Taste Buds

White as snow in August!

2009-10-31T17:13:00.001Z

It was pure chance that I came to know about Flowerfest. The idea appealed to me instantly. The main reason being that I am very bad at recognising flowers and that is such a shame because I love flowers so much. I have seen a lot of flowers & I know a lot of names but I cant seem to connect the two together.

For example, take this one. I have seen this flower too many times. I know that there is a flower called Daisy. But I had never associated the two. It was only when I googled that I came to know this was indeed a Daisy – African Daisy, the botanical name being Dimorphotheca pluvialis. This snap was taken when we had visited the Leeds castle back in August.

I am hoping to improve my flower knowledge through this series. Thanks Manisha for this event.

The Almost Perfect Nankhatai

2009-10-26T11:56:00.001Z

One of the fondest food memories of mine are about the bakery man who would come with a Tin Canister loaded with baked goodies – Khari biscuits & Nankhatai. He would go door to door asking regular customers, if they needed a refill of their favourite evening time snack and attracting new ones, with the aroma wafting through every time he opened the box to make a delivery. During the later years however, they stopped coming door to door, but the local bakery was never far away and we kept getting the regular supply of the delicacies.

Staying out, here in London makes me crave for these things & as usual I tried to recreate them at home. But I didn't always think they could be made at home. To be honest I did not consider making them at home until I saw some of the blogs with crunchy & delicious looking cookies and then I started my search for a perfect recipe.

My quest for the perfect Nankhatai has taken me to several websites, seen me cutting out many magazine & newspaper articles for the recipe. Since this all started when I could hardly call myself a baker, many unmentionable incidents have happened. The only one which was sort of a success, found its way on to this blog here. ‘Sort of a success’ because the end result was not exactly a Nankhatai but the ‘cookies’ were delicious and the only reason it could have been so was that I had had a little experience with baking by then but more importantly because I followed a trusted recipe.

I then happened to come by this one, on a site that I frequently visit,either for new recipes or to confirm the classic ones that I make. I wondered why I had not checked this website earlier for the Nankhatai recipe. The basic ingredients seemed to be the same, but the list did have some items which I have not tasted in the normal Nankhatai, so I just skipped them. Even the procedure looked quite familiar to what I had been trying for such a long time. I gave it a try nevertheless & while I was sliding in the baking tray in the oven, I knew that this time I have found the perfect one.

Nankhatai

Makes approx 25-30

Ingredients

2 cups Plain flour (Maida)
I cup Sugar
3/4 cup Clarified butter/Ghee (I used butter)
1 Tblsp Milk (Adjust according to need)

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 180 deg C.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together sugar & Clarified butter (butter in my case) until light & fluffy.

Add the flour in batches and keep mixing using very little milk.

Knead the mixture well and then make make small balls and flatten them, shaping them.

Arrange them on a baking sheet and bake for 15 min or until they start turning slightly golden.

Let them cool completely before storing them into an airtight container.

My Notes: While this was the closest I came to the Nankhatai sold in the shops in Bombay, I felt that they were a bit like Shortbreads.

But apart from this one small thing, they turned out delicious & were gone within no time.

The original recipe also had cardamom, saffron & nuts in it. But I don't remember getting that cardamom flavour in the Nankhatai I have had all my life in India, so I skipped it. Also since I did not want any kind flavour to it, I skipped the saffron & nuts as well.

I was very happy with the results here & concluded that this is as close as I will get to the Nankhatai at home!

Stuffed Peppers

2009-10-13T17:45:00.001+01:00

Living away from ‘home’ means different things to different people. Opportunities, better prospects, better standard of living, better comforts etc might come across as Pros of living outside one’s country. But where there are Pros, there are bound to be some Cons. Staying away from your family, specifically parents in most cases, missing all those lovely festivals being celebrated in their true form (grandeur & all), being away from your friends back home, not to mention the food!

But once you have kids, the list of Pros & Cons starts getting longer. Again better opportunities for the kids for overall development as opposed to the stress & pressure of competition, the ability to give them a better standard of living in terms of facilities, hygiene & cleanliness etc maybe the Pros. But the Cons are not far behind. S, for example stays away from her grandparents & other relatives & only interacts with them through voice chats & webcam (Thank god for them!). Of course many kids living in India do not stay with their grandparents either & only visit them during their vacation, but somehow it feels like a bigger thing when the physical distance between them also is so huge.

Then there is the matter of exposure to our culture. How will they get to know about our ‘roots’ if they stay away from it. Yes, we can replicate most of it at home but are we able to give them that environment to understand the importance of all that?

Wondering why I am going on about these things today? Well, an incident at S’s toddler group triggered my thoughts and I haven't stopped thinking about it since then. It was her Music class & they were ‘exploring’ Indian music.

It was introduced as traditional Indian classical music & they played Hindi film songs, not exactly classical music if you ask me(Hindustani or Carnatic). While most of the activities involved playing a particular instrument (bells, maracas, drums etc) on any of the Hindi film songs, they played ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’ for one of the segments. Thats when I realised that my daughter will never understand the importance & significance of this song as well as I do. I understand because I associate the song immediately to Mahatma Gandhi & the happenings of the whole freedom struggle right from the first Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 to the day of 15th August 1947 come flooding to me. Apart from being a Bhajan, there are those sentiments attached to the song that are very difficult to convey even to grown ups who do not know the importance & significance of this song. If she was in India, she would study about these things in her curriculum & eventually know & understand everything, the way I did.

Maybe I am wondering in vain. Maybe as she grows up she will be in a better position to understand and appreciate things of her own country. Maybe when she is old enough, I can tell her stories about the freedom struggle, make her realise the role played by all those who brought us our independence. But till then, I am sure the list of things that she is & will be missing will keep increasing, with me realising that there is so much that we take for granted.

Anyway, when I was not thinking of the above, I was thinking about the Red & Yellow Peppers lying in the fridge. The original plan was to use them in Fried Rice or a salad. But having cut down on the carbs, rice was not something I readily wanted to make. And salad, well the less said the better. We are somehow not ready for a meal of Salad only.

Finally this was our dinner yesterday night. Having contemplated making Stuffed peppers for a long time, I took this opportunity & made do with whatever was in hand. I followed this recipe loosely and adapted it as per the ingredients available with me.

Stuffed Peppers

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 large Peppers (Any colour)
1 cup couscous
3-4 Tblsp Ricotta Cheese
1 tblsp Olive oil
2-3 tblsp Spring onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, mashed & minced
1/2 tsp Chilli flakes
1 tsp Dried Oregano
4-5 Baby corns, cut into small rounds
2-3 Tblsp Walnuts, roughly chopped
Cherry Tomatoes, cut into quarters
Salt & Pepper

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg C.

Cut off the tops of the Peppers & scoop out the seeds.

Arrange them on a baking tray & bake for 10-15 min. Remove & set aside.

Mean while for the stuffing, heat the olive oil in pan & add the chilli flakes.

As it begins to sizzle, add the garlic & spring onion. Sauté until the onion starts to soften.

Add the baby corn and mix well. Add the oregano and a bit of salt. Cover & cook on low flame till the baby corn is cooked.

To cook the couscous, take 1 cup water in a saucepan and bring to boil. Switch off the flame & add the couscous, mix and cover and leave aside for 3-4 minutes or until all the water is absorbed.

Fluff up the couscous with a fork and then add a tsp of olive oil & salt and mix well.

Add the cooked couscous to the baby corn-spring onion mixture and mix well on a low flame. Adjust the salt & season with some pepper.

Turn off the heat and mix in the Ricotta cheese.

Fill this mixture into the part baked Peppers and arrange them in a baking dish upright. Cover the peppers with Aluminium foil & bake for about 20 min. After 20 min remove the foil and continue to bake for another 5-10 min till the Peppers start to char. I had to turn the grill on for this.

Serve immediately.

My Notes: I also had half a red pepper & I filled it with the couscous mixture without Ricotta cheese but we realised that the ones with Ricotta cheese were much better since it helped to bind the couscous together.

The original recipe had Feta cheese but since I had Ricotta, I used that instead, will definitely be trying it with the Feta soon.

Sending this to WYF:Light Meal at Simple Indian Food.

PS: I am quite happy with the Music Class by the way, where else can Shreya be exposed to instruments such as the Dholak, Ghunghroo etc!

Muruku for ICC

2009-10-01T00:29:00.001+01:00

While this is not the first time I have come across them, I knew them by a different name – Tengul. I got introduced to them at my friend N’s place and had found them very different from the ‘Chakali’ that we prepare at home specially for the Diwali Faral.

This month’s ICC has brought back all those memories and I was actually visualising Manni’s kitchen, while I fried these Muruku. The recipe itself was simple enough and very quick to prepare. Of course, quick because I took a shortcut and used readymade rice flour instead of soaking, drying & grinding the rice myself. Apart from this I also reduced the quantity to make only a few because currently we are trying to cut down on fried & fatty foods.

As is the case sometimes with new recipes, I did have a minor setback because the first lot that I had put in the chakali maker yielded in bits & pieces of Muruku, instead of shapely ones. So I made them out into ‘Sev’ instead. I then realised that it was because the dough was a bit tough. A few drops of water solved the problem and I finally got the Chakali shaped Muruku.

