On the fourth Thursday of every November, everyone who believe themselves to be Americans celebrate nature’s bounty by feasting with their loved ones. Traditional thanksgiving food is simple baked, boiled, and/or mashed, and served with minimum spices to ensure soft texture and mild flavor that cater to anyone from children to elderly.

Partaking in this meal is a symbolic gesture for every immigrant who becomes an allegorical descendant to the generation of pilgrims who first ventured out to the New World with a hope of a better life. Essentially, the fourth Thursday of November is more American than the fourth day of July celebrated with barbecues.

Most immigrants celebrate thanksgiving meal interwoven with culinary tradition of their heritage. North American bird, turkey, symbolizes their new home in America, while the additional spices and dishes represent their contribution to the melting pot.

How was Thanksgiving started by immigrants?
The overtly rehashed story of Thanksgiving starts with the new immigrants, Pilgrims and their native American Wampanoag neighbors feasted together in October of 1621 as a gesture of gratitude for having food on the table. Coincidentally, Canada started celebrating its thanksgiving in second Monday of October since 1950s.

George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison issued proclamations of a thanksgiving holidays. However at that time states celebrated thanksgiving at different times with its popularity remaining limited to New England with lukewarm celebration in the Southern states.

Lincoln and Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was not a national holiday until the proclamation by Abe Lincoln in 1863. Ironically, Lincoln got his inspiration from Sarah Josepha Hale, famous for writing nursery rhyme “Mary had a little lamb”, who championed the cause for a unifying national holiday that would foster unity in a nation at the brink of a civil war. Lincoln envisioned “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise” for “these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come”  as said by Lincoln in his proclamation.

History of the Immigrant’s Thanksgiving Turkey
The tradition of having turkey for Thanksgiving may have start in nineteenth century New England, where men took aim at a wild turkey in the fields with the winner usually winning a turkey as his prize for marksmanship.

Most immigrants celebrate thanksgiving meal interwoven with culinary tradition of their heritage. North American bird, turkey, symbolizes their new home in America, while the additional spices and dishes represent their contribution to the melting pot. They add spices or dish distinct to their thanksgiving meal. This practice of bringing culinary heritage to a foreign tradition continues as immigrants from all over the world embrace the United States as their new home. Pakistani families may add garam masala in their turkey, their Thai friends may flavor side dishes with coconut milk, while their Norwegian neighbor may bring smoked salmon appetizer.

Likewise, my thanksgiving turkey would be tandoori turkey with saffron gravy.

Tandoori Turkey
for tandoori spice paste (for 10 lb turkey), mix together following*
ghee (1 cup, substitute with re-solidified melted butter)
tandoori spice mix (1 tablespoon,  substitute with any curry powder)
fresh ginger and garlic paste (2 tablespoons)
chicken stock (2 tablespoons)
salt (2 teaspoons)

on the roasting pan for gravy
can of low sodium chicken stock
red onion (1 sliced, large)

* traditional tandoori marinade is yogurt based

After removing packaging materials and other organs (gizzards etc.,) coat the inside cavity of turkey with spice paste. Pour ½ of chicken stock in there. Stuffing a turkey is not recommended for both food safety as well as taste safety. Make stuffing in a pan as casserole instead.

My favorite tip for moist turkey breast comes from Harold McGee. Few hours before the end of thawing the turkey, selectively put ice-packs on its breast. Due to the difference in temperature between breast meat and turkey, the turkey breast will cook slower than the rest of turkey. This will prevent drying of turkey. Be sure to remove the ice-packs before baking.

With your fingers and/or flat plastic spatula separate the skin from the breast meat. Be gentle and don’t tear the skin. Rub the spice mix in between turkey skin and the breast meat.

Rub the spice mix outside the entire turkey.

Add chicken stock and sliced onions to the roasting pan.

Cover the breast with a sheet of aluminum foil. Roast in 325 °F oven. Remove the foil ½ an hour before the roasting ends. Covering the breast with a foil sheet also helps in preventing the breast from drying.

USDA recommends (see USDA’s turkey cooking recommendations) the minimum internal temperature of 165 °F for food safety. Nowadays, many turkeys come up with “pop-up” temperature indicators. However, just to be safe, use instant read thermometer to check temperatures of innermost parts of the turkey, such as thigh, wings, thickest part of the breast.

Check doneness of turkey early and often.

Timetables for Roasting Turkey  (USDA)

Saffron Gravy

for 1 cup of dripping from roasted turkey
saffron (dozen inch long strands)
whole milk (¼ cup, use half and half for richer gravy)
corn starch (1 tablespoon)

Leave a dozen inch long strands in milk sometime after putting the roast turkey. The amount of saffron depends on its quality.

