So here’s the one-off event I’ve been mulling. Grindless Gravies stems from a day when you really aren’t in the mood for a number of procedures but also want a thick, fulfilling gravy. On some days, I find even the most mechanized of cooking laborious– be it fixing the jar on the blender, filling it with ingredients, waiting, watching and testing to see if the paste is fine enough, and then washing it thoroughly – who wants mango milkshake flavoured with idli batter? Judging from the comments to my previous post, it’s not a bad one and I’m all curious to see how the rules are interpreted and what you all come up with.
A request: Please follow the rules in the spirit rather than the letter (which means that even if you spot loopholes you should ignore them).
Since the food blogosphere is full of events, I’ve decided to give intending participants six weeks to send in their entries. So the last date for entries will be December 22. The host is also giving herself time to do the round-up sometime in the next six weeks ;-)
Here are the guidelines and what you have to do:
1. Please make a thick gravy specifically for this event. You can point to other such dishes on your blog, but the entry itself has to be fresh – just for some fun.
2. No electric grinder, mixer, (hand) blender or food processor or food mill in any form should have been used in the making of the gravy. A quick grating of cheese or onions (or other stuff) is fine but it can’t go on for … more than three minutes, shall we say? The less the labour, the better.
3. You can use packaged/prepared/frozen stuff like ginger-garlic paste, onion paste, tomato puree, spice powders and convenient stuff of that sort to make the dish, but that does not include commercial gravy/curry pastes/powders/mixes that you can just dunk vegetables or meat into to make an instant gravy (the butter masala mix, kolhapuri gravy mix, kadai whatever mix, I’m sure you get what I mean). Nor does it include homemade one-type-suits-all gravy that’s been sitting in the freezer. It can't all be lentils or all curds/yoghurt/all coconut milk (they shouldn't form the bulk of the dish because that makes it too simple and that's no fun - they should be dressed up substantially - please see my On The Gravy Train dish to get what I mean). As I said no dunking veggies or meat in a readymade curry mix and presenting it, I feel compelled to apply the same rule to something where the gravy's overwhelmingly made of one single ingredient so gravies like that are out too! {Sra flees the scene, trying to escape the brickbats and blows ...} It can belong to any cuisine.
4. I don’t mean that you should make the ground equivalents by hand, either. No, you don’t have to make ginger-garlic paste in the pestle and mortar if you don’t have it ready, just find another way to include those ingredients. Paste will take a long time in the p & m, so I usually smash the ginger and the garlic with a lentil masher or the pestle – just one or two thumps should do it. You can even crush the tomatoes with your bare hands. Violent, huh? You can even mash some of the vegetable pieces in the gravy to make it thicker.
6. You could mention the time, the (number of) implements and utensils used for this dish – the fewer the easier the recipe. The gravy can also boil away for as long as you like – if it allows you to catch up with the day’s papers or the news or give yourself a breather, that’s fine. You just don’t have to be in the kitchen watching over the pot, or washing the mixer or assessing paste consistencies.
7. You can send in your entries to srablogATgmailDOTcom. Please say ‘Grindless Gravies’ in the subject. The e-mail should contain the specific link to the dish, your name and blog name. As for photos, please send me a 75 x 75 pixel picture of the dish. I am not computer-savvy, already have a bad wrist and won’t be able to do this myself, please. Your entry will still be included in the round-up, it just won't have the picture.
A link back to this blog/event is necessary.
If you're not a blogger, please mail me the entry with the photo, I'll put it up on my blog with the details.
8. I will do the round-up sometime in the first two weeks of January.
There are a lot of questions, I will add the clarifications here as they come in:
Yes, of course, non-vegetarian, cream and international stuff is allowed
On to my own contribution for this event.
It’s an adaptation of a dish that’s quite new to me, called Gummadikaya Pindi Miriyam (yellow pumpkin with black pepper and flour). From what I understand, this is made with rice flour as one of the thickeners, the other being coconut and ginger, not to mention the mixture of freshly ground coriander, pepper and a smattering of chana daal/split chick peas.
I didn’t have rice flour, omitted the coconut and the chana dal, and used pre-ground spices to make the dish.
Gummadikaya Pindi Miriyam (Yellow Pumpkin with Black Pepper and Chickea Flour)
Yellow pumpkin, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces: 2 cups
Green chillies, chopped: 3, or less
Water: ¾-1 cup-1-1/4 cups
Black pepper, ground: 1 tsp
Cumin, ground: 1 tsp
Coriander, ground: 1 tsp
Turmeric: A pinch
Ginger: 1-inch piece, peeled
Besan/Chick pea flour: 3 tsp
Salt: To taste
Tempering
Oil: 2 tsp
Mustard seed: ¾ tsp
Cumin seed: ½ tsp
Urad dal/Split, hulled black gram: 1 tsp
Red chillies, broken: 2
Asafoetida: A sliver, or a pinch
Coriander/cilantro, chopped: ½ a cup
In a pressure cooker (or a pan), place the pumpkin and the water, season with salt and turmeric and boil till the pumpkin only begins to soften. If you’re using a pressure cooker, just boil it for a couple of minutes – it shouldn’t have boiled just yet.
Now season the vegetable with the ground black pepper, cumin and coriander.
Mash the ginger roughly (I did this with just one blow of the pestle on the chopping board, separated the fibres a bit) and add to the dish. Add the green chillies. Let the pumpkin cook till soft. It should hold its shape, though.
(If you’re using the pressure cooker, now cook under pressure for 3-4 minutes. Let the pressure come down on its own.)
Mix the besan with some water to make a lump-free paste and add it to the curry. Let it boil till thick. Turn off the heat.
In another pan, heat the oil, add the mustard seed, the urad dal, the cumin, the red chillies and the asafetida, in that order. You can even add curry leaves.
Once the urad dal browns and the red chillies just turn colour, turn off the heat and tip into the curry. Garnish with chopped coriander, mix gently.
Happy Deepavali and Season’s Greetings!
Grindless Gravies Event Pumpkin Black pepper Besan Chickpea Flour Vegetarian
Friday, November 09, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
If You Can't Beet 'em ... & Your Thoughts On An Event - Grindless Gravies
Chips, as we call them in India (crisps to the rest of you), immediately bring to mind the potato, but of late, some enterprising stores here in India have taken to making and selling chips made from yam, sweet potato, carrot, beetroot, okra/ladies’ fingers, and even bittergourd, which is one of the most palatable ways of downing this vegetable.
All these different chips here have their own unique taste and idiosyncracies – the yam never fails to smell fishy (literally), the sweet potato is excellent but probably doesn’t lend itself well to chipping I see it so rarely, the beetroot takes on a shine, the carrot shows some black in its grain, the okra goes out of shape and the bittergourd, stiffened by the flour it’s dipped in, holds it.
We don’t often pulverize these same veggies into chutney, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t, as I’ve been discovering slowly. In India, it’s mostly the 'watery’ vegetables such as eggplant/brinjal, gourds and greens that are used for chutney – easy to mash and influence, unlike the starchier, sturdier vegetables which will mash but also stick to the pestle or won’t submit with such ease.
It’s not impossible, though, to chutney-fy them as I have been discovering. I first chanced on a carrot chutney, probably my aunt’s invention/innovation – a tangy, orange affair to which curds and besan lent body, and this beetroot chutney, a friend’s grandmother’s, both in the last three or four years. I’ve always failed with the carrot chutney but the beetroot was a success even when I made it for the first time just recently.
In my previous post, I recounted the story of the lost opportunity in beetroot chutney, but a few of you wanted the recipe, saying it was news to you too, ergo the post.
But before that, I need your opinion on something: I’ve been planning a one-off event for months now, but between wondering how it can be at least a little different from the others going around and finally deciding on one, I am not sure if it will appeal to you all.
It will be called Grindless Gravies and the idea is to come up with a thick gravy WITHOUT resorting to the mixer or grinder or even to heavy-duty grinding by hand, if anyone does that anymore (or grating something long enough to allow it to become pulpy enough to add bulk)– the idea is to find ourselves recipes for fulfilling gravies without the elbow grease. So tell me if this idea appeals to you and help me formulate the terms and conditions and make sure there are no escape clauses and I will announce it formally.
Finally, on to the chutney recipe:
Beets, chopped, boiled until just tender: 2 cups
A lime-sized lump of soaked tamarind
Green chillies: 6, chopped (or less)
To temper:
Oil: 2 tsp + 1 tsp
Garlic: A few cloves, skinned, split
Mustard seeds: ¾ tsp
Urad dal/hulled, split black gram: 1 tsp
Curry leaves: A few
Cumin seed: ½ tsp
In one tsp of oil, fry the green chillies well. It just needs to wilt a bit so don’t worry if the oil’s absorbed all too quickly.
Temper the other two tsps of oil with the mustard, cumin, then the black gram (wait for it to brown slightly), garlic and the curry leaves.
To the beetroot, add salt, the green chillies, the tempering and the tamarind lump. Put this in a grinder and grind.
You can even do a second tempering with the same ingredients or some of them if you want more crunch in the chutney.
More chutneys here and here
Don’t forget to let me know about the event! You can even write to me at srablogATgmailDOTcom . I would appreciate any input: what to watch out for, what to add, what not to, what else I can do to make it interesting. Thanks!
Beetroot Chutney Tamarind Green Chillies Event
All these different chips here have their own unique taste and idiosyncracies – the yam never fails to smell fishy (literally), the sweet potato is excellent but probably doesn’t lend itself well to chipping I see it so rarely, the beetroot takes on a shine, the carrot shows some black in its grain, the okra goes out of shape and the bittergourd, stiffened by the flour it’s dipped in, holds it.
We don’t often pulverize these same veggies into chutney, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t, as I’ve been discovering slowly. In India, it’s mostly the 'watery’ vegetables such as eggplant/brinjal, gourds and greens that are used for chutney – easy to mash and influence, unlike the starchier, sturdier vegetables which will mash but also stick to the pestle or won’t submit with such ease.
It’s not impossible, though, to chutney-fy them as I have been discovering. I first chanced on a carrot chutney, probably my aunt’s invention/innovation – a tangy, orange affair to which curds and besan lent body, and this beetroot chutney, a friend’s grandmother’s, both in the last three or four years. I’ve always failed with the carrot chutney but the beetroot was a success even when I made it for the first time just recently.
In my previous post, I recounted the story of the lost opportunity in beetroot chutney, but a few of you wanted the recipe, saying it was news to you too, ergo the post.
But before that, I need your opinion on something: I’ve been planning a one-off event for months now, but between wondering how it can be at least a little different from the others going around and finally deciding on one, I am not sure if it will appeal to you all.
It will be called Grindless Gravies and the idea is to come up with a thick gravy WITHOUT resorting to the mixer or grinder or even to heavy-duty grinding by hand, if anyone does that anymore (or grating something long enough to allow it to become pulpy enough to add bulk)– the idea is to find ourselves recipes for fulfilling gravies without the elbow grease. So tell me if this idea appeals to you and help me formulate the terms and conditions and make sure there are no escape clauses and I will announce it formally.
Finally, on to the chutney recipe:
Beets, chopped, boiled until just tender: 2 cups
A lime-sized lump of soaked tamarind
Green chillies: 6, chopped (or less)
To temper:
Oil: 2 tsp + 1 tsp
Garlic: A few cloves, skinned, split
Mustard seeds: ¾ tsp
Urad dal/hulled, split black gram: 1 tsp
Curry leaves: A few
Cumin seed: ½ tsp
In one tsp of oil, fry the green chillies well. It just needs to wilt a bit so don’t worry if the oil’s absorbed all too quickly.
Temper the other two tsps of oil with the mustard, cumin, then the black gram (wait for it to brown slightly), garlic and the curry leaves.
To the beetroot, add salt, the green chillies, the tempering and the tamarind lump. Put this in a grinder and grind.
You can even do a second tempering with the same ingredients or some of them if you want more crunch in the chutney.
More chutneys here and here
Don’t forget to let me know about the event! You can even write to me at srablogATgmailDOTcom . I would appreciate any input: what to watch out for, what to add, what not to, what else I can do to make it interesting. Thanks!
Beetroot Chutney Tamarind Green Chillies Event
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Lessons from a Spud
It’s funny how some pretty common dishes escape your notice. Even now, despite the blogs. You think you’ve invented, innovated, tweaked, customized but there always seems to be a post somewhere that’s beaten you to it. Not that it’s a race, but that oh so slight sense of the smug rapidly melts away as a search throws up at least 20 variations in the first few pages.
I did that with a beetroot chutney. I saw my friend’s grandmother make it and marveled at her inventiveness. A few years later, it emerged from my mixer and uploaded itself on to my computer. Waiting for its moment in the sun, it found itself among a rash … er … slew of beetroot chutneys that populated the blogs in close succession. As this blog has often told whomsoever it may concern, it will only carry recipes that the writer finds unusual or unprecedented – that doesn’t exclude those that are a discovery to her but routine to others – but it’s no fun when they abound.
