Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Lentils, Chris-style

My husband has a bit of a reputation as a smart-guy (and smart-ass), and also as a good cook, and also as a bit of a vegan epicure. And all of that is true. And all of that sometimes makes for rather challenging dinner-making directions.

May I present Exhibit A, Chris's directions to me, for prepping lentils, which he will make into Indian deliciousness?

Lentils:
Mince 1 mediumish onion, or a bigger one, or whatever. Cook over v low heat for a long time in our 2nd to largest saucepan
Maybe 1-2 mins before the onion is looking really soft, crush in 2ish cloves of garlic
Add salt, pepper, and cumin, in amounts that look like they will end up tasting good. You can add the s&p after the water if you prefer.
Add 1.5c lentils. Stir around in the onion and whatall--I have no idea why I do this, you can prolly skip it and add the lentils after the water if you have to go pull the dog out of the garbage at this precise minute or something.
Add water to exceed total volume of stuff in pot by like 3x. Cover. Turn heat all the cfuck the way up. let berl. Once berlin', reduce heat to like 9 o'clock on the dial, aka lowish. Go check your email. Come back. Play legos. come back. Yell at the chillens. Come back. Answer the phone. Come back. Check from time to time to make sure not running dry. If dry, add more water.
If you start this around like 5:15, so the whole business is simmering by 5:30, the stars will align and your toenails will be fungus-free for six thursdays.


Off I go to start the quest for six Thursdays of fungus-free toenails!

1 comment:

ehirunner said...

I was a really strict vegan for about 6 years before my first trip to India in 1999, but I didn't even try to maintain that--milk tea alone is unavoidable. If I wanted to do really strict ingredient vegan--like checking labels--I think I would starve to death. I stayed veg thru trip two, fifteen months, but I had some bad liver problems and a severe lack of protein in trip three and started eating meat again. THis last run Ben was (as he has been for his whole life minus like 3 tunafish sandwiches) totally veg. Maggie backed off anything with a face after watching a pig get lassoed and catching some food poisoning within a few days of one another. Caitlin and I were kind of back and forth, and somewhat discriminating. Meat consumption in India is always a little dicey, and will result in the nastiest of nasty food poisoning, as in 14 hours of wringing your abdomen out through vomiting every 15 minutes. Ugh.

Vegetarian in India is probably even easier than eating meat. Vegan would require some real skill, and probably would not be possible without some long-term experience and language skills, particularly while traveling. Also, I would suspect that plenty of people would cheerfully lie and tell you 'oh, no, madam, no milk' no matter what was in the stuff. Aside from milk tea, India's beverage of choice, clarified butter (ghee) is EVERYWHERE in Indian cuisine.

Lastly, India is really difficult at times, but one of the paybacks is food. I think if you're not militant-ethical or food-allergy vegan, this is a good time to practice non-attachment to one's own ideas and loosen up to veg. (Veg, btw, always means no eggs in India, and that kind of thing is always really clearly labelled. Better than Parve-K in the US.)