The New Chef's Journal

I was inspired to make this recipe after trying the chana masala at the White Tiger restaurant on Capital Hill and at the Tasty Kabob food truck. Chana masala is a spicy Indian chickpea dish. More traditional versions of this dish use amchur powder (dried mango powder), but that's pretty hard to find in the US, so I went with an alternative version. This recipe comes a blog called Orangette . The author notes that her and her husband have some disputes over whether or not to include yogurt in the recipe. Personally, I agree with her that the yogurt adds a nice cool flavor to the dish, but you can take it out if you prefer. I was very happy with how this dish turned out. Its a very nice vegetarian option if you're looking for one. Ingredients Good-quality olive oil 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped 2 medium cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp cumin seeds ½ tsp ground coriander ¼ tsp ground ginger 1 tsp garam masala 3 cardamom pods, lightly crushed 1 28-ounce can whole peeled t...

One of my favorite things about living on Capitol Hill is how close I am to Eastern Market. The market is a great place to walk around, pick up fresh fruits and vegetables, and get brunch. A cool recent development has been the addition of cooking demonstrations on Saturday mornings. Jonathan Bardzik, author of the outstanding food blog, What I Haven't Cooked Yet , cooks some delicious food and gives very entertaining performances teaching the audience how to make his dishes. This recipe comes from a demonstration he gave of various Thanksgiving side dishes. It's a bad sign that it took me until Martin Luther King Day to post a Thanksgiving dish. I really need to get up to speed with my posts. I'm not normally a big cranberry sauce fan. The canned cranberry sauce that comes out as one gelatinous blob creeps the bejeezus out of me. This cranberry compote is lighter than most cranberry sauce recipes. It's also more savory and less sweet than most versions. I thought it ...

It occurred to me recently that I've gotten lazy about posting stuff to this blog (I missed the entire month of December), so one of my New Year's resolutions is to post more regularly. I've still been cooking a fair amount; I have three other recipes with photos ready to be posted. Two of those turned out well, the other not so much. I'm posting this chicken pot pie recipe that I made last night ahead of the older ones, because I'm excited about how good it was and it made me feel like posting. This recipe comes from allrecipes.com , though I made some of my own tweaks to it. I was considering getting a chicken pot pie from a new place on H Street called Dangerously Delicious Pies , but decided to make my own. I still really want to try that place out. Their menu has a great selection of both sweet and savory pies. The recipe is below. My changes are in italics. I added some extra vegetables and herbs to give it some more flavor. The pie turned out really well ...