Dgourmac's Blog

Serendipity works in strange and circuitous ways.  A few days ago I was out doing errands and was getting prepared to make an eggplant-chickpea curry from an Isa Chandra Moskowitz cookbook that I like.  En route to the Trader Joe’s for organic OJ, I was passing my network chiropractor’s office, so I stopped in to get a couple of supplements.  Since they are next door to an Indian grocery market, I went there to get a bunch of fresh cilantro.  Browsing the shelves as I always do, I bought some red lentils (a current favorite of mine) and a can of Indian chickpeas (to compare to the Trader Joe’s organic ones I also intended to get).  Further down the legume shelf — and fascinated with the variety there — I came across a package of dried organic Chana Dal.  I asked they owner about it, and he told me they were split chickpeas and very good, so for $2.99 I decided to try the 2 lb. package.  Here is what I discovered.

Yesterday, I started my online research to learn more about this.  The first reference I found was a goldmine: http://www.mendosa.com/chanadal.html

It turns out that this legume is a high-fiber source of protein with an extremely low glycemic index, which is very welcome news for vegans and anyone with blood sugar level concerns.  While it is indeed a form of chickpea, apparently it is much better for you than ordinary chickpeas.  The next issue to explore was, so what?  Do they taste good?  How does one prepare them?  The findings were equally exciting there too.

Increasingly, these days, I find Mark Bittman and the New York Times to be a source of valuable information about healthy eating.  This article online provided good background information about dals, and it has an excellent video clip featuring Indian cook Julie Sahni, who showed Mark how to properly prepare a dal dish.  Furthermore, it offered several dal recipes, including Chana Dal, New Delhi-Style.

So, last night I washed a cup of the Chana Dal and then placed in a bowl with cold water to soak overnight.  It takes a lot longer for these to become tender than typical lentils.  In fact, in retrospect, you can treat them just as you would well-dried ceci beans from Italy.  Today, I followed the recipe above, simmering them slowly for an hour instead of 40 minutes, then added the Tadka as shown in the video, including some chopped tomato (which is not in the recipe above).

Not being in possession of a mathani (yet) to semi-puree the legume, I used a potato masher for similar results, and it seemed to work fine.  After two satisfying bowls for lunch, accompanied by a pan-toasted whole wheat flatbread and a glass of St. Joseph blanc (100% Rousanne — smelling of peaches and apricots), I was very content.  And well-informed on the glories of Chana Dal.

Oh, yes — and the Eggplant-Chickpea Curry two nights before (remember that was my original target), was very good too, served atop organic brown basmati rice alongside a Paso Robles Grenache.

I took a quick trip to New York City this week, just one night and a couple of dinners.  One of my explicit goals was to visit the Union Square Greenmarket again.  Even though it was a Monday, with fewer vendors and a bit of drizzle, my efforts were rewarded.  I was able to come home that evening with some of the special treats of Spring, all from farmers near the city.  The featured items in my haul were:

• a bunch of Stinging Nettles
• a beautiful, large Maitake mushroom
• two bunches of the freshest, prettiest Ramps I’d ever seen
• a Chinese green vegetable, related to Bok Choy, but lighter, thinner and more appealing
• and a loaf of organic peasant bread, purchased at the Whole Foods across the street

The next day I ate the Ramps, simply sautéed in olive oil, with some grilled bread and a glass of Gruner Veltliner for lunch.  Two nights later I made a Spring Vegetables dinner:

The meal consisted of the NYC goodies, plus ingredients obtained locally over the past week.  No recipe, but you can tell how it came together from the picture above and the list below:

• freshly-made polenta, cooled, cut into strips, and sautéed in olive oil until crisp on both sides
• cauliflower cut into thick steaks, drizzled with olive oil, oven roasted at 375° F. until tender, then topped with organic tomato puree from Catalonia, plus some chopped Kalamata olives, roasted another 20 minutes while the flavors concentrated
• 1/3 head of cabbage, thinly-sliced, tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted on the same pan with the cauliflower
• stinging nettles, leaves picked off the stem using rubber gloves, boiled, then quickly sautéed with garlic and oil
• fresh fava beans, tossed with sautéed green tops from the second bunch of ramps
• and 8-10 fingerling potatoes, braised with onions, garlic, more cabbage, and white wine, then roasted in the small copper pot with the lid on — these sturdy little gems do best when cooked for a relatively long time, something like 45 minutes braising and another 20-25 in the oven.  In fact, the next day I took the remaining leftover fingerlings, cut them in half lengthwise, and then grilled them (a la plancha) cut-side-down for 10 minutes more, alongside the maitake.

The combination was quite salubrious, as my friend Ron would say.  The wine was an excellent match: a 2010 Natalino del Prete “Torre Nova”, a rustic Salice Salentino alive with so many fresh flavors.  It’s made with a blend of Negroamaro and some other grapes to soften it.  A Louis Dressner import, I had obtained it recently from ThirstWine in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn, and it’s an excellent value — organic and only $13.

