienced with the butternut. Will split the thing down the center for me, as I tend to have a bit less muscle. I was going to attack it with a peeler, but cutting the skin off with very shallow knife cuts was a much more efficient and less maddening process. Then I scooped it out (reserving the seeds for toasting) and diced down into 1 inch pieces, which I stored in Ziploc containers in my fridge. The whole process probably only took 20 minutes, and that was 20 minutes I didn't have to spend while cooking the next day.

Unfortunately, despite a trip to our local Patel Brother's grocery, I could not locate Camphor Basil. It is a more bitter basil that's not easily found in the states, which Ms. Sahni recognizes by offering a substitution of Sweet Basil and Star Anise. I did not have Star Anise, but I did have Anise seeds on hand, so I worked with that. The results were still delicious, so I stand by my alteration.

Pumpkin and Split Peas with Basil
Adapted Slightly from Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking

Ingredients:

- 1/3 teaspoon anise seeds
- 1 cup yellow split peas
- Pinch turmeric
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 small yellow onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 cups of water
- 2 pounds pumpkin (you can substitute butternut squash if needed) cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup water

For the spice-perfumed ghee
- 5 tablespoon ghee (if you can not get this in your area, Alton Brown has a recipe for it here)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 2 tablespoons shredded fresh ginger
- 2-4 hot green chilies, finely diced
- 1/3 cup packed fresh basil, then take the leaves and cut into 1/4 inch wide shreds

Directions:
Put the split peas, turmeric, bay leaves, onion and anise seeds in a deep pot with 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat, partially covered, for 20 minutes.


Add the pumpkin pieces along with 1 cup water, sugar, and salt and bring to a boil again. Lower the heat and continue cooking, covered, for 20 more minutes. Turn off heat. Transfer to a serving dish or individual bowls.

Measure out all the seasonings for the spice-perfumed butter and put them right next to the stove. Heat the ghee in a small frying pan over high heat. When it is hot, add the cumin seeds. When the cumin turns dark brown (about 15 to 20 seconds), add the finger and chilies. Reduce the heat to low and let the herbs sizzle for 30 seconds. Add the basil and let the mixture fry for 30 seconds.

Pour all of it over the pumpkin-split pea mixture. Mix with a fork just once or twice to streak it with the spice-perfumed butter. Serve immediately.

OK, so ghee, if you didn't know, is basically clarified butter. And that's a good bit of butter. Therefore, this might not be the healthiest of all of my recipes this month. But it was yummy. Stef ate 2 bowls kinda yummy. The serving suggestion Julie Sahni makes in the book is to pair this stew with an Indian bread, she suggests a Kale Bread that is in another part of the book, but as this was a weeknight meal I wasn't about to bake some bread too but that's the luxury of living in Little India. I popped some frozen Garlic Naan in the toaster oven and presto, side dish.

This dish was a bit on the heavy side especially as it was 90 degrees out, but with fall ready to kick down our door I can see this being a repeat recipe on a chilly fall day. It will be a nice vegetarian distraction, because right now I'm jonesing to get my hands on some meat. I want to roast it, saute it, stick it in a pasta sauce, I am ready to resume my carnivorous kitchen. Just as soon as the temperature drops out of the 90's so I can turn my oven on. Come on Fall, I'm waiting...

Destination India

I am bad at considering cooking ethnic cooking for dinner. When planning a weekly menu, it just never enters my consciousness as a possibility. And when I do crave it, I live in NY, so I can get some of the best take out around, made by people who actually know what they are doing. This is never more true then in my own neighborhood of Jackson Heights, a Mecca of Indian food. Tandori, curry, naan, all of it a dial away. One of my favorite dishes is either Chicken Tikka Masala, or Chicken Tikka Makhanwala, two similar dishes of chicken in a creamy spicy sauce that you can find either one or the other at many Indian Restaurants. The neighborhood's Zagat standby, the most celebrated of the many places around, is Jackson Diner, who has a pretty kick ass Makhanwala. The problem, though, is that the dish runs $12.95, and once you order naan and whatever else tempts you, it can be a pricey take out night, and they only take cash. It was time, I decided, to learn to make my own. I located a recipe for Chicken Tikka, and started searching for all the spices my cabinet did not hold.

