Cabbage Sabzi (Cabbage Curry)

This is a wonderful dish, and despite the dried chilies, it's not too hot.  But if you don't like really spicy food, then cut back the chilies to 1 or 1 1/2.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it, but if you make it, you'll see that it turns out really nice.

Curry Mix Ingredients

1. ½ cup of sesame seeds
2. 2 to 3 whole dried red chili peppers

Ingredients

1. 1 tablespoon of oil
2. 1 small onion, finely chopped
3. A small head of cabbage (green) finally chopped.
4. 2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped
5. ½ teaspoon black mustard seeds
6. water
7. Salt to taste

Make Curry Mix

In a small skillet over medium low heat, toast sesame seeds and whole dried chilies until the sesame seeds turn several shades darker.  In a mortar and pestle or in a spice mill of coffee grinder, mix toasted ingredients (may turn out oily from sesame seeds and hence not a powder—don’t worry).



Cook

In a pan or skillet, heat oil and fry mustard seeds until they start to pop.  Add onion and garlic and fry until onion softens and becomes translucent.  Add a few teaspoons of curry mix and stir to incorporate well and then several pinches of salt.  Add cabbage and fry for a minute, then add some water (¼ to ½ cup) and allow cabbage to simmer.  Add water as needed so that the mix doesn’t dry out—you want to soften the cabbage.  Server over rice or with pita bread or Nan.

Making Your Own Garam Masala

One of the things that I really like about Indian food is the immense variety of flavors.  When making some dishes, a key ingredient is garam masala, or hot spice, where hot refers to high temperature.  Of course most garam masala recipes I've tried tend to have a nice spicy-hot flavor, which is why whe I cook with it I don't use as much a recipe indicates. 

This garam masala recipe is one that I find easy to make and very flavorful.  And while it might seem a lot of work to make what appears to be a small amount, a little goes a long way.  So here is the recipe from my recipe archives.  While I find recipes online and in books, I tend to play around with them and try to add my own touch to them.

Garam masala is a mix of spices whose prime ingredient is cinnamon and is used to flavor a lot of vegetable curries.

1. 3” cinnamon stick
2. ¼ cup coriander seeds
3. 2 tablespoons cumin seeds
4. teaspoon black pepper corns
5. 4 to 6 cloves
6. 1 to 2 bay leaves
7. 3 to 4 star anise pods (optional)

Toast all ingredients in a small skillet over medium-low heat for several minutes until mix becomes fragrant and seeds turn several shades darker, but not burnt (try doing this at first on a small amount so you get the hang of it).

Grind in spice mill or coffee grinder (note that once you mix spices in a coffee grinder once, never again use it for coffee—I have several coffee grinders, one for coffee the other for spice mixes).  Store the spice mix in an air-tight container in the fridge for a month or place in freezer for up to a year.

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