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Beans for Breakfast – Azuki Bean, Lemon, and Coconut Bread Pudding; Red Bean Paste Cinnamon Rolls; Kale and White Bean Quiche; Conchicla Commodiana; Marrow Bean Jook

Okay, so you’re going to have to forgive me on this one – I’m trying to take pictures of my food, and photography isn’t one of my interests. However, of all the people I invited to eat my beans, I didn’t manage to invite anyone else who wanted to take pictures, either, so it was all up to me and the camera in my phone.

That said, I can cook – and cook I did. I wasn’t expecting a particularly good success rate. In fact, I did run out and buy bagels just in case everything failed – that’s how little confidence I had. This was way out of my comfort zone, and yet I ended up liking everything!

So I cook with beans regularly – why was this out of my comfort zone? Well, for one – one of the dish was a baking project, and I’m still not fully pleased with my breadmaking skills and don’t consider myself a competent baker yet. And for another – when I make beans for just me, I really enjoy cooking them to mush, but for this I wanted to much more precisely control the textures of the beans and have a wide range of firmnesses… and if I were going to be playing with it, they might all end up crunchy after 3 hours cooking and what would I do? Oh, my!

So my two main weapons for playing with texture were baking soda (basic) and citric acid (acidic). Well, okay, I had many options for acidifying, but alkalizing has fewer options.

Marx Foods is a lovely company, and so far they’re the only people to ever offer me free things to experiment with, and some of my favorite experiments have come from working with exotic samples they have given to me. This time, they gave me three kinds of beans: Marrow, Mayacoba, and Azuki.

And I made at least one dish for each bean.

Azuki beans – intrinsically sweet, source of red bean paste (on language)

my opinion – I didn’t find them all that sweet… just not so savory that sweet things wouldn’t work with them. But I did end up adding sugar to both dishes.

I separated the 700g of red beans into two sets of 350g each, and I cooked one with baking soda to make paste, and the other batch with an added 1/4 tsp of citric acid as soon as they started to soften so that I could work with whole beans. With both batches, I ended up using less than the whole quantity (noted in the recipes)

Dish 1 –
Azuki Bean, Lemon, and Coconut Bread Pudding

(dairy free)

ingredients:
1 lemon peel (after having been used for something else)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar

350g 150g azuki beans
50g coconut sugar
1/4 tsp citric acid

1 loaf challah, day old
1 cup large flake unsweetened dried coconut, loosely filled
1/2 cup golden raisins
8 10 eggs
3/4 cup coconut sugar
(2) 15oz can coconut milk

Two days before:

Take the peel of 1 lemon (organic, since you’re using the peel) and boil it in plain water. After the peel is soft and the water has a yellow tinge (the longer you boil it, the less bitter – I aim for about an hour), drain. Boil (low boil, not rolling, because this is hot sugar!) it again in equal parts sugar and water. Again, for as long as you have patience – at least half an hour. This time, when you remove the peel, reserve the syrup as well.

Put red beans on to soak. (I put them in an empty quart yogurt container, add plenty of water, and let sit about 24 hours)

The evening ahead:

Drain red beans and simmer in plenty of water until they just start to soften. Add sugar and cook for another 10 minutes. Bite a bean and see if it has a pleasing texture. When the texture is firm but not crunchy, add the citric acid. Stir. And then drain the beans.

Oil large casserole dish and tear the challah loaf into chunky pieces so that they fill the casserole dish. Add drained beans, coconut, and raisins. Slice off the pith from the lemon peel, and cut the candied peel into thin slivers – add as many of these slivers as you like, I used half a lemon’s worth.

Beat together the eggs, sugar, and coconut milk (I did this in a couple batches so that I could use a bowl with a spout – having a container that pours well is more important than efficiency here). Pour the mixture over the bread and fillings. Cover and refrigerate overnight – to make your life easier in the morning when you’re hungry, and so that it has a creamier texture because everything has longer to soak the liquids in.

