Saffron Trail

Cold Pasta Salad from leftover pasta

2012-04-23T08:04:00.002+05:30

Bite-Sized Post No. 3

When you boil pasta for a pasta dish, it's always nice to boil a handful extra and save it in the fridge. The leftover pasta is perfect for a chilled pasta salad when you want something light and refreshing for lunch or dinner. It's also a yummy lunchbox idea for your kids, no cooking required in the morning. Just don't add too much dressing that can make it soggy.

It's also a good idea to make this, when you are asking yourself 'what to do with leftover pasta' in case you cooked more pasta than required for dinner, which is always the case with me. I never know how much pasta to put to boil.

So here goes - quick, easy, light and refreshing, my version of the cold pasta salad.

Text only:
Recipe for Cold Pasta Salad
Serves 2
Time taken : Under 15 minutes
Recipe Type : Easy

In a large bowl, toss-
a cup of any leftover cooked pasta
a cup of diced pineapple
1 cucumber, diced
1 carrot, grated
1 red bell pepper, diced

dressing
Whisk in a small bowl-
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried crushed basil
Pinch of chilli flakes

Pour on salad and toss well.

Serve chilled.

The healthiest cookies I have ever baked

2012-04-21T17:28:00.002+05:30

I don't bake cookies often. Just one simple reason - the quantity of butter that most cookie recipes ask for, totally intimidates me. But a few weeks ago, I was baking cookies for days in a row, starting with these unbelievably healthy flourless, butterless, eggless and almost sugarless cookies which I stumbled upon on 101cookbooks.

I adapted slightly, adding a little honey to sweeten them up a bit, as it was for the kids in the playgroup. The teacher wrote me a note saying they were delicious and no one wanted to share them with anyone. So much for the notion that nothing healthy can ever be delicious.

Thanks Nikki for sharing it with us butter-phobics via Heidi's blog.

Oats - Banana - Almond - Chocolate cookies
Makes around 3 dozen bite sized cookies
Time taken - under 30 minutes

Ingredients
3 bananas, peeled and mashed (riper, the better)
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1/4 cup rice bran oil
2 cups oats ( I used Saffola brand)
1/4 cup almonds - roughly pulsed in mixer [if allergic to nuts, use 1/4 cup cornmeal instead]
1/3 cup scraped coconut, fresh or frozen (if frozen, microwave for 30 seconds to soften it)
4 tbsp of honey or brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
150-200 grams of chocolate bar, chopped roughly [Morde or Selbourne is good]

Directions
Preheat oven at 175 Celsius.

In a large bowl, combine mashed bananas, vanilla extract and oil with a whisk.
In another bowl, mix all dry ingredients except the chocolate.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mix until combined.
Stir in the chocolate chunks at the end.

Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. If you have a smaller oven, bake in batches convenient to you.
Drop heaped teaspoon fulls of cookie dough keeping an inch of space between the cookies.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.
These will be chewy when cooled.

Notes
These make a perfect healthy snack for you or your kids. Also simple enough and non messy to bake together with young kids.
The batch I sent to school, I skipped the almonds as some kids could be allergic to tree nuts. The cornmeal worked well in that. Another batch I baked with almonds, that had a beautiful flavour and crunch, to which I added almond extract.

Eggless Savoury Muffins with Sun Dried Tomatoes, Cheese and Olives

2012-04-17T12:19:00.000+05:30

It's vacation time at the play group, which means the little boy, when not up to any nefarious activities, is hanging around the kitchen, making puppy eyes at me, saying "Mummy, I want something to eat", which is not entirely a bad thing. He likes to eat most (if not all) the stuff I make, showers me with compliments for my cooking skills and helps rearrange the drawer that holds all the ladles and spoons to a fine mess.

I try to keep homemade stuff like muffins, healthy banana-oatmeal based cookies, cheese squares, cubed watermelon and cucumber and some of his favourite things around for the mummy-i- am-hungry times. Before you jump to the conclusion that I only give homemade-healthy stuff to my son, let me confess that I also give him store bought treats like Nilgiri's tiny drop cookies, lemonade, chocolates and chikki. Everything in moderation.

So, dear reader, tell me what you are doing with your kids in the vacation. What treats? What games? What activities? It would be lovely to hear from you.

Coming to these savoury muffins, they are perfect little bites of wholesome goodness. Flaxseed meal, sun dried tomatoes, cheese and black olives make these utterly healthy and full of fibre and protein.

My son has been crazy over olives, ever since he started eating solid foods. I think, that's one of the genetic traits passed on from his dad, who can go through a bottle of olives in a couple of days. With an olive-loving family like this, I looked up a few savoury muffin recipes in the Muffin Bible with olives in them. Adapted a couple of recipes to come up with this healthier option.

If you follow Saffron Trail on Facebook, you might have seen my notes on making sun-dried cherry tomatoes to put the 40 C Bangalore summer to good use. 4 days and you have the most beautiful salty, tangy, sweet, crispy bits of tomatoes that have captured the sun and boosted their flavour ten-fold. I used a handful of these home dried tomatoes here.

Recipe for Savoury muffins with Sun dried tomatoes, cheese and olives
Time taken - under 20 minutes
Makes 12 small muffins or 9 medium sized muffins

Ingredients
1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
150 grams of cheddar cheese or 3 Amul cheese cubes, grated
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3rd cup of sun dried tomatoes
10 black olives, chopped
10-12 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped (or any other fresh herbs like basil or thyme)

1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano

2 tbsp flaxseed meal
1/4 cup hot water
2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp salted butter + pinch of crushed dried basil

Directions:

Preheat the oven at 200C [Start oven, take temp dial to 200 and time dial to 10 minutes. At the end of 10 minutes, the oven is preheated. You will have to then set the timer as per the baking time, which is around 10 minutes here]

Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners or use individual silicone cupcake moulds, that will fit in a smaller oven.

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl with a fork.

In a measuring jug or another bowl, whisk the flaxseed meal with hot water and olive oil till frothy. Add enough water to this to make a total of one cup (which is why doing this is a measuring jug is easier).
Add this to the dry ingredients and stir gently with a fork to bring ingredients together. Too much beating or vigourous mixing will result in hard muffins.
[You can use egg instead of the above flaxseed-hot water. Beat 1 egg, add oil and add enough water at room temperature to make one cup and proceed with the recipe]

Using a spoon, evenly distribute batter between 9 or 12 muffins cups.
Bake for 10-12 minutes at 200C until a skewer comes out clean.

Melt the butter in a small microwave safe bowl for 20 seconds. Add the basil to it. Brush this on the muffin tops once they are out of the oven. Not only does this add a buttery flavour but also helps them keep moist. This is a neat trick to add that buttery taste without using any butter in the baking.

Notes:
You could even bake these in a mini muffin tray to yield 20-24 bite sized muffins for a tea party.
Feel free to change the favours - use thick pizza sauce, more fresh herbs and mozzarella cheese to make Pizza flavoured muffins. Grated carrot, pepper and cheddar is a lovely combination as well. Meat eaters can add crisped bacon bits to the batter. The options are quite endless.
Not just for kids, these muffins that are ready in a jiffy are the perfect accompaniment to a soup for a light meal, even for adults. You could make them spicier with chopped pickled jalapeños, or chopped greeen chillies and ground black pepper. Make a couple of batches and freeze / refrigerate them for breakfast on the go, for a weekday

Shopping Guide:
Ready ground flaxseed is available in most stores in Bangalore. I buy mine from Nilgiri's or Town Essentials - and refrigerate it as it can go rancid quickly.

How to make paneer and the easiest dish with paneer : Paneer Bhurji

2012-04-16T19:04:00.001+05:30

Paneer Bhurji is one dish that is good to have in your repertoire of easy, quick dishes that can be made in minutes if you stock store bought paneer. Also, a great vegetarian side to serve your guests, if you cook predominantly non-vegetarian dishes and you find it tough to handle vegetables.

Making paneer at home- you need

1 litre regular fat milk (3%)

You could also use a day old milk that you can't use in coffee / tea

2- 3 tbsp of white vinegar

A fine mesh sieve or a muslin cloth

Bring the milk to a boil.
As soon as it boils, lower the heat to minimum.

Add 2 tbsp of vinegar and stir it around. In 2-3 minutes, the milk will separate into solids and liquid (whey)- if the whey is not totally clear- then use the remaining tbsp of vinegar and stir for 2 more minutes.

Carefully hold the vessel with a pair of tongs or a thick tea towel and pour the contents through a sieve-collecting the whey in a large vessel.

Lightly press with the back of a ladle to remove excess whey from the solids.

What remains is the paneer.

For any other dish in which you need cubed paneer, you need to use a muslin cloth / clean cotton tea towel. Place the paneer in the middle, cover it on all sides, using the sides of the cloth as flaps.

Place this on a dish and place a heavy weight like a mortar pestle on top of this to flatten it out.

After 15 minutes, cube it and place it in the whey or warm water until you need to use it.

Paneer bhurji is a scramble made using paneer cheese, midly spiced with green chillies and the added texture of finely chopped onions and bell pepper.

For Paneer Bhurji, you don't need to do any of the earlier processes to get cubes. You don't even have to press out too much of the excess whey. This keeps the bhurji moist.

Recipe for Paneer Bhurji
Time taken: 15 minutes or so
Serves 3 people

Paneer from 1 L of milk

2 tsp oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Pinch of asafoetida (optional)

2 green chillies, finely sliced (or 1 if you want it mildly spicy)

1 medium onion - finely diced

1 medium green bell pepper- finely diced

Tiny pinch of turmeric powder

Directions

Heat the oil in a large steel or non stick wok.
Add the cumin and mustard seeds. Once they splutter, add the asafoetida, chillies, onion and bell pepper, with a pinch of salt.
Saute on medium flame till onions are soft-roughly 7-8 minutes.
Add the freshly made paneer. If you are using store bought paneer, crumble 200 grams and use it now.
Sprinkle tiny pinch of turmeric powder over this and mix well.
Add 1/2 tsp salt and saute well till all spices are mixed.
Remove from flame and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Serve with rotis or parathas or with toasted slices of bread.

