It was a weekend of excellent eating.  After the cardamom honey ice cream for breakfast Saturday morning, I had a great meal at the home of some friends Saturday evening, which I plan on blogging about tomorrow.  But first I want to tie up a loose end related to that ice cream.  I hadn't eaten it all for breakfast Saturday; in fact, I had quite a bit left and I wanted to eat it after a proper meal of Indian-style food (no claim to "authenticity" being made here!).



So I went to the Dupont Circle farmers market yesterday in search of ingredients.  Although the weather's cooling off and winter is approaching, there's still a ton (several tons, actually) of great food at the market.



I bought a half-leg of lamb from the Eco-Friendly Foods people and continued down the row to my favorite pusher of greens, pictured right, where I bought a pound of spinach.



Then I crossed the aisle, where I bought some peppers and potatoes.



I also bought some serrano and jalapeno peppers.




I spent the evening hours turning these ingredients into the dish pictured to the right.  I roasted the half-leg of lamb with a dry rub of cumin seeds, fennel seeds, cardamom seeds and black peppercorns, which I toasted in a dry skilled for a few minutes before grinding.  (I over-cooked the lamb, as you can see in the photo.  Shame on me!)

I wilted the pound of spinach in a sauce pan with a tiny bit of water, then pureed it with it's liquid in a blender together with a green pepper.  I browned a half-pound of paneer (an Indian cheese, which I was pleasantly surprised to find is sold at Whole Foods) in a bit of butter in a non-stick skillet then removed it from the pan.  I then fried a finely chopped onion until lightly browned, added a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, a teaspoon of turmeric, a minced serrano pepper and a minced jalapeno pepper (seeds removed) and cooked this mixture for a couple of minutes before adding in the pureed spinach and a chopped red sweet pepper.  I brought this mixture to a boil, cooked it for a couple of minutes and then finished it by adding in the paneer, a teaspoon of garam masala and salt to taste and cooked it for another couple of minutes until the paneer was heated through.

For the curried potatoes, I put a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet over medium heat and added a teaspoon each of cumin seeds, ground coriander and turmeric and cooked it for a few minutes until it was fragrant.  I added a thinly sliced onion, a minced serrano pepper and a minced jalapeno pepper and sautéed them for about 5 minutes.  I then added a pound and a half of peeled potatoes cut into 1-inch pieces and tossed them around in the skillet to make sure they were well-coated with the spices, and covered them to cook for 12 minutes.  Finally, I added a large chopped tomato and cooked the mixture for another 8 minutes, salted it to taste and served it over basmati rice.

Of course, I followed it up with some ice cream and it hit the spot!