one more interesting eggplant dish

http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/2005/10/24/stuffed-brinjal-curry-gutti-vankaaya-kura/

Wishlist: chakra pongal

Will correct the name - overheard VC and mary talking about it. Will confirm the recipe too. I think this would be the simplest sweet dish and jaggery will add a distinct earthen flavor to it. I love jaggery sweets :).
1) In a cooker. Add moong + rice + jaggery + some water (I didnt know we could boil jaggery- I havent tried it yet so try at your own risk). Mary pitched in and said that boil in milk and not water.
2) Once boiled - take it out and mash it up baby.
3) In pan heat ghee and fry the dry fruits especially cashews and raisins.
4) Add it to the dish.

Simple dal and rice

Nothing can beat that dude! I tried moong dal with thinkly chopped green chillies and thickly chopped garlic.
1) Boil moong with some garlic and some chillies and some haldi.
2) in a pan heat butter or ghee (small quantity). Add jeera. Add the garlic till the garlic is burnt (its best flavor comes out at this point). Add the green chillies too just before you think the garlic was about to get burnt.
3) Add the dal
4) Boil the rice
Serve rice dal. Onions sliced with lots and lots of lemon :). VC adds lemon to the dal itself while cooking (bengali folks add lemon leaves to the dal).

Wishlist moong halwa

Recipe:
1) Soak moong in water.
2)Grind the soft moong in mixie without adding water to it.
3) In a pan add lots of ghee. Add the moong in it. Stir stir.
4) Stir stir
5) Stir stir till the era changes. Sometime add sugar too :)
6) The moong is brown now. The ghee separating out of it - this indicates that it is done so yo ucna turn off the gas).
7) Heat a little ghee in a seperate pan - add split cashews to it - fry till they are brown.
8) Add to the 6.
Eat hot. Everytime you eat. Heat it in a microwave.
I hope this recipe works.

Wish list: Paramesh's chicken with yoghurt

Paramesh please share the recipe
And Paramesh did:
Take yogurt in a bowl
Add chili powder, turmeric powder, salt, coriander powder, 1 tsp Ginger paste, 1 tsp garlic paste
Cut chicken into medium size pieces
Marinate chicken in the yogurt for ~2 hrs

In a pan, heat up oil, fry finely chopped onion, tomato along with ginger + garlic paste
Add the marinated chicken
Keep stirring till the yogurt disappears (it takes a long time)
You can add coriander leaves and mint at the end (10 mins before)
Chicken is done now.

Heat up 3 “roti land” roti’s and invite Paramesh :)

Wishlist: Fresh cocunut and jaggery south indian dish

Mary please teach :(

Egg curry

I have always miserably failed in it. I will try out this recipe. Might modify it to my convenience. If so will upload it.
http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2005/10/e-is-for-egg-rassa-and-eggplant-kaap.html

Hmm so finally reproduced it. Didnt use peppercorns and sauf (didnt have them) and my recommendation is add lesser onion than mentioned. I also added 1/4th cup of coconut. I also think it is a little strong on spices so I toned it down.
I satill havent figured out with confidence as to when the egg boils (And how to know. And also how to deshell it smoothly.

My ingredients:
1) Poppy seeds (khus khus), cloves and red chilles (only 2). I added ajwain though :P.
2) Half onion (US size). Full if indian size
3) 1 tomato (since last tomato in the house)
4) Ginger garlic (i added 2 teaspoons and that was the regret - i should have added only one)
5) Coconut (1/4th cup)

Steps:
1) Heat oil - adda little ajwain, poppy seeds, green chilles and crushed cloves.
2) Add onion - fry till translucent
3) Add ginger garlic paste (1 spoon)
4) Add 1 tomato+ the coconut
5) Let it be done and let it cool
6) Meanwhile I hope you had kept the eggs for boiling.
7) Go to a party or something or let things cool
8) Grind the stuff of step 5
9) Cut the eggs in half
10) Heat oil - add the 8. Add haldi and salt + 9. Add good amount of water.

Lauki or spinach kotu

Kotu is a Tamil + Kerala dish. And is a combination of dal + some vegetable. It has to be served hot and is one of those dishes that is simple to make and is good in taste. It is very light on spices and has a coconut flavor to it. The below recipe is for lauki (that my mom swears by as she says it is very healthy for heart patients) and you can substitute lauki with palak. I hate luki to the core and this is the only form of it that i really love.