The next morning:

Cook in a slow oven. (In this case, the cooking temperature and time were determined by another dish, but on it’s own I would guess that it would do well at 325F for 45minutes, but definitely check to make sure it’s cooked through)

Heat up a quarter cup of the reserved lemon syrup, and pour overtop the pudding.

Verdict:
I ended up with the beans a little harder than what I had pictured when I devised the dish, but it really worked well that way – they were almost like nuts. But my guest who abhors nuts in bread pudding (or almost anything sweet), still loved the dish. The beans and the coconut really play well together, and I’m thinking of taking the beans I ended up not using and simmer them with coconut milk to have with sweet sticky rice. I’ve adjusted the recipe also to include more liquid because mine ended up near the dry side, but I was limited by my coconut milk and didn’t want to switch to adding dairy to the amazingly dairy free bread pudding.

How original is this recipe? Let’s say it’s a 6 out of 10
I found things with similar names on some restaurant menus (Ozumo’s execution in very different; Bamboo Sushi’s is also a bread pudding and has a citrus note, but the execution is darker and it does not have coconut), but I did not find any recipes or blog posts with a similar recipe. The closest I came there was a rice pudding.


Dish 2 – Azuki Bean Paste Cinnamon Rolls
(note: dough is only slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour’s guaranteed recipe)


ingredients:
(dough)
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
198 to 255g lukewarm water
361g all-purpose flour
85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
35g vanilla sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
30g dry milk
21g oat flour
20 cardamom seeds, ground

(filling – enough for 2 batches of the dough above)
350g azuki beans, having soaked overnight
42g coconut sugar
1-2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp korintje cinnamon

2 tsp milk
oil for pans

(icing)
3oz cream cheese
1/3 cup powdered (vanilla) sugar
milk to thin for consistency

The evening ahead:

Make the dough – proof the yeast, mix everything together in a mixer with a dough hook for, “about 7 minutes at second speed, and the dough should barely clean the sides of the bowl, perhaps sticking a bit at the bottom,” put in a greased container to rise in the refrigerator overnight. (more complete directions here)

Make the paste:

Only use about an equal quantity of water to beans because you aren’t going to be pouring any off – add more as needed. Simmer. beans and water until soft.

Oh, what, they aren’t getting soft? Add 1 tsp of baking soda and stir that in. There’s no reason not to add the first teaspoon right at the beginning, but you get a fun foaming action if you wait until the beans have started to cook.

If they still take a while to soften, add up to another teaspoon of baking soda, but increase slowly.

Often with sweet things you add a pinch of salt for balance – do not do that here because baking soda has a salty taste of its own.

Once the beans are soft, add the sugar to taste. I like the coconut sugar because it’s not as sweet as regular sugar, and it has a bit of a toasty dark undertone. I was aiming for the low end of sweetness, so you might want more sugar.

Add the cinnamon. If you are using a milder cinnamon, feel free to increase the amount to taste.

Note that I don’t have any mushing directions. I found that just stirring broke down the beans to the point where there was a lumpy paste, and I liked the additional texture enough that I didn’t see a benefit to breaking it down further.

Refrigerate overnight.

That morning:

Roll out the dough to 16″ x 12″ (possibly just those dimensions because it fits well on the KAF cookie mat or because everything happens in half sheet pan measures – I was rolling it on the mat to measure). If the dough starts to resist and pull back in, cover it in plastic and come back in a few minutes to keep going.

Brush dough lightly with milk.

Spread a thin layer of the bean paste on top.

Roll dough the long way as tightly as will keep everything tight but not distort the dough too much. It will stretch some as you roll. Pinch the end to the roll to create a smooth seal (it seals especially well if you roll the seam to the bottom as you slice the cylinder).

Slice into 1″ pieces and set in your tins (I had 1 8″ round, which held 7, and 1 9″ square, which held 9). Cover and let rise for an hour.

Bake at 375F for about 20 minutes.

Whip together the cream cheese and powdered sugar, and then drizzle in the milk until it’s loose and runny. Drizzle lightly on top of the hot rolls.