After removing turkey, pour out the dripping from turkey. Blend mushy roasted onion with other liquid drippings.

Mix corn starch with the saffron milk and pour over blended turkey drippings. Reheat until thickens. Gravy done.

Thanksgiving is an American celebration of sharing the ample of wholesome, often simple, foods any way you like it.

All the Illustrations by: Sumayal Shrestha

Bibliography
Elizabeth Pleck, “The Making of the Domestic Occasion: The History of Thanksgiving in the United States,” Journal of Social History Vol. 32, No. 4, Summer, 1999, Page 773-789.

Janet Siskind, “The Invention of Thanksgiving: A ritual of American nationality”, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2, June 1992, Page 167-191.

Melanie Wallendorf and Eric J. Arnould, “We Gather Together”: Consumption Rituals of Thanksgiving Day,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 18, No. 1, June 1991, Page 13-31

My first pragmatic instinct nags me that baking bread or freshly grinding spices or knitting are rather indulgence celebrating a romanticized past. I later realize that those who bake bread can eat it warm, or those who knit can choose eccentric designs, or those who grind pepper can get wholesome flavor off the fresh pepper oils. One of those archaic relics of not so distant past is grinding up flour for bread – which is something I have never seen anyone do now.

Prior to the mass proliferation of cheap electric grinder in early 1980s, every household in the Indian subcontinent used these stone grinders. Chakki, the traditional millstones or mill stones from Indian subcontinent, grind wheat into Atta flour or split legumes in half for making Dal or ground up fresh roasted spices.  For most people who know about Chakki, it evokes either idyllic image of female members of grinding up floor for roti, such as shown in the painting. For others, Chakki reminds them of backbreaking work often comically referred to as default job inside jail in Bollywood movies.

Chakki consists of two stone cylinders. An upper stone cylinder rotates on top of another stationary stone cylinder, which is generally larger than the lower cylinder. Grains are fed in between the two cylinders from a hole in the middle of the top cylinder. When the cylinder rotates, the grains squeezed between the cylinders are grounded, split or separated from husk. Generally, in the home version of a Chakki is the top stone rotated by placing a wooden club as the handle inside a smaller hole on a side. The home version is operated by one or two people. The larger Chakki uses livestock to rotate the upper cylinder. Chakkis are made from stones but one can find other variants made from wood, which are believed to better at separating husk from the grain.

Finding someone using Chakki in a city is rarity nowadays. I was lucky to find a local grocery vendor using it split daal. In the video, the local vendor puts whole urad beans on a hole on the top cylinder and as cylinder is rotated the urad beans is split into half in between the two cylinders to give urad daal. See my earlier post on urad (kalo) daal  and jimbu. The posted video shows Chakki splitting whole urad bean was shot in Kathmandu, Nepal. Newars in Kathmandu call this millstone Gha, while rest of Nepal calls it Janto and more recently by its Pan-Indian name Chakki.

I am not sure if grinding flour and splitting bean by Chakki make them taste better. However, I am sure that freshly grounded flour and split beans do taste different. Ask any coffee connoisseur if freshly ground beans are necessary for their morning espresso.

If above Jalebi video does not play, click here.

Everyday in Delhi, I ate Jalebi from a roadside stall close to where I was staying. Jalebi is a thin pretzel shaped pastry made from leavened fried dough dipped in sugar syrup. Similar are dessert are also found in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and is known as Zlabia.

The Jalebi stand was setup in front of a local mithaiwala’s (pastry chef) dessert store selling hundreds of Indian desserts – most shinny silver wrap and all made from flour, butter, milk, sugar, and pinch of spices. The video clip shows making of Delhi Jalebi.

Jalebi is an evening time snack in Delhi, India. In Kathmandu Nepal, where it is known as Jeri, it is considered a breakfast food often served with a thin deep fried flatbread called swari. Both go well so together that people normally get them together and referred to the dish as Jeri Swari. Most of Kathmandu roadside Jeri (Jalebi) stalls serve a simple Jeri. While in India, there is tendency of serving spiced up Jeri.

Often one can even find a pretty good quality Indian dessert in the United States – thanks to huge exodus of talented Indian pastry chefs. However, I have yet to find even edible Jalebi in the United States. There is a simple reason behind it – Jalebi is not served fresh in the United States.  Jalebi is a fresh dessert – fry batter, soak in sugar syrup and bite into crispy warm dessert – all done within a few minutes.