Notes:

Use a mix of red, yellow and green bell peppers to make this dish super colourful.

You could also use crumbled tofu instead of paneer, although you need to use more chillies to make tofu taste as flavoursome as paneer.

Some people like to add boiled peas to the dish to make it more substantial and colourful.

If you are in Bombay, try the Punjab Dairy paneer or the Darshan dairy paneer. Though it has a whole lot of fat, it is one of the softest paneer I've tasted. In Bangalore, Nandini paneer is decent.

Summer salad from my garden : Carrot, greens and watermelon

2012-04-03T14:27:00.000+05:30

My first story (and photographs) for BBC Good Food India magazine covers the restaurant Chez Mariannick, in the Off the Eaten Track section. Do check the April 2012 issue. If you love good food, you must subscribe to BBC Good Food online. And I'm not saying this only because I'm writing for them. This magazine is full of inspirations for enthusiastic cooks.

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After indulging on food through the weekend (trying out new restaurants, having friends over or going out to friends' places) Sunday evenings are mostly just salad based dinners. Neither do I have the appetite or the energy or enthusiasm to cook and eat anything elaborate on a Sunday evening.
It was no different this Sunday evening, when I went up to the garden, plucked a few things, soaked them in a sink full of water.

Basket of freshly plucked produce sitting in a water bath

Come supper time, I quickly put together the ingredients to make a deliciously refreshing salad, perfect for the hot evenings in Bangalore. I must say that my salad making skills have been encouraged by two factors. One, the terrace garden that is always a source of a few fresh salad greens, and two, my two friends - Ajit & Nandini, who are full of praise for any salad I put together. So I've decided to blog more of my impulsive salad making sprees.

Growing the multi coloured carrots has been a most fun experience, because when you pull it out of the ground, you don't know which colour it is going to be. Also, the purple carrots, when peeled are yellow inside, as shown in the picture below.

The purple carrot is yellow on peeling!

Now, rocket / arugula / rucola, I'm so in love with this spicy salad green, that I simply cannot have enough of it. I've let the first batch of rocket sown grow into a jungle, literally, so I can let them go to seed and then collect the seeds to share with friends, and sow more rocket in my garden. I've been using them in every salad, made pesto, added it to pasta, and even to a mint and coriander chutney with brilliant results. I'm surprised how my crush over rocket is sustaining over the last 9 months. Some nurseries in Bangalore sell the seeds. If you are in and around Whitefield, I'd love to share some of the rocket seeds with you. It's extremely easy to grow, even in pots. Give it a try!

Summer fresh salad with Carrots, Herbs and Watermelon
Serves 2
Time taken - Under 10 minutes, apart from the time taken to wash and dry greens

Ingredients
3 medium carrots - peeled and shaved
Small bunch of fresh rocket leaves ( you can substitute any other lettuce varieties or baby spinach)
Small bunch of fresh lettuce leaves
Handful of fresh herbs like thai basil / lemon basil
Handful of fresh mint
Handful of roasted almonds
2 cups of watermelon cubes

Dressing
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar (you can substitute with red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar)
1 tsp of pesto (or use 3 tbsp finely minced/pounded basil in 1 tbsp olive oil)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp honey
Pinch of ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

Wash the greens and herbs in a sink full of water 2-3 times. Use a salad spinner to dry the leaves or spread between two clean absorbent kitchen towels for up to 30 minutes before proceeding with recipe.
I used an orange, purple and yellow carrot each because that's what was the day's harvest from my kitchen garden. You can use any carrots that are in season. I shaved them using a vegetable peeler.
Roughly chop the dried salad greens and herbs into bite sized pieces.
In a large bowl, mix the salad greens, thai basil, mint and shaved carrots. Keep aside.
Mix all the ingredient for the dressing in a small glass jam jar and give it a good shake.
Just before serving, pour the dressing over the greens-carrots in the bowl. Toss well.
Divide into two plates, top each plate with half the roasted almonds and the watermelon cubes.

Tip:
Adding grilled chicken or tofu or paneer or chickpeas will make the salad a heartier meal

[All pictures for this post taken on iPhone. I've realised that if I have to blog more often, iphone pics are my best friend :)]

Shopping notes:
All kinds of salad greens (except for rocket) are always available fresh at Namdhari's
Apple Cider Vinegar - I use Waitrose brand from Hypercity

How to make fresh pasta without a machine - Step by step pictures

2012-03-26T23:09:00.000+05:30

I made fresh pasta from scratch for dinner this evening and on a whim, I live tweeted the making of this using the hashtag #makingfreshpasta which evoked a lot of enthusiastic responses. That's the reason I decided to compile all the tweets and the pictures (iPhone camera) into a quick post. Pardon the picture quality, my iPhone was already groaning under the blanket of flour and olive oil it was being subject to!

I only want to show you how simple the procedure is, even without any fancy machines. The fettucini procedure is a bit lengthy but for starters, you could just cut squares (as in step 6), in fact that was yummier than the more labour intensive fettucini.

This recipe is vegan as it uses no eggs or butter. If you use eggs in the pasta dough, surely you'll get a richer tasting end product. If you can make rotis, you can do this handmade pasta. No sweat!

If you don't want to miss a single interesting update from my kitchen, then follow my facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/SaffronTrail - We can also have many an interesting foodie conversation there!

On to the recipe:

Vegan handmade pasta from scratch , no pasta machine required

Pasta dough adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to cook everything vegetarian

I used the recipe eggless pasta dough recipe:

2 cups AP flour ( I used 1/2 cup cornmeal and 1.5 cups AP flour along with a tbsp of dried basil)

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

½ cup hot water plus some more

Make a smooth but very firm dough by mixing flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well, add olive oil. Add 1/2 cup hot water, mix with a fork until it comes together. Knead with your hands using a tsp of hot water at a time until you get a firm, smooth dough.

Wrap in cling film.

Refrigerate for 30 mins at least.

Make 5-6 balls from the dough, and follow the given procedure with each.

Step 1 - roll each ball into a thin sheet

Step 2 - Dust with flour- Roll into cigar

Step 3 - Cut into 1/4 inch or so slices

Step 4 - Unroll each circle to a long strand

Step 5 - Keep each such batch spread out on a plate to dry for a few minutes

Step 6 - Or to save a whole lot of trouble cut into squares with a pizza cutter- kids won't mind this

Step 7 - Keep a large pot of water to boil with some salt and 2 tsp oil and drop the pasta (any one type at a time) carefully when the water is boiling. Pasta squares have come to the top indicating that they are ready to be fished out. Fresh pasta once dropped into boiling water takes 2-3 minutes to cook

Step 8 - Make any sauce you like, in advance and toss the pasta in some sauce. Serve hot.

Step 9 - The fettucini that took so much effort got cut into shorter pieces while cooking -tasted nice though

Sauce : In olive oil, saute finely chopped garlic, finely sliced small onion, 3-4 mushrooms sliced and few sliced pitted olives. Once onions are soft, add 4 tomatoes (blanched, peeled and chopped), balsamic vinegar, chilli flakes and salt. Mix in a tbsp of pesto ( I used rocket pesto) or just a handful of finely chopped basil.

Amma's Cauliflower Peas Koottu

2012-03-18T10:30:00.000+05:30

I've separated the cauliflower into florets, kept the kadai on the flame and then, I call Amma.

"...Amma, how do you make that Cauliflower koottu that you serve with rotis for dinner?"
Amma laughs.
"But there is no recipe for it. It is the easiest thing ever!"

That's how I extract recipes from my family, often on a weekly basis. So I can taste the flavours of my childhood.

This is one dish that my granny used to make in the evenings, to go with chapathis / rotis. Usually, it would be rice with sambar / rasam and curds for an early lunch before 11 am, then a tiffin time - something light like idlis, dosai, upma etc at around 4 pm and then dinner at 8 pm. Dinner would be either rice or roti. And for rotis, there would be no fancy 'punjabi' side dishes, because on most days my grandparents wont eat onions and garlic and imagine making anything 'fancy' without these two star ingredients.

As a child, this boring stew like vegetable preparation would be no incentive for the rotis. But protesting against any food was unheard of when I was a kid, so I would quietly eat what was served, carefully avoiding any second servings.

Nowadays, at mum's place, it is always rice (with various accompaniments) for lunch and roti for dinner, so when cauliflower is in season, this dish is almost always made. It is a zero-effort dish, no peeling, cutting onions or garlic, no tomatoes, no ginger even. A potato is usually added to this preparation. Heck, you don't even peel the potato for this recipe. You might wonder how boring this will taste. But there is one secret ingredient in this dish that keeps it far from boring and that is asafoetida. A much ignored and maligned seasoning, it subtly stands out in this dish, making up for the lack of more exciting flavours like onions or garlic.

This winter we got the most amazing, fresh cauliflowers in our local Hopcoms and what better thing to make than this minimalistic dish with simple ingredients. I chopped up the cauliflower into florets, cleaned them in salted water and then made a call to amma, asking her how she makes her cauliflower kootu for rotis. Technically, koottu has some kind of dal along with the vegetables. In this case, it's just easy to call it koottu as the preparation is not entirely dry like a curry.

When cauliflower is not in season, the same recipe is prepared with cubed or quartered brinjals and potatoes.

Cauliflower Peas Potato Koottu
Serves 3-4
Under 30 minutes
A simple accompaniment for Rotis

Ingredients
2 cups medium sized cauliflower florets
1/2 cup shelled fresh peas or frozen peas
1 large potato, cubed
2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
Fat pinch of asafoetida (LG asafoetida powder or Goldie's Pure Hing)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1-2 tsp sambar powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp rice flour (optional)

Directions

In a big kadai, heat the oil. Pop the mustard seeds, add the asafoetida.
Within a few seconds, add the vegetables. Toss them in the oil.
Add salt, 3/4 cup water, turmeric powder, sambar powder.
Cover with a tight fitting lid and cook on medium heat for around 8 minutes. The vegetables should be just tender and not mushy. If the water dries out in between, add 1/4 cup water to aid cooking.
In the end there should be a few tablespoons of watery 'gravy' in the dish, not fully dry. So adjust water accordingly while cooking.
If you find the end result too watery, then make a slurry of 1 tsp rice flour in a tbsp of cold water, add to the vegetables and bring to a simmer. Remove from flame and serve hot with phulkas.