Ingredients:

1) Curry leaves (yes dude its a south indian dish - this is a key ingredient of al most (if not all) all of their dishes.

2) Green chillies and jeera

3) Grated fresh coconut

4) Yellow dal

5) Lauki

Procedure:

This dish requires both cooker and a mixie so might look cumbersome but actually it is not.

1) Chop the lauki into cubes.

2) Add it to cooker. Add haldi, curry leaves (good amount), 1 chopped chilli and dal ( dal is also good amount)

3) Boil it in the cooker (my cooker take 2 whistles to gewt done)

4) In a mixie- add jeera, green chillies and grated coconut (2-3 teaspoons) - add a little water and make it a coarse paste (the coarseness is important to give it the right texture).

5) In a pan heat oil, add jeera. Add the paste of part 4. Add the things of part 3. Let things come to a boils and mix well. Add Salt.

It is ready to serve.

palak paneer

Ah - one of my favourites. The version I make is the simplest and tastiest as it is enriched with flavor of palak and garlic. Mary taught me this. An accidental improvization (becuase i forgot to turn off the gas) was that it should be really thick to taste the best. And I think this dish is super healthy.

Ingredients:

1) jeera

2) Green chillies

3) Garlic

4) 1 tomato (optional)

5) spinach

6) Paneer

(isnt this short list cool)

Procedure:

1) Take the chopped palak and heat it in water with 2 garlic pieces and 2 green chillies. the water should be less and after boiling it should be very very minimal to get a good consistency. I dont like the idea of draining out hte water as it drains out useful nutrients too so I try to be conservative with it to begin with. Let it cool

2) Meanwhile - cut paneer into cubes. boil it in a water that has a little haldi in it till it is soft. You cna eat a few pieces I eat a lot of them :)

2) In a mixie add jeera and the above thing. Grid till it is a smooth paste.

3) In a pan heat oil. Add 5-6 garlic pieces - all finely chopped so that we have rich garlic aaroma and flavor :). Add some green chillies too ( I avoild red chilli all together and suppliment it with green chillies only).

4) All a finely chopped tomato and let it melt (optional step - tomato adds a little tanginess hence I like it - mary's original recipe does not have tomatoes)

5) Add the palak paste to it. Yo ucan add a little haldi and a little dhania powder to it too.

6) Add al lthe paneer cubes except 4.

7) Cook till there is a boil.

8) Crumble the 2-3 paneer wit your hand and put it on the top. you an pop one of them in your mouth (it is very tasty :)).

That's it - serve with rotis. This is one of my safe recipes. Always appreciated and it is difficult to go wrong with it as it is so simple :).

ginger capsicum fried rice

Reverse engineered the one we get in inchins for 8 bucks! It is simple and all my friends love it. Can accompany any chinese dish too.
Ingredients:

1) Ginger root (raw ginger) -
2) Capsicum- 1-2 depending on how much we are making
3) Spring onions
4) Boiled rice.

Procedure:

1) heat oil in a pan (a little more than average)
2) Add the finely sliced capsicum - it cut it really fine and medium long - fry til lthey seem cooked
3) Add the finely chopped spring onions
4) Add the grated ginger - the ginger should be longer than an average grated ginger and the grated ones not be mashed together - i typically grate it over the pan only. Grate a good amount (half the size of your thimb amount) - The key to follow is every third bite should either contain a piece of capsicum, every second bite should contain a spring onion and every bite should contain a piece of ginger.
5) Add the boiled rice mix well. Make sure the thing is dry and rice is not overboiled :)
Enjoy.

good looking Pasta

Since saurabh has revealed that his favourite dish is pasta - I thought - I would get some cheese/mushroom filled pasta from trader jones. And since I was in no mood to make the sauce (I like alfredo he likes marinara and I detest marinara :( ) . I thought of boiling the pasta and adding some olive oil to it. It turned out ok ok - good for snacking but well pretty.

