Ugly But Soooo Good: Lime Spiked Black Bean Dip

I was of 2 minds about whether or not to post this dip because my goodness it took a bad picture. It was a pig roast dish and had no fancy plating like the brownies--plus I only got photos taken with leftovers. By which point I was not in very good shape for photography.

But I am going to share the dish because this dip is one of my great discoveries of 2009. It is SO GOOD. I had it first at a friend's house and immediately requested the recipe. Turns out it is a fairly simple Cooking Light recipe--who'da thunk? And who would have guessed it had carrots in it? Not me! But if you like black beans and limes as much as I do I guarantee you will like this dip.

Lime Spiked Black Bean Dip
Adapted from Cooking Light

2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup grated carrot (I used bagged shredded carrots since I was quadrupling the recipe)
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (about 2-3 limes)
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon ground New Mexico chile pepper

Place all of the ingredients in the food processor. Pulse until you have a "dip-able" consistency (chunkiness is up to you). Serve with tortilla chips.

Singapore Noodles

It is a beautiful, windy, mild, sunny summer day here. And I mean really windy--some of our doors upstairs have slammed open and shut (making sure I had a good cross breeze in all rooms is working against me right now), and I had to pin my hair back in my own house because of the wind.

OK so you cannot see the wind in these photos. But trust me those trees are swaying and you can certainly tell it is a lovely day.

Look my Guilty Rectangle is an actual garden! Granted it got put in so late my veggies will come eons after everyone else's, but at least it is no longer staring at me, wagging its imaginary fingers.

I love days like this. They remind me of my grandma's house (my mom's mom, the one who passed away this past winter). My brother Nick and his family were here visiting this week, and he asked me if I ever found it ironic that I turned out so much like Mom after being such an un-domestic city person when I was younger. Although I don't find it that ironic (except maybe when weeding), I was looking outside today and realizing (no disrespect to my mom, who probably understands anyway) that I think in some way it was actually my grandma's house that really gave me a hankering for this life. I need some garden chimes--when the wind blows like this all I think of are lazy summer days at Grandma's house, hearing the wind chimes in her gardens while the breeze blew across her backyard. Shelling peas and snapping beans.

I miss her.


Anyway, before I get totally maudlin, as I say my brother's family was here, and so I needed to come up with an interesting dinner. They are amenable to SE Asian flavors, and I thought maybe the excitement of their visit (they don't get down here much--Nick is on the college football coaching track which means his life makes mine look placid) was worthy of pulling out some shrimp and scallops.


After puttering around in my cookbooks, I found Jean-Georges Vongerichten's recipe for Singapore Noodles. I changed it a bit (added some garlic, zucchini, and green garnishes), but I think my dish still qualifies as Singapore Noodles.



This dish is a good example of a blogging dilemma I sometimes have--I was not overly thrilled with the final dish. But everyone else seemed to be--they had seconds, which they certainly did not need to do just to be polite. So I have decided to share it anyway, but I have to say I have come to the conclusion that maybe I am just not a fan of Singapore noodles since this is not the first time a stir fried noodle dish with curry powder has not wowed me.


Singapore Noodles
Adapted from Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges, Jean-Georges Vongerichten

*I doubled this recipe--but cooked it in 2 stages. Do not try to cook more than this recipe as written at one time in a large nonstick skillet or wok.

1/2 lb dried thin rice noodles (vermicelli or thin rice sticks)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, minced and divided in half
6 oz small-medium sized shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
6 oz bay scallops (or 4 oz sea scallops, cut into 1/2-inch chunks)
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 sweet bell pepper, thinly sliced (or portions of several different colored peppers for color contrast)
1 summer squash, cut into small (1/4-inch) cubes
salt to taste
1 T curry powder, divided in half
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup chopped green onions (green parts only)

Cook the rice noodles according to the package's directions. Rinse with cold running water and set aside to drain.

Make sure ALL prep work has been completed and everything is within easy access of your cooktop. Heat a large (12-14 inch) nonstick skillet or wok over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil and add half of the garlic. Let it cook until fragrant and toasted but not burned, about 1 minute. Add the shrimp and chicken. Cook until mostly done and then add the scallops. When they have completely cooked (it will be very quick), use a slotted spoon to remove the seafood and chicken to a plate. Wipe out the pan if it got really juicy.

