Friday: Kala Chana

Black chickpea-potato curry, served with watercress and garlic cucumber pickles.

Black chickpeas (aka kala chana) are relatives of the usual tan-colored variety, but they are a bit smaller and have more texture, along with a subtly more interesting flavor. In this dish they are cooked with potatoes in a sauce that starts with a base of pureed ginger-garlic-onion paste. They are seasoned with asafoetida, some spices, and several tablespoons of either tamarind paste or lemon juice. Here, we've served them with pickles. This is actually the way legume dishes are usually served in many parts of India, although the pickle would likely be something other than cucumber - perhaps lemon, watermelon rind, cauliflower, carrot, etc.

Friday cat blogging, defiance edition

Oscar thought he was being bad when he jumped into this box, but then seemed disappointed to realize that we didn't plan on kicking him out. He tried to salvage the situation with a nap.

Thursday: Step right up!

Frittata with bell pepper, zucchini and yellow summer squash, and pecorino cheese.

The frittata was nice, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. Get a load of the eggs below:



Yes - on top you see an egg that had TWO YOLKS. Two yolks, people! We understand more or less how that happened, but it's not something we had ever seen before. Kind of disturbing. Ate it anyway, though.

Wednesday: Pea shoots...and scores!

Artic char with stir-fried pea shoots on quinoa.

Pea shoots are the tips of young pea plants, which are snipped off in the spring to encourage the plant to continue growing. We were excited to see them in our Winter Sun Farms CSA, since we haven't made them before. In this stir-fry, they are briefly sauteed with garlic, sherry, broth, soy sauce, and sugar.

CSA haul, 1/13/10

From Merchant's Gate CSA:

VEGGIES:
parsnips
carrots
potatoes
onions
cabbage
garlic
turnips
beets

OTHER:
eggs
milk
pickled beets

Tuesday: A late meal

Okra and chickpeas in tamarind sauce, on basmati rice.

This is a sweet-and-sour combination from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East. It's a favorite winter dish of ours because it can be made with ingredients that we almost always have on hand: frozen okra, canned chickpeas, garlic, and tamarind paste. (The dish is even better with curry leaves, but sadly those are harder to come by outside of Queens.)

CSA haul, 1/12/10

From Winter Sun Farms this month:

VEGGIES:
butternut squash
red heirloom tomatoes
yellow heirloom tomatoes
broccoli florets
edamame
carrots (not frozen)

FRUIT:
blueberries

OTHER:
fair trade coffee