We don't have good restaurants for 3 types of food - Indian,

E

elaine

Well-known member
Mexican and Chinese. So feeling a craving for Indian, I

made the family dinner Indian style one last Friday night.

Here's the menu

Tamatr Shorba - Indian Tomato Soup

Broast chicken (used an Indian broast mix I got in NY)

Dilli ka saag gosht - Lamb with spinach

Lemon dal

Spicy Cauliflower - this was not so great- discarded the recipe

White rice (leftover )

I had a recipe for creamed curried corn and decided to make a Mexican corn soup instead in case the little ones didn't like some of the food For her secone bowl,my daughter mixed the 2 soups and pronounced them a success both separately and together!

Happy to post any recipe if wanted.

 
I'd love the tomato soup, lamb with spinach and lemon dal recipes.

I love cooking Indian food, but these are all ones I have not encountered recipes for.

 
Here they are - Lemon dal

latimes.com/ Lemon dal
Note: We got this recipe from film producer Ismail Merchant for a cover story on dal. "I can't live without dal," Merchant wrote in his cookbook "Passionate Meals" (Harry N. Abrams: $39.95) of India's great genre of legume cooking, "I am a dal junkie." As the producer explained to Hansen, "Every household in India has its own version. It is a rich man's food, a middle-class man's food and a poor man's food." This recipe is one delicious way Merchant feeds his obsession.

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
2 (2-inch) cinnamon sticks
1 pound masoor dal (orange lentils), picked over and rinsed
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped ginger root
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
Water
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
Salt
1/2 lemon
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 small clove garlic, chopped
1/2 serrano or jalapeno chile, chopped, with seeds
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Heat 6 tablespoons oil in large, deep saucepan over medium-low heat. Add sliced onion and cook, stirring, until tender. Add cinnamon sticks, dal and ginger. Cook, stirring often, 10 minutes. Add stock, 2 cups water, red pepper and salt to taste. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Squeeze juice from lemon, straining seeds, and add lemon juice and lemon to lentils. Cook 50 minutes, stirring often. Add up to 1 cup more water, if dal dries out too much.

Heat remaining 1/4 cup oil in small pan. Add chopped onion, garlic, chile and bay leaves. Cook, stirring, until onion is browned. Add mixture to lentils and stir. Remove bay leaves. Turn into serving bowl and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve hot. Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Each serving contains about: 487 calories; 382 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 25 grams fat; 47 grams carbohydrates; 24 grams protein; 4.23 grams fiber.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

 
Lamb with spinach

Lamb with spinach (dilli ka saag gosht), Jaffrey p. 67
To make this dish, I first put 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, 7 each cloves and cardamom pods, and a couple of bay leaves into hot oil in an enameled cast iron pot. After a few seconds, I added chopped onions (2), garlic, and ginger and cooked until onions started to brown. Then I added the lamb, 2 lbs. cubed (from a boneless leg), 2 tsp. ground cumin, 1 tsp. ground coriander, 1/2 tsp. cayenne and 1 tsp. salt and cooked for a couple of minutes. Then I added 5 T. yogurt (Fage whole milk), one at a time, stirring about a minute between each. When yogurt was incorporated, I added another teaspoon of salt and two boxes (10 oz. ea.) of thawed frozen spinach. (The recipe calls for 2 lbs. frozen spinach; last time I made this dish, I used 2 lbs.; it was too much, we thought, and the dish looked more like Spinach with lamb. This reduced amount was perfect, I thought, and the finished dish looked much more like the photograph in Jaffrey's book.) After the spinach was incorporated, I covered the pot and simmered for just under an hour (instead of the 70 minutes called for in the recipe). The lamb was plenty tender. I then uncovered it, stirred in a 1/4+ tsp. garam masala, and cooked another 5 minutes or so.
Served with spiced basmati rice, Goan-style chicken with roasted coconut, Lake Palace Eggplant in the pickling style, Whole Green Lentils with Onion and Garlic, (restaurant-bought naan and onion pakoras), and for dessert, pears baked in cardamom-spiced cream.

 
Tamatar Shorba- Indian Tomato soup

recipe

TAMATAR SHORBA – INDIAN TOMATO SOUP

Preparation Time – 10 minutes
Cooking Time – 20 minutes
Serves – 2

Ingredients

1 tablespoon ghee or salted butter
1 small red onion, finely chopped
3 bay leaves
1 inch stick of cinnamon, lightly crushed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
6 peppercorns
250ml vegetable stock
2 x 400g tins diced tomatoes

Method

Heat the ghee/butter over low heat in a heavy based saucepan. Add the onion, bay leaves, peppercorn and cinnamon. Fry until the onions are soft and caramelized. Add the cumin, garam masala, sugar and tomatoes. Stir and bring to boil. Simmer for 15 minutes on low heat.

Remove from heat and strain the soup by passing it through a sieve. Using a metal or wooden spoon, push against the solids in the sieve to extract as much liquid as you can. Discard what is left in the sieve. Season the liquid with salt and return to heat for 2 minutes. Garnish with fresh cream or coriander before serving piping hot.
This comes from an interesting site -
www.cookrepublic.com/recipe-archive/tamatar-shorba

 
Thank you very much!

They all look great, but I would tend to use way less oil in the dal recipe than it calls for.

I have several of Jaffrey's books and I think I would have seen the lamb recipe if it was in one of them.

 
generally, I don't like lamb, but my DH had this last time we ate out Indian, and it was so good. I

hope to find some good lamb this week to try next week. thanks.

 
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