Moong Dal with Mushrooms & Spinach (Green Gram Lentils)

Doc and I are at the point in our lives where it seems like every week brings a new happy announcement from friends.  Babies, marriages, vacations, new houses, graduations, engagements, promotions.  It's been a giddy time.  

Last week one of my college buddies posted about some aversions she was having during her pregnancy, in particular how she was struggling with meats and dairy.  I offered up some of the dal/bean recipes I've posted.  As I went through them I realized that I had a few more I wanted to add, including this one for mung/moong dal (also called green gram).  So her happy news is good for all of us because it means a new post.

(I won't Piro-rant you with excuses about infrequent posts this spring.  The long and short of it is that I've been enjoying salads and fresh veggies more often than not.  I feel silly posting salad recipes and I don't delude myself that anyone is anxious for the next installment, so I've been waiting for recipes that I felt were worth sharing.)

Moong Dal with Mushrooms & Spinach

Total Time:  2 hours soaking (can be done while at work / overnight) + apx. 1 hour cooking the beans and ~30 minutes making the flavorings.  The process can be sped up by cooking the beans and flavorings at the same time or using a pressure cooker for the beans. 

Weirdest Spice:  Fenugreek leaves.  Can be substituted (fenugreek powder, celery seeds, celery salt, lemon leaves) or omitted.  

Credits:  I can't say I have a base or inspiration recipe for this one.  It bears a resemblance to my basic tadka dal, if that counts.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup green gram (moong / mung dal)
• 3 cups boiling water
• 1 tsp oil or ghee
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 onion, sliced thinly
• 1 tsp ginger paste
• 1 tsp garlic paste
• 0.5 cup sliced mushrooms
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1.5 tsp chili powder or paprika (optional, adjust to taste)
• 2 cups pureed tomato
• 2 tsp fenugreek leaves
• 1 cup fresh spinach
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp fresh cilantro (optional)
• 1 tablespoon cream or coconut milk (optional, adjust to taste)
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. Rinse lentils thoroughly in a fine-mesh sieve under warm water until the water runs clear.
2. Pour the boiling water over the lentils in a heat-proof bowl.  Set aside to soak for 2 hours or overnight.
3. Transfer the lentils and water to a large nonstick saucepan and heat on the stove on medium-high.  When the water boils, turn the heat down to low and simmer approximately 1 hour or until lentils are soft.  Stir occasionally, adding more water if needed in order to keep the lentils covered with a small amount of water (see pictures below for an example).
4. While the lentils are booking, heat a second saucepan on medium heat.  When the pan is hot, add the oil.  When oil is shimmering, add the cumin seeds.  Allow to cook for 10-30 seconds or until fragrant.
5. Add diced onions and a dash of salt.  Saute 5-10 minutes or until translucent.
6. Add ginger & garlic pastes, saute 2 minutes.
7. Add the mushrooms, saute 5 minutes.
8. Add coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric, and chili powder.  Cook 1-2 minutes or until fragrant, stirring constantly.  Add a small splash of water if needed to keep spices from burning.
9. Add tomato puree and stir until onion paste and tomato puree are well-mixed.  Turn heat down to low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes or until tomato darkens and loses its raw flavor.
10. Add fenugreek leaves, garam masala, and spinach.  For maximum flavor, use palms to crush the fenugreek leaves before adding.  Cook 5-10 minutes or until spinach is wilted and flavors are incorporated. 
11. When both the lentils and the tomato sauce are cooked, stir them together over low heat.  Salt to taste.
12. Optional:  add cilantro and cream or coconut milk.
13. Serve hot over rice or with flatbread.

What I like best about this lentil recipe is that it's as decadent or as simple as you want to make it.  The difference is the addition of cream or coconut milk at the end.  No cream makes it almost rustic, whereas adding it in makes it restaurant-style in richness.  Or you can shoot for somewhere in the middle, as I usually do.

The first step is to wash and soak your beans.  You can quick-soak in 2 hours by using boiling water, or do it overnight / while you're at work.  

Use 3:1 water to lentils to ensure that they're well-covered and have room to expand.  When you're done soaking you can either use the soaking water or rinse them again and use vegetable stock to cook them instead.  Up to you.

Place the lentils and the cooking water in a large saucepan and dial it up to medium-high.  Ignore the urge to add salt here as that will only increase the cooking time.  

