Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Main Courses

  • Wall Street Journal Weekend Recipes — Not Just for Show! Tasty Braised Mustard Greens with Ginger, Cilantro and Rice

    The Wall Street Journal weekend edition recently started an "Off Duty" section, and among its features are weekly food and drink articles.  The section generally seems to have a main article devoted to discussion of a certain type of food followed by several related recipes.  The January 15 – 16 Off Duty section led with "A Guide to Loving Winter Greens", which definitely peaked my interest because of my recent attempts to integrate more "hearty" greens (e.g., kale and collard greens) into my recipe rotation.  While in weeks past I have ripped out the recipes from the weekend WSJ for my recipe folder and then promptly forgotten about them, I actually took this rip-out with me to the grocery store.  I settled on purchasing mustard greens to make the Mustard Greens Braised with Ginger, Cilantro and Rice dish.  

    I LOVED this dish — it was hearty with even just a small portion satisfying my appetite, incredibly healthy, and the flavors were quite rich.  I definitely think I will make it again, especially as I found that halving the amount of ingredients not only made it manageable for a one-to-two person meal, but also reduced the cooking time to only 30 minutes, making it a perfect weeknight main course.  I think I now finally have an incentive to dust off those previous WSJ recipe clippings and give them a try as well!

    Mustard Greens, Cilantro and Rice

     

  • An Easy Chole (Indian Chickpea) Recipe

    Its funny to suddenly crave a food that you haven't really been that fond of in the past.  That recently happened to me when I started thinking about chole, an Indian chickpea dish.  Although I have eaten plenty of chole in the past, I don't think its ever really counted as one of my favorites.  I decided to satisfy this newfound desire by buying a can of chickpeas at the supermarket (instead of paying $10 for this dish as nearby restaurants!), and looking around my apartment and the Internet for recipes.  I couldn't find anything that really would work with the ingredients in my house, so I decided to improvise a bit based on my of my latest experiments with North Indian cooking. 

    The recipe I came up with was definitely what I was looking for — spicy and substantive.  And because I enjoyed the leftovers so much, I decided to make the recipe again just week or two after the first attempt.  I definitely encourage to try this recipe, though some may need to down (or up) the spice based on preference.

    Chole

    Ingredients

    • 1 can chickpeas, very lightly washed and partially drained
    • 1 tsp. cumin seeds
    • 1 tsp. ground coriander
    • 2 tsp. prepared ginger garlic paste (or mince equal parts ginger and garlic to reach this amount)
    • 1 medium onion, chopped
    • 2 thai green chili peppers (or substitute other hot peppers), coarsely chopped
    • 1 1/2 medium-sized tomatoes, coarsely chopped
    • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
    • 1/2 tsp. garam masala
    • 1/2 tsp. chili powder
    • salt
    • vegetable oil

    Directions

    • Heat in a medium pot 1 – 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and add cumin and coriander, stirring lightly and cooking until fragrant (maybe 30 seconds – 1 minute).
    • Add ginger garlic paste, chopped onion and hot peppers and saute for 2 – 3 minutes until the onion is translucent.
    • Stir in the tomatoes, turmeric and garam masala, and cook the mixture until the tomatoes reduce in volume and break down (3 – 4 minutes)
    • Stir in chickpeas, with some of the water from the washing, and 1/2 tsp. salt.  Coat the chickpeas with the onion, tomato and spice mixture.
    • Cover, and stir periodically.  Add water if necessary to ensure the mixture isn't sticking to the pot.  Cook for 20 minutes or until chickpeas are hot and absorb the flavors of the spice mixture.  Finish by adding the chili powder and salt to taste.

  • A Rick Bayless Hit and … a Total Miss

    I have wanted to purchase a Rick Bayless cookbook for years, but for some reason, haven't yet picked one up (actually, I do know the reason — my continuing guilt about not using the cookbooks I already have!).  Thankfully, as I was recently searching the internet for a good chile de arbol salsa, I found that Bayless has a lot of free recipes from his PBS cooking show on his website.  I decided to give a few of them a try to figure out if I would actually use a Bayless cookbook.  

    The first recipe — the Arbol Chile Salsa — turned out wonderfully.  It was incredibly spicy, had a nice consistency, and was pretty easy to make.  I ended up snacking on it all week and used it to liven up some of my meals as well. 

    Rick Bayless Chile Arbol Salsa

    The second recipe — the Salsa Mac and Cheese – was unfortunately pretty bland and unexciting.  I was really looking forward to the dish being a slightly healthier and considerably more flavorful version of standard macaroni and cheese, but it tasted a bit like plain mac and cheese with watered-down tomato sauce.  Unfortunately, I don't think adding more hot peppers to the salsa would make it that much more of an interesting dish.  I do think though that the Salsa Mac and Cheese would be a fun dish for children who love mac and cheese because it would be different and children generally don't need/like spice or complex flavors to enjoy their food.

