My Legume Love Affair-17 - The Round-Up

A good feast takes days to prepare. Savour this.

If you hit any sour notes, you know where to appeal to me.

Thanks for participating. Bon appetit!

(PS: This is being re-posted.)

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"I remember finishing 3 cups/katoris full; had no space in my tummy for dinner that night. I got the complicated recipe from him and tweaked it a tad to make it simpler."


"Yes, I cooked exactly a year ago when I found those fresh cranberries. I cooked with dhal, clicked, downloaded in my hard drive and saved carefully under “unblogged” file. And forgot forever until I saw some fresh berries."


"We had ours with some steamed brown rice. This may be served over noodles too."


"As far as I'm concerned, a sunny afternoon in my conservatory sipping on some chilled white wine and shelling a bag of peas is an afternoon well-spent."


"With this post I commemorate a recipe that has become a favorite in the last year or two. It just came together one day when I needed a quick and satisfying solo meal."


"The estimate serves two or one depending on your greed ;).Oh, ok, a little part also goes to MLLA #17."


"Though I get loads of varieties at the farmers market and the fact that it is very inexpensive,I wanted to make them at home for a change."


"Each time I go there,I can see the lady at the tofu stand look at me. Sometimes I think she is just looking at me as I am the only 'foreigner lady' in that locality, sometimes I would feel she is looking at me amused ..."


"A long time back, I used to be a part of Indian food discussion forum, then called forumhub. One of the active members there had a recipe called 'Methiwale kabuli chole - Rajasthani style'..."


"I used brown rice tortilla which is gluten-free and whole grain, and used kidney bean, onions, green pepper and some firm tomatoes. This is just not a snack, but is a very kid-friendly lunch box dish."

"Enjoy this guilt free snack any time of the day!"

"I'm sending off a big helping of this delicious sausage and beans to ..."


"Ever since I read the recipe three weeks ago, I have been tweaking it and trying it out every few days. What I have not done is stop eating them."


"These are so popular there that in Bangalore a place where these are sold abundantly is called 'Avarekalu square'. You can see many women sitting there separating the beans from the pods and selling them on the roadside.


"I harvested many of them - using gauntlets - and I used them for these fritters."



"Paired with some mildly sweet Gujarati Khadi and potato chips, this made for an amazing dinner."



"Masoor dal is know for its quick cooking, whereas turai for its slow cooking ... and a combo of these two will be perfect to relish..."


"When we were at granny’s place during winter vacation, hot and spicy food used to top the menu card for the days. ... Simple, creamy and delectable medley of dal with onion and ginger-garlic paste gives an aromatic flavour to the recipe."


"I really liked it a lot, it can be served as a main entrance or as a salad. Pay attention to cooking time, very fast to keep vegetables fresh and crispy."


"As I chatted with mom on the phone about the recipe she informed that my Nani would add a little yoghurt while cooking and I could imagine how that would be good. Who knows what else she omitted to tell me!"


"Cook pre-soaked Navy Beans in water with three or four smashed garlic cloves, a bay leaf and salt, until tender. Drain off any water and cool ..."


Winter squash soups are a healthy and economical way to comfort and nourish the body and soul during the long cold months ahead. Serve with a whole grain for a complete and wholesome vegetarian meal.


"I know, greens when deep fried lose all their good qualities but forgive me for this occasional indulgence."


"There is such a variety of dishes in the book. I have made a few recipes and every time loved it. And this is one of those recipes from the book."


"This curry 'misal' is very famous in Maharashtra. It is 'layman's' food."


"The nutty beans and the soft squash, you have to experience it. The trick though is not to overcook the beans. But that is never a problem with cow peas."


"She is a very happy person when we get her a bag of fresh peanuts. She enjoys eating them even now, 'coz it's her childhood days she cherishes every time she pops one."



"Do not buy shelled mochai from vegetable market as it may not be fresh; buy mochai pods and shell it at home even if it takes some time to do it."



"Mysore bonda is famous in the recipe list of Karnataka special dishes, especially of Mysore. The traditional recipe uses a blend of split black lentils and spices."


"This chutney is heavily influenced by Maharashtrian cuisine and it uses peanuts as its main ingredient instead of coconut."


"In the past I have tried different varieties trying to come out with the perfect masala for the curry and finally I have come to realise that the best masala is the store-bought."


"I believe my Maa makes the best one in this world. She always gets it perfectly boiled … soft but every grain separate from each other."


"If someone were to roam in the busy streets of Bhendi Bazaar in Bombay, they are sure to find several small stalls selling chana bateta."


"Every bite of this tasty curry made me wish my parents were here with us to share this simple yet absolutely and delightfully tasty curry."


"I love chickpeas. When I saw Sarah Naveen’s kadala curry, I was tempted to try it and my family finished it up for dinner yesterday. I made a few changes according to my family's tastebuds."


"This is a famous tiffin in Andhra Pradesh. A crispy thick pancake ... These rottis don't need any fermentation."


"Three types of lentils: puy, brown and green lentils in soak with garlic and bay leaf. The lentils look quite pretty like polished pebbles."


"This bhaath asks for cooking the vegetable (palya) separately first with extra oil, masala and salt and then mixing it with the rice."


"Her curries used to be hot and had that rustic taste. She would make me stand next to her and ask me to watch while she made the masala. When I decided to make these broad beans, I was reminded of how Alka used to make the masala."


"The only place for those spring onions was the bin and the beans weren't enough to cook as one dish."


The yellow coloured moongdal is the skinned and split moong bean. It's one of the quickest-cooking beans and needs no pre-soaking or a pressure cooker."


"Not sure what directed my thoughts towards lenticchie while considering solutions for my day-after dilemma, but once that happened, I did not stop until the pairing of the little legumes with my leftovers was a reality held in a bowl."


"I rarely muster courage to ask for the recipe. The one time I do, all I get is the most vague response ..."



"People who loves oats or hate coconut in their gravies can try out this combination for making kootus or curries."


"After a month of Indian daals, spinach soup and tofu salad, I had to find innovative new ways to cook these for my food lust."


"Quick laddoos with simple ingredients which taste fantastic for snacks or for festivals ...I enjoyed preparing these delicious laddoos."


"I wanted to try making kebabs and started out with the ingredients needed for a veggie-nut-kebab. Then it struck me that I didn't have the iron kebab skewers and that we ran out of bamboo skewers also ..."


"Two months back, I froze some white channa, rajma,black-eyed peas, black beans,double beans,kala channa,dry green peas, ... cutlets with raw banana"


"Like malt vinegar, mushy peas remind me of fish and chips. When my friend made this Mushy Fava (Broad) Beans dish, fish and chips just came to mind."


"Smoked hocks are my favourite, simmered in stews to impart a sensuously deep and lingering kiss."


"I fast on Tuesdays and it's one meal in the evening. So whatever I cook on Tuesday evenings for prasad/naivedya has to be sattvic food."


"This recipe is from a recent issue of Vegetarian Times. Here's how I made it ..."


"With pleasant weather and an urge to make one among the many of my comfort foods, I set about doing just that ..."


"One hot, humid day, I forgot to grind my soaked moong dal rice mix and it sat on the counter the whole day. The next day I found my whole moong was sprouting tiny buds."


"This soup is deceptively hearty. It looks and even tastes a little like a butternut squash bisque."


