Onion Baath and off on Vacation!!

I’m in the process of cleaning up my fridge as my long-waited vacation to India is just hours away. I’m left with couple of onions and few tomatoes which is good enough for onion baath. When we were kids after coming from school at 3.30 in evening my mom use to give us rice, mostly mix rice as we use to take lunch boxes and around 6 pm she use to give us light snack. Onion baath is one of our favorites, we use to eat it with plain yogurt with out making any fuss.

Ingredients

1 cup cooked rice (sona masoori/basmati)
1 large onion (diced)
1 medium tomato (diced)
2-3 green chilles (chopped)

For seasoning
1 tbsp veg oil
1 tsp channa dal
1 tsp urad dal
1/4th tsp mustard seeds
Big pinch of turmeric
Salt to taste
Few curry leaves
Few coriander leaves to garnish

Procedure

Heat oil in a deep skillet, add channa dal, urad dal, mustard seeds and fry until the dals turn into golden brown and mustards seeds pop, add green chillies, curry leaves and onions. Sauté onions until soft and transparent add turmeric, tomatoes and cooked until the tomatoes are soft and mushy. Turn the heat to low add salt and cooked rice, stir well adjust the taste, garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve warm with plain yogurt.

Notes and Tips

You can add cashew nuts or peanuts and also chilli powder instead of green chillies; this is how my mom makes
I will try to update my blog but not really sure. See u all folks soon till then,

Happy Cooking and Happy Sankarnti !!

Carrot and Leeks Soup

Soups are really comforting and filling for me. My craving for soups kicks off along with winter. Potato and Leeks is the most common among the soups made with leeks, but I wanted a lighter one with leeks so just replaced potatoes with carrots and added few ingredients to suite our taste. The mild onion flavor of leeks and carrots blends really well. This soup is simple to make and equally delicious. Serve it along with a green salad and warm sandwich. This soup is very light and also the flavors intensify by the next day, so you can easily make this dish any time. Orange juice not only adds a nice citrus taste also gives a beautiful orangey color to the soup.

Ingredients

2 Leeks
2 large carrots
1 celery stalk
1 tbsp fresh ginger
1 tsp oregano (dried)
1 tsp fresh parsley
4 cups vegetable stock/water
1/4th cup orange juice (optional)
Salt and Black Pepper according to taste
1 tbsp olive oil or unsalted butter

Procedure

Clean and chop up the tender part of the leeks (discard the leaves, green ones) and celery stalk along with leaves. Cut the carrots, peel and roughly chop ginger.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and sauté ginger, celery and leeks gently for 5 minutes stirring occasionally, until the leeks are soft and transparent. Add oregano, black pepper and carrots, sauté for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10-12 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Remove from heat and cool down. Puree the cooked veggies in a food processor or in a blender. Pour the mixture in a saucepan, stir in orange juice and parsley and cook on low heat for few minutes. Adjust the seasoning, garnish with parsley leaves before serving.

Notes and Tips

You can substitute orange juice with milk or stock. If you want a spicy soup replace oregano and parsley with curry powder and coriander leaves.

And finally, thanks bee for reminding “Click-Liquid” event, here is my warm blow of soup for you folks. Enjoy!!

More recipes with carrot:

Carrot Ginger Soup

Carrot Pulao

New Year Wishes

 

Happy New Year to you!
May every great new day
Bring you sweet surprises–
A happiness buffet.
Happy New Year to you,
And when the new year’s done,
May the next year be even better,
Full of pleasure, joy and fun.
By Joanna Fuchs

Roasted chestnuts

Traders Joe’s is one of my favorite place to shop. I was there this week for my regular stuff when I came across fresh and earthy colored Italian chestnuts. I was so tempted and bought a box. I have heard a lot about roasted chestnuts, so I decided to go with it as it was really simple to make and thought it would make a prefect entry for Jai & Bee’s click event. It was the first time I ever tasted chestnuts they were absolutely delicious. A roasted chestnut tastes sweet and creamy, tender inside and has a wonderful aroma; nothing could be more prefect than a warm nutty snack on a cold winter evening.

To roast the chestnuts, pre heat the oven to 400 F
Cut an X mark into one side of each nut with a sharp, pointy knife to allow the steam escape caused while roasting and place them single layered on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast them for 15-20 minutes, the skin will pop open like a flower and the inside (nut) will be pale golden color.

Cool down, peel off the skins and enjoy.