Serve!

Verdict:
Wow! These came out perfect. And they were never frustrating, even though I’d been told that this sweet roll dough could be hard to work with. And I was going to put all of the credit on the King Arthur Flour recipe, but no – I have also gained skills, too! The giving up and letting the dough rest when it starts to fight back is definitely a new skill. There was no frustration rolling it out at all. And I now want to use my mixer for my bread doughs instead of all of this kneading by hand craftsmanship. Though the reason I went with mechanical help was that in the reviews and comments on the King Arthur site there were a couple people who had troubles, and the answer was almost always insufficient kneading time.

To prep for this recipe, I also checked Cooks Illustrated‘s techniques for making the dough. And while the dough wasn’t so useful there, they spent a lot of time discussing the problems of filling leaking and burning. And you know what – I think bean paste cinnamon rolls might be superior to cinnamon sugar ones. One – it stays where you put it and doesn’t leak. Two – instead of using the sugar for texture and quantity of filling as well as sweetness, you don’t have nearly as much flexibility with the sweetness level of the roll and they often end up too sweet.

How original is this recipe? Let’s say it’s a 2 out of 10
This was hard to search as there are many permutations of rolls and buns, which might include or just be on the same page as cinnamon, using azuki beans or red bean paste. So it’s hard to be sure I wasn’t missing a lot. That said, I didn’t find many exact matches, which is actually a shame since I think it’s a superior result. The first match I found that was close was a cinnamon roll that used the beans in the dough, instead of the filling, but then I found someone with the exact same idea (in fact, that search was where I got the idea to include cardamom in the dough), only she did not enjoy the results as much as I did – partly because she processed her red bean paste more than I.

Mayacoba beansdescribed as mild beans that are thin skinned and also good at keeping their shape in cooking.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with these! You know those kale and white bean soups that are so delicious? Imagine that – as a quiche!

Dish 3 – Kale and Mayacoba Bean Quiche

ingredients:
400g Mayacoba (Canary) beans, soaked overnight
1 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 Tablespoon dried oregano

1 Pie crust (sorry, I used up all my baking mojo on the rolls – this was purchased)
egg white

1/3 lb pancetta, in 3 thick slices, then diced (bought at Milk & Honey Market)
1 medium purple onion, diced
3 large curly kale leaves, cut off the stem and sliced into thin shreds

4 eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbsp spicy mustard (obtained mine at the Philly Food Swap

Put the beans and herbs together in a pot with plenty of water and simmer for an hour – but keep a close eye on them. We want them completely soft, but not at all mushy or broken down. And, yes, these beans were amazing for that – the skin might break, but the beans kept their shapes nicely. When they’re cooked to your satisfaction, drain them and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Pick out the rosemary stem and the bay leaf.

Cook the diced pancetta all the way until at least half of it is looking crispy. Pull out the pieces and drain on paper towels.

Take 2 Tablespoons of the pancetta fat, and cook the diced onion down in that over medium high heat. Once the onion is soft and starting to brown at the edges, add the kale. Just dump it over top, and then start turning it as the bottom wilts. Stop cooking it when the kale is a bright, vibrant green, soft all through, and glistening with an even coating of fat. (note: pancetta fat can be exceptionally salty, so wait until you can taste the kale before deciding whether to add more salt to accommodate the beans.

If you’re going to make the pie crust, do so. Lay the pie crust into the pan and ease it into the base. Prick all over with a fork and then brush with some egg white. (in the land of not being wasteful, I just go ahead and crack the first egg for the filling and aim the brush for whites – thus having one fewer dish to wash). Bake for 10 minutes at 350F

So now you have ready to go in: beans, cooked pancetta cubes, and a kale/onion mixture.

Take your pre-cooked pie crust and layer those fillings in. (I considered also adding a hard cheese, but that idea was abandoned when I saw how rich my other ingredients were already going to be). If you can, end with the kale on the top, but that doesn’t matter much.