Minimalistic recipes like these really bring out the flavour of the vegetables due to the use of very few spices. So it is important that the vegetables you use are a 100% fresh. Try it with eggplant and potato, which are in season all year round. If you don't have homemade sambar powder, borrow from a Tambrahm friend or if you rely on any brand that comes close to the authentic taste do share in the comments. You could try making your own sambar powder from our authentic tambrahm recipes blog.

Masala Vadai from a tea shop in Mannargudi : Guest post by Bharath M.

2012-03-15T11:05:00.002+05:30

A few days ago, Nandini & Ajit, Bharath and me decided to cook up a mega Tambrahm feast for dinner. The menu was:

Cucumber Salad
Masala Vadai
Seppankizhangu Roast
Cabbage Koottu
Radish arachuvitta Sambar
Jeera Rasam
Vetthakozhambu
Arisi Appalam
Banana Chips (from Hot Chips)
Curds
Rice
Semia Payasam

Out of this list of delicious items, it was Bharath's Masala Vadai that stood out. He got the batter ready at his place in the morning, refrigerated in his office and got it to my place by evening, where he fried the vadai fresh and served it with drinks. Such delicious vadais, I've never tasted. I pestered him enough to share the recipe, so I may do the first guest post ever, on my blog, in six years!

Bharath in the kitchen

Bharath is a train enthusiast, an impulsive traveller, amazing photographer and a most evocative writer. Go through his blog Puri Subzi and you will know what I mean. And more than anything, he has grown to be a friend I can always depend on. And in his own words, he is a "Photographer of faces, writer of bus travels, driver of trains, lover of pongal, purveyor of seedy bars."

So here's Bharath's Masala Vadai for you, written in his own words...

Masala Vadai - Freshly fried

"...but this is against TamBrahm culture. How can you put onions and garlic in an aamavadai?", my amusement disguised as a protest.

"Sssh, this is not aamavadai. It's a masala vadai. The inspiration comes from some tea shop in Mannargudi", my mother's indignant voice peaking.

"You had masala vadai from a tea shop in Mannargudi?", I bait

"Please don't be so righteous. Everyone eats from weird places once in a while. Now shut up and tell me how it tastes"

Crisp. Light. Golden brown and d-e-l-c-i-o-u-s. "I am sold, ma, I am sold". That chubby grin finally shows itself.

It may be against TamBrahm way of life, but by god, this vadai is brilliant. Goes well with beer. Or a single malt.

Here's how you put it together (I've made a few changes to the basic recipe from my mother's original)

Ingredients

For the batter:
2 1/2 cups channa dal (soaked in slightly salted water for a good 4-5 hours)
1 teaspoon saunf (fennel seeds)
1/4 inch ginger
3 cloves of garlic
A generous pinch of black pepper powder

For the flavouring mix:
1/4 inch ginger, finely cut
2 cloves of garlic, finely cut
2 largish green chillis, finely cut
A handful of coriander and mint, coarsely cut
1 large red onion diced finely (2 if they are small to medium)
Salt to taste
A small pinch of red chilli powder (if you need the extra kick)

For the frying:

Some groundnut oil or rice bran oil.

Method

Drain the water completely from the soaked channa dal. Dunk the, by now slightly soft, dal into a mixer along with the fennel seeds and the rest of batter ingredients. Add a tablespoon of water and start grinding. Initially for about 20 sec and then pulse 3 times for about 5 sec each. The batter by now should be quite coarse and the fennel, garlic, ginger and pepper incorporated. If the batter resembles a gooey paste, then you've gone too far. The ideal batter should have a mix of pulped dal, coarse dal and almost whole dal. Scoop out a bit in your hand - if it feels grainy and stony, then it's perfect.
Transfer the batter to a large mixing bowl and refrigerate for 30 min.
Chop all the flavouring mix ingredients according to the instructions above.
Remove the batter from the fridge and all the flavour mix, except for the onions and salt. Let this now rest until you are ready to fry them up.
2-3 min before you ready to fry, add the onions and salt and give everything a thorough swirl.
Heat the oil and drop a small roundel of the batter to test. If it raises to the top, the temperature is right and you can start.
If you are comfortable patting the batter nice and thin, please do so, else shape it into small roundels. The later is much easier if you are doing all of this on your own!
Fry until a nice golden brown.

Serve with either coconut or coarse coriander chutney.

Six years and counting

2012-03-13T10:43:00.002+05:30

It was in March 2006 that I gingerly typed out the first few words of this food blog. I had no clue what this would turn into. I wasn't even aware that what I was doing would be called 'foodblogging' - though it does seem to be the obvious term for it now.

I got connected with the other early food bloggers from India and abroad. Some of my favourite blogs in my first year of blogging were Mahanandi, Sailu's Food, One Hot Stove, Fat Free Vegan and What's For Lunch Honey. Over the last few years, food blogging became quite a phenomenon, with every home cook documenting his / her recipes (and why not?) - so much so, that at last count, our Bangalore Food Bloggers Group on Facebook has 75 members. 75 foodbloggers in Bangalore city alone (!!), and may be many more who aren't a part of the group.

I've managed to meet quite a few food bloggers in the last six years and some of them are my dearest friends today, friendship tempered by the love of food. I've gone on long blogging breaks, the audience has possibly changed but there's something that's always brought me back. It's quite impossible to abandon a baby like that.

Saffron Trail was recently nominated in the category of Best Healthy Cooking Blog in the Homies 2012 and it was an honour to be nominated with my blogger batch mates like Susan from Fat Free Vegan. Also, words of appreciation from people who try my recipes, a pat on the back from local publications, chefs and fellow foodies respecting you for the persistence in doing something you are passionate about-all of the above keeps me going in making this blog a better place for food lovers to visit.

I think I'm finally finding my blogging groove back so do keep checking back for more from my kitchen (and garden).

On growing strawberries and recipe for Eggless Strawberry Yogurt Cake

2012-03-10T17:25:00.000+05:30

My three year old son and me have a morning routine nowadays. After his drink of milk, we go to the garden and check if there's any red peeking out of the strawberry patch. If we didn't do this, the squirrels and ants, who have been blessed with a better foraging sense than us human beings, will get to the juicy berries before we do. We don't get too much, but a small handful a day, to add to cereal or to make a couple of muffins, or to eat as it is. The latter doesn't happen often as I am not very tolerant to acidic fruits and I'm yet to taste lusciously sweet strawberries grown in India. Here, strawberry needs sugar as a partner to make it more palatable.

But, however little, that sense of joy we get from having watched something grow for nearly eight months, and finally bearing fruit, is such a fulfilling one. These strawberry saplings were planted in June and they quickly propagated and covered the ground, but there was not a single flower in sight even after six months. The newbie gardener that I am, I quickly lost hope. Patience is clearly not one of my virtues, hence I stand to benefit a lot from gardening. I am slowly learning that nature doesn't work at the speed of a 4Mbps internet connection. It takes its own sweet time. And what sweeter time than spring time? I don't need my neighbours to drench me in permanent colours (albeit organic) and hose me with tons of water, to announce the arrival of spring (I'm talking about the one festival I dread, Holi). The new blooms and fruits in my garden had already whispered to me a few weeks ago that spring is not far away...

Just plucked strawberries basking in the morning sun

A few years ago, if someone told me that I could grow strawberries in India, I would have laughed it off. But Bangalore weather is somehow to conducive to growing almost anything. Like my friend @abithaanandh tweeted this morning -

"Am willing to overlook 11pm deadlines,bad infrastructure,forever 90s music loop- all 4 those few precious hrs in the garden! Tk U #Bangalore"

It is so true. I'll continue to grow strawberries next year too. I'm told they bear better fruit in the 2nd and 3rd year. Only, I'll be growing them in hanging baskets, so I dont have to compete with the ants to pluck the fruit!

I've been wanting to bake a strawberry cake for a while now. Not the types where the fruit is pureed in, but stands out like red jewels, slightly mushy from the baking and a burst of flavour in the mouth, when you bite into it. And somehow, I wanted to pair it with yogurt as I couldn't use eggs in this. A Foodblogsearch didn't find me the kind of recipe I had in mind, so I did my own improvisation. Yesterday afternoon, just before the baking session, I found a bottle of strawberry essence at Nilgiri's, so the fruit, the essence and the jam made the taste pretty intense, but not in the cloying sort of way.

The recipe I'm sharing with you seems to be the most low-fat and healthiest version among all those that I went through as a result of my various searches.

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This is a tea cake or a weekend breakfast cake. I'm not asking you to believe that it's dessert. Umm...may be with ice cream, yes :)

The texture was very moist and delicate despite not using eggs or butter.
Do give it a try before the strawberry season bids us a goodbye.

Recipe for Strawberry-Yogurt Cake
Eggfree / Eggless / Lowfat
Tea time or breakfast cake
Makes 1 tall 8" cake

Ingredients

¾ cup yogurt
¼ cup milk (skimmed or toned, as you prefer)

¼ cup rice bran oil (or any cooking oil)
¾ cup sugar
2 generous tablespoons of strawberry or mixed fruit jam
1 tsp Strawberry essence or mixed fruit essence (gives a more fruitier flavour, if you don’t have either, use vanilla extract 1 tsp)

1.5 cups all purpose flour OR 1 cup AP flour + ½ cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt

Roughly 1 cup finely diced strawberries
Handful of tutti-frutty (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven at 180 C

Grease an 8” round cake tin. If using silicon pan, no need to grease.

In one bowl, whisk the oil, yogurt, milk, sugar and jam.

In another big bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well. Add the whisked wet ingredients. Fold until they come together. Over enthusiastic beating / whisking is better avoided.

Towards the end, fold in chopped berries and tutti-fruity.

