Sweet, Spicy and Fragrant, Corn and Tamarind Curry.

   
   Today we started this year's planting for our garden. Actually lats week we put in the Yukon gold potatoes but this week we got down to the serious stuff, chilies of several varieties, 4 different types of eggplant, tomatoes, butternut squash, and beets. I'm still waiting on the radishes, spinach, purslane, and heirloom carrots. Hopefully we'll have as abundant a crop this year as we did last year when a simple investment in seeds and starters kept us well fed veggie-wise into the late Fall.  Right now, nothing is available in our garden except the nettles I recently harvested which will probably become some sort of pasta, so I'm always on the prowl for fresh produce. I lucked out the other day with some corn and decided that a simple corn and tamarind curry would make a great quick and easy lunch dish accompanied by a player yet to be named.
   
   As it turned out, I'd used my Ninja blender to grind rice and urad dal for dosa batter and I figured this might be the perfect opportunity to break in my newly seasoned cast iron tava. One thing led to another (mainly Alan wanted dosas) and before I knew it I was behind the kitchen island dishing out dosas stuffed with corn curry like some kind of indoor food truck. We didn't even bother with dishes... I served it all on paper plates and we ate standing up. It was that kind of day. So I thought that simple corn curry with tamarind was a real keeper. Dosas or not it's guaranteed to be a great  easy to make in a pinch dish and it's perfectly delicious even if not wrapped up in a dosa.

Corn and Tamarind Curry

Here's What You Need:
2 ears of  fresh corn
2 Tbs of tamarind paste (jars of this now seem to be found at most large supermarkets)
1 small onion finely chopped
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes ( I use Aleppo pepper)
2 Tbs vegetable oil. I use coconut oil
3/4 tsp salt or to taste
3 Tbs freshly chopped cilantro
A couple of grinds of black pepper

Here's What To Do:
Mix together the cumin seeds  and fenugreek seeds. Set them aside.
Finely chop  the onion

Remove the corn kernels from the cob and set them aside.

Dry roast the fenugreek seeds and cumin seeds in a pan until they start to release their aromas, and then grind them together with the red pepper flakes in spice or coffee grinder.

Grind everything to a coarse powder and set it aside.
In a skillet or kadhai, heat the vegetable oil.

When the oil is hot, add in the finely chopped onion.

Stir it around until it turns translucent and golden, then add in the corn.

Stir it around a bit and toss in the roast ground spices and salt.

Cook all of these together until the corn is cooked through. This takes about 5 minutes or so.
Add in the tamarind paste.

Stir it around until it's mixed in well and then keep stirring until it starts to cook down and glaze the corn and spices.
Add in the chopped fresh cilantro.

Cook for another couple of minutes.
Place it all in a serving dish, hit it with a few grinds of black pepper, and serve it up.

   Warm sweet, spicy and fragrant with simple spices, this is a great vegetable dish all on it's own with rice or another veg, served alongside meat or fish, or even wrapped up in a dosa or two... or three which is what we did.

Coming up next,  more spring vegetables take advantage of Indian flavors, and rose petal jam right out of the garden. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Bollywood Brussels Sprouts..Now With Dosas!

This is the time of year when in markets all over America, Brussels sprouts are blooming. Big stalks of these little sprouts stand ready to be par-boiled, burnt and over cooked on Thanksgiving tables everywhere, sending little kids screaming in terror and vowing never to eat these green colored rocks again. Maybe I've never met a vegetable that I didn't like, but I personally think that Brussels sprouts have gotten a bad rap as tough, bitter, and stinky. In defense of Brussels sprouts I have only one thing to say, you be nice to them and they'll be nice to you. By that I mean, if they're cooked properly, it's like an entire Autumn in your mouth, it's Grandmas's Thanksgiving table, it's the Canada geese flying over, it's the frost on the pumpkin....mmmmm pumpkin!
But I digress. I've cooked brussels sprouts in a variety of ways, but my new favorite is a spicy Bollywood version, that I put together the other day.
I'd originally started out with green beans, but then I saw those stalks of Brussels sprouts and just had to buy them. So I did. But instead of cooking them like Brussels sprouts, I cooked them as I was going to cook my string beans in my version of a recipe from Lord Krishnas'Cuisine by Yamuna Devi.
So here's what I did to make those Brussels sprouts glitter like emeralds on a Bollywood Musical stars'neck.
I started out with about 20 Brussels sprouts. I chopped off the little stems and cut an X across the bottom. Then I steamed them for about 8 to 10 minutes. After that I set them aside.
Now for the sauce.
In a blender or food processor drop in
1.) 1 Tbs of cashews
2.) 1 whole green serrano chili cut in pieces
3.) 3/4 cup of plain yogurt
4.) a 1 inch piece of ginger peeled and sliced
5.) 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
6.) 1 Tbs of white poppy seeds
Blend it all up into a thick pale green cream

Next, In a deep skillet or Karhai
7.) melt 1 Tbs of unsalted butter
8.)Toss in 6 fresh curry leaves or 1/2 of a bay leaf (remember to take the bay leaf out before serving, don't eat it)

9.)When the curry leaves have started to sizzle, toss in your Brussels sprouts and
10.) A pinch of ground nutmeg and
11.) Your creamy green yogurt sauce and
12.) 1/2 tsp of salt.

Stir it all around and cook it until the sauce starts to thicken. It will look like this when it's close to done.

Finally, when your sauce has thickened, and your sprouts are ready, serve them. Once you have them this way, you'll never go back to browned butter and slivered almonds again.
About The Dosas
I mentioned dosas at the top of this blog and Alan and I had an amazing Dosa experience yesterday. It was rainy and messy in Sonoma.

So, a very good friend took us to his favorite South Indian Restaurant in Marin County. It's Called OM South Indian Cuisine and it turns out it's the only South Indian Restaurant in Marin County, and it's really, really, really good!!
While I've had South Indian Food before, and I've been cooking a lot of recipes from that area, (since our friend is my authentication guru), I'd never had Dosas before. He told me before I try making them myself, I'd better have a good one. So, off to Om we went. I guess I never really understood how large a Dosa is until I went back to the kitchen and watched them make one. It's a beautiful, graceful process, at least it was the way these guys were doing it and the end result looked like a cross between a super-sized crepe and the largest burrito I'd ever seen. Served with sambals and chutneys it was easily enough for the three of us.

But of course it wasn't.

Why stop with a humongous Dosa? We ordered a whole bunch of other things all of them excellent and then since Deepavali is coming up we topped it all off with bowls of sweet pongal.
A quick walk (we needed it) of four blocks took us to a great South Indian Market where I was able to refill my larder with all sorts of tasty basics. Those of you who live in a city as I once did will think, ha!, no big deal, what's she so excited about curry leaves for? Well, where I live it's a 50 mile round trip to get some not so fresh curry leaves and a couple of ridged gourds that look like they've been hit by a truck..if they even have any. So, that's why I was so excited. I know I got stoked over the three South Asian Markets I found close to home, but this was an Indian market and had everything I'd been looking for.
So now I have a mission. Make Dosas, and of course I'm going to have to do a lot of research which of course will involve many trips to Om and shopping excursions to the market with my little ice chest in the trunk of the car to keep everything crispy fresh on the long drive back up to Sonoma. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!