A craving for Thai flavours. Found a pack of tofu in the fridge and one of broccoli in the freezer, a half-full jar of cashew butter that needs to be finished, and a bag of brown rice nearing its sell-by date.

IN PROGRESS

• 5 tablespoons water
• 4 tablespoons cashew butter (peanut butter would have been better, but cashew is what I had available)
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ginger, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or coconut oil
• 2 large red onions
• 5 lime leaves (from the freezer)
• 2 red chilies, halved lengthwise, deseeded and finely sliced
• 400 g firm tofu
• 1  pack frozen broccoli (300 g)

Whisk together the water, cashew butter, rice vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, ginger, and garlic. Set aside.

Drain the tofu, pat it dry and cut it into dice about 1 or 1,5 cm.

Sautée the onions, chilies and lime leaves in the oil.

Add the tofu and sautée on all sides, turning

gently.

In a separate pan, add the cashew butter sauce and broccoli, and cook gently for a couple of minutes.

Add the onion/tofu and cook for an additional 2 minutes, mixing gently.

Remove the mixture from the heat, garnish with basil or coriander. Serve on brown rice.

Gluten free, vegetarian, easily vegan if you want.

If you are going to be out all day, perhaps even outdoors most of the time, do yourself a favour and prepare this in the morning.

The flavours will develop when left to meld for a while, and it will feel like a real treat to come home and basically just have to reheat this:

I expect to have plenty left for tomorrow and for the freezer.

• 400 g urad dal (any type – I am using whole black here
• 1 large knob of ginger root, finely chopped, or better still, grated or shredded in a mini processor
• 1 teaspoon turmeric (I usually use a bit more – it does not yield a whole lot of flavour, but a beautiful colour, and it is supposedly good for the old joints, especially if used together with black pepper, hence:
• A hefty dose of freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tsp cayenne or Kashmiri red pepper, to taste
• 2 tblsp olive or coconut oil (or ghee, but then it is of course no longer vegan)
• 20 cloves garlic, very finely chopped, or better still, grated or shredded in a mini processor
• 2 tins tomatoes
• 2 to 4 tsp garam masala
• At this point 4 tblsp yoghurt (I always have goat yoghurt available, but that is probably just me)
• 2 tblsp fenugreek seeds (kasoori methi), crushed
• 2 tsp sugar (optional, but adds a bit more depth)
• 4 tblsp coconut oil (or vegan butter if you have that available)
• Salt to taste
• Chopped cilantro to garnish

Place the dal, ginger, red pepper and turmeric in a pot, cover with water by about five cm, and cook until the dal is very tender, about 45 minutes in this case, checking that the dal is always amply covered in water. If you want a creamy dal, blend half the cooked dal into a smooth puree, or use an immersion blender now or later till you have the texture you want.

Heat the oil or ghee. Add the garlic and stir for about a minute, then add the tomato puree, still stirring, for a minute or two. At this point, I will add some yoghurt for the texture (I always have goat yoghurt available, but perhaps that is just me ….) – but then of course this recipe is no longer vegan.

Add the tinned tomatoes, mash and stir and simmer until the puree darkens, about five minutes.

Add garam masala and the crushed fenugreek seeds. Mix and add this to the dal. Adjust with water or vegetable stock, and salt to taste, blend if you want to adjust the texture, and simmer over medium-low heat for ten minutes.

Before serving, stir in some coconut oil or vegan butter, and sprinkle with chopped coriander.

Photos to come but may have to wait till I have attended a food photography course early in the new year :-).

Once you have tried homemade, you will never go back to storebought.

Hot lemon pickle

• 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 1 half tsp asafoetida powder
• 3 lemons (organic and unwaxed, of course)
• 90 ml sesame oil
• 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 2 tsp red chili powder
• 3 chilies, deseeded and chopped
• A knob of fresh ginger, scraped and finely chopped
• 1 half tsp ground turmeric
• 4 tblsp salt

Dry-roast the fenugreek seeds and asafoetida for a couple of minutes and blend to a fine powder.

Boil the whole lemons completely covered in water for 15 minutes or until they soften. Reserve the cooking water. When the lemons are cool enough to handle, cut off the ends, divide in six or eight boats, then slice. Try to preserve as much of the juice that might come out of them as possible.

Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds. When they splutter, add chili powder, chopped chilies, ginger and turmeric and sautée for a couple of minutes.

Add the lemons and any juice from them, salt and fenugreek/asafoetida. Cook for a few minutes, blending well. Add a bit of cooking water if needed.

Store in an airtight container and refrigerate.

Onion chutney

• 2 tblsp oil
• 2 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 4 tsp black urid dal
• 5 chilies
• 1 half tsp asafoetida
• 3 large red onions, finely chopped
• 1 small bunch coriander leaves
• A small lump of tamarind pulp
• Salt to taste

Sauté seasoning in one tblsp oil, and the onions separately in the other tblsp oil until light golden.

Blitz both in a blender or food processor. Add coriander leaves, tamarind pulp and salt and blend to a paste.

….. no literally, or rather: amazon prime and coffee and cake, followed by dinner.

Early in 2020, I made a mental note to go and see Persischstunden with, among others, Lars Eidinger, as soon as it hit the cinemas, and then Corona put a stop to that. I have since talked about the film several times with friends, and finally discovered that I can stream it on amazon, so a couple of friends are coming over today to watch it together.

This is a good occasion to start with coffee and cake, so I decided to try my hand at this baileys and white chocolate cheese cake. I always find that a full-size cheese-cake looks quite gross and unappetizing and the cheesy layer a bit too thick, so I increased the ingredients for for the base a little, and distributed everything in two 20 cm spring forms instead of one 23 cm. I baked them for 40 minutes, and since there will only be the three of us, I am freezing one of them.

After the film, I am cooking this old faithful: lamb shanks with dates and pumpkin, served with baked mashed potato. Yummy autumn food.

On another note, here is a photo I took with my smartphone during a morning walk on Tempelhofer Feld earlier this week:

For my inner carnivore and to shake the anger and frustration outlined under 24 June in My Corona Diary III below.

From the freezer, I took a piece of pulled pork delivered from Don Carne.

I boiled a bag of kidney beans which had already been soaking in lots of water since early this morning. I always have some kind of boiled “legume” available to throw into casseroles, curries and salads.

Needing to throw a lot of spices around, I roasted a heaped tblsp of cumin seeds and a heaped tblsp of coriander seeds and ground them together with a tblsp black pepper.

I sauteed four large red onions, coarsely chopped, and ten large cloves of garlic and a large know of ginger, finely chopped. When starting to brown, I added the ground spices, two sticks cinnamon, about ten cloves, two tblsp chili flakes and three star anise, and sauteed a bit more.

I added quite a bit of yoghurt (goat is what I always have available) and almost a whole tube of tomato paste (to make up for the second tin of tomato which I discovered I had forgotten to buy). Sauteed, added a heaped tsp turmeric and two tsp salt, stirred well and then added one tin of tomato and a tin of coconut milk.

When simmering properly, I added the meat and simmered for about half an hour, turning it a couple of times.

I then switched everything off and took Max for a walk to Landwehrkanal where we sat for a while to calm down, which today I probably needed as much as he did. He seems to like quietly observing the world go by, cheeks smooth, ears up and out the way we like them to be, and sniffing the air and not the ground.

Back home, I took the meat out of the pot, slowly reheated the sauce, now with the kidney beans added, while shredding the meat which I then put back in the pot to gently reheat it all.