Muruku

Makes about 6-7 proper Chakali shapes, similar to the ones in the pic!

Ingredients

1/4 cup Urad Dal (Split Black Gram without the skin)
1 cup rice flour
1 tblsp butter
1/4 tsp Hing (Asafoetida)
1/4 tsp Cumin seeds
1/4 tsp Sesame seeds (Til)
Salt
Oil for frying

Method:

Roast the Urad Dal till it turns a light brown. Allow to cool down and then grind into a fine powder.

Mix the Rice flour, above ground urad dal, salt, cumin seeds & sesame seeds in a bowl. Add the cold butter and mix with your hand to get breadcrumb like consistency.

Now dissolve the hing in a little water & add it to the above mixture. Add some more water to get a firm but soft dough.

Prepare the Chakali maker by oiling it well. Fill this with the dough and then press out through the chakali ‘blade’ and shape them into spiral chakalis directly in to the hot oil for frying. Or as Srivalli mentions in the original recipe, you can also make out the shapes on a plastic sheet & then slide them in the oil.

Fry them on a medium heat till they are just turning brown, drain on a kitchen towel. Once they are completely cooled, store them into air tight containers.

My Notes: The Muruku tasted exactly as I remembered the Tengul but with slightly less crunch. They were not as crispy as I would have liked them to be. Maybe it was the extra water I had added but Then otherwise I wasn't getting the Murukus to shape at all. I guess its a balance that I might achieve only with practice!

And speaking of practice, I think this was a good one, before I embark on making Chakali for the Diwali Faral. I was a little apprehensive of attempting it for the first time on the occasion itself, having brought the Chakali maker on my last visit to India. But muruku making has given me a little confidence to handle the gadget better when I make Chakali for Diwali!

So watch this space for Chakali & hopefully some other Faral items soon!

Risotto Verde

2009-09-29T16:09:00.001+01:00

I love books, reading and also collecting them. While Fiction in general & espionage/detective in specific are my favourites, I like all types of books. Autobiographies, plays, Factual, Science and so on, with the only exception of the self help kind of books, but again I have read quite a few of them as well.

A recent addition to the above categories is Cookery. I can easily say that my exploration of cook books started because of this blog. Reading others’ posts describing a recipe from a particular cook book, reading reviews of cook books etc made me aware of them and I also realised that this, apart from the vast internet of course, is a good source of new recipes that I might like to try.

And so it began, I started to look out for cook books apart from the usual Jeffrey Archer, Dan Brown, John Grisham, Agatha Christie, Frederick Forsyth, Tom Clancy… (the list is endless), resulting in me spending even more time in front of the window of a book shop! But did I actually buy a cook book? Sadly, No. The main reason being that most of them contained dishes which included meat & sea food and being a vegetarian these were not an option at all. So buying the book for a handful of vegetarian recipes did not seem right to me.

The next best thing to do was browse the cookery section in the local Library. I did get some good books but somehow never got to making them and the recipes have been carefully noted down in my diary for future reference. But this time I chanced upon this one – Delia’s Vegetarian Collection. Needless to say the ‘vegetarian’ caught my eye & the knowledge that Delia Smith is supposed to be one of the leading chefs in UK also helped. I flicked the pages to see the actual content. The photographs held my attention & before I knew it I was back home with book.

This book has almost everything a vegetarian would want in a cook book. Soups, Salads, Rice, Cheese, Main course, Desserts – all simple and tryable recipes, some classic, some fusion and some new ones.

I started with this simple Risotto recipe which looked completely authentic except for one thing. The recipe in the book asks for the risotto to be cooked in the oven, while I have always seen on cookery shows & read on websites that it is to be made on the stove top and that the way the stock is added (see recipe below), is very important. So I took the recipe & ingredients from the book but cooked it on the stove top as described below and also adapted the recipe to suit the ingredients I had in hand.

Risotto Verde

Risotto Verde means ‘Green Risotto’ where Risotto itself means a dish of rice cooked in a broth.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup Risotto Rice (Arborio)
1 tblsp Butter
1 small onion, chopped
3-4 tblsp white wine
about 200 ml Vegetable stock (I used readymade stock cubes to make this)
1-2 tsp chopped fresh Sage
3 tblsp chopped spring onions
1/2 cup Asparagus, cut into small rounds
2 tblsp chopped chives
2-3 tblsp Parmesan
Salt & Pepper

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion. Fry this for about 5-7 minutes until the onion is cooked & just starts to brown.

Add the rice and mix to coat the rice with the butter and onion.

Add the wine and mix. Let the wine reduce completely.

Add a ladle full of the stock, stir and cook on medium-low flame. Wait for the stock to reduce and then add the sage, salt and pepper.

Add another ladle of stock and continue to cook on medium-low flame till it reduces.

Keep adding the stock, one ladle at a time, and cook on medium low flame. Check if the rice is cooked after about 15-20 min.

Once the rice is almost cooked, add the asparagus, spring onion and Parmesan along with a ladle of stock. Cook till the stock reduces completely.

Switch off the flame and add the chopped chives. Serve hot topped with some more parmesan and chives.

My Notes: This was the first time I had attempted to make a risotto at home & I was really pleased with the result.

Since the recipe in the book was for 6 people, I had to reduce the quantities and so the quantity of stock mentioned above is an approximation, please make adjustments as necessary. I had to use plain water in the end since I had run out of stock!

The recipe also had Broad Beans, but I did not have any with me so I haven't used them. If you are using them, add them along with the Asparagus and spring onions.

Spicy Tomato & Red Kidney Bean Soup

2009-09-03T09:48:00.001+01:00

On my quest to find out as many healthy & low carb recipes as possible I had stumbled upon this one on the Tarla Dalal website. Since this was not just a tomato soup & the fact that ‘spicy’ was the key word in the name of the soup, I immediately bookmarked it but had never got along to make it. But the recent enthusiasm in eating healthy & ‘trying’ to lose weight led me to dig it out of the folder and try it out for dinner on …

Those days also saw me glued to the TV whenever there was something involving a weight loss issue. Believe it or not, I stayed up late at night to see a documentary on how Claire Richards (former ‘Steps’ group member) lost an enormous amount of weight to look good for her wedding. Now that was desperation (on my part, I don't know about her!), I admit, but around the same time I also happened to catch another documentary on BBC, which listed out 10 major ‘facts’ about losing weight. There were some that I always had an idea about such as keeping track of what you eat in terms of calories, getting that regular work out done etc, but there were others that were completely new to me e.g. the connection between weight loss & our Calcium intake. The documentary also enlightened me on the real reason behind the working of low carb diets and that they are not always suitable for everyone.

The key scientific principle which forms the basis for these diets is the relationship between consumption of carbohydrates and the subsequent effect on blood sugar (i.e. blood glucose) and on production of some hormones. Blood sugar levels in the human body must be maintained in a fairly narrow range to maintain health. The two primary hormones related to regulating blood sugar levels, produced in the pancreas, are insulin, which lowers blood sugar levels (among many other effects, most of considerable significance metabolically), and glucagon, which raises blood sugar levels.……..

…..Another aspect of insulin secretion is control of ketosis; in the non-ketotic state, the human body stores dietary fat in fat cells (i.e., adipose tissue) an preferentially uses glucose as cellular fuel. By contrast, low-carbohydrate diets, or more properly, diets that are very low in nutritive carbohydrates, evoke less insulin (to cover the ingested glucose in the blood stream), leading to longer and more frequent episodes of ketosis. Some researchers suggest that this causes body fat to be eliminated from the body although this theory remains, at best, controversial, if it refers to excretion of lipids (i.e., fat and oil) and not to fat metabolism during ketosis.(Source:Wikipedia)

Another point made by the documentary was that soups are always better if you want to control your hunger & eventually the intake of food. They performed this experiment on 2 groups of people working in the same unit, putting in equal hours & doing the same job. One group was given normal lunch along with a glass of water to be had after their meal, while for the other group they simply blitzed the same lunch with that glass of water to make it into a ‘soup’. Each of these groups were observed after an interval of 1-2 hours and asked how they felt & the group that had the ‘soup’ felt fuller for a longer time.

That was enough motivation for me to try soups, otherwise for me it always meant the odd Tomato or Sweet corn soup in an Indian Restaurant or more recently Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup. So this one was a prefect transitional soup, having tomatoes but being a little different from the soups that I am used to. Whats more, its very simple to make as well.

Spicy Tomato & Beans Soup

Ingredients

3-4 cups chopped Tomatoes
1 cup cooked Red Kidney Beans
1 medium sized onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 tblspn Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Red Chilli powder (Adjust according to taste or spice level)
1 tblsp chopped basil (I used dried)
1./2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Sugar
salt & Pepper

Method:

Heat the olive oil in a pan and sauté the onions & garlic till the onions turn translucent.

Add the tomatoes & the chilli powder and cook till the tomatoes are mushy.

Add 3 cups of water, bring to a boil and then simmer till the tomatoes are completely cooked.

Blend this mixture either in a food processor or use an immersion blender and then return this to heat.

