Fresh-Picked Field Trip Reprise: Free Indian Cooking Class (with Pumpkin Curry Recipe)

Archana!For this week's Diwali and Indian cuisine theme, I'm reposting this report & pumpkin curry recipe from a free class I took last spring.

While Archana, the instructor for this class, has since moved to India, I've seen another free Indian cooking class offered through the King County Library System, so keep an eye on their event calendar or the Indian food A La Carte page here.

For larger views of the photos in this post, please see this gallery on Freeattle.

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Originally posted in April 2010

A couple weeks ago, the King County Library System announced that they would be offering a few free classes in poultry keeping. Someone on Twitter made a comment to the effect of “Yes, when I think of libraries, I think of poultry.”

The library set out available books related to Indian cooking topics.Now, I’m just a library user, so I don’t know what the climate of the...I guess Library Industry is like right now. I have heard some radio stories about stretched budgets, and how in this economic climate, they’re being called on more and more to be community resources. Maybe that Twitterer was expressing some frustration at the demands being placed on local libraries.

"The Magic Pot:" an Indian fable kids' book.But personally, as a library patron, I appreciate the library’s free classes, and think it dovetails perfectly with what I look to a library for: learning and education. When I get curious about a topic, one of the first things I do usually is see what books the library has on the subject and start placing holds.

Free recipe packets from library class.So I’m always happy to see different offerings at the local libraries. While they’re infrequent, both the King County and Seattle Public Libraries have offered actual cooking classes. The New Holly branch offered a Somali cooking class last May, and in March of this year, the Redmond library offered a free cooking class with Archana Sunil.

Archana's set-up.Archana was kind enough to offer her time for free to about 20-30 library patrons, which was awesome.

Unfortunately for us, Archana is going to be relocating back to India soon, so this particular class won’t be offered again unless she moves back here in the future. But she was also generous enough to let me post a recipe for her delicious Pumpkin Curry, and you can follow her culinary tweets from India on Twitter/TheIndianEpicur.

Here also are a few of her tips:

• Like Karuna, who was our guide for the Indian Market Tour, Archana highly recommends using the pressure cooker for cooking legumes.
• Speaking of the Market Tour, Archana also likes shopping at Apna Bazaar.
• If you find yourself in a hurry when making a pureed dal dish, she says you can take the lentils to about 90% done in the pre-cooking stage, and then puree at that point in the blender to save a bit of time. They will then finish softening more quickly when cooking in the final dish.
• PotholderFor her Pumpkin Curry, you can either use actual pumpkin, or frozen cubed butternut squash from Trader Joe’s for a quicker prep time.
• She highly recommends making your own ghee from scratch. She also provided a handout about eating ghee in moderation and some of the benefits of using this fat over other choices. The article is on page eight of this pdf file.
• The tool to the right is a cool and useful pot holder for easily and quickly lifting hot pots.

Here’s her recipe for Pumpkin Curry. I am generally not a big fan of winter squashes but I loved this dish! Very delicious and easy to prepare!

Pumpkin Curry Recipe

Courtesy of Archana Sunil

• Toor dal with spinach on left, pumpkin curry on right.Chopped squash 2 cups
• Chopped onions ½ cup,
• Minced garlic 1 tbsp
• Chopped tomatoes ½ cup,
• Mustard seeds 1 tbsp
• Jeera(cumin seeds) 1 tsp
• Dry red chillies 2
• Chopped cilantro 2 tbsp,
• Oil 2 tbsp
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Heat oil and add mustard seeds
2. When the seeds splitter add jeera and red chillies and sauté for 1 min
3. Add garlic and onions—saute for 2-3 min
4. Add in tomatoes and cook till everything gets mashed up
5. Stir in the chopped squash and salt
6. Add 1/4 cup water and cook on low heat until almost done
7. Garnish with cilantro