"These are to be finished fast after they are cooked as they turn very chewy otherwise."


"Go to any traditional celebration like a wedding or an upanayanam in Chennai - you are bound to be greeted by the famous paruppusili, staring at you from the vaazha yelai (banana leaf)."


"If you're looking for something that'll wake up your taste buds and give your gastric juices a kick, then this is what you need."


"I’ve been keeping Mac ‘n Cheese with Chili a secret from you for some time. Mainly because it’s so so simple that I was embarrassed to share it with you. And it involves a box and a can."


"Cholar Dal is the dal with uber arrogance. It is a bit of a snob, not the kind you would like to come home to every day but the kind you would like to glamorize your dining table with when you have company."


"It is called Kadala Curry, meaning Lentil Curry, which is a big misnomer."


"I stumbled upon one lone packet of shelled peas while marketing for Thanksgiving produce. Among the rutabagas, yams, and green beans, they looked like foundlings in need of a good home. So I adopted them."


"Fall is my favorite season of the year. One reason is that the colder temperatures make me want to make a lot of soups and stews."


"Now add the chenna dhal, salt and a cup of water and bring it to a boil."


And finally, my post - Lendills, here.

The winner is Muskaan of A2ZVegetarian Cuisine. Congratulations! I used an online random integer generator - screenshot below.



Srivalli is hosting MLLA-18 for December.

MLLA 17 My Legume Love Affair Round-up

My Legume Love Affair 17 - The Round-Up

A good feast takes days to prepare. Savour this.

Clutter-Baking

Do you ever get tired of yourself? Do you find yourself wishing you could be a better person, pray for the strength for it and then go back to being your helplessly tiresome self? I'm not about to go into introspective /motivational/preachy speech mode though I find myself in the helplessly tiresome category very often, but in blog terms, it seems that I can't speak about anything these days without bringing up de-cluttering. And yes, this is going to be another post based on that tiresome theme!

I was away for a week a couple of weeks ago. Before that, I had bought a small, orange pumpkin intending to make an Oriya recipe with it but I never could summon the energy to peel and dice it as it seemed rock-solid. I took that as a sign it wouldn't rot or shrivel easily and went away, and sure enough, it was almost as fresh when I returned. For a while now, since the Cereal Killer, I've been fixated on pumpkin cake with walnuts in it, so I searched and searched for a nice-sounding recipe and found this.

Now, I had to de-clutter, of course, and this venture took care of some quantities of the sugar, raisins, a bag of unshelled walnuts that Mom had sent me, some baking soda which I'd bought for the Cereal Killer but ultimately hadn't used, and the entire pumpkin. But I had to go out and buy flour, which, of course, defeated the purpose. And now I am stuck with some flour, which I've already slated for an orange cake and banana something else. A rotting papaya had me wondering if I should make a papaya cake, as awful as it sounds, but funnily enough, it rotted without ripening, so it went into the bin.

For a person who only baked a little, and that in another life, it turned out fine. It was soft and moist but held its shape when I cut it - most of the few cakes that I've ever baked were soft and crumbly. I followed the recipe as much as I could - I had to halve it and I based my measurements on 1 cup of pumpkin puree, because that's how much my little, orange pumpkin yielded.



Sifted all-purpose flour/maida: 1.5 cups
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Cinnamon: 1-inch stick, powdered
Powdered ginger: 1/8 tsp
Cloves: 2, powdered
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Raisins: 1/2 cup, macerated in mixed fruit juice for an hour
Walnuts: 1/2 cup
Pumpkin puree: 1 cup (I made mine by cutting the pumpkin into two and pressure cooking it with just 1/4 cup of water for one whistle, then peeling it and mashing the pulp)
Sugar: 1 cup
Sunflower oil: slightly less than 2/3 cup
Eggs: 2

1) Preheat oven to 160 C. Grease pan and dust with flour. (I have a square glass dish that's about 8 inches wide and that's what I used.)
2) Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, dry ginger, cloves and salt. Add 1/2 a tablespoon of sifted dry ingredients to raisins in a small bowl. With your fingers, toss raisins to separate them and coat each one with the dry ingredients. Stir in nuts into the raisins and set aside.
3) In a mixing bowl, place pumpkin, sugar, and oil and beat at medium speed (I used an electric whisk-like gadget) until smooth. Add eggs individually, beating after each until incorporated.
4) On low speed, add sifted dry ingredients, beat until smooth. Stir in raisins and nuts. Turn into prepared pan.
5) Bake until a cake tester comes out dry (it took me 90 minutes). Cool completely.

So do you get tired of yourselves? Will you tell me why?

Cake Pumpkin Musings Humour

LenDills

Situation: You greedily buy two bunches of rare dill and look for suitable recipes. Then you find out there isn't much that you can make with the ingredients already at home. By this time, a few days have passed and some of the green dill has begun to yellow. You save what's good, use up some in salads and the rest in dal.


As swiftly as that dal was made, so swiftly is this post being written.

Boil/pressure cook 1 cup of toor dal with a little more than a cup of water and a drop of oil.

Mash with a pinch of turmeric and salt to taste.

Add a cup of dill, cut, and cook for about 5 minutes - if it's too thick, you can add a little water to thin it out.

Heat 1-2 tsp of oil, temper with a tsp of mustard seed, 1/2 a tsp of cumin, 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic

My suggestion is to not overload this dal with too many spices, so that the taste of dill comes through. That's why I haven't added any chilli powder.

This is my entry to MLLA-17, which I'm hosting this month for Susan. I am away for a week but keep those entries coming, I will acknowledge them when I resume blogging.

MLLA My Legume Love Affair Dill Lentils

Cereal Killer

That title applies to the recipe in more ways than one.

Not only does it effectively decimate your reserves of cereal, it will also give you a fat and cholesterol overload if you don't share it with many others, and fast.

Because there are six eggs and two cups of sugar in this. Not to mention four-and-a-half cups of cereal and one cup of cashew nuts.

And when you consider the original recipe also had two bananas and a cup of coconut in it, this may just qualify to be called a 'somewhat lite' or rather, 'just a little liter' version.

The story, of course, begins the usual way - of good intentions gone amok. Travel brings me face to face with several Bircher Mueslis at breakfast time at the hotels I stay in. Impatient one that I am, I didn't dig deep but just hurtled ahead one fine day and bought a pack of fruity muesli. "My own recipe" for Bircher Muesli (dunk muesli in curds/yoghurt; overnight, if you can wait) soon palled and I was left with a packet of overpoweringly fruity-smelling cereal that I didn't know how to use up.

The words 'bake' and 'cake' kept popping up but the recipe proved hard to find. Was I going to be the pioneer and grind up cereal to bake a cake? It did seem so - all the "muesli" cakes I saw, the muesli only seemed to play a role in muffins or topping or bars; I wanted it to be a one-shot clean-up and continued searching - till I came across the above recipe. Funnily enough, that was also born out of necessity - the original recipe had called for vanilla wafers but there hadn't been any, and cereal it was!

The downside and the upside

Suffice it to say it was a hit. One person deemed it "first class" and the tub of cake I took to work today was cleaned out, with several compliments. They WERE being nice, but not being kind, so I think you can try it too, if you have cereal to get rid of, or even if you want a different kind of cake.