(these are few of my fav shots)

Our verdict for chestnuts, yummy!!!.. as Suganya said they tasted more like jackfruit seeds. So what am I going with the remaining ones, may be curry just planning to replace jackfruit seeds to chestnuts and roast few again.

Make sure to make a X mark or else the nuts will explode. Sprinkle some sea salt on roasted nuts if you like.

Gobi Manchurian

Cauliflower Fritters in spicy sweet and sour sauce
Fusion cooking is one of my favorite. Playing around with traditional and non tradition ingredients is really fun. I love Indo-Chinese dishes, it’s really easy to cook and tastes simply superb spiced up with Indian seasonings and Chinese cooking style. Gobi Manchurian falls into this category. A delicious blend of Indo- Chinese cooking, which has been Indianized by local folks to satisfy the taste buds of desi’s who crave for something spicy which serves as an appetizer and also a side dish. These kinds of dishes are found only in Indian restaurants.

Ingredients

To make cauliflower fritters
1 small Cauliflower (Gobi)
1 cup Maida (All purpose flour)
1/3 rd cup Corn Flour
salt to taste
Red chilli powder (according to taste)
water to make batter
2 cups oil for deep frying

For sauce
1 tbsp peanut oil
1 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped
1-2 tbsp Ginger, finely chopped
2-3 green chilles finely chopped
2 tbsp Sweet & Sour Ketchup (Maggie or knoor)
1/2 tbsp green chilli sauce (optional)
2 tbsp Soy sauce
1/4 tsp Ajinamoto (MSG) (optional)
1/2 tsp white pepper powder
1 tsp sugar
3 green onions/spring onions (finely chopped both white and green)
1 tbsp corn flour (mixed in little cold water)

Procedure

To make Cauliflower Fritters
Pluck the florets from the Cauliflower and cut them into bite size pieces.
Take a blow and mix all the dry ingredients (maida, corn flour, salt and chilli powder) slowly add water to make a batter for cauliflower fitters (similar to bajji batter).
Heat oil in a deep pan or kadai , dip the cauliflower pieces in the batter completely and fry them until light brown, remove and drain the excess oil on a paper towel.
To prepare Sauce
Heat, 1 tablespoon of oil in a skillet or wok, add chopped garlic, ginger, spring onions (white) and green chillies and fry them until they start to turn brown. Add the remaining ingredients listed below sauce except for corn flour mix and cook for 2-3 minutes. Now add the corn flour and mix well (without lumps). Add fried cauliflower fitters and mix well.
Garnish it with reserved spring onions.

Serve the gobi manchurian hot with your choice of meal. I made it wet to go along with fried rice.

For dry version
Skip adding corn flour and add capsicum and onions for crunch.

Notes and Tips

Depending upon how hot you like it, you can add/reduce the pieces of green chillies and white pepper. Adjust the amount of ginger and garlic according to your taste, Depending on how dry/wet you like your manchurian, you need to reduce/add the ketchup, Soy sauce and cornflour mix. For a little kick you can add 1 tsp of ginger green chilli paste to the batter before adding cauliflower .

Potato fry

Potatoes come to rescue me all the time, when an unexpected guest knocks the door or a last minute dish is required or it can be a simple meal; they are always in hand. When required to turn out a good tasty but quick meal, my cooking goes something like this. Rice, Dal and potatoes go into the rice cooker. I wait for the cooker to cool down and spice up the potatoes with a simple fry, dal turns into rasam and voila there is a full meal on my table.

These pan fired potatoes are crispy outside and soft inside, spiced with salt and chilli powder. I made this with mudda pappu and tomato rasam.

Ingredients

5 medium potatoes (white)
Chilli powder according to taste
Salt to taste
2 tbsp oil

Procedure

Clean, cut potatoes in half and pressure cook until done (for 2-3 whistles). Cool and peel the skin. Dice and keep aside. Heat oil in a non stick skillet, on medium high, add diced potatoes and reduce the heat to medium low. Gently keep stirring in the middle so that all sides are browned evenly. Do not over mix. Once the potatoes are golden brown and crisp add salt and cook for 3-5 minutes. Now reduce the heat to low, stir in the chilli powder and drizzle little oil (1/2 tsp) and mix well. Turn of the heat and shift into serving bowl.

Serve as a side dish with rice or just enjoy as an appetizer.

Notes and tips.

