Thursday, December 23, 2010

Orange Peel Dip

Ingredients:
Dhal or nuts - better to use the white Urad Dal for Indian flavour. Use

pine nuts with Italian seasons to get milder Italian favour. Use
garlic, olives and groundnuts/peanuts for a Mediterranean flavour.
Mustard Seed if going for Indian flavor.
Red chillies or other elements to provide the heat.
Hing if going for more authentic south Indian flavour.

Tamarind or lemon juice to add a bit sour taste.

Last but not the least, salt to taste.

Method
Peel the orange and chop the skin into cubes just like onions. Enjoy the fruit or save for other use.
In a heavy bottom pan heat the oil and add the mustard seed. Typically a light weight pan can leave burn marks when cooking with high heat and hence heavy bottom pan recommended. Not a must.

Add chillies, urad dal and hing. If going for other flavour decide based on how you create other dips. For example you would not fry garlic when using with chickpeas for hummus. So go with the same technique here. Do not fry if you will not otherwise.

However, it is a must to get the orange peel to be soft and cooked. So you do have to setup the pan for at least this. Adjust the amount of oil based on that. You do not want the oil to overpower. Also, do not use your most expensive extra virgin olive oil on frying. You must use that for when using raw to get the most out of the flavour. Once heated you loose all the favour anyways.
Now grind all ingredients together with very little water or EVOO as needed.
You do need to add a little bit of sour taste to this. To get south Indian flavour, I suggest tamarind. You can use Mango powder for get north Indian flavour. I love lemons and hence I do not mind the use of
lemon for this dip irrespective of flavour.
Though I prefer this as an aromatic dip to be served with a variety of things, even as a spread for  sandwiches, I make it a bit spicy to be used with cooked white rice, YUM!
-Recipe Donated by Krishna Iyer

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