Heat the pan back up and add the remaining oil. Add the remaining garlic and again cook until golden, about 1 minute. Add the onions with a pinch of salt and cook until brown, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. This will take 5-10 minutes. Add the peppers and summer squash with another pinch of salt and cook until they have softened and browned a tad, about 3-5 minutes. Add 1/2 of the curry powder and toss with the veggies. Add the noodles and stir fry, breaking them apart and getting them evenly coated with curry powder. Add a pinch of salt.

Push the noodle mixture to the outer edges of the pan and pour the egg into the center. Let it cook undisturbed for about 1-2 minutes, until it is firm and can be broken up. Break the egg up, add the remaining curry powder and bean sprouts, and mix it all together. Add the cilantro and green onions and taste for salt. Remove from the heat and serve. We liked ours with some Sirracha or some Thai sweet-hot garlic dipping sauce.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Toss With Crimini Mushrooms, Chicken Sausage & Feta Cheese

The past several weeks have been crazy. First, Alex had day camp for a week--her first time ever doing anything alone away from home--the same week I was baking for the pig roast. As far as I can remember I did not even cook after making that Thai curry, which lasted us a few nights. Then this week she is in swim lessons (and resisting strongly, unlike the day camp) and I just seem to have planned stuff up to my ears.


What, you ask, does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Nothing, except the dish I am about to share packs tons of flavor for very little effort. I made half of it after John got home for the night (I was waiting for the mushrooms and zucchini) which should tell you that this is a true 30 minute meal (which in my book means more like 45 minutes, including prep work). I made it on Monday, my first full day back from the excesses of the pig roast.


This dish is based around what we generically call the Pasta Toss. I got the idea from my sister, when we were both doing doing Weight Watchers and I was working and making fast meals when I got home. Everything in a pasta toss is interchangeable. Whatever sounds good, go with it. My few rules of thumb for us are: use a whole grain or otherwise high fiber pasta, use chicken sausage for maximum flavor with maximum healthiness, use some sort of crumbly high flavor low fat cheese, and use a lot of veggies in ratio to everything else. The recipe as written below lasted us 2 nights for 2 adults and 2 toddlers.


Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Toss With Crimini Mushrooms, Chicken Sausage & Feta Cheese
Recipe by The Spiced Life

1 cup chopped re-hydrated sun-dried tomatoes (I used oil packed which had been rinsed and patted dry but you can also use dried that have soaked in hot water)
2 small onions, thinly sliced
1 T extra virgin olive oil
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
4 links mushroom sausage, sliced into thin rounds (any chicken sausage of choice, I used Aidell's)
1 small container (10 oz? I forgot to look) sliced crimini mushrooms or other wild mushroom of choice
2 summer squashes, sliced or cubed (I sliced into rounds, and then cubed the part that was fat/fluffy and needed to be de-seeded)
1 1/2 sweet bell peppers, sliced
6 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped (more if you love olives)
French feta cheese 1/2-1 cup, to taste
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf (Italian) parsley
1 lbs rotini or other noodle of choice (I like Barilla Plus or Bionaturae)

When I was working, and therefore very short on time, I would pretty much cook everything but the pasta together and then toss with the cooked pasta. This method will work fine and only result in it being a little less flavorful--because the ingredients will steam rather than sear. This is how I did it this time:

Bring water to boil in a large pot and cook the noodles until al dente. Set aside.

Heat a large (12-14 inches) nonstick pan on medium high heat and add the sliced onions. After a minute, drizzle them with some (maybe 1 teaspoon) extra virgin olive oil. After they cook down and brown, maybe 10 minutes, add the garlic. Cook for 1 minute. Push the onions and garlic to the outer rim of the pan and add the sausage, with maybe 1/2 teaspoon of oil. Cook until browned and then mix with the onions and garlic, and then push this mixture to the edges. Add the mushrooms with the remaining oil to the center. Let them cook, stirring a little but not mixing with everything else until they have seared a bit and gotten some color. Mix everything together and again push to the edges. Add the zucchini and peppers and let them cook in the center--the idea is to cook everything in that very hot center to give it some color and also to allow the water in the veggies to cook out of the dish completely so it does not get too watery. After a few minutes, once again mix everything together and add the sun-dried tomatoes and chopped olives. Add 1/4 cup of crumbled feta to let it mix into the dish; save the rest for garnishing. Mix in the parsley. Serve with crumbled feta on top (we also added some extra sun-dried tomatoes because we were really loving them in this dish).

