Continuing on from yesterday’s post with ‘luck’ and ‘money’ dishes to start off the new year, here was the ‘luck’ entry in my new year’s menu. It is “Whole Green Lentils with Cilantro and Mint” on page 86 of Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cooking.

I love lentils anyway, but had never made the complex mixture of flavorings that are in this recipe. In particular, I had never used mint quite in this way, which is what intrigued me about the recipe.

The first photo shows where I have the ingredients lined up in the order they will be assembled. The pot already has the oil. Next up is the cumin seeds and black mustard seed. Then dried hot red chiles (I used Thai peppers from my garden) and ground asafetida. Next up is chopped garlic, onion, and tomato (from the end-of-season crop of a friend’s garden; the tomatoes in my garden had long ago played out). Then the dried lentils, water, salt, ground coriander, chopped cilantro and chopped mint (the mint is from my garden).

The next photo shows the ingredients after they have been step-wise assembled in Indian cooking fashion, and the mixture is being brought to a boil before covering and simmering until the lentils are tender.

Here you see the finished lentils dished out in a bowl with a bit of cilantro as garnish (just to make a pretty photo, lol). The end result for this dish does not scream out at any one ingredient, which is what I particularly like about Jaffrey’s recipes. This is just luscious if you are looking for a high-protein vegetarian dish. It’s so easy to eat, that undoubtedly I am well passed eating my share of lentils to ensure good luck for all 365 days this year (at least I hope so!).

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Although I am a Southern gal now, I was born outside of the South. That’s my excuse for deviating a bit from the Southern tradition of starting off the new year with collard greens and black eye peas.

The idea is that green brings prosperity (i.e. the green of money) and the black eye peas bring luck (as I understand it, your goal is to eat at least 365 peas so that you have luck on each day of the coming year).

I’ve recently become very interested in Indian cooking, so I decided instead to pick recipes from Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cooking. My ‘greens’ selection was “Stir-Fried Green Cabbage with Fennel Seeds” based on page 94 in the book.

I love the balance of seasonings in Jaffrey’s recipes, so I seldom alter her recipes for these. This one has fennel seeds, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, salt, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and garam marsala.

I did do some minor altering of the vegetables for this recipe, though. Instead of a half head of cabbage shredded, I used precut slaw from Sam’s. I also already had some Creole mix on hand that was in need of being used before it got too old, so I used that mixture of diced vegetables instead of cutting an onion into fine half rings. (Note: Creole mix is predominantly diced onions with some celery, bell papper, green onion, parsley and garlic thrown in. It’s commonly available here in the New Orleans area where Cajun and Creole cooking is popular.)

Actually, I think the addition of the carrots (per the slaw mix) and the bits of other vegetables in the Creole mix adds a little needed color to this dish (compared to the one in the book), and to my taste, the flavors are in keeping with the overall dish.

The recipe called for so much cabbage (1.5 pounds) that I initially had to put only some of the cabbage in the wok and let that wilt down a bit before putting in more.

The close-up view is a helping of the cabbage dished out on my plate. Really yummy and it didn’t last long after this picture was taken, lol.

I’ll be back tomorrow with photos of preparing “Whole Green Lentils with Cilantro and Mint” for the ‘luck’ side of my new year’s meal. See you then!

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