I'm no baker so I don't know what went wrong or right - the cake took almost two hours to bake and it was dense and moist.

Sugar - 2 cups sugar
Butter - 1 cup, softened
Milk - 1/2 cup
Fruity, honeyed muesli made of toasted oats and wheat flakes - 4.5 cups
Eggs - 6
Cashew nuts - 1 cup
Vanilla essence - 2 tsp
Lime juice - From 1 lime

Preheat oven to 150 C/ 300 F.

Cream sugar and butter until creamy.

Grind cereal as fine as possible.

Add to the creamed mix little by little. Mix.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition.

Add milk, mix. Add the vanilla and lime juice.

Fold in the nuts. Pour into a baking dish (sorry, I don't know the dimensions - I just used my largest as it seemed an enormous amount of batter) and bake till a knife comes out as dry as possible!

Cake Cereal/Muesli

An As-You-Like-It Curry

De-cluttering is as much about getting rid of unnecessary and surplus stock as it is about shedding undesirable fat. (Let's, for the moment, not talk about clearing the cobwebs in the mind.) Eating your way through your fridge and pantry is probably not the best way to achieve the latter objective, though it's a practical solution to the first. Donation is another, of course, but I want to eat most of what I have.

My resolve to clean out the cupboards began with the kitchen and ended at my computer - I've spent the past couple of weeks trying to eat my way healthily and steadily through my pantry and fridge, but the unceasing supply of nourishment got on my nerves and I ended up bingeing my way through it, neither making a dent in the supplies nor, naturally, cutting out the fat. The wardrobe and other storage spaces are waiting, impatiently.

De-cluttering can be so all consuming (I swear that pun just arranged itself as I was writing the sentence)! It weighs on your mind and enervates you just the way extra weight does - you want to do something about it but simply can't seem to summon up the will; then, disgusted, you attack the problem, but soon, a sense of futility takes over (it's the hard work, you see) and you go on a binge.

I don't know what the equivalent of a binge in terms of de-cluttering My Pictures on the computer is, but in food, a worse kind of binge is when you buy additional stuff to use up what you already have - say, flour, if you have too many eggs wobbling towards rottendom, or sago and extra milk, if you have too much sugar.


Taking myself firmly in hand, I called my favourite cause this morning and made an appointment with them for collection (now I can't not de-clutter); and then I made a completely as-you-like-it egg curry just to get rid of some stuff from the fridge. (Actually I'm lying - the onions got charred because I was inattentive and I had to throw them out and dream up this recipe.)

The amounts are completely arbitrary, all you need to have is some sense of proportion. (I don't.)

Eggs: 5-6, boiled, shelled, scored lightly

Grind to a paste with a little water the next three ingredients:

Coriander: Grab as much as you want
Mint: Same - grab as much as you can
Tomatoes: 5-6, halved

Seasoning: Salt, chilli powder, garam masala, turmeric - per taste
Oil: 1-2 tsp

In a large pan, heat the oil and saute the paste.

Season with all the ingredients and let it come to a boil.

Add the boiled eggs and simmer for a while or till the gravy thickens.

I imagine this gravy would taste good with potatoes, koftas, paneer and tofu too.

This goes to Haalo at Cook Almost Anything where Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted this week.

Weekend Herb Blogging Coriander Mint Eggs

My Legume Love Affair - 17

This month, I will host My Legume Love Affair. As many of you know, this is a well-known-in-the-blog-world, bean-centric event, created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook.

Here's what Susan has to say about the event: "For those new to the event, your choice of recipes is very broad. As much as legumes are most commonly known as fresh or dried beans, peas, lentils and pulses, they are also the sometimes edible pods that contain these seeds. Add to the list alfalfa, fenugreek, peanuts, carob, tamarind and other members of the Fabaceae or Leguminosae family, as well as derivatives such as tofu, and you'll have a hard time focusing on just one. All courses and cuisines are welcome, as long as legumes are the dominant ingredient. (Please note: In France, vegetables of all sorts are known as légumes, and are not included in this event.)

To participate, please:

Post a new recipe or a newly posted one from your archives, linking to this announcement, as well as Susan's announcement here with the following details to me [srablogATgmailDOTcom] by November 30 although I will accept late entries if the round-up is not yet posted:

Please say MLLA-17 in the Subject field of your e-mail

The details I need are these:

