My wife made baklava the other day to bring in to a potluck at her office.  I’ve had so many soggy, over-sweetened, stale pieces of baklava that I wasn’t so sure of it at first.  One bite later I was a convert.  It was light, flaky, and had just enough sweetness.  The triple-threat combination of almonds, pistachios, and walnuts really elevated it.  Go get some phyllo dough and make this (she used Alton Brown’s recipe).

I was uploading other photos and saw this one again.  I really love this picture (enough that I have a 5×7 on the wall).  Sometimes it’s fun to take a close look at your food.  These were being prepped for use in carrot halva (gajar ka halva), an Indian dessert which I’ll have to write up in the future.  Until then, enjoy looking at these colorful nuts.

I’ll post more on tempering chocolate soon.

I love to try new things. In this small town, I usually find myself in the situation of having recipes calling for ingredients I can’t get. Sometimes, though, I find new ingredients that need to be explored. Sometimes they aren’t so exotic, like smoked paprika or smoked salt. Sometimes they seem a little more exotic, but are still comparable to other familiar products, as is the case with pomegranate molasses or wasabi. I recently walked into our newest Indian grocery store, Mirsung, and was excited by the fresh vegetables they had that I’d never used before.

One of them was roughly the shape of a pointy cucumber, slightly ridged, and covered with bumps. Having seen pictures before, I knew this was a bitter gourd (also known as bitter melon or karela). Having seen Lisa’s post on Champaign Taste, I knew I would have to try it out and report back. They are in the same botanical family as gourds, and as such, have some seeds and a little pulp that needs to be removed before cooking them. They are, as the name suggests, bitter, but in a pleasing appetite-inducing kind of way, like a Campari aperitif.

Being an Indian vegetable, I looked a little online, but eventually I knew I wanted to use some recipes from my go-to vegetarian recipe source, The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. It had a handful of recipes listed under karela in the index under bitter melon. The first one I tried was called “Potato Patties with Crunchy Bitter Melon Chips” or Aloo Karela Tikki. Think crunchy potato blini, studded with fried vegetables. You boil some potatoes and peel them. Then you trim (the ends), clean (the seeds/pulp), and chop the karela. Fry it in some oil until it’s GBD. I tried the karela at this point, and it was good–crunchy, chewy, a flavor similar to properly-fried okra with a little bit of bitterness. The rest of the dough comes together with some salt, cayenne pepper, whole wheat flour, horseradish, coconut, and lime juice. Shape into patties and fry it up. Some people garnish a blini with sour cream and caviar. I spooned on some plain yogurt, and added some chives from our garden.

They were great. The karela was there, but in the background. This dish is more about texture and the balance of some simple flavors instead of showcasing the karela. I was pleased with the result, but wanted a more bitter melon focused dish, so I chose one called “Pan-Fried Whole Bitter Melons with Cashew Stuffing” or Kaju Bhara Karela (from the same book).

In this recipe, the karela were handled as a hardy vegetable. They are cut open, cleaned, sprinkled inside-and-out with salt and a little sugar to draw out some moisture and bitterness, then par-boiled for 10 minutes. Then I stuffed them. The mixture was ground cashews, coconut, brown sugar, turmeric, cayenne pepper, whole fennel, cumin, and coriander, moistened with a little yogurt. The recipe has you tie them up with (cotton) sewing thread, but I didn’t have that so I used my kitchen twine in the classic method (used previously on chicken). I did try just wrapping it around and tying, like they mention in the recipe, but I think my method worked much better.

This was definitely a showcase of the bitter gourd. It had a distinct bitterness that takes some getting used to, but I thought it was great. It was so different from other things I’ve had. The creamy, nutty filling balanced out the bitterness quite well, and adding the suggested squeeze of lime juice brought out more of the flavors of the filling. The recipe says that you should use baby karela, which would probably cut the bitterness somewhat (mine were almost twice the size they call for). I’ll definitely make something like this again, but maybe tweak the filling. The filling as-is would also be great with green bell peppers.

Part of what I like about trying new things is the new experience I have. Whether it’s new flavors or new techniques, whether it works or not, trying something new is exciting. The way new experiences can open my mind to new ideas building and improvising from that point. What new things have you tried? If you want to try one of these new recipes, I strongly recommend buying the book (it’s like 800 pages with a lot of information), but I’ll share if you leave a comment or email me.