    Rick Bayless Salsa Mac and Cheese

    Despite this "miss" though, I am looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes on Bayless' site, and will probably buy one of his cookbooks over the next few months.  Living on the East Coast again has really made me long for real Mexican food, and I don't think I'll be able to survive on my own for much longer!

  • Vegetarian Khao Soi/Chiang Mai Noodles

    I consumed a fabulous meal at Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon this summer, and the main feature was a dish I had never tried before — Khao Soi Kai, also called Chiang Mai noodles (I had the completely vegetarian version — they also have a meat version, which I gather is more commonplace).  Even though I was clearly full after eating only half of the dish, I could not stop eating more and more of this rich soup (yes, I did feel a little sick afterwards, but I still think it was worth it!).  Ever since that meal, I have often thought longingly of eating another vegetarian version of Khao Soi, but my restaurant searches in D.C. and New Haven haven't resulted in any positive hits yet.  So I ultimately decided to try making it at home, even though I was nervous about mastering the dish in my kitchen.

    I first checked through my cookbooks and magazines (including Nancy Dermott's Real Vegetarian Thai), but couldn't find anything that seemed to work.  I then simply googled "Khao Soi" and found a ton of recipes online.  None of the recipes I found though seemed to fully work though for vegetarians and for what ingredients I had on hand/was willing to buy, so I decided to take the common elements of the many recipes out there on the Internet, and just adapt a recipe to what I thought my tastes would be — thankfully, there was enough variation of the Internet recipes to make me feel like no matter what I did, I could still come up with a tasty meal.  It was also funny to note that most of the recipes that at least popped up first on Google had in turn been adapted from Nancy McDermott or other popular Thai cooking books.  

    The result was outstanding — yes, I would definitely make modifications the next time I make the soup, but I was really happy with what I was able to put together.  That being said, I look forward to my next trip to Portland!  The recipe and the modifications I recommend follow the picture.

    Vegetarian Khao Soi 

    Vegetarian Khao Soi

    Ingredients – for approximately 3 – 4 main course servings

    • 7 cloves garlic, minced
    • 1/2 cup chopped red onion
    • 1 tsp. minced thai green/serrano/jalapeno pepper (adjust to your preference)
    • 2 tbsp. red curry paste (I used a store version instead of making my own)
    • 1 1/4 cup vegetable broth — recommend increasing to 2 cups (I only had 1 1/4 cup frozen homemade broth available)
    • 1 can light coconut milk — recommend starting with maybe 1/2 can though if you like more powerful flavors
    • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
    • 1 tsp. soy sauce
    • 1 package firm tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes — recommend decreasing to 1/2 package
    • 2 tsp. fresh lime juice (or to taste)
    • 1/4 tsp. cane sugar
    • 2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
    • 2 oz. uncooked thin rice noodles, cooked to taste, or 1 1/2 cups cooked noodles — recommend increasing to maybe 2 cups cooked noodles
    • Vegetable oil

    For garnish

    • Chopped scallion
    • Chopped cilantro
    • Chopped red onion — most recipes seem to use shallots though, presumably for the less strong flavor?
    • Lime wedges
    • Recommend adding packaged fried egg noodles as well – I had them with the Pok Pok version, and it seems to be a standard garnish in most of the online recipes.

    Directions

    • Heat vegetable oil on medium-high heat in a medium pot.
    • Add garlic and hot pepper, and after sauteing for 1 – 2 minutes, add 1/4 cup of the chopped onion, red chili paste, and another tsp. of oil if the mixture is sticking to the pot.  
    • After 2 – 3 minutes, stir in the light coconut milk, vegetable broth, soy sauce, and turmeric, and turn up the heat to bring the mixture to a boil.
    • Once the soup is boiling, mix in the tofu cubes and cooked noodles.  Then stir in lime juice, sugar and 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, making sure to taste the mixture to ensure you reach your desired flavor balance (particularly with the lime juice).
    • Remove soup from heat, and ladle into serving bowls.  Garnish, serve, and enjoy!

  • Vegetarian Times Winter Squash, Leek, and Apple Soup — Filling yet Light Meal for the Winter Months

    The latest Vegetarian Times (Nov./Dec. 2010) has a vibrant cover picture of a winter squash, leek, and apple soup.  Its funny that while looking for a recipe that would use up some leftover butternut squash in my fridge (I generally look at cooking magazines from back to front), I completely skipped the page with the cover picture recipe and didn't realize it existed until I put the flipped-through magazine back on my counter top.  Then, upon seeing the cover, it clicked in my head that there was a recipe that I could in fact use from this latest issue!  

