Perfected palak dal

Palak dal and rice is my comfort food. It is also easy to make and I have been making it for years. Here is my perfected and simplistic recipe for palak dal.


1) Boil dal and palak with haldi in cooker. Add a clove of garlic. Cook the dal till one whistle. It should be perfectly boiled.
2) Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic, one green chilli and chop 1 whole tomato.
3) Take ghee/butter, add jeera, garlic and green chillies. Fry them till the garlic almost begins to burn.(The taste of garlic comes out better when it is turned brown) Add tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes melt.
4) Open the cooker, add the result of point 3 and keep the open cooker on the gas in simmer for sometime till the dal comes to a full boil (take a minute or 2).

Eat with rice :). Or eat as is if you are on diet.

Simple Jaggery coconut sweet dish

This is my fav sweet dish.

Ingredients:
1) rice half cup
2) fresh coconut - half shell
3) jaggery - size of your fist - assuming one has a normal sized fist - also amount of jaggery determines the sweetness of this recipe. (jaggery is not an english word? My spell check showing problem)
4) For garnish - your favorite dry fruits- cashew and raisins work wonderfully for south indian dishes, cardomom and ghee.

Method:
1) Soak rice in water for 30 mins to 1 hour.
2)Hope you are lucky with your jaggery and it is soft so you can cut it in small pieces and boil it in water. I was very unlucky the first time as the jaggery was harder than diamond - so i just boiled the whole thing in water to soften it and then cut it in smaller pieces. Sometimes the vessel tends to burn then one can put the vessel (with jaggery and water) inside another vessel with water and then boil till things are soft. Actually it is not that tough to boil jaggery. So don't get intimidated by this step.
3) Cut the coconut into small pieces.
4) In a mixie grind rice and coconut and some water together till it is a coarse paste.
5) To the ground paste add some water and boil. The rice cooks pretty fast (unless you didn't soak it well enough). You can add cardomom too at this stage. I am always wary of too much cardomom in sweet dishes.
6) Hope by this time - the jaggery has melted. So add the jaggery and add water to determine the desired consistency and sweetness.
7) In a pan heat ghee - fry the cashews. I finely chop or crush them as it is nice to get a piece of cashew in your bite. Some folks fry raisins also but i hate fried raisins so i just add raisins directly. Add the fried dry fruits to the dish
8) Very very important step- cool - this dish tastes better the second day. I am not seriously not kidding.

Enjoy :)!

Methi dishes

I love Aloo methi made any which way. But sometimes people don't like methi because of its excessive bitter taste.

But to any methi that is made - one can add dry mango powder at the end and it gives a nice tangy taste.

Coconut stew

I had eaten Appam and coconut stew at MCA and became a big fan of it. I thought of trying it at home but was too lazy to cut vegetables.
But the grocery store in front of my house started stocking precut vegetables. Boon for lazy souls like me! So I thought I could give coconut stew a try and it came out really well.

Ingredients
1) Either the precut veggie pack that contains - carrots benas and cauliflower.
OR
1a) Take carrots- dice it in small pieces
1b) Take beans - cut it in small pieces - this could be painful - i always hate cutting beans
1c) Take cauliflower - cut in small pieces - or one can use potatoes but cauliflower does add certain dimension
2) Green Peas
3) Coconut milk
4) Laung or cloves 5-6
5) Cinnamon stick 1-2

P.S: One of my tamilian friend's mom told me that the goal of such dishes is to have 5 different colored veggies so feel free for any combination one desires.

Method is super simple:
1) Boil all veggies with salt and cloves and cinnamon stick.
2) Once they are boiled - in another pan add a cup full of coconut milk and dilute it with water. Put the veggies and boil eveything together for some more time.

One might want to add a few cloves in step 2 to get the right taste.

Secret ingredient to black eyed peas and egg curry

One can make black eyed peas and egg curry the traditional way (boil, make onion-tomato - ginger garlic curry) etc and it is fairly nice.
But.
But if one adds even a teaspoon of coconut milk (available in india under the brand Homemade for 26 bucks now!) then the dish just becomes really really tasty.

Easiest Baigan ka bharta

Easiest because you need not even cut the onions!
But there is a secret ingredient - sarson ka tel (mustard oil).

I was always reluctant to cook baigan ka bhurta - what will all the mess it creates on the gas stove. None the less - priya showed me a recipe and I have become a fan.