The good old veg. biyani

Hmm I could never get it right. It was always almost right and I would wonder what goes into the make a really nice biryani. Should I add onions, should I add ginger garlic paste, tomatoes, yoghurt (vids adds it), what condiments, should I add tomatoes! Woah too many combinations to try. Well I didnt try the one with the yoghurt. Sam's mom has a recipe that has yoghurt and mint biryani (that VC reproduced for us)that looks very promising but well is elaborate. So here is my simple biryani that just worked out perfectly for me.
Amongst the ingredients, I think getting these 3 right were the key for me. Onions (fried till they turned brown (yes burnt onions honie), ginger garlic paste (I always undermined it), cloves (that too powdered - i didnt finely powder it).
So here it goes (sorry no photo for it yet - next time may be)
Ingredients:
1) Heat oil. Add bay leaves, one cardomom - two cloves (try to powder last 2 a little bit - we will add more cloves later too) + jeera
2) Add onions - chopped and may be half (US size) and 1 full (indian large size) - fry till they are brown and you have started cursing me thinking that I fooled you as you think they will be burnt soon (dont let it turn black though dude)
3) Add chopped tomatoes( I add 1-2 depending on availability) and ginger garlic paste (1 teaspoon) (I bought 1 ginger garlic paste bottle from mayuri for the first time and I cant stop using it in all my dishes :)). Let the tomatoes melt.
4) Add some garam masala to it.
5) Open a mix vegetable pack (mine contains - corn, peas, carrots, french beans and large seeds of the other type of beans - all cut (corn peas seeds not cut)
6) then add rice - i add a good amount of it (the biryani typically lasts me a week and I have to sometimes call paramesh to finish it off :P). Add water so that the water level is 3 fingers above rice (This funda I came up with while writing this entry and might not work for all - please dont run away).
7) Add the ground cloves too. Also add SALT.
8) Now let it boil in high flame - get one whistle. Simmer, for another whistle (actually this varies from cooker to cooker. I have just figured my cooker by cooking a lot :)).

Chicken biryani should be never made in cooker - says VC and sam's mom - as the flavor doesnt come. I will post their recipe too. It is more professional than the one above.
Hey but didnt I tell you - Indian cooking is all about approximation - aren't all art forms :).

Do make sure that you supplement the biryani with a yoghurt with a little salt, some chopped onions in it. Enjoy! :)

marathi to the core

Mary mentioned this site to me that has all the maharashtrian dishes.
http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2006/03/to-z-of-marathi-food-round-up.html
Looks awesome.

kheer with walnuts

daal roti inspired by prachi's mom

shrimps with coconut milk

Ingredients:

1) Coconut milk (if you dont have you can put some of the grated coconut in the mixie)

2) Onions - since it is not a with gravy recipe (not totally dry also) so the amount of onions is the core factor that adds quantity

3) Ginger garlic paste

4) Tomoatoes

5)Coriander + lime (optional)

6)Oh yeah - shrimps :)

Recipe:

1) Heat a little oil in the pan - put jeera + onions and let them fry - do not let them turn brown but make them turn translucent. Add ginger garlic paste (1-2 spoons)

2) Now add tomatoes - let the tomatoes met

3) Add coconut milk to it - not much may be 1-1.5 table spoon (As we want the dominant taste of shrimps only)

4) Now add shrimps too (Mary adds deshelled shrimps - i prefer shelled ones as they impart some flavor to the curry but yeah that also means that eating is a little cumbersome)

5) Add salt for taste (I sometimes randomly add haldi to it)

let things cool

Add coriander and a dash of lime and serve.

newly discovered sin

trader's joes lava cake is the best thing that landed on my mouth recently.

I really regret not finding out about it when my mom was here. Glad I bought 2 packets

The pics are of the packet, and before and after indulging :). If I had a spare cameraman - I would have put up my photo too. Currently can't find my mouse will rearrange the pics again. Yup it is served hot.

Omg- where is my mouse.

lots of work

so no cooking only fruits ...

peach + strawberries (some photography)

Indian cooking - cheers!!

The difference between engineering drawing and free hand drawing is exactly what is the difference between Indian cooking and any other cooking. I can never bake a cake. 2 cup of that 1.75 cups of this ..blah blah...

But here, the approximation makes it an art - I just love the free style involved in it - this much salt (that reminds my salt is almost over), a pinch of haldi - I never bother to mention those details because that is something you learn on your own. This is optional - that adds an extra zing :).
And that's what I am loving about cooking. Though I must say, writing a cooking blog is tough. You want the other person to taste and smell the good food. My LAN right now cannot transmit it to you guys but well for now I am posting the recipes with picture.
Anyways - you might have noticed - the quality of my pics have improved :) - I do take the feedback :).