So why is she posting this confessionist, self-deprecating piece? Obviously, she’s never been on Oprah, let alone a chat show, but could that be all? Or is it that she slaved over this photo as well, decorated it with borders and scripts and was pleased with the result. Bad enough that it didn’t have the mild, mellow taste she expected it would have. Worse that it tasted like some other chutney altogether. Then why?
For one, with her avowed intention of not wasting anymore, and in her perpetual quest for novelty, she put it to use which she thought was rather a first. That’s one reason – if you have too much mashed potato left over, this is one solution.
Second, though she didn’t like the texture, or the combination, others did. And let it sit in the fridge till they finished every soured blob of it.
Third, because this is a blog not just about the victoires and the histoires but about a slice of life as well.
And, of course, it’s been ages, or it feels like ages, since she’s posted something on her blog. So here’s to the humble, humbling, potato raita.
Potato, boiled and mashed: 1, big
Curds/yoghurt: 1-2 cups, beaten (go by the amount of mashed potato, and whether you want a runny raita or a thick one)
Mustard seed: 1 tsp
Cumin seed: ½ tsp
Salt, to taste
Coriander, chopped: A little, to garnish
Savoury mint chutney, Indian style: 1 tsp (optional)
Oil: 1 tsp
Mix the mashed potato with the mint chutney.
Add it to the curds.
Season with the salt.
Heat the oil, pop the mustard and then the cumin. Add this to the curds.
Garnish with the coriander.
Another raita recipe here.
This goes to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Pille of Nami-Nami.
Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Potatoes Humour
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Hitting the bottlegourd
For this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook, it was a toss-up between potato raita and this dish, bottlegourd with chick pea flour. No other reason, except a very shallow one – looks. In fact, I’d slaved over the potato raita photo more than I did for this but just as we all come across people who don’t seem to do anything extra to earn all the good luck they attract, this photo was a winner in just a few takes! The colours were clear and striking, each and every mustard seed was well-defined, and in the debate for precedence, good looks took over the simplicity and familiarity of the potato which went into a raita.
This vegetable is a bit like Plain Jane. One of those vegetables that reduces quite a bit as it cooks, it doesn’t have a taste all its own and eaters often pause to wonder what it is for a second before confirming that the vegetable in their stew is bottlegourd and not white pumpkin or chow chow (chayote/ “Benguluru vankaya”) or a similar vegetable that looks and tastes quite similar when cooked. Of late, I’ve come across people who swear it’s a good weight loss aid – grate it, puree it, season with a little salt and drink it in the morning. It’s also used to make halwa and payasam.
In Andhra homes, it’s often put into pappucharu (stewed lentils), pulusu (tamarind-based stew), cooked with a little milk, or stir-fried. Some homes even put a sprinkling of sesame powder on it. I rarely make the first few dishes, and my stir-fry always looks limp and forlon in the pan, and turns out less than tasty – the only reason I eat it is because I don’t want to waste it. And it’s a relatively calorie-less way of filling up. But this recipe I found in a Telugu cookbook made this vegetable quite interesting, and I would really try it again.
Bottlegourd/sorakaya/doodhi, peeled, diced, then sliced fine: 2 cups
Gram flour/Chickpea flour/Senagapindi/Besan: 3 tbsp
Green chillies: 2, chopped
Mustard seed: 1 tsp
Hulled, split black gram: 1-2 tsp
Cumin seed/jeera: 1 tsp
Red Chillies: 1-2, broken into bits
Salt: to taste
Turmeric: ½ tsp
Oil: 2 tsp
Heat oil in a pan. Pop the mustard, add black gram and cumin. Then add the red chillies.
Now add the vegetable, salt, turmeric and green chillies.
Turn heat down to simmer, cover and cook till the vegetable is done – till it’s transparent. It shouldn’t go squishy, though. You can sprinkle a little water before covering the pan to hasten the process.
Now remove the cover, increase the heat just a bit, and add the flour. Mix it really well. Remove from fire.
As they say in the Telugu cookery shows on TV, your sorakaya senagapindi is ruddyyy!
See more gourds here
Weekend Herb Blogging Gram flour/Besan/Senagapindi Bottlegourd/sorakaya
This vegetable is a bit like Plain Jane. One of those vegetables that reduces quite a bit as it cooks, it doesn’t have a taste all its own and eaters often pause to wonder what it is for a second before confirming that the vegetable in their stew is bottlegourd and not white pumpkin or chow chow (chayote/ “Benguluru vankaya”) or a similar vegetable that looks and tastes quite similar when cooked. Of late, I’ve come across people who swear it’s a good weight loss aid – grate it, puree it, season with a little salt and drink it in the morning. It’s also used to make halwa and payasam.
In Andhra homes, it’s often put into pappucharu (stewed lentils), pulusu (tamarind-based stew), cooked with a little milk, or stir-fried. Some homes even put a sprinkling of sesame powder on it. I rarely make the first few dishes, and my stir-fry always looks limp and forlon in the pan, and turns out less than tasty – the only reason I eat it is because I don’t want to waste it. And it’s a relatively calorie-less way of filling up. But this recipe I found in a Telugu cookbook made this vegetable quite interesting, and I would really try it again.
Bottlegourd/sorakaya/doodhi, peeled, diced, then sliced fine: 2 cups
Gram flour/Chickpea flour/Senagapindi/Besan: 3 tbsp
Green chillies: 2, chopped
Mustard seed: 1 tsp
Hulled, split black gram: 1-2 tsp
Cumin seed/jeera: 1 tsp
Red Chillies: 1-2, broken into bits
Salt: to taste
Turmeric: ½ tsp
Oil: 2 tsp
Heat oil in a pan. Pop the mustard, add black gram and cumin. Then add the red chillies.
Now add the vegetable, salt, turmeric and green chillies.
Turn heat down to simmer, cover and cook till the vegetable is done – till it’s transparent. It shouldn’t go squishy, though. You can sprinkle a little water before covering the pan to hasten the process.
Now remove the cover, increase the heat just a bit, and add the flour. Mix it really well. Remove from fire.
As they say in the Telugu cookery shows on TV, your sorakaya senagapindi is ruddyyy!
See more gourds here
Weekend Herb Blogging Gram flour/Besan/Senagapindi Bottlegourd/sorakaya
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Vegetarian Rogan Josh & My Life in Fours
What do you call a situation when you look at a cookbook and discover you have every single ingredient the recipe calls for?
A miracle.
What do you do when you realize, after pledging to stay true to the recipe, that it calls for deep frying?
A. Chicken out
B. Compromise: Don’t fry at all – use the vegetable directly/ bake it and then proceed with the recipe
C. Stick to the recipe in the interests of authenticity.
From the above multiple choices, I chose C.
The recipe is from The Pleasures of Kashmiri Cookery by Anu Wakhlu (Hind Pocket Books, 1995). The dish is called Parim Al Roganjosh (Red Pumpkin in Roganjosh Style). I didn’t change a thing. The introduction to the book says the oil traditionally used is mustard but that refined oil is also used now – I used one which was a mix of sunflower and rice bran.
Red Pumpkin – 500 gm
Oil - for deep frying + 2 tbsp
Beaten curd/yoghurt – 1 tbsp
Aniseed/Saunf powder – 1 tbsp
Ginger Powder (Sonthi) – ½ tbsp
Salt to taste
Red Chilli Powder – 1 tbsp
Cloves – 2
Asafoetida water – 3-4 drops
Water – 1 cup
Oil – 2 tbsp
Peel the pumpkin and cut into pieces.
Heat the oil in a frying pan and deep fry the pumpkin to golden brown (actually, mine stayed a golden yellow).
In another pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil.
Add the asafetida water and let it fry. (Careful, it splutters and sizzles like crazy.)
Add the pumpkin pieces and fry well.
Add the chilli powder and 1 tbsp of beaten curd and mix well till a red colour appears.
Add the other spices and mix well.
Add 1 cup of water and cover the pan.
Simmer for about 20 minutes till the vegetable is cooked and the gravy thick.
This resulted in a mild curry.
Sig of Live to Eat has tagged me for this meme. I wish my life was as full of travel as hers, or my meme as delightful, but here goes:
4 Places I’ve lived
Coimbatore
Hosur
Guntur
Hyderabad
4 jobs I’ve (NEVER) had
Food & travel writer
Award-winning novelist
Fat-advance-bagging novelist
Gazillionaire rich witch
4 favorite places I’ve holidayed
Matheran, Maharashtra – For the memories, the serenity in our resort, and the reservoir nearby
The UK - For its countryside
The US – for New York, for Las Vegas
Goa - For many of its quiet, isolated forts and churches
4 favorite foods
Now this is tough!
The ‘stir-fried bean sheet with vegetables/shrimp’ that I get at a Chinese restaurant down the road
Semiya payasam (Vermicelli in sweetened milk)
Jeedipappu paakam (Cashew-jaggery brittle)
Chikkudukaya koora (Hyacinth beans stir-fried), the way grandmothers/cook at home make it
4 places I’d rather be
In a home office
In a more ergonomic chair than the one I’m sitting in now
In a serene country cottage with vistas of rolling meadows
Travelling all over the world
4 bloggers I'd like to tag
Musical of Musical’s Kitchen
Sharmi of Neivedyam
Sunita of Sunita’s World
Jyotsna of Curry Bazaar
Red Pumpkin Kashmiri Roganjosh Meme Humour
A miracle.
What do you do when you realize, after pledging to stay true to the recipe, that it calls for deep frying?
A. Chicken out
B. Compromise: Don’t fry at all – use the vegetable directly/ bake it and then proceed with the recipe
C. Stick to the recipe in the interests of authenticity.
From the above multiple choices, I chose C.
The recipe is from The Pleasures of Kashmiri Cookery by Anu Wakhlu (Hind Pocket Books, 1995). The dish is called Parim Al Roganjosh (Red Pumpkin in Roganjosh Style). I didn’t change a thing. The introduction to the book says the oil traditionally used is mustard but that refined oil is also used now – I used one which was a mix of sunflower and rice bran.
Red Pumpkin – 500 gm
Oil - for deep frying + 2 tbsp
Beaten curd/yoghurt – 1 tbsp
Aniseed/Saunf powder – 1 tbsp
Ginger Powder (Sonthi) – ½ tbsp
Salt to taste
Red Chilli Powder – 1 tbsp
Cloves – 2
Asafoetida water – 3-4 drops
Water – 1 cup
Oil – 2 tbsp
Peel the pumpkin and cut into pieces.
Heat the oil in a frying pan and deep fry the pumpkin to golden brown (actually, mine stayed a golden yellow).
In another pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil.
Add the asafetida water and let it fry. (Careful, it splutters and sizzles like crazy.)
Add the pumpkin pieces and fry well.
Add the chilli powder and 1 tbsp of beaten curd and mix well till a red colour appears.
Add the other spices and mix well.
Add 1 cup of water and cover the pan.
Simmer for about 20 minutes till the vegetable is cooked and the gravy thick.
This resulted in a mild curry.
Sig of Live to Eat has tagged me for this meme. I wish my life was as full of travel as hers, or my meme as delightful, but here goes:
4 Places I’ve lived
Coimbatore
Hosur
Guntur
Hyderabad
4 jobs I’ve (NEVER) had
Food & travel writer
Award-winning novelist
Fat-advance-bagging novelist
Gazillionaire rich witch
4 favorite places I’ve holidayed
Matheran, Maharashtra – For the memories, the serenity in our resort, and the reservoir nearby
The UK - For its countryside
The US – for New York, for Las Vegas
Goa - For many of its quiet, isolated forts and churches
4 favorite foods
Now this is tough!
The ‘stir-fried bean sheet with vegetables/shrimp’ that I get at a Chinese restaurant down the road
Semiya payasam (Vermicelli in sweetened milk)
Jeedipappu paakam (Cashew-jaggery brittle)
Chikkudukaya koora (Hyacinth beans stir-fried), the way grandmothers/cook at home make it
4 places I’d rather be
In a home office
In a more ergonomic chair than the one I’m sitting in now
In a serene country cottage with vistas of rolling meadows
Travelling all over the world
4 bloggers I'd like to tag
Musical of Musical’s Kitchen
Sharmi of Neivedyam
Sunita of Sunita’s World
Jyotsna of Curry Bazaar
Red Pumpkin Kashmiri Roganjosh Meme Humour
Monday, October 08, 2007
Herbal Hardsell
I had a couple of those rather desirable Old Mother Hubbard moments this past week when there weren’t too many veggies in the house (rare) and the ones I did have were beginning to rot (common). What I did have fresh were lots of potatoes so I told myself I would make a kofta (dumplings) curry with a tomato gravy (in whisper [rotting tomato gravy]) but come dawn and some fuzzy thinking, I ended up with mashed potato rather than koftas.
