South Indian Cooking Class @ Dekalb Market on April 8th

photo credit: Dekalb Market

I am so excited to be offering up a South Indian cooking class at Dekalb Market's Spring Weekender.   Dekalb Market is a community space housed in repurposed shipping containers in Downtown Brooklyn (yay close to Fort Greene!) and one of the masterminds behind the whole amazing space is my friend, Joann Kim Nunez.  They are holding the Spring Weekender April 7th and 8th to kick of the full season of art, food, film and other cool events.  This event should be really fun and will feature all sorts of local vendors, a flower market, cooking & gardening workshops, live music and drinks.

This class is one of many firsts for me as I am putting my first class up on Skillshare, a marketplace of classes that connects teachers and students in the same community, and the first time I'll be partnering with Plovgh, an online farmer's market founded by my friend Lizzy McVay Greene, which will be providing me with local ingredients from farmers in the area for my class.



The class I'll be teaching will be on how to make a South Indian rice bowl made up of a few of my family recipes using seasonal ingredients.  There's will be 10 spots that I'm offering so if you're interested, sign up here at the Skillshare site. Can't wait!

Class Info:
Dekalb Market
138 Willoughby Street
Brooklyn, NY
April 8th @ 3PM
sign up

Lentil Leek Soup with Fried Spices

We are in between seasons right now which gets kind of confusing in the kitchen. Last week it was 80 and I didn't really want to eat anything and this week it got cold again, which made me want soup and pretend like it's winter!  This soup recipe is a play on potato leek, but with lentils (either masoor or moong pictured above), less potato and topped with fried spices.  It's a good way to get a creamy consistency but not by using a starchy potato and get some protein while you're at it.

Along with a few other spices, I fry kalonji or nigella seeds, little black seeds which taste a bit like onion, at the end to pour over this soup.  Kalonji is a very complementary spice to dal and potato.  Tempering spices to finish a dish is called chaunk in North India.



This recipe is a one pot meal because its starch and protein in one with the potato and lentils, so no need to make rice to go with your dal here.  The first time I made this soup, I had gotten my first garlic wand from my CSA which I used in the recipe.  This is a picture of my garlic wand!

I was making the soup for a Mexican-Indian supper I hosted a couple years back, and I have since come back to this recipe on several occasions because it's so good! I hope you enjoy:)

Lentil Leek Soup with Fried Spices

 Ingredients

2 tablespoons ghee or oil

2 leeks, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 inch piece ginger, grated

1 potato, cut into small cubes

1 cup moong dal or masoor dal (yellow or red lentils)

8 cups water

1/3 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon coriander powder

for tempering

1-2 tablespoons ghee or oil

pinch of asafoetida or hing

1/2 teaspoon cumin seed

1/2 teaspoon kalonji seeds

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1 onion, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

lemon

Method

Wash the lentils until the water is clear. Then drain and set aside.

Heat ghee or oil in pot under medium flame. Fry leeks until translucent. Add garlic and ginger and fry for a minute. Next, mix in potato and fry for a couple minutes.  Add the drained lentils to the pot. Saute for few minutes and stir.



Pour 8 cups water. You will start getting some foam at the top so skim it off the top. When you don't see anymore foam, add the turmeric, coriander powder and a teaspoon of salt and cook until vegetables and lentils get soft. This takes about 30 minutes over medium heat.

Using a hand blender or regular blender, puree the soup. Add the soup back into the pot.

In a small saucepan, heat the ghee or oil to medium heat. Then add in the hing, cumin seeds, kalonji seeds and fry until the cumin seeds are brown. Add the chili powder and give a good stir. Right after, add the onions and stir together. When the onion is translucent, pour it over the soup. Add salt, pepper and lemon to your taste.

Asha's Ambode (Indian Falafel)

I've been wanting to share the recipe for ambode, the South Indian equivalent of the falafel ball for some time. I was lucky enough to learn the recipe recently from my Auntie Asha, who is an expert ambode maker.

Unlike a falafel ball, which is made from chickpeas, ambode has a flattened shape and is made from chana dal, which looks like this:



You soak the dal and grind it together with a number of ingredients including coconut, onion, herbs, etc. and then fry them up.  My Uncle and Aunt took turns frying the ambodes.



We usually would have ambode on special occasions and you can eat them with chutney and also ketchup, which maybe something just my family does but it's a good combo! If you want to take a break from falafel balls, ambode would be a really good replacement in a pita sandwich.

That was really fun to learn. Thanks Auntie! Apparently, ambodes are also very funny:)

Ingredients

2 cups chana dal

1 teaspoon moong dal (optional)

5 small green chilis or to taste

3 dried red chilis 

2 cups frozen fresh grated coconut

1 handful cilantro

5 curry leaves

1 inch ginger piece, grated

1 teaspoon hing or asafetida

0.5 ounces mint leaves (can use dill, fenugreek leaves or spinach too)

salt

1/2 small red onion, chopped fine

1 tablespoon chickpea or rice flour

Method

Soak the chana dal and moong dal in warm water for 2 hours.  Drain.



Blend one batch of this dal fine and set aside for using as a binder for the rest of the mixture.

Combine all ingredients, except for salt, onions and flour and blend coarsely in batches.

Combine all blended materials together with salt, onions and flour so that it binds.

Form small balls of the mixture and flatten them on your palm like how my Uncle is doing here:



You'll want to get the oil going in a wok and you can make these flattened balls of ambode as you go.



Fry as many as you can at a time but without crowding the wok.  You'll want to fry them until they are brown on either side.



Pick them out of the wok with a slotted spoon and place them on a paper towel to soak up the excess oil.

Serve them hot with chutney or ketchup.

Ambodes also keep well so you can store them in a tupperware for about a week.

The Food in Delhi

I wanted to follow up my last post on Delhi markets with some photos of the foods I like to eat in Delhi.  Pictured above is a giant skillet of potato curry, paneer and veggies that you could get made into a sandwich.

This is a giant vat of galub jamun, one of my favorites. They are fried dough balls in sweet syrup.

This is another sweet called jalebi, which is made from deep fried batter and then soaked in sugar syrup. It has an interesting texture that is kind of chewy and crunchy.

This one bakery across the street from my Great Aunt's house in Malviya Nagar has some really great Gujarati savory foods. This is dhokla, steamed cakes made from chickpea flour batter.

These are fancy dhokla sandwiches made with paneer.

And these are called khandvi, which are made out of a yogurt and chickpea flour batter.  I had never tried this before and it's now one of my favorites. I order it whenever I see it.  

When I was there last, I went with my Great Aunt to a party at the Air Force base where her late husband had served as an Air Vice Marshal.  We were invited to meet up with some of his old friends and feast on some really amazing foods. I really love how there were plants growing all over the bar.

I like to buy tea from stalls on the street.  It always tastes way better than when I make it at home - maybe because all of the flavors have been boiling for so long.  After our morning walks in Deer Park or the Rose Garden, we'd sometimes buy some from the vendor right outside.

My Great Aunt is wearing the fingerless gloves I gave her - perfect for drinking tea:) She also took me to her favorite place to get chole bhatura and kachori in Delhi, which I did a post on here.