Add the red kidney beans, oregano, basil, sugar, salt & pepper and continue to heat for about 5-7 min.

Serve hot.

My Notes: We found that this soup was quite filling because of the Red Kidney beans and we didn't need anything else to go with it.

Naivedya: Shanvige Payasa/Shevaya chi Kheer (Vermicelli Pudding)

2009-08-10T15:29:00.001+01:00

23rd July marked the start of the Hindu Shravan month, considered to be the most auspicious month. This heralded the beginning of what I call ‘a series of worshipping’. Starting with Naag Panchami which was on the 26th July, there is the Mangalagauri Pooja every Tuesday, Lakshmi Pooja every Friday, Rakshabandhan on 5th Aug, Janmashtami on the 14th and so on.

Now Festivals or Pooja call for special food items made with some restrictions, the major one being that the use of Onion & Garlic is prohibited. There are others as well, e.g. Tomato & Brinjal can not be used for a Naivedya item. But the No-Onion, No-Garlic is the one that affects me the most. I am so accustomed to using both these items, that as soon as I start preparing to make something, the first thing I do is chop an onion & peel some garlic. So I have to be very careful nowadays whenever I am making food for the Naivedya Thali. Plus there are the sweet dishes to be prepared with each Naivedya. Not having a real sweet tooth doesn't help since I have to keep thinking of a different sweet dish to make every time.

This kheer always comes to rescue when I cant think of anything else to make. It is easy to prepare & uses common ingredients available in every kitchen (if you have the vermicelli that is…)

Shanvige Payasa (Shevaya chi Kheer)

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup Shanvige/Shevayi (Vermicelli)
1 tsp Ghee (Clarified Butter) - optional
2-3 cups Milk
1/2-3/4 cup Sugar (adjust according to taste)
1/2 tsp Cardamom Powder
1/2 cup Nuts (Almond, Cashew, Walnuts etc), roughly broken & roasted
4-5 strands of Saffron (Optional)

Method:

In a saucepan, heat the ghee if using. To this add the vermicelli and roast on a medium-low flame till they just start colouring. If you are not using ghee, dry roast the vermicelli, there is only a slight difference in the end result.

Once the vermicelli starts to colour, add the milk, increase the flame and bring to a boil.

Now reduce the flame and let it simmer for about 10-12 min until the vermicelli is cooked.

Add the cardamom powder, saffron(if using) and continue to heat on low flame.

When the milk has reduced to about half the quantity, add the sugar and mix well. Add the roasted nuts and mix.

Keep heating till you reach the desired consistence, add more milk to adjust. Both of us like it to be quite thick in consistency so I cook it that way.

Serve hot or cold.

My Notes:

The taste of this kheer depends a lot upon the type of Vermicelli used. There are store bought, home made and the in-betweener which is bought but is almost like the home made. Usually the latter two have a bit of salt added to the shevaya. In that case it is a good idea to boil the milk before adding it to the roasted shevaya since otherwise there is a chance that the milk will curdle.
For a richer taste, add condensed milk 4-5 min before you switch off the flame, double cream also serves the purpose.
You can roast the nuts along with the shevaya to save an additional step :) and add raisins as well if you like them.

This blog will be seeing a sudden surge of posts in the Naivedya series this month. I know this will be quite contradictory with my ‘Healthy Eating’ series, but I will try to maintain a balance :)

A Little more than Beans on Toast

2009-08-04T15:01:00.001+01:00

Its very difficult to think of something to make for an event if you are conscious about what you are eating. I have had to keep looking for something which can be accommodated in our current “diet” situation. I don't generally enjoy anything new if I am eating it alone, which is the case for lunch as GM is away at the office with his lunch box. So I usually cook up something new for any event for the dinner meal since that is the only time both of us can sit, enjoy, criticize or appreciate what has been made. Coincidentally that is also the meal that we have decided to watch what we are eating for. So the options I can consider out of the various Google search results are really narrowed down this month (& next if we see results!)

Since this one almost fit the bill & was as simple as it could get, I am choosing this as my entry for this month’s AWED-Britain. Although Beans on Toast is a typical breakfast item for the English, I sometimes enjoy this combination as a light meal. I Add a few things to the baked beans, combine a salad and I have a great light lunch or supper ready. This one is loosely based on a recipe I had seen on one of those numerous cookery shows that I try to follow.

Baked Beans on Toast

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 Can of Baked beans
1/2 tsp dried Basil
1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika
1-2 tblsp finely chopped fresh coriander
Salt & pepper
2 slices of whole meal Bread.

For the Salad

Carrot Shavings from 1 medium carrot
1 cup of Rocket leaves, loosely packed
1 tblsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp Vinegar
Salt & Pepper

Method: Transfer the baked beans on to a sauce pan and heat.

Add the basil, smoked paprika, salt & pepper & continue to heat for another 3-4 minutes.

Add the chopped coriander & heat for another minute & turn off the flame.

Toast the bread either in a preheated (180 deg C) oven or in the toaster to get crisp slices. I find them better when done in the oven. Cut each slice into small pieces (I quartered them into triangles).

For the salad, mix all the ingredients in a bowl.

To serve, arrange the toasted bread pieces on a plate and scoop the prepared beans over these pieces. Place the salad and serve.

This is my entry for AWED – Britain, an event originally started by DK of Culinary Bazar being hosted by Simran of Bombay Foodie this month.

Chinese Style Vegetable Stir fry

2009-07-30T22:19:00.001+01:00

We always knew it, but the weighing scale brought us out of our optimistic thinking that the weight gain was temporary. On Sunday we realised that it was for real, was here to stay and in fact threatened to increase with time. It was high time we did something about it. And obviously food was the prime suspect. There were others like complete inactivity during the weekends, an almost wasted gym membership etc, but it was easy & convenient for us to put the blame on the food we consume & so we decided to change it, at least one meal of the day.

Now, we are not doing anything drastic not even following any particular diet. Although I have to say, inspired by Sig, I did a lot of reading up on the South Beach diet and other Low carb ones. I even tried to follow the SBD for some time but could not keep up with it. I find it a bit difficult to completely follow such diets being a vegetarian. There are a lot of Carb less options for the Non Vegetarians but for me it was very tough thinking up low carb meals without using Meat, Sea food, Eggs & even Mushrooms (I have an allergy!).

So currently we are replacing our usual dinner meal for something more healthy, low fat & low carb and combining this with a mandatory 30 min workout everyday. We are also limiting the consumption of bread for breakfast and fried items & sweets are prohibited unless absolutely necessary on days when there has to be a Naivedya. Believe me its an uphill task to start a diet in the month of Shravan!

I don't think I will be able to write daily about this ‘diet’, but will try to update with the dinners we had, as frequently as possible. And success, if any, will be conveyed with bold letters!

Chinese style Vegetable stir fry

Ingredients

2 Carrots
5-6 Baby Corns
1 Green pepper, sliced
1 Cup small florets of Cauliflower
1 cup Peas
1.5 Cups of Paneer Cubes
1/2 tsp oil
2 cloves of Garlic, minced
1 tsp ginger, chopped finely
1 Green Chilli, slit lengthwise
1 tsp Soy Sauce
1/2 tsp White Vinegar
1 tblsp Tomato Ketchup (Optional)
Salt & Pepper

Method: Peel and cut the carrots into medium sized pieces. Cut the baby corns into equal sized discs. Boil these along with the cauliflower florets for about 3-4 min. The veggies should have a crunch to them but be cooked.

Put a Wok on to heat. When hot, add the paneer cubes and stir fry on high flame till the sides are browned. Remove and keep aside.

Add the oil or use an oil spray.

Put in the garlic, ginger and the green chilli & sauté for a min. Add the boiled veggies and sauté on high flame for about 3-4 min till the edges start browning.

Next, add in the sliced pepper and continue to stir fry. Add the peas, soy sauce, vinegar, salt & pepper and sauté on high flame.

Add the ketchup if using and mix. Lastly add in the paneer and mix till well coated. If at this point you fell that the veggies are dying up, add 1-2 tblsp of water and keep cooking on high flame for another min or so.

We both had a bowl each of this delicious stir fry and actually enjoyed the fact that we are on a diet! If diet food can taste like this then I am all game for it!

Misal Pav – My way

2009-07-22T17:31:00.001+01:00

I often sit & wonder how certain food items must have been ‘invented’.Actually I would really like to know the history of all the food items. I wonder why someone thought of collecting the wheat grains and making a powder (flour) out of it, adding water to make a dough and then rolling out Rotis and then baking them on the Tawa (griddle). What must have prompted the earliest human being to make curd/yogurt from the milk, how they might have stumbled upon it. How they discovered that certain things were edible & tasty when made in a particular way. Who thought of boiling /steaming the rice and how did they come across so many varieties of it. It must have been a massive trial & error session as regards to the rice, I am sure.

More than the complex recipes it is the simple and basic things that intrigue me. The complex ones, if you ask me, are easy to build on when you know the basics. Similar to spelling out large words when you are thorough with the ABC’s. It might take some time to learn but you know you will get it.

