Tastefully Veggie ...

Bread Uthappam

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 22:42:00 +0000

Bread uthappam

I love the smell of freshly baked bread but am not a fan of bread itself. I do like a few types of bread but not the everyday loaf. However, for some reason I had been meaning to make bread dosa. I always keep a loaf of bread at home and more often than not, end up throwing it by the end of the week. My thinking was that if recipe worked then it would be a good way to avoid wastage. I fancied something hot so I added green chillies but you could skip it. It is not very dissimilar to rava dosa in terms of ingredients but it tastes different and importantly 2 of these are enough to fill you up. Ideal breakfast or dinner. I usually keep tomato thokku/chutney in the fridge so had it with the uthappam but any tangy chutney would suit I guess.

Recipe adapted from Manjula's kitchen

Yield: 3 uthappam

3 slices wholemeal bread
3 tablespoons semolina
2 tablespoons maida/all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
chopped coriander leaves
2 green chillies finely chopped
1/4 cup yogurt
Cooking oil
Salt to taste

Grind the bread to fine powder, mix all ingredients together and add little water to form a batter like dosa batter

Heat a pan and pour ladleful of batter to make thick dosa. Drizzle oil around

Cook both sides like normal dosa and serve with a nice chutney

You could put all ingredients in a food processor and blend but I was lazy to take the bigger mixie jars out so ground the bread in small jar which is always on the mixie in my kitchen.

Semolina Cake a.k.a Basbousa

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:56:00 +0000

Semolina Cake a.k.a Basbousa

There was a time when I used to bake everyday. Gone are those days and now it is a matter just about managing to make everyday meal from scratch. I found a pack of fine semolina in my pantry while doing the all important pantry stock taking task. I thought I will try this middle eastern dish a try and take it to friends who we were visiting that evening. The recipe is somewhat altered from Nestle's website. Here it is...

2 1/2 cups semolina

1 tin condensed milk

generous pinch of saffron steeped in 2 tablespoons warm milk

1 cup melted butter and bit more to grease the tin

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the syrup

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

dash of lemon juice

Bring all ingredients for the cake together but leave the baking powder to be added last. Mix together until combined. Add little water if needed to bring to thick batter consistency

Pour into a cake tin and bake in preheated oven at 170degC for about 35-40 minutes (until skewer comes out clean and top has browned)

In the meantime, add sugar and water in a pan and bring to boil. Allow it to reduce to make a syrup. You know it is ready when the sugar water is sticky to touch. If you reduce too much, you will not have enough for the whole cake. Add lemon juice to the syrup so the sugar does not crystallise

The syrup should have cooled down while the cake should be warm when you pour the syrup on the cake. I pour the syrup while the cake is still in teh tin but on teh cooling rack. I alo pierced some holes using the skewer. You can garnish with some chopped nuts. I used almonds and pistachios but wait till all the syrup has seeped through

Homemade Yogurt (using yogurt maker)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 16:03:00 +0000

We may live in a western country but my kitchen is very much an Indian kitchen. For the few years that I have been running my household, it is probably about three times that I have ran out of this commodity - yogurt. It is so important in my house that I stock a full rack of it in the fridge. Yogurt is not particularly cheap, especially good quality one. So one day we decided we should give making yogurt at home a try. We did it for sometime in insulated boxes (hot box) and also in ceramic dishes which I would keep in the oven at low heat. These worked ok but not consistently. We gave up at that point and revisited this later and decided to buy yogurt maker. It was about £20 so even if I made yogurt 20 times without buying 20 boxes of yogurt, we would have recovered the money spent. The math was quite simple so we went ahead and bought it from Lakeland. Later we bought a few extra containers so we did not have to wait to empty the container to make the next batch.

I have had success with it from day one but that did not stop me from trying various methods of making yogurt so we could replicate the same texture, taste and consistency that my mom used to achieve. Here are some of the ways I tried:

1. I added a couple of spoons of milk powder to increase the protein content so we could get thicker yogurt. Result was good but we did not want to continue this as it meant we added a processed ingredient i.e. milk powder

2. added a couple of spoons of sugar and set the yogurt. It worked well and was consistent. However, some felt it was a bit sweet. The extra sugar gives more food for the bacteria that eventually makes the curd.

3. Added salt and some sugar and set the yogurt. Again, this worked well but wanted to see if the salt and sugar could be avoided.

After all this, here are some simple steps:

1. Take a litre of milk (I use whole milk) in a heavy bottom pan and heat it. You want to heat slowly and until the milk rises up like a balloon

2. Cool this to nearly room temperature. I just leave it on the counter to cool. Then pour into the yogurt maker container. If the milk is still warm, it will kill the bacteria so you will not get good yogurt.

