TGIF: French-Indian Fusion!

I totally rocked dinner tonight. I don't mind saying so.

I made: French-Indian lentil stew on coconut-cardamom rice with carrot-ginger sauce.

It's a bit involved, but it's totally worth it and it makes a ton.

Start by taking one cup of shredded coconut (the sweetened kind in a bag is fine) and cover with boiling water. Let it sit for about fifteen minutes while you chop all of the veggies. (See below.) Then, put it into a blender and pulse a few times. It's fine if it doesn't fully incorporate; you want milky stuff and pulp. Put it into a strainer and press down on the pulp with a spoon to extract most of the liquid. Save the liquid and the pulp. Set them aside.

French-Indian Lentils

Make the lentils:

1. Make a mirepoix of 2/3 c. each of chopped celery, onion, and carrot. Heat 1 T. canola oil over medium heat in a large soup pot and add the mirepoix. Stir.

2. While that's heating up, mince about five cloves of garlic and grate 1-2 inches of ginger (no need to peel, but cut off any woody or shriveled bits). Put the garlic and the ginger in with the mirepoix, and stir well.

3. Add 1 1/2 T. cumin seeds (more if you're a fan of cumin), half a teaspoon of grated coriander, 1/4 t. cayenne, 1/4 t. turmeric, a few mustard seeds, and some black pepper. Stir well. It's going to stick. This is okay. Add a bay leaf. Cover with boiling water. Put on the lid and turn the heat up so the stew boils. Keep an eye on it. You might need to add more water as this cooks. You'll want the lentils to keep some bite, but be cooked through. It'll take around forty minutes.

4. Once the lentils are mostly cooked, add 1/4 c. of mild tandoori sauce (or more, if that's your desire). Remove the cover and let cook until nearly dry.

Coconut-Cardamom Rice

1 t. canola oil
1 pinch salt
1 cup jasmine rice
1 1/2 c. water
seeds from 5 cardamom pods

1.) Put everything into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover, turn the heat down, and let simmer until the rice is done.

2.) Fold in the coconut pulp. Keep warm.

Carrot-Ginger Sauce


1/8 c. onion, chopped
1 T. ginger, peeled and minced
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and peeled
1 c. carrots, peeled and cut into chunks (chop smaller to cook faster)
1 t. canola oil
1-2 T. Major Gray's chutney
boiling water

1.) Heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, ginger, garlic, and carrot. Stir until fragrant, but don't allow to brown. Cover generously with boiling water. Turn the heat up to boiling and cover.

2. Keep an eye on this and don't let it boil dry. When everything is mushy and there are only a few tablespoons of liquid left, put it into the blender and puree until soft. Pour in the liquid from your coconut and blend again.

Plating:

Dampen the inside of a ramekin and fill with rice. Pack firmly. Put a plate on top, then flip over carefully. You'll have a nice, neat little mound of coconut rice. Surround the rice with the carrot sauce. The sauce will be thick, so gently shake the plate to get it to spread out. Add a large scoop of the lentils.

Chia Tapioca

I found a few recipes for raw tapioca with chia, but I didn't have large quantities of raw cashews on hand, so I was foiled. I had to work with what I had. Here's how:

2 T. chia
1 T. agave nectar
1 c. and 3 T. almond milk (I used vanilla)
1 t. vanilla extract

Put the chia into a bowl. Put the agave nectar into a glass measuring cup. Add almond milk to measure 1 1/4 c. Stir in the vanilla extract. Put in the fridge overnight. It's no dead ringer, but it does have the creamy-vanilla-globby thing going on.

My Neatballs

We had some odds and bobs lying around, so I decided to make minestrone. While I was at it, I figured I could make Italian wedding soup. Sort of. I decided to make some faux meatballs.

