Rasam's Profile
Dumb Diners -- Maybe even YOU?
You all are right in many ways
1) my students' lack of knowledge reflects their lack of prior exposure and the poor preparation most of them got through K-12, not their abilities or character.
2) However, I have not seen any abilities in most of my students to do the kind of things gadfly describes, Most of my students are just poorly prepared, for many reasons outside their control.
3) They are better nourished (more calories) and healthier (fewer infectious diseases) than earlier generations - also much more obesity and type-2 diabetes.
And alan: I do not expect my UGs to "cogently explain" the role of folic acid in anything. I expect them to have even vaguely heard the term, that too *after* reading the chapter on the subject! Don't put your words in my mouth.
And I am in a region with comparatively high rates of teen pregnancy and correspondingly, comparatively poor birth outcomes, and nationally, 40% of pregnancies are unplanned. So the risk of young adults not knowing one of the most important nutritional preventors of birth defects is potentially quite serious here.
I have seen youth in neighboring, more prosperous, counties do graduate from HS with exposure to this knowledge. My UGs come from comparatively under privileged backgrounds and the educational inequality shows in their college preparation and performance. I am not making any statements about how great students were when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
ISO South Indian Lemon Pickle
In India, the distinction between lime and lemon is not as strong as in the West. In India, there is one thin skinned, yellow, sour, fruit, which is yellow like a lemon, but thin skinned and sour like a lime.
Not sure what the translation into English would be (Nimbu in Hindi, many other names in other Indian languages). Indians say lime or lemon interchangeably for this fruit.
This is the one that turns up in most pickles, so dont sweat the lime/lemon distinction.
However, there are other citrusy fruits, that are pickled too, so not sure what went into the homemade pickle you liked so much.
And there are at least half a dozen different South Indian lemon pickle recipes, with oil, without oil, different spices, etc. So get more details before you buy.
Dumb Diners -- Maybe even YOU?
Yes, all these are students who go through classes at my (Decent State University, while the flagship campus is first rate, the branch campuses are, well, very spotty).
I get stories like these each semester. It's not only countries.
To keep it food related:
These are reproductive age young men and women who have never HEARD of folic acid and why prenatal vitamins are important, who don't know the names of many fruits and vegetables (I do not teach nutrition by the way), who want to know what kind of ID Freud was required to show and why, and on and on and on.
Most of them are trying to major in nursing.
Be very afraid.
Subway's Veggie Rip-off
The sad thing is that near my work place, the Subway is about the ONLY option for sandwiches that serves a veggie option.
A great independent sandwich place closed down (don't know why). It served a good variety for everyone, including 2-3 really good vegetarian options.
But they went, and we got Jimmy John's and Subway. JJ has NO vegetarian options. The Subway has something mysterious called "Veggie Patty" - I've tried it, and it's OK in a junk food sort of way.
So, given these limited options, Subway gets some of my business......
grapefruit and black pepper - am I the only one?
I have eaten grapefruit with salt and red chili powder (delicious) and grapefruit with chaat masala (also great).
Never tried with plain black pepper, but will do so and report back. Sounds good though.
Meatless Mondays
That sounds great escondido, except meatless does not mean low or no protein - a common food myth :)
There are plenty of tasty non meat protein sources that should please even a picky eater, as the dozens of suggestions above show. Just how old is this picky eater (toddler?) and just how picky are they?
The creative cooks on this forum are sure to find something to please them - where there is a will there is a way.
Is Indian Food really healthy?
Rice and roti sitting on the same plate for serving convenience is one thing.
Using the roti to pick up the rice is something else :) This is what I see in many descriptions by people not familiar with desi food.
Did your dad use his roti to scoop up rice+wet dish?
Or was it one at a time: rice+wet dish then roti+wet dish?
I'll bet $$ it was the latter not the former :)
chana dal recipes
Here's a link with a TON of recipes: http://www.mendosa.com/chanadal.html
I like chana dal a lot and it's in the regular rotation at home. Interesting that chana dal is your first choice of dal, rather than toor, moong, or masoor. Any reason why you like chana dal?
If you really like Indian home style cooking, this dal is hard to beat:
Chana dal with panch pora (Bangla 5 spice)
1/2 cup chana dal+ 1/3 cup moong dal + 1/3 cup masoor dal.
Wash, and boil in pressure cooker with about 4 cups water, salt, and about 1/4 tsp turmeric. Chana dal takes longer than other dals to cook, so keep it cooking a little longer. When the cooker is open, the other two dals should have almost disappeared, and the chana dal should be soft and creamy.
Add the equivalent of one 14 oz can of finely diced tomatoes, and a little chopped cilantro.
Then, in a small skillet, take a little vegetable oil, heat, and do "tarka" with 1 tbsp panch pora (Bangla 5 spice, comprising: equal proportions of cumin, mustardseed, kalonji, fenugreek, and fennelseed). When the seeds pop, add 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp (adjust to taste) red chili powder. Then immediately add 1 onion, thinly sliced. Stir well.