It should take about an hour for the lentils to get soft and for most of the liquid to cook off.  Stir every 5-10 minutes.  Keep an eye so that the lentils don't get dry.  At the end you want a little water/stock in with them but not a huge amount.  Like so:

See how they're soupy but not drowning?  That's the goal at the end.  Add in more liquid as needed if they get much drier than that as they're cooking.  Depending on how dry/old your lentils are it might take more or less than an hour.  It's hard to predict because every bag of lentils is different.  For me it took about an hour and fifteen.

While the lentils are simmering, get the flavoring put together.  

It starts with a second saucepan on medium heat.  When the pan is hot, add the oil, and when the oil is hot, add your cumin seeds.  Ghee is also an okay choice if you're not going for a vegan dish.

The cumin seeds only need about 10-30 seconds in the oil before you'll smell them.  Immediately add in your sliced onions and stir so that the cumin seeds don't burn.

After about 5-10 minutes you'll find the onions have softened up and gotten a bit translucent.  That's the time to add the ginger and garlic pastes.  For some reason, I missed getting a picture of that.  Sorry guys.

Cook the ginger and garlic, stirring occasionally, for about 2-3 minutes.  Then add in the mushroom slices.

About 5 minutes is what it should take for the mushrooms to soften up.  When they are soft add in the spices.  Also toss in a splash of water or stock if the mixture is looking dry in order to keep the spices from burning.

Stir the mushroom-onion-spice mix about 1-2 minutes to cook the spices.

Next up is the tomato puree.  You could use canned or fresh, whatever makes you happiest.

Stir the onion mix and the tomatoes together until they're well incorporated.

Turn the heat down to low to keep the tomatoes from scorching.  Stir from time to time as well.

It'll take about 20 minutes or so for the tomatoes to cook through and lose their raw taste.  They'll also darken up a bit, as you can see here:

The spices in the above photo are fenugreek leaves and garam masala.  Fenugreek leaves get a big boost in flavor from crushing them between your palms just as you add them in.  If you don't have any, go ahead leave them out.  You could potentially replace it with makrut leaves or celery salt for a similar flavor, but it's not necessary.

This is also when you'll want to add in the spinach, which until it wilts will probably seem like an absurd amount.

It'll take about 5-10 minutes for the spinach to wilt and mix into the tomato sauce.  After that it's time to pour the tomato sauce into the cooked lentils.

Stir it well so that the tomato sauce is completely incorporated into the lentils.  Add salt to taste.

If you're a fan of cilantro you can add in a little at this point.

And if you want a richer, creamier flavor you can add in either heavy cream or coconut milk (according to your tastes).  I only go with a small splash.  Start small, is my recommendation, and taste as you go if you think you want a lot of cream.

Stir it all up and you're good to go!


I have a preference for rice rather than rotis, but mung dal go equally well with either.

I served them up with some fresh cucumbers for crunch and some masala eggplant for kick.

Dal Makhani (Creamy Lentils)

It's hard to believe how fast time passes.  It was just over three years ago, around Valentine's Day, that Doc and I got engaged.  We'd been kicking around the idea almost as long as we'd been dating (about four years at that point) and had finally decided to throw in the towel and settle down.  Our lives and differences in culture being what they were, this was an adventure for both of us -- not just in the idea of merging our very different views or lifestyles, but in telling our relatives.  I don't think anyone was shocked, exactly: we'd been living together for a few years and weren't springing anything on them suddenly, but it was still nerve-wracking for both of us since it was very much a first for both families.

We kept the secret to ourselves for about a month, until Doc's family came down for a visit over spring break: just a small party of his parents, grandfather, and four aunts & uncles on an eight hour road trip.  We had a sense that they'd be arriving around noon on Saturday, but then again maybe not.  They were going to eat lunch with us, or then again maybe on the road.  No, definitely on the road.  On second thought, though, they were only an hour away at this point so they'd drive straight through and have lunch with us after all.

Luckily, I anticipated that they might show up hungry (or at the very least that I should have something on the stove when the entourage arrived), so I put on some dal makhani, or creamy lentils.  It was one of the few Indian dishes I felt halfway confident about at the time, so I hoped it just might help seal the deal.

I think in the end everything turned out okay.  Nobody died of food poisoning or a broken heart that week, and that's pretty much the best outcome we could've hoped for with seven houseguests.

Concise recipe at the bottom, as always.