These thoughts were triggered as I sat there thinking how to introduce the dish in question here – Misal Pav. The first thing that came to mind was that people must have started with the basic Usal, which is made with sprouts or dried beans. So someone must have added some farsan to the Usal just for that extra crunch & liked it so much that ‘Misal’ was invented. So there you are, Misal is nothing but basic Usal mixed with Farsan (Namkeen/Mixture), topped with garnishes such as chopped onion, chopped coriander etc.

But while Usal can be with a bit of gravy as well as dry, the one made specifically for Misal should have a lot of liquid to compliment the addition of Farsan which tends to soak up some of the gravy. The correct or the traditional way of making Misal is to make two separate things namely the usal, which is made dry and the Kaat which is the one with the gravy. But I have been making Misal by combining the two steps together to save a bit of time.

This is my version of the Misal.

I always make a sprouts Usal and most of the times it is Matki (sprouted Moth Beans). To get the sprouts, soak the Moth Beans overnight and then drain them well and cover and leave them at a warm place. It takes 1-2 days for the sprouting, so you have to plan ahead.

Misal

Ingredients

2 tblsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
8-10 curry leaves
A pinch of Asafoetida
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small onion, chopped
1 Tomato, chopped
1-2 tsp Red Chilli powder
1.5 tsp Goda Masala
2 Cups Sprouts (I used Matki i.e. sprouted Moth Beans)
1 Medium Potato cut into small cubes
Salt

To serve

A pair of Pav buns (or white rolls)
Farsan (Namkeen/Mixture)
Chopped onion
Chopped fresh Coriander
A Wedge of Lime
Thin Sev (Optional)

Method:

Heat the oil in a deep vessel and add the mustard seeds. As they start spluttering add the Curry leaves and Asafoetida.

Add the crushed garlic & fry until the garlic just starts browning. Put in the chopped onions and fry till the raw smell goes away and onions turn translucent.

Next, add the chopped tomato and cook till the tomatoes are all mashed up. Add the salt, red chilli powder and the goda masala and keep frying till the oil separates.

Add the chopped potatoes and cook for 5 min with the cover on. Add the sprouts and mix well.

Add about 3 cups of water, enough for the potatoes & sprouts to cook and also to be left with some gravy. Bring this to a boil and then simmer until cooked.

To serve, take a bowl and fill a little more than half of it with the Farsan. Pour over the Usal, adding gravy enough to immerse the Farsan. Top this up with chopped onions and Coriander and the thin sev. Serve this with the wedge of lemon and the Pav.

My notes: If you don't find the right Pav or white rolls, substitute with bread.

This is my entry for Sunday Snacks – Spill the Beans being hosted by Priya of Akshaypatram.

Varan/Tavvi – Simple lentils

2009-07-06T15:30:00.001+01:00

This forms one half of the ultimate (for me atleast!) comfort food – Varan Bhaat. The other half is simply boiled/steamed rice. Varan for me is something which I had always taken for granted, simple sounding & simple tasting, surely it must be very simple to make. Although it is very easy to make, I initially struggled to get the exact taste & consistency of the Varan that Mom used to make.

Varan can actually have 2 forms, one where the lentils are simply boiled and then salt and a bit of turmeric powder are added and mixed well. This is the version served in festive meals & weddings, on the mound of rice along with Tuppa (Ghee) and Sambhar.

The other version involves tempering the cooked lentils and this is what this post is about. There are no Masala powders (Spice Mix) involved. The procedure is very simple and the ingredients are all routine ones.

As for my struggle to get the right taste & balance, it all started because I had always felt that Mom used a lot of ‘unnecessary’ stuff while making Varan. In those days, according to me, Curry leaves & Coriander were something that came in the way of enjoying something tasty. I always picked out these two from any food item and would complain about it. If we had to take them out later on, why add them to the dish in the first place? Same was the case with the Varan, so naturally when I tried to replicate it, I skipped both of them and ended up with a very bland tasting Dal.

And so it happened every time, I would either skip the curry leaves or the coriander and look for an excuse to explain the difference in the taste. All this even while I remembered that Mom always said that those were the things that imparted the taste to the Varan. But now I am ‘older & wiser ‘, so I know that these are a must. In fact both these are a mandatory part of almost everything I cook nowadays.

So here it is, the comforting & delicious Varan. Although the list of ingredients might look very non-glamorous, don't skip any of them as that will definitely alter the end result.

Varan / Tavvi – Simple Lentils

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 cups of cooked Toor Dal (Split Pigeon Pea) – I cook this in the pressure cooker, the consistency should be such that the Dal should give in easily when mashed with the back of a spoon.
1 tblsp Oil
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
8-10 Curry Leaves
1/4 tsp Hing (Asafoetida)
1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
2 Green Chillies, slit lenghtwise
salt
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tblsp Chopped fresh coriander
Lime juice

Method:

Heat oil in a deep pan. Once hot enough add the mustard seeds. As they beging to splutter, add the curry leaves and Hing.

Add in the tuermic powder and the slit chillies and stir.

Roughly mash the cooked dal and add it to the tempering along with half a cup of water.

Add salt and sugar and mix well. Bring this to boil and simmer for about 4-5 minutes.

Next, add in the chopped coriander, mix and let it cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Switch off the flame, wait for a minute or two and add the lime juice and combine.

Serve hot with Rice. It also makes for a great accompaniment with Chapati-Bhaji.

This comforting bowl of lentils is going to Sunshinemom at Tongue Ticklers, who is hosting the current edition of My Legume Love Affair-13, an event originally started by Susan (The Well Seasoned Cook).

Banana & Chocolate Chip Muffins

2009-05-29T15:32:00.001+01:00

It had been a while since I had baked something and my Hand Mixer was literally calling out to me - ‘You were so keen on getting me home because you thought there was a lot of baking going on in your kitchen, so why don't you put me to use now?’

Well, that prompted me to get into action and I was literally on a baking spree for a few days. Muffins, cookies (Nankhatai to be precise), cake and so on. I made them all one by one, clicked pictures, sorted the snaps out, stored them in the folder and got on with my life. A chance peep into the folder and I realised today that this was more than a month ago and I still haven't posted them on the blog. That got me typing all this out furiously as if there was no tomorrow.

Now doesn't all this tell you that I am a kind of person who needs a little prodding to get things done? I know some of you might translate that into – I am Lazy, but really I am not! Theres so much more to do that all of these get sidetracked. I could start a list of things here but that will take me more than a day to finish. Imagine if I cant finish off the list of things to be done in a day how can I actually get the things done???

I will stop my rant right here and get back to the first in the list of baked things – Muffins. I just wanted to make muffins, did not have anything specific and set out to search for a fairly simple & uncomplicated recipe and found it here.

This is supposed to be a classic combination and I had all the ingredients with me.

Banana & Chocolate Chip Muffins

Makes about 15 Muffins

Ingredients

2.5 cups Plain flour
3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1 tblsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup Chocolate Chips
1 Large Egg
2.5 tblsp Cooking oil
2.5 tblsp Milk
3 mashed ripe Bananas

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg C.

Beat together the egg, oil, mashed bananas and milk and keep aside.

Sift the flour along with the baking powder. To this mix the salt, sugar and chocolate chips.

Pour in the above made liquid mixture into this dry one and mix until everything is just blended.

Line a muffin tray with muffin cases and pour the batter into each case so that you fill just a little more than 3/4th of each cup.

Bake in the pre heated oven for about 20-25 minutes. Check for the muffins to be cooked, if a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean, they are cooked. Transfer them on a wire rack to cool.

Serve warm or store in air tight containers.

My Notes: The muffins were great when we had them immediately after baking them. They were good the next day. But on the third day, there were only 2-3 left, but there was this typical Banana smell which I didn't like. I think these muffins are not to be stored for more than 2 days. Apart form this we liked the muffins a lot.

Broken Wheat Kheer (Godhi Kuttida Payasa)

2009-05-13T18:52:00.001+01:00

Attending traditional kannada (North Karnataka) weddings was one of the things we enjoyed a lot about our annual trips to the village during the summer vacation. The celebrations, meeting the relatives and most importantly the food.

But we did have a major problem with the food – that it seemed like rice was the only thing being served

Anna – Tavvi - Saaru (Rice with cooked lentils & Sambhar)
Chitranna (Lemon Rice)
Masale Bhaat (Spiced Rice)
Mosaranna (Curd Rice)

And so on.

But at the same time there was one item we always looked forward to and that was the sweet. No, not the dessert but the sweet which was a part of the main meal and would be served between any two of the above mentioned rice varieties.

The sequence would go something like this – A full adorned thali
(or rather Banana Leaf) and the first thing to be had was the payasa or kheer. This would be followed by some rice, cooked lentils, a spoon of ghee (clarified butter) and a serving of Saaru (Sambhar) in a Donne (bowls made of dried …). After this would come either the masale bhaat or the chitranna. Followed by the star of the meal – the sweet, mostly one of the following

Jalebi – served along with a glass of buttermilk. A sip of the buttermilk would wipe away the sweet taste of the Jalebi and you are ready for more!
Boondi Ladoo – Huge ones, almost like the prasad you get in the Tirupati & having a similar taste too. The size of the each boondi also was huge!
Holige (Puran Poli) – Consumption of Milk & Tuppa (Ghee) along with this is mandatory.

