Red lentil dal

Today, I failed my driving theory exam by 1 point. Grue. It's also snowing again, so much for my hopes of the snow melting so I can ride my bike again. Ah well, perhaps it'll get warmer in April.

I've had a thing for Indian food for quite a while now. Today I made one of my favourites - dal. It's really very simple and a true comfort food, especially for days like this.

Red lentil dal:

2 tsp oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup red lentils (~120 ml)
1 cup water plus more if needed (~240 ml)
1 cup tomatoes (~240ml)
0.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp mild paprika
0.5 tsp hot paprika
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chili flakes

Fry the onion and garlic in a saucepan until the onion bits become transparent. Add lentils, tomato sauce, water and all the spices except the chili flakes and cook stirring every now and then until the lentils are done, about 20 minutes. Add more water if it looks too thick. Mix in the chili flakes and cook for two more minutes. Adjust flavourings, making sure it has plenty of salt and is hot enough for you. Serve over rice.
Makes three to four servings for a small person.

Spaghetti with sundried tomatoes and pine nuts or lament for Trehv

Something horrible happened on 14th of February this year. One of my favourite restaurants in Tartu closed its doors. Their food was affordable even to poor students, generously sized and unbelievably delicious. Their warm strawberry-banana crumble was to die for, but what made the strongest impression on me was this pasta dish they served. I wasn't a big fan of pasta before I went there, but Trehv made me appreciate pasta again. Tagliatelles with sundried tomatoes, peppers, carrots and pine nuts. Oh. My. God.
But now, they're gone, and their amazing pasta with them.

I had two choices - carry on living without being able to eat that amazing dish ever again or make it myself. Naturally, I went with the best option.

So here goes:

Pasta a la Trehv or spaghetti with mushrooms, sundried tomatoes and pine nuts:

120g (dry) spaghetti, boiled
200g mushrooms, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbsp oil
6 sundried tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp oil from the sundried tomatoes jar
2 tbsp pine nuts
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the pasta as instructed on the package. While the pasta is boiling, chop the vegetables. In a pot, fry the onions and mushrooms with a little salt and pepper in the 1 tbsp of oil until done. Drain the pasta and mix it with the vegetables. Add the chopped sundried tomatoes and the sundried tomato oil. Cook while stirring for about 2 minutes or until all components are warm. Turn off the heat and mix in the pine nuts. Prepare to ascend to culinary heaven.
Makes three portions for a small person.

Yes, this recipe has pine nuts. No, I never learn.

We are surrounded by the strangest things

Yesterday me and Roju sat at the creperie (inventively called "Crepp") and ate ... wait for it ... crepes. When it was time to pay, I pulled out my wallet and with it an old receipt:

The cashiers name means "lap cat" in Estonian, which is absolutely adorable.

Less adorable:

This horrific composition was stuck in a flowepot at the coffee room at my uni. Botanists really hate animals, apparently.

My own sourdough rye bread. Aw. Yeah.

I've been wanting to make sourdough bread for quite some time. As you all know, sourdough requires a starter culture. There are several ways to acquire one: first, you could make it yourself by fermenting bread or fruit for a couple of days. The problem with that method is that it may not turn out strong enough for the first couple of batches of bread to rise properly. The second method is to get a starter from someone who already has a good, working one. Lazy as I am, that's exactly what I did. Since I don't know anyone who makes their own bread, I had think of a clever way to get my hands on some starter.

Once again, I was rescued by The Internet.

I went on a foodie forum and asked people in my area if any of them would be so kind and share their starter with me. I got two replies, which was more than enough. A couple of days later, I was the proud owner of a little plastic box full of greyish, fermented goo and a set of instructions. I am forever grateful, nice lady.

Making sourdough bread has two steps.
First, the evening before you want to start baking, you mix the starter with some water (I used 400ml) and enough rye flour to give it the thickness of yoghurt. Then you leave it to ferment for at least 12 hours, preferably in a warm place. You'll know if it's done by the foam forming on top.
Next, you add more rye flour, salt (1 tsp), sugar (3 tsp, heaped) and caraway seeds (1 tsp) to taste (I had my mum taste it since I can't - due to reasons mentioned in the previous post). The dough should be just soft enough to be stirred with a spoon. This is also the point where you take a new starter (two tablespoons for making one loaf).

Then you ladle everything into a loaf tin, smooth it out with wet hands, cover with plastic wrap or a towel and leave it to rise in a warm for an hour or three.