Dal Makhani (Creamy Lentils)

Total Time:  Around 1.5 - 2 hours, most of which is simmer time.  This is unfortunately a dish that takes some time to do, so think of it like a good chili: a day project that you can make in big batches to freeze later (or bring to a party).
Credits:  When I was first learning this recipe I relied heavily on Sanjay Thumma's Dal Bukhara video, though at the time I didn't realize there were measurements in the doobly doo and so found myself quite frustrated over instructions like "a little bit of turmeric" or "extra chili powder," because I had no sense of scale.  After half a dozen tries I ended up with a process that mirrored his but a set of measurements that were more or less guesswork.  It was only after I'd gotten my own groove that I discovered the intended measurements in the original recipe, so please feel free to use those instead.  I can't pretend to compare with a trained chef here.
Weirdest Spice:  Fenugreek leaves.  Unlike a lot of recipes, I'd say that for this one the fenugreek leaves really make the dish.  They're very aromatic and earthy, and until I add them the dish just doesn't smell right.  That said, I'd say if you're making this for the first time and are unsure if you want to spring for a weird spice just for one recipe, go ahead and make it without.  You'll also find some other recipes here (turkey curry, khichuri, egg curry) that use fenugreek, too, in case that helps you use it up once you've got some.

Traditionally this recipe is made with red kidney beans and black gram lentils ("urad dal"), though as often as not I just use the black turtle beans (frijoles negros) that are more commonly available in local supermarkets.  You've got two options here:  used canned or boil up some dried beans.  The dried option is cheaper and has less in the way of added salt/preservatives, but honestly this dish already takes quite a while to make so no judgment here if you decide to go with canned.  One can of each should do the trick, or else you can do what I did and use 1 cup each of black beans and kidney beans:

If going the dried beans route you'll want to either soak them overnight or quick soak them.  How long they take to cook through will depend on the age of the beans -- generally I plan on 1-2 hours for this part.  If you're using a pressure cooker then go with whatever setting you use for kidney beans.  Either way, you'll want to cook them until they squish between two fingers but not to the point they're completely mushy:

And then set them aside.  Save some of the liquid if you'd like (see below for discussion of re-using bean liquid).

In a separate pan you'll want to do the medium-high heat + 0.5 tsp oil + 1 tsp cumin seed routine that I'm sure you're a pro at by now:

Give the cumin seeds 10-30 seconds to sizzle, then add 2 tsp each of ginger paste and garlic paste:

Stir that about for around 2-3 minutes or until fragrant.  Then add 0.5 tsp turmeric:

And stir that all around for another minute or two to "cook" the turmeric.  Next up is around 3 cups of tomato puree (use canned if you prefer), and turn the heat down to medium-low.

Let this cook, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes.  It takes that long for the tomatoes and turmeric to lose their raw flavor and begin to turn into a tomato sauce.  Just be sure the heat isn't too high because you don't want your tomatoes to scorch.

After that, go ahead and add:  1 tsp red chili powder (or to taste), 0.5 tsp paprika, and 1 tablespoon coriander (yes, that much):

Stir that up and let it simmer for another 10 minutes on medium-low, stirring now and then to prevent burning.

This next part is where the "makhani" part of the recipe comes from, makhani meaning "butter" (cf. murgh makhani, butter chicken).  If making this recipe vegan I think you can honestly skip the butter altogether.  The purpose of the butter is to add richness to the sauce.  In the original recipe he uses about a quarter cup of butter, which makes for a very rich but also very calorie-dense sauce.  I usually skimp and max out at around 2 tablespoons of butter:

You can see how the cooked tomatoes changed color there, too.

Stir the butter around until melted.  Next up is 1 cup of liquid.  The original recipe calls for using liquid left over from cooking your dried beans.  (Note: please don't use the liquid that comes with canned beans, because ew.)  I did that at first, too.  The bean liquid brings a smoothness and density to the sauce that's hard to achieve otherwise.  At the same time, I find that cooking black beans means that the water turns black and I just can't shake the feeling that it's also maybe full of what specks of dirt I couldn't quite rinse off the beans, even though I'm pretty obsessed with rinsing them very, very thoroughly.  I think you'll be 100% a-ok if you use the bean water.  But if you're using canned beans or if the dried bean water creeps you out, then you might do what I do, i.e. use 1 cup of vegetable stock instead:

You can see there that I'm using some veggie stock that I'd frozen a while back.  Water would also do in a pinch here if you don't have stock on hand.

Dial up the heat back to medium-high and let that stock cook in for about 5 minutes or until it achieves a slow, gentle boil.  (Don't forget to stir every few minutes.)