While brother D, would eagerly wait for this course to arrive, I was happy licking away the payasa/kheer from the first serving. Not any payasa, but only if it was Godhi kuttida payasa, kheer made from broken wheat. The only sad part was that since the kheer was a part of naivedya, it was usually served in small quantities and unlike other items, we were not asked for a second helping either.

This kheer was and still is my favourite. I had promised myself that if I do get married in the village (which didn't happen BTW), I would definitely have this on the menu, not just as a Naivedya but as the main dish!

The traditional method to make it involves soaking the wheat to soften it a little, drying it and then ‘beating’ it to ‘break’ it coarsely using a large mortar & pestle, but wooden ones and not metal. The metal being heavier breaks the wheat into pieces while the wooden one being a little lighter, removes the husk without breaking the wheat into pieces and achieves smaller grain like consistency of the wheat. Also my mom tells me that the wheat used is a different variety, I cant recollect the name though.

Nowadays people have started making this in the mixer/grinder but the results definitely vary. I have taken the modern adaptation a step further and make this with the ‘Lapsi’ wheat available in the store. While this gives the payasa a very ‘Dalia’ like taste, this is the closest I can get to Godhi Kuttida Payasa, sitting here in London.

Broken Wheat Kheer

Ingredients

1 cup broken Wheat (Lapsi)
1.5 cups milk
1 cup grated Jaggery
1 tsp Cardamom Powder
1/4 cup mixed nuts, broken into small pieces (I used Almonds & Cashew)

Method:

Cook the broken wheat with 1 cup of water in a pressure cooked for about 2-3 whistles, depending upon the type of the cooker. The idea is to cook the wheat without turning it into a mush.

Transfer the cooked wheat to a deep pan, add milk and bring to boil. Add the grated Jaggery & Cardamom powder and mix well.

Cook on medium flame while stirring frequently until the milk reduces a bit.

Add the nuts and continue to cook till you get the desired consistency which ideally should be like a thick paste.

Serve warm as a dessert or as part of a meal and don't forget the ghee.

Apart from being delicious, this makes a very good Naivedya & is specially made during weddings (as mentioned above).

This goes to Srivalli’s Mithai Mela which celebrates two years of her blogging at Cooking 4 all seasons.

Kaatachi Aamti (Kattina Saaru)

2009-05-08T14:58:00.001+01:00

With 3 of the Puran dishes (Puran Poli, Kadabu, Haygreev) already on this blog, this one was long due. I confess that when I made those three, I made this Aamti/Saaru every time. How can I let go of the chance where I have the Kaat (the water in which the split chickpea, reqd for the Puran, is cooked)? But never took the chance of posting it, but now here it is.

The consistency for Kaatachi Aamti is very Rasam like, unlike the normal Aamti which is on a slightly thicker side with the lentils clearly showing.

Kaatachi Aamti

Serves 2

Ingredients

3-4 Cups Kaat (Water in which the split Chickpea is cooked)

Note1: When you cook the split chickpea for the Puran to make Puran Poli, collect the water in which they are cooked along with some (about 2 tblsp) split chickpea, mashing them a bit in the water. This is the Kaat, called Kattu in Kannada.

Note2: If you are making this Aamti without making the Puran Poli, take 2-3 tblsp of split Chickpea in 1.5 to 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Simmer and cook till the split chickpea is fully cooked. Mash the chickpea in the water and use this water as the Kaat.

1 tblsp Ghee (Clarified Butter)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
7-8 Curry Leaves
A pinch of Asafoetida
1 Tblsp Tamarind pulp
1/2 Tblsp Jaggery (Adjust acc to taste)
2-3 tblsp Grated coconut (optional)
Salt

To be ground into a coarse powder

1” piece of Cinnamon
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1-2 Cloves
5-6 Peppercorns

Method:

Grind all the dry Masalas as mentioned above or coarsely pound them in a mortar-pestle and keep aside.

Heat the ghee in a deep pan. Add the mustard seeds. As they start to splutter add the cumin seeds & the curry leaves.

Next, add in the asafoetida and turmeric powder. Mix and add the ground Masala powder and let it fry for a minute.

Reduce the flame & pour in the Kaat . Add the tamarind pulp, salt, grated coconut (if using) and Jaggery.

Bring it to a boil and then simmer for about 10-12 minutes.

Serve hot with Puran Poli & rice.

That was our thali - Puran Poli (with lots of ghee of course!), Kaatachi Aamti, Batata Bhaji and a bowl of milk to go with the Puran Poli.

My Notes: The Ghee lends that unique taste to the Aamti so I would recommend not to substitute it with oil.

The cloves & peppercorns add enough heat, but if required add a tsp of chilli powder, this will also give the Aamti a nice colour.

Adjust the amount of Tamarind & Jaggery as per your preference, what I have given here will yield a sweet, sour & spicy Aamti.

Khichadi-Kadhi : The ultimate comfort food

2009-04-22T16:19:00.001+01:00

This ones a classic combination as far as comfort foods go. Of course a lot of broth preparations go quite well with Khichadi such as Tomato-Saar, Rasam, Amsul-Saar etc but there is something about this combination which makes even the otherwise supposedly bland Khichadi a welcome dish.

As much as I love this, I can not come to terms with the fact that this can be regarded as a festive dish as well! Now theres a little story behind this. When we were looking around for a marriage hall for my wedding & looked at the menu options available, almost all of them in Pune, listed Khichadi-Kadhi as one of the items. Now, Khichadi has a reputation for being something very bland & simple, fit for the sick and to put all this in a very pleasant manner at the most a comfort food. I could never imagine having Khichadi on the day of my wedding! I had rejected the menu outright without even looking at the other items. I was completely adamant that come what may I will not have Khichadi for lunch on my wedding day and everyone had to finally decided on (they did agree with me on this point) Masala Bhat.

I said supposedly bland because there are so many variations possible and I bet each household has its own version of Khichadi. To give you an example my mom made it totally different than what my MIL makes and I must add here that her version is a bit different from my FIL’s. Yes! my FIL makes the best Khichadi I have tasted so far and also the Kadhi to go with it.

My version takes a bit of each of the above mentioned and tastes very different from theirs! I have taken whatever I like in each of the above and added some of my own to get to this. Again its not necessary that I will make it exactly this way everytime. I might do something different, increase one thing, reduce another, skip something or add according to my mood that day. What I giving here is the basic Khichadi recipe that I use.

Khichadi

Serves 2

Ingredients

3/4 cup rice (I used Sona Masoori)
3/4 cup Split yellow Moong dal
1 tblsp Ghee (Clarified Butter) or oil
1.5 tsp Cumin Seeds
6-8 Curry Leaves
1/2 tsp Hing (Asafoetida)
2 cloves
6-7 Peppercorns
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt

Method:

Wash the rice & dal and keep aside.

Heat the ghee/oil in a deep pan/kadai. Once hot, add the cumin seeds. Once they sizzle & change colour add the curry leaves and the Asafoetida.

Add the cloves & peppercorns and fry for a minute or two. You could coarsely crush the cloves & peppercorns before adding them. Next, add the turmeric powder and mix.

Add the rice & dal and mix well. Season with salt and let it roast for 2-3 minutes.

Now add double the amount of water than that of the rice and Dal, mix well and bring to a boil.

Reduce the flame, cover & cook till the rice & dal are completely cooked. The consistency for the khichadi is usually mushy.

I use a pressure pan to speed up the process. I do the tempering & roasting of the rice & dal, add water & then cover & pressure cook it for 6 whistles. If you don't have a pressure pan, you can do the tempering & roasting in a pan & then transfer the contents into a vessel that will fit into your pressure cooker & cook it for approx 4-5 whistles depending upon the type of cooker.

Serve hot with ghee poured on it, along with Kadhi, roasted papad & some pickle.

My Notes: The quantity of water has to be adjusted to get that mushy consistency for the khichadi.

For variations I sometimes,

add one chopped green chilli to the tempering.
use green split moong dal i.e. split moong dal with the skin. This brings a nice change in the taste.
add 1.5 tsp of Coriander-Cumin powder to make it a little more spicier.
add chopped fresh coriander leaves once the khichadi is cooked.

As for the Kadhi, I completely go by my FIL’s recipe, its really the best & the simplest. But I do like garlic in my Kadhi (my mom used to add this in hers!), so I just add a bit of crushed garlic.

Kadhi

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup curd
2 tblsp Besan (Chickpea flour)
1/2 tblsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
4-6 curry leaves
2 pinches of Hing (Asafoetida)
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
1/2 an onion, chopped
1-2 cloves of Garlic, coarsely crushed
1 green chilli, chopped
1-2 tsp Sugar
Salt

Method:

Make buttermilk (Chaas) of medium consistency using the curd and water. Add salt to this and mix well and keep aside until required.

Make paste of the chickpea flour with some water & keep aside.

heat the oil in a deep pan. Once the oil is hot add the mustard seeds & as they start spluttering add the Cumin seeds, curry leaves, Asafoetida and the turmeric powder.