3. Add about three spoonful of good yogurt. I keep a pot of greek yogurt from the supermarket which I use as the starter. Stir well and put the container into the yogurt maker and turn it on. You could use the clock on the yogurt maker if it has one but it does not stop automatically. I usually leave it overnight or through the day depending on when I kickstart.

4. I take it out of the yogurt maker and leave it out for further time. About 24 hours after I start the process, I would put it in the fridge. You could use it straight away after the 8 hours that it typically takes to set in the yogurt maker but I found the texture improves if I leave it out a bit further.

It is normal for some whey water to get collected on top of the yogurt. It is perfectly ok to consume this. I must say some brands of milk set better than some others. So I would suggest you try a few brands that you get so you can find what works best wherever you live.

Sweet potato pasta

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 20:50:00 +0000

Sweet potato pasta

Pasta is one of the dishes that both my kids will eat. My older one is usually not too keen on vegetables unless it is from a very small list of his favourites. I find pasta dishes an easy way to get the vegetables in. I make sauces using different vegetables so that when blended, he does not quite know what vegetable it is. This dish can be made using most root vegetables. I use sweet potatoes as it is one of five a day veggies and rather hard to get it into them otherwise and some days I also add carrots. As long as you can decide what colour what the sauce would be, choose vegetables accordingly. Here is the recipe

Boiled pasta, enough for two

1 medium sized sweet potato, cubed

1 carrot, cut into chunks

1 onion, cubed

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon butter

1 heaped teaspoon all purpose flour

1 cup milk

Oregano to season

Salt to season

Cooking oil

Heat some oil and add the onions and garlic

Add the carrots and sweet potato and sauté for couple of minutes. Add enough water and cook the vegetables covered until soft

Allow it to cool and blend to smooth paste

To make the white sauce, heat a heavy bottomed pan and add the butter. Once melted, add the flour and keep stirring and do so until the flour gets a sandy consistency

Add milk and keep stirring until sauce consistency is reached (it will turn shiny)

Add blended vegetables, salt and oregano and then add the pasta. Allow to boil very briefly and serve!

Notes:

1. 1. Make sure you do not brown the flour while making white sauce as you will end up making brown sauce

2. 2. If you do not keep stirring the milk, it will form lumps and you do not want that

Biscuit Pudding

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 23:15:00 +0000

Biscuit Pudding

While doing winter de-cluttering and organising, I found a few packs of biscuits. Although biscuits do not tend to get wasted, I wanted to try some dish with them. I chose biscuit pudding and when looking up recipes, I learned that it is rather popular in SriLanka. I have adapted Tarla Dalal’s recipe here...

Note:

1. some people who do not like coffee may prefer to have he biscuits dipped in milk rather than coffee

2. replace dark chocolate with milk chocolate if you prefer

12 Rich tea biscuits or Marie biscuits

1 tablespoon instant coffee powder

5 tablespoon sugar

3 tablespoon custard powder

1 ½ cups milk plus 3 tablespoon milk

100g dark chocolate, melted

Grated nuts for garnish

Dissolve coffee powder in hot water. You need enough water to quickly dip the biscuits in it. Dip the biscuits very briefly then break them into pieces and put in individual serving bowls

Dissolve the custard powder in 3 tablespoon milk

Heat the rest of the milk until it is just about to boil. Now add the dissolved custard powder and make sure you stir well. Cook on low flame until it coats the back of the spoon.

Now add the sugar and melted chocolate and stir well. It will thicken but still be of pouring consistency.

Pour this on the biscuit and garnish with chopped nuts

Cornmeal Savory Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:50:00 +0000

Cornmeal Savory Bread

My oven was literally gathering dust as I have barely been using it. Apart from roasting some veggies to make pasta sauce for the kids, I have just not been using the oven. So, this holiday season, I decided to bake like I used to, if possible, get better ;)

One of my close friends likes savory breads and I wanted to make one for her. I picked cornmeal bread and adapted the recipe from bonappetit.com. I smeared a piece with cheese and it went down well with my five year old so I guess it is job well done!

Note:

1. I have reduced the number of eggs so have used more milk and also vinegar. You can skip the vinegar and increase egg to two but you may not need the water in that case.