Scrape the batter into the greased tin / silicon mould and bake at 180 C for around 45-55 minutes, checking with a tester if it comes out clean.

After 10 minutes, unmould and cool on a wire rack.

Cut into wedges, dust with icing sugar and serve with tea.

The same recipe will work with raspberries or blueberries to make a blueberry yogurt cake or a raspberry yogurt cake.

See what people have to say about this cake! (via Twitter)

Dear @saffrontrail i tried your strawberry yogurt cake recipe and it came it out so well. Thanks :) — Marie Gold (@OyeMaria) March 11, 2012

@saffrontrail Love your blog.Just baked your eggless strawberry yogurt cake ,its superb!wanted to thankyou.Hope you wud reciprocate!:)
— nitisha kashyap (@nitishakashyap) March 11, 2012

Cake done. Waiting to cool ! @saffrontrailI can't find you on FB so the update is here! twitter.com/thingyimajig/s… — MushyPeas (@thingyimajig) March 10, 2012

@saffrontrail hey, just made the strawberry yoghurt cake.. came out amazing! I just wished my strawberries weren't so sour though :-( — Priya A (@priya_arun) March 9, 2012

@saffrontrail Yeah... Sounds like a healthy cake. Will probably make it before the strawberry season ends. — LoveFoodEat (@chinmayiebhat) March 11, 2012

Tempted to bake @saffrontrail's strawberry yoghurt cake tonight. But waistline concerns are there : — S (@wastrelette) March 11, 2012

On how the monstrous zucchini got Tambrahm-ised

2012-03-08T17:30:00.001+05:30

[Those who voted for me and got me into the final 6 Healthy Cooking Blogs, thank you! In the finals, my blog as of now is 5th. Feels kinda pointless asking to vote now as the better blogs lead by tons of votes, but if you've loved my work here, go ahead and vote for me. Directions here ]

My garden always surprises me. Which is why I like to take my morning tea up to my terrace garden, perch myself on one of the tiny stone benches and sharing that morning moment with the plants to the background music of the birds. While I try to get a few sips of my tea, a little fruit, a new flower and small shoot will beckon me to admire it. And I will go take a look at them while my tea sits on the bench going cold. Every morning, a new surprise, however little, that makes me smile and sets the mood for the rest of my day. It is an exercise in positivity. Many flowering plants that I assumed were dead, suddenly start showing signs of life as spring is round the corner. My lavender bushes, since 9 months didn't show one sign of flowering and I thought "Damn! The nursery fooled me with a non flowering variety!" And I was proved wrong when the prettiest lavender flowers bloomed this month. If there is a tiny bit of life left in the plant, come spring time and it will revive. What's more beautiful in life than hope, after all?

And then sometimes a garden makes you laugh out loud. Like this monstrously huge zucchini that had been hiding under the huge leaves for nearly a month, that had missed my keen scrutiny each morning only to be found by my driver a few days ago. He showed me this green thing nearly as big as a new born baby-and I shuddered! And then laughed so hard when I knew that it was indeed a zucchini that had hidden away from all prying eyes and grown so big~nearly 2.5 kilos.

Not to show off my (old) iPhone but to give you size perspective :)
This is after a third of the zucchini has been chopped off

I kept it on my table to admire it's beauty for the first 2 days, then it spent a few more days in the refrigerator. When other vegetables came in from the supermarket, this big fellow could no more occupy precious refrigerator real estate and he had to be brought out.

The husband is not a big fan of zucchinis and though we had shared enough jokes about how big this sly vegetable had grown, his enthusiasm stopped there. When I was cutting it up this morning, he said, "Please, I don't want this for lunch." Since there are very few things he doesn't like, I usually indulge his whims, but this time, I just smiled and said "We will see."

Over the six years that I've been food blogging, I've seen several bloggers making Zucchini thogayal. But zucchini, in India, has always retailed at around Rs.100 a kilo. At that price, why on earth would I want to puree it to death in a blender. I wanted to see and enjoy this vegetable in salads, pasta and such. But thogayal, no way!

But when you have a 5 pounder zucchini sitting on your counter top, the thogayal did indeed seem like a good idea. And boy, did it taste good or what.

Zucchini Thogayal and Zucchini Curry (both recipes below)

For the uninitiated, thogayal or thuvaiyal is a Tambrahm style of converting mildly unpalatable vegetables (Chow-chow, pumpkins, ridge gourds, bottle gourds etc) into chutneys so Tambrahm uncles will mumble good things about the food even if they are eating some vegetable they don't like. Many blogs will say you can eat Thogayal on bread or with idli or dosai or chapathi or pasta or just about anything. I wont say they are lying. But there is only one way to really savour this. Hot rice, gingelly oil (yes, oil and NOT ghee) and thogayal and a roasted appalam on the side.

And the zucchini hating husband tasted some of it, hesitantly, after he had eaten beans curry-rice and rasam and said "Please keep some for me, I want to eat this for dinner."

I guess after this, I can well call this 5 pounder- 'Zucchini Iyer'.

Ingredients

2 medium sized green zucchinis

1/4 cup scraped fresh or frozen coconut

a tiny piece of tamarind soaked in 2-3 tsp of water

2.5 tsp gingelly oil or any other cooking oil

2 tbsp + 1 tsp udad dal

4 medium dried red chillies

1/2-3/4 tsp salt

2 sprigs curry leaves

Fat pinch asafoetida

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1 green chilli

Directions

Chop the zucchini into medium sized cubes. No need to peel the skin.
Heat 1/2 tsp oil in a pan. Add 2 tbsp udad dal and red chillies and saute on medium heat until the udad dal is golden brown. Remove onto a plate and cool for few minutes.
Heat the remaining 1 tsp oil in same pan. On high heat, scald the chopped zucchini by tossing it around for a minute or so.
Reduce the flame, add 1/4 cup water, pinch of salt, cover and cook till zucchini is tender and fully cooked.
In small mixer-grind the fried udad dal-red chillies, soaked tamarind and coconut to coarse paste. To this add the cooled cooked zucchini, salt and scrape the sides of the mixer and grind to a paste. Remove this into a bowl.
Heat 1-2 tsp oil in a tempering ladle or small kadai. Add pinch of asafoetida, mustard seeds, once they splutter, add curry leaves and udad dal. Wait for dal to turn golden and transfer the tempering over the thogayal.

Notes

Traditionally a lot more coconut is used, so you could use as much as your health consciousness permits.

If you know this one recipe, you will have at least one way to deal with most of the vegetables that the world at large considers boring.

Another way to Tambrahm-ise Zucchini : Zucchini Curry

A small clarification here. In Tambrahm cooking, a curry is not a gravy dish that Brits seem to love. It's a simply prepared dry saute with minimal spices and the star being the tempering. I pressure cooked this for a bit as it was a mature zucchini, if your's is tender, you can simply add it raw and cover and cook till done.

Place 1.5 cups of zucchini pieces (small) in a container in a pressure cooker. Don't add water to zucchini. Pressure cook for one whistle.
In a kadai, heat 2 tsp oil. Add pinch of asafoetida, 2 dried red chillies, 1 tbsp udad dal, few curry leaves, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds and saute till udad dal is golden.
To this add the cooked (or raw) zucchini, pinch of turmeric (optional), salt and toss gently to coat with tempering, on a low flame.
Add a bit of fresh coconut and it's ready to serve. Those who find this very bland can add 1-2 tsp of sambar powder or rasam powder towards the end and give it another toss.

See what people on Twitter have to say:

@saffrontrail thanks for reminding about this , though I didn't add tamarind and also didn't grind it fine .SuperIt is fb.me/1FlmX3yKa
— monika (@monikamanchanda) March 10, 2012

Homies 2012 Finalist in Best Healthy Food Blog- Need your Votes

2012-03-05T16:52:00.002+05:30

Thank you for responding to my appeal on my blog, FB page, Twitter and Facebook. Despite getting nominated with 2 days to spare, I made it into the final round of voting.

I need all your support (and votes) to win this. The voting process is a little cumbersome if you dont have an apartment therapy website log-in. So here's taking you through the process:

First, click here and go to the voting page for the Healthy Cooking Blog finalists.

If you already voted for me in the previous round, use that same Twitter/Facebook id to directly sign in and vote - using the 'SIGN IN' link on the page.

REGISTER
If you don't have an existing sign in, then you have to register by clicking the 'Register' link.

Register your email id and password as shown below

SIGN-IN

Get back to the voting page link and click Sign in with your mail id and password

VOTE

Now you can vote for me...

It isn't as complicated as it seems, just register, sign back into the voting page and vote for me.

A big thank you, to my friend Punita for helping me with the screenshots!

Nominated for the Best Healthy Cooking Blog - Homies 2012

2012-03-01T10:45:00.000+05:30

This is one of the rare occasions in the last six years that I've been blogging, I'm kicked enough to do some self-promotion and ask you to vote for me as the Best Healthy Cooking Blog in the Homies 2012 awards conducted by thekitchn.com - This is the first time they have a Healthy Cooking Blog category in their awards and I'm happy that my blog fits the bill quite neatly.

The voting process is a little tedious, you need to log in with your twitter or facebook id over here
and then go to the nominations page here for Healthy Cooking Blogs, search for 'Saffron Trail' and vote for me.

This is the first round of voting for nominations which is open until March 1 (midnight EST) after which the top six contenders will be open to votes once again.

Looking forward to your support!

Once again - the links

To log in - http://community.apartmenttherapy.com/sign_in

The voting page - http://www.thekitchn.com/best-healthy-cooking-blog-nominations-the-homies-2012-166622

Thanks a lot!

Raw banana (plantain) kababs

2012-02-24T22:30:00.000+05:30

Vazhakka or plantain is one of my favourite vegetables. There are at least three favourite ways I make this in true Tambrahm style. One is a roast, where it is sliced thinly and slow roasted until it turns crispy. The other way to make it is to cube it, cook it and saute it with whole red chillies, udad dal, mustard seeds and curry leaves with a garnish of coconut. The third one is a vazhakka podimaas. All three taste yummy with rasam-rice or mor kozhambu and rice.