Next, add the crushed garlic & onion and fry till the onion starts softening. Add the chopped chilli and mix.

Reduce the heat and add the earlier prepared buttermilk and stir well on medium-low flame.

Once the it is heated through, add the chickpea flour paste and sugar and continue to heat.

The Kadhi should not be allowed to boil too much. Just heated enough till the consistency goes from watery to glossy (the besan being cooked).

Adjust the salt & sugar according to your taste after switching off the flame.

My Notes: You could add any of the vegetables such as Okra, White Pumpkin, Snake gourd etc to get an additional boost in the taste.

Serve hot with Khichadi for that classic combination or with plain rice, or even along with Chapati-Bhaji. I like to have it plain & straight just like a soup too :)

Here’s another look at the dish again,

This plate makes for a great meal for the kids, my daughter S loves Khichadi. So it is on its way to Trupti’s Recipe Center, for the Cooking For Kids:Rice event, started originally by Sharmi of Neivedyam.

Farali Batata Bhaji (Potato stir fry)

2009-04-11T10:26:00.001+01:00

I first came across this one when we had been out at a restaurant having an Indian Buffet, Gujarati to be precise. In fact most of the items on the menu even apart from the Buffet, such as the South Indian dishes (Dosa, Idli, Wada with the chutney & sambhar), North Indian Dishes (The Paneer, the Aloo-Matar etc), the Indo Chinese(Hakka Noodles, schezuan rice ) etc all have a very strong Gujarati influence.

But we keep going there every now & then, for the buffet. In fact whenever we go there, its only for the buffet. It does have some fusion kind of dishes such as Paneer Chilli, individual portions of Pizza, french fries etc but otherwise you get to have a perfect Gujarati Thali – Kadi, dal, 3-4 bhaji (both dry & gravy), poori/roti, rice, salad and most importantly the chat items (bhelpuri, samosa chat etc). Actually to be very honest its the chat items that beckon us even though the items in the buffet are always the same & we do tend to get bored of having the same things every time.

To come back to the recipe of this post, it was a good change to see this one on the menu when we had been there 2 weeks back. It was called ‘Farali Bhaji’ (fit to be had when fasting) and I took a spoonful only because it was potatoes and little S likes potatoes (of course I like it too) and this one looked like it wasn't very spicy either, in fact it looked very bland to me. I started giving S some poori with this bhaji & she seemed to like it a lot. Mid way through the lunch, I tasted it & was surprised to find it very tasty, in a very simple way I must add. I tried to think about what all went into it & could only come up with cumin, salt, pepper & the peanuts apart from the potatoes of course. I remember wondering how such a simple dish with minimal ingredients can taste so well. I then had 2 more helpings of the same after that.

I had also decided to recreate it in my kitchen there & then, seeing that S had liked it so much. Then when I actually set to make it I realised what was different about the bhaji & give it that unique taste. The tempering was supposed to be done in Ghee (Clarified Butter) and not oil. This was something very obvious which I should have realised earlier because most of the Upvaas (fasting) items are cooked in ghee and not oil. This is very quick to make & if you have boiled potatoes it takes not mare than 5-7 minutes for it to be ready.

Farali Batata Bhaji

Serves 2

Ingredients

3 Medium sized potatoes, boiled & peeled
a handful of Peanuts (about2-3 tblsp)
2 tblsp Ghee (Clarified Butter)
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds (Jeera)
4-6 Curry Leaves
Salt
Pepper

Method:

Roughly mash the potatoes and keep aside.

Heat the ghee in a pan & when its hot add the cumin seeds. As the cumin seeds start to sizzle add the curry leaves & peanuts.

Stir & fry till the peanuts get a little coloured. Now add the boiled potatoes, salt & pepper.

Mix thoroughly, cover and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring in between.

Thats it! Serve hot with Roti/Poori.

My Notes: The restaurant Bhaji used a lot more ghee, in fact you could see the ghee in the bhaji, but I have reduced the amount here. Increasing it would have achieved exactly the same taste as in the restaurant, I am sure. Also please don't add any coriander leaves or other such garnish, it will make a huge difference to the taste.

This goes to Monthly Mingle – Kids Lunches, an event started by Meeta @ Whats for Lunch Honey? and being hosted by Srivalli this month.

Instant Carrot Paddu

2009-04-08T17:47:00.001+01:00

This is a variation on those round ones. I stumbled upon Carrot-Ginger Appe at As Dear as Salt, when looking for options for breakfast and liked it very much. I made some changes to the original recipe and made these.

The best part about them is that they are instant, no fermentation required. And they pack in carrots so they are healthy too. I would like to try a different combination of veggies next time.

Instant Carrot Paddu

(Adapted from this recipe at Richa’s As Dear as Salt)

Ingredients

1.5 cups grated carrot
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1-2 Green Chillies, finely chopped
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
2-3 tblsp chopped fresh coriander leaves
4-5 tblsp All Purpose Flour (Maida)
2-3 tblsp Rice flour
1-2 tblsp Semolina (Rava/Sooji)
Salt
Oil

Method:

Mix all the above ingredients except for the oil to make a thick batter. Use a little water if required.

Heat the Appam Pan and lightly oil each depression.

Pour spoonfuls of batter into each depression, reduce the flame and cover and cook for about 2-3 min.

Remove the cover, drizzle some oil on each of them & cook on high flame for another minute.

Flip over the paddus & continue to cook on medium flame for another 2-3 minutes.

Remove on Kitchen towels. Serve hot with any chutney of your choice. I served these with the Dhaniya-Pudina Chutney.

My Notes: Adjust the quantity of the flour (Maida, rice & Semolina) depending upon the consistency of the batter. The final batter should resemble a thick Dosa Batter. Actually it could be a little thicker than that too. I will try to reduce the Maida, the next time I make it.

Cherry & Almond Cake

2009-04-01T00:07:00.001+01:00

While I am quite a confident cook, or if I can even say so myself at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, a seasoned cook, I am not so sure when it comes to baking. Although I am not new to baking, having made quite a few cakes, cookies, muffins even bread etc, I am always nervous when I am baking. It could be a tried & tested recipe but I am still biting my nails until I have seen the final product.

I would always look at the baking books on the shelf in the store & sigh, thinking whether it will be a good investment. I decided I had to start somewhere and was delighted to find ‘Easy Baking’ and I didn't have to think twice before buying it.

The recipes are basic and limited but have been so neatly presented along with great pictures that I wanted to try everything at once. There are a few recipes that I have already tried but there are some which I have always wanted to try & was on the look out for easy & manageable recipes. And this book gives me exactly that.

I chose this particular cake as my first from this book basically because I had an opened pack of glace cherries which I wanted to use. What happened to the earlier used cherries is a different story for another post

Cherry Almond Cake

Ingredients

2 cups Glace Cherries
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup golden caster sugar (I used regular caster sugar)
3 eggs
1/2 cup ground Almonds
2 3/4 cup Plain Flour
1.5 tsp Baking Powder
Flaked Almonds for topping

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 160 deg C. Prepare a 7 inch square cake tin by lightly greasing it & dusting it with flour.

Cut the glace cherries in half and run water through them to get rid of the syrup. Dry them & keep aside.

Combine the butter, sugar, eggs & ground almonds and beat together.

Sift the flour & baking powder and add to the above wet mixture. Beat well to mix.

Add in the cherries and stir to mix. Spoon in the mixture in the cake tin and smooth the top.

Sprinkle the Almond flakes on the top. I did not have flaked almonds with me so heres what I did. Blanched the almonds & removed the skin and then chopped them into thin slivers and used them to top the cake.

Bake in the pre heated oven for about 1 1/2 hrs to 1 3/4 hrs until a thin knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Leave in the tin for about 10 min and then remove and cool on a wire rack.

When cool enough, cut into slices and store in an Air tight container. We finished off the cake within 2-3 days but I feel it will keep good for about 4-5 days.

My notes: The cake was very nice, tasting a little similar to the pound cake or the butter cake as it is called. Although I would cut the cherries into smaller pieces next time to distribute the sweetness.

This goes to JZ’s Tasty Treats for Lets go Nuts - Almonds. The event has been initiated by Aquadaze of Served with Love.

MBP – Masala Peanuts

2009-03-31T22:01:00.001+01:00

Is it a coincidence that I read this post at Jugalbandi on the same day that I read this announcement? Well, according to Master Oogway (Kung Fu Panda), there are no coincidences. So this one had to be destined.

Even before I had seen the MBP announcement, I had bookmarked these Masala Peanuts. No oil, they say and that was all the encouragement I needed to make them. If only I had got some prodding to publish this post earlier. Its been more than a fortnight since I made them & only posting about it now.

Anyway, the recipe looked quite simple & straight forward. I have used the pink skin Indian variety of peanuts which does not find much favour at Jugalbandi as you will find out in their post. But for me, these are the best, they taste great & these are what I stock. Plus I have always had the Masala peanuts (the fried ones) made with these. That reminds me to mention here that this version is as healthy as it can get as opposed to the fried Masala peanuts that we used to get on the roadside stalls (or in the local trains), spicy & oily, but they did taste great too! BTW those fried ones are now available in fancy packages under the brand name of Haldirams (can some one confirm this?). Check out their cool site.