2. I used a mixture of middle eastern herbs.

1 heaped teaspoon dried herbs

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 1/3 cup cornmeal flour

2 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon baking soda

1tablespoon baking powder

1 egg

3 tablespoon oil

1 cup yogurt, beaten

¾ cup milk

¼ cup water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

A knob of butter

Grease an 8x8inch dish with butter (I used a rather rectangular dish but was fine with it) and preheat oven to 170degC

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl

Mix all wet ingredients in medium bowl

Pour wet ingredients into dry ones and mix. Add the vinegar and mix briefly. Scrape the batter into the greased dish. The batter may be slightly thick. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Agathi Keerai Poriyal

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 20:07:00 +0000

Agathi keerai in Tamil, scientific name is sesbania grandiflora and in English the spinach variety is called as august tree leaves or humming bird tree leaves. It is extremely nutritious like most leafy greens. It is part of the special food prepared on dwadesi, the day after ekadesi. Reason is that on ekadesi, Hindus normally fast and we are expected to break the fast next day with a certain menu. One of them is agathi keerai as it has ability to sooth stomach ulcers. Some may fear the fasting but it is interesting how our ancestors had thought through it and designed the menu around it. It is not often that I get hold of these but here is what I made with them this time…

3 tablespoon mung dal
4 tablespoon grated coconut (I used dessicated coconut)
1 dry red chilly
1 bunch agathi keerai, leaves taken off the stalk and washed well
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder
Asafoetida
Cooking oil (I used coconut oil)

Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds and after it splutters, add turmeric powder, dry chilly and asafoetida.
Add the leaves, required water and allow it to cook and add some salt half way through

In another small pan, add the dal and cook it with required water. The dal should be well cooked but not mushy

Once leaves are cooked and all water is dried, add mung dal and coconut and fry for couple of minutes
Serve with cooked rice!

Rice Pudding (with variant for Chakkarai Pongal)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 13:42:00 +0000

Rice Pudding (with variant for Chakkarai Pongal)

I had bought couple of small tubs of cream in the hope to make ice cream. One of it fell from the fridge and went down the drain so I had the second one had to be finished somehow. I did not want to slave over it so kept looking for ways to use cream in dishes that need next to no attention. I came across rice pudding and what a finding it is! The pudding came out really good albeit for people with sweet tooth, it could have done with more sugar. Here is the recipe...

100g rice

600-700 ml rice (i used basmati but you could use pudding rice)

100g sugar

300ml double cream

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

4 small knobs of butter

Chopped nuts for garnishing

Preheat oven to 150degC

Take a deep (because shallow would let milk spill over while cooking) oven proof dish and grease with butter. Add washed rice, sugar, cream, milk, vanilla essence and mix. Dot the butter here and there and put in the oven for about 1.5 hours. You can stir half way through and add bit more milk if needed. Depending on the rice, t he amount of milk needed may vary.

Take out and garnish with nuts

I had made this and taken to a friend’s house and it was given thumbs up. I then decided to adapt this to make it south Indian and save some time while preparing other dishes for a festival.

Short cut yummy chakkara pongal:

Put a cup of rice, handful of mung dal, ¾ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup white sugar, 300ml cream and 600ml milk in a greased deep oven proof dish. Dot the butter like above and cook just like above. Add some saffron after steeping it in hot water or milk. Add milk if needed and stir in between.

Chakli (Mullu Muruku)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 21:26:00 +0000

Chakli

It is summer holiday for school now so for the first time, my son is at home. Crispy snacks can always come handy when you have a bored young child around. Rather than buying them, I thought I should give it a try myself. Afterall, it may not hurt too much to fry now and then. I picked something easy and this was it. Also, my son’s friend’s gran had made this and after trying them my son asked me to make some. What I loved about what I made is it tasted quite like ‘kai muruku’, the one shaped with hand without the labour of sitting down to shape them. Hope you like it as well. It is one of the 'batchanams' made for Krishna Jayanthi and even Diwali. Here is the recipe...

3 cups rice flour (I used store bought rice flour)

1 cup besan flour

Salt to taste

Dash of asafoetida

1 teaspoon chilly powder

3 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon ghee

1 tablespoon white sesame seeds

Oil for deep frying

Sift the flours together and add chilly powder, asafoetida, sesame seeds and salt

Heat the three tablespoons of oil, ghee and add it to the flour mixture and mix to form crumb like consistency. Heated oil and ghee are used to amke sure the murukus come out crispy. Rather check the seasoning at this stage than later

Add water slowly to make a soft dough. The dough must be soft enough to be able to be forced through the mould. Rather add water little by little so it does not become to soft. Also, check the consistency by putting it into the mould and see if it comes out without problem. What you do not want is, hard dough struggling to come out and eventually forces the mould open and falls into hot oil splashing it all over you and the kitchen!

Use the star shaped mould and make murukus on a ladle as shown. This can be slipped into hot oil for frying. Check if oil is ready by putting a small piece of dough in. It is ready if it emerges up quickly. It does not have to be perfectly shaped, so you can even press it directly into the oil in random shape.

Fry both sides until golden, drain and keep aside

Cool completely before putting in airtight boxes.