Then, at long last, it's time to add in the beans:

Along with 2 tsp fenugreek leaves and 1 tsp garam masala:

Stir that up, dial the heat back down to low, cover it, and let it simmer for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally.  You can let this cook on a low simmer for longer, if you'd like.  As with chili, the longer it slow-cooks the deeper the flavors will be so don't be shy if you want to pop this dish on the stove in the early afternoon and let it do its thang for an hour or two.

The very last step, just before you serve, is to drop in 0.25 cup of cream and garnish with an optional dash of fresh cilantro.

Salt to taste and you're done!

I've never subbed in nondairy milk (e.g. soy, coconut, almond), but I think if you wanted to experiment that probably would be a nice way to keep the creaminess of the dish without jacking up the calories.

At any rate, this dish freezes exceptionally well (as do most bean dishes) and is a nice way to get some vegetarian protein.  Personally I love it atop rice and alongside a simple salad.

Dal Makhani

Ingredients:

• 1 cup each of red kidney beans and black beans (either urad dal or black turtle beans), soaked over night, rinsed, and cooked until just mushy enough to crush easily between two fingers
• can sub 1 can of each, if preferred
• optional: reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid [dried beans only, not the liquid from canned beans] to use in place of vegetable stock, below
• 0.5 tsp oil or ghee (clarified butter)
• 2 tsp ginger paste
• 2 tsp garlic paste
• 0.5 tsp turmeric powder
• 3 cups tomato puree (fresh or canned)
• 1 tsp red chili powder (optional, adjust to taste)
• 0.5 tsp paprika
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• 2 tablespoons butter (optional, adjust to taste)
• 2 tsp fenugreek leaves
• tip: crush these between palms before adding to release extra flavor
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 0.25 cup cream
• scant handful fresh cilantro (optional garnish)
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. Heat a large pan on medium-high until warm.  Add oil.  When shimmering, add cumin seeds.  Allow to cook 10-30 seconds or until sizzling.
2. Add ginger & garlic pastes, saute 2-3 minutes or until fragrant.
3. Add turmeric, saute another 2 minutes.
4. Add tomato puree and turn heat down to medium-low.  Cook on low, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.
5. Add butter, stir in until fully melted.
6. Add vegetable stock (or bean liquid, if using).  Return heat to medium-high and cook until just barely beginning to gently boil, stirring occasionally (around 5 minutes).
7. Add cooked beans, fenugreek leaves, and garam masala.  Stir to mix, then turn heat down to low.  Cover and let simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Before serving, remove pan from heat and add cream, cilantro, and salt.

Japanese Curry (カレーライス)

Are you ready for a history lesson?

The story of Japanese curry is a heart-warming tale about sharing.

Actually, sorry, that's not entirely true.  If we're honest it's a tale about war, racism, and world conquest.  But also about the power of food to help build rickety bridges across cultural gaps.  I hope you'll forgive me for glossing over some of the mass murder and subjugation bits so that we can focus instead on the fascinating game of food telephone that ultimately led to Japanese curry.

Once upon a time a few English sailors came to love Indian curry.  As we cover every so often on this blog, curries can have all kinds of bases and contents.  It can take a little while to get the hang of it.  You can imagine, then, why British sailors in the late 1800s could get confused.  It's spicy, a little soupy, but often thick like a gravy.  So, lacking detailed instructions or culinary know-how, they simply started dumping large handfuls of "Indian" spices into their stews.  Stews that, for various reasons having to do with the French influence on English cooking techniques, were occasionally thickened using a roux (I'll explain what this is below in the recipe if you're not familiar).  So now you've got British sailors eating spicy, thick stews sometime around the first time in modern history that Japan was open to foreigners.  It wasn't long after that that Japanese curry was born.

Here's where I have to draw on my own conjecture a bit.  Japanese curry has a distinct lack of heat and instead features a mild sweet and tangy flavor that I haven't experienced in any other kind of curry.  I suspect these are unique features that were part of the adaptation that occurred, since Japanese food is rarely hot-spicy.  At any rate, it's certainly much more sweet than spicy and even the "hot" varieties are fairly mild.  And really, how many curry recipes do you know that call for a roux and ketchup and Worcestershire sauce?

(I know, right??  But it's really good stuff.  Trust me.)

The dish also ultimately spread to Korea because of reasons.  Kind of a bummer of a footnote, but that's world history for you.

