I’ve been meaning to try baking with King Arthur Flour’s white whole wheat flour for quite some time. White whole wheat flour is ground from a different variety of wheat–hard white winter wheat, to be exact–than the usual whole wheat flour which comes from hard red winter wheat. Lacking the tannin that comes with the coloring of the bran in red wheat, whole grain flour ground from white wheat is supposed to be milder in flavor and paler in color. (Not that the color of whole wheat bothers me, mind you–even when I was a kid, I preferred my bread to be brown–it had more flavor that way.)

But alas, I didn’t get down to experimenting until yesterday, when I decided to make my first cherry pie of the season using fresh local sour cherries, only a little bit of sugar, butter from grass fed cows and of course, the white whole wheat flour. Instead of just replacing a portion of the all purpose flour in my recipe with white whole wheat, I decided to try making pie with just the whole wheat.

And you know–it turned out pretty darned tasty.

I added an extra tablespoon of raw sugar to the dough to make up for the less mild flavor of the whole wheat flour, and added a tiny bit extra of water–about two tablespoons worth–to make up for the fact that the whole wheat flour is drier. Those were the only changes I made to my usual dough recipe and when the pie was in the oven, it smelled amazingly good. /it smelled like I had made the crust out of nuts or something, so intense was the deep brown aroma that wafted through the house.

How did it taste?

I really liked the flavor–it was sweet and nutty, with a strong wheat flavor–like bulgar wheat, in fact. It complimented the sour cherries rather well–their tart, sweet flavor and velvety texture went well with the rustic crust.

My one complaint was that the crust wasn’t very flaky, probably because of the gluten content in the flour. Next time, I will go half and half with the white whole wheat and all purpose flour and see if I can strike a balance between whole grain goodness and flavor and the flakiness that all purpose flour provides.

But, even so, I can see using this all whole wheat crust for something other than a fruit pie. Like a quiche, one with potatoes, kale, mushrooms and a mixture of strong cheeses like extra sharp cheddar and aged gouda. I also think this crust would be great for a Jamaican meat patty–imagine a turnover baked from this nut-like pastry dough filled with meat seasoned with allspice, Scotch bonnet peppers, scallions, garlic and thyme.

Or what about a samosa pie? Bake the curried potato and pea filling for samosas into a pie. Or mattar paneer. Oooh. Mattar paneer pie.

Geez, I am drooling just thinking about it.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the low-sugar all whole wheat cherry pie I made yesterday. If any of you try it out, let me know what you think. I mean, I know that pie isn’t an intrinsically healthy food, but it is kind of nice to eat it and not feel too awfully guilty over it.

Sour Cherry Pie With Whole Wheat Crust
Ingredients:

Put into the oven for thirty minutes. After thirty minutes, turn the oven down to 375 degrees F. and turn the pie 180 degrees. If the edges of the crust are browning too much, cover them with strips of foil to protect them. Bake for 35 more minutes or until crust is deep golden brown and the cherries are bubbly and the juices are thickened.

Last year, the Times published an anti-vegan screed by Nina Planck in which she shrilly likens feeding children a vegan diet to child abuse in response to the widely publicized conviction of two supposedly vegan parents in Atlanta of murder, involuntary manslaughter and child cruelty for starving their baby to death.

Then, on Monday, in The Opinionator, they posted about a case in Scotland where a 12 year old girl who has been on a “strict meat and dairy free diet” for her entire life has developed a severe case of rickets. Officials in the UK are calling for charges to be brought against the parents because they believe that the parents’ choice of a vegan diet for their child is the ultimate cause of the degenerative bone disease.

Now, while it is possible that the cause of the severe case of rickets, which has resulted in her developing extreme curvature of the spine (she is described as having the spine of an 80 year old woman) and several bone fractures, is caused only by her parent’s choice of diet for her, it is not likely.

Rickets is generally caused by a vitamin D deficiency. The results of rickets are bone weakness as vitamin D is necessary for the human body to absorb calcium, which as we know, is the main building block that leads to strong bones and teeth. Rickets used to be very, very common in the western world, and entire families of children could be seen with the twisted spines, short stature, bowed legs and deformed pelvises which are characteristic of this serious disorder. Malnutrition was certainly a factor in these widespread cases of rickets, but the greatest causal factor of rickets tended to be lack of exposure to sunlight. This is one of the reasons why cases in rickets rose precipitously after the Industrial Revolution, when previously rural populations moved into urban environments and instead of working in the fields in the sunlight, they worked in dark factories for long hours, bereft of sunlight.