Since there are three yummy ways to make this vegetable, I rarely end up making anything else. This time I picked up the plantains with the sole idea of making kababs so they don't end up in one of my favourite curries. I did a quick google search for plantain kababs and the one that appealed most was from Vah Chef Sanjay Thumma. Mine is an adaptation of that recipe.

Kababs are best served with roomali rotis, which are not that difficult to make at home provided you have a tough aluminium/ cast iron kadai that you can turn upside down on the flame and cook the roti on the upturned kadai. Please don't try this with your expensive teflon coated non-stick kadai.

Also, there is no need to indulge in the dramatics of the chef in the Punjabi restaurants of the 80s and 90s where they would throw a roomali roti in the air in open buffet counters to grab the interest of the diners.

Roomali Roti

For the dough, I use a mix of 3 parts atta and 1 part maida, salt and water, rest it for 30 minutes and then roll them out into big sized rotis as thin as i possibly can. I cook this on the upturned kadai kept over a big flame for a few seconds until golden spots appear and repeat on the other side. Fold into quarters and keep in airtight casserole until ready to eat.

Carrot-Radish-Rocket Salad

You can serve this with sliced onions soaked in vinegar for some 30 minutes. I shredded a radish, carrot and sliced a small bunch of rocket leaves-dressed it with lemon juice, salt, pepper and tiny pinch of sugar. It tastes better if you cover this bowl and leave it in the fridge for sometime.

Dinner is served

Recipe for Raw Banana Kababs
Makes 16-20 1" kababs

Ingredients
2 raw bananas
1 potato
1 medium carrot
3 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1/4 cup grated paneer / tofu
handful of finely chopped coriander
1 heaped tsp amchoor powder
1-1.5 tsp salt

Dry roast till fragrant:
1 tsp caraway seeds (shahjeera) or cumin seeds
1 tsp aniseed (saunf)
1 tsp coriander seeds
5-6 whole black peppers
4 cloves
2 green cardamoms

Once cooled, grind to fine powder in spice grinder

Directions:
Halve the raw bananas. Place 1 L water to boil and put the halved bananas. Boil for around 10 minutes, until bananas are tender. Remove from water. Cool, peel and grate.

Pressure cook potato, peel and grate.

Peel carrot and grate.

Add the grated raw banana, potato, carrot along with all the other ingredients included freshly ground spice powder and 1-1.5 tsp salt to the mix and knead until all ingredients are well mixed to make a smooth dough.

Roll into small lemon sized balls and flatted on palm to make 1" sized patties. Place on hot greased tava and cook on medium flame until golden brown. Flip and cook on other sized for 5-7 minutes until golden, adding some oil around the sides, if required.

Serve with roomali roti, salad and chutneys.

I served it with a simple shredded radish-carrot-rocket salad seasoned with salt, sugar, pepper & lemon juice and spicy green chutney.

Morkeerai or Spinach and yogurt stew : Garden to plate

2012-02-18T15:24:00.000+05:30

TamBrahm cooking or the recipes from Tamil Brahmin households could well vary from house to house. While I've eaten Tambrahm food all through my growing years (albeit sometimes reluctantly) - when this recipe for Morkeerai came to me for posting in Tambrahmrage Cooks - I was surprised I've never eaten this. I'd never even heard my grandmum, aunts or mum mention this ever.

Spinach patch

Chilli Plant

Plucked and ready for the recipe

Spinach seeds

Since we have having a good crop of spinach and chillies currently in our small terrace garden, this seemed like the perfect way to use freshly grown produce. The procedure to make this Mor-Keerai (more:buttermilk and Keerai:spinach in Tamil) seemed to be like that for Mor-Kozhambu. Grind fresh spice paste with coconut, add it to sour yogurt / thick buttermilk and bring to a simmer. Spinach was an addition to the regular mor-kozhambu recipe.

I loved the subtle flavours of this stew. You can use any seasonal fresh greens such as amaranth, water amaranth, agathi keerai or Bathua. I have promptly passed this recipe on to my mom.

More Keerai served with Carrot Curry and Brown Rice

Recipe for Mor Keerai
Spinach and yogurt stew
Serves 3-4
Originally posted on our other blog

Ingredients
2 tbsp chana dal
1 tbsp raw rice
1/3 - 1/2 cup coconut scrapings
2 sprigs curry leaves
Handful of coriander leaves
4-6 green chillies
2 cups thick yogurt
3 packed cups of finely chopped spinach leaves
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp udad dal
pinch of asafoetida
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp pure coconut oil (optional)

Directions

1. Soak 2 tbsp chana dal and 1 tbsp rice for about half hour.

2. Grind to a fine paste:

1/3 - 1/2 cup coconut scrapings 2 sprigs curry leavesHandful of coriander leaves4-6 green chillies-depending on how spicy they are& the soaked chana dal and rice.

3. Mix this paste into roughly 2 cups of thick sour yogurt

4. Wash and finely chop spinach leaves to get 3 cups packed

5. In a kadai, heat 1 tsp oil-temper 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 2 tsp udad dal and pinch of asafoetida. Add chopped spinach with a pinch of salt. Saute for a few minutes until wilted. Sprinkle some water and let the spinach cook thoroughly.

6. Add the curds with spice paste to the cooked spinach and salt as required. Once this starts frothing, remove from flame and garnish with pure coconut oil. Dont let the curds boil or it will split.

Serve with hot rice and a vegetable curry.

Black eyed peas curry with fresh ground masala

2012-02-06T12:40:00.004+05:30

Do you follow the Tambrahmrage Blog? If not, check it out now so you are not deprived of the laughs we have been having over the last few months. I am happy to announce that Saffrontrail along with the Tambrahmrage blogger have started another blog called Tambrahmrage Cooks. It is traditional tamil brahmin cooking served with dollops of ~~sambar~~ humour and real audio files means that you literally hear the recipes from the Maamis' mouths.

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This post is hot off my kitchen counter. I made this for lunch today and one taste of it finally made me shake off my blogging lethargy. My generous self felt that this recipe MUST be shared with the world at large. And here it is for you...

You can use any beans for this curry. Some of them I can think of are dried peas (white / green), green moong, whole masoor, moth beans, rajma beans, fresh lablab (mocchai) or anything else. Simple rule to remember is, if the beans are dried, soak them overnight.

Red Chauli - Dry (click for a larger picture)

Fresh beans like mocchai can be pressure cooked without soaking. 4 hours should do for the smaller varieties like moong, masoor, moth, black eyed peas (white/red), while the bigger beans like rajma or dried peas do well with an overnight soak.

Black Eyed Peas Curry with fresh ground masala
Time taken - Under 30 minutes with a pressure cooker
Serves 3-4

Ingredients
3/4 cup black eyed peas (I used the red Chauli)
3 medium tomatoes

To be ground into a paste:
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped roughly
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh coconut
2 tsp coriander seeds
3 dried red chillies
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 medium cinnamon stick
3-4 cloves

1 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
asafoetida
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garam masala powder or 1 tsp rasam/sambar powder

Lots of finely chopped fresh coriander

Directions
Use a pressure cooker with separators. In one compartment, place the rehydrated peas with just enough water to cover.
Halve the tomatoes and place in another compartment. No water required in this.
You can cook rice in the third compartment if you want to serve this curry with rice. Pressure cook for 2 whistles and keep on sim for 5-7 minutes and remove from flame. Open when cool enough.
The peas should be cooked to very soft but maintain their shape. Tug off the tomato skins, mash with fingers and keep aside.
In a large kadai, heat 1 tbsp oil, add 1 tsp cumin seeds, fat pinch of asafoetida. Once the cumin splutters, add the ground paste to the oil and fry on medium flame for around 5 minutes, until oil separates and the onion and garlic is cooked off.
To the cooked paste, add the cooked black eyed peas and the mashed tomatoes. Add turmeric, salt and garam masala powder. Bring to a simmer. Add some water if it is too dry. Let this simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from flame and add fresh coriander.

If you don't have / use / like a pressure cooker-
Boil the soaked beans in plenty of water for around 45 minutes (until really soft) and blanche the tomatoes in boiling water, peel and mash them with fingers-proceed with recipe.

Serve with steamed rice or rotis.

The fresh mocchai beans are still in season. You must give this recipe a try with them. No soaking required, directly pressure cook as directed above.

Celery Rice with Orange Zest

2011-12-18T15:04:00.000+05:30

Bite-Sized Post No.2

Celery has to be one of the most fragrant vegetables of them all. It is possibly an acquired taste, but a tiny bit added to salads or soups does its job. I got a fresh bunch of celery with beautiful greens in my home-delivered vegetables yesterday and I wanted to use them before they wilted. This recipe is a great way to use a whole bunch of celery, which is very high on nutritive value, especially fibre.

This rice is a good variation to regular pulao, and it goes well with both Indian curries and 'continental' style baked vegetables. It is mild enough to serve to young kids too. The orange zest provides just that tinge of citrus in the background and will keep your guests guessing as to what's that mystery aroma in the dish!

We had this with a mixed seasonal winter vegetables curry, recipe of which I shall blog soon.

Click on image to enlarge

If you are lucky to find celery bunch with roots intact, chop off the stems leaving an inch of stem above the root, place in a jar of water for a week or so until new roots appear and then stick it into a pot with good soil. You will have your own supply of celery for soups and salads.

Easy Jam Filled Muffins - A perfect kiddie treat

2011-12-16T13:55:00.000+05:30

December is a hectic month. Socializing, vacation plans, festive madness all around. More so for me as it was my son's 3rd birthday on 4 December and I took on myself what only a few crazy (foodblogger) moms would - ie. Catering to a small crowd of some 18 kids and 2 dozen adults all by myself (a couple of things ordered from outside though, including the cake) and also hand making all the decorations and buntings.

