Ajwaini Panch Daal - Five lentil Mix spiced with Carom Seeds

I have always liked mixed lentils - be it the 10 bean or 15 bean soup mixes of dry lentils you get in any grocery store or any homegrown/made mix that's born just to clear out the pantry. One of my cousins had a tarla dalal book with a recipe called 'panchmel' daal, and lately even our local Indian grocery store sells a ready made blend called 'paach daal' or 5 lentil mix - one more thing made easy for us to avoid more activity( to our detriment).

This recipe was born when I wanted to create something that tasted a bit different from the usual garam masala type spices that we use in Indian cuisine. Lately, I have started using one or two dominant individual spices to flavour a whole dish, instead of using blends. I feel this not only transforms everyday food to something unexpected, but also does not drown the taste of the main ingredient. This lentil mix looks very colorful when dry, but loses all this colour when it is cooked. I use the pressure cooker to first cook this lentil mix - these are split lentils and there is no need to soak them ahead of time, and this can be ready in half an hour or under thirty minutes :). You can also use a crock pot for this, I suppose, but I have never used them so far.

The dry red chillies are available in any Indian grocery store. I use whole chillies so can get away with the high number I am using. The Ajwain is the star in this dish, giving it the spicy kick. Ajwain or carom seeds are kind of pungent and spicy, as are the leaves, widely used in India as a grandmother's remedy for stomach aches, colds, upset stomachs etc. I chewed on them quite a bit in my college days. They can of course, be an acquired taste, but the taste has also been likened to thyme. I am adding some sugar to make this sweetish tasting like a gujrati daal and also to soften the punch from the Ajwain.

This daal can be eaten with hot steaming rice, or also as a thick lentil soup with some fresh crusty bread. Either way, it is sumptuous and fulfilling and will keep hunger at bay for a long time.

The recipe is as follows. This should make four big servings of thick daal.

Ingredients -

1/4 cup tur daal

1/4 cup yellow mung daal

1/4 cup green split mung daal or chilka daal

1/4 cup red lentil/ masoor daal

1/4 cup black masoor daal

6-8 dry red chillies

3 tomatoes or 1 cup grape tomatoes

1 Tbsp Ajwain seeds

1 Tbsp fresh ginger

1 tsp turmeric

1 TBsp oil/ghee

1 Tbsp sugar/substitute

salt to taste

Method -

1)Combine all the lentils or dry daals together in a pot and cook them in a pressure cooker with the usual time you need to cook daal in your particular cooker. Three whistles and steam for 10 minutes should be enough.

2) Assemble all ingredients that you need for the tempering to avoid scrambling while the oil smokes and burns i.e the dry red chillies - break one or two and keep the others whole. The whole chillies will mostly be ornamental, since the seeds will stay inside; fresh ginger - grated or julienned; ajwain seeds

3) Heat oil or ghee in a wok or thick pan. Add the Ajwain seeds and immediately add the ginger. Add the turmeric powder and the red chillies.

Stand a bit away from the stove at this point, since the chillies might splutter a bit and have the potential to create some art on your forearms.

4) Add the cooked daal and stir. Season with the salt, add sugar and add water if needed to get the desired thickness.

5) Bring the mixture to a boil and let simmer for 5-10 minutes for the flavours to combine. The more you simmer, the more concentrated the taste will be.

6) If you are Not using a pressure cooker, repeat all the above steps and add the uncooked daals( washed and drained) in step number four. You will then need to let it cook in the pot like any lentils and will take a longer time in excess of half an hour. I think the tur daal will take the longest to cook, while the mung or masoor should cook in a jiffy. A crock pot might be a better solution.

7) Cut the tomatoes in long thick slices, or just quarter them. Add them to the simmering lentils/daal just 5 minutes before you switch off the heat. You can alternately add whole grape tomatoes. We want the tomatoes to be barely cooked - just softened but not raw and retaining their shape. I think this looks restaurant style aesthetically, and also adds a nice unexpected tang between bites.

8) Serve hot with steamed rice or crusty bread.

Please note - If you are planning to store this in the fridge for more than a day or two, take care to take out the chillies. This is because the longer it stands, the chillis will gradually soften and release their heat into the daal.

You can further improve the nutritional profile of this meal by adding any vegetables of your choice to make this a vegetable-lentil type stew. I hope you like this Ajwain flavoured daal and make it often as I do.

Black bean soup cookoff

I almost posted two recipes this weekend, a Spanish paella and a chickpea salad, but decided against it since I did not take pictures. But I think they were winners and I will revive them some other time. This weekend was quite an achievement, since we did not eat out at all, nor even get any take out. Whats more, I even took home made food when we went to see the Fall Colours. Skyline Drive is fabulous this time of the year, and not to be missed.

