In August, I taught cooking at the Run a Luncheonette Camp with Noah Mayer.  This was our 7th year doing this camp together! 

Each year, a small group of 5-15 year olds learn about ingredients and cooking techniques for a particular cuisine for a few days before designing and preparing a menu to serve to the parents on Friday. This year, we focused on Indian food. Honestly, it is strange that it’s taken us so many years to tackle this theme. Indian food is my favorite and one that I cook often. My husband has strong ties to India and his mother’s family all grew up there. So I had a lot of information and techniques that I was excited to share. We also got to ty a few things that were new and exciting for me to learn about. As always, we had beautiful vegetables from the 607 CSA (community supported agriculture) which drops off at the luncheonette. Indian food is particularly flexible to seasonal vegetable bounty! 

I feel particularly proud of this year’s camp. The kids were exposed to a lot of skills, ingredients and cultural context and, honestly the food was the best we’ve ever made. My only regret is that I had planned out a trivia game for our last day, and we ran out of time to play it. So, I’ve made an online game for you to play, whether you attended camp or just take the time to read this whole post. The link is at the end! Enjoy! 

Some History of the Run a Luncheonette Camp

Noah thinks up and organizes fascinating, hands on experiences through which children can learn about themselves and the world year round at his school and home school resource center Brooklyn Apple Academy.  The cooking camp is just one of many programs that they offer and if you have kids or (like me) are just interested in alternative education, I encourage you to check them out!

Noah runs this camp every summer for a week at the Sunview Luncheonette in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  The Sunview is an old, classic Luncheonette turned social club where members can hold community events, such as teaching young people how to cook and then helping them to prepare and serve a big dinner to their families at the end of the week.  The woman behind the Sunview was named Bea and she ran it as a diner with her husband for many years and then decided to make it into a community center.

Bea passed away in 2018. All these years later, we still had neighborhood folks stopping in every day to tell us about how wonderful she was and express how important the luncheonette was to them.  Many of the features of the luncheonette have remained unchanged including the menu board with the impossibly low prices for diner fare. As NYC continues to grow and change and recover from the pandemic, let’s all take a moment to hold Bea as inspiration for how true community spaces can be created and nourished.  On the luncheonette website it says….”The Sunview Luncheonette is a storefront on pause, a member-based social club, a sometimes microvenue for art, poetics, regionalism, mutual aid, and commoning. It is resistant to traditional forms of commerce, commodification, and to gentrification. It is above all, an “approach,” and least of all, an “outcome.” It is unknown. It is hopeful. It saves you a seat at the counter.”  Amen.

Each year, we choose a focus for cooking camp.  Most years, I’ve managed to make a blog post like this one where you can see pictures and find recipes.  I’ve linked to them here if you are curious.

• Year 1- Italian! We focused on food science/ magic with dairy. For recipes for meringues, fruit curds, homemade ricotta and more check out the 2015 post.
• Year 2- Asian! This year was all about reducing kitchen waste by using every part of the food product.  For recipes for butter mochi, salad rolls, so many pickles and soup stock check out the 2016 post.
•  Year 3- Vegan and gluten-free!  I’m sad to say that I never got a blog post up that year, but all of those vegan and gluten free recipes are up on this blog…although the kids last  created some stunning chia seed pudding recipes that really should have gotten recorded…sorry.  They were based on this chia seed pudding recipe.
• Year 4- Food of the Americas (specifically Mexico and Central America).  To find recipes for salsa, sopes, beans and more check out the 2018 post.
• Year 5- Crepes! We made savory and sweet crepes with all kinds of delicious fillings.  I failed to make a blog post that year too.
• Year 6- Rice! (after a 2 year pandemic hiatus) Check out this post for fabulous black rice bowl inspiration. For so many links to rice reipes check out the 2022 post.

This Year! Indian Food!

Monday- Ghee, Garam Masala, Green Chutneys & Dal

We started out by getting our Indian Pantry ready. 