P.S: Vids is having a blog too. I plan to make my recipes available there too.

ladyfingers with a twist :)

Well never intended the word twist to be taken so literally. And you can see the before after pics of my lady finger (okras). They really seem to be twisted :)

Anyways this dish surprisingly came out to be good. I prefer it to be dry and not with gravy as some people suggest.

Ingredients:

- Okras (as shown in the picture)

- besan (half cup) Dunno what it is called in eng.

- yoghurt (1-2 spoons)

- fresh ginger

- green/red chillies

Procedure (its a little elaborate for my convenience but the taste is worth it :)):

1) Heat tava. Switch off gas. Add besan till it seems done (I would check with a distinct aroma). Take this out.

2) In the same tava fry the okras till they are cooked. (I almost thought of killing myself waiting for this to get done :( - just takes a loong time). Take it out.

3) In a tava - add oil, fry jeera, grren chillies and red chillies

4) Add besan, okras and then some yoghurt. I added some water too as my yoghurt was really thick.

5) Grate some ginger and sprinkle on it.

5) Cook till it is done. I prefer it to be fairly dry.

Methi and corn pulav (pulao)

Since I had some methi left (from last sunday) and also some corn left (from last year). Ankur might remember that I had it since a year ago in my freezer I thought instead of plain rice I would make some pulao.

Ingredients: Methi, pulao, biyani masala (any std brand), some corn.

Procedure:

1) In a cooker, heat some oil. Add bay leaves and jeera.

2) After they seem done - add methi leaves and some corn.

3) Add rice (my proportion of methi and rice was 1:2). Corn was little (as much as it was left).

4) Close the cooker. Let it be done. That's it. I have just tasted a spoonful of the rice right now and it tastes reasonably good :).

Aloo with coconut milk

So I am having some veggie married friends as guest at my place and as one of my single friends rightly remarked - the trouble with married friends is that they can differentiate good food from bad food.

Well however I thought of still experimenting.

I remember visiting Rajesh with KAmra nad he had made coconut milk and aloo (potato). Well at that time, I was least bothered about my culinary skills so didnt register much but this is some reverse engineered reproduction of the recipe.

Ingredients - you need potatos (I tried with Pink potatoes but since I am not a racist even brown potato is fine), make sure you have cleaned it properly as we would not be peeling it, oil, jeera and coconut milk (if you do not have some then just grind some fresh grated coconut in mixie).

Procedure:

1) Heat oil. Add jeera .

2) cut potatoes and put in oil - cook the potatoes (this takes a while)

3) Once the potatoes are somewhat cooked - add few spoons of coconut milk and maybe some water.Add salt, little haldi (turmeric powder), dhania powder etc.

4) Cook till the potatoes are done and the curry looks saucy enough.

Note1: Cooking the potato takes some times so be prepared.

Note2: As my boyfriend said potatoes and coconut - so much calories!!! Potatoes is one of the other things he does not eat :) but this tastes good with just rice (no dal required).

Curd rice - VC ishtyle

VC is nominated ot be one of the best cooks in our gang. And though I haven't gotta chance to learn a lot of dishes from her but there is one simple thing I learnt and that is her delicious curd rice. And then you'd ask - how much more can you engineer a curd -rice. Well read on ...
That's how I make it.
You need - Curd and rice, fresh ginger, carrot. Red chillies and coriander.
1) In a pan - heat a little bit of oil (I use olive oil for my cooking). Add some mustard seeds, some dal, if you hace red chillies then couple of them.
2) I then add curd and then grate lots of carrot and ginger on top of it. I add a little water too and switch off the gas.
3) Then I add some well boiled rice to it. and mix well.
4) Store in fridge - serve cold :).

My mom loved it so much that whn I was in India I made it almost everyday. Also though my boy-friend doesn't eat rice (health freak), he did eat it. Nothing works better in Indian heat. Since I am calling Bama for dinner this eve then be ready for the photgraph soon.

chai - but no milk ?

Ever ran into the case when you wanted chai but found your milk can empty. Well Mary introduced me to Milkmaid tea and trust me it sometimes tastes better than the normal milk tea even without ginger!
It's simple - pour water - boil some tea leaves till the water is tea colored and the tea seems completely boiled. Strain the tea and get it into the cup.
Add two teaspoons of milkmaid to it.
That's it. No need to add sugar. Try it out. You can always have few milk maid cans tucked away in some neglected shelf without worrying really hard about their expiry. Moreover milk maid is my personal favourite and I manage to add two spoons in my mouth before adding two spoons in the tea :) .

