Reading Notes: Pressure Cookers again

You probably think I am obsessed with them, but the blog Lifehacker recently had a great post on how to choose a pressure cooker. We don't have a ton of different choices here in Bhutan beyond the sizes of pressure cooker ( I didn't even know it was possible to get an electric pressure cooker!) but I can imagine becoming pretty overwhelmed if I was faced with more options. Either way there is some great advice here for anyone tempted to invest in one!

A non-food related note: Dear regular readers, I just started a new job so I am finding it hard to make time to sort through photos and notes to come up with original posts. But once things settle I have some fun things in the pipe line. Promise!

Lunch on a snowy day: Bathup

 Yesterday morning we woke up to a Thimphu covered in a thick white blanket of snow. Unusual not because we don't ever get snow but because usually we see a light snowfall that melts almost as soon as it settles. This time the snow came down so thick and heavy and that is stayed all day into the next one. My facebook and twitter were full of people's photos of the snow including snowmen, snow-women and even one snow-buddha. My mother and my brother, Sonny took the opportunity to make and serve up a typical Bhutanese cold weather meal: Bathup or soup with homemade noodles.

 Below are the assembled ingredients minus the homemade noodles. To left you see a basket of chopped leafy greens (my mother likes to use mustard greens but any other leaf green is likely to work), onions, garlic , ginger and some potato. Potato is not a standard Bathup ingredient but my
mother likes the way it melts in the soup to give it a lovely thick consistency. To the right are salt, chili power, sichuan pepper ( or thingay in Dzongkha) and of course bones.  Bones are critical to making a savory and hearty stock for the noodles. My mother puts everything ,except the greens and  thingay (that goes into the soup absolutely last) into a pressure cooker, adds a tiny bit of vegetable stock powder and lets it all cook until the bones are completely cooked.

In the meantime Sonny prepares the dough to make the noodles. To make the mixture he blends two parts of atta ( or whole wheat flour) with half a part of maida ( or white flour) and warm water.  The mixture of flours gives the noodle a nice texture. Below you can see the kind of consistency

that you need to aim for.

The flour is then rolled out and Sonny used a serrated pizza cutter to slice the dough into noodles. He also used the straight edge of a salad serving soup to make straight and consistently sized noodles.

The cut noodles are kept in a bowl that has flour in it and tossed regularly ( ideally with each addition of newly cut noodles) to keep the noodles from sticking together or clumping.

Once the meat it judged to be cooked, its time to add the chopped mustard greens. These are stirred into the soup and the pressure cooker is now left open and used like a regular cooking pan.



Once the soup comes to a boil again its time to add the homemade noodles. Sonny is careful not to stir too vigorous as this might ruin the noodles. He gently stirs in the noodles, makes sure all of them  are completely submerged in the soup. 



Now its time to add the thingay. My mother has had some thingay sitting on the warm stove as the soup was made  ( not over a lit flame but just sitting out on the stove )  so that they are lightly toasted. Now she crushes them into a coarse powder before adding it to the soup.

As a final touch my mother chops some green onion directly into the soup before serving.

And there you have it, the perfect snowy day meal!

Reading Note: NPR on the dangers of Tea Drinking and Pressure Cookers

Recently I read two delightful articles on the NPR blog that discussed topics that have come up on this blog. The first was on the"dangers" of tea drinking for  19th Century Irish women.  Apparently if "women had time to sit down and enjoy a tea break, this must mean they were ignoring their domestic duties and instead, perhaps, opening the door to political engagement or even rebellion."I am going to be thinking that as I savor my tea today! The second looked at pressure cookers and more specifically why they are less common in American kitchens.The great article includes some wonderful recipes to get first time pressure cooker users started as well as this lovely line describing the sound that a pressure cooker makes as it warms up, " wheezing like an asthmatic cobra."  I have never ever actually heard an asthmatic cobra but it does convey how dangerous a pressure cooker  can sound when its in action .

How Sonny makes Dal

Dal is pretty much a standard at many of our family meals. It is nutritious ( very high in protein!), tasty and more importantly the fussier members of the household love dal.

Dal is a dish that is eaten all over South Asia, probably a little less in Bhutan than in  other parts of the sub-continent.  It is both ubiquitous and hugely varied. Not only are there lots of different types of lentils that can be made into dal but also a huge number of ways to cook it. In general though  the lentils are cooked long and slow ( or you can cheat a little like with do with an pressure cooker) into a seasoned stew or soup (depending on how thick your family likes it) that is then eaten with rice or  some kind of flat bread like chapati.

Here is how my brother Sonny makes dal on an average weeknight. The lentil we use is orangish in color and based on a quick Internet search is called "split red lentils" or  masoor dal. The first thing we do is wash the dal and soak it water while we prepare some of the other ingredients. The soaking helps it to cook a little faster.

 

Now Sonny chops up onions, garlic, ginger, tomato and some chilli. You can see on the right hand the approximate sizes to aim for. Later he frys the onions, garlic, ginger and chilli in the pressure cooker. Sonny then adds some salt, curry powder and a bay leaf.

  









Once things start to get golden ( if they start to  brown you have fired too long!) he adds the tomato and immediately afterward he adds the drained lentils, the drier the better. Then Sonny stirs and let this mixture fry for a while.

Now its  time to add water based on how thick or thin you want the finished product to be ( I am so sorry not to have exact measurements but as discussed in previous posts, Sonny doesn't use measurements when he cooks)

Now its time to seal up the pressure cooker and wait for it to signal with its steamy whistle that the contents are ready ( Sonny let the whistle go three times before he opened up to see how the dal was doing) If you don't have a pressure cooker, you might try soaking the dal a little longer. Pressure cookers are kind of wonderful,  though potentially dangerous for first time users! Read the manual, steam burns are very, very painful!

Once Sonny opens up the pressure cooker he checks for water and salt and adds more as needed.  He then continues to stir until the dal is ready. Just before serving he adds some butter and sometimes chopped coriander ( cilantro for  any American readers) .Once the dal is cooked and served there are still option for how to eat it. Here are two: a)  You can either  pour it over the rice, mix well and eat or  b) you can reserve the dal in a small side bowl and drink it like soup.  Either way Sonny's dal is always delicious!