• We learned how to make Ghee by heating butter until it stopped foaming, and then straining the seperated golden milk solids out.
• We toasted whole spices and ground them to make homemade Punjabi Garam Masala. This particular blend is my favorite for vegetable dishes and the kids were impressed with the delicous transformation of smells that occured. 
• We made two kinds of green chutney. One is a mint, date and coconut chutney. The other is a peanut and cilantro chutney. The kids were pretty evenly divided on which one they liked best. 

For lunch, we made basmati rice and THREE kinds of dal. Afterward, we voted on which dal we liked the best. In third place came a Gujarati Dal, which I had expected to be a hit! Gujarati food tends to be on the sweet side and this dal uses an unusual mixture of honey and tomato, star anise with Toor dal (split pigeon peas) that I personally love. But this was not a candy mouth group of children! In second place we had another long time favorite of mine, Bengal Red Lentil Dal. I was excited to share this recipe, because it involves making a tarka- sizzling whole spices in oil briefly and pouring the mixture on top of the dal. This is a great way to bump up the flavour of simple, mild dishes. I think the slight bitterness of whole fenugreek seeds took this one out of the running for favorite. 

The overwhelming winner was a Moong Dal I had never made before. The kids liked it the best because it featured the fresh garam masala they had just made (which was totally fabulous). Also, can I take a moment to encourage everyone to go to the trouble of locating an buying moong dahl? If I could have just one legume in my pantry, this would be my choice. It is a hulled and split moong bean. YOU CANNOT SUBSTITUTE WHOLE MUNG BEANS. The correct dahl has the dark green hull removed and each bean split into a lovely tiny pale yellow oval. They cook quickly and produce the most dreamy, creamy texutre. It is so worth going to the trouble of finding or ordering this dahl. You can make the excellent dal that the kids voted best (recipe below) and you can make Pongol (a ridiculous savory basmati and moong pudding with cumin, black pepper and ginger). The kids’ favorite Dal also featured a tarka, but one made of of shallots and garlic which became very sweet when the hot oil caramelized the sugar in the shallots.

The kids’ favorite Moong Dal

from Fresh India by Meera Sodha

• 1 and 1/2 cups moong dahl (Split yellow mung beans)
• 4 Tablespoons ghee or unslated butter
• 1 ans 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 3 large shallots, finely sliced
• 2 Indian green chilies (we skipped this)
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed and peels
• 1/2 teaspoon tumeric
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon to start MORE TO TASTE!

1. Wash the dal unti lthe water rund clear and place in a deep saucepan covered with 6 and 1/2 cups water. Bring to boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes or until tender.
2. Meanwhile make the tarka! Put the ghee or butter into a frying pan over medium heat, when hot, add the cumin seeds and shallot. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the garlic and chilies (if using). Cook for another 5 minutes or until the shallots brown, then add the tumeric and garam masala.
3. Add the tarka to the dal along with the salt. Add extra water if the dal needs to be thinner. Check the seasoning and add more salt if needed. If there is any bitter flavour it is because there is not enough salt.

Tuesday- Paneer, Saag, Butter Sauce, fruit chutneys, Aloo Chaat, Kheer

Our pantry preparation was really intense on Tuesday, becasue I wanted the kids to have tried a lot of different foods before we decided on our menu for the parents and went shopping on Wednesday. 

Homemade Paneer with Two Sauces

Paneer

This was a very satisfying food science experiment. We have made fresh ricotta at camp in the past, but this was the first time that we pressed the cheese into a solid form.  I got these instructions from one of my favorite Indian Cookbooks, Classic Indian and Vegetable and Grain Cooking by Julie Saini. You can also curdle the milk with vinegar or the whey from cheese you made the day before, but we used lemon juice.