Now, my experience is that by and large folks making Japanese curry in Japan don't make it from scratch.  There are two popular ways to make it.  One -- and my favorite when I lived there -- is simply to buy it pre-made.  It comes in a little tin foil bag that you drop in a pot of boiling water, heat for a few minutes, and then dump over rice.  Easy-peasy.  This is called, perhaps not shockingly, "curry rice."  These little bags were a staple in my Japanese pantry and were, as it turns out, one of the very first things I ever bought at the grocery store (having at that time zero experience with or knowledge of curry as a food).  It was also one of my first opportunities to document real-life Engrish:

Please forgive the terrible picture quality.  That was taken on a camera phone back in 2005.

Anyway, the second way to make Japanese curry at home is to make your own stew and then flavor it using a pre-made brick of flavoring.  The flavor brick looks like a miserable, questionable chocolate bar.  The idea is to hack off a square of the brick, dissolve it in hot water, and then add it to your stew.

Both the ready-made curry-in-a-bag and the roux block are typically available at any Asian market that sells Japanese food.  Heck, since they're both nonperishable they're also available through Amazon.

But I thought it'd be nice to make it from scratch.

Best of all, since it's just a flavored stew you can be as inventive with the ingredients as you like, including opting for a vegetarian/vegan version if that's what floats ya.  This version is vegetable-only, but please feel free to add chunks of cooked beef, chicken, pork, tofu, or other Protein of Choice.

Concise recipe at the bottom, y'all.

Japanese Curry

Total Time:  Approximately 1 hour
Weirdest Ingredient:  "Sauce"

First off, the credits:  The spice mix is S&B's blend, which I would not have been able to find without Just Hungry.  The rest of the recipe is minimally adapted from No Recipes, with a few tweaks from various curry recipes off Cookpad.

Now let's to get down to business.

(We will not be defeating the Huns.  We had enough war in the intro, thanks.)

What you need to remember is that there are two major steps:  roux + stew.

Roux, pronounced "roo," is flour that's cooked in melted butter or oil.  The basic rule is that the longer you cook a roux, the stronger the taste and the weaker the thickening power.  It's used in all kinds of recipes, like gravy (light-colored, thick) or gumbo (chocolate brown, thinner).  The idea is to make the roux, flavor it, and then whisk your liquid into it.  Which is precisely what we're going to do here.

The first step is to mix up the spice blend.  Now, if you happen to have some S&B curry powder on hand, then just use that, since this is precisely their recipe plus a little addition of my own.  To make enough of the blend for this recipe, mix together the following:  1/4 tsp cumin powder, 1/5 tsp cardamom powder, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/8 tsp ground cloves, 1 crushed/powdered bay leaf, 1/8 tsp allspice powder, 1/4 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1.5 tsp turmeric powder, 1/4 tsp ginger powder, 1/4 tsp red chili powder, 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, and 1/4 tsp cocoa powder (yes, really).   Optional:  1/8 tsp finely ground instant coffee or espresso powder.

The blend can be easily multiplied (I've actually cut the original in half) according to your needs or how often you want to make this.  Assembling all that took me about 10 minutes since I had to crush my own bay leaf.

TIP:  Use a mortar & pestle or a clean coffee grinder to crush the bay leaf (the seeds are cardamom because I was out of powder).
TRIVIA: In Japanese bay leaves are called laurel, which is what they actually are.  As in, a laurel wreath.  Cool, huh?

Now, this step is optional but I find it helps to bring out the flavors.  Put a skillet on LOW heat and whisk the spices around on the slightly-hot pan until you just begin to smell them:

Put them in an uncovered container to cool.  If you're not using it all right away then stick the blend in an air-tight container.

Once that's set you're ready to hit the ground running.  Thickly chop up some onions (I used two onions) and cook them on medium-low in a deep pot with a splash of oil for about 20-30 minutes to caramelize them.

While those are caramelizing you've got two tasks: chopping the rest of your veggies and making the roux.  I chop first since the roux requires fairly constant attention.  For this curry I chopped up the following into bite-sized pieces:  12 baby carrots, 2 potatoes, and 1.5 bell peppers.  If you want to use meat or tofu as well, just be sure the meat is pre-cooked (you could brown it alongside the onions if you'd like).

Once the veggies are chopped up it's roux time!  Take a skillet and add 3 tablespoons of butter (or oil of choice) on medium-low heat.

When the butter is melted add 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour.

Using a whisk or paddle, mix the flour into the butter until you get an oozy paste:

It should be fairly thick and just a tiny bit runny.  Keep stirring constantly until the roux is more of a caramel brown.  It'll also be a good deal thinner than it was.

Remove the skillet from heat and quickly add:  1 tablespoon ketchup, 1 tablespoon "sauce*," the spice blend (apx. 2 tablespoons in total, or sub in your favorite curry powder),  & 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika (adjust to your taste).  