Often many mithaiwalas (pastry chefs) prefer serving cold Jalebi made in a big batch since it is cheaper to make. They try to beat the flavors of fresh Jalebi by adding other flavors such as saffron, cardamom or adding bright food coloring. Here’s the news for them – a simple Jalebi fresh off the fryer beats any of stale concoction any day.

The small Jalebi stall in a regular neighborhood of Delhi served the best Jalebi I ever ate in my life. The stall was not in a famous tourist or commercial district or had decades of history behind it. They simply made fresh Jalebi.

The flour batter for Jalebi was fermented few hours before in morning. Jalebis were fried to order. The batter was put in cheesecloth and dispensed through a small hole to make a desired shapes (see video). After fried golden brown, it was dipped in sugar syrup for few seconds and put in colander to remove excess syrup. The resulting Jalebi was thin crusted goodness – such a simple thing in life can bring such a big joy.

After nearly two weeks of eating Jalebi everyday, the Jalebiwala (Jalebi maker) gave me his recipe for what I consider the best Jalebi in world. Many us will disagree on where is the best Jalebi in the world. However, those who disagree also have a easy consensus  that a good Jalebi or Jeri or Zlabia is always fresh and often simple.

Here’s the  simple recipe for Jalebi from the Delhi Jalebiwala.

Maida (substitute all purpose flour) 300
Yogurt 200 g
Besan (chickpea flour) 100 g

Let it stay for at least ½ hour to few hours.

Fry in medium heat.

Dunk in sugar syrup.

Eat warm.

To see more photos including photos of the same Delhi Jalebi with the flash, go to DesiGrub’s Facebook Page.

The story of how I started respecting my sister’s cooking dates back to our college days.  My younger sister and I went to the same college. I started cooking at that time. Most of the cooking I learned was either by self-experimenting or by talking to my parents on the phone.

Being the older brother and a foodie, I instructed her on how to cook everything. At first, I was helpful. Later, when she became a decent cook, I was probably a nagging voice in the background. For example, I was someone who kept on telling her when to flip her food or what to add or substitute to enhance the flavors of the dish.

After years of living apart, she often brought a few things she made – usually desserts. Slowly, I started accepting the fact that she was a better baker than me.

I still considered myself a better cook – after all I had a food blog and I knew more about food.

The belief lasted until the last time I visited her. She made the most amazing dinner from the Indian subcontinent. I was genuinely pleased – I was not surprised.

The Nepali/Indian themed dinner started with mango lassi, a mango yogurt smoothie.

Her main course included the spicy chicken curry recipe published at DesiGrub by Minnat. The chicken curry was nearly as good as the one Minnat made.

Among all of her dishes my favorite was the paneer tikka masala or shahi paneer. This dish, made from Indian cottage cheese and paneer in a creamy tomato based sauce, was one of the best I ever had. It was rich without being too greasy. It was a perfect balance of savory and spicy. Paneer tikka masala was the dish that made me respect her cooking. She made it better than I could have ever done.

Mushroom curry made with button mushrooms was simple and reminded me of mushrooms my mom makes.

Kielbasa chili was made in a similar fashion as chicken chili. Instead of using chicken she used spicy kielbasa. This kielbasa dish is a perfect example of fusion cooking. She made a classic dish from home with with an influence from her current home in northeastern United States.

The other dish was lentil stew/soup, dal (see my best lentil soup).  She made a rich and thick dal, which was the favorite of one of the dinner guests.

Alongside everything, she served perfectly cooked basmati rice. She also served chopped onions and fresh green chilies, which are often served as the salad/condiment with the meal throughout the Indian subcontinent.

From now on, I accept that my little sister is better at making Indian/Nepali food than I am – although I still know more about beer and liquor.

Next post: Grand Marnier Tiramisu made by my sister

Pongal was my morning ritual every day before I went to my college on a small town located in southern India. A while back someone asked me what my favorite south Indian dish was. I paused and answered “Pongal”. Technically, I like Ven Pongal or spicy pongal not the Sakarai Pongal or sweet pongal.

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Pongal is made of rice and mung bean cooked into porridge like consistency. Ven pongal is eaten with either sambar or chutney as a common breakfast food. I am not a big fan of breakfast food but Pongal tops this very narrow list of my favorite breakfasts.

Pongal and Pongal Festival

Pongal is usually a main dish consumed in Pongal festival celebrated by Tamils in state of Tamilnadu in India and Sir Lanka. Pongal festival marks the end of cold winter and dawn of spring harvest. Interestingly it falls close to festival of Makara Sankranthi celebrated in my home country of Nepal and throughout India. Pongal festival is dedicated to the Sun because the sun is considered as a deity for the good harvest and baptizing the first grain to the sun is appropriate. Pongal is celebrated for four days in the mid-January with celebrations of drawing Kolam, swinging and cooking of delicious Pongal.