I have used a different spice combination than given in the original recipe.

Masala Peanuts

Source: Jugalbandi

Ingredients

1.5 cups Peanuts
1.5 Cups Besan (Chickpea flour)
1.5 Tblsp Rice flour
2 tsp Red Chilli Powder
1 tsp Cumin Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
Salt

Method:

Pre Heat the oven to 200 deg C.

Arrange the Peanuts on a baking tray and bake them with the broiler on for about 10-15 min, stirring them around 2-3 times. Keep a watch as the peanuts might get burnt and don't expect dark speckles on them as you would get when you roast them on the stove top. Here they will be heated uniformly so they will only turn brown. Remove and keep aside to cool.

Meanwhile mix the the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Reserve half of this dry mixture and make a thick paste with the other half using a little water.

Add the paste to the peanuts and mix well to coat them. Now add the dry mixture to this and combine. I found that using a spoon works better than doing it with hands since the flour sticks to the hand.

Spread the coated peanuts on the baking tray and bake for 15 min.

Take out the tray after 15 min and move around the peanuts. Now would also be a good time to break the bigger clusters if any, into smaller ones.

Put the tray back in the oven and bake for 10 more minutes. Take them out and allow to cool. Once cool enough, store in dry air tight container. They are great to munch on and really do get over in no time.

This is my entry for this month’s MBP: Snacks & Savouries hosted at Ashwini’s Spicy Cuisine. MBP is an event originated by Coffee of Spice Cafe.

Attempting a Rasam…..

2009-03-26T18:14:00.001Z

This wasn't my first attempt. I have made Rasam before but not with such a delicious end result. Although rasam forms an integral part of a south Indian meal, I have yet to come to terms with this watery preparation.

I have always wondered about how it can be described. Its not like Sambhar for sure, not even a Dal, because you can hardly find dal(lentils) in there. They call it a South Indian soup but if you are used to the restaurant style Tomato soup & Sweet corn soup then this seems like something different. I had even asked my friend S, how & with what do you eat rasam. Rice, she said. And I could not imagine mixing my rice with this watery (again the same adjective!) soup kind of thing, me being used to thick Dals, varan, amthi & sambhar. But I did have it with rice at her place and liked it a lot. That was my first encounter with the Rasam.

When I started cooking on my own after marriage I tried a few times to make Rasam, mostly with tomatoes. It would turn out fine sometimes & ‘only’ watery at others. Such experiences wiped out the lovely rasam memories from S’s place & reaffirmed my belief of the Rasam being ‘Watery’! Then T&T – Tasty Palettes was announced and while browsing through Suganya’s blog I came across this title – Pepper, Cumin & Garlic Rasam with Potato roast.

Now if you mention, pepper & garlic in the same breath, you have my total attention. Plus it had cumin too and of course the picture looked great as is the case with all the pics on Tasty Palettes. I had to try this one specially since it fitted perfectly with the fact that there was only rice for dinner.

I followed the recipe from start to end & obediently did not allow the rasam to boil as Suganya has mentioned. I also took the ghee recommendation very seriously and that is clearly visible in the picture isn't it?

In fact I was so engrossed in the whole thing that I even made the Potato roast, mentioned in the same post on the blog, without having planned it! The tangy, spicy Rasam had great company in the form of crunchy, crispy potatoes. But since that wasn't the original plan it didn't strike me to take snaps & I only remembered when we had finished off everything (licked the rasam bowl & scraped the potato off the pan)!

This goes to Zlamushka’s Tried & Tasted event that has made a comeback with Suganya’s Tasty Palettes being the featured blog for the month. The event is being hosted by Sweatha, Curry Leaf.

Sabudana Wada

2009-03-22T09:46:00.001Z

This one takes the record for being in the drafts for the longest time - almost a year! We must have had Sabudana Wadas at least 10-12 times after this was drafted. Every time I made them, I would sit with the laptop determined to publish it and everytime something or the other would happen (e.g not fitting in with the ongoing events!) and it would be pushed back. But now here it is finally!

Sabudana or sago is the major reason, I don't mind fasting once in a while! I am a huge fan of the khichdi and absolutely love the wadas. But I have almost never liked the Sabudana wadas I have had at the restaurants or food joints. They are either too chewy or too hard & crispy. Home made it is for me, where I can make them as per my liking.

The soaking time totally depends on the type of Sabudana, you have. The minute homoeopathy-medicine-like sabudana needs hardly 20 min of soaking whereas the normal medium sized seeds may need anywhere between 4-6 hours.

Sabudana Wada

Makes about 10 medium sized wadas

Ingredients

1 cup Sabudana
4-5 Green Chilies (or as per taste)
1/2 cup Peanuts
2 medium-small sized Potatoes, boiled & mashed
Salt
Oil for frying

Method:

Soak the Sabudana as per the type of Sabudana for 1/2 an hour or 4-6 hours to make them soft & fluffy.

Dry roast the peanuts and then remove the skin by rubbing them between your palms. Grind them coarsely, there should be some whole or halved peanuts remaining.

Chop the green chillies and make a coarse paste preferably using the pestle & mortar.

Combine in a bowl, the soaked Sabudana, mashed potatoes, ground peanut, green chillies and add salt. Mix together and divide into equal portions.

Shape these portions as desired (round, flat etc). Check that the mixture holds its shape and is neither too loose nor very dry. This is very important since if the mixture is crumbly, the wada will disintegrate in the hot oil, whereas if it is too wet, the resulting wada will not be crispy & cooked properly.

If the mixture turns very loose add some more mashed potatoes and make sure that it binds well. Also I prefer the flat shape to the round ones. The flat shape ensures that the inside of the wada gets cooked thoroughly when fried. With the round ones, the surface gets crisp but the insides sometimes remain undercooked.

While you are shaping the wadas, heat oil in a kadai. To check if the temperature is optimum, drop a pinch of the mixture in the hot oil, it should instantly come to surface floating and the sabudana in the mixture should puff up.

Reduce the flame to medium and drop the wadas. Turn the wada using a slotted spoon to fry uniformly. Once the surface is crispy & brown, remove on a kitchen towel to drain the excess oil.

Serve hot with Coconut chutney.

The coconut chutney served with Sabudana wadas is usually made with peanuts in it. For this grind together 1 cup grated coconut, 1/2 cup peanuts, 2-3 green chillies, salt & 1 tsp sugar with a little water to the desired consistency.

On another note, Trupti of Recipe Center has passed on the following awards to me:

Thanks a lot for your appreciation Trupti!

Dum Paneer Kali Mirch

2009-03-17T17:00:00.001Z

I don't remember where I had got this recipe from. It was collected during the days when I was actively (read desperately) looking for Paneer recipes all over. Google search results & some news paper cuttings plus many of those appearing in the magazines and not to forget all those cookery shows (specially Sanjeev Kapoor's Khana Khazana) made up my collection of these treasured Paneer recipes. This was one of them. Since I have this one written down from my days before I even knew about food blogging, I don't know the exact source.

Somehow this collection has been neglected for the need of having to look them up in the diary. I always tend to go for the normal ones that I am used to making now. But the day of 14th march demanded something different. It was GM's Birthday and Paneer had to be on the menu. But I didn't want to go for the regular Paneer dishes because I wanted it to be different. So this one was dug out again of the diary.

It feels almost nostalgic to note that my first recipe post on this blog Paneer Makhani and the first post after completing a year is also a Paneer dish!

Dum Paneer Kali Mirch

Ingredients

2 cups Paneer, cubed
1 Big onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp Garlic paste (or minced)
1 tsp Ginger paste (or grated)
1-2 Green chillies (according to taste)
1.5 tblsp Oil
1" piece of cinnamon
2-3 cloves
1-2 Green Cardamom
10-12 Black Peppercorns, coarsely ground
2 tblsp Curd, beaten
1 tsp Coriander powder
1 tblsp chopped coriander leaves
1/2 tblsp chopped mint leaves
Salt

Method:

Heat 1/2 tblsp oil and saute the sliced onion in it till they are nicely browned. Cool and grind to paste with a little water.

Heat the remaining 1 tblsp oil. Add the cinnamon, cloves & Cardamom and fry for a minute. Add the Garlic, Ginger & green chillies and fry.

Add the onion paste and continue to fry for another minute. Reduce the flame and add the curd, salt, coriander powder and ground pepper.

Add about 1/2 cup of water, bring to a boil and add the paneer. Add the chopped coriander & mint leaves.

Cover and cook on low flame for about 5-7 minutes.

Serve hot with Roti or rice.

Note: While browning the onions, don't let them burn too much else the gravy will have a slight bitter taste (This was not mentioned in the recipe but I have learnt it the 'bitter' way!)

Adjust the quantity of green chillies according to the spice level you are comfortable with, also keeping in mind that the peppercorns & cloves will also add some heat to the dish.

And since 'Kali Mirch' (Black Pepper) happens to be the main star of the dish, this goes to Think Spice - Think Pepper event being held at Divya's blog Dil se, the event having originated at Sunita's World.

