A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
“Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 4 1/2 – 5 hours,” instructs Julie Sahni in her recipe for buttered black beans (kali dal). Even for the most dedicated home cook, it’s an instruction that is asking for trouble, especially for something thick and viscous like Indian dal. When I made these beans in a […]
(Updated 10/26/16: new maple leaf image) Now and then, fresh fenugreek leaves appear at the farmers markets that I frequent (usually at the Vang Farms stand at Berkeley’s Saturday market). When this happens, I buy a bunch and then get some potatoes from another stand to make my version of a recipe in Julie Sahni’s […]
Another quick way I’ve been using curry leaves lately is in a dish of spiced rice and yogurt, which is sometimes called “curd rice.” The idea and basic spicing comes from Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India by Chandra Padmanabhan (one of my favorite Indian cookbooks). The steps are simple: cook some rice, add chopped […]
Super-dosa, as I’m calling it, stands outside of Komala’s vegetarian restaurant at the corner of Kitchner and Serangoon Roads in Singapore’s Little India (across the street from the Ferrar Park MRT stop). The first time I saw it was 18 months ago, when I visited Singapore for two days during an extended Asian trip. But […]
This is a short tale of how a humble, but spunky, pickle made a comeback, a bold emergence from obscurity to a prime supporting role. I’m lucky to have a big lemon tree in my backyard in Berkeley, so I have plenty of lemons with which to experiment. In January 2005–over eighteen months ago–I made […]
During a conversation with a friend a little while ago, the subjects of “noodles” and “Indian food” came up. Although we are both somewhat familiar with Indian cuisine, neither of us could think of any “classic” Indian noodle dishes on par with those of Burma, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. For these countries, a […]
The fourth part of my December Dal series focuses on cajanus cajan, a legume commonly known as toor dal, toovar, thuvar, arhar, frijol de arbol and pigeon pea (quite a few more are listed at ecoport). Toor dal is relatively large (average diameter about 8 mm) compared to other split legumes used in Indian cooking. […]
The dal of this week is the mung bean, Vigna radiata, also known as green gram and golden gram. When split and peeled, it is called moong dal; when whole it is sometimes called sabat mung. The mung bean shares a long lost ancestor with last week’s dal, the urad dal (Vigna mungo). This legume […]
Mexican cuisine has a group of foods called antojitos (“little whims”), that includes popular items such as quesadillas, taquitos, and tostadas. One of my favorites is the sope: a small disk (5-8 cm diameter, 3 mm thick) of corn-based dough (masa) with a rim around the outside to contain a spoonful of salsa and a […]
This week’s dal is whole urad dal (Vigna mungo). According to Achaya’s A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, urad dal are indigenous to India, and remnants have been found in archeological sites dating to about 1500 BC. They are small (roughly 5x4x3 mm), black in color, with a somewhat dull luster and a prominent white […]