Hubble Bubble, Toil and Trouble
04/08/2016 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaPlastic Free July is now well and truly over and this bad bad serpent has begun August by indulging in the evil stuff nearly every single day.
All essential things like toilet paper, cheese and Happy Hour sushi.
But one side effect while I was being serious about not cheating during the month of July (I did yield to temptation 5 times) was doing a lot more cooking at home than usual.
The subject of many culinary experiments is trying to replicate the delicious dahl that they serve at the Hari Krishnas and at Annalakshmi on the Swan.
This dish has got so many things going for it. It's tasty, healthy and dirt cheap so what's not to love? Only problem is that every attempt at DIY dahl invariably ended in disaster. If the lentils did not stick to the pot then they were insipid and tasteless.
There seemed to be 2 different lines of thinking on proper procedures when producing this dish.
The first and most straightforward version involves dry frying the seed spices, then adding oil, onions and garlic, followed by the turmeric, lentils and water and then letting it bubble and brew away until the lentils are all mushy.
That was simple but most of the time the end product tasted rather insipid and bland. It was likely that the onions had all the flavour boiled out of them.
The other version involves boiling the lentils in water, frying all the spices, onions and such in another pan, adding them all to the lentils at the end and letting the whole concoction simmer away for a final five minutes.
That definitely produced the right aroma and taste. But there was one rather tiny problem. In spite of soaking overnight with lemon juice and bubbling away for more than 40 minutes before adding all the flavours, it turned out that the split yellow peas were still not properly cooked and therefore the whole dish was inedible. What a waste of time and ingredients. But all was not totally lost as I just buried the lumpy sludge in the garden to keep the bugs happy.
This time I was taking no chances. The buggers got soaked for a good two days with the juice of two lemons tossed in for good measure. After 40 minutes of bubbling the yellow critters were well and truly mushy and ready for a big fat pan full of onions, garlic, ginger and leeks.
It finally worked. It tasted almost as good as the real thing. A few bay leaves and a bit of chili next time might just be the magic missing ingredient.
Next kitchen witch experiment is going to involve the dark art of fermenting garlic and DIY kimchi as the local stuff is just a bit too heavy on the chili.
All essential things like toilet paper, cheese and Happy Hour sushi.
But one side effect while I was being serious about not cheating during the month of July (I did yield to temptation 5 times) was doing a lot more cooking at home than usual.
The subject of many culinary experiments is trying to replicate the delicious dahl that they serve at the Hari Krishnas and at Annalakshmi on the Swan.
This dish has got so many things going for it. It's tasty, healthy and dirt cheap so what's not to love? Only problem is that every attempt at DIY dahl invariably ended in disaster. If the lentils did not stick to the pot then they were insipid and tasteless.
There seemed to be 2 different lines of thinking on proper procedures when producing this dish.
The first and most straightforward version involves dry frying the seed spices, then adding oil, onions and garlic, followed by the turmeric, lentils and water and then letting it bubble and brew away until the lentils are all mushy.
That was simple but most of the time the end product tasted rather insipid and bland. It was likely that the onions had all the flavour boiled out of them.
The other version involves boiling the lentils in water, frying all the spices, onions and such in another pan, adding them all to the lentils at the end and letting the whole concoction simmer away for a final five minutes.
That definitely produced the right aroma and taste. But there was one rather tiny problem. In spite of soaking overnight with lemon juice and bubbling away for more than 40 minutes before adding all the flavours, it turned out that the split yellow peas were still not properly cooked and therefore the whole dish was inedible. What a waste of time and ingredients. But all was not totally lost as I just buried the lumpy sludge in the garden to keep the bugs happy.
This time I was taking no chances. The buggers got soaked for a good two days with the juice of two lemons tossed in for good measure. After 40 minutes of bubbling the yellow critters were well and truly mushy and ready for a big fat pan full of onions, garlic, ginger and leeks.
It finally worked. It tasted almost as good as the real thing. A few bay leaves and a bit of chili next time might just be the magic missing ingredient.
Next kitchen witch experiment is going to involve the dark art of fermenting garlic and DIY kimchi as the local stuff is just a bit too heavy on the chili.