However, the surprise lay in the gravy, which I concocted solely to get rid of the tomatoes, coriander and celery I had at home – I expected it to be a mess both to look at and to taste but was pleasantly shocked to find that only one of those doubts turned into reality. This was not attractive to my eye, but think herbs (tres chic, gourmet), green leafy vegetables (healthy) and exotic (the combination), and I had a keeper. I’m also told it looked somewhat like the pav’s bhaji, a suspicion I harboured but couldn’t confirm till an observer told me.
It’s a fulfilling curry and you can even have it by itself if you want to keep away from rice or bread. It takes just one big potato, very little oil and is bursting with health and vitamins, to borrow a phrase.
Here’s how I made it:
One big potato, about 200 gm
Onions, chopped fine: Two
Tomatoes, medium-sized, minced/pureed: Five
Coriander, chopped: 1-1/2 cups, stalks and all
Celery: 2 stalks, with leaves, chopped
Savoury mint chutney, Indian style: 1 tsp (Substitute: 10-12 mint leaves and a spoon of lime juice)
Cumin seed: 1 tsp
Salt: to taste
Turmeric: ½ tsp
Chilli powder: 1-2 tsp
Oil: 2 tsp or less
Grind celery and coriander with a little water in the mixer to a fine paste. If you’re using fresh mint, add this to the mix. (I used the mint chutney because it was beginning to dry up.)
Peel potato, prick with fork all over, microwave for 3 minutes on either side, with a resting period of 3 minutes in between. Let cool, mash with a pinch of salt and mint chutney.
In a pan, heat the oil, pop the cumin and fry the onions till transparent.
Add the ground paste, fry well.
Add the tomatoes, salt and spices and let them cook to mush. Add a cup or two of water and let it boil down almost to the consistency you want.
So when it’s not quite thick enough, add the mashed potato-mint mixture bit by bit. Be mindful that the potatoes will do their bit to thicken the gravy.
Mix well, simmer till it’s as thick as you want. Remove from heat.
Strangely enough, without the usual additions of ginger and garlic, curry powder/garam masala or other whole spices, this was quite spicy. I wonder why. And the other revelation was the taste of celery – having never used it much before, and much less in curry, the only word I have to describe its taste is “interesting” – I would use it again.
I’m sending this off to Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Kalyn herself – it’s the second anniversary round.
Weekend Herb Blogging Tomatoes Coriander celery Mint Mint chutney Humour
However, the surprise lay in the gravy, which I concocted solely to get rid of the tomatoes, coriander and celery I had at home – I expected it to be a mess both to look at and to taste but was pleasantly shocked to find that only one of those doubts turned into reality. This was not attractive to my eye, but think herbs (tres chic, gourmet), green leafy vegetables (healthy) and exotic (the combination), and I had a keeper. I’m also told it looked somewhat like the pav’s bhaji, a suspicion I harboured but couldn’t confirm till an observer told me.
It’s a fulfilling curry and you can even have it by itself if you want to keep away from rice or bread. It takes just one big potato, very little oil and is bursting with health and vitamins, to borrow a phrase.
Here’s how I made it:
One big potato, about 200 gm
Onions, chopped fine: Two
Tomatoes, medium-sized, minced/pureed: Five
Coriander, chopped: 1-1/2 cups, stalks and all
Celery: 2 stalks, with leaves, chopped
Savoury mint chutney, Indian style: 1 tsp (Substitute: 10-12 mint leaves and a spoon of lime juice)
Cumin seed: 1 tsp
Salt: to taste
Turmeric: ½ tsp
Chilli powder: 1-2 tsp
Oil: 2 tsp or less
Grind celery and coriander with a little water in the mixer to a fine paste. If you’re using fresh mint, add this to the mix. (I used the mint chutney because it was beginning to dry up.)
Peel potato, prick with fork all over, microwave for 3 minutes on either side, with a resting period of 3 minutes in between. Let cool, mash with a pinch of salt and mint chutney.
In a pan, heat the oil, pop the cumin and fry the onions till transparent.
Add the ground paste, fry well.
Add the tomatoes, salt and spices and let them cook to mush. Add a cup or two of water and let it boil down almost to the consistency you want.
So when it’s not quite thick enough, add the mashed potato-mint mixture bit by bit. Be mindful that the potatoes will do their bit to thicken the gravy.
Mix well, simmer till it’s as thick as you want. Remove from heat.
Strangely enough, without the usual additions of ginger and garlic, curry powder/garam masala or other whole spices, this was quite spicy. I wonder why. And the other revelation was the taste of celery – having never used it much before, and much less in curry, the only word I have to describe its taste is “interesting” – I would use it again.
I’m sending this off to Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Kalyn herself – it’s the second anniversary round.
Weekend Herb Blogging Tomatoes Coriander celery Mint Mint chutney Humour
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Midweek Rant: Puking Into Potted Plants
If you’re eating at this moment/squeamish, stop reading right here.
At first, it was the backyard, near the well. Then it slowly moved to the bushes and now has entered the house. The receptacle of choice is the potted plant. And I’m not exaggerating.
I would be hard put to identify the movie that actually shows a heroine or sister vomiting into a potted plant but they exist, and many of you from India would be familiar with this scene, or the others described above.
I’m talking about the way impending babies are announced in the Indian movies. Especially when they are born outside marriage, and three months into the pregnancy. (No, says a friend, even the inside-marriage kinds are announced that way. And why on earth do you want to write about this in a food blog, she asks, don’t you fear putting off your readers?) Forget the pregnancy bit, puke is shown when the character is unwell too – is it necessary to show it in such revolting detail?
I just happened to be channel-surfing and came across this all too familiar scene. In the latest movie I watched too. Please, movie-makers, can we be spared these graphic, repulsive scenes – of vomit cascading in white globs or jets? And don’t tell me all those who are expecting/ just plain unwell don’t have the time to run into the bathroom before it happens. The friend above also points out that she has seen movies where, if the pregnant/sick one is attired in Westernwear, she is seen rushing to the bathroom, but if she is sari-clad, she almost always throws up al fresco. I would make concessions for old movies – not too many bathrooms or wash basins or WCs, especially in rural households – but in this day and age? And into plants? Please don’t do this to us, especially when we’re settling down in front of the TV with a plate full of food!
Indian movies
At first, it was the backyard, near the well. Then it slowly moved to the bushes and now has entered the house. The receptacle of choice is the potted plant. And I’m not exaggerating.
I would be hard put to identify the movie that actually shows a heroine or sister vomiting into a potted plant but they exist, and many of you from India would be familiar with this scene, or the others described above.
I’m talking about the way impending babies are announced in the Indian movies. Especially when they are born outside marriage, and three months into the pregnancy. (No, says a friend, even the inside-marriage kinds are announced that way. And why on earth do you want to write about this in a food blog, she asks, don’t you fear putting off your readers?) Forget the pregnancy bit, puke is shown when the character is unwell too – is it necessary to show it in such revolting detail? I just happened to be channel-surfing and came across this all too familiar scene. In the latest movie I watched too. Please, movie-makers, can we be spared these graphic, repulsive scenes – of vomit cascading in white globs or jets? And don’t tell me all those who are expecting/ just plain unwell don’t have the time to run into the bathroom before it happens. The friend above also points out that she has seen movies where, if the pregnant/sick one is attired in Westernwear, she is seen rushing to the bathroom, but if she is sari-clad, she almost always throws up al fresco. I would make concessions for old movies – not too many bathrooms or wash basins or WCs, especially in rural households – but in this day and age? And into plants? Please don’t do this to us, especially when we’re settling down in front of the TV with a plate full of food!
Indian movies
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Cutlace, Somehow Or The Other!
This is a post inspired by one of the comments from my previous post. I had discussed some of the twists and turns English takes in India on menus across the country, to which some added their inputs. One of them was cut-lace
(aka cutlet, cutless, cutlite – on the train stops at stations, I’ve almost always heard it morph into cutlai…sse, and buttermilk becomes butt-raa-meel…).
As soon as I saw that comment, I knew what the fate of the fenugreek leaves (methi/menthikoora) in my fridge and the potatoes in my storeroom would be. (Oh yes, my potato-methi cutlets had to be a first. At least a third or a fourth – well, I don’t remember seeing such a recipe and don’t correct me if I’m wrong.)
Only, I hadn’t factored in my microwave failing me this time so when I was rewarded with potatoes lumpy in parts that refused to mash, I whizzed them in the mixie. Heh heh, of course, this was a brainwave that wasn’t one, so I was rewarded with a starchy, green paste that refused to cooperate with me in any way.
It wouldn’t form patties, nor would the moisture dry enough on the tawa and form some sort of cutlet. Trying to be innovative, I diluted it with some water and tried making a potato-methi-coriander dosa. No dice. I pressure-cooked another three potatoes and mashed them into it. Didn’t improve.
I refrigerated it and spent the rest of the day wondering how to salvage it – they probably would have made good, freehand, deep-fried treats but I didn’t want those. A friend suggested mixing them up with maida to make chapathis/parathas but we rejected the idea because of the ‘white’ flour.
Then I went in for white bread.
In my defence: It’s easily available, I used only three slices, and the larger, nobler purpose was to not let the potato paste go to waste nor did I want it to hang on in the fridge till the time another brainwave for its judicious use hit me, so here’s how I went about the whole thing, errors and all. This made about 13-14 cutlets.
Big-leaf fenugreek – 200 gm bunch, use only the leaves and tender stalks (sprinkle water on it, microwave this for 2 minutes)
Potatoes: 8 (5 microwaved, 3 pressure-cooked – sorry, can’t tell you the weight as I didn’t check but they were not very big ones)
Onion – 1, chopped
Coriander/cilantro, chopped – 1-1.5 cups
Bread, white – 3 slices (you can use other varieties too, am sure)
Salt – to taste
Chilli powder – 1 tsp
Curry powder/garam masala – 1 tsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Whiz all these on the highest speed in the blender/mixer for just five seconds and you’ll be rewarded with a thick paste that I haven’t yet discovered an independent use for.
Now, tear three slices of white bread carelessly into the mix and mash as well as you can.
Now you’ll be able to form patties that can hold their shape.
Heat a pan with the oil, place the patties in it.
On medium heat, brown on both sides. (Mine look well-roasted, I know, I know.)
Thank God you were able to save the whole enterprise, put them in a halfway decent dish, start shooting.
Then consume with sauce of choice.
I'm sending this off to Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Haalo of Cook Almost Anything At Least Once.
Cutlet, Cutlace Potato Fenugreek Coriander/cilantro Bread
(aka cutlet, cutless, cutlite – on the train stops at stations, I’ve almost always heard it morph into cutlai…sse, and buttermilk becomes butt-raa-meel…).
As soon as I saw that comment, I knew what the fate of the fenugreek leaves (methi/menthikoora) in my fridge and the potatoes in my storeroom would be. (Oh yes, my potato-methi cutlets had to be a first. At least a third or a fourth – well, I don’t remember seeing such a recipe and don’t correct me if I’m wrong.)
Only, I hadn’t factored in my microwave failing me this time so when I was rewarded with potatoes lumpy in parts that refused to mash, I whizzed them in the mixie. Heh heh, of course, this was a brainwave that wasn’t one, so I was rewarded with a starchy, green paste that refused to cooperate with me in any way.
It wouldn’t form patties, nor would the moisture dry enough on the tawa and form some sort of cutlet. Trying to be innovative, I diluted it with some water and tried making a potato-methi-coriander dosa. No dice. I pressure-cooked another three potatoes and mashed them into it. Didn’t improve.
I refrigerated it and spent the rest of the day wondering how to salvage it – they probably would have made good, freehand, deep-fried treats but I didn’t want those. A friend suggested mixing them up with maida to make chapathis/parathas but we rejected the idea because of the ‘white’ flour.
Then I went in for white bread.
In my defence: It’s easily available, I used only three slices, and the larger, nobler purpose was to not let the potato paste go to waste nor did I want it to hang on in the fridge till the time another brainwave for its judicious use hit me, so here’s how I went about the whole thing, errors and all. This made about 13-14 cutlets.
Big-leaf fenugreek – 200 gm bunch, use only the leaves and tender stalks (sprinkle water on it, microwave this for 2 minutes)
Potatoes: 8 (5 microwaved, 3 pressure-cooked – sorry, can’t tell you the weight as I didn’t check but they were not very big ones)
Onion – 1, chopped
Coriander/cilantro, chopped – 1-1.5 cups
Bread, white – 3 slices (you can use other varieties too, am sure)
Salt – to taste
Chilli powder – 1 tsp
Curry powder/garam masala – 1 tsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Whiz all these on the highest speed in the blender/mixer for just five seconds and you’ll be rewarded with a thick paste that I haven’t yet discovered an independent use for.
Now, tear three slices of white bread carelessly into the mix and mash as well as you can.
Now you’ll be able to form patties that can hold their shape.
Heat a pan with the oil, place the patties in it.
On medium heat, brown on both sides. (Mine look well-roasted, I know, I know.)
Thank God you were able to save the whole enterprise, put them in a halfway decent dish, start shooting.