Fall has set in here in VA, some would even say winter (;)), and there is a nice chill in the air. So a big bowl of hot steaming soup seemed to be the call of the day. I had also finally soaked some black beans that I had bought a long time ago, and that I found hidden in some corner of my pantry. I also had a butternut squash that I had to use up. But there were varied opinions on the method to be used to make the soup. One wanted a very spicy Indian like thing and I leaned towards mexican. So I came up with this idea of having a cook off tv style - A black bean shorba versus a vegetable and black bean soup. I added some butternut squash for colour and to keep with the Fall theme. I was not sure how it would mingle with the other veggies and beans, but in the end, I think it had a pretty neutral effect. It added a touch of sweetness and did not take away from the main flavours.

I decided to use mostly Mexican kind of spices in my recipe. I started with the usual mirepoix and added green and red peppers. I used chipotles in adobo to add a smoky flavour, and boy, did it work ! You can easily get a small can of chipotles pretty cheap in Walmart in the Mexican foods aisle. I used only two, which was quite enough for me for a big pot of soup. But you can use less or more depending on your heat tolerance. I used oregano and cumin as the main flavouring in addition to the chipotles. Nowadays, I heat up some cumin seeds in the microwave or a pan so that they are smoky and just grind them on the spot using my mortar and pestle. This 'fresh grinding' process gives it tons more flavour than if you use store bought cumin or jeera powder. I decided to use the butternut squash in place of corn as a starchy component, just to try something new. I debated over using tomatos in some form, but finally left them out, just adding fresh lime juice instead for a touch of tang. I garnished this with fresh chopped cilantro and lime juice and served it with a fresh whole grain baguette. Another serving idea is to scoop some rice on top, gumbo like.

I think this recipe is completely vegan, except perhaps the touch of optional honey that I added. This is also fat free and can easily pass muster as an 'Eat to Live' recipe.


Recipe #1 - Chipotle Black Bean and Vegetable soup

Ingredients:

2 cups black beans (soaked overnight and pressure cooked) or 2 cans
2 small onions
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
3-4 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 1 lime, freshly squeezed
chipotles in adobo - 2 - chopped
1 cup chopped butternut squash
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dried crushed oregano
1 tbsp cumin poweder freshly ground
4 cups water or 2 cups each water and veg stock


Chop the onion, carrot and celery in small pieces of roughly the same size. Chop the peppers into similar sized pieces and chop butternut squash into slightly larger chunks. Crush and finely chop the garlic. I prefer fresh garlic only and do not recommend the one you get in a bottle.

Add the onions to a big non stick pot and sautee them for a while. Apart from being oil free, this method will char the onions and give them a smoky flavor. If the onions start sticking, add a little water, 1/4 cup or so at a time and keep sauteing. Add the carrots and celery gradually along with the bay leaf. When these are slightly softened, add the peppers. Also add the chopped chipotles and the garlic. Sautee this mixture till the vegetables look slightly cooked. The more you cook now, the lesser time it will take later for the soup to come together. Add the butternut squash and sautee for a minute. Add the black beans now and the water. I would have liked to add some vegetable stock at this point, but i did not have any on hand, and for some reason did not feel like adding a bouillion cube. Add all the other spices - paprika, oregano and cumin at this point. Add a touch of honey - optional. Bring this to a boil. Put a lid on it and let it simmer for 15-20 mins till all the vegetables are cooked and the thickness is to your liking. Add the lime juice at the end after switching off the heat and garnish with lots of fresh coriander/cilantro.

Serve hot with bread or rice, garnished with more lime juice, cilantro and black pepper.


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Now the other recipe - Black bean Shorba! I am just giving the recipe here without prolonging this post which I fear may have become too long. Who was the winner of this cookoff? Our tingling tastebuds, and our tummies, which were thorughly satisfied :)

Recipe #2 - Black bean Shorba

cumin - 1 tspn
black pepper - 2 tspn
Bay leaves - 1-2
cinnamon - 1/2 inch
cloves - 4-6 pcs
onion - 1 medium
celery - 2 stalks cut in pcs
cayenne - 1 tsp

1. Soak black beans overnight for abt 12 hrs
2. pressure cook
3. in a deep pot add 1 tbsp of white butter and heat for 2-3 min untill it melts and sizzles
4. add cumin, bay leaves, clover, and cinnamon, and saute for 3 min
5. add onion and fry untill golden
6. add celery and saute another 2 min
7. add black pepper
8. add 1 cup black beans with 1 cup of stalk from the cooker
9. add 1 cup veg broth and bring to boil
10. garnish with cilantro and serve with garlic bread.

This is my maiden entry for a blog event, sra's legume love affair - fourth helping.