    Unfortunately, the Vegetarian Times has not yet put the recipe on their website, but I did make a number of modifications that I will record here.  First, the recipe calls for red kuri, but given that I already had some cubed butternut squash, I decided to use that instead.  Second, I messed with the ratios called for by the recipe a bit to fit the ingredients I had on hand, and ended up using the following main ingredients:

    • 1/2 of a medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed
    • 1 leek, using both the white and light green parts
    • 1 McIntosh apple, peeled, cored and cut into eighths
    • 1 sage leaf, chopped

    Finally, I was out of white wine, so I omitted that and used 3 cups of homemade vegetable stock instead of the 6 called for in the recipe given that I was using significantly less butternut squash.  The result was probably a bit sweeter and watery than what the original recipe would produce as I retained the same amount of apple and probably used slightly more stock-to-squash.  I definitely will be making this soup again — it was SO easy, filled me up without making me feel heavy, had nice sweet and savory flavors, and did not get boring as I continued to eat the leftovers!

    Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

    p.s. Don't get confused by the zested orange in the picture — I was making Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes at the same time I was making the soup, and just thought it would provide a nice accent to the picture.  My next blog post will probably be about the cupcakes, so stay tuned!

  • Radicchio and Gorgonzola Pasta — A Unique and Strong Dish

    I cannot understate how the Internet has helped me really expand my cooking skills, and exposed me to recipes and dishes that I couldn't even imagine on my own (sorry cookbooks, today's entry is definitely a blow to my efforts to use you more).  The most recent example:  typing into Google different combinations of aging ingredients in my fridge and pantry, and finding a recipe that would utilize almost a handful of them!  

    The recipe was Nick Stellino's Pasata Al Raddicchio E Gorgonzola, which was able to use up my remaining radicchio, gorgonzola, shallots, white wine, and even some whole milk that I originally bought for baking.  The resulting was incredibly flavorful — the pungent cheese, white wine, and bitter radicchio combined quite well to make a totally unique dish that didn't get boring even after I ate my third round of leftovers of it.  The one modification to the dish that I would NOT recommend is putting in six times the amount of radicchio than the recipe calls for (3 cups of chopped radicchio instead of 1/2 cup) — that was definitely too much, and I had to pick around most of the radicchio to avoid the overwhelming bitterness of using that much.  Other than that though, I would definitely recommend this dish, though perhaps would use this amount of sauce for half the pasta called for (so use this sauce for maybe 1/2 pound of pasta, instead of a full pound).  The complete description of my recipe modifications and tips follows the picture below.

    Gorzonzola and Radicchio Pizza

    Modifications

    • As mentioned above, I ended up using almost 3 cups of chopped radicchio instead of a 1/2 cup of chopped radicchio called for by the recipe.  I would NOT recommend using this much radicchio — instead increasing up to 1 cup would be the maximum I believe.  As you can tell, I was desperate to get rid of all of the radicchio in my fridge and thought that cooking it down would get rid of a lot of the bitter taste, but that was not the case.
    • I substituted homemade vegetable broth for the chicken stock.
    • I chopped an entire medium shallot, which probably resulted in 3 tablespoons instead of 2.
    • I substituted about 2 tablespoons of whole milk for the 1/4 cup of heavy cream called for in the recipe.
    • I reduced the amount of pasta to about 1/4 that what was called for in the recipe because I was cooking for just one — but to use up the ingredients in my pantry, I kept the original sauce amount as-is (apart from the modifications above).  I would recommend using this amount of sauce for a half-pound of pasta instead of the full pound called for by the recipe author.
    • Finally, if you don't have any radicchio, I think that this recipe would probably make a good gorgonzola pasta sauce as well.

  • A Successful First Attempt at Pappu Charu, a Family and Regional Favorite

    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.

    Pappu Charu

    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.

  • Flavorful Masoor Dal and a New Indian Okra Dish

    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.

    Masoor Dal

    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.

    Bhindi Masala

    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!

  • Asian Tofu and Noodle Soup — A Reminder of a Chicago Favorite!

    When I used to live in Chicago, I LOVED Penny's Noodle Shop.  It wasn't necessarily the most amazing place in the world, but it was fresh, fast and really cheap.  It was in short, the perfect place for a rushed dinner, leisurely weekend lunch or even a mid-afternoon snack.  Since leaving Chicago, I've tried a variety of clear Asian tofu and noodle soups to find something that at least approximates what I enjoyed so much at Penny's.  Unfortunately, while I've found some decent soups here and there, I haven't been able to find a place that is able to recreate what seems like a fairly simple dish.