Then consume with sauce of choice.
I'm sending this off to Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Haalo of Cook Almost Anything At Least Once.
Cutlet, Cutlace Potato Fenugreek Coriander/cilantro Bread
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Of Candid Beel & Uncold Water
Add hot pups and fried france to the list. Along with umbercut steak patata. Snakes. And more. And you have a glorious mélange of what’s on offer in the little and not-so-little stores and restaurants all over India.
Those of you from South India must be familiar with hot pups. For those of you who are not, this is the name hot puffs go by in some establishments. Flaky or not-so-flaky pastry filled with a dark mass of spicy curry, with bits of green and orange peeping out if it’s vegetarian. The realization that pups could be a corruption of puffs came about in a rather chastening way – somebody much older than us pronounced it so and it set us sniggering, till they said something that made us realize things like those weren’t important. But they still amuse; though they don’t raise a mocking laugh any longer, they do prompt a gentle one.
Snakes, of course, are snacks. A “pig mutton” stall is a place that sells pork. Candid beel is candied peel - remember the big, sticky glass jars, containing multicoloured pieces of peel, hog plums traditionally coloured red and branded cherries, and the preserved raw papaya we know as tutti frutti? Uncold water is an ingenious phrase to differentiate between refrigerated and unrefrigerated bottled/mineral water that is stocked in the store. Uncold is cheaper, usually priced at MRP (maximum retail price), cold is costlier as the storekeeper has incurred expenses on electricity while chilling it. (I’ve read it’s against the rules to charge more for chilled bottled water, though.)
When I accompanied The Spouse on some official work to a temple town, the aspirational/tourist-pleasing aspect of small town India blended with the constraints of vegetarianism were evident in the restaurant of the hotel we stayed in. There was a variety of mystifying stuff on the menu but what truly perplexed me was umbercut steak patata. What on earth was it? Should I order and find out or safely stick to the less arcane selections on the menu? I stuck to the safe option. But the umbercut wouldn’t leave my mind – I turned it over and over and over till the penny dropped, quite suddenly – it was meant to be hamburger steak with potato! Yes, for the scores of foreign tourists who came to this place with its temple and its world-famous ashram, the hamburger patty, made of potato and not meat, would be the bridge between spirituality and their non-vegetarian homelands!
And with that, I leave you with a recipe for Fried France.
Medium-size prawns, shelled, de-veined: 500 gm
(Paneer/cottage cheese can substitute this)
Onions, minced: 2
Green chillies, chopped: 2
Tomatoes, chopped: 2
Coriander/cilantro, chopped: A cupful
Turmeric: ½ tsp
Salt: To taste
Chilli powder: 1 tsp
Cumin powder: 1 tsp
Coriander powder: 1-1/2 tsp
Oil: 2-3 tbsp (or less)
Heat the oil, fry the prawns till they turn pink and opaque.
Now add the onions, fry till brown.
Add the green chillies, sauté.
Now add the chopped tomatoes, mix well.
Now go in the powdered spices and salt. Mix well and sauté.
Garnish with chopped coriander.
Somebody who tasted this said the prawns were slightly tough, and that could be because they were fried first and continued to cook as the rest of the stuff was being added. However, she said it was tasty.
I even tried a vegetarian version with paneer/cottage cheese a couple of days later, and it worked well.
Indian English Fried France Fried prawns Paneer/cottage cheese
Those of you from South India must be familiar with hot pups. For those of you who are not, this is the name hot puffs go by in some establishments. Flaky or not-so-flaky pastry filled with a dark mass of spicy curry, with bits of green and orange peeping out if it’s vegetarian. The realization that pups could be a corruption of puffs came about in a rather chastening way – somebody much older than us pronounced it so and it set us sniggering, till they said something that made us realize things like those weren’t important. But they still amuse; though they don’t raise a mocking laugh any longer, they do prompt a gentle one.
Snakes, of course, are snacks. A “pig mutton” stall is a place that sells pork. Candid beel is candied peel - remember the big, sticky glass jars, containing multicoloured pieces of peel, hog plums traditionally coloured red and branded cherries, and the preserved raw papaya we know as tutti frutti? Uncold water is an ingenious phrase to differentiate between refrigerated and unrefrigerated bottled/mineral water that is stocked in the store. Uncold is cheaper, usually priced at MRP (maximum retail price), cold is costlier as the storekeeper has incurred expenses on electricity while chilling it. (I’ve read it’s against the rules to charge more for chilled bottled water, though.)
When I accompanied The Spouse on some official work to a temple town, the aspirational/tourist-pleasing aspect of small town India blended with the constraints of vegetarianism were evident in the restaurant of the hotel we stayed in. There was a variety of mystifying stuff on the menu but what truly perplexed me was umbercut steak patata. What on earth was it? Should I order and find out or safely stick to the less arcane selections on the menu? I stuck to the safe option. But the umbercut wouldn’t leave my mind – I turned it over and over and over till the penny dropped, quite suddenly – it was meant to be hamburger steak with potato! Yes, for the scores of foreign tourists who came to this place with its temple and its world-famous ashram, the hamburger patty, made of potato and not meat, would be the bridge between spirituality and their non-vegetarian homelands!
And with that, I leave you with a recipe for Fried France.
Medium-size prawns, shelled, de-veined: 500 gm
(Paneer/cottage cheese can substitute this)
Onions, minced: 2
Green chillies, chopped: 2
Tomatoes, chopped: 2
Coriander/cilantro, chopped: A cupful
Turmeric: ½ tsp
Salt: To taste
Chilli powder: 1 tsp
Cumin powder: 1 tsp
Coriander powder: 1-1/2 tsp
Oil: 2-3 tbsp (or less)
Heat the oil, fry the prawns till they turn pink and opaque.
Now add the onions, fry till brown.
Add the green chillies, sauté.
Now add the chopped tomatoes, mix well.
Now go in the powdered spices and salt. Mix well and sauté.
Garnish with chopped coriander.
Somebody who tasted this said the prawns were slightly tough, and that could be because they were fried first and continued to cook as the rest of the stuff was being added. However, she said it was tasty.
I even tried a vegetarian version with paneer/cottage cheese a couple of days later, and it worked well.
Indian English Fried France Fried prawns Paneer/cottage cheese
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Pommelo Memories
This is one of those fruits that’s an old favourite but increasingly, a rare find. Come to think of it, it was always special, we would see it only rarely, but at least every year, in our home. Somebody had it in their yard, somebody would bring it, saying it grew in their home, and we’d tear it apart with relish, getting at the giant sections, peeling off the thick, dry skin that came away easily, and fill our palms with the firm flesh.
Oh, the pommelo (pummelo, pampelmousse, pamparapanasa in Telugu) is a different, delightful citrus altogether. Unlike its smaller cousins, the oranges, tangerines and such, whose interiors are softer, more wet and sections therefore slightly, just slightly, harder to peel without squashing, these are well defined. Unlike them though, this is more difficult to get through, because of its very thick rind and very fibrous interiors, but once you open it, it’s a juicy treat. This citrus fruit is quite an individual, its bittersweet taste sets its apart from the sweet-sour tang of its ilk.
My grandmother had a tree at home which died only in the last couple of years. I remember my aunt bringing it to a friend’s house, where the Aunties, who were making a vegetable salad for lunch, very matter-of-factly cut it up, scooped the flesh and put it in. It made a pretty picture alright, pale pink flesh and all, I remember thinking, but who would ever use that in a salad? (I had yet to evolve, as you can guess.) And how could they mix up such an increasingly rare fruit with plain old vegetables and not savor it by itself? Then came lunchtime, and the salad, with a very plain dressing of olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper came alive with the texture of these pommelo chunks. What were the rest of the ingredients? Onion, cucumber, carrot is what I remember, and some moong sprouts as well. Well, I may be imagining the sprouts but they go well with citrus fruit, I know that for a fact. I’ve even seen recipes for pommelo salads with shrimp but am yet to try them. There’s a yellowish-fleshed variety as well.
I’ve eaten pommelo marmalade once – that was the first time I got to know the English name of this fruit. My friend’s mother had made it from one fruit and ended up with quite a lot. The little browsing that my lately faulty Internet connection permitted me to do told me this fruit’s rind is better used for candied peel and that it’s native to South-East Asia. I still like it best sans embellishments, in all its natural glory. And I like to have it all to myself.
Last weekend, on a sudden trip home for Vinayaka Chaturthi, I noticed carts selling these. This is the only time I see them in the market. Then they made their appearance on the dining table in a relative’s home. I ate greedily, and was thrilled to carry the leftovers home and eat more. Our hostess sent over one more that evening, and I bought a couple more. One more that miraculously appeared in the fruit bowl at home made its way into my bag, Dad and Mom telling me very graciously that neither of them would eat it when I asked them if they minded. “Keep some for my guide,” said The Spouse, who’s working towards a Ph. D, “at least from my share of the fruit,” only to be told he didn’t have a share. I now have two more left. The first was peeled painstakingly, shapely, for the camera, and a knife plunged and dug through the second to rapidly fill a bowl with the booty, which made a delicious, light chilled dessert after a busy day at work.
This is my submission for Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging this week, hosted by Myriam at Once Upon a Tart this week.
Weekend Herb Blogging Pommelo, pummelo, pampelmousse, pamparapanasa Fruit
Oh, the pommelo (pummelo, pampelmousse, pamparapanasa in Telugu) is a different, delightful citrus altogether. Unlike its smaller cousins, the oranges, tangerines and such, whose interiors are softer, more wet and sections therefore slightly, just slightly, harder to peel without squashing, these are well defined. Unlike them though, this is more difficult to get through, because of its very thick rind and very fibrous interiors, but once you open it, it’s a juicy treat. This citrus fruit is quite an individual, its bittersweet taste sets its apart from the sweet-sour tang of its ilk.
My grandmother had a tree at home which died only in the last couple of years. I remember my aunt bringing it to a friend’s house, where the Aunties, who were making a vegetable salad for lunch, very matter-of-factly cut it up, scooped the flesh and put it in. It made a pretty picture alright, pale pink flesh and all, I remember thinking, but who would ever use that in a salad? (I had yet to evolve, as you can guess.) And how could they mix up such an increasingly rare fruit with plain old vegetables and not savor it by itself? Then came lunchtime, and the salad, with a very plain dressing of olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper came alive with the texture of these pommelo chunks. What were the rest of the ingredients? Onion, cucumber, carrot is what I remember, and some moong sprouts as well. Well, I may be imagining the sprouts but they go well with citrus fruit, I know that for a fact. I’ve even seen recipes for pommelo salads with shrimp but am yet to try them. There’s a yellowish-fleshed variety as well.
I’ve eaten pommelo marmalade once – that was the first time I got to know the English name of this fruit. My friend’s mother had made it from one fruit and ended up with quite a lot. The little browsing that my lately faulty Internet connection permitted me to do told me this fruit’s rind is better used for candied peel and that it’s native to South-East Asia. I still like it best sans embellishments, in all its natural glory. And I like to have it all to myself.
Last weekend, on a sudden trip home for Vinayaka Chaturthi, I noticed carts selling these. This is the only time I see them in the market. Then they made their appearance on the dining table in a relative’s home. I ate greedily, and was thrilled to carry the leftovers home and eat more. Our hostess sent over one more that evening, and I bought a couple more. One more that miraculously appeared in the fruit bowl at home made its way into my bag, Dad and Mom telling me very graciously that neither of them would eat it when I asked them if they minded. “Keep some for my guide,” said The Spouse, who’s working towards a Ph. D, “at least from my share of the fruit,” only to be told he didn’t have a share. I now have two more left. The first was peeled painstakingly, shapely, for the camera, and a knife plunged and dug through the second to rapidly fill a bowl with the booty, which made a delicious, light chilled dessert after a busy day at work.
This is my submission for Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging this week, hosted by Myriam at Once Upon a Tart this week.
Weekend Herb Blogging Pommelo, pummelo, pampelmousse, pamparapanasa Fruit
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Showing You My Cookbooks
Favourites imply choices, and choices imply taking a stand. Does not having one absolute favourite make you an irresolute person, and is that opinion further compounded when I say that even the books I choose to mention here are not my only favourites? Or does it signal my catholic nature and fair disposition :) - a cookbook is chosen to suit a mood, an appetite, a craving; at the very least, it’s chosen for its easy accessibility in a deep bottom shelf filled with rows of several of its ilk, so how can I choose one, or a few, and dismiss the others?
But choose some I must, and I have. As you can make out from the picture, I own many, and only a few have been ignored routinely, principally because the ingredients are hard to come by. I have, on a couple of occasions, lugged a few of them to work and given them away, but am unable to part with the rest even though they are impractical for the Indian situation or my eating habits. All of us own things like that, don’t we?
To get down to the subject, one of my regular books is the Telugu ‘Kantamani Vantakaalu’ – the purplish one on the left, in the foreground. I resort to this most often when I’m beset with doubts about everyday food. Does Bengal gram go into the tempering, or am I imagining it? Do I temper the vegetables going into the chutney and then grind, or do I grind and then temper? This book is good to deal with these doubts.