Saute for about 10 minutes till the onion is soft, and starting to caramelize.
Dump the contents of the skillet into the dal, and wash out the skillet with a few drops of water and add to the dal.
Mix well and serve hot with rice, chapatis, and some kind of vegetable and the usual yogurt etc.
Serves about 6 to 8, and tastes wonderful, even better the next day.
I snack on bowls of this stuff. The chana dal makes it so creamy and delicious.
Need suggestions for indian type salad to serve with Dal
If you want to use spinach, you could try spinach raita. Some links:
http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2008/06/cool-spinach-raita.html
or
http://indianfood.about.com/od/sidesandsalads/r/palakraita.htm
Another option is a Southern India cucumber+moong dal kosumalli:
http://anu-recipediary.blogspot.com/2009/08/cucumber-kosumalli-or-kosambari.html
Instead of, or in addition to, cucumber, you can use shredded carrots+tomatoes, or very finely shredded cabbage+green bell peppers, and so on.
Where's the flavour??
Have you recently had a sinus infection or cold? Or taken specific medications?
Loss of smell (and a corresponding loss of taste) often results from such situations.
See this link: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003052.htm
In most cases your sense of smell and taste can come back.
Canned Beets -- Talk to Me!
Hi Alka: I must confess I do not feel any love for canned beets. I love fresh beets, when roasted, sauteed, etc. But the canned beets I've tried so far have been flabby, overcooked, tasteless, no matter how much masala I dump on them.
Do you really like canned beets?
First Immersion Blender. What to do?
Yes, whip cream, beat eggs, make frosting, cream butter and sugar, etc.
What to do with leftover buttermilk?
Indian food has several savoury buttermilk dishes, called kadhi in Northern/Western India, and mor kozhambu, majjige, pulissery, and other names in Southern India (diluted whipped yogurt and buttermilk are used interchangeably in these recipes).
If you google those words, you'll find these recipes. I am addicted to them. The northern variations are typically thickened with a little chickpea flour (besan) and use red chillies, and the southern ones with coconut and ground up spices. and use green chillies. The northern ones add chickpea flour dumplings, and southern variations use vegetables like sliced okra or cubed winter melon, there is even an ambrosial Kerala version that incorporates slices of ripe mango (sweet+savoury).
I like the northern style in winter, eaten warm with hot basmati rice. The southern ones are lighter and fresher in summer, also with rice. I can lick out a whole bowl of the stuff.
Madhur Jaffrey has a couple of very good recipes, or you can google for terms like: "mango pulissery" or "mambazha kootan" or "mor kozhambu" or "punjabi jadhi" or "gujarati kadhi". You can use fat free buttermilk or diluted whipped fat free yogurt.
ISO Your Most Tried-and-True Healthy Vegetarian Weeknight Staples
Your post is old, but why laugh at a chutney and cheese sandwich?
It's a staple of Indian schoolkids' lunchboxes. Green chutney and white Amul cheese (for a long time, the only "processed" cheese available in India).
Chutney and cheese sandwiches are heavenly.
ISO Your Most Tried-and-True Healthy Vegetarian Weeknight Staples
This sounds excellent. I must remember to make this a bit later on in the year. A good bread and salad on the side, a great meal. Thanks for the suggestion.
Help identifying this fruit and this gourd / squash, please?
Hi:
Not sure about the gourd, but the "fruit" looks like a green coconut, though your specimen looks pale yellow.
When coconuts grow on the tree, they have a pale green, hard, covering.
When picked, the green covering is pulled off and most of the thick husk along with it (which is used to make coir ropes and matting), resulting in the hairy brown round thing seen in grocery stores.
The tree the "fruit" is on looks like a coconut palm.
What to do with leftover buttermilk?
sweet or savoury lassi.
Lots of ideas here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/683141
Desperately Seeking Winter Salad Ideas
Buttertart: that salad sounds amazing, I must try it (scribbles ingredients on paper, hope I don't lose it).
There may be a genetic basis to the cilantro hating, but I think there is also an environmental component.
People in cilantro cultures (contrasted to parsley cultures) almost never have that negative reaction to cilantro. It's mostly found among people whose culinary, cultural, ethnic, origins are from parsley cultures.
Can you help me interpret this soup recipe instruction?
What's the quantity of beans?
Creative pack-a-lunch RICE BOWL recipes?
Why is making lunch dull? It's FOOD, the most un-dull thing around :)
My lunches are always leftovers of dinners, so they are tasty, hearty, etc. and no extra work.
Eggplant Conundrum
This thread is ~ 9 months old, so don't know if OP is still seeking suggestions.
But here is mine. If you don't like large cubes or thick slices, why not do something different?
Try very small cubes, salted and dried off, then cook in very little oil, then use as the base of Veganomicon's Spicy Eggplant Soup.
