1 vanilla pod, halved and seeds scraped out, or vanilla bean paste 1 tsp
150g white chocolate, finely chopped
STEWED RHUBARB
400g rhubarb, cut into 2cm pieces
50g caster sugar
1 lemon, juiced
Method
STEP 1Soak the gelatine in a bowl of ice-cold water for 10 minutes until very soft. Meanwhile, put the cream, milk, sugar, vanilla pod and seeds into a pan along with a pinch of salt, and bring to a gentle simmer.
STEP 2Once simmering, take off the heat (remove the vanilla pod, if using), add the chocolate, then stir to melt. Drain the gelatine in a fine sieve, then squeeze out as much water as possible. Add the gelatine to the cream mixture and mix really well. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a jug. Leave for 5-10 minutes until thickened slightly, then mix really well and divide evenly between six pudding basins or moulds. Cover and chill for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.
STEP 3For the stewed rhubarb, put the rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice into a pan and simmer gently, stirring occasionally until the rhubarb has released some juice and is very tender but not collapsing. This can be made ahead and then chilled.
STEP 4To serve, carefully dip the bases of the moulds in hot water for 3-4 seconds to loosen the panna cottas, then invert onto plates. Reheat the rhubarb until just warm, then spoon around the panna cottas to serve.
150 g chana dal, rinsed and soaked for a couple of hours, then drained
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 medium red onions, finely chopped
Large knob of ginger, finely chopped
2 green chili, deseeded and finely chopped
10-12 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tin tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick (ceylon)
1 tsp red chili powder
1,5 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp garam masala
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander leaves for garnish
Fry cumin and mustard seeds in the oil or ghee till they crackle, then add the onions and sautee till they become translucent.
Add ginger, garlic and green chilies and sautee for about fifteen seconds.
Add tomatoes and the rest of the spices and sautee, stirring.
Add chana dal and mix well. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
Add bottle gourd, stir, simmer till the gourd softens, probably about 20 minutes. Taste for salt and sprinkle with chopped coriander leaves before serving.
This week’s food photography assigment is one cocktail, one stew and one soup.
I don’t understand the cocktail craze, at least not the sweet, sticky ones, any more than I have ever understood why grown people drink those awful softdrinks or whatever they are called – coke, fanta etc. – nor, for that matter, why children are allowed to drink them on a daily basis nowadays. All that sugar. Gross. But I’m sure big pharma is happy, especially the insulin manufacturers. Also laughing all the way to the bank is the mind-boggling diet- and weightloss industry. Absurd, in view of the fact that it is just simple maths (number of calories IN vs. number of calories OUT) – even I can figure that one out although I am innumerate (is that what it is called – the equivalent of dyslexic but with numbers?).
And soup – naahh – not in soup cooking mode – but a stew is good timing since I am preparing a venison stew for one of those rare occasions where I am actually having a couple of friends around for a meal.
4 tblsp flour
800 g venison in 2 cm cubes
olive oil
2 onions (I always use red since I find the yellow onions a bit too sweet), peeled and chopped (they do not have to be very finely chopped)
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 sticks celery, trimmed and sliced
1 tablespoon juniper berries, crushed
“Needles” from 2 sprigs rosemary, chopped
50 g butter
6 sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley
Stock
1 clove garlic , peeled and finely chopped
Mix 2 tblsp of the flour with salt and black pepper well and then mix in the venison, coating thoroughly.
Brown the meat in olive oil for a couple of minutes and add
onion, carrot, celery, juniper, rosemary and butter. Simmer covered for five minutes. Add a sprinkle of water or stock if necessary.
Remove the lid and continue to fry, stirring occasionally. When the onions start to caramelize, add the chopped parsley stems with the remaining flour and stock. Keep the parsley leaves for later.
Simmer the stew till the meat easily breaks apart. If you have been using stock cubes rather than stock, add water if necessary.
Chop and mash the galic, the parsley leaves, a tsp of salt and a good grinding of black pepper to a paste and add to the stew shortly before serving.
I am serving this with a mash of potato and celery (adding some milk, sour cream and butter).
Obviously vegetarian, and also vegan unless you use ghee instead of oil (I did use ghee in this case – nothing else can imitate the caramelly flavour of homemade ghee).
But first a word about the food photography course. I am running out of steam and will not be presenting a final project. What I had in mind is not quite doable, at least not with my current low energy levels – whatever energy I have goes towards taking care of Max and his exercise needs (and of course making sure that I myself eat relatively healthily and generally trying to make sure I don’t get sick).