Cadbury Creme Egg brownies

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 06:27:00 +0000

Cadbury Creme Egg brownies

I realised I have gotten dangerously close to forgetting the steps to blog so ready or not, here I come. This was a recipe I meant to post for Easter, but hey, I am quite early for the next one. With very little time left before I get swamped in my day job as a mum, cook, cleaner, wife etc. here is a recipe...

The basic brownie recipe was ever so slightly adapted from here

¾ cup flour

1 cup yogurt

½ cup brown sugar

100g dark chocolate, melted

4 tablespoon coco powder

4 creme eggs, chilled well and cut into half

½ teaspoon soda bicarbonate

½ cup water

Sift and bring together all dry ingredients except the crème eggs. Then add the melted chocolate, yogurt and water to make batter just about spooning consistency

Line a square pan with greased baking paper and pour the batter in. Bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for about 20 minutes

Take out of the oven and gently insert the crème eggs here and there. Bake for another 5-10 minutes, just until it melts.

Cool well and slice into pieces

Snakegourd Pachadi

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:24:00 +0000

Snakegourd Pachadi

Snakegourd is a ‘naatu kai’ i.e. vegetable indigenous to India. Mom used to cook it often as my dad liked it. She would sauté it and season it and mix it with rice and ghee for him. My husband, on the other extreme just does not like this vegetable. My mother-in-law says when she was pregnant with my husband, she always got sick when she went anywhere near snakegourds and looks like that has just continued. I ould not get away with making snakegourd curry so had to disguise it. To be fair, it is not a vegetable with a distinct or strong flavour, atleast for me. I came across this recipe at vahrehvah.com and gave it a try. I made it as a side dish to pulihogare as I do not like a meal without vegetables and this was a good combination. The good news is that it went down well my my better half as well. Here is the recipe...

2 cups chopped snakegourd

1 teapsoon mustard seeds

1 teapsoon urd dal

Few curry leaves

3 dry red chillies

Asafoetida

Turmeric powder

Salt to taste

1 cup yogurt, whisked

Cooking oil

Heat some oil and add the snakegourd. Add little salt, turmeric powder and asafoetida and cook. Covering will quicken the process.

Add the whisked curd and bring to gentle boil. Add remaining salt that is required

Heat little oil for the tempering. Add the mustard seeds, once it splutters, add urd dal, curry leaves and dry red chillies. Once dal turns golden, add it to the snakegourd yogurt mixture and it is ready to serve.

Vegetarian sausage stir fry (Masala Quorn Sausage)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:42:00 +0000

Vegetarian sausage stir fry (Masala Quorn Sausage)

I grew p as a vegetarian and have never tasted non vegetarian food so there is nothing I miss really. However, I guess it is not the case in this part of the world and there is a desire to replicate the non-vegetarian content and make meat substitutes. A variety of such ingredients is made by Quorn. They apparently use a form of fungi to make the meat substitutes. I found no reason to use them in my regular cooking but my kids are used to having them a school or day care as they try to make vegetarian and non veg dishes look similar. My son started asking me for sausages (vegetarian, ofcourse) at home and that is why I buy them now and then. This dish is incredibly simple to make and can be had as a quick snack. You can also use this to stuff inside wraps. The sausage itself, being processed food, has salt in it so I tend not to add any more. I usually add very little salt in my cooking anyway so if you need a bit more, feel free to add.

1 pack quorn sausage

½ teaspoon ginger garlic paste

Turmeric powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

½ teaspoon cumin powder

Dash of chat masala

1 spring onion, chopped

Cooking oil

Heat some oil preferably in a non stick pan and cook the sausages as per pack instructions. Once done, let it cool and then slice into bite size pieces

Heat bit of oil and add the spring onions, ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder and sauté for couple of minutes until raw smell goes off.

Add the sliced sausages, the masala powder and sauté for couple of minutes and it is ready to serve.

Pasta in Roasted Butternut Squash Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 20:31:00 +0000

Pasta in Roasted Butternut Squash Sauce

I had not planned to post two pasta recipes back to back but it just so happened. These days I do not go back to my huge list of draft but rather post as and when I make something exciting (atleast for me). I made this dish for the kids today and they seemed to like it. I tasted the sauce only as I am not a pasta person and I must say that if you do not thicken to sauce consistency, it can be had as a yummy soup. You could make it as soup for yourself and thicken it as sauce for kids so they get to eat pasta. I had ordered chopped butternut squash, infact it is the only vegetable I order processed as it is quite a task chopping the squash. Instead, full squash was delivered and I failed to read the substitutes properly so am stuck with them. I managed to chop one up thought I will use them fresh for the kids. There is no reason why only they should enjoy this, ofcourse, grown ups can have it as well. If you run out of time, skip the white sauce, just use the roasted squash puree and a bit of milk to make it little creamy.