Sweet pongal (Sakarai Pongal) with generous amount of sugar, jaggery (gudh), coconut, on earthen pots are served in temples as a Prasad, a Hindu communion or offering to god.

Pongal brunch

On one Saturday, after wondering what to eat for brunch, we finally settled on making pongal with coconut chutney. I have never made pongal in my life so I was excited, confused, and at the same time nostalgic about my college days. We started by getting groceries at an Indian grocery store, Krishna Grocery in Springfield, Virginia. While shopping, my wife found a ready-to-eat Pongal from MTR. Indeed, we had to buy that pongal for the comparison later.

Here are the necessary ingredients for making ven pongal;

Pongal base:
1 cup rice
¼ cup mung dal
5 cups of water
2 tablespoons ghee or butter

Pongal spice:
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon peppercorn
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
10 pieces of whole cashew nuts
¼ teaspoon turmeric
5 curry leaves
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1¼ teaspoon salt or according to taste

Steps for making delicious Pongal:

Take 1 cup of rice and ¼ cup of mung dal. Mix and wash.

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in utensils, lightly pan fry rice and moong dal until it becomes light brown.

Add 5 cups of water and let the rice and dal cook in medium heat until you get thick porridge like consistency.

After rice gets right consistency, we can make necessary steps to add spices for pongal. The right consistency is somewhat difficult to define. Rice and transfers into one uniform porridge without trace of their individual grains. It has to be thick enough to hold its shape but creamy enough to melt in your mouth. The beauty of Pongal lies in its perfect texture.

Heat a frying pan at a medium heat with 1½ of vegetable oil. When oil is hot, add following spices; cumin, peppercorn, powdered pepper, cashew nuts, turmeric, ginger, curry leaves, salt in this order.

Turn off heat and add rice and mung pongal base and mix.

Sculpt pongal into semisphere (half of sphere) shape by putting it in a bowl and transferring it on a plate.

Coconut Chutney

Ven pongal is usually served with sweet and spicy coconut chutney. Lightly spiced creamy warm ven pongal is balanced perfectly by cooling spicy coconut chutney.

Coconut Chutney base:
1 cup grated coconut
¼ cups roasted chickpeas
5 pieces whole cashew nuts
¼ cup cilantro (or mint)
2 cups water (add more for consistency)

Chutney spice tempering (Tadka):
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 pieces red dry chilies
1 tablespoon skinless urad dal (soaked in water for ½ hour)
¼ tablespoon hing or asafetida
2 green chilies
4 fresh curry leaves
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Steps for making mouthwatering coconut chutney:

Lightly grind all ingredients listed under the coconut chutney base in a blender.

Heat oil. Successively fry following ingredients in this order with few seconds of interval; mustard seeds, cumin seeds, red dry chilies, soaked urad dal (without water), hing, curry leaves.

Carefully (without splattering) add the fried spices on top of blended coconut chutney base. Let it sit for few minutes and mix. This spice tempering method is called Tadka.

Ready-to-eat Pongal by MTR

Ready-to-eat pongal made by MTR was very easy to make. You can microwave or just immerse in hot water bath. MTR’s pongal was slightly more watery. The flavor was off. Since it might had more turmeric, it tasted a bit like another Indian dish called Khichadi or similar Nepali version called Jaula. Everyone at the table found my first time Pongal far better than the packaged version.

Pongal at Saravana Palace Restaurant

Even after sampling a ready-to-eat Pongal, I was still wanted eat authentic pongal in an restaurant. I knew my Pongal was decent but I wanted others, who never had Pongal in their life, to try a professionally made or homemade Pongal for a comparison.

Not to my surprise, many Indian restaurants don’t serve Pongal. Even among vegetarian restaurants, a few of them served Pongal.

In Tamilnadu India, I had the good fortune of eating in chain of restaurants called Saravana Palace. When I saw a restaurant with same name in the greater Washington DC area, I had to go there and try their Pongal.

Service at Sarvana Palace in Virginia was friendly, but the Pongal was disappointing. I am sad to say that more than an hour of driving was fruitless. Pongal at the restaurant was worse than the Pongal packaged by MTR. Pongal was very watery and flavor was blander. Avial, a vegetable curry made with coconut from Kerala, was barely acceptable. Three of us barely finished a serving of Pongal. If I had told a newbie to try Pongal at Saravana Palace, I would not be surprised they come out hating it.

After trying ready-go Pongal and Pongal at Saravana Palace, I am proud to say that my home made Pongal was able to freshen warm memories of my college days.