It’s for similar reasons that I like Cooking At Home with Pedatha. This is the only book I’ve noticed that tells us exactly how to temper a dish – what goes in first, the mustard seed or the urad dal, and it’s fail-proof.
At the back, there’s Hyderabadi Cuisine, by Pratibha Karan. I love it for its looks, and I’d better – I waited years to buy it, mooning over it every time I saw it or went to see it in the store, always reaching out for it but holding back, and finally, buying it. It’s so expensive my lending library still hasn’t bought it, after all these years, and I have. (I’ve bought several other books that the library has resolutely refused to, but that’s another issue altogether.) Anyway, this is a book to possess, and the word is not being used idly, but with most of the associations, connotations and implications that possession denotes. Yes, it’s a trophy book, but not a b/himbo as far as I can see – I’ve tried a couple of recipes from that book, and they work.
Next to that, you see the Readers Digest 30-Minute Cookbook – it has even more h/bimbo appeal, not to mention substance; it’s a pleasure to cook from provided you get all the ingredients in India. And it was gifted to us by an uncle, who seemed to have ordered it with us in mind.
This post is being sent off to Nags of For the Cook in Me for the event Show Me Your Cookbook – I’m certainly not shy, I haven’t shown you myself but I’ve shown you half of my cookbooks, and would show you the rest if only I could figure out a way to take a 360-degree picture of this pile!
Cookbooks Show Me Your Cookbook
But choose some I must, and I have. As you can make out from the picture, I own many, and only a few have been ignored routinely, principally because the ingredients are hard to come by. I have, on a couple of occasions, lugged a few of them to work and given them away, but am unable to part with the rest even though they are impractical for the Indian situation or my eating habits. All of us own things like that, don’t we?
To get down to the subject, one of my regular books is the Telugu ‘Kantamani Vantakaalu’ – the purplish one on the left, in the foreground. I resort to this most often when I’m beset with doubts about everyday food. Does Bengal gram go into the tempering, or am I imagining it? Do I temper the vegetables going into the chutney and then grind, or do I grind and then temper? This book is good to deal with these doubts.
It’s for similar reasons that I like Cooking At Home with Pedatha. This is the only book I’ve noticed that tells us exactly how to temper a dish – what goes in first, the mustard seed or the urad dal, and it’s fail-proof.
At the back, there’s Hyderabadi Cuisine, by Pratibha Karan. I love it for its looks, and I’d better – I waited years to buy it, mooning over it every time I saw it or went to see it in the store, always reaching out for it but holding back, and finally, buying it. It’s so expensive my lending library still hasn’t bought it, after all these years, and I have. (I’ve bought several other books that the library has resolutely refused to, but that’s another issue altogether.) Anyway, this is a book to possess, and the word is not being used idly, but with most of the associations, connotations and implications that possession denotes. Yes, it’s a trophy book, but not a b/himbo as far as I can see – I’ve tried a couple of recipes from that book, and they work.
Next to that, you see the Readers Digest 30-Minute Cookbook – it has even more h/bimbo appeal, not to mention substance; it’s a pleasure to cook from provided you get all the ingredients in India. And it was gifted to us by an uncle, who seemed to have ordered it with us in mind.
This post is being sent off to Nags of For the Cook in Me for the event Show Me Your Cookbook – I’m certainly not shy, I haven’t shown you myself but I’ve shown you half of my cookbooks, and would show you the rest if only I could figure out a way to take a 360-degree picture of this pile!
Cookbooks Show Me Your Cookbook
Friday, September 14, 2007
A Blog and An Anniversary
The cake crumbled, and the idea is still fuzzy, so I offer you flowers instead, for my big day! One year ago, I set up this blog, and it's been a fun ride all along, with the new food, new friends, new knowledge.
When I stumbled upon food blogs last summer, the discovery was nothing short of thrilling. Here were people after my own heart, gourmets and gourmands all! It reassured me in various ways about an obsession that had been growing steadily – and food blogs were legit places to unabashedly indulge in that craze. 
More importantly, they offered a platform and an outlet for the anecdotal writing that I enjoy, not to mention the glimpses into others’ lives and kitchen as well as the good dose of warm-and-fuzzy feelings whenever someone reacts to a post. If this hadn’t been India, where there aren’t too many food bloggers, I’d be probably looking out for people in grocery stores and wondering if I knew them from the blogs! 
So here's the cake that didn't make it, and if the idea for a commemmorative event ever shapes up, I'll let you know.
Meanwhile, read on to see how some people react(ed) to my food blog:
Dad: So whose photos are those? Some are really appetizing!
Dad, they’re mine!
Oh, I didn’t understand what you said, good, very nice.
Mom, he missed the whole point!
Mom: He’s a nut!
The Spouse, in a loud don’t-try-to-fool-me tone: You cook for your blog, don’t say you cook for us!
Aunty: Sra, why don’t you think of Aunty too as a blog and write me an e-mail as long as your posts?
Friend: Ohhowcool! (delivered in an I’mtryingtoshowyouI’mexcited tone but failing miserably – Lesson for Sra: Your ego needs to be cut down to size)
Kid brother: Akka, what sort of a dish is that? You call it capsicum? It looks wormy and disgusting! Couldn’t you get a better picture?
Aha, aha, you mean to say you made the paneer yourself? Hyuk hyuk (that typically pest-kid-brother snigger). You bake brownies and stuff, why don’t you post those? (I no longer do; I just did, and it failed.)
Now for the thanksgiving speeches: Thanks all of you, readers, bloggers, family, friends, lurkers, awarders, Asha, my first commenter – it’s been a great year, and I hope there will be more ahead, with all of you around.
PS: The cake is a flourless orange almond cake, recipes for it abound on the Net. Mine tasted good, but the centre didn't bake well, 'twas the pan substitution that did it!
Blog Anniversary
Saturday, September 08, 2007
A Sortie to Mysore
When RCI-Karnataka was announced, I knew what I would make right away. Some time ago, I had made a tamarind rice dish that The Spouse said was just like the Bangalore version – I had then felt all the difference (from the usual Andhra version) came from the sesame seeds that went into it – but try as I might, none of the recipes I located for puliyogare were it, till I found it in a book on Tamil cooking!
Now that wouldn’t do, even though it was a highly practical recipe for a rational, everyday quantity of rice. Karnataka cuisine, bar the Mangalorean/Konkan style, is as undersold as Oriya cuisine so it has to be as authentic as possible, at least in my ’umble blog, so there began the task of preparing myself mentally to soak, squeeze and boil down the 1/4th kilo of tamarind that all the seemingly Karnataka-style recipes called for. (I didn’t want to scale down for authenticity’s sake, am bad at Maths.)
In fact, I’ve no doubt that this is a Karnataka recipe as it’s called Mysore Puliyogare, and it also says that the author was raised in that State but it shall remain unnamed because the instructions started unraveling halfway through the recipe and it was left to yours truly to take it upon herself to put two and two together and finish it off!
As it happened, the finished product had nothing in common with the other one I mentioned, but was very different from the pulihora we make at home. I had never tried my hand at chintapandu pulihora (tamarind rice), often a dirty yellow-brown whose sourness set my teeth on edge almost everywhere I encountered it, but nimmakaya pulihora (lemon rice) and its mango counterpart were a different kettle of fish altogether (now, fish and pulihora is an interesting thought, but I digress).
The difference between our home’s pulihora and others’ was that we wouldn’t put any nuts in ours, tamarind, lemon or mango, but with this dish, that’s going to change, even though the recipe didn’t mention any. Does that take away from the Mysoreness of the pulihora? I don’t know. I had to ask a friend how to use the puliyogare concentrate, and with a wicked glint in her eye, she explained.
“Spread the cooked rice in a plate and cool it. Mix gingelly (sesame) oil with it, so much that your hand also becomes nice and oily (the glint appeared here), and mix the concentrate with the rice.”
“But what about the nuts?” I asked.
“Well, aren’t they in the concentrate already?” she asked.
No, I said. I still don’t know when to include them in the concentrate but I’m going to fry a bit of them separately, along with some more mustard seed, black gram and curry leaf, and put them in the rice.
Here’s the recipe, then!
Tamarind: ¼ kg/250 gm
Coriander powder: 1 tbsp (the book recommended 1 tbsp of coriander seeds, to be fried with the rest of the ingredients in oil)
Peppercorns: 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds: ¼ tsp
Mustard seeds: ¼ tsp
Asafoetida: A chip/crystal the size of a tamarind seed (could be ¼ tsp, or ½ tsp of the powdered variety)
Salt: 1-1/2 tbsp (I used iodised crystal salt)
Dry red chillies: 30, stalks off
Jaggery: 50 gm (the book recommended 100 gm)
Black gram dal, split, husked: 2 tbsp
Bengal gram dal, split, husked: 2 tbsp
Turmeric: 1 tsp
White sesame seeds: 3 tbsp
Dessicated coconut: 3 tbsp (the book recommended ¼ of coconut but I’ve seen other recipes include dry coconut in Karnataka versions)
Sesame/gingelly oil: 7-8 tsp (the book doesn’t specify)
Wash tamarind. Soak tamarind, salt and jaggery in water an hour ahead.
After an hour or more, squeeze the tamarind to extract the juice, strain into a cooking vessel. Discard the pulp.
Boil this juice – it took more than an hour for all the water to evaporate and the concentrate to thicken. In fact, I kept adding water as I 'kneaded' the tamarind for easy pulp extraction, but if you can do it with less, well and good.
Barring coriander powder, fry all the remaining ingredients in oil till a nice aroma comes off the pan. Make sure the red chillies don’t blacken.
Whiz the fried mixture along with coriander powder to a ‘pasty’ powder (don’t add any water, but the oil will make it wet) in a mixer/grinder.
As the tamarind concentrate begins to thicken, begin to simmer it.
Just before you remove it from the fire, add the spice mix to the pan. Stir well and take off fire.
Cool completely and bottle. Put it in the fridge.
This amount was recommended for 3.5 kilos of rice. The rice should be plain, non-Basmati, non-scented rice.
To use the tamarind concentrate, mix it with cooked and cooled rice to which some oil and turmeric powder has been added. Temper it with mustard seeds, some black gram dal, curry leaves and nuts fried in a bit of sesame oil.
My concentrate has a lovely aroma of asafoetida and sesame oil, not to mention the flavour of the dry red chilli!
Here's more info on pulihora/puliyogare.
Here's a rava version and a semia version and a carrot version
RCI-Karnataka Puliyogare/pulihora/tamarind rice
Now that wouldn’t do, even though it was a highly practical recipe for a rational, everyday quantity of rice. Karnataka cuisine, bar the Mangalorean/Konkan style, is as undersold as Oriya cuisine so it has to be as authentic as possible, at least in my ’umble blog, so there began the task of preparing myself mentally to soak, squeeze and boil down the 1/4th kilo of tamarind that all the seemingly Karnataka-style recipes called for. (I didn’t want to scale down for authenticity’s sake, am bad at Maths.)
A tad anaemic, but that can be addressed by adding more concentrate/more turmeric during the final tempering!
In fact, I’ve no doubt that this is a Karnataka recipe as it’s called Mysore Puliyogare, and it also says that the author was raised in that State but it shall remain unnamed because the instructions started unraveling halfway through the recipe and it was left to yours truly to take it upon herself to put two and two together and finish it off!
As it happened, the finished product had nothing in common with the other one I mentioned, but was very different from the pulihora we make at home. I had never tried my hand at chintapandu pulihora (tamarind rice), often a dirty yellow-brown whose sourness set my teeth on edge almost everywhere I encountered it, but nimmakaya pulihora (lemon rice) and its mango counterpart were a different kettle of fish altogether (now, fish and pulihora is an interesting thought, but I digress).
The difference between our home’s pulihora and others’ was that we wouldn’t put any nuts in ours, tamarind, lemon or mango, but with this dish, that’s going to change, even though the recipe didn’t mention any. Does that take away from the Mysoreness of the pulihora? I don’t know. I had to ask a friend how to use the puliyogare concentrate, and with a wicked glint in her eye, she explained.
“Spread the cooked rice in a plate and cool it. Mix gingelly (sesame) oil with it, so much that your hand also becomes nice and oily (the glint appeared here), and mix the concentrate with the rice.”
“But what about the nuts?” I asked.
“Well, aren’t they in the concentrate already?” she asked.
No, I said. I still don’t know when to include them in the concentrate but I’m going to fry a bit of them separately, along with some more mustard seed, black gram and curry leaf, and put them in the rice.
Here’s the recipe, then!