Thoroughly scramble your eggs and beat in the dairy (yes, you can use half and half, instead) and the mustard. Pour the eggs over the filling, and then stir them together a bit (which will break up your layers – no worries.

Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes.

Verdict:
Yum! OMG Yum! This was exactly what I’d hoped. Everyone loved it. You really can’t go wrong with quiche. It didn’t even seem heavy at all, even with the full measure of beans. I’ve even frozen some pieces to reheat as breakfasts over the next few weeks. I tried microwaving one this morning, and it even reheats well. ♥


How original is this recipe? Let’s say it’s a 8 out of 10
I have no idea why I didn’t find anyone else making this recipe – it’s delightful. Possibly because there are just so many white bean options that I didn’t search the right one. Here are the ones vaguely in the same family of delicious: white bean quiche with fennel and corn; spinach olive bean quiche; parsnip and kale quiche avec bacon; spinach and white bean quiche; vegan cannellini bean & kale quiche)

Erm… so I ran out of original ideas, and this next one is from a recipe. That said, it’s a recipe from ancient Rome that’s very different from a lot of food going on these days.

Dish 4 – Conchiclam Commodiana (Dried Beans in Commodus’ Style)

Conchicla Commodiana: pisam coques. cum despumaverit, teres piper, ligusticum, anethum, cepam siccam, suffundis liquamen, vino et liquamine temperabis. mittis in caccabum ut combibat. deinde ova IV solves, in sextarium pisae mittis, agitas, mittis in cumanam, ad ignem ponis, ut ducat, et inferes. (Apicius book 5, section 4, number 4) (I mostly used this site’s redaction, except for where I corrected their translation or substituted based on what I had available – and I didn’t look up the measurement equivalences… so only a little bit, but I did use it as a source)

ingredients:
400g Mayacoba (Canary) beans, soaked overnight
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp dill seeds (anethum is dill, not anise)
1 tsp epazote (because I wanted more green herbs, and it might be helpful with beans)
1 tsp fat or oil
1 small-medium yellow onion, finely diced (dried in recipe)
half a dozen healthy sprigs of parsley, leaves and stems divided, both chopped finely
1 tsp Phu Quoc fish sauce
2 Tbsp red wine
4 extra large eggs

Boil the beans, skimming off the froth.

With a mortar and pestle, grind the pepper, dill seed, and epazote.

In a skillet, fry the onion and parsley stems in a little oil (I used a teaspoon of the pancetta fat from the previous dish). Add the cooked beans, ground herbs, and fresh parsley – stir that together. Add the fish sauce and the wine, and it should be easy to stir, but not liquidy.

Take the beans off the fire and let cool.

Beat together the 4 eggs, and then stir into the cooled bean mixture.

Put it in the oven and cook very slowly. You could use a water bath, but I was already using the pan I usually use for that with the bread pudding, so instead I slowly raised the oven heat – letting it settle a bit at 180F, 220F, 275F, 325F, and 350F. And I think it was almost 2 hours before it looked cooked through.

Surprisingly, it was a souffle! I made ancient Roman bean souffle!

Verdict:
Fascinating. The (other) classicist among us said that it tasted like spring time – with the bright dill, green herbs, and earthy loamy beans. It was simultaneously heavy and light. It wasn’t a dinner dish, and I’m not sure it’s a breakfast dish. This was solidly in the land of brunch food.

How original is this recipe? Let’s say it’s a 2 out of 10
You won’t find it anywhere else, but I certainly didn’t make it up.

Ohhh… this next one might be my favorite. This is the only one that could actually be a workday breakfast.

Marrow beans – described as having a creamy texture with either a meaty or a bacon-y flavor.

Okay, so this past year I finally started to enjoy congee or jook – by making it at home. I was inspired by both Tea and Cookies and David Lebovitz to make it at home with rich and flavorful little tidbits.

And I thought to myself – why not cook a very thin bean soup full of tastiness like you do with rice? I was so confident of this recipe, that I used the whole measure instead of dividing it into two potential recipes.