Also, as described in an earlier post, food photography is not really my kind of thing. I just need to be able to post half-way decent photos of the dishes I cook, and I have learned a lot of useful tricks in the course, and I am still curious to see what the others come up with.
One thing that perhaps, perhaps not, suits everybody except me is that we are all asked what we think of everybody else’s photos. I am actually there to hear what the teacher has to say and not what the other students have to say, and I would imagine they also don’t care what I think. What do we know? If we did, we would not be doing a course.
Anyway, one final thought – I am astonished at the number of sweet stuff I see in the class cook – cookies, muffins, desserts, …. I hope it is just for the course, considering how bad sugar is for you and the negative effects that eating sugar so regularly has on physical, hormonal and mental health.
Equally astonishing has been all the talk of sourdough as if it is a novelty recently revealed. I have been using sourdough all my life, and my parents and their parents before me: https://www.hellemoller.eu/2012/09/12/rye-bread/ (but not for white bread which is not particularly healthy).
Enough about the course.
Today I am cooking a dish that should normally have chana dal in it, but I am using red split lentils since that is what I have available. I do not expect the result to be any different, except the colour.
I was dumb enough to make the dal paste too thin, so the the “balls” ended up more like flattened, very thick pancakes, and some of them fell apart, but I still really like this recipe and will definitely have another go at it in the near future – with chana dal, not that I think that that was the problem.
The lentil balls
400 gram red split lentils
Chili, to taste, in whichever way, shape or form you have available (I am using dried chili flakes here)
20 curry leaves (I used frozen here, so they look a bit soggy – the flavour remains the same, though)
2 tsp fennel seeds (Saunf)
The curry
oconut oil or olive oil or ghee
3 cinnamon sticks
12 cloves (Laung)
12 cardamom pods, slightly crushed
12 black pepper corns
4 bay leaves
4 chilies, deseeded
A small handfull dried curry leaves
2 large red onions, finely chopped
2 large knobs ginger, peeled and finely chopped
15 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
3 tblsp tomato puree (the concentrated variety, from a tube)
3 tins chopped tomatoes
1 heaped tsp teaspoon turmeric powder
2 tsp red chili powder
1 tblsp coriander powder
Salt, to taste
Fresh mint or coriander, for ganish
Rinse the dal and soak it for a couple of hours.
In the meantime, heat oil or ghee and add black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves, green chili, curry leaves, ginger, garlic and onions, and sautée.
When the onions turn golden, add the tomato puree, turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, and salt.
Add the tinned tomatoes. Bring to a boil and cook for a couple of minutes. Add water if needed and simmer on a very low heat.
Back to the dal: Grind the lentils with fennel seeds, curry leaves and chili, and water as needed, for a thick batter which can be spooned into balls.
Fry them in oil or ghee until browned and crisp.
Drop them into the curry and simmer for five to ten minutes before serving.
This was probably one of the first recipes I added to this site, in November 2012.
It is one of my all-time favourites and I cook it regularly. I therefore thought it deserved an updated post.
Can be eaten hot or cold, freshly made with rice almost as a main course, or as accompaniment to other dishes, and cold as a side dish/relish.
2.5 cm cube fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped 6 cloves garlic, peeled 50 ml water 750g aubergines Plenty of vegetable oil 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp kalonji 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tin chopped tomatoes 1 tbsp ground corianderseeds ½ tsp ground turmeric ½ tsp cayenne pepper (more, if you like) Salt
Cut the aubergines into slices or wedges that are 2 cm thick and about 4-5cm long. Salt liberally and put in a colander to drain some of their liquid, for an hour or so (this will limit the amount of oil that the aubergines will absorb later).
Blitz the giner and garlic with some water in a small food processor till a fairly smooth paste.
Pat the aubergines dry and fry the wedges in oil in batches over medium to high heat. They should turn a reddish brown before being placed in the sieve. Add fresh oil between the batches. Let drain for another hour.
Heat 3 tbsp oil in the frying pan and sizzle the fennel and cumin seeds for a few seconds. Add the tomato, the ginger-garlic paste, coriander, turmeric, cayenne and salt. Stir and cook for at least five minutes till a thick paste.
Now put in the fried aubergine slices and mix gently. Cook on a medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring very gently. Cover the pan, turn heat to very low and cook another 5-10 minutes if you think it is necessary. Spoon off any pools of oil that have collected.