The tamarind and coriander powder/seeds are not seen
Tamarind: ¼ kg/250 gm
Coriander powder: 1 tbsp (the book recommended 1 tbsp of coriander seeds, to be fried with the rest of the ingredients in oil)
Peppercorns: 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds: ¼ tsp
Mustard seeds: ¼ tsp
Asafoetida: A chip/crystal the size of a tamarind seed (could be ¼ tsp, or ½ tsp of the powdered variety)
Salt: 1-1/2 tbsp (I used iodised crystal salt)
Dry red chillies: 30, stalks off
Jaggery: 50 gm (the book recommended 100 gm)
Black gram dal, split, husked: 2 tbsp
Bengal gram dal, split, husked: 2 tbsp
Turmeric: 1 tsp
White sesame seeds: 3 tbsp
Dessicated coconut: 3 tbsp (the book recommended ¼ of coconut but I’ve seen other recipes include dry coconut in Karnataka versions)
Sesame/gingelly oil: 7-8 tsp (the book doesn’t specify)
Wash tamarind. Soak tamarind, salt and jaggery in water an hour ahead.
After an hour or more, squeeze the tamarind to extract the juice, strain into a cooking vessel. Discard the pulp.
Boil this juice – it took more than an hour for all the water to evaporate and the concentrate to thicken. In fact, I kept adding water as I 'kneaded' the tamarind for easy pulp extraction, but if you can do it with less, well and good.
Barring coriander powder, fry all the remaining ingredients in oil till a nice aroma comes off the pan. Make sure the red chillies don’t blacken.
Whiz the fried mixture along with coriander powder to a ‘pasty’ powder (don’t add any water, but the oil will make it wet) in a mixer/grinder.
As the tamarind concentrate begins to thicken, begin to simmer it.
Just before you remove it from the fire, add the spice mix to the pan. Stir well and take off fire.
Glorious, isn't it?
Cool completely and bottle. Put it in the fridge.
This amount was recommended for 3.5 kilos of rice. The rice should be plain, non-Basmati, non-scented rice.
To use the tamarind concentrate, mix it with cooked and cooled rice to which some oil and turmeric powder has been added. Temper it with mustard seeds, some black gram dal, curry leaves and nuts fried in a bit of sesame oil.
My concentrate has a lovely aroma of asafoetida and sesame oil, not to mention the flavour of the dry red chilli!
Here's more info on pulihora/puliyogare.
Here's a rava version and a semia version and a carrot version
RCI-Karnataka Puliyogare/pulihora/tamarind rice
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Paneer Makhmali
All I need to do is enjoy the rain beating an irregular tattoo on my windowsill, revel in my fever for which I took the day off from work and curl up with a mystery under a reading lamp, but here I am at my computer, under the glare of tubelights, trying to post something. It’s not even as if I badly want to post this or that I’m meeting some deadline I set for myself, but sleeplessness and a regularity with which I now gravitate towards the blogs that’s making me do this. Posting doesn’t feel like a chore, though – it’s quite a mixed-up feeling.
From the confusing to the simple: what I have for you today is a paneer/cottage cheese recipe. It’s taken from Nita Mehta’s book Still More Paneer, and the only change I made was to use mango ginger instead of the regular ginger.
That's mango ginger in the photo.
This gravy is a velvety affair (hence the name Makhmal, from the Persian), given that the ingredients are pressure cooked and ground, the base being coconut milk. It’s something of a shocker, essentially being paneer in tomato chaaru (rasam/soup South Indian style, with a dash of tempering), but it’s not as odd a match as it sounds. On to the recipe, then:
Paneer/cottage cheese – 200 gm, cubed
Pressure cook (2 whistles) with ½ a cup of water:
Tomatoes – 4, chopped roughly
Coconut milk – ½ cup
Mango ginger or ginger – 1-inch piece, chopped
Garlic – 8-10 cloves, skinned, chopped
Green chillies – 2, chopped roughly
Salt – to taste
Cool and puree in the mixer.
For the tempering:
Mustard seed – 1 tsp
Red chillies – 2, broken
Curry leaves – a sprig
Oil – 1 tsp
Transfer the puree back into the pressure cooker, bring to a boil.
Add the paneer and simmer for 4-5 minutes. Check for the consistency of your liking. Switch off the heat.
In a separate pan, heat the oil, pop the mustard, add the red chillies. Remove from fire, add the curry leaves, and add to the pressure cooker.
You can find a somewhat similar recipe here.
Paneer/Cottage Cheese Coconut milk Tomatoes Mango ginger
From the confusing to the simple: what I have for you today is a paneer/cottage cheese recipe. It’s taken from Nita Mehta’s book Still More Paneer, and the only change I made was to use mango ginger instead of the regular ginger.
That's mango ginger in the photo.
This gravy is a velvety affair (hence the name Makhmal, from the Persian), given that the ingredients are pressure cooked and ground, the base being coconut milk. It’s something of a shocker, essentially being paneer in tomato chaaru (rasam/soup South Indian style, with a dash of tempering), but it’s not as odd a match as it sounds. On to the recipe, then:
Paneer/cottage cheese – 200 gm, cubed
Pressure cook (2 whistles) with ½ a cup of water:
Tomatoes – 4, chopped roughly
Coconut milk – ½ cup
Mango ginger or ginger – 1-inch piece, chopped
Garlic – 8-10 cloves, skinned, chopped
Green chillies – 2, chopped roughly
Salt – to taste
Cool and puree in the mixer.
For the tempering:
Mustard seed – 1 tsp
Red chillies – 2, broken
Curry leaves – a sprig
Oil – 1 tsp
Transfer the puree back into the pressure cooker, bring to a boil.
Add the paneer and simmer for 4-5 minutes. Check for the consistency of your liking. Switch off the heat.
In a separate pan, heat the oil, pop the mustard, add the red chillies. Remove from fire, add the curry leaves, and add to the pressure cooker.
You can find a somewhat similar recipe here.
Paneer/Cottage Cheese Coconut milk Tomatoes Mango ginger
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Cuminy Cruciferae
It’s difficult to concentrate on a post when the TV is on full blast and the viewer claims he cannot but hear it at that volume. It’s even more difficult to ignore your blog when there’s an event going on but you just can’t summon the time or energy to look for a relevant dish or devise a new one.
I’ve slipped into this uncomfortable habit of being chief cheerleader when a new blog event is announced and not entering! So me tells me: Shall I take any dish and say it contains whichever ingredient is being celebrated? Switch the proportions when you write down the recipe, who’ll know? Then me tells me: “It’s dishonest, it’s dishonest” in an inner voice that grows and throbs louder and louder. Sigh! The next best option is to cook whatever you’re cooking that day, add an extra dose of the ingredient called for, eat it, test for taste and make an entry of it! Which is what I’ve done. As you can expect, a dish that was born out of such soul-searching can only be simple and straightforward, so here it is! It’s an as you like it dish as there aren’t too many ingredients and only cumin is allowed to dominate.
One small head of cauliflower, separated into florets
One small head of broccoli, separated into florets
Tomatoes – 2, chopped
Cumin powder – 1-1/2 – 2 tsp
Oil – 2 tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Urad dal/hulled, split black gram – ½ tsp
Turmeric: ½ -1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Heat the oil in a pan, swirl to coat base.
Pop mustard, then add the urad dal.
Once the dal browns, add the broccoli and cauliflower and sauté on high flame for a minute or two.
Lower flame, add turmeric, mix, cover and let cook till the florets are softer. You can sprinkle a little water to hasten the process.
Now add the chopped tomato, cumin powder and salt, mix. Cover and cook till the tomato is cooked/skins start separating from the pulp.
Mix, remove from fire.
This is my entry for Sunita’s Think Spice event.
Think Spice Cauliflower Broccoli Cumin
I’ve slipped into this uncomfortable habit of being chief cheerleader when a new blog event is announced and not entering! So me tells me: Shall I take any dish and say it contains whichever ingredient is being celebrated? Switch the proportions when you write down the recipe, who’ll know? Then me tells me: “It’s dishonest, it’s dishonest” in an inner voice that grows and throbs louder and louder. Sigh! The next best option is to cook whatever you’re cooking that day, add an extra dose of the ingredient called for, eat it, test for taste and make an entry of it! Which is what I’ve done. As you can expect, a dish that was born out of such soul-searching can only be simple and straightforward, so here it is! It’s an as you like it dish as there aren’t too many ingredients and only cumin is allowed to dominate.
One small head of cauliflower, separated into florets
One small head of broccoli, separated into florets
Tomatoes – 2, chopped
Cumin powder – 1-1/2 – 2 tsp
Oil – 2 tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Urad dal/hulled, split black gram – ½ tsp
Turmeric: ½ -1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Heat the oil in a pan, swirl to coat base.
Pop mustard, then add the urad dal.
Once the dal browns, add the broccoli and cauliflower and sauté on high flame for a minute or two.
Lower flame, add turmeric, mix, cover and let cook till the florets are softer. You can sprinkle a little water to hasten the process.
Now add the chopped tomato, cumin powder and salt, mix. Cover and cook till the tomato is cooked/skins start separating from the pulp.
Mix, remove from fire.
This is my entry for Sunita’s Think Spice event.
Think Spice Cauliflower Broccoli Cumin
Friday, August 17, 2007
An Express Purpose
When Mallugirl thought aloud about an express cooking event, I cheered her on, and then sat pretty in contemplation (and blissful ignorance of the deadline) as it approached. Then Mallugirl extended it and I had to challenge myself to come up with a quick meal. Some of these I’ve made from scratch, some I’ve used leftovers, the meal in itself was quickly made with not too much energy spent, but if thinking about something could burn calories, this took the cake!
The first is an almost unbearably tangy Capsicum and Tomato Soup. It started life as a capsicum and tomato salad with lime and honey dressing, but sudden summons to a treat for a friend’s promotion saw me leave the house and forget about if for the next two days. This morning when I saw it stagnant in its juices, my conscience and I battled, and my conscience won.
0-5 mins
What you need:
Yellow Capsicum (Pepper), Red Capsicum, Tomato – 1 each
Lime juice – from 2 limes
Honey – 2 tsp
Pepper, cracked – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Water – ½ cup
1-2 mins: Chop vegetables roughly, add lime juice, honey and pepper. Add water.
Microwave veggies for three minutes.
(As they are microwaving, you can wash some rice, place it in the pressure cooker with twice the amount of water and cook it. Or, you can stack four leftover chapattis one on top of another, cut them into small pieces and keep aside.)
Add some salt to the microwaved veggies, puree in the mixer.
Garnish with coriander if you like.
5-8 minutes (next 3 minutes): Scrambled eggs
Oil – 1 tsp
Eggs – 2
Green chillies – 2, slit in half
Salt – to taste
Heat oil in a pan, swirl to let it coat the base.
Crack the eggs, let the whites set a little at the bottom. This takes upto a minute on low flame. Season with salt.
Now add the chillies, mix everything and switch off the flame.
8-20 minutes: Palak Dal and Fried Chapattis
Spinach/palak/palakoora – 1 bunch (about 200 gm)
Toor dal/Yellow lentils/Kandipappu – ¾ cup
Tomato – 1
Turmeric – ½-1 tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Mustard seeds – ½-1 tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Dry, broken red chillies – 2
Garlic – 5 cloves, skinned, crushed
Salt – to taste
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
8-9 minutes: Wash the dal in two or three changes of water, soak (with just enough water to cover and then a little more) in the pressure cooker.
9-12 minutes: Wash the spinach in two to three changes of water, chop roughly, add to the dal.
12-12.5 minutes: Chop or squish the tomato with your hands into the pressure cooker.
12.5 – 17 minutes: Set the dal to cook on the stove. As you busy yourself with the tasks below, don't forget to switch it off when it's done.
Note: Now skin some garlic and crush it under your knife, wash the curry leaves and bring out the mustard, cumin and the red chillies.
Chop up an onion if you want to make the fried chapattis.
In a pan, heat a tsp or two of oil, pop mustard, cumin, red chillies and curry leaves. Add the garlic. Fry for a minute and add to the dal.
Fried Chapattis
This is an optional dish and may take slightly longer than the last three minutes of the 20 minutes I aimed for.
What you need:
Onion – 1, chopped
Oil – 2 tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Or
Green chillies – 2, chopped
Salt – to taste
Curry leaves – a sprig
Heat the oil in a pan, pop the mustard.
Add the onion, curry leaves and the green chillies, fry a bit.
Now add the chapatti bits, the turmeric, chillies/chilli powder and salt, and mix well.
Put them into your prettiest dishes, sweat over stray curry or soup spilling over internal or external borders, agonise over the symmetry of the arrangement, photograph it till your arms ache and your head hurts, eat up the portions that are likely to get squished by a lid, stash away in the fridge, ruminate on whether this blog addiction is getting out of hand, and then tell yourself not to think too much, it’s all good fun!
Summer Express Cooking Fried chapatti Scrambled eggs Palak/spinach/palakoora Capsicum & tomato soup
The first is an almost unbearably tangy Capsicum and Tomato Soup. It started life as a capsicum and tomato salad with lime and honey dressing, but sudden summons to a treat for a friend’s promotion saw me leave the house and forget about if for the next two days. This morning when I saw it stagnant in its juices, my conscience and I battled, and my conscience won.
