Homemade.

It is so satisfying to eat food that comes straight from my own hands, to be completely connected to what I'm consuming. Because so often, we don't know. Today's sandwich came pretty darn close, save the basil leaves scattered on top, which I really have no business eating in the winter, anyway. But sometimes we make little exceptions. But the rest? Pure goodness.

The base is Irish soda bread that I baked last night. I've started baking bread regularly, and I have a basic rustic loaf that I bake a couple times a week. When you can't find the time to let your dough rise, however, Irish soda bread is a good go-to-loaf. I like mine with currants and caraway seeds.

Next, I slathered on some good, homemade ricotta cheese. I discovered around Christmas time that it is so easy to make your own ricotta, and have been making it ever since. The texture is divine, and the taste is clean. It tastes exactly like what it's made of--milk. I have used my ricotta to make ravioli, a dessert across between a cheesecake and souffle, and ricotta fritters--little balls of fried, crisp, gooey goodness. And ricotta is great on sandwiches, especially as a foil to stronger flavors, as in today's interpretation...

Chili pepper chutney. At the end of the summer, I bought up a bunch of chilies and cooked them into a spicy-sweet mass with onions, balsamic vinegar, and brown sugar. The chutney is very spicy, so it's a perfect match for ricotta, which helps tame the heat and bring out the flavor.

It's a lunch to feel good about.

Indian in a Flash

I had an exciting cooking experience last night when I decided to make bread from the fascinating Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent cookbook, which is just as much a scrapbook of Indian (and Sri Lankan, and and Nepali, etc.) life and culture as it is a collection of recipes. I highly recommend it.

In my experience, naan (which I've blogged about before) is the bread of India, ubiquitous on the menus at Indian restuarants in the States. And rightfully so, for it is delicious. But, as with all cultures, Indian food is greatly limited for us. It adapts to the culture it's in. Furthermore, the food of any one culture is so vast (and with strange, unavailable ingredients), that it would be difficult to get a comprehensive experience of all the culinary palate has to offer.

When looking at this cookbook, I was surprised and excited to find a whole chapter on breads, and knew I needed to try some. Last night was the perfect opportunity. I was planning a meal of many small vegetable dishes, and figured I should have bread it go with it. So after prepping my raw turnip-chili salad, grilled eggplant, and green beans with garlic and arugula pesto, I went about making the bread.

I chose something that looked simple, and my choice--a Bengali-style bread called luchis--were just that. Few ingredients and little prep, but an amazing result. Luchis are a fried flatbread, though despite the fact that they are fried, are not at all oily (the cookbook authors made this claim, and it was true). There is no leavening agent in the bread, but they puff up in the oil, little bubbles of air developing miraculously. Luchis are at the same time crisp and chewy, with a subtle sweetness to them (for this reason, I think they would be great sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar). Paired with a chutney of some sort, I think luchis would be the perfect snack to serve with drinks, and I can't wait to make them again. Here's how:

You'll need:

1 1/4 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vegetable oil (ghee would be a more traditional choice, but I would imagine most of us don't have any on hand!)

1/2 c. lukewarm water

oil for frying (peanut was recommended, I used vegetable)

*note: these are the quantities I used. The recipe in the book was double this--but I was only cooking for two! This made around 8 breads.

Procedure:

Measure flour and salt into a bowl. Whisk to combine. Add the oil (or ghee) and mix in with your hand or a spoon. When well-mixed, add the water, a little at the time, mixing to make a dough. Kneed a few minutes until smooth.

Let the dough rest, wrapped in a dishcloth. This can be for anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours, whichever is more convenient. I let mine rest for two hours.

Break off a golf-ball sized piece of dough. On a floured surface, roll out into a flat circle, of about a four-inch diameter. Continue with the rest of the dough, keeping the prepared rounds covered under a dishcloth.

To cook, heat oil until almost smoking. I find that recipes that call for frying like this always say to use 2 inches of oil, which I think is just excessive. I heated my oil in a wok, and used about 1 inch at most. Put dough rounds in one at a time. They cook so fast, that this is not at all inconvenient (if using a large pan, you could do 2 or 3). When dropped in the oil, the dough will sink and then rise, and immediately begin to brown. Turn over to brown both sides evenly. Put cooked luchis on a paper towel-lined plate. Enjoy!

Frying the luchis

A beautiful plate of luchis