A Party Brownie Tray

This year I decided I was going to make brownies for the pig roast. They were easier than individual cookies as I could make the entire pan and then freeze it before slicing. However, I got bored--which is kind of ironic because I personally tend to prefer plain brownies-- and started making brownie variations. This turned out to be a brilliant idea, especially after my mom and I put together cute signs for the brownies. Next year I will do the same thing. It was such a nice presentation!

Some brownie ideas:

* Make some with chopped chocolate, some with Dutch processed cocoa powder and some with natural cocoa (identify each)
* Try adding peppermint patties, as done here
* Try adding peppermint chips, as done here
* Try adding 1 tablespoon espresso powder to the melted butter and cappuccino chips to the batter
* Try adding chopped nuts
* Try adding caramel bits and fleur de sel to the batter; top with extra fleur de sel for salty caramel brownies
* Try adding 2 teaspoons chipotle powder and 1 1/2 teaspoons each of New Mexico chile power and ancho chile powder. Sprinkle with red sanding sugar to distinguish as spicy!


I am sure more ideas will occur to you--such as your favorite candy bar chopped, cream cheese swirled or peanut butter swirled. I am excited for next year already! If you want more brownie ideas, there have been several posted on this blog. I used 3 different cocoa powder recipes, within which I tried several different cocoa powders, natural and Dutched. For me personally (and yes I tried Valrhona) I still prefer the Scharffenberger and other natural cocoa powder based brownies, and I decided the best cocoa powder based brownie recipe I have tried is Alice Medrich's. Thanks to my sister, who made the brownies with nuts, the brownies with chopped chocolate, and who suggested the fleur de sel with the caramel bits.


As with other pig roast photos, please excuse the pictures. The brownies turned out kinda red in them--I am not sure why, maybe that setting sun streaming into the picture. But I think you can get the idea of the tray nonetheless; I got loads of compliments on them.

The Spiced Life Kitchen/Cookie Carnival's Lemon Ricotta Cookies

Did you know that the more I like something the less likely I am to use it? Oh it's true, I am whacked. I will sit and treasure the anticipation, waiting for the perfect moment to use that something for the first time. Meanwhile it will sit and collect dust. Anyway, I have acquired a few pieces of art that I have not hung for similar reasons--because I like to sit and stare at them, trying to decide exactly where the best spot for them is.

This is a terrible pic--because of all of the light coming in the window--but the best I could do showing the plaque in its overall setting, above my kitchen windows, inbetween some cabinets.

I am happy to announce I have finally made a decision about one of them. My brother Nick and his wife Alyssa made this plaque for me for Christmas (they probably think I have waited forever to hang the thing but by Laura standards it really has not been that long) and I had been hemming and hawing for forever between 2 different spots in the kitchen. And I finally chose one! Yay! Isn't it gorgeous?


OK, on to food. I found an awesome blogging event recently--the Cookie Carnival, hosted by The Clean Plate.  First, it is all cookies, and if you don't know how much I like cookies, just check out my tag sidebar on the right. Second, participation is not required every month (hello Daring Bakers, which I cannot seem to participate in more than a few months in a row). Third, and maybe this was an anomaly this month, I am not sure, we got to vote on the recipe--that rocks! And better yet, the cookie I voted for won. If you like cookies, this is a great event.


I was extra excited about this month's cookie because I decided it would be a good cookie to make for my parent's annual pig roast. You may remember this last year, when I churned out 500 cookies, evenly split between chocolate chip (Bill Yosses' Best) and World Peace cookies. More on what else I made this year to come in the next few days, but I decided to add a lemon cookie as well and then lo and behold a lemon cookie popped up as the Cookie Carnival cookie.


Giada De Laurentiis' Lemon Ricotta Cookies With Lemon Glaze are a winner. Everyone who tried them commented to me how much they liked them. I made a few experiments earlier in the week and decided we actually preferred them without the glaze, although my sister commented that she wished it was there, so the glaze seems to be personal preference (but I do recommend leaving it off if serving at a very large, very hot outdoor BBQ). The cookies are very cakey, so while they will stay moist over several days, they will also get that slightly sticky outer layer of moistness that sometimes happens to bundt cakes after a few days.  Be sure to check out The Clean Plate in early August for the round up.


