Maldivian amaranth and lentils

This is going to be an odd one, folks. Unless you live in the Maldives, I suppose, but with the substitutions I made maybe it's odd to them too. The Maldives, for those who don't know and haven't Googled it up yet, are a small island chain in the Indian ocean and, like most islands on trade routes, has a cuisine that takes in influences from all around. This particular dish has a lot of South Indian and Thai elements. I found this recipe on asianonlinerecipes.com where it was miscatalogued under Chinese recipes. The inclusion of Maldive fish in the ingredients was a giveaway as to its origin, but I checked maldiviancuisine.com to make sure and it looks pretty traditional. I had never made Maldivian cooking before so I was pretty excited to find such an accessible recipe.

Ingredients:
4 1/2 ounces green amaranth leaves a.k.a. callaloo
(but lots of other plants are a.k.a. callaloo so check what you've got. If you do happen to have amaranth, and that's what my CSA supplies most commonly under the name, there's plenty you can do with it outside of Caribbean cuisines.)
10 1/2 ounces (can you tell I'm translating from metric?) lentils
(the original recipe calls for red lentils but I have plain brown so I used that)
2 cups thin coconut milk
3 Tablespoons thick coconut milk
(A good trick here is to carefully open a can of good quality coconut milk without disturbing it too much. There's frequently a thick layer of coconut cream on top separated from the coconut water below. Skim off the cream for the thick and then add water to the rest to make the thin.)
1 dried red chili, stemmed and seeded and broken into pieces
(I used an ancho. I figured if the recipe calls for seeding then heat isn't the goal.)
1 teaspoon turmeric 2 teaspoons pounded Maldive fish
(Maldive fish is smoked or sun dried spiced tuna. The good bits are left in chunks. The not-so-good bits pounded to a powder. No idea what it tastes like, but my money is on funky. I substituted in 1 Tablespoon of Chinese shrimp paste and 1 Tablespoon of Thai fish sauce to get in the right neighborhood.)
1 Tablespoon cooking oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 small stick cinnamon
1 sprig curry leaves
(I could have sworn I had dried some from the last fresh batch I bought, but I must have used them up. I substituted in salam leaves which have a similar flavor.)
1 strip pandan leaf
(This is a fragrant leaf used mainly in sweet Thai dishes. I wasn't confident enough to substitute so I just left it out.)
1 stalk lemon grass, trimmed and bruised
salt to taste along the way

1. Wash and roughly chop the amaranth. Put into a dutch oven

2. Pick over, wash the lentils. Add to the dutch oven.

3. Add thin coconut milk, chili, turmeric and Maldive fish (or substitutes).

4. Turn heat to medium-high and bring to a boil, stirring well once the amaranth has wilted a bit. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until lentils are soft, around 30 minutes. Add a half cup of water if it seems like it needs it. I think salting might slow down the cooking here so refrain at this point.

5. Meanwhile, in a medium pan, heat the oil over medium heat and fry the curry and pandan leaves (or substitutes), onion, cinnamon and lemon grass until everything is fragrant and the onions are soft and just turned a light golden brown. Do salt here.

6. When lentils are ready, add the pan contents to the dutch oven along with the thick coconut milk. Optionally, toss in some shrimp at this point too if you want some protein beyond what's in the lentils. Simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Serve with rice.


Yet another dish that tastes better than it looks. Maybe it's my photography?

It's earthy, but not muddy as the flavors are clear. The amaranth and lentils go together quite well. Yeah, lentils go well with greens in general, but you can tell this is amaranth and that particular flavor works surprisingly well. Who knew? The coconut milk and funky fishy ingredients tie the two together the way bacon and chicken stock might in a more European version of the dish and give a really interesting undertone to the dish. The spices linger around the edges, rounding out the flavors without asserting themselves. Maybe the cinnamon is identifiable; the rest are just light fragrant notes freshening the flavor of the greens. A squeeze of lemon helps there too. The shrimp are a nice addition. They picked up the seasonings of the dish and matched with the other main ingredients well.

I don't think any of my explanations here are going to evoke this combination of flavors for you, but take my word that it was pretty darn good and worth trying yourself.

CSA week five - Lentil soup with swiss chard

I found a good number of regional variations on lentil soup with swiss chard--a kind of Italian version that includes sausage; a South Indian version that includes coconut milk, and rishta, the Middle Eastern version that I settled on.

I found a handful of rishta recipes on the web. I cobbled together my own version based primarily on this one but tweaked with some improvements and fixed so it actually works.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups green or brown lentils
6 cups cold water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground coriander
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Approximately 2 cups broth of your choice (I used beef)
2 1/2 cups swiss chard leaves and tender stems, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup uncooked egg noodles or small pasta. (I used ditalini)
salt and pepper to taste
1 egg per serving (not traditional as far as I saw, but really good)

Garnish:
lemon
Scallion, chopped
bread


Directions:

1. Wash lentils and place in dutch oven with the cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, skimming if necessary, cover, lower heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil on medium heat in an 8-inch cast iron pan (or some approximation). When oil is shimmery add onions. Cook on medium heat until caramelized to a deep brown. [I'm not very good at this, but the key seems to be a) not adding salt and b) not stirring too frequently.] When it's about ready, stir in garlic, cumin and coriander, cook for 30 seconds more and remove from heat. The cast iron will retain enough heat to burn the onions so don't wait too long and be ready to move on to the next step.

3. Transfer onions (along with the garlic and olive oil) to a blender. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of the lentil cooking liquid. Blend smooth and add to pot with lentils.

4. Also add the swiss chard, the broth and half of the parsley and cilantro. [The lentils should have absorbed around two cups of water so this will bring the total liquid back up to six cups.] Return to a gentle simmer and cook for another ten minutes.

5. Check lentils for doneness. If they're completely done add noodles, lemon juice and salt and pepper. [Any acid will severely slow lentils' absorption of water so they need to be at the texture you want before you add the lemon juice (or, if you decide to try the Italian recipe, the tomatoes). I know salt has the same effect on beans and whole grains. I don't know if it does it to lentils but I'm not taking any chances.] Cook for the recommended cooking time of your pasta plus a couple minutes because the soup is at a gentle simmer which is a bit low for cooking pasta.

6. When there is five minutes cooking time left, crack your eggs into the soup, turn the heat up a little, put the lid back on and cook for five minutes or until the eggs are poached to your liking. Or you could poach your eggs separately if you want.

7. Serve each bowl topped with parsley, cilantro and scallion and an egg along with a lemon wedge and some bread.



This is an earthy soup (particularly if you use beef broth) but the hints of spice give that deep flavor form and keep that earthiness from being muddy or am I taking the analogy too far? It's enriched by the addition of the egg and lightened by the chard and the bright herbal and citrus notes. It's homey but it's got a lot of layers to it. There's a lot of different textures going on too with the soft lentils, chewy pasta, not-quite-mushy-if-you-timed-things-right chard and crisp scallion. Maybe it could use a little hot pepper, but otherwise very nice indeed.