So I have no idea how incredibly inappropriate the name of this dish is – probably a bit, since it’s not rice – but I also have no better word to describe to you what is going on in this dish.

Marrow Bean Jook

ingredients:
1 tsp bacon fat (or pancetta fat, or any oil, really)
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 inches of ginger, cut into thin 1″ matchsticks
750g marrow beans, soaked overnight

duck stock

1 cup dried chanterelle mushrooms, steeped in hot water for half an hour

3 scallions, sliced into thin rounds
2 garlic cloves, sliced into thin rounds
2 mild peppers, sliced into thin rounds with no seeds

Stock:
Right, so I made special duck stock for this dish. I picked up a container of duck heads and feet from Siu Kee Duck House in Chinatown, and I cooked it overnight at 200F with my allium ends and carrot peelings, seasoned with 2 dried chilies (one of the few remaining things from the first sampler of free things Marx Foods sent me), black peppercorns, 3 whole cloves, 1 star anise, some fennel fronds, and a sprig of rosemary.

Jook:
In a bit of fat, cook down the onions. When they are creamy, add the garlic and ginger. After a minute, add the drained beans. Stir a few times, and then in goes the stock. Don’t worry if the stock is gelled solid, it will melt as it gets warm.

And then cook it for hours as you make everything else.

After the first hour, take the rehydrated mushrooms and cut them into centimeter pieces. And go ahead and add both the mushrooms and their water to the jook – it’ll only make it tastier.

Stir it every 15-30 minutes to encourage it to break down. I found that the marrow beans did not need any baking soda to turn smooth.

Near when it was time to serve, I took the three condiments above (scallions, garlic, and hot pepper) and toasted them separately in a barely-oiled skillet and put them out for toppings.

Also, go ahead and taste the soup. Mine was plenty salty, but if it had not been, I would have added a teaspoon of fish sauce.

Would also be excellent with a poached egg on top – but this particular meal had used plenty of eggs already.


Verdict:
YUM! Totally breakfast-y. Rich flavors, mellow intensity. Felt like a big hug.

How original is this recipe? Let’s say it’s a 7 out of 10
There’s millions of years of history of thin bean soups. Gruel, porridge, pottage, pulse – there’s really very little possibility this is a unique innovation. But as far as I can tell, it’s the only one on the internet.

Here’s a small selection of other things vaguely like it that I found while searching: lima bean potato gruel (wow – least exciting name for food ever); mung bean millet gruel; Pat jook (made with azuki beans, so that wouldn’t have been original); fruited green bean congee; congee with mung bean; 1889 bean porridge; Tutu – dutch Antilles bean porridge; mung bean porridge in coconut milk; Molly Katzen’s Bean Porridge; Ful

Invitation – Beans for Breakfast

Okay, I have rashly entered a food contest. Because I had just had a kale-ifferous breakfast and was swept up in the joys of savory breakfasts. And I had been eating just that morning I saw the contest that I wanted to explore other savory breakfast options.

But now I am going to need help with the eating and photographing (not necessarily in that order) the results.

The challenge is to create original recipes using Beans for Breakfast.

Official Marx Foods logo for the Beans for Breakfast Challenge

How does brunch on March 24th sound to you?

(The entry is due March 25th)

I have three kinds of beans: Marrow, Mayacoba, and Azuki.

And I’m thinking of making 4-6 recipes (1 or 2 for each type of bean). PLZ HALP ME EAT THEM!!

Cooking with Catladies – March 10, 2012

cartoon kitteh holding a knife and fork, ready to nom!

Okay, here’s the final – all polished up – version of what was served at the Cooking with Cat Ladies dinner to benefit City Kitties.