Pasta for 2-3 adults, cooked as per package instructions

2 handful of butternut squash, cubed

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 tablespoon butter

Salt to taste

Oregano or other dried herbs to taste

½ cup milk

Cooking oil

In an oven proof dish, put the butternut squash, onion and garlic, drizzle few drops of oil and roast at 170degC for 30 minutes, until cooked. Sprinkling very little salt will help speed up the process and enhance flavour. The squash should become tender

Cool and grind this to a fine paste

Heat the butter in a heavy bottom pan and add the all purpose flour and keep stirring until raw smell goes and it just begins to brown, keep the heat low

Add milk and keep stirring else it will form lumps and still keep on low heat

The white sauce will be ready when it becomes thick but nice and shiny. Now add the squash onion paste, oregano, salt to taste and some water as well and bring to boil stirring now and then.

Add cooked pasta and let it boil once. Sprinkle some cheese and serve!

Pasta in Lentil sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 20:54:00 +0000

Pasta in Lentil sauce

I have the routine of making red pepper sauce on Thursdays and spinach sauce on Fridays for the kids. Apart from the fact that I was running out of red pepper today, I thought I should make something more different today. I was going to make lentil with spinach for us so decided I will make a lentil based sauce for pasta for kids. I must say that the Indian dish, dal dokhli, was an inspiration to come up with this dish. I quite liked how it came out and was satisfied that good quality protein is going down tiny tummies.

1/3 cup moong dal or red lentils, well cooked

1 onions, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

Dried oregano and basil as required to flavour

Dash of turmeric powder

3 cloves garlic, chopped

Salt to taste

Cooking oil

Pasta to serve about 2-3 people

Heat a skillet and add oil. Once oil is hot add the garlic cloves and onions and sauté for couple of minutes

Add the tomatoes and turmeric powder and cook until it turns mushy, adding bit of salt would quicken this.

Along with the cooked lentils, grind the onion tomato mixture into fine paste and put back in skillet. Add the dried herbs and required salt and bring to boil.

Cook the pasta as per pack instructions and add to the lentil mixture, mix and it is ready to serve

Onion Chutney (Onion Dip)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 05:11:00 +0000

Onion Chutney (Onion Dip)

When I first came to UK, I was a stay at home wife for three weeks. During that time, I would have toasted bread dipped in hummus for snack and I still remember the comfort it gave me. I then stopped having hummus for some reason and resumed just recently. While trying to figure out how to make my own hummus, I realised it could have a lot of oil hiding in it. Ofcourse, you get the low fat ones but that is not for me. I was recently looking for a variety of chutney recipes as I was getting bored of the three chutneys I usually make. Vah chef had onion chutney on his site and it looked very inviting. This is pretty much his recipe but I have not even used half as many red chillies as he has. This would be a mild chutney but feel free to add more red chillies. This goes very well with idli, dosa upma etc. and also with bread. You can use this as a dip in places where you may use hummus. You can also use this as a spread in your sandwich (you could skip the tempering for this). As it pretty much is just sautéed onions, I think it will even count towards your one of five a day! Now for the recipe...

4 onions, I used white, chopped

1 small tomato

1 small lime size ball of tamarind

3-5 dry red chillies (this would yield a mild chutney, increase if you want a hot one)

2 heaped tablespoon roasted Bengal gram or you can use cashew nuts too

Salt to taste

Cooking oil

For tempering:

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

Few curry leaves

½ teaspoon urd dal

Heat a kadai and add some oil. Once hot, add the chillies

Once they become crisp, add the onions and couple of minutes later add the tomatoes

Cook until onions are done, not browned though. Then add the tamarind flakes and cook for couple of minutes

Add required salt and allow to cool. Once cooled, add the roasted Bengal gram (daria) and grind to paste.

You shouldn’t have to add water, but use your discretion.

To temper, heat some oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, soon after it splutters, add urd dal and curry leaves and wait till the dal browns. Add this to the chutney, serve!

Saag Paneer

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 22:26:00 +0000

Saag Paneer

I guess everyone has days when they just want to throw things together so a scrummy meal turns up at the end. I have hose days often because I cannot begin to tell you how tight I am on time. I try to make three side dishes for rotis on Sunday so I only have to make the rotis in the evenings after work. I try to keep things simple and avoid additional processes like grinding etc. While a traditional palak paneer would require blending to smooth puree and so on, I was not up for it although we all love it. I decided to sauté everything and it did come together quite well. Here is how I made it...