A & N got the most amazing cookies to the party which had the kids all quiet and focussed on eating. They were called World Peace cookies by Dorie Greenspan for a reason, but given that we had kids from a few different countries from around the world, it was almost like the World Peace cookies were being served to a mini UN delegation (which is what our friend Vinod remarked). Since I went through quite some dilemma on what to serve in a kiddie's birthday party with adults, I'm sharing the menu with you, in case any of you plan to do the same, it can give you an idea.

Jelly Boats were a big hit with the kids (and some adults too)

Kids' Menu
Juices
Potato wafers
Banana- Blueberry Bread
World Peace Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cucumber Sticks
Tomato Cheese Spread Sandwiches
Jam Sandwiches
Jelly Boats (Tarla Dalal's recipe)

Kokum Sherbet in recycled Olive / Jalapeño bottles

For Moms & Dads
Kokum sherbet with mint sprigs
Masala Chai (was perfect for the outdoors on a cold winter afternoon)
Rosemary Shortbread
Peanut Butter Brownies (Rachel Allen's recipe)
Hummus with Cucumber Sticks
Kachori with sweet chutney
Jalebis

Everyone, including me had loads of fun and the food was well liked by everyone. The rosemary shortbread was the star for me. What an amazing discovery from the NYTimes website! I have made another batch within a week and nearly everyone whom I've shared it with is in love with this buttery-melt in your mouth-dainty smelling cookie. Because I am a good girl and I believe in sharing, here is the recipe link for you. Remember me for good karma when people want to kiss your fingers after eating this.

Another fun thing that happened this week and it was to get featured in Bangalore TimeOut, complete with a picture of me in my ~~cluttered~~ not so spic-n-span kitchen. But that's how busy kitchens look like, right? Right! If you subscribe to Bangalore Time Out, check out Page 62.

Back to the subject of this post, these jam filled muffins are a wonderful treat for your kids. Imagine the surprise in their eyes when they break open a plain boring-looking muffin to find their favourite jam oozing out, like a cute Jack in the Box.

Not just kids, I'm sure adults will love it too. Especially if you fill a little adult something inside, like Orange Marmalade or Vodka-infused Jam (Ideas credit : Monika, Sin-a-mon)

I made these in 30 minutes to surprise a friend on her birthday. So it's something you can rustle up in a jiffy even when your kid brings his/her friends home without a notice ;) The muffins were soft and mildly sweet to contrast the sweet jammy filling inside. And a little dusting of icing sugar makes everything look pretty.

Jammy muffin with little extra bit of bitter marmalade for me

Jam Filled Muffins
Adapted from Muffin Bible
Makes 12 regular sized muffins or
24 mini muffins
Printable version of recipe

Ingredients
1 ½ Cups All purpose flour
½ Cup Sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda

¼ Cup Butter
½ Cup yogurt
¾ Cup Juice (Use one that matches with the jam flavour. I used Dark Grapes juice)
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Jam (upto 12 tsp, I used black currant jam)
Icing sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven.
Line a 12 muffin tin with paper liners or grease well and keep aside.

In a large bowl, mix well (with a fork) flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar.

In a microwave safe glass bowl, melt butter (20 seconds).
Add to this cold yogurt, juice and vanilla extract.
Check if this mix has come to room temperature and then add one beaten egg.
(If you add egg to hot melted butter, it will scramble, hence the precaution)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and lightly combine with a fork until they come together. Do NOT beat or overmix. This will make your muffins rock like.

Spoon a little over a tsp of batter in each muffin liner. Place around a tsp of jam over this and cover with 1-2 tsp of batter, dividing the batter evenly between 12 cups.

Bake at 180 C for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. (some melted jam may stick to skewer, but that is okay)

Remove and dust with icing sugar.

Tip:

Please note that I added little under a tsp of jam as I thought the jam would melt inside the oven itself and make the muffins look messy. Turns out I was wrong. You can be generous with the jam filling, and it wont spill out as most of the liquid part gets absorbed into the muffin while baking.

In case you want to know where i found the pretty muffin liners - they are from General Food Additives, Sheshadripuram, Bangalore. That one little shop can take care of your baking needs completely.

Oven Crisped Bhindi (okra)

2011-11-24T14:08:00.001+05:30

Bite-Sized Post No.1

To make sure I am blogging more frequently, I'm going to do these bite-sized posts. These are recipe cards made using iPhone pics and coming straight to the recipe without any (much) rambling.

Who doesn't like fried Bhindi / Okra? But truth is okra can soak in a whole oil tank to get crisp. Here's my almost no-oil (compared to the deep frying method) method to get crispy crunchy okra in minutes. Even if you are the lucky ones who doesn't need to watch your waist line, deep frying is such a hassle. So here's the cheat code.

The only thing you need to be careful about is the baking time. At 200 C, once the slices have browned, they can get charred in no time. So, please keep a watch post the 8-9 min mark.

I made this for lunch today to go on top of my (boring) tomato-cucumber-dill salad. And it did take the salad up by several notches.

Text Version Recipe of Crispy Bhindi

Wash bhindi and pat dry.
Thinly slice them.
Take 2 cups sliced bhindi.
Preheat oven.
Heat 2 tsp oil in wok.
Add bhindi slices, toss well to coat with oil.
Line a 10X10 baking tray with foil.
Spread bhindi slices in single layer.
Bake at 200 C for 10-12 minutes until it turns golden brown.
Remove, cool for 2 minutes and use in raita, as salad topping or just like that.
You can sprinkle salt / chaat masala on it once cooled.

(Picture formatted in Instagram)

Lasagna Verde with roasted vegetables and tomato-mushroom sauce

2011-11-19T10:28:00.000+05:30

If there is one country I want to visit, it is Italy. For its wine, its food and the culture. La Cucina Italiana...I find beauty in this food. The vibrant colours, flavours that burst in your mouth tantalizing your taste buds, the freshness of simple ingredients like a raw tomato, fresh mozzarella cheese and locally extracted olive oil, just writing about these is making my mouth water. And how can I leave out Basil? There is NO aroma dearer to me that that of a freshly plucked sweet Italian basil leaf crushed between my finger tips. It transports me to the romance of that far off land.

Needless to say, when I got the chance of growing my own little vegetable and herb garden, I pleaded, blackmailed, sweet-talked friends into getting me basil seeds when they were coming from abroad. This was the first thing I wanted to grow. And now, I have 4 Indian varieties and 3 other varieties for cooking purposes (Sweet, Thai & Lemon Basil) For those who don't have generous friends like mine, Namdhari's in Bangalore sells freshly packed sweet basil, so fresh that when i get back home from the shop with a packet of basil in my shopping bag, the car smells like i'm in a basil field. Namdhari's also sells basil saplings at very reasonable costs. The kind of sunshine we get in India, it is not a tough one to grow at all.

Coming back to this recipe, lasagna was one of the things I was always scared to make. While I make regular pasta almost twice a week, this was more of a fear of the unknown or the mental block to cooking a dish that has a number of steps. This was my second attempt and except for the pasta sheets which could be more cooked that they were, the tastes in each bite were quite beautiful. Next time, I want to roll out my own pasta sheets. Lasagna sheets should be the easiest pasta to make by hand, given that we are good at rolling out the thinnest of rotis!

The number of steps can seem intimidating, but the sauce can be made ahead, the vegetables roasted ahead of time. What remains is the grated cheese and the assembly, which is hardly time consuming.

This for me is a perfect weekend dinner paired with a very simple salad and a glass of red wine. I made this for our little impromptu dinner with Nandini & Ajit and they offered me constructive feedback like starting the layering with some watery sauce at the bottom of the pan so the steam from it will cook the upper pasta layers as it bakes in the oven. I have incorporated in the recipe.

The components
Around 9 sheets of lasagna
Tomato Sauce
Roasted vegetables
Grated Cheese ( I used Britannia's Pizza cheese)
Baking tin / glass bakeware
Some more fresh herbs

Making the tomato sauce
8 large tomatoes
5-6 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion
1cup finely sliced button mushrooms
Salt
Handful of fresh basil leaves, finely sliced
1/4 cup red wine (optional)

Place 2 litres of water in a 4L pot. Bring to a boil. Slit crosses on top of tomatoes and gently put them in boiling water. Once the water comes back to a boil, switch off the flame and cover for 5 minutes. Fish out the tomatoes from hot water at the end of 5 minutes, place it in a bowl to get cool. Peel the skins, finely chop and keep aside.

In a large wok, heat 1 tbsp olive oil on a low flame. Before oil gets hot, throw in finely chopped garlic cloves and finely chopped onion. Saute on a medium flame for 4-5 minutes, before adding finely sliced mushrooms. Add 1/4 tsp of sea salt, 1/2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper, any fresh herbs of your choice (I've used fresh basil) and saute till the mushrooms and onions are soft.

At this stage add the finely chopped tomatoes kept aside from earlier step. Add a pinch of salt and bring to a simmer. Add red wine and allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes until it all comes together like a sauce. Check for seasoning and adjust as per your liking. If you find this a little too sour, add a fat pinch of sugar and boil it till sugar dissolves (around 2 minutes). Remove the sauce into a bowl and keep it aside.

For the roasted vegetables
1 medium eggplant
2 large red bell peppers

Slice the eggplant into 1 cm thick slices. Toss with 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/4 tsp of sea salt. Arrange on a greased foil lining a baking sheet.

Bake at 180 C for 25-30 minutes, until soft.

Slice the red bell peppers (1/2" width), toss with 1 tbsp olive oil, sprinkle a pinch of salt and bake similar to the eggplant, until soft but not mushy (around 20 minutes)

Grated Cheese
Place the block of cheese in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Grease the grater with fingers dipped in olive oil. Grate up to one cup cheese and keep aside. Mozzarella or Cheddar or a mix of both, is fine.

