A nose for cooking: Lamb with Celery and Cumin

Sautéed and quickly braised with whole cumin seeds, garlic, lemon juice and crushed red pepper flakes, normally mild-mannered celery upstages the supposed star of this dish, ground lamb. Recipe below.

lamb celery cumin seed

First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Celery? Stealing the spotlight from lamb? Yes. As I sit here writing this post about this dish cooked and eaten last night, I am Pavlov’s dog, and he is going to town on that bell. And it is because of the celery.

Celery is woefully underrated, I think, largely because people mostly eat it raw. Cooked, it can become a valuable ensemble player. In soups, it adds a fresh note; in a pot of chili, it amplifies the taste of the cumin and provides nice, slightly crunchy bites. And, as in the case of Lamb with Cumin and Celery, it can burst with big, bright flavor. Continue reading “A nose for cooking: Lamb with Celery and Cumin”

Vegetarian Indian dish packs heat, authentic flavor: Tofu Curry

Sautéed tofu and a curry sauce made with onion, ginger, garlic, chiles, tomato and plenty of spices (but no curry powder) create a spicy, authentically Indian vegetarian main course or side dish. Recipe below.

We’re not big on new year’s resolutions at Blue Kitchen. There’s something so rigid and formal about ‘resolving’ to do something: “Be it hereby resolved that…” But there are things that we talk about doing, directions we talk about taking. The first post of the new year seems like a good place to explore a couple of them.

One is something we’ve actually been doing for a while—eating less meat. The other is getting into cooking more Indian food at home. This simple, spicy, big-flavored Tofu Curry let me do both. Continue reading “Vegetarian Indian dish packs heat, authentic flavor: Tofu Curry”