2-3 bunches of palak/saag

125g paneer, cubed

1 onion, diced

1 tomato, cut into quarter

½ teaspoon black onion seeds

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon garam masala

Turmeric powder

2-3 green chillies, slit

1 teaspoon coriander-chilly powder (use just coriander powder if you do not want any heat)

Salt to taste

Cooiking oil

Heat oil and add the black onion and cumin seeds. Once cumin begins to darken, add onions, add the turmeric powder and green chillies and sauté for a minute

Once the onions turn translucent, add the spinach and tomato. We are adding tomato with spinach as we do not want it to get mushy unlike regular curry

Once spinach is cooked, add the spice powders, required salt and cook until raw smell goes.

Add the paneer and cook for 3-4 minutes and serve!

Poached Egg Curry

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 23:16:00 +0000

Egg Poached in Tomato Sauce

One of my friends made egg poached in tomato sauce. I tried it once but was not sure if I liked the texture. I made a smooth sauce this time and it turned out to be nice. I am not a fan of poached egg but this is not quite the same as the regular ones. These can be eaten with rice or rotis. Use a flat bottomed dish to allow space for eggs to poach. I noticed that adding too much water to the mixture does not help as it becomes even more watery after cooking. Here is the recipe...

2 onions, chopped

1 tin tomatoes (about 3-4 tomatoes)

1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

1 teaspoon chilly powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 heaped teaspoon egg roast masala (substitute with mixture of garam masala and fennel powder)

Cooking oil

Turmeric powder

4-5 eggs

Salt to taste

Heat some oil in a flat bottomed dish and add the onions and ginger garlic paste. Add green chillies if desired.

Once onion begin to change colour, add the tomatoes and cook until they begin to reduce and raw smell goes

Grind this to a fine paste in a blender or use a hand blender and bring back to pan. Add all spice powders and salt and bring to boil and allow raw smell to go

Now reduce the heat and break each egg into the mixture giving room for each of them to get cooked. Cook covered eggs are done or until how wobbly you like poached eggs to be.

Serve

Kollu Ellu Podi (Horsegram and Sesame Powder)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 21:54:00 +0000

Kollu Ellu Podi (Horsegram and Sesame Powder)

Horsegram is meant for those trying to lose weight and sesame is for those trying to gain. This powder is a combination of both. It is a great way of getting goodness from both these wonderful ingredients. I had bought roasted horsegram sometime back from a Srilankan shop and did not know what to do with it (yes, silly me!). I was arranging my pantry (again, finally!) yesterday and made it a point to start using some ingredients. This was one of it and it was well worth the little effort it takes. I made kal dosa (dosa made with batter made the same day as the dosa is made i.e. unfermented batter) and spread the powder on top. Wow! The one teaspoon of sugar brings so much flavour to this powder. Here is the recipe...

1 cup horsegram

12 dry red chillies

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt to taste

¼ cup white sesame seeds

¼ teaspoon asafoetida

Roast horsegram in a kadai until it starts to darken. Roast sesame seeds until it become brown and begins to pop. Also roast the asafoetida for a minute or so, it will start getting sandy

Cool everything and grind to neither too coarse nor too fine consistency. Just remember to add sugar and blitz once. Cool and store in dry airtight container. I love to re-use glass bottles and you can see mine is stored in Nescafe bottle.

Serve with idli, dosa or even mix with rice

Beeroot Chickpeas Rice

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 20:20:00 +0000

Beet Chickpeas Rice

I never used to like beetroot when I was a child and have no idea why so. My brother used to eat it and even about three or four years back, when I visited him, he had to make another veggie for me as I will not eat beets. Now, it is a different story. I do not just eat the beets but also the lovely greens that come with it. Oh yes, it is indeed edible. I try to get the beets from the market as they would be sold with the greens unlike most supermarkets. The greens, like all other greens are extremely good for the health. Beet greens are rich in vitamin K and also vitamin A. While the latter is important in blood clotting, the latter helps immunity and also vision. Anyway, deep coloured fruits and veggies have whole host of benefits. The benefits we get from the pigments in beets tend to diminish with increased cooking time so just cook until done. I had tried beet greens with dal, will post recipe later, and since then have been a fan of it. I decided to combine chickpeas with this rice dish to add protein. I was not sure if my husband would like it but his feedback was that it appeared to be bland but was actually very flavourful and nice.

3 spring onions, finely chopped

1 tomato, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

2 medium beetroots, cut into long pieces

¾ cup cooked chickpeas

8-10 beet green leaves

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 cup rice, cooked so grains are fluffy

Cooking oil

Heat oil and add cumin seeds and mustard seeds. Add the spring onions after seeds crackle

Once it wilts, add the ginger garlic paste and tomatoes and sauté for couple of minutes

Add beet greens and sauté for a minute or so

Add beetroot, required salt and cook until tender. Keeping it covered will speed up the process

Add chilli flakes, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, garam masala and sauté for couple of minutes.