1. Bring 8 cups milk to a boil in a large, heavy bottomed pan. Stir frequently to prevent it from scorching on the bottom and prevent the milk from forming a skin on the top. That skin is dangerous because it traps the hot air until it all breaks through and bubbles over violently. 
2. While it is boiling you can line a large colander with 4 layers of cheesecloth or reusable hemmed cheesecloth (highly recommended). Keep a close eye on your milk as you do this.
3. Once the milk is boiling, reduce the heat and add 4 Tablespoons of lemon juice. Stir very gently while the curdles and seperates into large lumps (curd) and thin liquid (whey). 
4. Pour the curdled milk through the cheesecloth. Gently rinse the curds with water and then squeeze them by twisting the cloth to remove as much water as possible. Leave it to drain for an hour and a half.
5. Plae the curds, still wrapped in the cheesecloth on a between two cutting boards and place a heavy pot filled with water on top to compress the curds into paneer for about an hour.
6. The paneer can be wrapped and kept in the fridge for up to 4 days.
7. To serve, cut the paneer into cubes and fry them in a lightly oiled skillet.

Saag (spiced puree of greens)

This might be the healthiest thing in my cooking repertoire and the kids loved it. It is also VERY easy to make, especially if you make it with frozen spinach (which we did). I recently learned that the nutritional value of fresh spinach deteriorates rapidly, so unless you are picking it from your garden and popping it directly into your mouth within the hour it is more nutritous when flash frozen. For the parents meal on Friday we made it from a ridiculous giant box of fresh mustard greens from the farmshare. These had to first be parboiled in lightly salted water.

Here is the recipe for Saag.  You can also serve saag with fried tofu instead of paneer to make it vegan. A few things to note about saag…

• Make it ahead of time! Saag really improves after a day or two and freezes well. 
• Please note that when we made it with the kids, we halved the number of green chili peppers and de-seeded them. This was an acceptable amount of spice for these particular kids, but other kids might need even less spiciness.
• This dish (like the moong dal) must be seasoned with salt until there is no bitterness. If it is bitter, you have not added enough salt.

Butter Sauce (Tomato and Cashew Sauce)

This creamy tomato cashew sauce is famously served with chicken but is very nice with paneer as well. Despite the name, it really does not have an extraordinary amount of butter in it. The creaminess is really provided by the ground cashews. Through this sauce, I was excited to introduce the kids to one my favorite Indian flavors- Kasturi Methi (dried fenugreek leaves). You can certainly make butter sauce without Methi, but to me the flavour is very special and worth a trip to the Indian grocery. The kids loved it! 

Here is the recipe for butter sauce. A few things to note about butter sauce…

• Please note that when we made it with the kids, we halved the number of green chili peppers and de-seeded them. This was an acceptable amount of spice for these particular kids, but other kids might need even less spiciness.
• Make it ahead of time! It improves with age and freezes well.
• You can puree it until very smooth or leave it more textured. Our group preferred a bit of texture, which honestly surprised me!

Here are some examples of how the kids chose to plate their homemade paneer with two sauces for the dinner that they served to the parents.

Summertime Chaat

Chaat a snack that can be made with a starchy base, sprinkled with a tangy spice mix called Chaat Masala and drizzled with both fruit and green chutneys, and crunchy toppings. Sometimes yogurt is involved (we skipped it).

To me, this might be the world’s most perfect and adaptable food.  I eat a lot of roasted vegetable chaat in the fall and winter. Please check out my recipe for Butternut Squash Chaat and Aloo Chaat Inspired Oven Fries. The secret ingredient is Chaat Masala, a spice mix so delicious that I cannot fathom why it has not taken over the entire globe.

The kids made theire own chaat masala and learned about how Amchur (mango powder) gives it the special tangy flavour. An Indian friend told me that Chaat means “lick” or “salivate” and it is this sweet tangy mango powder that creates this effect. I do beleive that some regions use dried pomegranate in chaat masala to the same effect. You can also buy ready made chaat masala at an Indian grocery, but here is an easy recipe.

