Gobhi Alu

I always get this name wrong. It is one of my husbands favorites so I make it a lot but I can never quite remember the name. Golbi or Gobhi? Alu Gobhi? Gobhi Alu? Does it really matter? I don't think my poor pronunciation and spelling makes much of a difference to the taste. So forget about it and eat!

Gobhi Alu is another one of those easy to make dishes and is best served with Basmati rice or Hunza rice. It's best to make this in a stockpot unless you just have a really big skillet with a tight lid. I now make mine in my brand new, beautiful, awesomely worthwhile Le Creuset French Oven that my husband bought me at the Le Creuset outlet in Golden, Colorado for a quarter of the retail price. The retail store sells seconds but I can't see anything wrong with my pot. It's red and perfect.

A note about spices: I buy my spices at the Indian or Middle Eastern grocery store. Shan is the brand I typically buy because that is the brand my husband grew up with and I feel like I can trust it. Usually these spices come in bags so I save mayonnaise, spaghetti sauce, jelly and other jars and use those to store my spices. I just cut the label out of the bag and tape it to the jar.

A lot of Indian cooking calls for garlic and ginger. I usually buy garlic/ginger paste at the Indian grocery, as do a lot of Indian cooks. In this recipe I use my paste but you can certainly use fresh ingredients. Just vary according to your own tastes.

Usually in Indian dishes you "fry" some of the spices lightly before adding all of your other ingredients. This awakens the spices and gets their oils going. It also makes your kitchen smell better than a Yankee Candle.

Sometimes when I taste this dish during cooking I decide it needs more of one spice or another. The great thing about Indian cooking is that you can add more of whatever you want. So feel free to be heavy or light-handed with any of these spices.

Gobhi Alu (Collected from youtube videos and my readings on Indian cooking)

1 head of cauliflower chopped into big pieces (it's going to cook down)
2 potatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons garlic/ginger paste
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon red chili powder
2 teaspoons coriander powder
1 teaspoon dry mango powder (also called amchur - a unique almost bitter spice)
1/2 teaspoon garam masala (Target's Archer Farms is my favorite brand)
Cilantro to garnish

Heat the oil in your pan over medium heat. Add cumin seeds, turmeric powder and garlic ginger paste. When the cumin seeds start to pop add cauliflower, potatoes and salt. Cover but stir regularly. Cook until the potatoes start to get soft. At that point add the rest of the spices and turn the heat down to low. Let this cook for an additional 10 minutes. Garnish with cilantro.

You can add the powdered spices earlier but know that doing so will make your dish more likely to burn if you don't keep up the stirring. Also if you do this you might need to add a little chicken broth or water. This would change the taste a bit but it would still be great.

Easy Chick-Peasy Hummus

Hummus is delicious and it is so easy to make. In fact, the hardest part of making hummus is cleaning up the food processor when you are finished. This is especially true if you have the same KitchenAid food processor as me. The blade tends to get food stuck underneath and is a pain in the patoot to clean. But, it is still my favorite kitchen gadget.

So hummus is super easy to make and you can be very creative with your ingredients. I make it in a big batch and then my husband takes it to work all week long and I snack on it whenever I walk by the refrigerator. Because our refrigerator isn't on the main path to anywhere I have to purposefully walk by the refrigerator in order to snack, but that's neither here nor there. Except that it is there. And the hummus is really good.

I make my hummus with tons of garlic and cumin. You could go light on either of these and even eliminate the cumin altogether. You could also make this hummus with black beans instead of chickpeas. Tahini paste is essential to hummus and is made from sesame seeds. You can buy it at Whole Foods or an international market. The inital cost is often higher than buying store-bought hummus but it takes me about 3 months to go through a jar and I typically make hummus one to two times a week. I paid $5.99 for the last jar at a Middle Eastern grocery store. It is usually a bit higher at Whole Foods.

Hummus (Collected from a bunch of different ideas added together to make this one)

3 cans of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon minced garlic or as many cloves as you want
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1-2 tablespoons ground cumin
3 tablespoons tahini paste
Olive or sunflower oil
Fresh cilantro

Mince your garlic in the food processor, if it isn't already minced. Add chickpeas, lemon juice, cumin, salt, and tahini paste and mince. When a paste begins to form open the food chute on your food processor and slowly add your oil. When your hummus is nice and smooth you have added enough oil. Be careful not to add too much oil because you can always place a little on top when you serve it. This is how it is served in Middle Eastern restaurants. Garnish with a bit of fresh cilantro.

Punjabi Chhole Revised

Last night I was searching for something quick and easy to make for dinner when I came across a chick pea curry spice packet from Arora Creations called Punjabi Chhole that had been in the cabinet for a few months. We eat a lot of chick peas in our house so I knew that this curry with some Hunza rice would make a perfect meal.

Many people wrongly assume that curry is a spice and that all curries taste the same. This is not accurate at all. I am not sure how my Pakistani husband would describe a curry, but to me a curry is sort of like a pot of beans with a lot of juice that you can serve with cornbread to sop up all the juices. That is exactly how most people in the world eat curries, only with naan bread instead of cornbread and all sorts of vegetables, meat and spices instead of just boiled beans.

You can certainly make your own spice mixes for curries and I like to do that but it does take a little time. I will post more about these later because I think it is fun to do a little experimenting with spices.

The coolest thing about this spice packet is that it is from Arora Creations and they are an organic company. So, I probably do not have to worry about having scary stuff in what I am feeding my family.

I did not follow the instructions listed in the link above because I was feeling lazy, but it still got two thumbs up from Ishtiaq and Liam even sampled a little with his spaghetti.

Punjabi Chhole (Collected and Revised from Arora Creations Spice Packet)

3 cans of chick peas (garbanzo beans are the same thing)
1 packet of Punjabi Chhole spice mix
1 pint of cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
1 can of chicken broth
1 bunch of cilantro, or to taste
1 small onion, or to taste
salt
pepper
olive oil

Drain and rinse your chick peas. Over medium heat, add a dash of olive oil to a non-stick skillet and when heated, add the chick peas and onion. Let that cook a few minutes and then add the spice packet. At this point I added salt and pepper but you can omit it since there is probably some of both in the spice packet. Let the spices and the chickpeas cook a bit over medium heat. Spices in Indian cooking need to bloom on the heat for a bit to fully release their flavors.

When you are ready, or at least after about a minute, add the chicken broth and tomatoes. Lower the heat and let this simmer for about 8-10 minutes, adding water or more chicken broth if necessary. You will want a gravy with this so don't let it get dry. Add the fresh cilantro.

Eat with basmati rice (like Hunza rice from my lamb chops post) or flat bread.