Add chickpeas and cook for 3-4 minutes

Add rice, mix and serve!

Cheats Cardamom Cheesecake (actually no cheese!!)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:56:00 +0000

Cheats Cardamom Cheesecake

Want a sinful indulgence? Here it is, that too with very little effort. It is a great dinner party item and if at all there is any left over, you can feast on it later. I made this with lots of doubts about whether it will set or not so added icing sugar so the corn starch in the sugar will help set and make it failure proof. You will find most other recipes do not use icing sugar so if you want to skip it, do so at your risk. I go with my gut feel usually and as I was making it for Diwali pot luck dinner and was hoping to create a wow factor, I did not want to fail . This is an incredibly easy dish that you can whip up he previous day so you have one less thing to worry about on the day guests come. I did not want to use more butter so I actually baked my biscuit base. If you do not want to bake, you can add about a 100gm more melted butter and make teh base by setting it in the fridge for about an hour. Next time I make it I intend to make it richer with saffron as well. I stuck to more desi flavour of cardamom as it was Diwali but we can even add orange or lemon zest or plant some strawberry pieces here and there to give a fruity flavour. So, here is the recipe itself...

1 tin sweetened condensed milk
600ml double cream
15 digestive biscuits or ginger nut biscuits
50gm melted butter
Generous amount of crushed nuts
½ teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
3 tablespoon icing sugar

Crush the biscuits coarsely or finely based on your preference and add the melted sugar. Mix and put it on a lined springform cake tin. I usually do the mixing inside the tin to save using another dish. Spread this uniformly to form the base. Bake at 160degC for about 6 minutes, would just start to brown. Cool completely

Beat the cream until stiff peaks form. Electric beater is recommended if you are like me 

Next beat the condensed milk until it thickens in a separate bowl

Mix the two together along with the icing sugar and cardamom. I ground the cardamom with the sugar in my mixie. Fold them together as whisking again would loosen the mixture.

Pour this on cooled biscuit base, wrap it up and set in fridge atleast overnight. Sprinkle the nuts just before serving!

Just to show how well it sets, here is a slice...

Corn and Spinach Pops

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 06:45:00 +0000

Corn and Spinach Pops

I saw a recipe on Tarla Dalal’s website and knew I wanted to try it. I was quiet sure I could not follow the recipe to the letter as it involved many steps and would have taken a few dishes to make it. I decided to simplify it and make my way but keeping the essence of the dish. The original recipe suggested making white sauce with plain flour, I replaced this with mashed potato to provide the binding as potato is complex carbohydrate. Ofcourse, I also skipped the deep frying and stuck to my method! I made it as an after school snack and thought it as a kid’s recipe but how wrong I was. I could have helped myself to more if only I had made more. It was a hit with my son

1/3 cup corn
1 large potato, cubed
Handful of spinach, washed
¼ cup grated (cheddar) cheese, could add bit more if needed
½ teaspoon jeera powder
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder
1 cup bread crumbs
Cooking oil
Breadsticks

Boil potato in a pan and once it is nearly done, add corns and boil until cooked. Then add washed spinach and boil for couple of minutes

Drain and let this cool just so you can touch. Mash the mixture after adding jeera powder, turmeric powder, salt and cheese. Make sure you do not add too much salt as cheese tends to be salty as well. If it is a bit too soft and you are unable to make balls, add some breadcrumbs so it absorbs moisture. Mixture should now be like soft dough

Make little balls, about lime size, roll in breadcrumbs and fry with dots of oil in kuzhipaniyaram koodu (Danish cake tin I think). Once it gets a nice golden colour on all sides, put them on a plate and insert breadsticks to make them like lolli pops

Serve!

Almond Ricotta Cheesecake – Indian Kalakand with my spin

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 22:13:00 +0000

Almond Ricotta Cheesecake – Indian Kalakand with my spin

Diwali is a wonderful festival as it always brings back great memories. The purchase was big, food was big and emotions were plenty. This year, I was keen to share that feeling with my children as well and wanted to get into this habit of making Diwali special to them. Although we did not splash out on shopping for outfits like how my parents unfailingly did, I wanted us to be with people we were comfortable with. A few friends got together and had a potluck dinner and what a great evening it was! My son had his friends to play with and the firework itself took a good hour of the evening. Considering I have a little one as well, I thought potluck would be the way to go but being a food blogger I could not stop myself from trying couple of more things. As time and energy were tight, I chose to make milk sweet that literally needed to be whipped up and briefly cooked. It turned out to be so awesome that we kept trying more and more in the name of tasting, who were we kidding!! In the end, there was no enough to offer my friends and their families, ouch! To me, this is a classic Indian recipe made the western way – bake!