Name

Blog Name

Name and URL of Your Recipe Post

Location: Optional

Photo: 400 wide

~~~~~

Use of the logo is optional. Participants can send in more than one recipe per cook as well as those submitted to other events. Those who do not blog are also welcome to join and will be included in the random drawing. Friends and family of hosts are not eligible to win.

Prizes:

1) Susan is offering Beard on Bread, as the prize for the lucky one in the random drawing. She will ship it worldwide.

2) Another prize is the Hurst Bean Box - A case of six bags of your choice of Hurst Bean products, suitable for every diet, generously provided by Hurst Bean. (Due to shipping restrictions, this prize can only be awarded if the winner is a US resident.)

I expect to have the round-up online in the first week of December.

My Legume Love Affair MLLA 17 Bean Event Pulses Legumes Lentils Peas

Rounding Up The Write Taste

Finally, I’ve not been my infamously inflexible host self at all, though that was due to a mistake and not the milk of human kindness - no harm done, though; I love the entries for The Write Taste all the same, they are different, and I’m sure you will all have a wonderful time feasting your eyes on them.

The gracious host that I have evolved into, I’m not going to say a single word about how surprised I was that there weren’t more entries; that I always thought it would be easier to discuss food and cooking than actually create it; that I’m so hysterically grateful to those who participated.

Now, on with the show!

Chow! I’m pretty sure I saw this word in a comic first. Was it Dennis the Menace? Or Archie? I’m not sure. But here is a 21st century version of it, and an account and proof of why it sent her to ‘nirvana heaven’.

Then comes the next entry, which describes something like having your cake and eating it too! More than that, in fact. There is some eating, but much other activity too! Pain or pleasure, you can’t do without food, it seems.

Shake off those inhibitions, and get down and dirty! Squeeze, squish, squash, slurp, swirl! Relish it every which way you can. Or not. What am I talking about? Find out, find out more!

Here’s an entry from a blogger, though it’s not a blog post. It’s a review about a book she likes, which is "not so much about the food but the style of writing and the narration somehow leading to a recipe at the end of each chapter".

The book: Monsoon Diary (Shoba Narayan)
Reviewer: Rashmi Srinivas at Curled Up With a Good Book

“In Monsoon Diary, which can be classified as part cookbook, part travelogue and part biography, author Shoba Narayan takes readers on a journey which is as eclectic and amazing as the contents of the book itself. Food is the dominant factor in this book, and around it the author describes her own life journey. …

… Monsoon Diary is a gently edifying, delightful, utterly satisfying cultural and culinary read.” Read more here.

‘Mapped to tastes and habits’ is the pun that occurs to me naturally, all the more so after a day spent listening to such language (and a day trying hard not to let such jargon creep into my writing). Explore what I’m talking about here.

My refrigerator, it seems to me, is a bottomless pit, an ever-expanding Pushpaka Vimanam that has space for that extra packet which I’ll probably never use. It is also a record of funny life truths and good memories, as our magnet collections live there. And there’s much more to it, as she and her writer tell us.

This is one classic foodie very much in the news nowadays, and there are works of hers, about her, in various media. The post is in Italian, but use an online translation to get its essence. I, for one, have put this book on my must-read list.

I felt the same way the author of this post did after reading the excerpt - to book a flight and zoom away. I’m sure I will, I live in hope. Maybe reading this will channel positive energy our way, don’t put it off!

Boarding school = always hungry.
Typically English = cucumber sandwiches.
And more.
Here.

Ever heard of daulat ki chaat? Try it, you’d be surprised at the elements that go into it. Read about all that and more here. You will also find some insights into cookbooks and memoirs.

Nostalgia unlimited is what this book unleashed. But more importantly, it also expanded her world of books - from one that seemed to set her pulse racing to an equally enthralling but calmer one, perhaps one characterized by deeper thought and introspection? Judge for yourselves.

Here’s a peek into some food reading habits, some memories and an introduction to an author in an Indian language. There are links to some recipes he has mentioned too. Discover more.

Les Ouefs! Ils sont excellents! Pardon the French, but you’ll know why I’m speaking a different language when you read this post. A cookbook it may be, but there are life lessons as well.

The descriptions are simply beautiful. I’ve exhausted my French for now, but there’s more here. And I’m relating to the post very personally as I recently saw something as beautiful: A spring onion sliced longitudinally, thready streaks of purple running through it.

Here’s a post that all of us need to read. There is a wealth of information there that we cannot do without. Enough said.

“You know, you have these crazy people asking the waiter, insisting they know where the chicken comes from,” said someone to me years ago, about how some people in her country were hung up on eating food that was produced right, processed ethically. Not so much of a joke now. Read this, think about it, and make some better informed choices.

And my own entry: Here it is!

The Write Taste Event Round Up

A Call To Action

About a month ago, I announced The Write Taste, calling for entries that highlighted good pieces of writing. The deadline that I set, October 15, is almost upon us. However, I am extending it till the end of this week (Saturday October 17) as I get the feeling that those of you making an effort to send in an entry will appreciate some more time. I won't be able to access the Net for a couple of days myself so I will acknowledge your mails and posts after the 16th.

The details are also in the sidebar.

The Write Taste Event

A Mixture Of Memories

The Listerine was always perched on top of the mesh cupboard in the kitchen. We, my cousin and I, would return from school and head straight for the kitchen, pour some Listerine into a glass, gargle and ... I don't remember what we did next. Study? Play? Possibly. But of course! We'd have a glass of hot, boiled milk, and perhaps something to eat.

I do remember, though, that my grandmother wouldn't usually make hot evening tiffin for us. I've mentioned how unorthodox she was in some of her food choices, so this non-tiffin habit was probably a manifestation of that. (Though an aunt tells me that she did do some of the conventional things when they were younger, but that's another story.) There was fruit to eat, and various savoury snacks (chakkidalu/chakralu/karappusa) that she made herself periodically, pressing the dough out of a heavy brass cylinder in a circular motion into a deep and large cast iron kadai full of hot oil. It would be a delight to watch all those twisty, twirly, rough and smooth treats coming up all brown and gleaming, resting on the sieve-like ladles for a few seconds before being deposited into a gleaming steel can next to the stove. Perhaps there were also biscuits to eat.

But once in a while, as a treat, perhaps, she would make this tasty mixture as a special evening snack and it would be done in a jiffy. I haven't made this in years, wouldn't even have thought of it had it not been for IFR Memories and the bag of puffed rice I was given during the recent Durga Pooja celebrations. I thought of making a 'mixture' with that for this post but I couldn't honestly tell myself whether my grandmother made this or I was imagining it simply because there was an event to enter and write for, but luckily, the thought process tripped the right wires and here is that simple, but great treat my grandmother would turn out in minutes.

My grandmother didn't particularly care for the recipes published in the magazines. She thought they only pretended to be novel and excelled in exaggeration. She would be quite scornful about recipes that claimed to be new just because they had some cosmetic element to it - like a fruit salad being called a pomegranate fruit salad merely because some arils were sprinkled on it. I wonder what she would make of me blogging, all the more so as she (nor my grandfather) never liked me pottering about the kitchen.

But I digress. On and off, it hits me that here's a dish I used to have when my grandmother was around, and haven't had or enjoyed properly since she passed away - it's not always something exotic or special or unusual, just that it's unavailable to me for various reasons, one of them being a slowing memory.

There are many mixtures like this - in fact, the onion, the coriander, lime, chilli powder, green chillies are constants, the main ingredient is the variable (V). Make V peanuts, and it's an appetiser or accompaniment to drinks at the club; make it puffed rice, and it's delivered to you in a soggy cone of newspaper outside the office; use boiled peas and it comes out in little tubs or katoris out of carts or from a roadside stall. This version uses roasted chana dal/chutney dal.