Ingredients:
1) Large eggplant/brinjal/baigan 1
2) Tomatoes 1-2
3) Green chillies 2-3
4) Sarson ka tel -one teaspoon
5) Garlic - 4-5 cloves
6) Coriander (optional)

1) Roast the egg plant on the gas stove. Alternatively you can do it on microwave too. Just poke it enough
2) Let it cool
3) De-skin it
4) Mash it- if it is getting painful -run it in a mixie but for a split sec - you don't want baigan chutney (though someone told me that makes a good mexican dish)
5) Then cut tomatoes - add to it. Finely chop green chillies and garlic - add to it.
6) Add 1-2 teaspoon of mustard oil. No need to add salt. Just mix it.

It is a cold and makes a good side-dish/ salad.

P.S: My mother's version is hot version where she cooks everything together in gas and adds onion too. One can try that as well.

Capsicum with gram flour

I swear by this dish. I just loved it so much. The only caveat is that it is a "dry" dish". So folks might have to accompany it with tomato chutney or something saucy else the meal becomes very dry.

The recipe is from my mami (my mother's brother's sister) and she is one of the most wonderful cook I have met.

Here are the ingredients:
1) Sauf - fennel seeds
2) Amchur - dried mango powder
3) Onions - finely chopped
4) capsicum - finely chopped
5) gram flour - a couple of cups

1) In a pan - add oil, and give tadka with cumin seeds and sauf - (good amount)
2) Add onions and let them turn pink.
2b) Add your normal things - haldi, dhania powder etc.
3) Ad capsicum and let it cook.
4) Now add besan(gram flour) and let it cook - Don't add water.
5) Add good amount of amchur to it also.
6) If it gets too dry, sprinkle few drops of water to let it cook. The besan turns dark brown when cooked.

Serve and eat - it is very tasty.

Alternatively - if you have small sized capsicum. You can do everything except step 3 and stuff it in capsicum and let the capsicum cook and serve hot.

Fried cauliflowers with yoghurt

Seattle's med kitchen serves an interesting starter of cauliflower (whose portion size is so huge that it is good enough for main course for two! I have never been able to repro it. The below recipe suggested by Richa might work minus the lamb part.

http://lailablogs.com/?p=527

I should try.

Quesadilla

For people who lived in US and enjoyed good mexican food, here is a quick and easy way to make it - from Richa Hingle. I will try to repro it with some mushrooms and baked beans and ofcourse roti.

http://hobbyandmore.blogspot.com/2010/01/grilled-veggie-quesadilla.html


---

And I tried. But changed the ingredients to suit average indian kitchen.
In US, mexican beans and rice (burrito in a bowl) reminded Ankur of rajma chawal and we would eat that a lot. When back in India, the rajma that my maid was cooking reminded me of mexican food. Richa's recipe came handy and I thought of trying the following for lunch.

Ingredients:
- 2 rotis
- 1 teaspoon of olive or any other oil.
- kidney beans boiled (Rajma) - one can keep some aside when you cook rajma for big family dinner.
- rice
- fresh cilanthro
- lemon
- corn (optional (i didnt use it)
- bell peppers (Capsicum) - one can boil them in rice for a bit
- tomato sauce

- yoghurt for dressing

Method:
1) In a pan add few spoons of tomato sauce and some kidney beans to make a saucy combo. Add salt to taste.
2) Add fresh coriander and lemon to it.
3) Boil little bit rice in microwave, maybe with some bell peppers (capsicum).
4) Mix 1-3 (note it shouldn't be watery, just a little saucy)
5) In a non stick pan - add some oil - put roti - let it become crispy. Do that with other roti too. Set one aside.
6) Atop one roti - spread the mixture of step 4. Put the second roti and sandwich the mixture. Flip and let them cook and become crispy.
7) Cut and serve them in a plate and serve with some yoghurt and left over mixture.

Actually I like mixture a lot with some yoghurt. It tastes just like rajma chawal :).

Ripe mango curry

There is a interesting story behind this. Saurabh was surfing channels and he started shouting "Arati Arati". I came running and he said - "look this guy is cooking ripe mango". I said : Raw mango". He said "no ripe mango ".
It is highly unlikely that saurabh notices a cookery show on tv and I dunno if such an event will happen again in this millennium. So well the cook made the dish and he himself was loving it so much and I wonder if he was acting or not but he sure was getting hysterical. Well, when I made it, I couldn't help freaking out after tasting it. Infact I ate away more than half of it before saurabh could come back from work.