General Condiments

Appetizers

Soup

  • Coconut Chutney Butternut Squash Soup (to improve on the first version, I swapped 2 cans of full fat coconut milk for 1 can of full fat, 1 lowfat, and a quart of vegetable stock. I also ended up adding several kabocha squash (which I’d roasted to make peeling easier for the winter squash vindaloo but found that made them too soft and went back to try that one starting from raw) and the proportions were about 2 butternut : 1 kabocha by volume. I did not add any chutney or garlic. Huh… and no brown sugar. Oh, and there was lime juice because I’m on a kick where lime juice makes everything better. But other than that, it was exactly the same. And I debated between blending it smooth and leaving it chunky and decided that while smooth might feel more ‘professional’ that I really did prefer it chunky)

Mains

  • Vegetable Biryani (link to sauce base) (Only changes I made were using brown basmati rice instead of white and omitting the saffron… and I think I’d completely run out of ginger by the assembly of the dish but the sauce base had ginger since I’d made that the night before)
  • Winter Squash Vindaloo (made with Kabocha and a packet of vindaloo mix from Parampara – which turned out to be a very pleasing mix that made a paste from whole spices)
  • Chana Masala
  • Parippu (I used the recipe from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe, but the recipe I’m linking is almost verbatim as you’ll see if you compare with the recipe I wrote out in the last post – followed faithfully except for the lack of curry leaves)
  • Did I mention the Baked Achari Baingan?
  • Hazelnut Tamarind Rice

Salad – Another year when people were too stuffed for a salad course. I count that as a win.

Dessert

  • Vegan Carrot Cake (to which my father said, when I took him leftovers, “That’s not carrot cake; I don’t like carrot cake.”) (So this was an amazingly resilient recipe in which many things went wrong but I never doubted it would be delicious. The batter was delicious. I used a 9″ round cake pan, instead of a 9″ square one and didn’t think of increasing the cooking time until the middle fell out in unmolding even though the toothpick had come out clean. Well, only some of the middles (so they ended up a bit concave). And I didn’t unmold until after they’d cooled a bit, so I ended up cooking them for another 10 minutes after they’d quit cooking… and yet they were still moist and compliant. So changes I made on account of ingredient supply – I used 3/2 cups of all purpose and 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour; 1/4 cup of almond oil and 1/2 cup of olive oil; and I used pecans instead of walnuts. And then I had already made candied blood orange slices, and I had found some pretty Tangelos and candied them, too, and was a little worried since they ended up pretty bitter despite the sugar coating. But I took them to friends to sample, and they all approved me using them. So to tie in the citrus, I made a lime syrup to drizzle on the cakes before making an artistic citrus slice arrangement on top. Hopefully, someone will send me pictures.)
  • Nutty Buttered Applesauce (and for the person with celiacs, I just whipped out a selection of my home canned applesauces (huh – which I’ve never blogged about.), and felt all swank offering to just whip up something easy. We went with the one with chai-themed seasonings. Put that in a ramekin, put some broken pecans on top, and a pat of butter to melt in – and that went in the over for as long as it took me to get everything else out and coffee started.)

Planning for City Kitties

Monday, March 5
morning:
set coconut milk for truffle ganache to steep (lime&coconut, Orchid Oolong tea)

evening:
empty dishwasher
reheat coconut milk
make ganache for truffles
coat candied tangelo slices in sugar and leave to dry longer
set yogurt to drain

clean downstairs bathroom
sweep front room
open tables and start setting up chairs

dinner:
onion, ravioli, meatballs, asparagus with pasta sauce

Tuesday, March 6
morning:

Shopping:
eggplant
butternut squash
1 lb of carrots
jalapenos
red bell peppers
chocolate chips
low fat coconut milk
whole milk (not ultra pasteurized)
soda water
vindaloo seasoning
2 packages of pita bread
paneer

empty compost into compost bin

breakfast:
last of the kale, tomato,

evening:
shape lime & coconut truffles
second sugar coat for tangelo slices and put up for storage – consider candying lime or lemon next
Make 1 cup of brown basmati rice
Make tzatziki
Roast butternut squash and bell peppers
Make raita (started)
Make black bean dip
Make matbucha

vacuum LiLi’s room

dinner:
chili

Wednesday, March 7th
morning:
coat truffles
Make paneer
wash dishes

breakfast:
nibblies?

evening:
unload dishes
Make Chana Masala
Make Biryani Sauce Base
First attempt vegan naan vs dairy naan
Make 1 cup brown basmati rice
thaw frozen spinach in a container

dinner: product test the chana masala

Thursday, March 8th
Gah! 7am yoga?
early day at work

get supplemental dishware from friend?