Breakfast, brunch, grab-and-go lunch – whatever. These also happen to be gluten free. I do not suffer from gluten intolerance as such but I do have a feeling that my knee joints like me better when I try to eat as gluten-free as possible. My orthopedist here in Berlin confirms hearing that from many patients, although it is not scientifically proven.
They are also vegetarian, and vegan, unless you use ghee for frying, and accompany them with yoghurt.
The leek can be replaced by for example an onion and a tomato, or a bag of spinach.
100 g chickpea (aka gram or besan) flour
50 g rice flour
About 100 g leek, a mixture of white and green bit, trimmed and finely sliced
1 chili, trimmed and finely chopped
1 tsp garam masala
a big pinch ajwain (carom) seeds
a pinch hing (asafoetida)
a large pinch turmeric powder (aka haldi)
red chili powder to taste
Sal and pepper
1 tsp oil, plus oil or ghee for frying
One half dl water or as needed for the batter
Mix the two types of flour thoroughly with the dry spices.
Then add the leek, chili and olive oil and mix well.
Add water and mix till the batter has a thick but ladle-able texture and can be easily spread faily thinly on the pan.
Fry on a pan in ghee or oil, about two to three minutes on medium heat. Serve with yoghurt (I always have goat yoghurt available), perhaps in the form of a raita, and/or a pickle.
Game is both lean and sustainable and I am happy to live in a country where it can be purchased easily when it is in season and is also served seasonnaly in many restaurants. I got this meat from Tellermitte.
Spice blend:
Seeds from 14 cardamom pods
1 heaped tblsp cumin seeds
1 heaped tblsp coriander seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick (Ceylon or Sri Lanka – not cassia), broken
½-1 tblsp chilli powder
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ground cinnamon
10 cloves
Vindaloo:
2 dl apple cider vinegar
1 kg venison, cut into 2-3cm chunks
8 tbsp oil or ghee
750 g trimmed and peedled red onions , chopped not too finely
12 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
2 large thumbs of ginger, scrubbed and cut into matchsticks
2 red chillies, trimmed, deseeded and sliced
Small handful dried curry leaves (approx 30 leaves)
4 tsp salt or to taste
3 tblsp tamarind pulp
2 tblsp light brown sugar
2 tblsp mustard seeds, either black or yellow
water
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Like most dishes cooked with these spices, this is even better reheated the next day.
Dry-roast the cardamom, coriander and cumin seeds and the black peppercorns in a small pan for two minutes till fragrant.
Grind together with the cinnamon stick and combine with the chilli powder, turmeric and cloves.
Mix the meat, the spice mixture and the apple cider vinegar well and let marinade for maximum an hour.
Meanwhile, heat 4 tblsp oil or ghee and fry the onions about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, till the onions are soft, translucent and lightly caramellised.
Then add the garlic, ginger, chilies, curry leaves and salt and continue frying for five minutes.
Add the tamarind, sugar and mustard seeds, stir well and continue to simmer on very low heat.
Brown the diced venison in batches in the remaining oil and add them to the onions. Deglaze the pan with water between batches and add this as well. Add any marinade left after browning all the meat to the pan.
Add the tins of tomato. Stir well, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally and adding water if needed, till the meat is very tender.
Serve with this mix of brown rice, quinoa and lentils. Perhaps cooked with spices as follows:
Mix equal amounts of brown rice (cooked with a cinnamon stick), quinoa (cooked with turmeric and Indian bayleaves), and red lentils (cooked with ajwain seeds). Stir in a tablespoon ghee and sprinkle with chopped coriander leaves before serving.
Also this beetroot salad:
4 medium beetroots, boiled and cubed
1 tblsp olive or coconut oil
2 red onions, finely sliced
1 tblsp ginger, finely chopped
1 tsp garam masala
1 chili (optional)
1 tblsp lemon juice fresh
Sesame oil and chopped almonds for serving
Sauté onion and ginger in the oil. Stir in garam masala, stir, then stir in beetroot and chili and cook for a couple of minutes.
Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice, a sprinkle of sesame oil and sliced almonds.
I already adapted this from a five-dal recipe to a four-dal recipe, so you can of course use as many or as few different dals as you like/have available.
And yes, I definitely need a course in food photography. Am starting to look at the ones on KelbyOne. If for nothing else then for tips on how to make a dal not look like the dog’s vomit.
300 g part masoor dal, black urad dal, mung dal and chana dal