Bengali food, for me, always evokes images of fragrant fish curry with spicy sauce served over hot bed of basmati rice. Bengali food encompasses the food of historical Bengal, now divided into country Bangladesh and state of West Bengal in India.

Bengal is full of rivers and consequently most of Bengali fish are fresh water fish. Until recently, marine fish were considered somewhat inferior. Floodplains of Bengal have been growing rice for more than four millennia. According to a decade old World Bank estimate, an average Bangladeshi gets 70% of calories from rice. Indeed there’s a saying that goes as “machhe bhate bengali”, which roughly translates into “a Bengali is made of fish and rice”.

There is no standard way of cooking Bengali fish. There are thousands of ways to cook a fish in Bengal and millions of families have their own unwritten family recipes.  One of the famous ways to cook method is called “jhol”, which translates to liquid, and conceptually a curried stew with vegetable. Fish is simmered slowly with herbs and vegetables so that flavor permeates – something like French bouillabaisse.

My take on a simple Bengali fish curry included a neutral flavor fish, such as tilapia cooked with Panch Phoron spice in onion and tomato stew – a tribute to Bengali machhe (fish) jhol.

I understand that most people don’t have Panch Phoron in their cabinets. Even most Indian cooks might not have it. Few years ago, I saw my friends Sr’na and Pr’nta cooking with it. They were shocked that, being a self-proclaimed Indian food connoisseur, I didn’t know about Panch Phoron. My ego was hurt but balanced was restored when some of good Indian cooks also didn’t know about it. Then, I realized it’s a regional spice. Panch Phoran is a spice blend made from five (panch) whole spices; fenugreek, nigella seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, and celery seeds or cumin seeds. It’s easily found in any of your local Indian grocery store. Even if you don’t have it, for purpose of this Bengali jhol dish, you can make your own with three, instead of five, main ingredients; fennel seeds, cumin seeds, and mustard seeds. Remember the keyword here, use “whole seed” not “ground spice”.

My Bengali fish recipe is so simple that it can be written in just one sentence. Heat oil on medium heat, fry spices for few seconds, sauté sliced onion till golden brown, and add chopped tomatoes, add salt, bring stew to boil, add cut fish (tilapia), turn off heat after a minute, and serve after few minutes of simmering. Try to add at least same amount (not more than twice) of veggies (including onion and tomatoes) as the fish. To get started, limit ½ tablespoon of spice mix per realistic serving of the dish. Remember that you can always add spices later but it’s impossible to remove it. Optionally, you can also sauté a few cloves of garlic and shreds of ginger with onion. One other thing you must remember is not to overcook the fish.

This is not a typical highly spicy creamy heavy dish served in Indian restaurants. The aromatic sweet flavors of fennel seeds, curry flavor of cumin seeds and mild spicy/hot flavor of mustard seeds go well naturally with tilapia and onion/tomatoes to make a very pleasant and light dish.

Panch Phoron’s image is from food-india.com.

Aloo chat is the most basic type of Indian subcontinental savory snacks (chaat) (also spelled alu chaat). Tradtionally, it’s made from deep fried potatoes (aloo) served with vegetables and chaat sauce, which is usually made from yogurt. This recipe is dedicated to my cousin R’sha, who is studying in a sleepy Midwestern town. She is a big fan of aloo chat. During her last visit we made samosa chat, she asked me to show her a basic aloo chat recipe with everyday dorm ingredients. A good chaat contains savory, salty, sour, and sweet flavors in a perfect harmony. It also has a velvety smooth sauce encompassing soft and crunchy fillings.

Here’s how to make a simple aloo chat.

Get home fries, sprinkle with pinch of garam masala and mix.
Or, cut a potato (slightly larger than egg-size) into small cubes (few cms) and coat with a teaspoon of oil, salt and pinch of garam masala. Here I used red waxy potatoes and mustard oil, which gives a pungent aromatic flavors but any fat would work.

Microwave three times, for 90 second each, while stirring in between. If using home fries, microwave only once. Let it stand for at least 15 minutes. Cooling potatoes before adding yogurt and other ingredients is essential.

Add chopped onions and tomatoes. Other highly recommended toppings are cilantro and canned garbanzo beans. Here I used yellow onion and grape tomatoes.

Add unflavored and unsweetened plain yogurt. Add chat masala (alternate any curry powder), black salt (substitute with salt, black salt gives a pungent flavor), a few drops of lime juice. If you don’t have traditional sweet tamarind (imili) sauce, add honey.