8pm play?
Make 2nd batch of chana masala
Make Spicy white bean dip
Slice and oil pita bread
set 1 pt lentils to soak
Drain thawed spinach (and reserve liquid)

Friday, March 9th
Bake dessert – either carrot cake or Lemon or Lime Cake (which would be better topped with candied tangelo and blood orange slices?)
Peel winter squash, cube, and marinate in vindaloo seasoning
buy, chop, and prep vegetables for the vegetable biryani (cauliflower?, string beans?, bell pepper, zucchini? – also more string beans and a bag of potatoes. Oh, and the lettuce for salads.)
Make naan dough
Make chapati / roti dough
Make first iteration of

lentil dish – Parippu

225g masoor dal (red lentils)
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 ripe tomato, roughly chopped
50g creamed coconut, mixed with 250ml water (or 250 ml coconut milk)
2 green chillies, chopped
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander

2 Tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 onion, very finely chopped
10 curry leaves

Put the lentils in a heavy-based saucepan with 500ml water. Add the roughly chopped onion, tomato, creamed coconut or coconut milk, green chilli, turmeric, ground cumin and coriander, and bring to a boil. Simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the lentils are cooked to a soft mush (masoor dal does not hold its shape when it cooks). This will take about 25 minutes. If all the water has evaporated before the lentils are cooked, add 125 ml boiling water.

For the final seasoning (tarka), heat the oil in a small saucepan over low heat. Add the cumin and mustard seeds, cover and allow the seeds to pop. Add the finely chopped onion and curry leaves and fry over low heat until the onion is golden brown. Pour the seasoned onions into the simmering lentils. Season with salt to taste, and cook for another 5 minutes.

– source The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe

Peel and boil potatoes

Make

Make pita chips!

soak more lentils
soak hazelnuts

Saturday, March 10th
remove dough from refrigerator and bring to room temperature
Put white wine in the refrigerator

make salad dressing
toast nuts for salad

Cut up crudite

put vegetable biryani in a dutch oven and cook it.
Make soup (rosted butternut squash or carrots – coconut chutney esque)
Make more lentils

Take a break and buy fresh herbs: cilantro, parsley, methi, and curry leaves (if you can find them). Also buy some pre-made breads so you can quit worrying. They’ll freeze. Anything else pretty for crudite?

knead doughs

Assemble all components of saag paneer – cook and puree spinach, brown paneer

Puree soup smooth

When you panic about there being too little food – make some string beans with mustard seed and some methi potatoes

Roll out bread.

35 minutes til – Make tamarind rice with hazelnuts, pine nuts, and mustard seeds

20 minutes til – Put chips, dips, and crudite on the table; put as many condiments as you can wrangle on the table; pull white wines from the refrigerator; open a bottle of red;
Clear any surfaces possible in the kitchen; start oven preheating to 500F for bread optimism; Make plain basmati (burner 1); cook the Squash vindaloo! (burner 2) (soup = burner 3)

10 minutes til – (assemble saag in a pan ready to go on the stove)

Start: remove rice from burner, set squash to simmer, start cooking the saag paneer. Act social; offer beverages; (have place to stash coats!!); tell people to go visit your foster cat

Start + 10 minutes: Assemble the tarka for the soup; first batch of bread?

Start +20 minutes: Serve soup; Second batch of bread

Start +30 minutes: Add paneer to saag; Is the bread plan doomed?

Start +35 minutes: Serve dinner (if bread is awesome, cook a few more rounds of it)

An hour later – offer a salad course and see if people blanch

Boil water and make tea; offer scotch
Serve dessert

1 load of dishes before bed

Sunday, March 11
sleep
load of dishes in the morning

Mail truffles to recipient?

2:30 – Latin translation group?