We spent the weekend in NY and what fun it was. Sunday morning, we ate at a little cafe and took the kids down to Chinatown where they bought little Chinese dresses and we wandered in and out of various stores. I showed them all sorts of interesting new foods, dried fish stomachs, many types of dried herbs, dried shark fins too! I thought it was interesting, they thought the stores smelled, "funny".
I then took my younger (more adventurous) daughter to Kalustyans on 29th and Lexington. It's an amazing spice store filled with fantastic Middle Eastern foods. I bought some lentils for dal, Israeli and Lebanese couscous, some interesting Indian curry sauces, a Tunisian mixed spice, Yellow mustard seeds, apricot and mango candies and a few other assorted goodies.
We returned from the city and had an impromptu dinner with our friends from up the street.
I had made some roasted curried cauliflower which I reheated in a pan with a little oil and a tbs. of mustard seeds.
I made a dal from the lentils which was pretty easy.
Rinse the lentils in a bowl. Add enough water to cover the lentils and microwave for 3 minutes. Boil the lentils in a pot for 20-25 minutes until the lentils are soft. Drain from the water. In a pan, add a little vegetable oil, some mustard seeds and cumin powder. Stir until the mustard seeds begin to pop. You should also add Coriander seeds, but I didn't have any.
Add a thinly sliced onion and stir to coat the onion with the spices. Add the lentils and stir to combine. Add a can of diced tomatoes, salt and a tiny amount ( a pinch) of Garam Masala. Add the juice from 1/2 lime and serve. It was so delicious.
Oh yes, I bought some saffron rice which didn't really taste like saffron, but was a bright yellow. We ate the dal with the rice and the curried cauliflower. My friend made some Indian style cabbage was was delicious too.
P.S. Kalustyan's has a great website where you can order all of these things: http://www.kalustyans.com/
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