Ingredients:
1) Ripe mangoes -the bigger the better
2) Sesame seeds (til) (1-2 spoons)
3) Curry leaves
4) Fresh ground coconut (fistful)
5) green chillies
6) jeera
7) Yoghurt
8) Red chillies
9) Mustard seeds

1) Peel mangoes
2) Cut the mangoes in two ways - one in slices and one minced.
3) Take ingredients (2-6) and grind them in the mixie.
4) In a pan add the ground paste from 3 and add the minced mangoes. Let it cook.
5) After a while add yoghurt to it.
6) Now add the big slices of mangoes and cover it for some time so that the slices become soft with steam.
7) In another pan add oil - put red chillies and mustard seed and curry leaves.
8) Mix it with 6 and yeah the tangy ripe mango curry is ready to be served.
Yes it was really good.

Mustard Fish / Wasabi Fish

I learned this authentic Bengali recipe from vikramjit's mother when I visited calcutta and made it for Vicky when he came here. I think he felt it was pretty close to what his mom made (except that I used Surmai fish and not Bangda). Alexus who accompanied him (and I felt that Alexus wouldn't like it), called this fish Wasabi fish as the gravy was close to the Wasabi sauce, and he being a sushi fan, liked it too.

Well also - this fish curry is the EASIEST fish curry I have come across, there is less mess too while cooking and though Bengalis use mustard oil, you can really do away with the oil.

Ingredients:
1) Mustard seeds (2 table spoons)
2) Khus khus (poppee seeds) - 3-4 teaspoons
3) 2-3 cloves of garlic
4) 7-8 green chillies
5) Fish
6) Salt
(yes the ingredient list is really minimal)
Method:
1) In a blender, blend together mustard seeds , poppy seeds ,garlic, 1 green chilli and water to smooth yellow paste with a strong mustard smell.
2) Add the paste in a pan, add the remaining green chillies (slit) and the fish. Let the fish get boiled and cooked.
3) Add salts to taste

That's it!! Simple and nice with the flavour of fish and mustard coming across. Eat with steamed rice.
P.S: Saurabh couldn't get his share of the fish as it got ove before he could start digging. So the onus on me is to actually make this dish again - exclusively for him. And my maid is telling that she broke the mixer so well, I guess he has to wait :(.

Simple chicken biryani

Last week I made chicken (that I really didn't want to eat but my husband really wanted to eat and went and bought without informing). So the easist thing to make with chicken was chicken biryani. I decided to settle for a recipe that was an extension of my Veg Biryani recipe and it came out just fine...
I will share my simple recipe below... This works if you are a grad student or if you and your loved ones have simple non fussy low cal taste or if it were a lazy Sunday afternoon and your maid had taken off or if you have no maid.

Ingredients:
1) Chicken(I would always go for boney chicken - the bones add to taste)
2) Onions (finely chopped)
3) Tomatoes (finely chopped)
4) Ginger garlic paste (these days I don't go for the one that we get in the market but opt for homemade. That day even homemade was not available so I took few garlic cloves and half a piece of ginger and tried to crush them (didn't use mixie))
5) Some yoghurt (this was the first time I used it - it is kinda optional but it really adds a great taste)
6) 5-6 Cloves (must for any biryani actually)
7) all the random masala you have - whole black pepper, bay leaves, cardomom, jeera etc

Method:
1) In a cooker - add a little < 1 table spoon oil let it heat.
2) Add jeera, crushed cloves and let the aroma of cloves come.
3)Add other spices and onion. The oil should be good for onions to turn *golden brown* without sticking to the pan bottom. Note - Turning golden brown is crucial for its taste to come else there is no need to add onion.
4)Add tomatoes. And let it melt. Add salt , garam masala, haldi, red chilli powder.
4b) Add yoghurt to form a paste
5) Add chicken and let it immerse in the paste created above.
6) Add rice and enough water to cook the rice (my water proportion is always in excess - try 1:1.5 mebbe) - figuring that out is almost 6th sense :).
7) Let it come to a boil - with 1 whistle in simmer heat. Simmer and one in full heat. Varies with cooker to cooker.

Its cooked and ready to serve with some raita made with yoghurt and onions nad a little salt :).



