Decent at first; the leftovers were better/good. There were too few kidney beans compared to other stuff in the recipe -- it doesn't look anything like rajmah I've had in restaurants. Once I understood that the dish was not what I think of as rajmah, I appreciated it. I think the recipe was underspiced: I needed to add more spices at the end, probably ending up doubling the amount of spices. (Incidentally, the spices I added at the end were in ground form). On the other hand, judging by how much my apartment smelled of spices the next few days, perhaps my complaint about the lack of spicing could simply be from getting used to them from standing by the stove for too long. Also, the taste ended up oddly interestingly sweet. The cilantro garnish didn't do much. The timing of the recipe is surprising. The recipe says to "saute until almost dry." Maybe my tomatoes were unusually juicy, but that took me 45 minutes of simmering. Later the recipe suggested adding water if necessary. I didn't bother. Also, the onions took ten minutes to become translucent. By the way, it takes a few inches of ginger root to make two tablespoons of minced ginger. Incidentally, I used a non-stick skillet and so only used one tablespoon of oil. Also, I skipped the optional powdered pepper.

Reviewed On: Jul. 6, 2009

Maybe my plastic containers don't form perfect seals, but my house smelled of pickling juices for several days while these sat in the fridge. Consider yourself warned. The daikon pickles are decent, though certainly not the same style as you'd get at one of the few Chinese restaurants that have them. As for how I made them, I peeled the daikon (the recipe skipped this step) then chopped it. Because the recipe didn't say, I chopped it into 3/4 inch cubes. It took about half a large daikon to make 1 1/2 cups of chopped daikon. And, indeed, in step one they did release two tablespoons of water. In step two, I skipped the optional sesame oil.

Reviewed On: Mar. 24, 2009

It tastes fresh. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad. Regardless, I'm just not that excited about the dip and I'm not sure why. Baba ghanoush I've had in restaurants tend to have both more lemon juice and more garlic, though I don't think that's the core of what's bothering me (though next time I will use more than two large cloves). Perhaps the problem could be that the eggplants didn't end up blackened. (Although the recipe doesn't mention it, some reviews claim blackening helps.) I roasted the eggplants--I used two medium, regular eggplants, as suggested by some reviewers--for 45 minutes because they weren't soft by the 30-40 minutes the recipe calls for. Incidentally, the eggplants seemed to have lots of seeds; I left them in. Also incidentally, the smell and taste pre-chilling reminded me of some sort of nut butter like peanut butter. I guess that's the tahini and sesame seeds.

Reviewed On: Aug. 12, 2008