This soup is unbelievably good. Small eggplant cubes, other veggies, and that glorious spicy, peanut buttery broth.
Underrated cooking ingredients in America
Huh. Didn't know that. I can't say I've been diligent about this, but I usually cut off the greens right away otherwise it's difficult to stuff everything into the veg drawer of the fridge.....
Creative pack-a-lunch RICE BOWL recipes?
Indian cooking will be your friend here. There are more rice + XXYY combinations than you can imagine. You can adapt any recipe to use brown rice, by adjusting water amount and cooking times.
Some ideas:
Khichdi (google for myriad recipes).
Khichdi is a one dish meal of rice+lentils+veggies, spiced with things like onions, green chillies, mustard seeds, hing, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, etc. Khichdi can be very simple and pasty for invalid food. But for an office meal, or for a tasty comfort food dish that all age groups can enjoy, make it drier, each ingredient stands out.
Pulao: make any kind of pulao, and top with a veggie and/or dal
Biryani: also a complete meal, with raita packed separately.
There are too many recipes and classifications, so google any of the key words to see what you like.....
You will never run out of variations to suit your taste or what ingredients you have on hand.
Underrated cooking ingredients in America
Cardamom
See another thread too: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/732378
Underrated cooking ingredients in America
:) I didn't realize that beet greens were something that people who ate beets would not eat :)
Like sunshine, I too like beet greens, and that comes from the overall idea that it is wasteful to throw away perfectly good food. When I buy beets at the supermarket, they usually come with greens attached. I cut those off, wash, chop, and use.
Black Eyed Peas
I am glad it worked and that Mr Alka approved. The general recipe is so easy and so forgiving that I am glad to find other fans.
And yes, it is dead easy to be veg*n with recipes such as this. Do tell me which other bean+green combination works for you with this recipe.
Small point, which will not affect the cooking: it is more grammatical to say "bhuno-ed" than "bhuna-ed" (even though we are mixing two languages in that word). :)
Underrated cooking ingredients in America
Fire and ice beets? Sound delicious! Description? Recipe?
Thanks!
What bread[s] do you make for dinner? Is there a pattern to what you make or do you make your bread component according to what's for dinner? Recipes if you have winners please.
This thread is very interesting to me for another reason, how differently the "food plate" is set up in different cultures.
From the perspective of Indian food, it's not that bread is served "with" dinner, but every food plate (in a middle class family) has to have certain elements:
1. Staple - rice, OR bread (e..g chapati, poori, naan, etc.). Rice and bread are never eaten together, btw, so it's very odd for me to read people writing that they used their naan to sop up the curry and rice :) But I digress. This staple occupies the 6 o'clock position front and center of the plate, it's that important.
2. Protein or main dishes: these occupy radial positions around the top rim of the plate. A simple daily home meal would have daal of some kind, or meat (for non vegetarians). You can't eat the dal or meat by itself, you eat each bite by scooping it up with a torn piece of chapati or eat each bite by mixing it with rice. For parties etc you would have more main dishes.
3. Veggie sides: again around the rim, and a simple home meal would have one or two veggie sides. Again, not eaten by themselves, but scooped up with chapati or mixed with rice. You could also have shredded vegetable salads.
4. You could start with chapatis, and end with a serving or two or rice, and the daal/veggies keep coming as needed.
5. Yogurt or raita, either on the side, or for most vegetarian meals, to end the meal, e.g. yogurt rice, to cool off your mouth and digest your food (probiotics).
So, an Indian meal is incomplete without a staple of bread or rice or its equivalent. Unless you are on some kind of diet. You don't eat bread "with" your food, you eat other food "with" bread, but all components of the meal are essential.
Even the simplest peasant poverty food revolves around the roti/chapati/rice, with the accompaniments as available (could be as basic as an onion or a green chili - this is real poverty).....
So, the idea that you could have a full meal without that staple component is a very different idea for me.......
Black Eyed Peas
Good luck, and do try the tomato-at-beginning method and tell me if it works....
Did Jacques Pepin's kidney beans unsoaked and cooked with tomato come out creamy soft or slightly crunchy? I am totally habituated to creamy soft beans, and the idea of crunchy textured beans gives me a stomach ache :)
Happy new year to you too!
Black Eyed Peas
HI Alka: you could cut down the steps by:
1. Bhuno-ing the onions etc in the bottom of a pressure cooker for less time than you would take in a skillet.
2. Add masalas and saute
3. Add water and soaked BEP to the pc and cook till BEP are done (This will allow the flavours of the onion and the masalas to permeate the BEP a little more).
3. When the pc is open, then add the tomatoes and collards and cook for a little more time. I wonder whether adding the collards in at the same time as the BEP will just turn the collards to mush - but if you think it will work, add them at the same time.
But make sure and add the tomatoes later, as I've heard that the acid will delay the cooking of the beans (never had the guts to experiment).