You'll need:
1 T. olive oil
2 T. minced onion
1 small clove of garlic, minced
1 T. plain tomato sauce
2 T. dry white wine (I used dry vermouth)
4 T. water (1/4 c.)
dried oregano, fennel seeds, and crushed red pepper
fresh parsley
2 vegan Boca burgers, thawed and crumbled
a bit of whole wheat flour

canola oil

Heat the olive oil in a nonstick saucepan. Add the onion and garlic, along with the dried herbs. Once it starts to sizzle, add the wine and tomato sauce. When it becomes thick, add the water. Stir until incorporated and reduced. (No longer runny.) Taste and add a bit of salt if needed. (The Bocas have some salt, so use less than you think you need.)

Put the parsley and crumbled Bocas into a small bowl. Add the sauce. Mix well. Add a sprinkle of whole wheat flour if it's too soggy.

Wipe out the pan with a paper towel. Cover the bottom of it with canola oil, about 1/8 inch deep. Heat over medium until a cube of bread turns brown within a few seconds. While the oil is heating, roll your mixture into small balls. Each ball should be about the size of a cherry tomato.

(At this point, I rolled them all in whole wheat flour. However, I could see the grains on the final product, so I suggest you skip this part. If you used enough flour in your meatballs, it should brown nicely and not stick or fall apart.)

Fry in batches. Use a spatter guard to keep from getting burned and messing up the top of your stove. Shake the pan gently and use a spatula to brown the meatballs on all sides. Remove with a slotted spoon, fork, or spatula, and drain on a plate lined with paper towels. Ta-da!

Strawberry-Guava-Pisco Sorbet

This was my first try at making sorbet. It turned out fairly well.

You'll need:
1 pint strawberries, washed and hulled
about 1 cup of guava nectar
2 c. sugar
2 c. water
1 shot pisco

Mash the strawberries and put them into a 2-c. measuring cup. Add enough guava nectar to bring the level to 2 c. Puree in a blender, then strain into a small bowl. Add the pisco and stir. Chill.

Heat the sugar and water over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer. Let bubble for 5 minutes (no need to stir). Pour into a measuring cup and cool completely.

Add the syrup to the puree and stir well. Pour into your ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's directions.

I decorated each serving with a strawberry that I'd dipped in pisco and then rolled in sugar.

Let Them Eat Cake

Sunday was my mom's sixtieth birthday. She decided to have a little party. Because two of her friends also have birthdays around this time, she opted for a joint celebration. That meant that I got to make three cakes. I made the vegan chocolate cupcakes in the cake form (it turned out delicious but a bit difficult to handle), Rachael Ray's Tequila Lime Cupcakes in the cake form (also delicious, but you'll need a double recipe of the frosting and should double the tequila and add extra lime juice), and the show-stopping White Chocolate Torte with Raspberry Mousse Filling and Light White Chocolate Buttercream.

Make the cake first. I used the recipe from White Chocolate Mousse and Strawberry Layer Cake in The Encyclopedia of Chocolate, by Christine McFadden and Christine France.

As it's cooling, make the buttercream. (http://comfortablydomestic.com/2011/06/28/white-chocolate-buttercream/) Set it aside and make the mousse.

I based my recipe on one from the Cook from the Hip blog. I did make a few changes, so the recipe is here:

1 12-oz bag of frozen raspberries, completely thawed (leave it in the fridge overnight)
about 3/4 c. sugar (you can use more if the berries aren't sweetened or less if they are)
1 1/2 c. whipping cream
1 packet unflavored vegetarian gelatin substitute (I used Natural Desserts Jel Dessert Unflavored)

Start by pushing the raspberries through a food mill or strainer to get rid of the seeds and extract the flesh. Put the juice and flesh from the berries into a small saucepan with sugar to taste. Heat until bubbling. Let cool a bit. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Whisk the jel into the warm raspberry mixture. (Whisky fast or it will clump.) Gently fold the raspberry mixture into the cream a bit at a time. (Maybe four additions total.)

Frost each layer of the cake with a bit of the buttercream. Frost three layers with the raspberry cream. Refrigerate until the mousse is fairly solid. Stack the layers one on top of the other. Pipe remaining buttercream around the top edge of the cake, then decorate with raspberries.