Chaat Masala

This makes enough for a small jar, which will keep for months and allow you to make chaat out of anything you like. I’ve already reduced the amount of cayenne here to a more child friendly amount. 

• 2 teaspoons cayenne
• 1/4 cup ground cumin
• 1/4 cup ground coriander
• 1 teaspoons turmeric
• 3 Tablespoons mango powder (amchur)
• 2 tsp salt

In addition to making the Chaat Masala, the kids also prepared the base ingredients and cruncy toppings for their chaat. They had leftover green chutneys from the day before, but they made two kinds of fruit chutney.

Tamarind Chutney

• 4 oz tamarind pulp
• 2 and 1/2 cups boiling water
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (we skipped this!)
• 1 teaspoon dry ginger
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 2 teaspoon ground roasted cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (if you like sweet chutney you should double this)
• 1/4 cup pitted dates, chopped

1. Soak the tamarind in the hot water for half an hour.  Strain the liquid, squeezing and mashing the pulp to get as much out as possible.
2. Combine the tamarind liquid with the other ingredients and process in a blender until smooth.
3. Adjust the seasonings.

Sweet Mango Chutney

• 1 pound fresh mango
• the juice and zest of lemons
• 1/2 cup pitted sliced dates
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3 cups brown sugar
• 1 pint white vinegar
• 4 dry arbol chili peppers (we skipped this!)
• 1/2 Tbs salt

1. Put everything in a big non-reactive pot and bring it to a boil.
2. Reduce the heat and simmer until the chutney is thick and brown.
3. Allow it to cool, and store it tightly sealing jars for a couple of months in your fridge.

Make your own summertime Chaat

The kids got to decide how to put their chaat togehter and practice plating it beautifully. 

• Base- Boiled potatoes and/ or cooked chickpeas,
• Seasoing- A generous sprinkling of chaat masala (recipe above)
• Green Chutney- Mint, date, coconut chutney and/or peanut cilantro chutney (recipes here)
• Fruit Chutney- Tamarind chutney and/or sweet mango chutney (recipes above)
• Crunchy toppings- radishes, cucumbers, puffed rice and/ or sev (crunchy chick pea noodles)

Leftover Rice Kheer (rice pudding)

Seasoned cook and camper Sal made beautiful rice on Monday. On Tuesday, Noah and I asked Sal to make more, but then we meddled with his technique and the rice was not good. We just let Sal make the rice the rest of the time and did not question his expertise. By the end of Tuesday we had a lot of leftover cooked rice (some of it better and some of it worse). We made this leftover rice kheer recipe, which is not traditional but is tasty and a good way not to waste any rice.

Wednesday- Momo, Pani Puri, Barfi, Behl Puri

By Wednesday we had made some decisions about which dishes we wanted to make for the big meal that we serve the parents at the end of the week. We went on a big shopping field trip to Jackson Heights to gather all of our ingredients. 

We also did a thorough testing out the multiple food trucks offering Momo’s (Tibetan dumpling) in Jackson Heights. The truck pictured on the left offered the most juicy and flavorful beef Momo. The truck on the right had a really good fried vegetable momo filled with dark greens.

Finally, we went to a Bengali sweet shop to try Pani Puri (fried dough balls filled with savory filings and chutneys) and barfi (Indian mik fudge). 

Despite stuffing ourselves while in Jackson Heights, we also made Bhelpuri when we got back to the diner. Bhelpuri is a street food famously served at the beaches in Mumbai. The base is a mix of crunchy fried snacks made from rice, chickpea flour, and peanuts) and bits of broken puri (fried bread) topped with fruit and green chutney’s and fresh mango, tomato, onion, cilantro. It is SO weird and so, so, so good. The kids were not so into the pani puri (which also falls into the bizarre Indian street food category) but they were all in on the Bhelpuri. Here is a recipe for bhelpuri (minus the puri because I avoid gluten).

Thursday- Farmshare Pakora, Carrot Halva & Nu