You'll have to pardon the pictures--trying to grab a few snapshots as 100 sugar-craving guests descend is not so easy! And the cookies were not super fresh when I took the pic (since the cookies must be made in advance) and got kind of banged around on the drive to Columbus. I would have taken the pics when they came out of the oven but I was multi-tasking and up to my ears in other pig roast preparation activities.

Thai Red Curry With Roasted Chicken

Really in an ideal world it would be roasted duck, but around here finding duck to roast would be a pain--and more of an undertaking than I felt like. So roasted dark chicken meat makes a pretty good sub.

I have previously shared some recipes for and using green curry paste--which is kind of ironic because red curry paste is my first love. But as I noted in those other posts, making curry paste is usually a big endeavor, where my husband and I together make several batches to freeze. So I don't always get around to it that often. But I was cooking for a friend of mine who just had a baby and whose husband is out of the country--he studies monkeys and is chasing them, which is only relevant because they lived together in Thailand for quite a while so they could study the monkeys there--so I knew she liked Thai food and it seemed as good of an excuse as any to finally get around to making red curry paste.


My favorite curry hands down is roasted duck with red curry as served in Thailand, where they serve it in pineapples with pineapple and red grapes in the curry. YUM. Some Americans cannot wrap their heads around the red grapes--until they try it. You better believe it was the first thing we added to our red curry when we got home from the honeymoon.

I refer you back to my initial post on making Thai curry paste, here, but because red curries are based on dried chile peppers and not fresh, I do have a few other words of wisdom. First, red curries are probably the largest and most diverse group of Thai curries. Yellow and green tend to follow predictable paths, but there are plenty of curries--such as paneng and chu chee--that you might have seen on a menu as separate from red curry, but are in fact red curries. Because of this I think of them as more flexible, as permitting more tinkering. If you like dried spices, add them. If you do not, most can be omitted, with the exception possibly of coriander seeds. The Thai of course would have opinions about what goes with what (according to David Thompson, spices like those I have incorporated go well with the oilier roasted duck, and any Thai author will tell you that chu chee is usually for seafood, even though I have enjoyed it on chicken), but I recommend you try any meat or veggie that sounds good to you.



In my humble opinion, speaking as a non-Asian midwestern American who has been making Thai curries for almost 10 years now (yikes!) the single greatest discovery that I have made is how to choose my chile peppers more carefully for dried chile pepper-based curry pastes. Many cookbooks recommend an absurd quantity of chile de arbol or a comparable dried chile pepper--which of course then leads to only a select number of your acquaintance being able to eat the stuff--and that is if you can even eat it! Let's face it, when you were not raised with serious heat it can be hard to acquire the ability to tolerate it. I am a strictly medium sort of gal. (Which is, as I noted in my posts on green curry, what makes the canned curry pastes ultimately pretty useless to most of us).

Anyway, then I received Victor Sodsook's True Thai. He suggested dried New Mexico chile peppers, with some chile de arbol thrown in. What a difference! When I made paneng paste--pounding out by hand yegads--in Chiang Mai, I assumed that their chilies were similar to ours, where size frquently denotes spiciness or lack thereof. Not so. My paneng, while very tasty, was also inedible. My husband finished it. But here in the New World, New Mexico, Anaheim or California chile peppers all dry to a very mild heat that packs loads of flavor. It is perfect for red curry paste. Do make sure you use a brighter (not sure how else to describe it) dried chile pepper, as opposed to the smoky ones such as guajillo, ancho or pasilla, all of which will taste very wrong. And certainly do not use any smoked peppers, such as chipotle.

If you love Thai food like me, why not try a kaffir lime tree? You'll likely never get fruit (unless you live in the tropics and have several trees growing in the ground) but the leaves are the most important part. My tree loves my new house as you can see!

In the past I have stressed the importance of using kaffir lime peel in your curry pastes--however there has been a reduction in the world crop, leading to almost none here in the States. I spent an embarrassing but well worth it amount of money ordering 12 limes (I was notified when they had some available) and then carefully sectioning and freezing the peel. Temple of Thai is my most reliable source--but even they are out right now, although I recommend emailing them because it may be that the crop has rebounded and they are just not in season now. So if you cannot find the peel, I recommend half the amount of Persian lime peel (or regular limes) with 2 kaffir lime leaves shredded and added to the paste. The Persian lime peel alone will not make an adequate sub--the flavor of kaffir is like no other.