Roasted chana dal/chutney dal/veyinchina senagapappu: 1 cup
Salt, red chilli powder: To taste
Green chillies: Half of one, sliced thin (optional if using red chilli powder)
Onion, chopped: A small fistful
Oil: 1-2 tsp
Lime juice: From 1 or two limes, as you wish

Mix the dal, spices, onion, oil and lime juice well.

Consume.

This post goes to Manisha's event IFR Memories.

A reminder: There's just a little over a week left for your entries for The Write Taste, on till October 15, 2009. Details in the sidebar too.

Memories Chana dal Event Mixture Musings

Attaining Geekdom Amidst Idli-Dosa

I've never been a geek, gadget freak or a nerd. In fact, I'd rather buy some clothes or something exotic to eat given the opportunity, not a mobile phone. Quite unlike The Spouse who looks to change his, and like a true doer, creates those opportunities.

Of late, though, my rather low-tech mobile developed a purple blemish that kept spreading but I hung on to it because I give more importance to character and less to good looks. But then, it gave up character and started switching itself off quite arbitrarily. Just like you'd want to forgive a dear one's bad behaviour despite having to grit your teeth and bear it, I persevered. It continued its caprices and I decided it was time I stood up for myself.

When I exchanged it for a new one, all I was particular about was the number of contacts I could accommodate in the new mobile phone. And maybe a more sophisticated camera that came with a straightforward camera-computer transfer cord rather than some infra-red gobbledygook that my previous mobile was equipped with but that my computer wasn't and I didn't know how to use. Sale concluded, I came back home with my not-so-expensive, still not-so-sophisticated gleaming black mobile phone, and sent off a text message to a friend.


Voila! The font was so nice, the text so clear, and all these were helped by the fact that the screen was bigger. It was as if I was seeing it through a pair of spectacles after being diagnosed for myopia. I toyed with the idea of sending off a few more messages but told myself not to be silly, and sent off just a couple more.

Over the next few days, I fixed the ring tone, its volume, began the task of cleaning up my contacts' list, and gazing at the smileys the phone provided. And sending more text messages. Then, on the fifth or sixth day, I undertook a 6-hour journey to my parents' home, with a big fat murder mystery for company. "Apres le petit dejeuner," I told myself, waiting for the packets of biscuits and chips that are usually sold on the chair car. They never came, and in deference to my sluggish metabolism, bought a cup of what passed for coffee. As I struggled to finish it so that I could stuff the paper cup in the magazine pouch and not have to go to the wash basin to pour it out, I began fiddling with my mobile. And discovered I could acess the Web without having to have it specially activated.

The connectivity was spotty, but I managed to access a few favourite sites, post a status update on one, and surfed some more. All around me, people were busy unpacking foil packs of idli and vada, trying carefully to not let the sambar slosh from the plastic pouches it came in. The smell is usually a big put-off but with my new toy, metabolism, breakfast and big fat mystery were forgotten, and not even the messages telling me I'd been charged a certain amount for a certain quantity of KB could deter me from experimenting with it.

While I'm off to commune with my mobile and discover more about its mult-faceted personality, don't forget to participate in The Write Taste, on till October 15, 2009. There's just two weeks left for you to participate!

Musings Travel

Prawns & Greens, Expressly

For the first time ever, I listed the ingredients before I wrote out the story. And I'm glad they made the cut. They are ten in total but salt and chillies don't count, neither does the tadka, nor the water. And it's not something that I make everyday; in fact, this is the first time I'm making it. I have the vague impression that's it's a home-style/rustic dish, actually not even sure it existed till I went through a couple of cookbooks. I am late to the party but in the virtual world, attempts at a fashionably late entrance don't work as everything is subsumed in the round-up, so have I been late at all? ;)


Chukkakoora is my favourite variety of greens but a receding one - the shops in my neighbourhood that carry it have either closed down or stopped selling it. A meeting took me a little further away this past week and I found bunches of this in a large supermarket in the vicinity. Knowing that I couldn't use all of them, I regretfully restricted myself to buying only two. One bunch was used for dal and the leaves from the other were plucked and stored in the fridge. This morning, we used it up by pairing it with some prawns. It's nice and tangy, and don't omit the curry leaves.

Prawns: 250 gm
Onion: Chopped, a fistful
Chukkakoora/Ambat chukka/Khatti palak: 2 cups, washed (Chopping - optional)

Green chillies: 2, chopped
Red chillies: 2
Curry leaves: 2 sprigs
Salt, chilli powder - to taste
Turmeric: 1/4 tsp
Fenugreek seed: 1/4 tsp
Garlic: 3-4 cloves, crushed
Oil: 1-1.5 tbsp

Wash prawns, smear with chilli powder, salt and turmeric. Place in a pan and heat till the water oozes and evaporates. This takes just 2-3 minutes. (You'll have a hard time keeping your hands off the prawns till you go on to the next step, believe me.)

Simultaneously, cook the greens in another pan with chilli powder and the green chillies. You can sprinkle a little water if you like. Let it cook till it gets mushy (2-3 minutes).

By now, the prawns too would be cooked. Put them aside but in the same pan, add the oil and fry the onions, red chillies, garlic, curry leaves and fenugreek. Put the prawns back in, and add the mushed greens. Mix. Check for seasoning and take off the heat. This can be served with rice.

Sslurp!!!

Don't forget to participate in The Write Taste, on till October 15, 2009. Details in the sidebar.

Express Indian Chukkakoora/Ambat chukka/Khatti Palak Non-vegetarian Prawns Event

A Taste Of The Write Taste

Ever since I announced The Write Taste two days ago, I've been getting the feeling that I killed you with clarity. Rather than do another post to clarify the doubts that seem to have cropped up (and haven't), I am doing one to show you what it can be like.

I want you to share a piece of good writing about food with the world. Here, then, are some of my selections.

I began to read The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006, only two or three weeks ago. I have started off with his book Other Colours - Writings on Life, Art, Books and Cities (Faber and Faber 2008). These are translations by Maureen Freely.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about Pamuk: "Pamuk's books are characterized by a confusion or loss of identity brought on in part by the conflict between Western and Eastern values. They are often disturbing or unsettling, but include complex, intriguing plots and characters of great depth. His works are also redolent with discussion of and fascination with the creative arts, such as literature and painting. Pamuk's work often touches on the deep-rooted tensions between East and West and tradition and modernism/secularism."

What I am going to quote from in this post is from a piece called Frankfurter, which first appeared in The New Yorker.

In the sixties, when the doner (now popular in Europe under this name and known in the United States by its Greek name, gyro) had yet to be invented, the frankfurter was the height of fashion and the most important food for those of us who had taken to eating in the streets. You would gaze through the glass at dark red tomato sauce that had been simmering all day and pick out one of the frankfurters that had been swimming like so many happy water buffaloes wallowing in the mud; you would point it out to the man with the tongs, and then you would wait impatiently for him to assemble the sandwich.

Hot dog stand at Times Square, New York, July 2009 (my photo)

The motivation, the pressure, to eat forbidden street food, which couldn't be eaten with "peace of mind" about its origins (in this case, whether the frankfurter came from cows or donkeys) is expressed by Pamuk thus:

In Istanbul, as elsewhere, people ate fast food on the streets not just because they were short of time, money or other opportunities but also, in my view, to escape that "peace of mind." To leave behind Islamic tradition, whose ideas about food were embedded in ideas about mothers, women and sacred privacy - to embrace modern life and become a city dweller - it was necessary to be ready and willing to eat food even if you didn't know where, how or why it was made.

And then, more insight:

