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 […]
In recent days, a generous friend served as a “forager” for the blog, obtaining some leaves from a Mexicola avocado tree, one of the varieties that has a distinct fragrance, as my previous post on avocado leaves explained. Since I had first seen the leaves used to flavor black beans — and had just purchased […]
Adding ginger, cinnamon and cloves to certain cookie doughs or cake batter can create culinary magic, as anyone who has tasted a good gingersnap knows. Combinations of spices can also do good things for savory dishes, which a simple bean and cheese dish from Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean illustrates. Wolfert’s book, […]
One of the challenges — and joys — of shopping at the farmers market is that it can shake up your plans: you might be a week too early or a week too late for a certain product, or the farmer might not have harvested it that week. And so, flexibility is needed. For last […]
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 […]