When it was discovered later that rickets was caused by lack of vitamin D in the form of sunlight, liver, or oily fish, enterprising health officials began calling for the addition of vitamin D to all cow milk sold in both the UK and the US. Since most children at that time drank large amounts of cow milk, it was considered to be an excellent preventative measure to enrich it. And, not surprisingly, after vitamin D because ubiquitous in milk, the incidence of rickets decreased to the point that it is now a very rare disorder in the developed nations of the west.

So, with this background information in mind, let us examine this current case of the twelve year old Scottish girl. Is it true that her parents’ insistence upon her eating a vegan diet the sole cause of her disease?

Now, depending on where in Scotland the girl lives, it is quite possible that she hasn’t had enough exposure to sunlight–the highlands, especially, tend to be fairly dark and drear in the weather department.

If that is the case, then it isn’t just the diet which is the cause of her rickets.

Now, it could be said that whether the rickets came about because of lack of sunlight or diet, it doesn’t matter. Rickets is not a sudden-onset sort of disorder–it happens over a span of time and to get to the point where the spine is curved dramatically and small fractures have occurred in the girl’s bones would take years. If this is a case of the parents “not noticing” the girl’s deformity or refusing to take her to doctors who would certainly notice and attempt to divine the cause of her disorder, then what we have here is not a case of a vegan diet being to blame, but neglectful parenting is to blame.

Parents who do not notice the gradual abnormal curvature of a child’s spine, or who ignore her pain (rickets is not asymptomatic–the bones hurt and are painful to the touch–and the fractures that occur often with the disease are also painful), or who do not take the child to a competent physician for regular checkups are neglectful and ignorant at best, uncaring and abusive at worst. What they feed their child or not feed her is beside the point once they reach this level of carelessness or neglect.

So, let me reiterate once again that just because some vegan parents are ignorant, lazy, misinformed, careless, neglectful or abusive, that does not mean that all vegan parents are like them!

Just as not every omnivorous parent feeds their children diets of junk food which result in childhood obesity and type II diabetes, not every vegan is causing malnourishing their children.

So, please, let us not be like some of the commentors on the NY Times blog or the Times of London website and instantly decry every vegan parent in the world because of this sad case, and recognize that human ignorance and carelessness comes in all shapes, sizes and philosophies.

This recipe is my own, and does not reflect any “authentic” tradition from any part of India, even though the ingredients, techniques and execution are quite Indian, and results in a very authentic and delicious flavor.

I started making dals at Salaam almost from the first day I worked there, not only because I love them and they are easy to make, but because I wanted there to not only be more vegetarian options available, I specifically wanted there to be many more vegan options. Our menu is not a bad one for vegetarians, or vegans, for that matter–hummus, baba ganoush, tabouli, pita bread, harira and our curried couscous salad and Ann’s Salad–greens with candied pecans, oranges and green onions dressed in a cider-vinegar vinaigrette–are all vegan and quite delicious. (In fact, the cuisines which form the basis of our menu–those of the Middle East–are quite friendly to vegan dietary needs–there are many purely plant based foods in heavy use from this part of the world.)

There are also vegetarian items which make use of cheese: our house salad with feta cheese, walnuts, mixed greens with spinach, sweet peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes with feta cheese and pomegranate vinaigrette, and spanakopita–a Greek phyllo pastry filled with feta cheese, spinach, garlic and onions–come to mind.

But no matter how many vegan or vegetarian menu items there are, I always think we can always offer more. Athens is home to lots of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians–those folks like me who will eat more vegetable-based foods, but who do not completely eschew meat–and we all tend to like out food fresh, delicious and good for you.

Dal fits the bill on all counts: it can contain a variety of fresh, seasonal vegetables in addition to the dried beans and lentils which are its main ingredient, when made properly it is filled with flavor and it is generally low in fat (unless we are talking about dal makhani, a Punjabi dish filled with butter and cream), high in fiber, protein and vitamins and phytochemicals from the vegetables and spices. I, like many Indians, believe it has curative powers, and think it is a perfect food for those who are not feeling well, and furthermore, I find that it can cure, if not a broken heart, then heart that is seriously down in the dumps.