The best thing about Istanbul street food is not that each vendor is different, offering specialities and chasing fashions, it is that each sells only the things he knows and loves. When I see the men who have taken a village dish - something their mother or their wife makes for them at home - out into the streets of the big city, certain that everyone else will love it too, it's not just their chickpea pilaf or grilled meatballs or fried mussels or stuffed mussels or Albanian liver that I savor but the proud beauty of their decorated stands, three-wheeled cars, and chairs.

You could even point to lighter stuff, funny and delightful, and, in this case, hardly anything else needs to be said. Ogden Nash, ever pithy and with a naughty sense of humour and rhyme all his own, is one of my favourite poets. Here's what he had to say about eels:

I don't mind eels
Except as meals.

I hope that by now you've got an eel ... er ... feel for the event. Let the entries come in, I'm sure we can make a wonderful meal of them!

Note: I have done a guest post for Aparna who blogs at My Diverse Kitchen. You can read it here.

The Write Taste Event Orhan Pamuk Ogden Nash

An Eventful Anniversary, In The Write Taste

An anniversary, like a birthday, is difficult to be impervious to. As much as age is just a number, and I didn’t even realise it when I recently crossed the 200-post mark, I’m young enough in blog years to be excited about blog birthdays.

I’m all of three today, though it does feel like I am growing up. And growing older. The first sign of the latter came with me wondering a few days ago when the anniversary was. That my first post went up on Dad’s birthday because it would be easy to remember had slipped my mind. As for growing up in the blog world - well, while my stats are static, I guess I have arrived, at least some distance, though the standard I’ve used to judge that is rather perverse - my photo made it to a national publication sans permission, and while my complaint was addressed immediately, it also earned me my first rude comment. And I even managed a repartee.

I’ve always got a kick from telling less-knowing family and friends who care about “my international readership”. Like those rare and precious things in life that can give us immense joy and thrill, are the blog and its assets, which include you, my dear readers and fellow bloggers. Thank you all for making this one lovely, exhilarating, and hopefully, never-ending, fun ride.


I mulled a commemorative event for the first anniversary two years ago but found a worthy idea only now. And yes, it’s going to be as tiresome as Grindless Gravies, with the rules being updated whenever I see a loophole cropping up, and maybe even rejecting entries if you’ve got it wrong. And I hope you’ll be gracious enough like you were the first time around and attempted to get it right the next time.

This event is not about cooking or recipes, it’s about food, and quality writing.

What I want you to do is share your favourite pieces of food writing with the rest of the world through this event. It could be prose, poetry, a scene from a play, fable, non-fiction, an article from a magazine or a newspaper, a food review, a cookbook review, a post in a blog, haiku, limerick, satire, anything; even writing that looks at food, cooking or eating in a negative light, but it has to have these as one of its main themes.

It could even be a recipe that has been written innovatively (please note: I don’t mean innovative recipe formats, like grids and such).

It doesn’t have to be all sensory and descriptive; it could be about food security, food safety, carbon footprint or other such serious topics, too. Only, if you choose something like this, try and find a not-too-technical piece as it might be more attractive to readers not familiar with those subjects.

It needn’t originally have been in English, but it needs to be a published English translation. In this case, please provide the relevant details, references and a link to the original piece of writing (or a link to information about it) so that readers who know that language can enjoy it.

Tell, in your post, why you like the work you’ve chosen, how you first came across it and what it means to you. Do make sure to link to information about it, quote a few excerpts, but please do not reproduce it in full - we don’t want to be charged with copyright violation. I encourage you to name not just the writers but the publishers, translators, edition, year of publication, all so that it can be easier to find if someone wants to get their hands on it.

This event is open to both bloggers and non-bloggers. The latter can mail me with their entries, depending on their size, I will host it on my blog and include it in the round-up.

Feel free to point to more than one piece of writing; whether in one post or multiple, I leave it to you. Do a new post for this event or re-publish an old one.

It shouldn’t, of course, be something that you yourself have written, nor should it be from this blog.

Link back to this post and mail me at srablogATgmailDOTcom. The details you have to give me include:

Your (blogger) name

Your blog name

Your location (optional)

Blog URL

Post URL

Name of author/blog/blogger and the title of the work you’re highlighting.

Please say: ‘The Write Taste’ in the e-mail’s subject field.

I’ll accept entries till October 15, and maybe even a little later, depending on how far I’ve come with the round-up.

Come, indulge me!

Event Anniversary The Write Taste

A Curry Post-O!

Why is your food often so yellow, is a question I get sometimes. I can only conclude that I have a generous hand with the turmeric but sometimes it's too much even for me. Recently, when I marinated this chicken for a curry, the recipe asked for a teaspoon but I suspect I used way more, because the chicken began to smell of turmeric. And my heart began to quake. Because as good as turmeric is, an overdose of it in anything can be very trying.

It must have been the two-hour marination, because the smell miraculously disappeared from the end-product and it was gobbled down by The Eaters, who didn't have anything more elevating to say than "It's alright" amidst all the wolfing. Only when they were asked.


I got this recipe from a book called Cooking With Chicken by Kamal Mehta. This recipe is called Peekoo Posto Chicken. I wonder if Peekoo is the person who provided the recipe! Posto is the poppy seed, which is a key ingredient in this recipe. I made only one substitution - used oil instead of ghee - and one omission - left out the sugar.

Chicken: 1 kg, lean meat
Onions: 2 large, chopped
Garlic: 6 cloves
Green chilli: 4
Ginger: 5 cm piece
Turmeric powder: 1 tsp
Curds/Yoghurt: 1.5 cups
Poppy seed: 1.5 tbsp, ground to paste/powder
Coriander powder: 1 tbsp
Oil: 2 tbsp
Cinnamon: 4 cm
Cloves: 6
Green cardamom: 10
Salt, to taste
Water: 1/2 cup

Grind the garlic, chillies and ginger to a paste. Mix it with the curds, turmeric, poppy seed and coriander powders and marinate it in this for at least two hours. (The recipe said 6 hours.)

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan, add the cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Let them splutter, and add the onions and fry till golden brown.

Add chicken, salt and the marinade. Cover and cook on medium flame till all the juices come out.

Now increase the flame and fry till reddish in colour. (This 'reddening' didn't happen to me, so I gave up trying.)

Add half a cup of water and over a very slow fire, simmer for 10 minutes.

This entry goes to Barbara at Winos and Foodies, who's conducting the LiveSTRONG With A Taste of Yellow event, an official event of the LiveSTRONG Day, an initative of the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Live Strong With a Taste of Yellow Live Strong Non-vegetarian Chicken Poppy seed

Snap, Pop and Muse

Remember this post? Some of you couldn't believe I'd given it such a title, and even I've been wondering at my own sense of humour ever since. In the quest for attractive headlines, I seem to have attracted an entire category who, in all likelihood, had cooking and humour far from their minds.

But, again, this is literally about the same thing. To do my bit to throw such abovementioned seekers off track and get the right seekers here, I will refer to this vegetable now as okra.

Yesterday, there were two urgent (well, consecutive) calls from my friend V, so I terminated the conversation I was having and called her, wondering what was up. "I'm so irritated," she said. "Last night, I went shopping for vegetables, and all the okra were mutilated. What do these old people hope to achieve by snapping each and every one of them? All you need to do with okra is touch them, and you'll know whether they are tender or not." (At this point, I had to interrupt the conversation and hurriedly own up that I too, young as I am, am a compulsive okra snapper; and V being my friend, dismissively excused me for my behaviour and continued venting.) "And everytime I go to XYZ (a certain shop that sells vegetables), there are hordes of them, old men and women, holding bags, feeling up these vegetables, discussing them endlessly, choking up the aisles. There was one such group yesterday, discussing turnips, and they didn't even buy them ultimately! They didn't even know the vegetables they were calling turnips weren't turnips. Why do they even come there? Can't they find another place to socialise?"