P.S: Here is one recipe I came upon net today - it closely apporximates my recipe but has a little bit of hulla bulla :). I would recommend this if you are inviting guests over: http://enjoyindianfood.blogspot.com/2008/10/chicken-pullao.html

A little change of flavor - Mud Slide

Ah well - sorry about that my non-alcoholic friends or those who believe that I am non-alcoholic... I am most of my life and am very choosy what I take in ...sweet and strong red wine for example - rare to find but VC shares my taste and tips me with good bottles...anyways Priya and Pankaj - my sis-in-law and her husband are into hospitality business. One of the joints they own is the Pub "Beach" in Bangalore. And whenever I go there - I indulge in the mudslide (apart from Mojitos)there and finally I have figured out the recipe...(actually saw it in a newspaper)
Vodka (30 ml)
Kahlua (15 ml)
Baileys (15 ml)
Secret ingredient - Vanilla icecream (1/2 spoon)
Blend well in a blender and served with crushed ice.
I will try and let you know...

Fish curry - attempt to make it similar to Highway gomantak

Highway Gomantak is my favourite place for fish curry in the world. And their food is so light on stomach and so tasty that I just cannot resist going there every alternate time we go out. I wish I could go there more often but Saurabh doesn't like seafood that much.
Here is one attempt to make my curry taste like theirs. I must say I was fairly successful. See pic.
Well I did some reverse engineering to figure it out. And some experimentation too (coz I added tomato and I know that they don't add tomato).
Ingredients:
1) Pomfret fish (1 fish)
2) Grated coconut - handful of it
3) 1/2 lemon
4) 1 tomato
5) 1 onion
6) fresh garlic
7) fresh ginger
8) Dhania powder, lotsa haldi, red chilli powder, jeera

Method:
Mix 2-7 and grind it in a mixie. Make a good paste.
Add a little oil in the paste and add ingredients in point 8 and grind again. This trick I learnt from my maid.
Heat a little oil in a pan. Add this mixture into it. Saute for a while. Note our onion is not cooked and it takes a while to cook so do let it cook for a while. Add fish pieces. Add water if required (and you will require). And let the fish cook. Pomfret cooks fairly fast.

Pomfret/King Fish Fry + coriander garlic lemon brown rice

The recipe that I learned from Paramesh (very spicy):
Key ingredient - Badshah Fish Masala (he would insist that no other masala is good :))
Ingredients list:
1) Badshah fish masala (1 table spoon)
2) Red chilli powder (1 teaspoon)
3) Turmeric powder (4 teaspoon)
4) Ginger Galic paste (1 teaspoon)
5) 1 lemon
6) Pomfret cut in thin slices

Mix 1-5 to make a paste. Add pomfret pieces to it and coat the pieces well. Let it marinate for atleast 30 minutes.
In a non-stick tawa add some olive oil. Add these pieces and fry them till they are golden brown.


My own recipe (very mild) - sometimes I like only the taste of the fish:
1) Lemon
2) 1 teaspoon haldi
3) 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
4) Rawa

Marinate your fish with a coating of 1-3 for atleast 30 mins.
Take rawa in a plate. In a non-stick tawa add some olive oil. Coat your marinated fish pieces in rawa and fry them.



Recipe of coriander garlic lemon brown rice
The name itself is sufficient - this is my own recipe and quite a hit with myself and saubhy (husband)

Chocolat

This recipe from monalisa hota- I will link to my version as soon as I try it out... kamra als ohad his 2 cents (look for at the end of the blog)
My hot chocolate (as put together intuitively based on other recipes from the net):

Ingredients (for 1 cup of hot chocolate):
1 packet Hershey's spl. dark hot chocolate mix;

1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp coffee
a pinch of chilli peppers
2 TBS chocolate chips or plain dark chocolate
whipped cream (optional)

1. melt the chocolate chips (along with chilli peppers and coffee) INDIRECTLY. You could put them in a ceramic bowl/cup and put that over hot water. Occasionally supply heat until it melts. Then add about 1/4th warm milk little by little and heat the mixture until it blends well and is thick. ( I read somewhere that if chocolate is melt this way, it tastes better).
2. In another cup, pour the mix and add little cup warm milk to it to make the mix muddy.
3. Mix both mixtures and heat over low flame until it simmers for 2-3 min. Add the remaining milk gradually while stirring. Keep stirring to prevent from sticking on the bottom. When its thick enough like a syrup, pour out into a mug and have a blast. (you may add whipped cream but it won't stay over the hot chocolate).
You can of course make it as thick or thin to your taste by adding water/milk.
Enjoy the deadly mix!!!