To cook potatoes on stove top, bring a big pot of water to boil add the potatoes and cook until done. Do not over cook the potatoes. Potatoes will break a part and dish will turn mushy.

Mudda Pappu – Tomato Rasam

Roasted Pigeon Peas and Spicy Tomato Rasam

Lentils play a prominent role in my everyday cooking. As a vegetarian, for me they are the protein pack filled with valuable nutrients and vitamins besides vegetables. Dishes made of lentils are must in my everyday cooking. It can be dal, rasam, sambar or even chutney. There are lots of different varieties of lentils available and each one has a distinctive flavor and used in preparation of different kinds of delicious dishes. In India lentils are used extensively right from side dishes to savories and deserts.

In India, toor dal (split pigeon peas) are one of the most popular lentils—along with, chana, urad, masoor and mung. Pigeon peas are nutritionally important, as they contain high levels of protein and the important amino acids methionine, lysine, and tryptophan.

As a South Indian I’m very fond of toor dal/kandi pappu (split pigeon peas), urad dal (black gram), channa dal (split chickpeas) and moong dal (slit yellow mung beans) and my pantry is always well stocked with all these different lentils and legumes, looks more like an mini lentil bazaar.

When it comes to cooking time by default I go for toor dal (Kandi pappu in Telugu). When Linda announced that she is extending the deadline for JFI- Toor dal, I have decided to send my favorite mudda pappu .The nutty flavor of the roasted toor dal gives a unique taste to the dish. Mudda pappu is relished with different combinations. Today’s combination is with simple tomato rasam and potato fry. When ever I cook this dish, it takes back to my childhood days. My mom always use to make small balls of dal rice and drop them into the spicy hot rasam and use to me feed and my sister telling us all those beautiful moral stories.

 

 our meal today mudda pappu, tomato rasam and potato fry

Thanks Linda, I’m sending this to you .
Mudda Pappu

Ingredients

1 cup toor dal/ kandi pappu
Salt to taste
Water to cook

Procedure

Heat a dry skillet on medium low, dry roast toor dal till golden brown and until you smell the nutty aroma of roasted dal. Remove from heat, shift into a bowl. Add required amount of water and pressure cook until done (I usually cook for 3 whistles). Cool down and drain the excess water into a bowl (don’t throw it). Lightly mash the dal and mix salt and little reserve water to thin it /desired consistency.

Tomato Rasam/Charu
Call it a “Soup” in western style or “Rasam” in Indian way. It’s a comfort food for many Indians especially South Indians. There are a lot of different varieties of Rasam, they are good for tummy and also yummy side dish for rice usually had along with dal, dry curries and papad. This is a simple version of no dal tomato rasam.

Ingredients:

1 small tomato
Tamarind (small lemon size)
1 tsp jaggery
2 cups water / reserved lentil water
1/4 tsp turmeric
Few curry leaves
Salt to taste

For seasoning
1 tsp veg oil
1/2 tsp jeera
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
Pinch of hing
2 tsp MTR rasam powder
Few coriander leaves (chopped)

Heat oil in a small frying pan and fry the seasonings 1-4 (except rasam powder and coriander leaves). Allow mustard seeds to pop. Turn off the heat and keep aside.

Procedure

Soak tamarind in warm water for 15 mins and extract the pulp (around 2-3 tbsp)

In a deep pan/ pot, add the tomatoes (crush or chopped) , tamarind pulp, salt, turmeric, jaggery, curry leaves and water. Bring all together to boil and reduce the heat to low. Cook the rasam mixture for 10-12 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft and done. Add rasam powder and cook for 2 more minutes. Adjust the taste, stir in the seasoning and coriander leaves and remove from heat.

To serve (like my mom) , mix rice, ghee (clarified butter) and mudda pappu and make balls. In a soup bowl pour rasam and drop the dal rice balls as shown in the above picture. Let it stand for 3-5 mins and enjoy listening to a nice story.

Notes and Tips

You can make mudda pappu without roasting dal. You can use sugar instead of jaggery in your rasam. If you don’t like the sweetness in your rasam just skip the sugar/jaggery. Rasam powder can be substituted with ½ tsp of coriander powder and ¼ tsp of red chilli powder. Add these ingredients to seasoning and fry for a minute or so and mix. Toor dal/ pigeon peas is also know as tuvar dal, red gram , arahar dal.