Mix and top with any crunchy Indian subcontinental snack such as, papad, aloo bhujia etc. Here I used dal biji. If you don’t have any crunchy subcontinental snacks, use plain potato chips. The goal is to have crunchy bite to the chat.

Play with the all the flavors; salty, sweet, and sour, until you get a perfectly harmonious aloo chat customized just for you!

Perfect kabob = flavorful grilled marinated (or spiced) meat cooked succulent but tender enough to melt in your mouth. The major disappointment for kabob is a dry and chewy kabob. Generally, kabob is served with leavened flat-bread (often known as naan), rice and vegetables/salad.

There are four categories of kabobs;

Shish kabob or souvlaki or satay or sekuwa: marinated chunk of usually cubed boneless meat grilled over open charcoal. Shish kabobs are usually grilled with skewers. Shish kabobs need the highest quality meat because there is no processing of meat before cooking except marination. Since shish kabobs are cooked with just radiant heat, it can be most succulent and juicy kabob if cooked right.

Tandoor kabob or kathi kabob or bhatti Kabob: marinated chunk of (usually with bones) meat grilled in a high heat clay oven known as tandoor. Temperature in tandoor can go as high as 900°F. Tandoor Kabob is generally a bit dry than shish kabobs because both radiant heat (from fire) and convection heat (hot air) is cooking the kabobs. A famous example of tandoor kabob is the tandoori chicken served in virtually any non-vegetarian Indian restaurants.

Chapli kabob or kakori kabob or Kubideh kabob:  spiced ground meat usually cooked over charcoal grill. Since it’s made of ground meat, many inferior meats can be served as this kabob. Basically it’s like grilled burger (with more spice). A burger can be McDry burger or a heavenly delight (see best burgers in DC).

Doner kebab (Turkish) or Turkish kabob (Indian subcontinent and Iran) or shawarma (Arabic) or gyro (Greek) : vertical cone shaped kabob that are sliced to order. The traditional way to make doner kabob is to stack marinated slices of lamb meat on a rotating vertical skewer in the shape of an inverted cone topped with fat, tomatoes, and onion flavoring the meat in bottom with its drippings when heated. However, in west doner kebab is often industrially manufactured with ground meat. The traditional doner kabob is cooked in rotating charcoal or wood cooker. It is sort of old fashioned rotisserie meat.

Spices, marination, sauce, side ingredients and type of meat may change but the above four categories encompass essence of all kabobs. For example, in countries with large Muslim population, kabobs are made from lamb and sometimes with beef, in Indian subcontinent it has curry based spices, in Thailand it may be served with peanut sauce, Greeks make gyro from pork, which is taboo meat in Muslim countries, and serve with yogurt sauce.

For me Kabob is street food or at most a fast food such as oldstyle delis. So, I don’t like the idea of kabobs in a fancy restaurant. A kabob joint should be an unassuming place that serves the quality Kabob with possibly flatbread and should not be heavy on your wallet. My search for perfect kabob took me to these places in and around DC.

Moby Dick
Moby Dick is a DC based local kabob chain, with notably Georgetown and Dupont location. Kabobs in Moby Dick have Persian (Iranian) influence. One of my favorite kabob is Joojeh Kabob, which is grilled boneless piece of chicken marinated with seasoning such as saffron, black pepper and lemon juice. Another classic favorite is Kubideh kabob. Kubideh kabob generally means kabob made from ground meat such as lamb or beef.

In Moby Dick, it is sirloin. Many of Moby Dick’s entrees are very similar to the Persian national dish, Chelow kabob. Chelow kabob consist of steamed saffron basmati rice (Chelow) and kabob. Traditionally, Chelow kabob is served with grilled tomatoes on the side and butter on top of the steamed rice like the way it’s served in Moby Dick. Moby Dick also provides a classic condiments, ground sumac (Somagh), on their tables. You can sprinkle this reddish looking powder on rice to give somewhat of aromatic tart flavor. If you are adventurous enough, Moby Dick also serves the traditional yogurt drink, Doogh, which are often carbonated and flavored with salt and mint. Moby Dick has two varieties; the homemade and the commercial. The homemade is more flavorful while commercial is more carbonated. It reminds me of salty lassi drink people in northern India drink to cool off during hot summer days. Definitely try, if you are a foodie!

Kabob Palace
First, a word of caution. I had been to Kabob Palace couple of times few years ago. It is walkable from crystal city metro. So, this time when we went, we accidently went to another sit down type restaurant in same block called Kabob Palace Restaurant. We got table and immediately realized it is not the Kabob Palace that I remembered. The obvious thing to do was shamelessly get up and go to the real Kabob Palace. There are two other Kabob joints right next to the famous Kabob Palace. The other one is Shisha Palace Café, which is more of shisha joint (Hookah). I have eaten there once and the food is okay. Indeed, my recommendation is go to the Kabob Palace, which is setup like a fast food deli; you order, pay, get a number and wait.