 

When the dough has doubled in size, preheat your oven at 225C and bake for 15 minutes. Then, turn the heat down to 200C and bake for about 30 minutes, making sure the crust doesn't burn. Finally, turn the heat down to 180C and let it bake for about 25 more minutes (total baking time should be around 70 minutes).
Take your bread out of the oven, brush it with wet hands and let cool under a towel for at least an hour and a half.

Since I forgot to take a starter when I was supposed to, I had to take it when the bread was almost ready to be baked, resulting in my bread having a crater in it. Ah well.
The starter should keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. It can also be frozen, but that may reduce its activity.

If you ignore the bitter undertaste caused by my curse, my bread was amazing.

Of course, this didn't happen without casualties, good things rarely do. Mainly, my bread got stuck in the loaf tin and I had lots of trouble getting it out in once piece. It was soft and fluffy on the inside, but the crust was STUCK. I tried to force it out with a spatula. The bread won. The spatula shattered. Note to self: next time, use baking paper or butter.

Hnnngh, I've been cursed!

So, as you could tell from my previous post, I made a kringel with pine nuts. Of course, I didn't use all of them, which means I've been snacking on the leftovers all weekend.
And...weird things started happening.

I had porridge for breakfast today, and it tasted like the milk I used was a bit off. Bitter. I ignored that and went about my daily things until I sat down to have lunch, which was pea soup and a garlic sandwich. Again, everything had a pretty strong bitter taste to it, the only thing that tasted like it should was the garlic. I tried to drink kefir, no change. I ate honey and it was bitter. Cookies? Same. Horrible.

Of course, when this happens to you, you get worried. So you google it. Taste disturbances are usually a symptom of brain tumours or diabetes. No. It's not cancer. It's pine mouth.

Wow.
I'm hungry but I don't want to eat anything, because the taste will come back and linger for an hour after I've finished my food.
According to Wikipedia, this can last for weeks.

Somebody put me in a coma.

Jooseps birthday kringel

Since my last kringel was a raging success, another friend of mine has asked me to make one for their birthday. This time, it will be a savoury one, which means another challenge for me, since I haven't done that before either. What makes it even trickier is that I'm vegetarian, and selfishly, I want my kringel to be something I can enjoy as well. Which means  excluding the best part (according to some) of a pizza kringel - ham. So I needed to think of something that is a) absolutely delicious b) isn't a body part. And Joosep isn't a fan of mushrooms or peppers, so they're out. Which left me little choice, since those were the two things I would have used. I mean, cheese and onions are nice on their own, but they're not enough. I want it to be awesome. At first, I had a blasphemous thought - soy slices, fried with spices and soy sauce would probably fool my carnivore friends. That would be cheating. Also, even to me, soy slices have this Soylent Green aura to them. So, over the course of a week, I've been thinking about components, with the brightest ideas hitting me the night before the party (sundried tomatoes!) and THE best idea reaching me when I was shopping for food. Pine nuts. This is going to be amazing.
Mind, I'm writing this before I've even started baking it, so we'll see what actually happens.

Dough:
40g yeast
375ml warm milk
2 eggs
120g butter, softened
~700g flour
2 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt

Dissolve yeast in warm milk and in another bowl, whisk the eggs and butter (that makes them easier to incorporate) and mix everything together. Add flour, sugar and salt. Knead well. Kneading is important, I can't stress this enough. Give it a proper beating, about 10 minutes, until the dough stops sticking to your hands. Cover with a towel and let it rise in a warm place for about an 45 minutes, punch down and leave it for another 45ish minutes.

Filling:
50g butter, melted
1 large onion, chopped and fried in a tablespoon of butter. Seasoned with salt and pepper.
100g sundried tomatoes, cut into small pieces
50g pine nuts
100g roasted almonds, chopped
300g grated cheese
40g grated parmesan
oregano
1 egg

Fry the chopped onion while the dough is rising and let cool. When the dough is ready, evenly roll it out into a rectangle, making sure it's pretty thin. Cover the rectangle with melted butter, leaving 2 cm on one of the long sides so it will stick when you roll it up. Add all other components, spreading them evenly across the dough. Now for the tricky part. Roll up the dough, stretch if it looks too short. With scissors, cut it up lengthways, making sure the fillings don't fall out. Braid it as shown in my previous kringel recipe and carefully transfer to a baking tray. Pick up all the bits that fell out and stick them back on the kringel. Let it stand for 10 minutes, meanwhile preheat the oven to 165C. When all is done, brush the kringel with egg, stick the tray in the oven and bake for about an hour, until the kringel is nice and golden. While baking: I wish I could take pictures of the smell. Oh. My. God.
Enjoy. Makes one large kringel slightly too big for my silicone mat.

Hopefully it tastes as awesome as it smells!
Happy birthday, Joosep!