Chole Batura/Bhature

Spicy Chickpeas with Deep fried bread

Winter has knocked the doors, with shorter days and longer nights. Last week it was cold, gloomy, dark and raining. Even though it was thanks giving weekend my husband was working from home. After eating rice for two days continuously we were desperately craving from something spicy and hot. What else could be more comforting than “Chole Batura” which also happens to be one of our favorites.

Chole – Spicy curried garbanzo beans/chickpeas
Batura/Bhature- deep fried crispy yet soft bread made out of white flour

Generally chole is served along with batura/ bathure ,  is a mouthwatering dish originated from Punjab. Chole batura is also a popular street food snack in Northern part of India. Traditionally leveling agents like soda, yogurt and yeast are used in preparing batura dough and fermented for hours (4-6 hrs) and deep fried, which sometimes consumes lots of oil while frying. I was searching for an oil free batura recipe, I googled and found one on Tarla dalal’s website. I have been making it since then. Chole is also known as Channa Masala. Puri/Poori and Chole/Channa masala is another popular combination.

Ingredients for chole /channa masala

1 cup Chole /chickpeaks/garbanzo beans
(Wash and soak chole overnight. Pressure cook with little salt and water for 15 – 20 minutes. Do not over cook.)
1 medium onion finely chopped
2 tbs ginger-garlic paste (fresh/ store bought)
2 Green Chillies finely chopped
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 medium tomato finely chopped
1 small stick cinnamon
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1/2 tsp Chilli powder
2 tsp Channa/ chole Masala
Coriander leaves finely chopped
Salt to taste
2 tbsp Oil

Procedure

Heat oil in a heavy and deep skillet on medium flame. Add cinnamon stick, cumin seeds and allow it to splutter. Now add chopped onions, ginger-garlic paste, green chillies and sauté till the onions turn soft and golden brown. Add turmeric, chilli powder and channa masala powder sauté for couple of more minutes. Now add chopped tomatoes and tomato puree and sauté till the oil starts to separates and tomatoes becomes soft and mushy. Drain the excess water from the cooked beans add it to the skillet with salt and 1 cup water and mix well. Turn the heat to low and cover the lid. Let the mixture cook slowly on low heat for 20 minutes so that masala can blend well. Keep stirring in the middle. Add the chopped coriander leaves, stir well and turn off the heat. Reserve few coriander leaves and chopped onion for garnish.

Ingredients for Batura/Bhature

1 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1 cup potato, boiled and grated (1 large potato)
2 tsp oil (optional)
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying (1 ½ to 2 cups)
¼ cup plain flour for dusting

Procedure

Sieve flour and salt into a bowl, add grated potato, oil and knead into firm dough without using any water. Knead the dough very well till it is smooth and pliable. Cover with a wet muslin cloth and rest the dough for 10 minutes. Divide the dough into equal parts and roll out into circles. Mean while heat oil in a deep pan or skillet, fry batura’s one at a time till the baturas puff up and both sides are golden brown. Drain excess oil on paper towel and keep warm while you fry the remaining.

Serve hot with the chole, sliced onion and lemon wedges.

Notes and Tips

You can use canned garbanzo beans to avoid soaking and cooking. Drain all the liquids, rinse thoroughly and use the beans. You can use canned tomatoes/puree to substitute fresh tomatoes and you can use garam masala instead of channa masala or both. For thick gravy mash few cooked beans while simmering. You can serve chole with puri, naan, roti, paratha, kulcha or even with rice. Actually I was in a hurry so just too couple of pictures before everything gone. I will update it with better one’s soon.

Hop to Asha’s blog for more chole and Batura

Apple Pie

An apple a day
Sends the doctor away
Apple in the morning
Doctor’s warning
Roast apple at night
Starves the doctor outright
Eat an apple going to bed
Knock the doctor on the head
Three each day, seven days a week Ruddy apple, ruddy cheek.
Rhyme Courtesy(Zelo)

Photo courtesy “Lakshman”.

My cousin Lakshman “the coolest” was the inspiration/force for me behind making this delicious apple pie. For Diwali we went to “Big Apple” to my uncle’s place, as usual the house was flooded with guests (few of them are visiting US for the first time). After having yummy meal including desert we were totally stuffed and uncle told us that there are lots of apples which need to consumed, though there were people to eat, but consuming two dozen apples after a heavy meal is not an easy task. So I casually told my cousin that we can bake apple pie and it’s the easiest way to clean up before they are spoiled. At this point I had no clue how to make an apple pie as I never made it in my life before. Apple pie is one of his favorites he wanted to start immediately. I was not really confident to make everything from scratch; I got an idea of making pie’s using ready made crusts. I went and googled for the recipe and found a very simple one from epicurious.com. I made few modifications to the original recipe to suit our taste. For Thanksgiving my cousin baked another batch and he sent me the pictures. Thanks for the pictures Lakshman!!. Ok let’s jump to the recipe.

