Nepali food, Indian food and cake.

Lunch today was this beautiful plate of Nepali food, namely the moong dal (split mung bean soup) in the little bowl and the hot and fiery tomato achaar (chutney) which you can see on the rice. The Indian element of my meal is the alu matar (potatoes and peas) which was the perfect curried accompaniment to the rice and soup. Just can't get enough of this good stuff.


This is a closeup of the roasted tomato hot and spicy achaar. It's basically roasted tomatoes, green chiles, garlic blended into a puree and combined with fresh garlic, ginger, timbur (szechuan pepper), salt, fenugreek and red chili. The recipe is from the book "Taste of Nepal" which I highly recommend!


This is a boiled raisin "depression era" cake that I've made before. This time I used brown sugar and added orange blossom water and cardamom.

Nepali dinner.

I was in the mood for Nepali food tonight so out came my Taste of Nepal cookbook. First up, Moong Daal (yellow split mung beans) with red chilies, lots of ginger and garlic! It's a must to eat daal with rice. Sorry for the really bad photos, they seem to be super yellow!


It's good to have a curry to go along with your daal and rice. I made this mixed vegetable curry which was missing potatoes because I totally forgot that I had some! Too late. But this is still very good. Made with mixture of spices: timbur (szechuan peppercorns), fenugreek, garam masala, turmeric, asafetida and cumin.


While everything was cooking, I whipped up the No-Cook Tomato Achaar (chutney). It has fresh tomatoes, garlic, fresh ginger, timbur (szechuan pepper), hot green chilis, salt and lemon juice. The best way to eat this is to generously pour it all over your plate on top of the daal, rice and curry!

Moong Dosa.

Hard to believe, but I've never had dosa before. Yesterday at work my co-workers were raving about the ones they ate at a south indian restaurant in San Francisco. It got me in the mood to try this dish out. I bookmarked this recipe a while ago in hopes of making it and tonight was the perfect night. I prepared the batter in the morning after soaking a bowl of moong dal (mung beans), red lentils and rice in water overnight. I also prepared a masala filling from "Flavors of India" cookbook which has onions, chile, potatoes and spices like cumin and mustard seed. I tried to make coriander chutney (from same book) but made it too watery so I added some vegan mayo to thicken it up. I would have used soy yogurt but didn't have any.


The first dosa was a failure.


But the rest after that turned out much better. I know I could have made them thinner like they're supposed to be but I just don't have the skill just yet!


The end result: Pretty dosa filled with spicy potatoes and onions.


My dinner plate. It was delicious! I do want to try authentic dosa at an indian restaurant soon. This was a fun experiment.