    The weekend before last, I went to two Asian grocery stores in New Haven and decided to try to make this soup as best as I could.  I was able to find most of the ingredients that I thought I needed, and I decided to plot forward even though I didn't necessarily have all of the vegetables I wanted (e.g., sprouts, lime, carrots).  I'm glad that I tried it because after a little trial and error, I actually felt like I was sitting at the Penny's in Wicker Park!  

    The "error" part was mostly forgetting to include the sesame oil — when I tasted the soup without it (and even with the cilantro, green onion and chili-garlic sauce accompaniments), the soup tasted really bland.  Adding the sesame oil really kicked up the flavor of the soup, and brought all of the ingredients together.  Additionally, I used a full package of tofu, as well as a full can of baby corn, which I think was just too much given the amount of soup I made.  I've made adjustments to the recipe below to accomodate those changes.

    Finally, I lost the little sheet of paper that I wrote all of my ingredients/directions on, but hopefully I've recaptured it here.  I'll update the post if I realize that I've forgotten anything!

    Asian Tofu and Noodle Soup 

    Ingredients (for 3 large, meal-size servings, or 4 – 5 appetizer servings)

    • 5 cloves garlic, crushed and coarsely chopped
    • 1/4 – 1/2 serrano pepper, finely chopped (vary pepper amount by your spice level, but I would start out with a smaller amount)
    • 4 green onions, chopped
    • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
    • 5 cups water
    • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
    • 1/2 package firm tofu, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
    • 1/2 can baby corn, drained and cut into 1/2-inch segments
    • 2 ounces fine rice noodles (I prefer slightly thinner, pho-style noodles)
    • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
    • 6 tablespoons chopped, fresh cilantro
    • salt to taste
    • chili-garlic sauce (optional)
    • fresh lime wedges (optional)

    Directions

    • Boil water in medium saucepan, and add noodles, cooking according to package directions.  Drain water from noodles, and rinse with cold water.  Set aside cooked noodles.
    • At the same time the noodles are cooking, heat vegetable oil in a large pot on medium-high heat, and add garlic, hot pepper and one chopped green onion.  Add the soy sauce as well, and saute until the garlic is fragrant (about 2 – 3 minutes).
    • Add the five cups of water, and turn up heat.  Bring water to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer.  Add tofu and cook for 5 minutes.
    • Then add the baby corn, and 1 tsp. of salt (to taste).  Simmer soup for another 2 – 3 minutes.
    • Add cooked noodles, and add additional salt if necessary.  
    • Turn off heat, and add approximately 1.5 – 2 tsp of sesame oil (to taste).
    • Ladle soup into serving bowls, and garnish each bowl with equal parts of cilantro and remaining green onion.  Add chili-garlic sauce and juice from a lime wedge if desired, and serve immediately.

  • Trio of New Indian Dishes

    I think I've been in an Indian food rut of late, having run through the handful of Indian vegetarian recipes I usually make a few times over the past couple of weeks.  This newfound desire to try out some new recipes, particularly North Indian recipes, thankfully came at the same time as the closing sale at a local Borders (20% off the entire store!).  I spent a good chunk of time one afternoon browsing the cookbook section, and settled on Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking and Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian.  

    When I had a friend over for dinner recently, I tried one new recipe from each of these cookbooks, as well as, for the first time. an childhood favorite — Spinach Rice — from Saranya Mandava's newer cookbook, Millennium Mixture.

    Trio of New Indian Dishes 

    Unfortunately, the results was a bit mixed.  The first dish I made was Julie Sahni's Potatoes Smothered in Shallots (link is to a website that reproduces the recipe).  I substituted new potatoes for the standard potatoes called for in the recipe, but other than that, followed the fairly simple recipe as is.  In addition to potatoes and shallots, the recipe calls for only salt and pepper.  I should have realized that that simplicity would mean an incredibly bland result (think plain potatoes with salt and pepper, and just a hit of shallots), but unfortunately I didn't and so missed the opportunity to make it more flavorful.  Oh well.  Flipping through the rest of Sahni's book, I think the other dishes will be equally as bland so I will probably just use the recipes as bases for new experiments.  

    The other two dishes turned out really well, and I am really happy I decided to pick up the Madhur Jaffrey compilation book, which has a ton of interesting-looking recipes.  I tried her Green Beans with Cumin and Fennel recipe, particularly because I have never cooked with fennel seeds.  I really enjoyed the multi-layered flavor they brought to the final dish — so much so, that that following week, I made the recipe again!  To add an interesting starch to the meal, I cooked the Spinach Rice recipe from Millennium Mixture, which was an exact replica of one of my favorite childhood dishes (spinach rice with some plain yogurt was a complete, and satisfying, meal for me for many years).  As the dish was simmering, the smells emanating from the kitchen actually reminded me of my childhood.  Thankfully, I didn't mess up the result, and I'm definitely going to be adding both recipes to my regular cooking rotation!