0-5 mins
What you need:
Yellow Capsicum (Pepper), Red Capsicum, Tomato – 1 each
Lime juice – from 2 limes
Honey – 2 tsp
Pepper, cracked – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Water – ½ cup
1-2 mins: Chop vegetables roughly, add lime juice, honey and pepper. Add water.
Microwave veggies for three minutes.
(As they are microwaving, you can wash some rice, place it in the pressure cooker with twice the amount of water and cook it. Or, you can stack four leftover chapattis one on top of another, cut them into small pieces and keep aside.)
Add some salt to the microwaved veggies, puree in the mixer.
Garnish with coriander if you like.
5-8 minutes (next 3 minutes): Scrambled eggs
Oil – 1 tsp
Eggs – 2
Green chillies – 2, slit in half
Salt – to taste
Heat oil in a pan, swirl to let it coat the base.
Crack the eggs, let the whites set a little at the bottom. This takes upto a minute on low flame. Season with salt.
Now add the chillies, mix everything and switch off the flame.
8-20 minutes: Palak Dal and Fried Chapattis
Spinach/palak/palakoora – 1 bunch (about 200 gm)
Toor dal/Yellow lentils/Kandipappu – ¾ cup
Tomato – 1
Turmeric – ½-1 tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Mustard seeds – ½-1 tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Dry, broken red chillies – 2
Garlic – 5 cloves, skinned, crushed
Salt – to taste
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
8-9 minutes: Wash the dal in two or three changes of water, soak (with just enough water to cover and then a little more) in the pressure cooker.
9-12 minutes: Wash the spinach in two to three changes of water, chop roughly, add to the dal.
12-12.5 minutes: Chop or squish the tomato with your hands into the pressure cooker.
12.5 – 17 minutes: Set the dal to cook on the stove. As you busy yourself with the tasks below, don't forget to switch it off when it's done.
Note: Now skin some garlic and crush it under your knife, wash the curry leaves and bring out the mustard, cumin and the red chillies.
Chop up an onion if you want to make the fried chapattis.
In a pan, heat a tsp or two of oil, pop mustard, cumin, red chillies and curry leaves. Add the garlic. Fry for a minute and add to the dal.
Fried Chapattis
This is an optional dish and may take slightly longer than the last three minutes of the 20 minutes I aimed for.
What you need:
Onion – 1, chopped
Oil – 2 tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Or
Green chillies – 2, chopped
Salt – to taste
Curry leaves – a sprig
Heat the oil in a pan, pop the mustard.
Add the onion, curry leaves and the green chillies, fry a bit.
Now add the chapatti bits, the turmeric, chillies/chilli powder and salt, and mix well.
Put them into your prettiest dishes, sweat over stray curry or soup spilling over internal or external borders, agonise over the symmetry of the arrangement, photograph it till your arms ache and your head hurts, eat up the portions that are likely to get squished by a lid, stash away in the fridge, ruminate on whether this blog addiction is getting out of hand, and then tell yourself not to think too much, it’s all good fun!
Summer Express Cooking Fried chapatti Scrambled eggs Palak/spinach/palakoora Capsicum & tomato soup
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Painted Black
One of the most curious things I’ve ever eaten was a simple dessert from Myanmar (Burma) made with purple rice. My friend’s mother, one of the nicest local guardians I’ve ever had in my hostel life, was brought up in Burma. She would have a feast waiting for us as we came back from college Friday evening and for the meals the rest of the weekend. Very often, she would have at least one Burmese dish on the menu. The most frequent was san win makin, pronounced sen way mackay, a sweet made of semolina/sooji/rava, coconut milk and poppy seeds. She would also make khauk-swe, the noodle soup, and on one occasion, it was the purple rice.
It was really purple, served with sweetened coconut milk and quite an experience for someone like me who had not seen anything other than white rice and had never heard of purple rice. For me, who started out knowing nobody in that city, it was a really nice thing to have my friend invite me to her home and have her mother write to mine when I told her that my parents would have to approve of my spending the weekends with them.
A few weeks ago, I visited the Khadi Gramodyog outlet near my office for something specific. As usual, I ran my eye over the other shelves idly and when I saw this pack of ‘Original Burma Black Rice’ I had to pick it up for its exotica value, though what I’d do with it, I had no idea. I could only imagine the taste, and I didn’t dare fall back on the memory of that purple (not black) rice because it would have meant a big disappointment if mine hadn’t lived up to Aunty’s. Amidst guilty thoughts of my never-shrinking pantry, I quickly paid for it and scuttled out of there. Then Sharmi announced rice as the ingredient for Jihva, and thus began the frantic trawling of the Internet for various Burmese recipes. Putting two and two together, I later deduced that this is the Kavanarisi that one comes across in Chettinad cuisine – a legacy of the days many in the Chettiar community (among other Indians) lived in Burma for reasons of business and trade.
This rice is mostly used for sweet dishes (including one made in the same way as the purple rice dessert) but in a recipe I saw, neither salt nor sugar was mentioned, and except for rice and water, all the other ingredients were mentioned as ‘optional’! Well, this was my cue – I’d get to make the rice, it wouldn’t have any sugar in it, the coconut was optional and I had the rest of the stuff at home.
But as the night passed, I couldn’t bring myself to do without the coconut so this morning The Spouse was dispatched to fetch one, by which time I had assembled everything else.
This was the hardest dish to photograph so far – the rice didn’t fluff up (it didn’t look fluffy in others’ photos, if that’s any consolation) but I’m hoping it doesn’t look like a soggy mass either, because it wasn’t – it was chewy, sticky and grainy. If that sounds like it went wrong, it’s not meant to – that’s how it’s meant to be. But it was so bland, it had me running to the snacks box for something spicy – it takes a little getting used to. You can add some jaggery for added taste.
I'm not sure it comes from just one country in the Far East, because there are recipes that are claimed by more than one country. Here’s how you go about it:
Burma black rice: 1 cup, soaked overnight
(It will run colour)
Coconut: Shaved/shredded (I shaved off some with a peeler and put the rest in the fridge)
Sesame seeds: 1 tbsp
Peanuts, crushed: 1 tbsp
Salt: ½ tsp at least
Boiling water: Enough to just cover the rice
Drain the water from the rice, wash once.
In a pressure cooker, pour in two inches of water. Using a trivet, place the black rice in a bowl on top of the trivet.
Pour boiling water enough to just cover the rice.
Cook for 3-4 whistles.
Once the pressure drops naturally, put the rice in a bowl, add salt, the coconut, sesame seeds and peanuts and mix lightly.
Garnish with a few coconut shavings.
Here are a few other black rice recipes from the blogs:
From Sig's Live To Eat
From Mallugirl's Malabar Spice
From Freya & Paul's Writing at the Kitchen Table
And here are links to more recipes:
Xoi Nep Than
How to cook purple and black rice
Black Sticky Rice
And now, to spread the joy among everybody in the blog world and pay it forward, as Cynthia of Tastes Like Home so nicely put it, here’s whom I’m picking for the Rockin’ Girl Blogger awards (in alphabetical order)
Archana from Tried and Tested Recipes
Mallika from Quick Indian Cooking
Mallugirl from Malabar Spices
Sandeepa from Bong Mom’s Cookbook
Santhi from Writing on the Mirror
Paz from The Cooking Adventures of Chef Paz
Prema of My Cookbook
Jihva/JFI Black Rice Glutinous rice Myanmar/Burma Far East
It was really purple, served with sweetened coconut milk and quite an experience for someone like me who had not seen anything other than white rice and had never heard of purple rice. For me, who started out knowing nobody in that city, it was a really nice thing to have my friend invite me to her home and have her mother write to mine when I told her that my parents would have to approve of my spending the weekends with them.
A few weeks ago, I visited the Khadi Gramodyog outlet near my office for something specific. As usual, I ran my eye over the other shelves idly and when I saw this pack of ‘Original Burma Black Rice’ I had to pick it up for its exotica value, though what I’d do with it, I had no idea. I could only imagine the taste, and I didn’t dare fall back on the memory of that purple (not black) rice because it would have meant a big disappointment if mine hadn’t lived up to Aunty’s. Amidst guilty thoughts of my never-shrinking pantry, I quickly paid for it and scuttled out of there. Then Sharmi announced rice as the ingredient for Jihva, and thus began the frantic trawling of the Internet for various Burmese recipes. Putting two and two together, I later deduced that this is the Kavanarisi that one comes across in Chettinad cuisine – a legacy of the days many in the Chettiar community (among other Indians) lived in Burma for reasons of business and trade.
This rice is mostly used for sweet dishes (including one made in the same way as the purple rice dessert) but in a recipe I saw, neither salt nor sugar was mentioned, and except for rice and water, all the other ingredients were mentioned as ‘optional’! Well, this was my cue – I’d get to make the rice, it wouldn’t have any sugar in it, the coconut was optional and I had the rest of the stuff at home.
But as the night passed, I couldn’t bring myself to do without the coconut so this morning The Spouse was dispatched to fetch one, by which time I had assembled everything else.
This was the hardest dish to photograph so far – the rice didn’t fluff up (it didn’t look fluffy in others’ photos, if that’s any consolation) but I’m hoping it doesn’t look like a soggy mass either, because it wasn’t – it was chewy, sticky and grainy. If that sounds like it went wrong, it’s not meant to – that’s how it’s meant to be. But it was so bland, it had me running to the snacks box for something spicy – it takes a little getting used to. You can add some jaggery for added taste.
I'm not sure it comes from just one country in the Far East, because there are recipes that are claimed by more than one country. Here’s how you go about it:
Burma black rice: 1 cup, soaked overnight
(It will run colour)
Coconut: Shaved/shredded (I shaved off some with a peeler and put the rest in the fridge)
Sesame seeds: 1 tbsp
Peanuts, crushed: 1 tbsp
Salt: ½ tsp at least
Boiling water: Enough to just cover the rice
Drain the water from the rice, wash once.
In a pressure cooker, pour in two inches of water. Using a trivet, place the black rice in a bowl on top of the trivet.
Pour boiling water enough to just cover the rice.
Cook for 3-4 whistles.
Once the pressure drops naturally, put the rice in a bowl, add salt, the coconut, sesame seeds and peanuts and mix lightly.
Garnish with a few coconut shavings.
Here are a few other black rice recipes from the blogs:
From Sig's Live To Eat
From Mallugirl's Malabar Spice
From Freya & Paul's Writing at the Kitchen Table
And here are links to more recipes:
Xoi Nep Than
How to cook purple and black rice
Black Sticky Rice
And now, to spread the joy among everybody in the blog world and pay it forward, as Cynthia of Tastes Like Home so nicely put it, here’s whom I’m picking for the Rockin’ Girl Blogger awards (in alphabetical order)
Archana from Tried and Tested Recipes
Mallika from Quick Indian Cooking
Mallugirl from Malabar Spices
Sandeepa from Bong Mom’s Cookbook
Santhi from Writing on the Mirror
Paz from The Cooking Adventures of Chef Paz
Prema of My Cookbook
Jihva/JFI Black Rice Glutinous rice Myanmar/Burma Far East
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Palette in pastels
A few years ago, I met a chef who comes from a line of chefs that goes back a few centuries. Amidst talk of how his dad had been too unworldly to patent those recipes and techniques which are now attributed to five-star hotels and their research, I do remember mentioning secret recipes - you know, we always read about how proud family cooks and chefs always hold back revealing the crucial element that gives “that special touch” – and was taken aback by the intensity of his reaction.
“Oh c’mon, there’s a lot of s**t spread about secret recipes and ingredients and stuff – I’ve read interviews with chefs who claim they’ve made a marinade with 120 herbs and spices – what flavour will come through if that’s really so? They don’t know what they are talking about, these jackasses – you really shouldn’t have more than two or three spices, only that will allow the taste to register,” he said with an expression that was a mixture of weariness and impatience. I paraphrase (though I put it in quotes for effect) but I certainly remember jackasses, marinade, 120 herbs and spices, and the profanity could have been different. It was amusing to watch a suave, until-then-cool person say something so spontaneous but it was probably something he needed to get off his chest.
Chef will probably approve of the dish I’m presenting today. It has just three spices and salt, just a teaspoon of oil and uses three rather bland vegetables that amicably cooperate to let the flavours shine through. It’s an Oriya dish called Santula, and like Dalma, there are varieties of it. I also discovered the book, Healthy Oriya Cuisine, by Bijoylaxmi Hota and Kabita Pattanaik (Rupa, 2007) soon after I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve never come across a book on Oriya cuisine in India – I usually make a beeline for the cookery section in any bookshop and regretfully moon over all those books (I have most of them and can’t buy the rest either because the ingredients are hard to find here or I already own a book on the cuisine) but this time, I struck gold – this was the last copy on the shelf and I grabbed it and hung on to it for dear life!