I also recommend doubling, or even tripling this recipe and freezing it. Frozen homemade curry paste is a wonderful treat--and a very easy way to really impress people. However, if you do more than double the recipe, be aware you may need to puree the paste in batches and then thoroughly mix it all together. As always, I strongly advise you to pound the woodier ingredients in a mortar first (lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime peel/leaves, cilantro root if using--some recipes call for it but I do not here).


Thai Red Curry With Roasted Chicken
Adapted from Victor Sodsook, David Thompson & Sompon Nabnian
Serves 4-6

1 cup red curry paste, see recipe below
19-33 oz canned coconut milk, cream separated from water from the first 19 oz
2-4 T palm sugar (to taste, start with 2 and taste at end)
1 bunch cleaned red grapes
1 small pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into sections
1 sweet bell pepper, thinly sliced
approx. 4 cups eggplant or summer squash of choice, cut into bite sized chunks
4 chicken leg/thigh pieces, roasted and shredded
3 pairs (6 total) kaffir lime leaves, de-veined
2-3 T fish sauce (to taste, start with 2 and taste at end)
1 cup loosely packed Thai or purple basil



Remove the cream from the top of the 19-oz can of coconut milk (Mae Ploy makes a good one). Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the thick coconut cream. Fry, stirring, until the oil begins to separate from the milk. Add the curry paste and fry for 5 minutes, until the oil has once again separated from the cream and it is quite fragrant, stirring frequently. Add the palm sugar (light brown sugar subs ok) and stir.


Add the rest of the coconut milk (reserving 14 oz to see if you want the additional smaller can) and fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves. Add the pineapple, sweet bell pepper and eggplant and/or summer squash. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the roasted shredded chicken. At this point the sauce can barely simmer for as long as you want it to, stirring occasionally. The longer the flavors have to meld the better---leftovers are always great.


Before serving, check for salty and sweet (sugar and fish sauce) or more coconut milk if it sounds good to you (just coconut water to make it thinner, cream and water to make it milder) and add the basil leaves (whole) and grapes. Remove the kaffir lime leaves if desired before serving--but I leave them in so they can flavor the leftovers. Serve with jasmine rice and chopped hot green chilies in fish sauce (which you see sprinkled on the curries here) for anyone who likes more heat.




Thai Red Curry Paste
Adapted from Victor Sodsook, David Thompson & Sompon Nabnian
Makes around 1 1/2 cups; freeze in vacuum-packed freezer bags or something comparable

3 oz dried New Mexico chile peppers (see notes above), seeded
12 small hot dried chilies--if heat is an issue, sub in more dried New Mexico chile peppers; with my kids I used 2 small dried chile peppers per batch of paste and seeded them with additional ounce of New Mexico chile peppers
1 T coriander seeds
10 white peppercorns (can sub 5 black peppercorns if necessary)
1 1/2 t cumin seeds
1/4 t grated nutmeg
5 cloves
2 T shrimp paste
3/4 cup chopped shallots
heaping 1/2 cup chopped garlic cloves
pinch of coarse salt
1 T minced kaffir lime peel (see notes above)
3 stalks lemongrass, trimmed to bottom 2/3 of stalk and tough outer layers peeled and discarded
1/3 cup peeled and minced galangal

Cover the seeded and de-stemmed dried chile peppers with boiling water. Set aside to soak for at least 20 minutes.

Toast the whole spices and grind in a spice grinder. Toast them until they are fragrant, adding cumin, which burns easily, last. Add the nutmeg to this mix. Set aside.

Place the shrimp paste in a square of foil. Fold the foil up, flattening the paste slightly,with about 3-4 layers of foil on each side. Toast the foil packet, about 5-7 minutes total, turning occasionally, until the shrimp paste is fragrant. Set aside.

Very thinly slice the lemongrass. Add the lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime peel to a large mortar and pestle and pound for about 5-7 minutes to crush and release the oils, as well as soften the woody aromatics. Remove and add to a large food processor.

Pound the garlic and shallots with the coarse salt in the same mortar and pestle for a few minutes--they need less pounding. Add to the food processor. Also add the ground spices and shrimp paste.