Assembling
Lightly grease a 9X4 or 9 X5 ovenproof pan (glass or tin). Spread 2-3 tbsp of tomato sauce at the bottom with 2 tbsp of water and keep aside.
Bring a large wide pan of water to boil. Add a fat pinch of salt to this. Keep the lasagna sheets ready.
When the water starts to boil, dip the lasagna sheets in boiling water, one at a time for 2 minutes each. Remove and do the first layer in the baking pan, two sheets length wise side by side and one cut to size to place horizontally where the pan is exposed.
Cover this layer with 1/4rd of the sauce and 1/4 th of the cheese. Sprinkle some dried / fresh herbs, freshly ground black pepper over this.
Boil 3 more lasagna sheets, one by one and layer on top of this as explained above.
Cover with a layer of roasted vegetables and 1/4th of the sauce thinly spread in the gaps.
Boil the last three lasagna sheets, layer as explained above.
Pour all of the remaining sauce, any vegetables left over from the previous layer, all the remaining cheese, fresh herbs and some black pepper.

This can be covered and kept aside for a while if you have made this ahead of serving.
Otherwise, place the baking pan in a preheated oven at 180C. Bake for 30 minutes until the pasta is cooked through and cheese melted.

Cut into 6 servings and serve hot with a light salad on the side.

Food Shopping
Lasagna sheets are available in most supermarkets, or you can try and make your own by making pasta dough, rolling it out into thin rotis and cutting them to fit the shape of your pan.
Herbs, both fresh and dried are available at most supermarkets. Keya's or Fabindia for dried herbs and Namdhari's for fresh are my personal preference.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with flavours of Lemongrass and Ginger

2011-11-13T06:45:00.001+05:30

We're not yet fully into winter and yet early morning temperatures are hitting lows of 15C. Bangalore, how I love thee for this. With this soup I made for my son and me a couple of nights ago, I have hit upon another perfectly warming soup recipe for the winter evenings. The lemongrass keeps it fresh and the ginger gives it the warmth.

I buy fresh lemongrass from Namdhari's that comes chopped in batons and sold in plastic bags. I'm talking about the green leaves here and not the stalk that is used in Thai cooking. I keep this in the freezer once opened, and it stays for a long time. My favourite use for this is in my morning Chai. Other than this I use it in Thai curry pastes, or even just simmer in a curry and fish it out in the end for that fresh lemony flavour. I have found that Lemon Basil is a great substitute for lemongrass in tea as well as curries.

This soup is as filling and creamy as it can get, without adding even a touch of cream. You could do an oven roasted pumpkin soup, but I find the flavours very similar even with slow roasting on a stove top pan. I used the yellow pumpkin for this. You could try the same with butternut squash or the darker orange pumpkin too.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Recipe for Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Lemongrass and Ginger
Serves 3
Under 30 minutes

Ingredients
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
200 grams yellow pumpkin
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
6-7 lemon grass leaves
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 1/2 cups skimmed milk
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Paprika
Dried parsley

Preparation
Peel and slice the pumpkin into medium sized pieces
Peel and thinly slice the onion
Slice the garlic

Directions

In a large wok, heat the olive oil. Before oil gets hot, add the sliced garlic and onions. Saute on medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the lemongrass leaves and ginger. Stir for a few seconds.
Add the sliced pumpkin. Braise on high heat, shaking the wok every now and then until the slices get a golden brown coating.
At this stage sprinkle sea salt and let this cook uncovered for 5 minutes on low heat.
Add 1/2 cup water, cover and cook the pumpkin now, until it is fully done and falls apart when touched with a ladle.
Remove to a dish and cool. Remove the lemon grass leaves from the cooked veggies and discard.
Once cooled, remove this to a blender and blend to a smooth puree with milk.
Get this back into a saucepan and check for seasoning. The soup will be reasonably thick and very creamy at this stage. Adjust consistency of soup using some water if required, if you prefer a thinner soup.

Serving
Ladle the hot soup into bowls. Top with some extra virgin olive oil. sprinkling of paprika, a tinge of grated ginger and some fresh lemongrass leaves as a garnish.
Serve with sliced toasted baguette which have been rubbed with garlic cloves, or soup sticks.

Tip
You can make this soup spicier by adding a Thai red chilli in the initial stage along with ginger and lemon grass.
You could try adding a tsp of fresh thyme leaves towards the end for a more intense flavour.
Here's a colourful guide on the different commonly available pumpkins and how to cook them.

Oatmeal Prune Cookies spiced with Chai Masala

2011-11-10T17:16:00.001+05:30

Hello! The line "I'm finally back after a long break" seems to be my opening line for every post in the last few months. A new kitchen, a big oven, nurturing my own little vegetable patch and still I am looking for the inspiration to be blogging regularly.

Last month, Aparna was in Bangalore and some of the Bangalore food bloggers met up over a scrumptious buffet lunch. Much fun was had. Lots of pictures taken. And of course the food critic role played.

Sweet Potato Cupcakes

For our first Diwali in the new house, I made the 7 cup cake, a shortcut mixture and Bakerella's sweet potato cupcakes with chocolate ganache. My version of shortcut mixture was puffed rice (pori) crisped up with tempering of chillies, curry leaves, asafoetida, mustard seeds, peanuts and fried gram dal. To this I added store bought shankarpala, khara boondi and omapodi (sev). This is the best I could manage when my mildly over-inquisitive son didn't even have the school to keep him engaged.

Last weekend, I cooked for a crowd of 9 people (umm okay, not crowd but group). While I was toying between a Mexican and a Lebanese menu, the friends 'demanded' Tambrahm food, politely put as 'food you cook regularly' or 'food you cook well'! So I set aside all my hopes of winning compliments as a truly world-class vegetarian chef and sat down to draw out a Tambrahm menu, as many items as I can possibly make all by myself with a 3 year old hanging around me dangerously!

The menu finally turned out to be :

Kosumalli / Kosumbari (with grated carrot, cucumber, gooseberry)

Crispy Bhindi Raita (crisped in the oven, no deep frying)

Arachuvitta sambar with small onions & carrots

Baby Potato roast Chettinad style flavoured with fresh dill

Yennai Kathrikkai - stuffed baby eggplants ( Google docs link to a friend's recipe notes)

Vazhakkai Podimaas

Store bought Banana Chips

Rice

Mini chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache - Adapted from Dan Lepard's Easy chocolate cake recipe

Now that I'm done updating you, here's what today's blogpost is about. My friend Preethi sent me a few baking trays that included this beautiful cookie mould tray in which one can bake x-massy snowflake imprint cookies. I couldn't wait to try baking cookies in this one. The recipe is adapted from the cover of on of the Wilton cookie trays. These imprint cookies will be better with all purpose flour or whole wheat flour rather than chewy oatmeal cookies, so by all means you can bake these cookies on a plain cookie tray dropping spoonfuls of dough or flattening balls of dough on your palm and baking them until golden. The addition of oats makes these chewy and somewhat soft, perfect for your teething babies or aged parents who can't bite very hard biscuits. If you want these crisper, you can pat them thinner and bake for a few minutes more.

The addition of chai masala is my own twist to a traditional American recipe for the only way I eat cookies is with my chai, and this way they will complement each other beautifully. You could substitute ground cardamom, ground cinnamon or a mix of your favourite spices.

Printable version of recipe

Oatmeal Prune cookies spiced with Chai Masala

Makes 12-14 cookies

Time taken Under 30 minutes

3/4 cup oats

1 cup all purpose flour + a few tbsp on the side in case required to bind dough

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 tsp Chai Masala ( Everest or any other brand)

1 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

3 tbsp finely chopped prunes or use raisins

Handful of finely chopped walnuts (optional)
2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven at 180C.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla extract and egg. Beat some more.
Run the oats for a few seconds in the small jar of your mixer until coarsely powdered.

Add the oats, flour, salt, baking powder and chai masala.

Stir well it all the dry ingredients are incorporated into wet ingredients. Add the nuts and prunes in the final stage of mixing.

Line a cookie sheet with grease proof paper.

Divide dough into 12-14 balls adding some of the reserved flour to the dough if too sticky and tough to handle.

Flatten using fingers dipped in milk and place on cookie sheet leaving adequate space in between cookies as they will expand while baking.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and cool on a wire rack. Store in airtight container once cooled.

I used a cookie sheet with moulds, so I pressed the dough balls into each of the shape-moulds to get pretty snowflake imprints on them.

Thank you Preethi for this sweetest housewarming gift. Check out her food blog here

P.S.
If you like reading my blog and you are on Facebook, please show some love to my blog page there : http://www.facebook.com/SaffronTrail

P.P.S
It will be nice to meet up the Bangalore Foodbloggers, over food (what else?!) and discuss food (no surprises there) this Saturday once again as we have our first ever Mega Bangalore Food Bloggers' meet up. We have a group on Facebook, so if you are a foodblogger who blogs from Bangalore and you aren't a part of the group yet, please leave a note in the comments, so we can send you an invite.

Eggplant salad with spicy greens - From garden to plate

2011-09-20T10:15:00.001+05:30

Brinjal Blooms - I like these more than the vegetable :)

There are people you love at first sight and you can't wait to know them more and spend more time with them. Then there are others who you can't decide about. But you wouldn't mind meeting them once in a while. And finally, the third type, whom you dislike right from the world go, but funnily when you keep running into them and get to know them better, they grow on you and you wonder how you ever disliked them in the first place. My relationship with eggplant / brinjal / kathrikkai is exactly of the third type.

As a child, this was the one vegetable I had exemption from as it would make my throat itch whenever I ate it and I promptly declared to my family that I had a brinjal allergy. The fact that I disliked this vegetable, made me convince myself and others even more vehemently that I was allergic to this one. The reverse also happens. When you like something, you are very hesitant to admit that you are allergic to it, especially if the allergy is a mild one. For example, walnuts give me a slight itch in the throat, but that has never made me refuse a walnut brownie, ever!

So coming back to my relationship with eggplants, I first forayed into the world of roasted eggplant recipes like Bhartha ( I make a mean one), Baba Ganoush (always a star in the Mezze platter) and Kathrikkai Pachidi.

Then came the other entries like Brinjal in Sambar, Rasavaangi (this is a most delightful Tambram recipe with freshly ground coconut based masala) and Yenna Kathrikkai. And now, I am eating this vegetable, sliced and lightly grilled on a stove top grill pan in salads! And totally surprising myself with that.