This recipe is also a rediscovery of the bottlegourd – occasionally, I bring it home but end up giving it away because the thought of the insipid/watery fate it meets at my hands enervates me before I even try – it really came into its own and held its own against the sturdy potato and the sweet yellow pumpkin.
This is my second submission to RCI - Orissa being hosted by Swapna of Swad.
What you need:
Potatoes – 2, peeled, diced
Bottlegourd/Lauki/Sorakaya – 4-inch piece, peeled, diced
Pumpkin: 4-inch piece, peeled, diced
Garlic – 15 cloves, skinned
Green chillies – 2
Mustard seeds – ¾ tsp
Oil (preferably mustard oil) – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Pound the garlic and green chillies fine. (I took the easy way out and whizzed them in the mixer.)
In a pressure cooker, place the veggies and salt. Cover and simmer till the vegetables begin oozing water.
Now pressure cook the vegetables with just a little more water – for one whistle. Let the pressure drop naturally.
In a pan, heat the oil, pop the mustard. Once it begins to crackle, add the ground paste. Fry well.
Now add the vegetables, mix carefully, cook for 3-4 minutes and take them off the fire.
Your dream in pastel is ready!
Note: There was a little bit of water in the pressure-cooked vegetables but I didn’t bother draining it – you can choose to do so.
Regional Cuisines of India Garlic Pumpkin Potaotes Oriya cuisine Bottlegourd/Lauki
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Going Regional
A good friend’s wedding at Berhampur, Sambhalpuri and Pasapalli weaves, Gopalpur-on-Sea, the priests at Puri, the irritating guide who insisted on explaining only the juicy bits of the Konark sculptures, a cruise on the Chilka lake to see the flying ducks and flamingoes, traditional Oriya meals in Bhubaneswar and Puri and an Oriya colleague’s grievance that Bengal appropriated much of the credit for what was originally Oriya – when RCI-Orissa was announced, I knew I had to participate for all these memories.It seems to be such a modest State, one that doesn’t thump its chest despite a wealth of treasures. Till I met the two people I mentioned, I didn’t know much about Orissa, except a little bit about its natural resources from Geography text books, Emperor Ashoka and his repentance on realising the gravity of what he had done by waging the Kalinga War, and my mother’s childhood memory of frightening, baton-wielding pandas at the Jagannath temple in Puri. To date, I’ve not seen a single cookbook on Orissa cuisine available in English in India, and even on the Internet, there are just those few recipes circulating in various sources.
Thankfully, though, somebody did write about a restaurant called Dalma in Bhubaneswar and that’s where we went for an Oriya thali. What did we have – we had dalma, which looked nothing like mine, a lovely mustardy fish preparation or two, a raita of fresh curds and banana stem, a santula, which is a mild, vegetable preparation. At a resort near Puri, we had, among other things, a preparation of fried vadis with spring onion and garlic, almost Indo-Chinese in taste (!) and chena poda pitha, that lovely, sweet baked paneer preparation that we saw everywhere we visited in the State!
This is the first of the dalma dishes I am posting – I gather that the vegetables and the lentils can be varied; this version uses yellow lentils, the other uses toor dal!
Here we go, it’s adapted from this http://www.indiacurrents.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=7de1730e53649217dd5e422186f7793b">source
Channa dal/chickpea lentils – 1 cup, pressure cooked till soft
Kala channa (black chickpea) – ½ cup, soaked overnight, pressure cooked for just two whistles
Potato – 1, medium, diced
Sweet potato – 3-4 pieces, each an inch long
(Yellow) Pumpkin – 10 pieces, each an inch long
Eggplant – 1-2, diced (I used the round, small, purple variety)
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste
Garlic – 1-2 pods
Oil – 2 tbsp
Pancha phutana – Cumin (jeera), black mustard, fennel (saunf), fenugreek (methi) and nigella (kala jeera) in the ratio of 4-4-2-2-1
Cumin powder, made from 1 tbsp of roasted cumin
Chilli powder – 1 tsp
In a pressure cooker, cook the cut vegetables, lentils and black chickpea for 5 minutes.
In a pan, heat oil, fry the garlic. Add the pancha phutana, let it pop and add to the vegetable-lentil mixture once the pressure cooker cools down.
Add the cumin and chilli powders, mix. Serve with rice.
RCI - Orissa is hosted by Swapna of Swad.
Regional Cuisines of India Dalma Orissa
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Sunshine, And A Bird
I didn’t really intend to post this dish, considering it was just a variation of this, but a few stray photos made me decide otherwise. The colour was so pleasing - all orange and yellow, just like the pictures and photos we see of sunshine - I couldn’t let it go.
Here’s how you make it:
Baby potatoes, scrubbed, halved – 200 gm
Curds/Yoghurt – 1 cup (and a little more, if you want)
Carrots (tiny, scrawny) – 5, cut into eighths
Ginger – garlic paste: 1 tbsp
Onion – 1 big, chopped
Tomato – 2 medium, quartered
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ½ a tsp
Salt – to taste
Bay leaves – 2
Garam masala/Curry powder – 1 -2 tsp
Coriander/cilantro – to garnish
Beat the curds. Mix potatoes, carrots, curds, salt, ginger-garlic paste, onion, chilli and turmeric. Let it keep for an hour.
Then, heat half a cup of water in the pressure cooker/pan. Add tomatoes and bay leaves. Cook till the tomatoes are soft.
Add the potato mixture, close the pressure cooker, and once the steam emerges from the vent, put the weight on it. After it hisses once, put it on simmer and cook for about 10 minutes.
*The cooker will hiss a couple of times but don’t switch it off in a hurry. (For those using pans, I would recommend a little more water and simmering the dish with a lid on.)
Once the steam escapes on its own (without you fiddling with the weight), remove the weight, check the consistency of the gravy and cook down till it’s as thick as you like.
*You can crush a few pieces of the potato in the gravy to thicken it.
Finally, add the curry powder. Check the seasoning and adjust it to your taste.
Finish off with a garnish of coriander leaves. Goes well with rice and breads.
This dish had a mildly sweetish taste, maybe from a combination of the fresh curds, the onion and the carrot. I didn’t intend it to, but there it was! Neither The Spouse nor The Cousin found any proof in it of them being guinea pigs in an oil-free experiment but simply lapped it up!
For the non-vegetarians, there’s a bonus in today’s post. It’s Herby Fried Chicken! You can use green chillies, coriander and mint or just the two herbs or just coriander without the green chillies, or just the mint, or … well, you get the drift.
Chicken, cut into medium-sized pieces – 1 kilo
Onions – 3 big, chopped
Coriander/cilantro – chopped, 1 cup
Ginger-garlic paste – 2 tbsp
Salt, to taste
Turmeric – 1 tsp
Chilli powder – 1-1/2 tsp
Garam masala/curry powder – 2 tsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Smear the chicken pieces with the ginger-garlic paste, salt, chilli powder and 1 tsp of curry powder.
Place the chicken in a pan and boil it – you won’t need to add any water, but if you fear it will stick to the pan, you can add some.
Halfway through the boiling, start frying the onion in another pan, on a slow fire. Let them brown.
Add the chillies and some of the herbs now, if you’re using them.
Once the chicken’s boiled (it took about 15 minutes) and there’s no water left in it, transfer it to the other pan containing the onion. (Of course, the onion have to have fried well by now, and it’s still a slow fire.)
Mix the chicken and onion well, fry for a few minutes and leave it alone, just checking now and then to see that it doesn’t burn. The chicken gets darker and crispier the longer it stays.
Finish off with a sprinkling of the rest of the herbs, the rest of the curry powder, stir once more and take it off the heat. The crisped onions and herbs make a great mix with the rice but in one of those quirky twists of taste, The Spouse likes to savour this with tomato sauce!
I’m sending these dishes off to Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Anna of Anna’s Cool Finds.
Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Vegetarian Potatoes Chicken Carrot
Here’s how you make it:
Baby potatoes, scrubbed, halved – 200 gm
Curds/Yoghurt – 1 cup (and a little more, if you want)
Carrots (tiny, scrawny) – 5, cut into eighths
Ginger – garlic paste: 1 tbsp
Onion – 1 big, chopped
Tomato – 2 medium, quartered
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ½ a tsp
Salt – to taste
Bay leaves – 2
Garam masala/Curry powder – 1 -2 tsp
Coriander/cilantro – to garnish
Beat the curds. Mix potatoes, carrots, curds, salt, ginger-garlic paste, onion, chilli and turmeric. Let it keep for an hour.
Then, heat half a cup of water in the pressure cooker/pan. Add tomatoes and bay leaves. Cook till the tomatoes are soft.
Add the potato mixture, close the pressure cooker, and once the steam emerges from the vent, put the weight on it. After it hisses once, put it on simmer and cook for about 10 minutes.
*The cooker will hiss a couple of times but don’t switch it off in a hurry. (For those using pans, I would recommend a little more water and simmering the dish with a lid on.)
Once the steam escapes on its own (without you fiddling with the weight), remove the weight, check the consistency of the gravy and cook down till it’s as thick as you like.
*You can crush a few pieces of the potato in the gravy to thicken it.
Finally, add the curry powder. Check the seasoning and adjust it to your taste.
Finish off with a garnish of coriander leaves. Goes well with rice and breads.
This dish had a mildly sweetish taste, maybe from a combination of the fresh curds, the onion and the carrot. I didn’t intend it to, but there it was! Neither The Spouse nor The Cousin found any proof in it of them being guinea pigs in an oil-free experiment but simply lapped it up!
For the non-vegetarians, there’s a bonus in today’s post. It’s Herby Fried Chicken! You can use green chillies, coriander and mint or just the two herbs or just coriander without the green chillies, or just the mint, or … well, you get the drift.
Chicken, cut into medium-sized pieces – 1 kilo
Onions – 3 big, chopped
Coriander/cilantro – chopped, 1 cup
Ginger-garlic paste – 2 tbsp
Salt, to taste
Turmeric – 1 tsp
Chilli powder – 1-1/2 tsp
Garam masala/curry powder – 2 tsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Smear the chicken pieces with the ginger-garlic paste, salt, chilli powder and 1 tsp of curry powder.
Place the chicken in a pan and boil it – you won’t need to add any water, but if you fear it will stick to the pan, you can add some.
Halfway through the boiling, start frying the onion in another pan, on a slow fire. Let them brown.
Add the chillies and some of the herbs now, if you’re using them.
Once the chicken’s boiled (it took about 15 minutes) and there’s no water left in it, transfer it to the other pan containing the onion. (Of course, the onion have to have fried well by now, and it’s still a slow fire.)
Mix the chicken and onion well, fry for a few minutes and leave it alone, just checking now and then to see that it doesn’t burn. The chicken gets darker and crispier the longer it stays.
Finish off with a sprinkling of the rest of the herbs, the rest of the curry powder, stir once more and take it off the heat. The crisped onions and herbs make a great mix with the rice but in one of those quirky twists of taste, The Spouse likes to savour this with tomato sauce!
I’m sending these dishes off to Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Anna of Anna’s Cool Finds.
Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Vegetarian Potatoes Chicken Carrot
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Garlicky Spuds a la Mode
There, the escape clause is in the French. Lazy me doesn’t know the principle nor the reasons why I need to bake them this way instead of directly, so she adds a smart phrase in the title to deflect the questions. Nor does lazy me adhere to quantities, but just throws in whatever she has, into whatever she has (large pan, small pan, whatever).
All I know is that I followed a recipe and the potatoes didn’t bake a whit. So I boiled some water, let the potatoes play around for 5-7 minutes, then transferred them to a greased bowl, put in a couple of spoons of butter, a couple of spoons of olive oil, some salt and fresh cracked pepper, studded some pods and cloves of garlic into them and baked them on 180 C for 20 minutes. Then when I noticed it was time to get going, I tossed them around with a ladle, increased the heat to 200 C and let them bake away till the most pleasant aroma filled the house. I then switched it off, popped as much garlic as I could out of its skin before I could stash it away for dinner, and went on my way.
This is a simple dish to make when you have some time, say about 40 minutes. If the potatoes are dirty, you need to scrub them, of course. But I find it worth the effort. I love them all wrinkled and soft when they are ready, the salt and the pepper not quite crust but somewhat crumbly when you sort of mop the bland spud against the seasoning that’s baked in the butter-oil mixture in the pan.
So here’s the recipe:
One lazy cook
Some baby potatoes, scrubbed, not peeled
Some garlic pods/cloves or both
Salt, to taste
Pepper, cracked, to taste
Butter, to grease baking dish + some more
Olive oil, a couple of spoons
Boil lots of water in a pan that's big enough.
Boil the potatoes for five minutes. They should be firm and hard, but not totally raw.
In greased baking dish, place potatoes and garlic. Add butter, oil, seasoning, mix well.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 or 200 C, turning after 20 minutes.
Makes a nice snack. While the potatoes are quite bland, the garlic is lovely. It slides out of its skin in one fluid, clean movement, and goes down like velvet. Enjoy!
Potatoes Garlic Baked
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)