*  "Sauce" in Japanese refers most typically to a kind of fruity, tangy brown sauce that's seen on all kinds of food.  It's especially popular on fried foods like croquets or pork cutlets ("tonkatsu"), which is why one of the variations is called tonkatsu sauce.  If you don't have any (and why would you), for this recipe you could either:  (1) make your own; (2) use brown sauce instead; or, (3) substitute Worcestershire sauce.  Each of those will produce a slightly different flavor but none is really going to cause you to miss out.

Mix up the spices, sauces, and roux.  You'll find it all gloms together in a way that is just about as far from appetizing as anything could be.  There will also be a smell that walks the seldom-trod line between sickly sweet and spicy in an unfamiliar, alarming way.

Don't panic.  I promise this will be okay.  Leave it in the skillet off the heat and set it aside.  We'll come back to it in about 15 minutes.

For me the roux-cooking process took about 20 minutes, which was just enough time for my onions to finish caramelizing:

On top of the caramelized onions I added my veggies, 1/2 cup of unspiced apple sauce or apple puree (no kidding), and 2 tsp of garam masala.

I covered all this with 4 cups of vegetable stock and dialed the heat up to medium-high.

Once it boiled I turned it down to a simmer and let it cook until the potatoes were tender.  It took about 10 minutes.

Hooray, we're nearly there!  Using a heat-proof measuring cup I scooped out about 2 cups of just the hot liquid from the pot.  Be sure to only grab the liquid and not any of the veggies.  This got put back into the skillet where the roux... lump... was waiting:

About a minute and a half of whisking later I'd dissolved the roux block into the soup liquid:

Which was then added back in with the rest of the stew:

Tadaaa!  Salt and black pepper to taste and you're done.

My favorite way to eat Japanese curry (which is always served over either Japanese sticky rice or noodles, by the way) is with a plain omelet sandwiched between the rice and the curry.   So that's what I did.

With a little salad for color & crunch:

Yum!  Curry rice with omelet is among my favorite dishes, second to having it a panko-breaded donut, because of course that's a thing.  A very delicious, very unhealthy thing.

Next up is some kind of baked goodie, I think.  I'm still deciding what to send with Doc when he visits his parents this coming weekend.  Stay tuned to find out!

Japanese Curry (Curry Rice / カレーライス)

Spice Blend:

• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/5 tsp cardamom
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp clove
• 1 crushed/powdered bay leaf
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp garlic
• 1.5 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp red chili powder (or to taste)
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cocoa powder

Roux:

• 3 TBS butter (or oil of choice)
• 1/4 all-purpose flour
• 1 TBS ketchup
• 1 TBS tonkatsu sauce
• can sub:  1 TBS brown sauce or 1 TBS Worcestershire sauce
• 2 TBS spice blend (above) or S&B curry powder
• 1/2 tsp sweet paprika (or to taste)
• can sub: cayenne, red chili powder

Stew:

• 1 tsp oil
• 2 onions, cut into large chunks
• 1.5 bell peppers, any color, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 12 baby carrots (or 1-2 large carrots, peeled) cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 cup plain, unflavored applesauce
• can sub:  1 apple, pureed
• 4 cups stock or water
• salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

1. If desired, lightly toast the spice blend on low heat until just fragrant.  Place into an uncovered container and allow to cool completely.
2. Drizzle oil in a pot large enough to hold several cups of soup on medium-low heat.  Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, 20-30 minutes or until caramelized.  
3. To make the roux:  While onions are caramelizing, melt the butter in a skillet on medium-low heat.  Blend in the flour and stir constantly until roux is light brown, approximately 15 minutes. Remove from heat.  Add ketchup, sauce, spice blend, and paprika and mix until a dense ball forms.  Set aside, away from heat, leaving the roux block in the skillet.
4. Once onions are caramelized, add peppers, carrots, potatoes, garam masala, apple sauce, and stock to the large pot.  Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are fork-tender.
5. Using a heat-proof cup scoop out approximately 2 cups of the soup liquid, taking care not to get any vegetables into the liquid.  Pour liquid into the skillet.
6. Whisk the roux block into the hot liquid until completely dissolved and no lumps remain.
7. Pour the liquid back into the soup pot and stir to mix.  
8. Remove from heat.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over Japanese rice or udon noodles.
9. Optional: place tonkatsu (panko-breaded, fried pork cutlet) or a plain omelet on a bed of rice and ladle curry over top.