This recipe is dedicated to Ms Tarla Dalal. She has been a great inspiration and will live in my kitchen through the wonderful books I have.

150g coarsely ground almonds

1 tin of condensed milk

1 tub ricotta cheese, 300g or so

Pinch of saffron

Few chopped nuts

Ghee to grease bakeware

Mix together everything but the nuts

Pour into over proof baking dish hat has been greased with ghee. I wanted the cake height to be about an inch or just about so chose a suitable rectangular dish

Bake at 180degC for about 15-20 minutes. It will just begin to brown on top, sides will start to pull from the dish and it will still be a bit wobbly. Sprinkle nuts on top, cool and cut to required slices.

Enjoy this without having to slave in the kitchen for such a yummy desi treat!

Chocolate and Cherry Palmiers

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 07:17:00 +0000

Chocolate and Cherry Palmiers

Palmiers or elephant ears, is a dish of European origin, not sure if it is French or Germans that originated it. Does no really matter as it just tastes so good you would not want to research the origin but just the recipe. These are so easy to make if you have puff pastry in your fridge. I do not make my own puff pastry and hey, don’t judge me for that, even the best of bakers like Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood once confessed they don’t either. I actually made them for the first time to offer to my son’s friends who were meant to visit us for navaratri. However, I had to cancel their visit due to my daughter’s illness. Anyway, the point is that even if they had come, I did not make near enough of these as it turns out. They literally go flying and I kept making them throughout navaratri as we had a constant flow of guests. This is one version of this dish and I intend to post more of these so you get a variety of flavours.

½ sheet of puff pastry

2 tablespoon or so of chocolate spread like nutella

5-6 glace cherries, chopped

Spread the puff pastry sheet and smear it with the chocolate spread evenly, upto the edges. Dot with glace cherries here and there and use more if you want.

Roll both sides of the pastry so each half then meets at the centre, gently press. Wrap it and refrigerate for atleast 30 minutes or put in freezer for 10-15 minutes. This is important as puff pastry always needs to be cold and has to go in a very hot oven, else, it will not puff.

Cut into about 1.5cm thick slices and place on lined baking tray with good space between them. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200degC for about 8-10 minutes, until golden.

Cool and serve!

Cauliflower Keema

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 19:55:00 +0000

Cauliflower Keema

I have never had real keema so I cannot tell you if this is close but the idea of this dish is to cook minced vegetable. It is cauliflower that I picked for this dish and result was quiet good. I used it to stuff into dosa to make keema masala dosa one evening and then layered it over a very simple pulav rice for packed lunch. I used tandoori masala which is typically used for non-vegetarian dishes and I think it helped. Here is the recipe without any more rant…

1 medium cauliflower, grated

1 onion, finely chopped

1 small tomato, cubed

3 cloves crushed garlic

1 small piece of ginger, grated

1 cup green peas

2-3 green chillies, chopped

1 teapsoon cumin seeds

1 tablespoon ghee and some cooking oil

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon chilly powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 heaped teaspoon tandoori masala or garam masala

Turmeric powder

Some chopped coriander leaves

Heat some oil and ghee in a heavy bottom pan and add cumin seeds. Once it becomes golden, add onions and fry till they begin to change colour and also add garlic, ginger and chillies

Add the grated cauliflower and some turmeric powder, mix and fry for a couple of minutes

Add all the spice powders and the tomatoes and peas. Fry for couple of minutes, add salt and cook covered until veggies are well cooked. You may want to add few spoons of water so it does not burn

Allow it to cook on low flame uncovered for a couple of minutes so all extra water vaporises and you are left with a dry-ish curry.

Serve with rice or rotis or dosas

Chocolate Pudding (eggless!)

noreply@blogger.com (Veena) — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 10:56:00 +0000

Chocolate pudding

If you are a chocolate lover, you will love this. I wanted to make this for my son to have as pudding after dinner to mark his first full day at school. It went down a treat with my son and husband, that means it must have been atleast good J. I used dark chocolates I got from Lidl and find their quality quite good and would strongly advise to get fine chocolate otherwise it will show in the quality of the dish. You can keep this in the fridge for about 3 days if it lasts. If you have a chocolate loving guests, you can make these the previous day and refrigerate. Here is the recipe, no fuss and just indulgence...

Makes 6 servings (6 ramekins)

1 pack of dark chocolate

2.5 cups of milk

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoon cornflour

Add the cornflour to the milk and beat so there are no lumps. Heat this on a double boiler while stirring all along and do so until it coats the back of the spoon

Add the chopped chocolate and sugar and keep stirring and keep it on the double boiler until all the chocolate melts and it thickens and it looks shiny.

Pour into serving dishes, cover and refrigerate for atleast 3 hours

Yum yum!