Most importantly, she said, people don't want to listen to loud recipes which are supposed to be proven aphrodisiacs (V, you could be wrong there!); or how you can shame your mother-in-law into oblivion with your baingan bhartha recipe; or the boring bottlegourd for oedoematous feet. She would, however, appreciate a recipe to lower the blood pressure caused by all this banality. Bloggers and non-bloggers alike, please feel free to leave your tips here in the comments section. As these cannot be tried and tested immediately, I'm not offering any prizes for the best tip.

She'd wanted to get this off her chest since the previous night, she said, and rang off. That left me wondering - what other behaviour during vegetable shopping gets your goat? If merely touching okra can tell you whether it's worthy of you or not, I thought, I've failed miserably in the Department of Vegetable Choosing. But on prolonged reflection, I think V does have a point - even I seem to understand how I can assess the okra.

When I started everyday, well, not everyday but routine, home cooking, I found out my uncle could tell whether the food cooking on the stove was salted enough or not by the smell. Not having any previous experience, I was amazed and even wondered if Uncle was pulling a fast one on me. But believe it or not, nowadays I am able to suss it out myself occasionally! Incidentally, I've also seen a few men of the older generations, who have probably never cooked in their life, hold forth on how a particular taste can be achieved or enhanced or altered. If only they'd played their part in the kitchen!

That brings me to another subject that's often on my mind: the joy - or not - of cooking. For many women (and men) who do it regularly, as well as us bloggers not excluding me, it is often a tiresome chore. See the discussion in this post. I've always wanted to bring to your attention a wonderful poem, Vantillu (Kitchen) by a Telugu poet, Vimala, on how kitchens and cooking sap women of their personality, dreams, joys, how such tasks are chores unwept and unsung. The poem also highlights the role of the omnipresent male dominance and chauvinism that contributes to these situations. For me, the most powerful part is when the poet points out (and I'm translating and paraphrasing here) 'how even the jasmine has begun to reek of the kitchen, damn it, let's destroy these kitchens now!'

Many of us, bloggers or not, are privileged in that we are able to enjoy cooking and write about it, take pictures of it, celebrate it. For some, the kitchen could even be a refuge. But just imagine how wearying it must be to make and plan meals every few hours of the day! How could it have been enjoyable, unless you were a strong-willed woman who decided that you would have fun no matter what?

Musings Blogging Humour

Salan, All Souped Up: Two In One

Though this blog is named for soup, there aren't many soups to be found here. I blame that entirely on the weather, it's too hot for soup most of the time. But, as I read in another blog a few days ago (I forget which), we don't complain about the weather being too hot to eat piping hot food, so why crib about it being too hot to eat soup? Why indeed? Food for thought, isn't it?

Then, there's the other kind of hot, the Scoville units-kind. Sweltering heat and searing spices may not sound like a harmonious combination but we do end up eating that way, especially when we are used to it, don't we?

There might be some answers here.

The other day, I noticed a pack of the nicest banana peppers ever in the store - so smooth and blemish-free, so immaculate, they almost looked like waxworks. Now, why does something have to look fake for us to consider it the most perfect specimen? Amdist such ruminations, I then had a brainwave and decided to send a souped up version of the salan to No Croutons Required but discovered just now that I'm a week late. Oh well!


But back to the heat. The weather's hot, the soup's hotter, and I had to eat it with great gobs of curds to be able to finish it.


Note to Sra: Don't take banana peppers for granted - they are as hot as any other. So when the recipe says boil the peppers first, do it.

There's an onion in the ingredients list but it disappeared by the time the method was explained, so the book shall remain unnamed. I also made a few substitutions.

Note: Read through the entire recipe, and then prepare the vegetables, otherwise, they will stay in your fridge forever, like my onion did!

Chillies: 250 gm
Dessicated coconut: 1 tbsp
Peanuts/Groundnuts: 1 tsp
Sesame seeds: 1.5 tsp
Coriander powder: 1 tsp
Cumin: 1 tsp
Dry ginger powder: 1 tsp
Garlic: 5 cloves, skinned, mashed
Turmeric: 1/4 tsp
Chilli powder: 1/2 tsp
Tamarind: Soak a big lime sized amount in 1.5 cups of water and extract the juice
Oil: 2 tbsp
Curry leaves: A few
Salt to taste

Boil the chillies in salted water till they change colour. Drain.

Roast the sesame, peanut and dessicated coconut. Add the coriander powder, chilli powder and turmeric and grind to a paste with just a little water.

Heat the oil and pop the cumin. Add the paste, dry ginger powder and garlic and fry till the oil separates.

Now add the chillies and curry leaves. Let them fry for a while.

Pour in the tamarind extract, and add salt to taste.

Simmer till the gravy is thick and oil floats to the top.

Now the Salan is ready.

On to the soup:

Take some of the curry, chillies and all, and pulverise it in the mixer. Your salan is all souped up and ready!

Soup Green chillies Vegetarian Gravy Hyderabadi cooking

Beetermilk Soup

Put some colour into your life!

I wanted to call this post Bawdy Beets (taking off on the poetic licence I could take with the colour and call it lurid pink) but there were two problems:

As my stats are wont to reveal sooner or later, everyone and his brother looking for bawdy delights will land up in my blog and curse me for misleading overstatement;

And, where, in fact, ARE the beets?

There aren't any. Their liquid is in the soup, and this soup did come alive with its addition. It's actually quite the traditional recipe for 'majjiga charu' (buttermilk soup?) which was often made to use up souring curds - just temper the buttermilk, and lo and behold, there it was!

Here, it's been turned into a bigger production with some vegetables which were threatening to turn sour as well, and liquid from boiling beets which I was turning into a stir-fry! Ingenious, no?

What you need:

Buttermilk: 2-3 cups (not too watery, though)
(I made the buttermilk by whisking some curds/yogurt thoroughly with water)

Dry ginger powder/sonthi: 2 pinches
Salt, to taste
Dosakaya/lemon (melon?) cucumber: 2, seeded and diced into medium cubes
White pumpkin: Diced - a handful
Green chillies: 2-3, slit through the centre
Curry leaves: 2 sprigs
Coriander leaves: To garnish
Mustard seed: 1 tsp
Jeera/cumin: 1/2 tsp
Fenugreek seeds/Methi: 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida: A tiny pinch (optional)
Oil:1-2 tsp

Juice from beets that have been boiled: About a cup

Add the dry ginger powder and salt to the buttermilk and whisk till it's well mixed.

Steam/lightly cook the vegetables till just cooked, with some of the green chillies. Cool it down.

The beet juice should be at room temperature too.

Now add the vegetables and their juices and the beet juice to the buttermilk. Mix.

In a pan, heat the oil. Pop the mustard, then the jeera. Add the curry leaves and the green chillies. Then add the asafoetida and turn off the heat. Add the fenugreek seeds right away. Tip all this into the beetermilk.

Beetroot Buttermilk Dosakaya White pumpkin Soup Vegetarian Dosakaya Humour Majjiga charu

'Shrooms With A View, Sage & Rosemary Too

Once, not long ago, I ranted about dry herbs here. I'm not about to eat crow (now that's another post) or my words, or even dried herbs, but as some of you pointed out in that post, dried rosemary is an exception, as I discovered today.

My aunt in the US, with whom I stayed in July, has several herbs in her garden - sage, rosemary, French tarragon, two kinds of basil, chives, mint and a few others. I would often pick a few leaves off the plants and pop them into my mouth, enjoying the fresh and spicy feel. When I was leaving, she picked some fresh sage for me, which held up rather spotlessly till today, and gave me her stash of dried sage and rosemary. A creative cook, she uses permutations and combinations of these herbs to flavour all her cooking, even Indian food, and I decided to do the same, though I did not employ any logic except that of the palate.

After years, I bought mushrooms recently and they blackened only a little bit after two days, unlike earlier when they would do so very rapidly. I also had two slabs of paneer/cottage cheese that needed to be used up fast so I decided to throw it all into a big stir-fry and flavour it with these herbs.


Here's what you need:

Onion: 1 big, thickly sliced
Button mushrooms: 2-3 cups, halved
Paneer/cottage cheese: 2-3 cups, cubed
Red chilli flakes: 1-2 tsp
Garlic: 10 cloves