My dals have been rising in popularity over the past months, to the point that customers will ask for them especially. One customer, who wanted a special takeout order of vegan for six people–she was having a dinner party–that contained chickpeas, or channa, told Hilarie when she put in her order that she had brought a friend from India to eat at Salaam and he had taken one bite of one of our curries–she couldn’t remember which, but was pretty sure it was a dal–and he actually teared up, because he said that after living in the US for nine years, this was the first time he had eaten Indian food in any restaurant that tasted like home. That same week another Indian man had come in for lunch two days in a row just to eat my dal.

Salaam’s employees have become converts to the way of dal–when I come in on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings to make lunch specials and I start boiling the lentils or beans, Keri, who swears she never ate vegan food that she loved before I introduced her to dal, will dash back, drawn by the earthy aroma of the legumes and will stick her face in the steam and grin. “You’re making dal, aren’t you?” she says, excitedly. Dennis, the day cook and my partner in crime when it comes to finding good recipes to try, has appointed himself my taste tester, and will not let a serving of dal go out to a customer without his own seal of approval.

And Mark and Hilarie–our owners and arguably two of the coolest folks in Athens–have declared that they could eat dal every day for breakfast for the rest of their lives and be happy.

So, that is the tale of my “dals of the day” which sometimes are traditional recipes, and sometimes are made from a mixture of the lentils and beans in our pantry cooked with any combination of spices, vegetables and herbs I can imagine.

This rajma dal is one of my own creation–it is a mixture of dried masoor and toor dal cooked until they are softened, to which canned, rinsed kidney beans–rajma, canned tomatoes, and frozen fenugreek greens–methi–are added. While this, the dal’s base simmers to reduce the liquid, I put together a grand tarka containing a bunch of thinly sliced onions, lots of minced ginger and garlic, fresh chili peppers, lots of whole cumin and mustard seeds, and at the very last, a sprinkling of freshly ground fenugreek seeds, cooked in perfect succession in canola oil. This tarka, once the dal is cooked down to a thick, but still liquid, rich yellow puree dotted with kidney beans and tomato pieces, is tipped into the pot and stirred madly to meld all of the ingredients into a fragrant, extremely delicious whole. (At home, I like to use the garlic just thinly sliced, but at work, in deference to those who may not like to bite into a hunk of garlic, I mince it.)

At Salaam, we always serve dal over basmati rice, with sides of green chutney and cucumber raita. At home, I am perfectly happy with just basmati rice and strained yogurt with some lime pickles. Either way, this rajma dal is a hearty vegetarian meal, easily made vegan by leaving off the dairy-based accompaniments. It is a great way to introduce vegetarian meals to non-vegetarians, especially if you add some greens cooked in a tasty Indian fashion, as well as some spicy aloo gobi to the plate. These vegetable dishes not only add color, textural variety, vitamins and other nutrients to the meal, their flavors go beautifully with this dal. (I have found over the years that meat-eaters will miss meat less if they are presented with a plate of vegetarian food that is not only hearty and delicious, but which also features a variety of textures, colors and flavors. They get so into trying everything alone and in combination that they forget about the meat.)

Rajma Dal
Ingredients:

Taste and add salt as needed for flavor, then serve with chopped cilantro leaves as a garnish. This makes enough for about six to eight people for a main dish, more for a side dish.

In the name of giving a recipe that features some of the spices mentioned in my post about eating curry for your health, I now present a low fat, high protein, vegan recipe which has been well received both by my family and the guests at Restaurant Salaam. This dal features healthy and delicious turmeric and ginger, and if you want, you could add chilies as well.

Ever since I found out that mushrooms grew in the mountains of Kashmir, India, and were cooked and eaten when they were in season, I have felt the need to experiment with mushrooms in Indian dishes. The Dhingri Chole recipe I posted a week or so ago emboldened me to try making a dal with mushrooms and winter greens, just to see how it would taste. (Besides, I have been making different dals each week for Salaam, because it turns out that they are very popular lunch specials. Just today, we sold out of a very simple masoor dal with tomatoes and spinach.)

I used my all-purpose dal, red lentils, also known as masoor dal, mixed with split, but unskinned moong dal. I like to mix moong, whether whole, split or skinned, with masoor dal, because the masoor breaks down natural into a puree, while moong softens, but retains its shape. Moong are what we call mung beans, and whether you cook them whole, with their green skins intact, or split with the green hull, or split and skinned, they have a very earthy flavor and if they have their skins, a strong, distinctly herbal fragrance.

Combined with masoor dal, moong dal is delicious, and quite nutritious.

For this dish, I used the split, but unskinned moong, which gives the finished dish a little bit of color contrast between the yellow masoor and the greenish-brown flecks of the moong skin.

