1 cup yellow split peas
1/4 cup ghee or olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon ginger puree
1 teaspoon turmeric
3 cups water
salt

1. Soak peas for an hour in enough water to cover. Discard ones that float to the top and then drain.
2. Heat ghee in a large skillet over medium heat and add onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric. Cook until the onions are soft.
3. Stir in the peas, then add the water, cover and reduce heat to a simmer.
4. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until all of the liquid has been absorbed.

Makes 4 servings

2 cups yogurt
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 tablespoons ginger puree

1 cup basmati rice
2 cups water
2 pounds skinless chicken pieces
4 tablespoons whole garam masala
1 large onion, sliced
1 large tomato, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons ginger puree
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 bay leaves
1/2 cup milk (optional)
2 threads saffron (optional)
salt

1. Prepare a marinade of yogurt, garlic, chili powder, turmeric and ginger puree. Marinade chicken in it overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Bring water to a boil in a large pot and add the bay leaves, half of the garam masala and salt.
4. Add the rice to the water and cook until almost done. Drain and reserve rice.
5. Heat oil in a large skillet and add remaining garam masala, cooking until it is fragrant.
6. Add the onions to the oil and sauté until golden brown.
7. Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander and tomatoes and stir, then remove the chicken from the marinade and cook until no longer pink.
8. Meanwhile, dissolve the saffron in warm milk, if accessible, and set aside.
9. Layer chicken and rice in a baking dish and top with remaining sauce from the pot, and then the saffron milk.
10. Cover with tinfoil and bake for about 20-25 minutes. Season with salt and serve on a platter.

Makes 4 servings

What an exciting evening; I don't know what went wrong and I might have killed us both. If I don't post a recap on tomorrow's dinner, that's why — I'm dead. I've never had a disaster with a curry-type dish before. This whole meal went awry! And, by now, you're probably curious of the details.

My main dish, a true meal in itself, was Chicken Biryani. The flavor is very similar to butter chicken, which is a favorite dish of Shannon's, but there is no butter. Despite the lengthy list of ingredients it is actually quite simple to prepare. This is where the first and potentially fatal problem occurred as, either through fault of my own by cooking or by perhaps failing to properly thaw the meat to begin with, the chicken was not cooked. However, only the very center of the meat was bloody - yes, not just pink, but bloody - and the rest seemed to be cooked perfectly. To me this is somewhat of an accomplishment in itself. Chicken biryani is good, but it's not so good I'd risk my life for it like fugu or something. I imagine we'll be fine, but the fact that I undercooked chicken that we actually ate is a bit of a blow to my culinary confidence.

The second foible was the only other dish, which was a simple Dhal. Dhal basically comprises all cooked and curried legumes that yield a creamy texture in my books, but in this case I used yellow split peas. Not too long ago I made Split Peas and Ham and they turned out great. A nice, smooth texture in surprisingly little time. This time around I soaked them longer, cooked them longer and they were still hard and tasted like hard peas.

After an hour on the stove top I transferred them to the microwave for an additional 20 minutes and, aside from cooking off a lot of water, nothing changed. I tried to look up the cause of this and the only thing I could find was that if you added sugar or an acidic ingredient, such as tomatoes, wine or vinegar, to them that they'll take a comparatively longer time to cook. Is turmeric or onion acidic enough to cause such a problem? Does boiling them for too long before switching to a simmer inevitably render them uncreamable? I even went through the trouble of making my own ghee for this! There's hardly anything to the recipe but water and peas! I'm very disappointed and perhaps the food borne illness god or goddess will punish me for my disastrous results. At least the pita bread we had with it was good.