Kamra's 2 cents:
In step 2) the mix is the 'Hershey's spl. dark hot chocolate mix'. It can be replaced be any cocoa mix. But the more bitter and less sugary it is, the better it would be. We couldn't find such a cocoa mix though. Right mona ?

Chilli peppers is the key here. But put very little otherwise it can become really hot.

and I guess if those chocolate chips were also dark and less sugary it would have tasted better.

veg korma

I looked for the recipe all over but couldn't find one that was doable. Cashew paste alteranative of G3 is something I am yet to try. So anyways tehre were so many versions - that I added one more version of mine to teh net. This is my own way of doing it. I am thinking of copyrighting so that no stupid software engg copies it and pastes it on her own blog.

Ingredients: mix veg (carrot, peas, beans), cottage cheese (paneer), 2-3 spoons of yoghurt, ginger garlic paste, fresh coconut (optional)

1) Boil mix vegetable pack
2) I na pan, add oil, mustard seeds, ground cloves.
3) Add onions and fry til lthey turn brown and your neighbours complain of strong onion smell
4) add tomoatoes and fry (dont let it totally melt)
5) add mixed veggies, add diced paneer (cottage cheese cubes)
6) Add a little fresh coconut (option)
7) Add yoghurt and mix

paneer achari :)

This is a starter dish (then serve it with mint chutney) or as a side dish in main course. I tried it at bama's place yesterday and she gave me an idea of the recipe. Actually I just cooked it and I find it really heavy. But it is super yummy. And relatively simple. No fancy requirements. A good candidate to try on my folks in India as well when I am there with them.
Ingredients:
1) Sauf - fennel seeds (I promise this is the only out of the blue ingredient - rest are common stuff)
2) Your usual spices- jeera, mustard seeds, cloves, bay leaves etc
3) Ginger garlic paste
4) Yoghurt (as thick as possible - preferable drain the water - that's what bama told me but I am a lazy bum)
5) paneer
6) really really finely chopped onion (the finely chopped part is very important - also no paste of onions)

Steps:
1) Heat oil in pan, add the cloves, bay leaves, jeera, sauf (fennel seeds), mustard, red chillies (I forgot this time but i think this will add a good rustic touch).
2) Once done, add the finely chopped onions. I added 1 and half onion for 5/6th of the paneer (around 1 pound) that I get in mayuri.
3) I fried it till it turned pink. This took a while.
4) Add 1 spoon of ginger garlic paste (I put the one i buy from market, my mom hates the idea of not usign fresh stuff:( ), added garam masala, red chilli powder, dhania powder and haldi.
5) Once i thought things are cooked, I added 2-3 tablespoon of yoghurt. Enough yoghurt so that al ltthe paneer drowns in it.
6) Once the yoghurt seemed done (oil started seprating fro mthe corners), I added paneer cubes.

For the folks like Bama who work hard:
1) Marinate this mixture overnight. Or atleast for a few hours
2)Next day grill this in your oven.
This would be a starter with mint chutney

For folks like me that is catch (...) :
1) I had a flat bottomed non-stick tava pan (what are these things called officially?).
2) I heated up a little oil and in 2 batches ( I really had a lot of paneer) placed a layer of paneer on it.
3) Once one side was doen I turned it.
You can see the pics of it when placed in tava and once out of it on my serving bowl.
I personally feel (after eating) that marinating a little while it will give a good flavour to paneer.
Also my onions were from Indian store. I think that was a lucky co-incidence for my dish.

shrimps when you have nothing but shrimps

Ok- disclaimer - this is meant for kitchens in US coz I know even when the kitchen is empty - we have onion and frozen grated coconut in stock. And if you don't then you cook less frequently than once in 3 months. So those are my ingredients:
1) Onion
2) grated coconut
3) shrimp

Actually to begin with I only had 1 and 3. But then I remembered that coconut might blend in well and then I remembered taht G3 had fed this to me so I became more confidant.
So here is the recipe:
1) finely - really finely - chop onions. No shortcuts here
2) Heat oil, add cumin seeds, 1/2 cloves, green chillies (if you have them) etc
3) Add the onion and fry till they are golden brown - that stage comes after they turn pink :).
You can add your garam masala, haldi, mirchi, dhania powder at this stage
4) Add the shrimps
5) As an after thought I added good amount of coconut
6) Then I cooked it on and on til lthe shrimps were done
7) I garnished it with some fresh coriander leaves (I know i know - the title of this post is misleading ;) )

It tastes fairly good with the rotis.

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.