I cooked the two dals together, with just water, a pinch of asafoetida and grated fresh ginger.

To give the dal flavor, I made a tarka, which is a mixture of aromatics and spices cooked in oil or ghee until they are toasty brown, that is then added to the cooked dal. To impregnate the flavors of the spices and aromatics into the mushrooms, I cooked them, along with the greens, in the tarka, near the end of the cooking process.

The results were delicious, and cooking the greens lightly kept them bright in color and flavor. Allowing the mushrooms to soak up the savor of the spices by sauteeing them in the tarka oil deepened their earthy scent. I used half fresh shiitakes and half dried, and I poured the soaking water I used to rehydrate the dried ones into the dal, where the mushroom flavor married perfectly with the dark fragrance of the moong dal.

This vegan dish went perfectly with very hot lime pickles, chapatti, and potato-carrot raita for a flavorful, vegetarian meal. (To keep the whole meal vegan, you’d have to leave out the yogurt-based raita and replace it with a salad, chutney or relish. The spicing in the dal are gentle, but you could add chilies to the tarka if you wanted more heat.

Masoor-Moong Dal With Mushrooms and Greens

Stir the contents of the pan into the dal and add salt to taste, then serve immediately, garnished with cilantro leaves.

I’ve been reading articles about the health benefits of curry spices for quite some time, but this article from AlterNet is particularly good because it brings together summaries of the latest research on a variety of spices.

Worldwide, a great many researchers are finding that spices commonly consumed in Indian curry dishes have myriad health benefits, corroborating the uses of these spices in Ayurvedic and other food, herb, and spice based medical traditions. While these findings are preliminary, all of the studies cited in the article have been published in respected peer-reviewed journals, so that other researchers can verify or refute the findings through their own studies.

Here’s a short run-down of some of these findings:

Cinnamon has been found, in relatively small doses (but still more than you would use in a curry or muffin), to lower blood sugar levels in adults with type II diabetes. The same study that reported this finding also noted that cinnamon reduces blood cholesterol levels. The dosage used to gain these effects in the study participants was just a half teaspoon daily.

Turmeric, the spice which gives many curries their vibrant yellow color, has been used as a remedy for a wide number of ailments all over Asia for centuries. Recently, scientists have found that it may help keep Alzheimer’s at bay–patients who ate curry frequently, or even occasionally, were noted to have significantly fewer protein plaques in their brains. Mice fed a diet with turmeric were found to have 80 percent fewer protein plaques in their brains, and it was noted that curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, also reduced inflammation and cell oxidization. It has been found that the people of India have the lowest rate of Alzheimer’s in the world; currently research is being done to determine if this is caused by genetic factors or if it has to do with the large amounts of turmeric consumed in the typical Indian diet.

Turmeric is also being investigated for its cancer-fighting potential. Apparently, it has been found to help block the growth of cancer cells while not harming normal cells.

One thing to remember: curcumin is not water-soluble, so it is necessary to cook it in oil of some sort to gain its benefits. Do as the Indians do and cook it in ghee or oil before making a curry in order to extract the helpful curcumin, in addition to getting all the flavor and color of the spice into your food.

Chili peppers not only have their widely known antiseptic properties, but have also been found to have the ability to shrink tumors and inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Capsaicin, which has been used to relieve the pain of arthritis when used externally, also may have the potential to help fight obesity when taken internally by boosting the metabolism.

Ginger has been a popular folk remedy for nausea, particularly morning sickness for generations, but finally, it has been proven that the effect is not related to mind-over-matter or a placebo effect. In addition, this relative of turmeric is also being found to have the potential to lower blood sugar, cholesterol and to protect the stomach from ulcers. It also has anti-inflammatory properties which would make it valuable in fighting the pain and swelling of arthritis.

Generally, I eat curry because I love the many flavors, textures and colors inherent to this broad spectrum of dishes. But, I have to admit that I am even more keen to eat it now that I see that the Indian assertions that curry is healthy are not just based on tradition, but sound scientific research as well.

And, I have to also admit that I am very happy to see Ayurvedic traditions being proven through the application of the scientific method. It just goes to show that just because a medical system is ancient, doesn’t mean that it is just folklore or old wive’s tales. Many ancient medical traditions are based just as much on experimentation and observation as modern allopathic medicine.

So, do as I do, and eat a lot of curried dishes, not only for pleasure, but for your health!