In addition to Cottage Cheese Pakoras and Bendakaya, one of my favorite Indian dishes is Pappu Charu, an absolutely wonderful lentil and vegetable stew.  During a not-so-recent trip home, my mother finally taught me how to make pappu charu, but of course it took me several months to work up the courage to actually try it myself (even my mother has admitted messing up pappu charu from time to time).  I am definitely happy that I finally got over this insecurity, particularly because I was able to declare my first charu adventure a success!  The winter months are certainly looking much more appealing with more hot pappu charu to keep me warm and satisfied!  The recipe details follow the picture of a steaming serving of pappu charu, served over white rice.

Ingredients (for approximately 4 servings)

• 1/2 cup toor dal (available in any Indian store), well rinsed through
• 1 cup baby carrots, halved
• 2 serrano peppers, coarsely chopped (adjust hot peppers to taste)
• 1/2 – 3/4 small onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 white radish, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 tomato, coarsely chopped (into approx. 8 large pieces)
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp. tamarind concentrate paste (available in any Indian store)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
• 3 dried red chili peppers (available in any Indian store)
• 2 curry leaves (available in any Indian store)
• 1/2 tsp. chili powder
• Pinch of hing (also known as asafoetida, available in any Indian store) (optional)
• Vegetable oil
• Salt

Directions

• Combine toor dal and 1 cup water in a medium pot, and bring to a boil on medium-high heat.
• When mixture starts to boil, reduce heat to a lower simmer and cover.  Cook for 20 minutes, and stir occasionally.
• As dal is cooking, place carrots, hot peppers, onion, and radish in a microwave safe bowl with a few tablespoons of water.  Cover and place in the microwave for 4 minutes (until vegetables are tender, and approx. 3/4 cooked through).
• Add 1/2 cup water and 1/8 tsp. salt to the dal, stir, cover, and cook for another 10 minutes until tender.  Once dal is tender, turn off heat and lightly mash dal in pot with any thicker spatula (non-metal as to not scrape the pan) or masher. 
• Place vegetables, including the water that they were microwaved with, into the dal pot, and add tomato as well.  Bring heat to medium to bring mixture to a boil again.  
• Once mixture reaches a boil, add tamarind paste, starting with 1/4 tsp.  Taste the mixture after adding the first 1/4 tsp. to ensure that the charu isn't getting too sweet.  Continue adding until the desired taste is reached, being careful not to use too much tamarind concentrate.  Continue a light boil for 5 additional minutes, and add water as necessary to ensure a stew or soup-like consistency (whatever your preference).  Add cilantro for the last few minutes of cooking.
• At the same time, in a small saucepan, heat 1/2 tsp. vegetable oil on medium-high heat.  Once the oil heats up, add mustard seeds.  Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add cumin, curry leaves, and hing, turning off heat and stirring in the chili peppers, chili powder and garlic for another minute.  
• Pour contents of the saucepan into the charu, and stir.  Add salt to taste, starting with 1/2 tsp.  Turn off heat.  

I recommend serving the pappu charu as a compliment to any Indian meal, or on its own as a light meal with some cooked rice.

Two new Indian recipes to share with everyone!  Both are incredibly simple (so much so that I'm sure most Indians won't find them interesting at all) but at least for me, they add in some new dishes into my usual Indian rotation.  The first is a new dal recipe, using masoor dal, which is a faster-cooking lentil than the moong dal and toor dal that I generally use.  The second is a new okra dish, a variation of the bhindi masala entrees that you have probably seen and/or tried at North Indian restaurants.  I generally make a dry okra dish that is basically just fresh okra sauteed with spices, but I wanted to mix things up a bit and get more of a soft-okra-in-light-sauce dish that I thought might be a good way to use frozen okra.  I would highly recommend the masoor dal recipe everyone to replicate, but I think the okra dish might need a little work — perhaps one or two more ingredients, as well as figuring out how to make frozen okra less sticky!  The recipes and directions follow the respective pictures.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup masoor dal (available at all Indian stores), washed
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 serrano pepper, chopped (adjust to taste)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 2 dried red chilis (available at all Indian stores), broken in half
• vegetable oil
• salt
• water

Directions

• Combine the washed masoor dal and 1.5 cups of water in a small pot, and bring to a boil
• Once the contents of the pot are boiling, add turmeric, serrano pepper, garlic, and 1 tsp salt; stir; reduce heat to a simmer; and cover.  Add 1/4 cup of water if necessary (you want to ensure that the dal doesn't burn while cooking because of a lack of water).  Continue cooking until dal is tender — in total, this process should take 10 – 15 minutes.
• In a small saucepan, heat 1 tsp of vegetable oil on medium heat.  When hot, add the mustard seeds and dried red chilis.  When the mustard seeds start to pop, turn off the heat, and add to the cooked dal.  
• Turn off heat for the pot, add additional salt to taste, and serve immediately.

Ingredients

• 1 bag of frozen okra
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp urad dal
• 2 dried red chilis, broken in half
• 1/2 serrano pepper, chopped (adjust to taste)
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 tsp chopped ginger
• 1/2 of a small onion, chopped
• vegetable oil
• salt
• water

Directions

• Place okra in a microwave-safe bowl, add 1/4 cup of water, cover, and place the covered bowl in the microwave.  Microwave the okra for 4 minutes at the standard high heat setting.  Remove from microwave, drain water, and set aside.
• In a large saucepan, heat 2 tsps of vegetable oil on medium-high heat.  When hot, add mustard seeds.  When the mustard seeds start popping, add cumin, urad dal, and dried red chili peppers and saute until mixture is fragrant (approx. 30 sec. to one minute).  
• Then add garlic, ginger, and serrano pepper, and saute for one minute.  Add the onion and saute until the onion is translucent.
• Add the okra, turning up heat.  Cook for approximately 5 minutes until the okra is hot, and add salt to taste (lean to the liberal side).  Be careful to not overcook the okra.  As frozen okra becomes overcooked, the bright green flavor starts to fade (note this is different from how fresh okra cooks). 

In terms of the additional ingredients I would add to this okra dish, I would consider adding a diced tomato or two when the onion is cooking as well as some amchoor powder toward the end to add a bit of diversity to the flavor.  I am also interested in experimenting more with fennel seeds, but I am not quite sure if they would work with this dish.  Keep posted for more variations of this recipe!