Remove the soaking chile peppers and add them to the food processor, reserving some (1/2 cup) of the liquid. Process the paste, adding some chile pepper soaking liquid (a tablespoon or 2 at a time) to loosen the paste if needed. Process the paste to a smooth consistency, scraping the sides down occasionally, but do not let the processor heat up much or it will cook the paste. In addition to its texture, one of the key ways to tell a paste is ready is by sniffing it--it should no longer smell like its individual components, but rather a whole new entity. It will smell great but quite strong--it makes my eyes water. Set aside for curry and freeze what you don't use.

Saag Gosht (Beef in Fragrant Spinach Sauce)

I used to dislike paneer saag, and, by extension, saag dishes in general. I have never been a big fan of cooked greens of any sort, and with apologies to those who love paneer, it kind of tastes like tofu to me. Which is to say that while totally inoffensive, it seems, to me anyway (maybe I've never had great paneer?) to take on the flavor of the sauce it is in but does not seem to contribute much.


But then one day I was at an Indian buffet, where I always like to take advantage of trying different dishes, and they had saag with chicken instead. Eureka! With some yogurt or raita and tamarind chutney, the dish was stellar, completely different. The chicken added some quality, perhaps that 5th flavor unami everyone is talking about lately, that really balanced the spinach for me. So when I saw Julie Sahni's recipe for gosht saag, the same dish made with beef, I knew I was going to try it.


I personally like this dish spicy, but I also like the additional yogurt, not for cooling, but more for its sour tang. And the tamarind is outstanding on it. Thewhole family enjoyed this, especially Alex who was still asking for it several days later. Good thing we froze some! Next time I will use chuck, as I have called for below. Its texture is just so much more tender and melting than the beef round, although higher in fat I grant you. Similarly I would also use less spinach next time and have therefore called for less after consulting other recipes--so increase by 1 cup if you really love spinach.


Saag Gosht (Beef in Fragrant Spinach Sauce)
Adapted from Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni

2 10-oz boxes of frozen chopped spinach (or equivalent, about 2 cups, cooked and chopped)
4 T vegetable oil
3 lbs boneless beef chuck* (see note below) or lamb -- cut in 1 1/2-inch pieces
3 1/2 cups onions -- thinly sliced
2 T garlic, minced
3 T fresh ginger root, minced
1 T ground cumin
2 T ground coriander
1 t turmeric
1/2 15-oz can of tomatoes, chopped
3 green chiles, seeded and minced
4 T plain whole fat yogurt
1 cinnamon stick
12 green cardamom pods
9 whole cloves
3 bay leaves
1 T kosher salt, to taste
3-4 t garam masala, to taste
cayenne pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 300 F.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a 5-6 qt Dutch oven over high heat until very hot. Pat the meat dry on paper towels and sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add to the pot in batches. Brown the meat, turning until nicely seared on all sides. After each batch is browned, transfer it to a large plate.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the frying pan, and add the onions. Reduce heat to
medium-high, and fry until they turn caramel brown (about 25 minutes), stirring occasionally to
prevent scorching. Add the garlic and ginger, and fry for an additional 2 minutes. Add the dry ground spices and fry for 1 minute, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Then add the tomatoes and chiles, scraping at the bottom of the pot to deglaze it. Fry the tomatoes for about 5 minutes total. The entire mixture will turn into a "thick pulpy paste." Add the yogurt and immediately turn off the heat. Using an immersion blender, puree as best you can (or you can transfer it to a blender, as Sahnit suggests, but frankly I just don't care that much that my braised beef sauce is smooth).

Add the meat back into to the Dutch oven, along with the whole spices (Sahni recommends tying them into a cheesecloth and crushing slightly but I could not find my cheesecloth so we just picked around them). Add 3 cups of water and/or beef stock (I used water plus some Better Than Bouillon beef soup base) to the Dutch oven. Stir to mix the sauce and beef evenly. Bring to a boil and then cover with a tight fitting lid (if there is a lot of head room in the pot, cover with parchment paper first).

Place the Dutch oven in the middle level of the oven for 3 hours, or until the beef is fork tender. *Sahni recommends top round but I prefer chuck because I think it gets much more tender.

Remove the bay leaves, cinnamon stick, and any other whole spices you catch when it is done. Add the spinach and garam masala to the dish and stir to incorporate evenly. Cover the pot, return it to the oven or stove, and cook for 5 minutes more. Turn off the oven, and let the
pot remain undisturbed for an additional 10 minutes. Taste to see if it needs salt, cayenne pepper or more yogurt. Serve over basmati rice.