The preeminent place in the neighborhood to shop for all of your Indian staples is the Patel Brothers market, a chain of Indian food stores I haven't set foot in for over two years. When we first moved here it was the first grocery store we saw, and we went to buy milk and basic staples for the apartment.

It was a bit of a culture shock for two naive suburbanites, as strange vegetables, boxes in characters we could not read, and languages being bandied about that we could not speak swirled around us. It's not that we're anti-other cultures, just the opposite, we find it really cool most of the time. It's just all a lot to take in when you're just trying to locate a box of Coco Puffs. We soon discovered the other more conventional groceries in the neighborhood and Patel became part of the background of the walk to the subway.


As I decided to tackle my own Indian cooking, I knew it was time to venture back into the market. It was not nearly as insane as I remembered, but perhaps I've just gotten used to the fact that every New York store comes with a level of insanity. As I perused a wall of seeds and spices, another couple of "Non-Indians" walked past. "Oh don't get that, we can get that in our own neighborhood. Check this out," I overheard in their conversation. I was a bit ashamed. Here other people are journeying out to Jackson Heights just to come to this store, and I've lived here for two years and have avoided the place. I am a disgrace to the word "foodie."



Patel Brothers is damn cool through. Huge bags of rice, spices, and snack food fill the aisles. As I was looking through the frozen food, I was stopped dead in my tracks. Mixed within the Indian labels was a package of frozen naan, posed next to the Pillsbury Doughboy. You don't get that at a Super Fresh. It had to go home with me. I just couldn't see a way around it.



The spices I got were amazing, if for no other reason then they came with their own little spoons. Where an American product would have had plastered all over it's packaging "There's a Spoon Inside!" these spices had absolutely nothing advertising their special bonus feature. It wasn't until I opened them and noticed something sticking out that I had any idea that I got a special spice spoon in each container. I may have squealed with glee. That might have happened.

The recipe I had was just for Chicken Tikka, and most of the reviewers seemed to feel a purchased Masala sauce was better then trying to make one, as their attempts to make one had not ended well. I decided one Indian challenge was enough for one night, and bought a spice mix that mixed with yogurt and water. Then I just spooned it over the finished product, and it worked perfectly. I may make my own masala sauce one day, but damned if that mix wasn't convenient. I was expecting a powder, but it was a moist baggie of spice, liquid, and deliciousness.

Chicken Tikka

Adapted (barely) From Gourmet Magazine

Ingredients:

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted
1 cups whole-milk yogurt
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (3/4-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil plus additional for greasing pan
1 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3/4 teaspoons salt
3/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon garam masala (Indian spice mixture)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
2 1/2 pounds skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes

Equipment: 12" wooden or bamboo skewers.

Directions:

Purée all ingredients except chicken in a blender until spices are well ground.

Put chicken in a large bowl, or in a large sealable plastic bag, and add yogurt mixture, stirring or turning to coat. Marinate chicken, covered and chilled (turning occasionally if using bags), at least 4 hours.

If using wooden skewers soak skewers in water 30 minutes. While skewers are soaking, bring chicken to room temperature.

Preheat broiler and brush a broiler pan lightly with oil.

Divide chicken among skewers (about 5 cubes per skewer), leaving an 1/8-inch space between cubes, and arrange about 5 skewers across pan. Broil chicken about 4 inches from heat, turning over once, until browned in spots and just cooked through, 9 to 12 minutes total.

Transfer cooked skewers to a large platter and, if desired, cover loosely with foil to keep warm. Broil remaining chicken in same manner. Remove chicken from skewers.

If making Chicken Tikka Masala, add masala sauce and toss. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I served mine over rice and to the side of the Pillsbury naan, which was really spicy but crispy. It tasted similar to the take out, which considering I've had what is supposed to be some of the best Indian food this side of the Atlantic, I think I did pretty well. Economically, I'm pretty happy as well. I bought the chicken for about $7, and spent about $6 for all of my spices. This brings me about even with one order at Jackson Diner, and now I have lots of spice leftover for next time. Jackson Diner does have a $10 buffet lunch, which allows one to try all manor of Indian food. Possibly this is where I will find my next Punjab cooking challenge...