The kabobs here have more of Indian subcontinental influence (read; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India) because spice marination of kabob has more curry flavors. However, it also serves kubideh, which is more of Persian style kabob. They also serves chapli kebab or chappal kabob, a spicy beef patty made in Peshawari style, a northwestern part of Pakistan. Lamb kabobs are served with bones as well as without bones. All the kabobs are served with rice, salad and Indian subcontinental style curried vegetables such as spinach potato (palak aloo), chickpeas etc. Beside kabob, Kabob Palace also serves other dishes such as Karahi chicken. One of the best part of Kabob Palace is that you get a free black masala chai (see previous post on chai) while you wait for your kabobs. Both time I went to Kabob Palace, it was snowing and their hot tea made me feel at home.

Ravi Kabob, Kabob Bazaar and others
Ravi Kabob is another Indian subcontinental kabob joint. You will get regular curry flavored chicken and lamb kabob and also find Lahori style karahi, kofta, Punjabi curry with pakora, aloo mutter. They also serve Haleem, which is sort of like chili type dish (without beans) with pulled meat. Ravi Kabob also serves dessert such as ras malai. However, Ravi Kabob is not metro accessible.

Kabob Bazar is a kabob between courthouse and clarendon metro. It serves Middle Eastern type kabob, i.e., light on curry spices. It also has other Middle Eastern fare such as falafel, hummus, as well as decent selection of vegetarian and fish kabobs.

There are many other wonderful kabob joints around DC area that I have yet to explore. My suggestion is go and try them out. You may find a hidden jewel hiding in your neighborhood.

In search of Doner Kabob
I found virtually all of the restaurants in DC serve industrially manufactured doner kabob, shawarma or gyro with ground meat. Some of DC based blog tipped me to this place called DC Café (P Street- near DuPont circle) that serves homemade gyro kabob. I called and DC Café confirmed that they make homemade chicken gyros meat. When I went there, I didn’t see any inverted vertical rotating grill but somewhat of dinky and dirty establishment. Hoping it must be one of those hole-in-wall jewels; I confirmed the homemade gyro and paid for my dinner. After a while, I realized they just cook a piece meat that is sitting outside on flattop surface like a chicken cheese steak (without cheese). The cook added onions and served with very sour (stale?) yogurt sauce on a stale pita. It was one of the most disheartening meals that I ever had with questionable hygiene. In fact, even I didn’t eat lunch that day, I couldn’t bring me finish my fake kabob and I eat everything. My search for authentic doner kebab, shawarma or gyro is still on.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Technically, lentil is a type of legume (pulse) plant and its edible dried seeds. Lentil is commonly known as Masoor and has botanical name Lens culinaris. However, in the culinary world, the word “lentil” is also used for the whole family of legumes or pulses that include; masoor, chana (split chickpeas), toor, urad (see my last post of urad and jimbu) etc. In Indian subcontinent, lentils, which are commonly known as dal, are one of the quintessential food items and the biggest source of protein. It is usually prepared as a soupy stew like dish also known as dal and served with rice or flatbreads.

A few years into my graduate school, I bought a small Crockpot from Wal-Mart (couldn’t resist $9.99 price). I used it quite often because I lived in a dorm with a shared kitchen. Lentil soup was my default meal to cook in this new culinary toy. I would leave some lentils, usually from Safeway from across the street, water, knick knacks (hint — leftovers) in morning. When I came back in evening, I had hot lentil soup ready. I experimented with different type of “lentils”, different knick knacks and spices. My lentil soup was, in essence, adaptation of Indian subcontinental dal. My favorite is chana dal because it produces creamier, thicker and most flavorful soup. However, chana dal was not available in Safeway and needed a special trip down to an Indian grocery store in Virginia. This ritual went on couple of times a week for more than a semester until the dorm management confiscated my Crockpot. The official reason was that it was a fire hazard but I believe that they really wanted my lentil soup.

I miss my Crockpot. But now I have learned to make lentil soup without it. Here are my recommendations for making the best lentil soup with or without a Crockpot.

Rinse and soak lentil of choice (or mixture) overnight (at least put 3 times more water)

Throw out the extra water. Add same volume of filtered water as the soaked bean. Start boiling on medium-high heat. You can substitute some water with chicken stock for more flavorful soup.

Do not add anything until lentil soup starts to boil. Depending on type of lentils and presoaking, cooking may take anywhere from half hour to an hour and change. It’s nearly impossible to overcook lentils. However, it is easy to burn them. So after boiling reduce heat to medium or medium low.