Brinjal was the first to get planted in our terrace vegetable garden and was the first to flower and fruit. My dad even mocks me that people who come to your house for lunch with get Brinjal curry with Brinjal Sambar and Brinjal Pachidi. (Recipe follows)

I'm not one to go to such extremes though. I pluck off those ready for harvest and if i am not cooking with them, I pass it on to friends or relatives who can enjoy home grown, fresh, organic bounty. There's something about slicing a just plucked tender eggplant, thinly slicing it and placing it on a grill pan greased with olive oil. A minute per side, you get these lovely grill marks and they are done. Ready to be tossed into a salad or had as a starter with some pesto on it. I do the same with long slices of zucchini.

Salad Patch

Growing spicy salad greens like arugula (rocket), mustard etc. (Spicy salad mix from Burpee seeds thanks to Nupur) has made me realise how lettuce is the most boring, tasteless of all salad greens. Especially the wilted stuff served in most restaurants. Every leaf in this mix has a bold taste, spicy, pungent, bitter - each of them come with a personality.

I make this salad for my dinner at least twice a week. To make it heartier and more filling, add some boiled chick peas / grilled tofu / grilled chicken / paneer / cooked whole wheat pasta to the salad before tossing.

Dressing - Red Wine Vinaigrette

4 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp Coleman's mustard paste

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp sugar

3 small cloves of garlic - finely grated or mashed to a paste

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

1 fresh red chilli deseeded and finely chopped (or green)

Add all the above to a small empty jam jar, shake it up and keep aside.

For the salad

3 small eggplants or half a large eggplant

1 medium cucumber, thick slices into half rounds

2 cups mixed salad greens, washed and dried, torn roughly

1 small red onion, finely sliced (optional)

Add any of the extras given above if you want to have this as a meal.

Handful of mixed fresh herbs like basil, oregano, thyme, sage

Slice the eggplants thinly, not necessarily paper thin. Keep a stove top grill pan on heat. Brush with some olive oil. Arrange the slices in a layer. After one minute you'll see grill marks on the heated side. With a pair of tongs turn all the slices to grill and cook the other side.

Remove onto a plate. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the slices.

In a large bowl, combine the grilled slices with cucumber, torn salad greens and onion.

Give the jam jar one final shake and pour over the salad just before serving, reserving a few spoonfuls to drizzle over the top just before eating.

This makes one big salad or for 2-3 people as a starter to a meal.

Bangalore Shopping guide

Red Wine Vinegar from Nilgiri's Whitefield

Good quality Mixed salad greens at Namdhari's

Excellent fresh herbs at Namdhari's

Stove top grill pan - I have the Premier brand but there are quite a few in the market nowadays. If you don't have a grill pan, by all means use the Tava for this.

Coleman's mustard - Most supermarkets

Hello from Bangalore, finally

2011-09-04T07:17:00.000+05:30

Namaskara! Ten weeks after moving to my final destination, I think I am converted. The always-pleasant weather, living away from the bustle of the main city roads, the slow life- it has totally seeped into me. The way Mumbai spoils you with its sheer pace of life and the pace of getting things done, Bangalore spoils you with the weather and the slow life. I don't think I must have complained about the weather more than a couple of times in the last two months, which is a pretty neat record for the weather-cribber in me.

A couple more things have changed in the last few weeks.

All my adult life, I have been a morning tea person, unless someone made a steaming hot filter kaapi for me. Lately, tea just doesn't cut it first thing in the morning. My brain cells seem to ask for a stronger dose of caffeine than what comes in a cup of tea. No, I'm not importing 'kaapi-podi' from ChennaiMadras. The Bayar's brand (not a paid promotion) available in most supermarkets in Bangalore seems to hit the spot neatly. Many people swear by Cotha's but I find the grind quite coarse for my coffee filters.

Before you assume it, no, I haven't given up on tea, not at all. It is simply used to fill up the empty moments in the day, rather than as a morning kickstart. Ginger-ed, lemongrass-ed, cardamom-ed, simple green tea, just about every kind of tea depending on the mood, and of course the weather, leaving empty mugs around in every corner of the house, to be picked up later, of course, when I find that I have run out of clean mugs.

The next thing in matters of change is my sudden love for Rasam. Either it is to do with the fact that I am growing old, or the steaming cup of tomato-ey spicy liquid pairs well with the Bangalore weather or it is to do with the sour tomatoes that I'm growing in my terrace garden that lend themselves quite beautifully to this.

First two homegrown tomatoes

I've always maintained that I am a Sambar-person. If there is Sambar and Rasam made at home, I would rather have two helpings of rice with sambar and leave the rasam alone, without a second glance, like a Bottega Veneta lady shunning a Hidesign bag. In fact, when I am visiting my parents and my mom makes just rasam and no sambar, I squarely point it out to her on how she is favouring my sister over me. Needless to say, the sister is a rasam-person. So yes, I have started making a mean rasam, which is not in anyway to blow the trumpet (or saxophone) about my culinary genius, but simply a matter of practice. Yes, that's how often I've been making rasam. If you followed me on Twitter, you'd know. Looks like I have already hit upon the topic of my next blog post. Byebye blogger's block!

Dill growing wild

Apart from the vegetables like brinjals, tomatoes (okay, it is a fruit), okra and carrots- we're being adventurous and trying to grow strawberries on our terrace garden. The gardening experts tell us we can expect to eat some fruit by November, I'm praying the ants don't get to them before I do.

Strawberry patch

There's dwarf lemons and a dwarf chikoo too, on the terrace garden. Just yesterday, a Cherry bush has been added to the fruit family in the hope that we can eat some homegrown fruit if we are patient enough to care for the trees over the next 2-3 years. Or at least, do the birds some social service.

Sapota

The first to be harvested from the garden was the most sweet smelling lush green coriander and the chutney made using those homegrown leaves tasted most amazing.

Coriander Flowers

If you have the tiny bit of space, even for a couple of pots, or a tiny area of soil where you can sow some seeds, do it. The sheer joy of watching your food grow from the seed and the joy of turning it into a dish for your family is quite unparalleled. Try sprinkling a few kitchen seeds like mustard or fenugreek into good soil and watch the magic unfold :)

Mustard greens some ten days after sowing seeds

I write a monthly column for Sunday DNA called Tiny Tummies. Here is the link to my page there.

For more gardening / food updates - do follow my Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/SaffronTrail

All pics above, taken on on the iPhone (yeah, lazy me thanks to Bangalore weather), processed on the free app Instagram. If you are an iPhone user and you haven't downloaded this app, you've been missing some fine things in life. Here's my Instagram feed.

Now that I've managed to break the long silence, I shall be back soon.

Related reads :

Veggies at home
Herb Mentality - Growing herbs and home and ways to use them

Mango Paneer Cake or how we make the HOT summers bearable

2011-05-20T17:49:00.000+05:30

So how have you been? It's been quite hot in my neck of the woods, so I have nearly giving up on cooking and also, my outdoor runs. Any sliver of training that was falling in place for the marathon next year has been abandoned until the weather gods turn kinder or until I move to cooler climes. Oh yes, a move is in the offing. I started this food blog when I was in Bombay, then we moved to Hyderabad in November 2008 and it's time to move again. This time, hopefully a permanent move, to Bangalore.

I'm looking forward to this move, more than anything else for the vegetables I will be growing in our terrace garden, the beautiful kitchen with a space for a table where I can chop vegetables, drink tea (or wine, depending on time of the day) and write while looking out from the kitchen window and of course a *big* oven in which lots of baking will happen. I am also happy to report that I have rounded up some enthusiastic food bloggers in the vicinity of my new home and we are going to have some fun food times together. Nandini, Archana, Monika, I hope you girls are gearing up!

Ooh and as some of my friends are teasing me, I am now a "posh girl" after Roshni Bajaj featured me in her story on The Food Network in the Vogue magazine (May 2011) along with friend Madhu Menon. Check the PDF version of the story here (Page 1 and Page 2).

Getting back to the recipe I want to share with you today, it is a seasonal modification of the paneer cake that I blogged about sometime ago, a recipe I found in an old-fashioned cookbook while browsing through a little bookshop in Pondicherry. If you are a mango lover (like a certain Ms. Katrina Kaif, in the literal sense), you can add mango to any dish, be it rice, dal, veggies, brownies, cake and you'll be sure to love it. I'm not crazy for mangoes, in the sense that I wont feel lost at sea if I do not eat mangoes every single day of the mango season. Believe me when I tell you, I know people like that. They cannot go one day without eating a mango or half a dozen of them when they are in season. But yes, I do love the flavour boost a ripe, fragrant mango adds to simple dishes and takes them to another level. So here is the recipe for you. I do hope you get access to beautiful, ripe mangoes wherever you are and when you are tired of eating them as it is, use one of them to make this simple cake.

Mango Coconut Paneer Cake

Low-fat teatime treat

Printable Version of recipe here

This is a variation of the Paneer Cake, using the mangoes that are in season.

Grease three 450 ml aluminium foil tins or an 8-9” round tin.

Preheat oven at 180C.

Make paneer from 500 ml cow’s milk. Reserve the whey water.

Grind to a puree

-pieces from one large mango

-½ cup paneer or than from ½ L milk.

-¾ cup sugar

Remove to a large bowl. Whisk in in ¼ cup oil, 2 tbsp vinegar and ½ cup whey water.

Add ½ tsp mango essence or vanilla extract

In a large bowl, sift 1 cup all purpose flour, ½ cup whole wheat flour (atta), 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda and pinch of salt. Mix in ¼ cup dessicated coconut with a fork.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet.

Add handful of pumpkin seeds or flaked almonds, a few spoons of colourful tutti-frutti and mix until combined.

Thin with some reserved whey water if batter is too thick.

Divide batter into the three foil tins or one round tin.

Sprinkle some coconut flakes on the top.

Bake at 180C for 20-40 minutes (20 for the smaller foil tins and 40-45 mins for single large tin) until a tester comes out clean.

Serve warm with honey or marmalade if you want it sweeter. It is a very flavourful cake but low on sugar, perfect accompaniment to tea or coffee.