Ingredients

1/4 cup apple juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
5 Gala or Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 refrigerated ready-made pie crusts and top (9 inch)
1 tsp cinnamon (ground)
½ tsp nutmeg (ground)
1 tbsp milk(2% or whole)

For Crumbles
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1-2 tbsp brown sugar
1tbsp butter (unsalted & cold)

Mix sugar with flour; cut in butter until crumbly. Make the crumble once you fill the pie crust with apple mix.

Cinnamon Sugar
Mix 2 tbsp granulated sugar and ½ tbsp ground cinnamon and keep aside

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine apple juice, sugar, and butter in a bowl. Add apples and cornstarch. Place one piecrust in a 9″ pie pan and fill with mixture. Now sprinkle the crumble mixture over the apples. Roll out top crust and cover pie, sealing carefully, cut steam vents or you can slice the pie-top into eight 1/2-inch-thick strips and drape over filled pie shell in a crisscross pattern; pinch edges to fasten to bottom crust. To prepare topping, lightly brush pie-top of with milk; sprinkle cinnamon sugar evenly over dough. Place pie plate on a foil-lined baking sheet; bake 55 minutes until the crust is browned and apples soft. Cool down and serve with whipping cream or vanilla ice-cream.

One for me and one for you

Notes and Tips.

To avoid apples from browning add ½ tsp lemon juice. Always use cold butter to make crumbles soft butter will turn the mixture into dough and always make this at the end. You can add vanilla essence and lemon zest for extra flavor.

Thotakura Pulusu

Amaranth Stew
Leafy vegetables are used widely in my home. They are loaded with nutrition and packed with proteins. Thotakura which is referred as Amaranth (in english) is a delicious leafy vegetable related to spinach family and is used a lot in traditional Andhra cooking – stir fry’s, stews and dal. It blends very well with most of the vegetables and dals(lentils). Thotakura pulusu (stew) is a very simple and tasty dish spiced up with chillies and sweetened with jaggery. Pulusu, a clear broth (tamarind) cooked with vegetables and spices is served as a side dish along with rice. Basic ingredients in such stew always stays same only the additional ingredients either vegetables or lentils keeps changing.

Green, white and red amaranth leaves are available in India. Green and white leaves are used in stir fry’s or curries while the red one is often used in making stews. These leaves contain a very good source of vitamins including vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, riboflavin, and rich in dietary minerals and the stem contains a good amount of fiber. Amaranth is also known as Red spinach and Chinese spinach.

Ingredients

1 bunch or 3 cups tender amaranth leaves & stems (clean & chopped)
8-10 pearl onions (peel and trim the ends)
3 green chillies
1/2 tbsp besan (chickpea flour)
(Mix besan with 3 tbsp of water without any lumps and keep aside)
2-3 cups water (to cook)
2-3 tbsp tamarind pulp (thick)
1-2 tbsp jaggery/sugar (optional)
1/4th tsp turmeric
Salt to taste
1 tbsp oil

Seasoning
2 dry red chillies (broken)
½ tsp mustard seeds
1/4th tsp mustard seeds
Big pinch hing

Heat 1 tsp oil in a small pan. Add all the ingredients listed below seasoning and fry till mustard seeds pop. Turn off the heat and keep aside.

Procedure

Heat remaining oil in a heavy bottom vessel. Add green chillies and onions and sauté for 3-5 minutes on medium heat. Add chopped leaves & stems, salt, turmeric and ½ cup water and cook until the leaves are done (3/4th) now add tamarind pulp, jaggery, besan mix, water and bring it to boil, keep stirring in the middle to avoid besan from curdling. Reduce the heat, adjust the taste add anything if need and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Crush the fried seasoning and stir into the pulusu (stew) and cook for 2 more minutes. Turn off the heat. Shift into serving dish.

Serve with steamed rice, dal and papad.

Notes and Tips

You can use frozen pearl onions or soak the onions in warm water for 10 mins, the skin will peel off easily. You can add garlic and tomatoes to this dish. If you are allergic to besan skip adding it.