Tag Archives: tomato sauce

Dhal Makhani

I saw the recipe for Dhal Makhani on Andrea’s lovely blog ‘Can You Stay for Dinner’, and immediately knew I had to make it. It’s been far too long since I made Indian food, and this recipe was too easy to be true. Plus, it would use up some of the lentils that have been kicking around in my pantry–my husband is on a ‘clean out the pantry’ mission and has been requiring me to make recipes that use what we already have. A wise choice, since there is still no ice cream space in our freezer.

If you have never made Indian food before, this is a perfect place to start. There are practically no ingredients (OK, well, there are nine of them counting the water), and the ingredients that are in it are totally basic items: ginger, garlic, cayenne–nothing that will require a special trip to an international grocery store. Basically, Dhal Makhani = the most amazing lentils I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve made a lot of lentils in my day.

Which brings us to the question–what the heck is a lentil?

I realized with shock while drafting this post that I had no idea. Was it a pea? Or a bean? Does it qualify as a vegetable? Wikipedia tells me it is a legume, in the same family as peas and beans and peanuts and chickpeas and tofu (soy beans) and (wait for it) it is a fruit. Whaaaa . . . ?

Let’s not get caught up in technicalities here–it’s incredible and wonderful in every way.

I made very few changes to the original recipe, and it is so delicious. It has very few ingredients, but the depth of flavor that emerges when they are brought together into this vegetarian harmony is just amazing. Even though the cook time is 1 hour and 20 minutes, the prep time is virtually nonexistent, so it’s still the perfect dinner for a busy weeknight . . . as long as you can control your hunger pangs for a little longer than usual.

Ingredients

(serves 3)

1 cup dried lentils

15 oz can tomato sauce

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

3 large cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons butter

water (up to one cup)

3 tablespoons heavy cream

fresh cilantro for garnish

OK, first let’s grab our lentils. I used Dupuy lentils, which are French and dark green and tiny. But any kind of lentil would work.

Now, put the cup of lentils into a pot. Cover them in cold water by 2 inches, then slap that baby on the stove over high heat.

Bring it to a boil, decrease the heat to medium high, cover the pot, and cook for 20 minutes.

While it’s cooking, prep your other ingredients: open your can of tomato sauce, mince the garlic, grate the ginger, measure out the cayenne, and grab that butter.

After 20 minutes the lentils should be a little softer, but not mushy. Drain them in the sink . . .

. . . and then return them to the pot with the ingredients you just prepped.

Mix that deliciousness in.

Cover the pot and turn the heat on low. Cook for an hour, stirring occasionally and adding water (up to a cup) when needed. If you don’t stir them, your lentils will probably burn to the bottom (that could also mean your heat is too high)–I stirred them 3 or 4 times throughout, and added the full cup of water.

At the end of an hour they will look something like this:

Now it’s time to taste and adjust the seasoning, with more cayenne for those of you who like a jolt of fire on your tongue.

The next step is very important. Grab your best friend:

That’s right–we’re BFF’s and not ashamed of it!

Stir in the cream and sigh at the delights to come. While you’re at it, add a serious handful of chopped cilantro.

Heck yes.

Serve it over rice.

So satisfying! So hearty! So flavorful!

Seriously guys, the ratio of ingredients (few) to flavor (lots) is so surprising. Plus, it’s eating on the cheap–lentils and tomato sauce are grocery-budget friendly, which is great news for us grocery budget transgressors.

So pretty–the red, the yellow, the green . . .

Just because my life has been a barren wasteland because of the lack of Dhal Makhani up to this point doesn’t mean yours has to be. Learn from the mistakes of your forefathers! Make this dish!

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Rich and Creamy Tomato Bacon Pasta

I love it. It may be artery-clogging material, but I’ll make up for it by eating my greens and by faithfully attending my Monday workout, which has already created one new muscle on my left leg called ‘Fred.’ It’s all about balance–I like to compensate for things (read: ‘bacon’) rather than cutting them out, as you may have guessed if you have visited some of my other heavy whipping cream and blue cheese-laden recipes.

This dish is quick to whip up, and dreadfully satisfying to dig into. And even though I’m calling it “rich” in the title, I must emphasize to you that IT IS VERY RICH. You won’t need a ton of sauce to go over your bowl of pasta. Oh, and it’s delicious as well over white rice, which is how I chose to consume the abundant leftovers.

My husband loved it. I loved it. Will you you love it, too? I say there’s a 99% chance if you’re in my immediate family, but a 0% chance if you’re my cousin Luke and can’t eat the pasta (gluten intolerant) or the sauce (lactose intolerant).

Let’s dive in! Get ready for a swim on the dangerous side of sauce.

Ingredients

(Serves 5)

1 lb cooked farfalle pasta

1 lb bacon

1 large onion, roughly chopped

3 TBS dry sherry or wine

1-26 oz can spaghetti sauce*

1 c heavy whipping cream

2 TBS crème fraîche

3/4 c blue cheese crumbles

salt, to taste

1/2 tsp sugar, to taste

generous amounts of black pepper

cilantro or herbs, to garnish

*you can use plain tomato sauce; just add some brown sugar, garlic and dry herbs to create your own flavor

First, chop up and sauté that bacon in a deep skillet over medium-high heat.

While the bacon is cooking, give the onion a rough dice. Once the bacon starts getting brown, add the onion and continue to sauté until the onion is softened.

This whole process can take a while, maybe 12 minutes or so . . . I wasn’t counting.

Now it’s time to drain the excess grease out of the pan. There’s a lot, and we don’t want this sauce to precipitate an immediate trip to the hospital. Grab your baster and suck out the good stuff. I mean, the bad stuff.

Good, bad, bad, good–it’s all just so relative.

Look at all this grease we have successfully discarded:

Now, add the sherry and deglaze the pan, scraping up any brown bits.

Let it boil away a little, for 2-3 minutes.

Add the spaghetti sauce.

I used a dented can from Big Jake, but you can use any kind, really. And if you’re against premade spaghetti sauce, use regular tomato sauce with some spices (garlic powder, salt and pepper, thyme, oregano, some sugar).

Cover the pan and let the sauce simmer on medium-low for about 10-12 minutes. If you are by chance using diced tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, you want to leave the pan uncovered and increase the cooking time here, so that the majority of the liquid boils off.

Now it’s time to throw caution to the winds. Grab that crème fraîche:

And eat some! Seriously, it’s part of the recipe.

See the finger swipes? If you have any sense at all for who I am as a person, you knew this was inevitable.

Add the sugar, cream, crème fraîche, blue cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.

A good substitution for crème fraîche if your grocery store doesn’t carry it is sour cream mixed with mascarpone. Stir the whole creamy mess until everything is incorporated and heated through. Dip in your spoon and take a taste, then adjust the seasonings to your liking. I happened to need more salt . . .

. . . and also more pepper.

Also, if you are a blue cheese hater (I know who you are . . . and have forgiven you. I think.) you can totally skip adding the blue cheese and just add some more crème fraîche or something. I happen to be a blue cheese lover, and I added even MORE! I was in the mood to totally rock my own palate.

And here we have the sauce, in all its perfection. And richness.

Here we reach a fork in the road: if you take the path to the right, you could dump your cooked pasta into the sauce. However, I would advise against that namely because the sauce is so rich that you may not want that much with your pasta. Take the path to the left and leave it up to each individual eater to choose the amount of sauce they feel capable of handling.

Garnish with parsley, cilantro, basil, or whatever herb floats your boat.

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