a rich inheritance

a couple of weeks ago, I finished a yearlong stint with Avodah, the Jewish Service Corps. To get a sense of what we did you can take a look at the blog, but the relevant thing here is that the we all lived together, fifteen of us and a lot of delicious food, and that the program just ended, leaving only a few of us in DC and leaving a lot of that food homeless. Good service corps members that we are, we took that food into our new home. This means that we are now the proud owners of, among other things, two ten-pound bags of white rice, a Mystery Grain that turned out to be kasha, numerous granola bars, chocolate-covered almonds, four boxes of raisins, and over forty boxes of tea.

Fortunately, to go along with this wealth of inherited food, I also inherited three new (to me) cookbooks from my grandparents' den when I went to raid my grandfather's basement for housewares a few weeks ago. One of these, The New York Times' 1971 International Cookbook, includes a delicious recipe for the red lentils that were sitting in a baggie on our shelf. It can be found in the "Ceylon" section of this venerable tome (note to readers: Ceylon has been known as Sri Lanka since 1972. But such is the beauty of inherited cookbooks), I was able to make it with all inherited ingredients, and it's delicious. Serve it with basmati rice or, if you're feeling adventurous, add another vegetable curry and maybe some samosas to round out the meal.

Dhal (Lentil) Curry

Ingredients:

• 1 cup split red lentils
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 2-inch piece cinnamon, broken (granola bard's note: we unfortuntaely did not inherit any cinnamon sticks, so I used ground cinnamon instead. It came out fine.)
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• Salt, to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup coconut milk or cow's milk (granola bard's note: if you use this coconut milk, this recipe is vegan - not so much of a concern in 1971 - and coconut and lentils is an inspired combination, so why would you not?)

Process:

• Put the lentils in a saucepan with the water, one-half cup of the chopped onion, cinnamon, two cloves of the garlic, pepper, turmeric, and salt. Cook until the lentils are soft and most of the water is absorbed, about fifteen minutes. Stir in the lemon juice.
• Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add the remaining chopped onionl and garlic and cook until brown. Then add the mustard seed and cook briefly, stirring. Pour in the cooked lentils, add the milk, and cook five minutes, stirring.