And here are some of those 'regular' Paneer dishes :)

Update: As this dish is cooked in ‘Dum’ style (on a low flame) it qualifies for this month’s RCI-Lucknow at Home Cook’s Recipes. The event was initiated by Lakshmi.

Tiramisu for a one year old???

2009-03-11T16:41:00.001Z

Absolutely! Its sweet, its rich and best of all this one happens to be eggless too! And it has been made specially for the one year old. After all there has to be something fitting to mark the first Birthday, a very important milestone.

In case you are still wondering, its the blog that has completed one year. Taste Buds started on this day last year after much deliberation and some inspiration from my dear friend. 75 posts, various blog events, lots of encouragement from fellow bloggers & readers later I am very glad that I 'took the plunge'. Its great to be here amongst all of you, sharing the love for food (I didn't say cooking!). For the record though, I enjoy cooking but then everything has a burn out time :)

Blogging has become an integral part of my life now and so has reading other blogs. My day starts with having a peek at others' space to see what they are cooking or 'saying' on their blogs. In the past year, apart from posting my recipes, I have tried out a lot of recipes successfully from fellow bloggers, learnt a lot about ingredients (thanks to events such as JFI, Think Spice etc) that were taken for granted by me and started using a lot many 'new' veggies, spices etc which I was not very familiar with.

Now for the Tiramisu. I have wanted to try out this Italian dessert for a long time but the use of almost raw eggs always put me off, so also the wine. I know the wine is supposed to be an integral part of Tiramisu but I just don't like that taste in my dessert. Any recipe I looked had one or both of them in addition to sounding a bit complex. Then I came across this one from Gordon Ramsay. Although there is no egg, it does have the wine in it. It was time I realised that there might be no recipe without the wine in it. So I took the eggless recipe & made it wineless too. I replaced the wine with Pomegranate & cranberry juice (same colour, you see :). It seems to have worked because the end result was almost like the real one without the winey taste. Of course those who swear by the 'real' Tiramisu might find this appalling - no eggs? no wine?? whatever next??? But it works for me (& GM too), we liked this version a lot.

The original recipe assembles the tiramisu in separate serving glasses, but I have made it in a square dish (approx 3"x3") and two individual ramekins.

Tiramisu (Eggless)

(Adapted from a recipe by Gordon Ramsay)

Ingredients

3/4 cup Mascarpone
1 cup single cream
4 tblsp Caster Sugar
About 16 Sponge Fingers (Also called Lady Fingers)
2 tblsp strong instant coffee granules dissolved in 1/2 cup water
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
3 Tblsp Pomegranate & Cranberry Juice
Cocoa powder for dusting

Method:

Whisk together the Mascarpone, vanilla extract, pomegranate juice and 1/3 of the coffee.

Whisk the cream with caster sugar until stiff and smooth. Now fold in the above Mascarpone mixture to this cream and set aside.

Line the dish you are using with the sponge fingers dipped in coffee. Spoon in the Mascarpone mixture to form a thick layer.

Chill in the fridge for about 1-2 hours for the flavours to infuse.

Dust with cocoa powder just before serving.

Note: Since this one is eggless I found that its a bit heavier/denser than the Tiramisu available in restaurants & stores, but I preferred this one.

Thank you everyone for bringing Taste Buds this far. I hope to receive the same encouragement in future and I will keep posting my experiments and experiences in the kitchen.

Roasted Red Pepper & Baby Corn Lasagne

2009-03-01T00:33:00.001Z

I had made Lasagne for the first time around 3 yrs back, following a recipe from Tarla Dalal. I get these set of recipes emailed to me every week since I registered on the official website. This particular Lasagne recipe sounded simple enough and even included the steps for making the Lasagne sheets and that seemed quite easy too. But I had never had lasagne before so when the recipe asked the pasta dough to be cut into strips I actually cut them into thin ones, just like Fettuccine (As you can see my knowledge of pasta has improved a lot since then!). Well, the recipe did say 'Strips' so strips were what I made and dropped them in the sauce and the whole thing then went into the baking dish along with lots of cheese. The end result was tasty nevertheless and till date whenever I make 'that' lasagne, even though I know they are supposed to be sheets, I still cut the dough into strips.

But that is not the recipe being presented here. I Just wanted to add some veggies along with the sauce and instead of adding them as is, I roasted them a bit. The choice of veggies was also not thought upon. I always have baby corn in the fridge and peppers too, this time it happened to be a red one. But the combination turned out to be a very good one.

And this one uses 'real' Lasagne sheets, store bought. The pack mentioned that pre cooking was not required so I used them straight out of the pack. But next time I might boil them for a couple of minutes before assembling the lasagne. The thing with these sheets is that if your sauce has enough liquid content in it & the sheets are well covered with it during baking, they get cooked well. In my case I felt that it should have been cooked just a little more.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 Red Bell pepper, diced
5-6 Baby Corns, Cut lengthwise
Olive Oil
Salt & pepper

For the Tomato Sauce

1 tblsp Olive oil
2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 Jalapeno Chilli, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 cup Tomato Passat (Sieved Tomato paste)
2-3 tsp Mixed dried herbs
1/2-1 tsp Red Chilli powder
Salt

For the white sauce (Béchamel Sauce)

2 tblsp Butter
2 tblsp Plain flour
About 2 cups of milk
Salt & Pepper

1 Cup Grated cheese (I used Double Gloucester, since thats what I had. You can also use Mozzarella or Cheddar)

Crushed Red Chilli Flakes

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg C on broiler setting. Arrange the baby corn & Red Pepper on a baking sheet.

Drizzle with Olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper powder. Mix and place in the oven for about 10-15 min or till the edges are brown & crisp. Keep aside until required.

For the Tomato sauce, heat a pan with the Olive oil. Add the garlic & onion and saute till the onion turns translucent. Add the Chilli and chopped tomatoes. Cook till the tomatoes are mashed properly.

At this point add the tomato paste, dried herbs, salt and red chilli powder. Mix well, cover and cook for about 10-12 minutes. Switch off when the sauce achieves a paste like consistency.

For the white sauce, Heat a non stick saucepan and melt the butter in it. Add the flour little by little and keep stirring for the flour to be properly mixed with the melted butter.

Remove the pan from the heat and add 1/2 cup of milk, whisking at the same time for the milk & flour-butter mixture to be mixed without forming any lumps. If you think the quantity of milk is not enough add some more out of the remaining milk. Once everything is mixed properly, return the pan to heat and add the remaining milk little by little, whisking as you do so.

Heat this mixture on a medium flame and the sauce will begin to thicken.

Once the sauce is thick enough but of pouring consistency, switch off the flame and season with salt & pepper.

To assemble, lightly grease a baking dish and spoon in 1/4 of the tomato sauce. Place 2 lasagne sheets on this. Top this with another 1/4 of the Tomato Sauce. Arrange 1/3 of the roasted veggies and top them with 1/3 of the cheese.

Now place 2 more lasagne sheets on the cheese and again add 1/4 of Tomato Sauce, 1/3 of the veggies and 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat once more, reserving some of the remaining cheese.

Top this with the White sauce to coat evenly. Sprinkle with the reserved cheese & the chilli flakes and bake at 200 deg C for 20-25 min or until the sauce begins to bubble and the cheese starts browning.

Just before going into the oven:

All done & ready to be served

This picture of the is my entry for this month's Click, the theme is Cheese/Tofu.

And Served hot:

Note: Its better to make the white sauce just before you start assembling the Lasagne as it will start to thicken even more when it is cooled.

The classic White sauce recipe asks for nutmeg powder to be added along with the salt & pepper, I don't like the nutmeg flavour too much so I have skipped that. You can also add grated cheese to the sauce to make it richer.

Some Lasagne recipes ask for the white sauce to be added between the layers as well but I have avoided that as we like the taste of tomato sauce to be dominant.

Bhopalyacha Bharit (Pumpkin Salad)

2009-02-24T18:44:00.001Z

Or Butternut Squash Bharit to be precise. That is what is easily available here and that is what I used to make this classic Pumpkin side, which was almost like the real thing.

I have come across a lot of people who call this by different names, all valid, I should add - Salad, Koshimbir or Bharit. This is my favourite way of having pumpkin. Use the flesh for this Bharit and make chutney out of the peel on the lines of this one.

I cant really think of anything else to say today, so here simply is the recipe.

Bhopalyacha Bharit

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup Pumpkin/Butternut Squash cubes
1/4 cup Curd
1 tblsp Ghee (Clarified Butter) or Oil
1 tsp Cumin seeds
A pinch of Asafoetida
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
6-8 curry leaves
1 Green Chilli, finely chopped

Method:

Boil the pumpkin cubes until soft and set aside to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, mash them coarsely with the back of a fork.

Add the salt and curd and mix well. Adjust the quantity of curd as per your preference.

To prepare the tempering, heat the oil/ghee and once hot add the cumin seeds. As they begin to sizzle add the Asafoetida, turmeric powder and curry leaves.

Add the green chilli, give it a stir, switch off the flame and add the tempering to the above prepared Bharit and mix well.

Serve as a side with Chapati/Roti.

Note: Using Ghee for the tempering gives it a very special & unique taste.