P.S- Yup you are right! The cup in the adjoining picture is empty :).

Soupy chicken curry for grad students

This works well for grad students who do not really want to struggle with multiple steps involved in cooking. Kamra introduced me to it and Paramesh has testified that it tastes great. So have I. I recommended it to my dad too but he said everything except the chicken cooked.
Ingredients - onions, tomatoes, jeera, ginger-garlic paste and chicken.
1) In a cooker - heat a little oil - add jeera (i also add bay leaves and cloves), ginger-garlic paste. Fry for a minute - add onions and 2-4 tomotoes - both coarsely chopped. Add green/red chillies, haldi, a little bit of garam masala too. Add a little water - add chicken.
2) Boil in high till a whistle. Put the cooker to sim - boil in low till another whistle.
That's it :). Serve hot with rice Haven't made chicken in my house for ages- will make some and post the pic.

aloo methi

Yup this is my favourite :)). In India the biggest pain for my mom was getting the methi leaves and cutting it leaf by leaf. For me thanks to Deep we have frozen packs of methi leaves.

It's the simplest and you can try out the alternatives too.

Ingredients - Potatoes, methi leaves, kasoori methi pack (optional), red/green chillies, a couple of cloves. Some babylos cheese (this I accidentally bought instead of yoghurt but it gave me a great creamy flavor. You can drop this ingredient totally or choose yoghurt (didnt try this) instead.

1) Peel potatoes. Cut them. Cut some onions too.

2) heat oil in pan (some people use butter but i would avoid). Add some cumin seed, 2 cloves, may be cinnamon(I don't know where my mom has displaced that so I did not put it)

3) Add onions and fry.

4) Add potatoes. Cook them well. (Tip - you can boil the potatoes in your microwave in advance and that would work well too).

5) Once potatoes are cooked - add methi leaves and let them cook (if you are using frozen methi leaves it is a good idea to let them defreeze beofe putting it in).

6) Add cheese (optionally can add some milk - it takes away the bitterness of methi )

(my mom skips point 6)

7) Now patience baby patience - cook till methi is soft and tender

Serve hot with roti.

Alternative - you can add good amount of yoghurt + milk and some peas and leave it watery to make it methi malai mutter :)

Eggplant with yoghurt

Yup that was my first try a few weeks ago- I took a snap of what I cooked so that I can email it to my mom but well the photgraph had higher purpose in life.

This dish is originally from Orissa. You require the follwing:

Eggplant (Brinjal) - obviously and yoghust (obviously again).

Apart from that you need to have usual stuff like haldi, red chilli powder, jeera, garam masala etc and red/green chillies, coriander (optional), onion, tomatoes.

1) Cut brinjals veritcally (I prefer small brinjals from indian stores). Apply haldi and little salt on them and fry them in the oil till they are cooked.

2) In a heating pan, all all your jeera etc and fry cut onions till they are translucent. Add tomatoes (1 or 2 is enough) too and cook till the tomatoes melt to form puree.

3) In a separate vessel put yoghurt + little water and add your brinjals.

4) Put point 3 stuff in point 2. Cook for a few mins and tunoff your gas.

All this looks a littlebit like the photo below. Since it was monday night I didnt cut half of my brinjals so the photo is not the best representatative of how the recipe would look. But nonetheless...

Alternatives: My mom uses coconut onion, gingler garlic paste instead sometimes and that tastes awesome too. I wil ltry that out soon.

Bottom-less pit

Ask a girl on a weightloss program to think of something - what comes in her head - umm - food ? Think something else - umm -umm - tasty food.
yup - and I am on a futile weightloss program (futile coz i have been feasting on buttery indian hotel food for last few days) and am thinking about food a lot lately( more than I am thinking about my boyfriend). So thought I will hone my culinary skill and document all the good recipes I have tried and tasted.
And I really wanted to name this blog bottomless-pit however seems like that is taken away and to continue with the naming convention I have used so far - I will name my blog aratikadav456 (aratikadav123 vis already taken :)). Hope my lazy sunday afternoons will keep this blog fairly updated. Also if the camera that I stole from saurabh does not let me down - my recipes will be accompanied by some photos :).
And here is my only oath - I wouldn't post anything that I haven't tried out on my own.