On the Himalayan Trail: Recipes and Stories from Kashmir to Ladakh | 
I finally had enough time with my own spice cabinet to make another recipe from ON THE HIMALAYAN TRAIL happen! Haembe te nadir (or beans with lotus root) was just as good as I hoped it‘d be. My lotus root didn‘t take on as much of the ver masala‘s colour as the stuff in the example photo did, but it sure sucked up the flavour. My tastebuds were happy.
I went WILD today and bought not only an $11 copy of one of my favourite cookbooks but also a super soft, bright red bedroom rug. Sometimes such things are necessary.
Seriously, y‘all, I‘m so excited to own ON THE HIMALAYAN TRAIL. I gasped when I saw it on the Home Sense clearance shelves, and I snatched it up right away, and I‘m already dreaming of all the new-to-me recipes I‘ll try in the near future.
I made my first meat-based Kashmiri recipe today: kaleji tchokh charvan (basically, spicy liver & onions, only I substituted leeks for the shallots specified because I don‘t eat round onions). The flavour‘s good, but my liver never did soften up. It‘s the first time I‘ve cooked it so I dunno if I did it wrong, I got a bad cut, or Romy Gill‘s instructions don‘t translate from lamb liver to beef (which is all I could get here).
Today‘s Kashmiri recipe is aal posh mond (fried zucchini flowers) and HOLY CRAP THIS BATTER IS AMAZING. I cut the recipe down to 1/4 and still had some left, so I‘m gonna use the rest for fritters tomorrow.
On the repurposing sauces note, my proper supper‘s gonna be chickpeas in the sauce from wangun yakni (eggplant in yogurt). I wanted to eat it again but didn‘t have any eggplant. Turns out chickpeas are just as tasty!
Todays Kashmiri recipe is kahwa, or spiced honey tea. It‘s got a good balance of flavours, with a nice dose of heat from the ginger.
By the way, this cookbook DOES have plenty of meat recipes, but I‘ve stuck to vegetarian stuff and drinks so far because all the most interesting meat dishes use lamb and it‘s super expensive here. I‘d like to try the spicy liver next week, though, if I can get some for cheapish.
Today‘s Kashmiri recipe is razmah (kidney beans), and it‘s the first one I‘m not terribly excited about. It‘s good; it‘s just not as inspiring as some of the others. I think there‘s a good chance it‘ll taste better tomorrow, though, once the beans have absorbed more of the broth.
Today‘s recipe from ON THE HIMALAYAN TRAIL is haakh (Kashmiri spinach). It looks plain, but it smelled amazing while it cooked and it tasted great, too. Another I‘d like to make again.
I made my first recipe from this gorgeous cookbook: wangun yakhni, or eggplant in spiced yogurt sauce. I don‘t think the yogurt was supposed to separate in that unappetizing fashion (perils of using the $2 regular stuff instead of the $6 Greek stuff), but holy crap, was it ever tasty! I dunno if I‘ll RUSH to make it again, since pre-frying the eggplant took ages, but it‘s definitely a recipe to revisit. Maybe even with rich people yogurt.