For yellow lentils, I recommend only one spice; whole cumin seeds. The whole cumin seed (not the powder) blends with yellow lentil in naturally aromatic and tasteful way that I have not seen with any other spice. Fry whole cumin in ghee (or butter) until you get dark brown color. Add a pinch of cumin seeds per cup of lentil soup. Beside whole cumin, I would recommend chopped sautéed shallots or onions (even dried onion powder works), tomatoes, and butter as flavors. Cilantro is an excellent garnish after lentil is cooked. A very few drops of lime juice also enhances the flavor but don’t add it if you are already adding acidic ingredients such as tomatoes. Other flavors you may add or substitute are roasted garlic, green chilies, asafetida (if adventurous).

Traditional north Indian dals don’t have any other ingredients except few seasoning but south Indian dal often has lots of vegetables. If you are making a lentil soup, I wholeheartedly recommend you to add other ingredients. For each cup of cooked lentil soup, do not add more than ⅓ cup of other ingredients. My favorites are commercial frozen meatballs (both Costco’s and Ikea’s), cooked pieces of meats, any veggies, rice, broken pieces of pasta, etc. My favorite veggies to add are; cut pieces of broccoli, green peas, mushroom, and zucchini. The idea is to add anything you want to eat or anything you have on hand. Be a lentil artist here! My suggestion is not to add too many ingredients at once because it’s going to confuse your palates. Don’t add more than one ingredient from each category of meat, vegetable and starch.

Once a friend of mine hated the flavor of his lentil soup recipe I gave him. Finally, I discovered that he didn’t put enough salt. Salt is probably the most important flavor in your lentil soup. Alright, technically it brings out the flavor of lentil soup. Don’t forget to add tasteful (and healthy) amount of salt. Just changing the amount of salt can drastically change lentil soup’s flavor. My recommendation is not more than ½ teaspoon of salt per cup of cooked lentil. Gradually add salt, taste the lentil soup, and calibrate amount of salt you want. Lentils maybe a healthy food but you will notice that like any other soup it’s high on sodium.

The one thing I wanted my cousin M’sha to get me from Nepal was Jimbu (or jhiku-cha). (Update: Jimbu is now available on Amazon: Buy Jimbu Online). According to a thesis on Jimbu, it is actually two species of perennial Allium herbs (from family of onions), Allium hypsistum and Allium przewalskianum. They grow in harsh dry and arid climates like that of Mustang, where the use of Jimbu as a spice may have started. The stalks of Jimbu plants are sundried and stored for use as a spice. While cooking, stalks of dried Jimbu are fried in ghee, to bring out their flavors, and then added to a dish. In Mustang, it is used to spice vegetables, lentils, pickles, and even meat. In rest of Nepal, it is commonly used to flavor  a type of lentil, split urad dal. Interestingly, urad dal’s scientific name is Vigna mungo (no kidding!) and it is more commonly known as Kalo or Kali (black) dal.

Like any herb of Allium species, it has perhaps high glutamate content (or glutamic acid – one of the amino acids).  Glutamate is responsible for the umami or meaty flavor and also enhances flavors of other foods by stimulating certain receptors in the taste buds.

When cooking urad dal, I fried a big pinch of Jimbu that my cousin M brought nearly a year ago. It was sealed in air tight zipped lock bag and seemed fine. After frying a few strands of Jimbu, it smelled of umami. I tasted few strands of fried Jimbu and it tasted similar to monosodium glutamate or MSG (yes I have tasted it!).

Frying Jimbu

Urad dal also has a high amount of glutamate. Perhaps, it is not a coincidence that this combination of urad dal and Jimbu evolved to marry these two glutamate rich flavors giving us umami explosion in mouth, and vegans are included this time. Here is how I made my urad dal with Jimbu.

Split dry Urad dal (Kalo dal)

Wash and soak it overnight (use drinking water). My rule is 3 (water) to 1 (urad) ratio.

Overnight soaked urad dal

Cook in medium/low heat for 1-2 hour. My rule is 1 (water) to 1 (urad) ratio.

When dal is cooked mash few of the beans to get a thick consistency.

Fry Jimbu in ghee (or margarine for vegans). Add to urad dal. Traditionally, any fried spices or garnish (tadka) is added at the end, just before serving. However, I like adding my tadka, simmer the dal to let the flavor naturally mingle. For a novice, resulting dal may look dark mushy soup. My suggestion is to reserve your judgment until you taste it.

Urad dal with strands of fried Jimbu

Best served with basmati rice.