Stuffed okra

This okra was so good that even this not very appetizing photo is making me want some more.

It's Onion Stuffed Okra with Mango Powder from 660 Curries. Stuffing the okra is kind of a pain, but it is so worth it. You make a filling with ground up onion, chile, ginger, garlic and various spices including mango powder, then stuff the okra and cook -- at first browning them in a pan until half cooked, and then adding water and tomato and covering the pan to finish cooking them.

Two accidents worth repeating: (1) use tomato paste instead of fresh tomato, and (2) let the okra and its sauce burn just a little bit. The burnt bits were the best part!

The recipe made twice as much filling as I needed, so I used the rest of it in an eggplant curry the next day (based on Stewed Eggplant with a Coconut-Chile Spice Blend from 660 Curries.) Alongside that we had a split pea and mango dal (again, based on a dal in 660 Curries. Perhaps I should just note when a curry I make is not from that book?).

Okra curry and pizza

Exhibit A: A Goan style okra curry from 660 Curries -- the okra is cooked in a cashew sauce with vinegar. This kind of tangy curry was new to me, and I liked it. (The cashews could have done with being ground a bit finer, but that was the best my stupid mini-food processor could do. Once I find a coffee grinder that costs less than $50, I'm making this again. And yes, about $50 is the going price for a bottom of the range coffee grinder in Australia, if you can believe it.) (Also shown here: chana masala.)

 

Exhibit B: Pizza topped with leftover okra curry, caramelized onions, and mozzarella style Cheezly. I hesitated briefly before putting the cheese on top of this pizza, but it worked.

 

Okra

Good to know. Perhaps the NOLAites should take note for next summer.

Roughing it in Westhampton

There's no camera, and no internet, and not much in the way of kitchen tools here at the beach. But I made sure to pack my spices and my copy of 660 Curries, and so we're eating well. Here's a crappy snapshot (taken with my computer's camera) of last night's dinner: Eggplant and Okra with Fenugreek and Mustard (left) and Chana Saag (right). I also made Malabar Parantha, which ended up kind of like a cross between naan and paratha.
All three recipes are from 660 Curries (though I made a few changes to the Chana Saag (no ginger or onion paste on hand, and I used diced turnips and turnip greens rather than spinach)). I had to roll the bread out using a jar!

Here's a bonus non-food shot of the view from the balcony:

Last days in the Noho kitchen

For dinner tonight we had something I've been meaning to try for at least a year, ever since I borrowed Greg Malouf and Lucy Malouf's book Artichoke to Za'atar from the library: Portobello Mushrooms Baked Between Vine Leaves.
You wrap the mushrooms up in the grape leaves like a parcel, and the leaves keep all the tasty juices in as the mushrooms bake/steam. (Apparently Elizabeth David also has a recipe like this: she recommends grape leaves as a way of improving the flavour of cultivated mushrooms (or as this link puts it, providing them 'a tasty bosky pedigree').) This worked out very nice -- I cooked it for a bit longer than the recipe suggests because it seems to be written with smaller mushrooms in mind. I had expected to discard the baked grape leaves, but they tasted good (almost like kale chips).

We also had okra cooked in a style I learned from 660 Curries: the okra is blistered on a hot pan and then removed, then you cook your spices (in this case, cumin seeds and chile flakes) and onions, then add the okra back to the pan with some tomato and water, cover and simmer until the okra is tender.

In the background of this photo you can make out an office chair. We sold all our other chairs!

Cans save the day

I threw this soup together using various canned goods from the pantry, and it was good. Tomato, hearts of palm, okra and field peas, plus some leftover brown rice. We had it with soda bread, made with a mixture of flours (mainly spelt and oat). (I'm trying to empty out the pantry before our upcoming move -- all the little bits of random grains are getting ground up in the spice grinder.)
In the soup there was also some corn stock that was made in the pressure cooker (6 corn cobs, about 4 cups water, 20 minutes on high pressure, natural release). I had been intending to make high intensity polenta with the corn stock... that'll have to wait for next time we have a bunch of corn cobs.

I got the canned okra and field peas from the local discount shop, and they were brands I'd never seen before (maybe they're from the south?). I'd never had field peas before, and it looks like the name can refer to any number of peas. These ones were tiny and red, and I liked them.

660 Praises!

I had to make some substitutions... like, for starters, a sweet potato... and then some tomato paste instead of tamarind?  Parsley instead of cilantro?  Yeah, well, it was GREAT.  Leftovers for lunch today with a cabbage salad (and still some left).  Ohhh, when oh when will my copy arrive?

Okra love

The lovely sp brought us okra all the way from NOLA, and we couldn't wait to dig in. Here you see Pan-Fried Okra with an Onion-Tamarind Sauce, Jyoti brand Delhi Saag (spinach and mustard greens, from a can), and Five-Spiced Whole Pigeon Peas (Sabud toovar with panch phoron).
The okra and pigeon pea curries are of course from my obsession, 660 Curries. Both were delicious, and pretty quick (under 30 minutes, because I used canned pigeon peas). The pigeon pea curry was the first time I've put my jar of panch phoron to good use, and now I'm a believer. The Delhi Saag was pretty good, considering it was from a can. (I don't know if I'd pay full price for it, but if I find it on sale again, I wouldn't mind having some on hand.)

Plus, here's some news for the 660-curries-obsessed: there's a blog.

Shopping in Hadley

Usually I pick up vegetables for the week from the small grocery store down the street. But this week I was passing by my favourite Asian food store in the next town over, so I bought the weekly groceries there. Okra! Gai lan! Oyster mushrooms! Black chickpeas! (And a whole bunch of other stuff!)

This dinner used some of my haul. On the left, Cashew and Coriander Stuffed Okra. On the right, Black Chickpea Stew (with coconut, chile, coriander and tomato). (Both from 660 Curries.) And in front, premade roti. The okra was great (but then we in this household can't get enough of okra in any form). As for the black chickpeas, well it turns out they're quite like regular chickpeas except their taste is maybe a little bit nuttier, and they take much longer to cook (45 minutes in the pressure cooker).
I was amused to see the Pillsbury doughboy shilling roti.

Gumbo

I hesitated about posting this one, since the photo is not so different from last time, but this trick is worth remembering: cooking the seitan in the gumbo. This technique was mentioned in kittee's post on sausage gumbo (the recipe that I based this gumbo on). I made a quick seitan dough (vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, smoked paprika, onion powder, water, soy sauce, olive oil) and tore off very small pieces and threw them into the pot to simmer with the gumbo for 45 minutes. Yum!

Gumboish

I came home from NOLA with a hankering for gumbo -- most people get to satisfy this desire while actually in NO, but vegetarians are not most people.

I based this loosely on kittee's recipe for sausage gumbo. I didn't have all the ingredients she calls for (e.g. tomato, parsley, gimme lean) and I'm sure I committed some gumbo faux pas, but it was delicious anyway. (Some of my substitutions and additions included red peppers, some leftover beans, and some soyrizo. I'm sure a gumbo purist would not approve.)

As well as gumbo inspiration, NOLA also provided me with white chocolate chips (thanks to Kosher Cajun). Finally, my Australian macadamias were able to achieve their true destiny: