Perfect Chana Dal with Golden Raisins

Introducing a new occasional column, Indian Feast, where I'll slowly tackle staples of Indian cooking right here in my kitchen.

I recently received an email from a reader (hi, Deborah!) about curry. She said she'd been on a kick lately, and wanted to know if I had any recipes to share.

It's strange and wonderful when I get emails from you and realize we are on precisely the same page.  Over my years of cooking, I've managed to make Vietnamese pho, real phat Thai, 30-ingredient mole negro, and more. But Indian food -- the kind you eat in restaurants: silky, smooth, and generously spicy -- continues to elude me. But now, after a few fits and starts, I've been tearing through lentils and rice like no one's business, trying to finally find recipes and formulas that will bring my favorite Indian staples within reach at home. The more successful I am, the more recipes I'll be sharing. Wish me luck. Shall we begin?

We start with dal, because it's dal. It is the staple of Indian meals, and if I can't make that, well, I might as well just quit right now. But I can! I can. In the past couple of months, I've made two dal recipes that blow the rest out of the water. One is for a straight-up traditional dal makhani, still one of my favorite things to order at Indian restaurants. But the one I'm sharing today is made with chana dal, yellow split peas - and for those concerned with authenticity, avert your eyes: we're going modern.

chana dal

The recipe comes by way of Nicholas Day, who writes a wonderful column on Food52 called Dinner vs. Child. I don't have any kids, but I feel that I, ahem, share parents' struggle to get their kids to eat healthy food. I've been tuning into Nicholas' column, and this recipe has been in the regular rotation ever since he posted it. It's adapted from 660 curries, a book I don't know but think I might need. This curry is delightful. It is spicy (if you want it to be), sweet, smooth and creamy. Unlike so many dal dishes I've had, where all the flavors are muddled into a big slop, this one is clean and rich and fragrant, and every bite tastes slightly different. It's really, really good.

Incidentally, even D didn't hate it. I told you this recipe's a keeper.

As if you need one more excuse to make this, I didn't even tell you the best part, which is that this dal sort of comes with its own chutney. That's because of the prep method: dal cooked separately; tomatoes and cumin sauced into deliciousness; onions, raisins, and more, cooked and reduced into an ultra-flavorful sauce; sauce folded into dal before serving. Bottom line? All you need to enjoy this dish is a bowl and a spoon. Rice and raita or even plain yogurt are good additions, but they aren't essential.

chana dal 3

Yes, you can read this now and have homemade Indian food for dinner tonight.

And just to make sure you come back for chapter 2, I'll say it right now: I'm teaching you how to make really, really good dosa at home. Stay tuned.

Perfect Chana Dal with Golden RaisinsAdapted from Nicholas Day on Food52, who adapted it from 660 Curries

1 cup chana dal (yellow split peas) 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric 3 tablespoons ghee or olive oil 2 medium-large red onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced 1/2 cup golden raisins (can substitute currants) 3 bay leaves 2 teaspoons cumin seeds 2-inch nub of ginger, minced or grated 2 large or 3 medium cloves garlic, minced 1 1/2 cups chopped tomato (can be canned) 3 serrano chiles, seeds and membrane removed, minced 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (unless using salted canned tomatoes, in which case use only 1 teaspoon and taste before adding it all) 1 teaspoon garam masala

Put split peas in a medium-large pot, and rinse in several changes of water until the water runs clear. Drain. Add three cups of water and turmeric, and bring to a boil. Skim foam, reduce the heat, and simmer the peas uncovered until cooked but still firm, about 25 minutes (longer if peas are old).

Add two cups water and simmer until tender, approximately 15 more minutes.

In the meantime, heat 2 tablespoons ghee or olive oil in a large pan set over high heat. Add onion, raisins, and bay leaves, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions look almost fried. Transfer to a bowl.

Heat 1 tablespoon ghee or olive oil in the same pan and turn heat to medium. Add cumin seeds and cook just until they sizzle, which will be almost immediately. Add ginger and garlic and cook for a minute, stirring.

Add tomato, chiles, salt, garam masala, and 1 cup water. Scrape all the good bits off the bottom of the pan.

When the peas are tender, add most of the tomato mixture to the peas and simmer, uncovered, for another 15 minutes or so, until the tastes meld. I like to reserve a good 1/4 cup of the tomato mixture to serve over the finished dish.

To serve, spoon dal into bowls and top with a bit of the tomato mixture and a spoonful of the onion-raisin mixture. Eat immediately.

Roasted Eggplant with Yogurt and Pomegranate

I think you'll be happy to know that I've found a legitimately easy way to tame the most finicky of vegetables into submission. I'm talking about eggplant, of course. Eggplant is beautifully purple (or white with purple speckles!) until you cut into it, when it's suddenly grey-brown. It's thick and sturdy, until you start frying it, when it seems to soak up exactly as much oil as is in the pan, always with room for more. Then it suddenly turns to mush, and from there, there's no going back. Yeah, eggplant is finicky. I said it.

eggplant before roasting

I'm over here breaking a sweat about my 'plants, but Yotam Ottolenghi is unfazed. From the gorgeous eggplant gracing the cover of his second book, Plenty, you'd never know the vegetable was the cause of such stress. The globes are perfectly browned, drizzled with sauce, and dappled with red gems of pomegranate. They're practically begging you to stop whatever it is that you're doing (probably ruining eggplant), and make them. So I did, and I did.

Here's what I've learned. Unless you're slicing your eggplant thinly enough that a quick dip in oil will cook it right through, the trick is to soften it by either roasting, instead of running immediately for the fryer. This way, the eggplant softens without getting too greasy. You can always fry it at the end to get that extra crispness, but if you make prepare eggplant a la Plenty, I'm guessing you won't want to. Ottolenghi has you score the eggplant flesh crosswise before drizzling it with olive oil and broiling it, exposing more surface area. As the eggplant bakes, the scored flesh crisps up on all sides, adding textural contrast to the surface while staying soft within. The yogurt sauce is redolent of garlic; it's a perfect contrast to the juicy, tart pomegranate that finishes the dish.

creamed garlic

eggplant prep

Pomegranates aren't exactly in season right now, but I finished the eggplant with a drizzle of pomegranate syrup, which worked very well. If you have saba, you definitely could use it. It's sweeter than pomegranate syrup, but still plenty tart. I'm pretty sure Cathy tried this with saba and loved it.

I can see using this eggplant roasting technique for so many things. When I was in Mississippi for work earlier this week, I dug my way through a stack of eggplant parmesan that tasted more like breadcrumbs than eggplant. Can you imagine riffing on parm with this roasted eggplant half? It'd be amazing. I'd maybe tuck some pesto into the olive oil before drizzling it on for the roast, and when the eggplant comes out of the oven sizzling, I'd top it with hot tomato sauce, maybe even some fresh mozzarella cheese before popping it back under the broiler for a hot minute. Mouth=watering.

eggplant with pomegranate and yogurt 2

Roasted Eggplant with Yogurt and PomegranateAdapted from Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi

Ottolenghi recommends you cook these eggplants for 35-40 minutes, but mine needed more like 60-75 before they were truly tender. Check early, but be prepared for a longer cooking time.

For the eggplant:

2 large and long eggplants 1/3 cup olive oil 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh thyme or lemon thyme, plus a few whole sprigs to garnish Sea salt and black pepper Seeds of 1 pomegranate or 2 tablespoons pomegranate syrup 2 teaspoons za'atar

For the sauce:

1/4 cup buttermilk (or substitute regular milk with a squeeze of lemon) 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a drizzle to finish 1 small garlic clove 1 pinch flaky salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cut the eggplants in half lengthways, cutting straight through the stalk. Use a small sharp knife to score three or four parallel cuts into the eggplant flesh, without cutting through to the skin. Repeat at a 45-degree angle to get a diamond-shaped pattern.

Place the eggplant halves, cut-side up, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle or brush them with olive oil, brushing until all of the oil has been absorbed. Sprinkle with the thyme and some salt and pepper. Roast for 60-75 minutes, at which point the flesh should be soft, flavorful, and nicely browned. Remove from the oven and let cool.

To make the sauce: mash the garlic and the pinch of salt on a cutting board with a chef's knife until garlic is completely smooth. (Alternatively, simply send the garlic through a press.) Then whisk together all of the ingredients, taste for seasoning, and store in the refrigerator until needed.

To serve, spoon plenty of buttermilk sauce over the eggplant halves without covering the stalks. Sprinkle za'atar and plenty of pomegranate seeds (or pomegranate syrup) on top and garnish with thyme. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

Spinach with Toasted Sesame Dressing

Bittman says that spinach is a dish best served cooked, and who am I to disagree? I used to be very into raw spinach salads with strawberries, avocado, and sweet, sweet vinaigrette -- you know the salad I'm talking about -- but that feels very 90's LA, or Upper West Side circa my college years. These days, it's onward, upward, and into boiling water with my spinachy greens.

spinach

Last week, Bryce and I went to Toki Underground, again. (Brycie, think we count as regulars yet? Probably not. Lather, rinse, repeat. I need more ramen, stat.) Among the many treats buried in every bowl of ramen are these tightly rolled coils of spinach. You peel off layers of the spinach as you eat, sort of like ohitashi; they soak up the broth you're slurping. It's good fun.

spinach log

I've been blanching and bunching spinach in all sorts of recipes lately. There's loads of it at the markets, and while every time the huge bundle cooks down into a little blob I feel a bit deflated, even a small portion of the recipe I'm sharing today delivers a big punch.

It's precisely because the spinach cooks down so much that it stands up to a sauce as insistently vocal as this one. You wouldn't think a sauce of sesame seeds would deliver such a lash, but it does: it's salty from the soy sauce, sweet from the mirin, and deeply, pungently sesame, from seeds toasted just until they're looking over the cliff at burnt, then ground into a dark brown paste and folded into the sauce. This recipe, it's a good one. Oh, and for all you people who have something else to do tonight besides cook dinner? The whole thing takes ten, maybe fifteen minutes.

sesame seeds

toasted seeds

If sesame isn't your thing, I bet you you can make this with toasted ground peanuts, or even with a spoonful of almond butter. Not the same, but probably still delicious. Do let us know if you try it that way.

sesame dressing

If soy isn't your thing (I'm looking at you, Terr...), maybe you could substitute a bit of rice wine vinegar and some salt.

Try it, you'll like it. And have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

spinach toasted sesame dressing

Spinach and Toasted Sesame Dressingadapted from Just One Cookbook's Spinach Gomaae recipe

Vegetarian and gluten-free (if you use GF soy sauce)

1 lb. raw spinach, washed Pinch of salt 6 tablespoons roasted white sesame seeds, plus more for garnish 3 tablespoons soy sauce 2 tablespoon sugar 2 teaspoons sake or rice wine vinegar 1 teaspoon mirin

Set a big pot of water on high heat and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, put sesame seeds in a small (preferably stainless steel) frying pan and dry-toast them over medium heat until they turn deep golden brown and a couple seeds jump in the pan. The seeds will continue to toast as they cool, so watch them like a hawk as they brown. There's a fine line between deep brown and burnt. Set aside.

Water should be boiling. Add spinach and pinch of salt. Cook 1 minute, until spinach is vibrant green; drain immediately, and either shock in an ice bath or run under cold water to stop the cooking. Squeeze spinach in a fist to drain the water, then shape it into two fat logs. Cut the logs crosswise into four little bundles, leaving the stray bits at each end of the log as a chef's snack. Transfer two bundles to each of four very small bowls or plates.

Put the sesame seeds in a spice grinder or a mortar and grind or blitz until the seeds become a fine powder. If using a spice grinder, transfer sesame powder to a bowl. Add soy sauce, sugar, sake/vinegar, and mirin, and stir to combine.

Spoon the sauce over the four bundles of spinach and finish with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Serve to hungry people.