Ayurveda Week 2

I'm so excited to share what we made in the kitchen this week in Ayurveda class! I feel like I keep saying this, but THIS week was my most favorite at culinary school. Last week, we learned about cooking for each dosha, see post here, but this week we got to dive deeper into more traditional health, supportive Indian cuisine.

Honestly, before these last two weeks of Ayurveda cooking, my exposure to traditional (non-fried) Indian food was pretty minimal. I thought I'd had good Indian food before, but that was not even comparable to the awesome food we made this week! We were introduced to some new spices & herbs that are heavily used in Ayurveda. This is just some of the spices & herbs that I need to memorize for my test this upcoming week!

Dosa

If you're anything like me & dosa wasn't really part of your culinary vocabulary before now, trust me - you'll want to add it. These scrumptious dosa are a type of flat bread & used almost like a tortilla when making a taco (I'm from Texas - it's what I relate to.) In class we made several variations of dosa using different grains & legumes. This picture below was made with brown rice basmati that we let ferment for a day before using.

We also made a "quick dosa" version made with split yellow mung beans that were soaked ahead of time for a few hours. We blended the mung beans with water, green chili, ginger, cumin seed, & salt. I actually like this version the best - not as crisp as the brown rice dosa, more like a soft, crepe.

For the filling, we made a potato & onion mixture with turmeric (hence the super yellow color), ginger, hing, & brown mustard seeds. The potato onion filling alone is delicious enough to eat without dosa -yum!!

Chutney

The last key ingredient to your delicious, potato-filled dosa is CHUTNEY! This is what I love most about Ayurveda - it's all about the condiments, chutney being just one of those. Not only that, it helps you get the 6 tastes that Ayurveda outlines as essential to health. Those six tastes are sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, & astringent. If your dish is missing any of those flavors, just make your chutney to encompass what you're lacking & bam - you're on your way to good health! (I'm not talking about sweet & sour sauce from the drive-thru, ya'll.) For the dosa class, we made two south Indian chutney recipes:

I love the green color to this south Indian coconut chutney made from the cilantro in this recipe! It's a tad bit spicy, but tastes amazing on the dosa & potato filing!

This South Indian variation of the recipe above is made with brown mustard seeds, red chili, urad dal, & tamarind paste. Oh & those lovely, little green leaves are curry leaves - once you start cooking with these you won't be able to stop! The spices were prepared separately & drizzled on top for appearance, but you can mix it all in to eat.

Curries

Now for the best day of the week - curry day! I've made curries in the past, but not like this. I would usually use some form of pre-made curry powder, our Ayurveda chef instructor is very strict about us making our own spices. When it says ground coriander, you're grinding it yourself. Thank goodness she lets us use the spice grinder! :)

Shallot Curry with Tamarind

This isn't your traditional curry taste - it has a little bit of a spicy, smoky flavor that pairs so amazing with the shallots.

Thai Curry with Kabocha & Green Beans

I could seriously eat this dish every day - I just might. This is an excellent dish heading into Vata season - it's warming, just a tad spicy, & grounding. Can't wait to make a big batch of this when it gets colder!

Paneer

This was also something I had never heard of before Ayurveda class, but simply put - it's cheese & it's amazing. We made a few different kinds this week - cow's milk paneer (pictured above), hemp, & green pea flour.

We made these scrumptious paneer stacks with the hemp paneer, roasted bell peppers, & some of the leftover chutney. Makes for a nice presentation too!

I hope you enjoyed reliving my second week of Ayurveda class with me - I can't believe how fast it's going! I only have one more week of Ayurveda, before we move into our business module & soon after to Macrobiotics (can't wait for that one!) Next week in Ayurveda we'll be learning more about my two favorite foods - breakfast & dessert! Stay tuned :)

Foodie + Yogi, Lindsey