I have since seen some unfavorable reviews of this wine online, but they don’t match my experience with it at all.  In contrast to those reports, you might read this one from a very knowledgeable reviewer whose opinions I trust (Tom Ciocco).  To quote his words (perhaps a few too many descriptors) about a bottle of the 2009 Torre Nova :

Azienda Agricola Natalino del Prete Salice Salentino “Torre Nova” 2009

Deep, opaque, cloudy and sultry blackish garnet color. Very complex and “pulpy” aromas of  minerals, dried flowers, blackberry, barnyard, licorice, chimney, motor oil, country air, cucumber, mocha, and pine tar. The wine in the mouth is big, full-bodied, dense and chewy in texture, with a powerful, fine, deep, and polished tannic structure on which are hung rich, vivid, three-dimensional flavors of juniper, black cherry,  black currant, prune juice, sap, and woody herbs. The finish is very long, intense, warm and dry, with clear flavors of blood orange juice and raisins. A wine of powerful, expressive, and profound rustic elegance.

The past five days here in the Boston area have been surreal beyond imagination.  As I sit by the TV, watching and waiting for the successful denouement with suspect #2, it feels strange to even think about writing about food and wine.  On the other hand, once we have assured that our loved ones are safe and secure for now, there’s not much else that hasn’t been said in the millions of words in print, on TV, in blogs, or on Twitter.  So here’s what’s on my mind right now.

On Monday afternoon I had a meeting with a senior professor regarding new teaching opportunities.  At the time of the bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, we were sitting in a cafe about 5 miles from Copley Square.  That was fortunate.  The night before we had agreed to move the meeting there, instead of in his office in downtown Boston.

When our meeting was over and we went separate ways, I turned on the radio and heard the awful news.  Next, was the challenge to teach a class that evening.  The graduate students in the class work full-time, but oddly the day is a state holiday, Patriot’s Day, so some had the day off and some didn’t.  None of them were in the marathon, but some spouses and friends were, and in those few hours after the event, there was great confusion and uncertainty.  As we began class at 6:00 PM, it was clear that none of us had our hearts and minds fully engaged on these subjects, so we adjourned after one hour, and the students agreed to run the online simulation exercise from home later in the week.

Two days later I had a different class, this time in the afternoon.  By now the smoke had cleared, the dead and injured had been counted, and our heartbreak for those impacted was very palpable — but we knew nothing about by whom and why this tragedy had occurred.  The class was a bit subdued, but we got through it.  On the way home I stopped at one of the major greengrocers in the area, and bought some great vegetables — my way of sublimating, I guess.  I stumbled home, extraordinarily tired and not terribly hungry.  My wife was out at a meeting that night, so I decided to unwind by cooking just a little.  I had just bought some beautiful red peppers on sale, so I sautéed them in olive oil for a long time, finished them with a bit of red wine vinegar and salt-preserved capers from Puglia, opened a jar of tiny cooked artichokes from Campania, and then uncorked a bottle of Laura Aschero’s 2011 Pigato from Liguria.  That helped me get some needed sleep.

Thursday I was recovering and regrouping at home, and lunch is always one of those rare occasions when I’m at peace with the world.  Here is the lunch plate, all leftovers:

Half an avocado with lemon and salt, steamed asparagus, a few more baby artichokes, and the peppers for vibrant color and flavor.  A slice of my toasted multigrain bread sopped up the olive oil and garlic from the pepper sauté, and a glass of Pigato rounded it all out nicely.

By Friday morning the suspects in the bombing had been identified, more killing and shootings had taken place the night before and in the early hours of the morning, one suspect had been killed and the manhunt was on for the second one.  After getting text messages every couple of hours all night from MIT and my other universities, I had little sleep.  It was a long, tense wait as the drama progressed ever so slowly on Friday.  By early evening I decided to cook a few other special ingredients from Wednesday’s shopping: maitake mushrooms, king trumpet mushrooms, and the first ramps of the season.  It was a fitting first course for Barbara’s fine vegetable and whole wheat pasta dinner that followed.  And it went perfectly with the remaining Pigato.

The arrest of the second suspect in the bombing tonight will provide some semblance of closure for a community so traumatized these past five days.  But even as justice is served, there is no way to heal the loss of life and limbs — as well as sense of security — for so many.  It all provides just one more reminder, as we plan and organize and fret over small details, that life is all too short and often unpredictable, so we must cherish our values and pleasures whenever we can.

I’ve been making Tartine breads for a couple of years now, and the ones I like best contain large amounts of flour I grind myself from different whole grains.  This week I had another success in formulation, while inaugurating a marvelous new clay bread pot.

The bread was made the usual way, with the following ingredients:

• 28.5% King Arthur Organic Bread Flour
• 30%  home ground hard winter whole wheat flour
• 32.5%  home ground organic durum wheat flour
• 9%  home ground Einkorn flour

I also raised the water content slightly, to 75% hydration.  Below is the table of my various mixtures over the past 17 attempts.

The pot is one I bought recently from Judy Motzkin in Cambridge.  She and her pots were recently featured in Yankee magazine.  The design, which was made for her No-Knead Breads, where many of us began baking, is extremely effective.  It is a little smaller and higher than the pots I’ve been using, which causes the bread to be taller and more elegant.  See the comparison below, where my second loaf (half of the dough) was done in my larger, factory-made, old clay pot.  For size, remember the two loaves together  contain a kilo (2.2 lbs.) of flour and 750 grams (roughly 1.5 lbs.) of water.

Anyway, I do like the pot a lot.  The crumb structure (below) was moist and even, and the bread toasts beautifully.  With all of the durum and Einkorn in it, the flavor is sweet and slightly nutty.  Had a slice today with Tartufata — a brilliant mixture of mushrooms, truffles and olives, imported from Italy.  Accompanied by a couple of glasses of Régnié from Guy Breton, some leftover whole wheat pasta with asparagus and shiitakes, and little cubes of beet in a vinaigrette dressing , I was transported.