Sage: 6-7 leaves
Olive oil: 2 tbsp + 1 tsp
Salt: To taste
Rosemary: A sprig or two

Grind the garlic, red chilli and half of the sage roughly with 1 tsp of olive oil - I did this with a stone pestle and mortar.

In a large wok, heat the olive oil and add the above ground mixture. Saute for a few seconds.

Now add the onions, saute for a minute on high flame, then the mushrooms and the cottage cheese.

Saute again for a minute, and add salt.

Lower flame.

The mushrooms give out some water, let this dry up but keep turning constantly so as not to burn the dish.

You can choose to let some oily juice remain - good to mop up with bread - or dry it completely.

Now crumble some dried rosemary over the top and mix it lightly. Serve.

This goes off to Weekend Herb Blogging, Kalyn's event, managed by Haalo and hosted this week by Prof Kitty at The Cabinet of Prof. Kitty.

Weekend Herb Blogging Mushrooms Vegetarian Dried herbs Sage Rosemary Paneer/Cottage cheese

Searching For Sra? You Didn't!

Where is Sra? or at least 'Sra Break' or 'What happened to Sra?' would be the search terms that popped up, I thought, during the unannounced break I took last month. Well, naturally, I'm not too happy that most of you didn't miss me and didn't send me a flood of anxious mails or comments telling me how much you miss me, and would I please tell you I was alright and haven't stopped blogging, but as it turns out, this blogger's job is merely to alive and let laugh, even if you uncaring souls couldn't care less, so I'll just go ahead and do what I'm known for - brightening a bit of your day (now that several of you tell me I do)!

One of the funniest search terms of all time that I saw (last month) was

Caligula roasted alive

I cam (sic) alive somehow (thank God for that!)

All my wild oats (what a letdown, it's actually about oats!)

Is it correct to say I have eaten my soup Yes/No (Yes, you 'eat' your soup, you don't drink it)

Orissa modest chest thumping


Keywords Humour Blog break On Blogging

A Li'l Bit of 'merica

When it became clear a few months ago that I would be going abroad, it also became clear that I would have to tell myself sternly that I couldn't come back with stuff for the pantry that I would only throw out a while later. It's quite another matter that while I shopped very little, all my purchases were heavyweights which attracted their own set of consequences on the way back home.

One of them was a packet of split peas which I've never seen in the parts of India I live(d) in. Of course, I didn't want to make anything as ordinary as green pea soup with that - I had plans for it already, which I executed once I returned. It helped that I had had a great Bengali meal at Sandeepa's place when we met - Begun Bhaja, Dal, kaancha amer ambol/chatni Jhinge Chingri Posto, Pathar Mangsho, so I knew which book to consult for a split peas (matar dal) recipe as soon as I returned.

This is a book of Bengali cuisine called Pumpkin Flower Fritters by Renuka Devi Choudhurani and has a recipe for Split Pea Lentils With Vegetables. Since it's only been a little over a week since I've returned, I don't have too many veggies crowding the refrigerator so I made do with just one of the many listed in the recipe.


And that's the result in the photo - don't miss the jaunty chilli in that bowl - it arranged itself so, I didn't arrange it that way.








Split pea lentils/matar dal: 1 cup
Drumstick (vegetable): 1
Tomato: 1, small
Green chillies: 3-4
Salt, to taste
Oil: 1 tsp
Ghee: 1/2 tsp

Water

Tempering
Red Chillies: 2, broken into pieces
Bay leaf: 1
Panch phoron with some mustard seeds: 1 tsp
Asafoetida: A pinch

Strip some of the hard skin from the drumstick and cut it into two-inch pieces. Slice the tomato into 6 pieces and slit the green chillies.

Wash the dal in warm water and rub with salt and a little oil. Set to boil in a pan of hot water (I haven't mentioned the amount as I initially used just over one cup of water and then added as and when I needed).

When the dal is half cooked, add the salt.

After it cooks a little more, add the drumstick and a few of the green chillies. When it all cooks, remove from the fire.

Heat the oil and ghee and temper with the chilli, bay leaf and the panch phoron. Add the asafoetida and tomato. Saute for a few seconds and add the rest of the green chillies. Pour in the dal and boil for 2-3 minutes.

This entry goes to Susan's My Legume Love Affair - 14.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a great day out with Susan, whom I met in New York City. She planned a day of walking for us and took me through Wall Street and several other areas. We walked from about 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. One of our stops was Madison Avenue - as soon as we saw this scene, we had to stop and shoot several pictures of it.



I'm not sure how good it is technically, but for me, it felt like the sight of the day.

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Where I Have Been

All of last month, I was here. I was fortunate to have got the time off and I think I made good use of it, walking around the city one area a day. The following are foodie sights and scenes from my trip to New York City.

I met a few friends from the blogging world: Susan, Rajitha, Sandeepa and Paz, and spoke to a few others: Sig, Asha and Mallugirl. My operating principle was 'No Indian food' but I relaxed it in Sandeepa's case as I haven't had authentic Bengali food except in a couple of restaurants. My camera battery was dying and I used the dregs of its energy to take a picture of her rather than of the food she made.


Rajitha made all this great food for me one fine Tuesday. She picked me up at the subway station and we stopped off at the Indian store to pick up some supplies and then went on to her cozy apartment, but not before picking up some sweets. "I can't let you go without dessert, Sra, I have to buy you dessert. What will it be?" As I didn't want Indian, we opted for a Middle Eastern bakery near her place, where we picked up two pieces of each variety, and after this huge meal, steadily proceeded to demolish all but one. She has a great collection of world vegetarian cookery books, and I'm inspired to make the avocado, tomato and feta salad that you see in the foreground. Thanks to her, I tasted quinoa for the first time.


I met Susan downtown and we had a great day of walking and photographing, not to mention lunch and dinner. The crackers and biscuit that you see here are part of the meal she treated me to in one of the restaurants at Grand Central Terminal. We had different varieties of clam chowder and oysters each. That was the first time I ate oysters. For dinner, her husband Scott joined us and we ate at a French restaurant.


Paz took me on a walking tour of Harlem, treated me to some glorious cathedrals and chapels, and showed me a side of New York City that I didn't really expect. There was a wide choice of restaurants to eat in, and I picked Cuban because I had not tried the cuisine before. I must say the Zesty Corn (seen in the second tier), was the best and the most unusual.


My family and I went out to lunch at a Greek diner in Times Square where I ordered these dolmades. Initially, I didn't like these cold treats, but began to appreciate them after I tried a second one.


This and the next few pictures are from the Monday farmer's market at Union Square. I even picked up a printed recipe for peach salsa, samples of which were set out by the market organising committee. There were several other recipes available. I tried the salsa. Nice.


These are varieties of squash. I've only seen them in pictures earlier, and the ones right in the front, never before.


Peppers galore!


I never saw purple capsicum before, either. Nor for that matter, such light green ones.


Ahh! Fressshh!


I have never come across a cookie called Chop Suey before. Interesting, isn't it?


On a Sunday in NYC, there was a street fair near the restaurant in which my family was having lunch and a very involved conversation, I slipped away to see this street fair that I noticed earlier. There were several other foodie goodies on offer - kebabs, gyros, pita pockets, Italian sausage ... This was the most colourful food stall as far as I could see.

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My Fame Spreads

I didn't know I had 193 recipes on my blog!!! If you want to know more such wonderful facts about me and my blog, and a recipe to boot, go here. It's one of the newest food blogs on the block and a rollicking fun read too. Thanks for the invitation, Cynic!

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How Dost Thou Reach Me? Let Me Count ...

After a long time, I found some new hilarious search terms again in my stats - here they are:

Moong dal ladies squats - You'd think this is an unlikely pairing. But no! Among the many combinations these search terms threw up, here's one!

Do guinea pigs eat wheat pearls? I guess the reasons they landed in my blog are here.

Drooling sentences went here.

How can I sell my soup came here.

Rayalseema biscuits company case study solution found no solution here.

Humour Keywords Search Terms