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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Indian Lentils : Photo-by-photo

Time for another healthy, Indian side perfect with my Daily Tiffin... It's a spiced-mixed-lentil-soup... What I have is the entire process, in images, and a caption to do with it.. I hope it helps...

Soaking the Lentils. I took 1 part each of Arhar, Masoor, Moong.. and soaked them in water for a couple of hours.

Now to temper it, we would be needing, Cumin Seeds, chopped Onions, Curry Leaves, Chopped Tomatoes.

Now heat oil in a Pressure Cooker. When heated enough, add the Curry leaves, Cumin Seeds and let them temper and fly around. Then add Onions. And let them brown a bit.

When the Onions are sautéed well, tumble in the chopped Tomatoes..

Then here's a concoction of Salt, Turmeric and Red Chillies. Add it to the Onion-Tomato mixture.

Now add the soaken-lentils and 4 times the water..

Put the lid of the pressure cooker on, wait till the whistle blows. Then turn the heat to slow and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes. and let it stand till it cools down.


 Add fresh lemon juice and chopped coriander, for that near perfection... Served hot with Daily Tiffin.

Friday, July 16, 2010

My Daily Tiffin


I believe Indian cuisine if prepared carefully, can be extremely nutritious, well-balanced and quite effortlessly colourful, which in turn just multiplies your appetite. My daily lunch or tiffin comprises of a veggie dish with bread or lentil curry with rice/bread. Food, which is simple, fresh, and hygienic, would surely keep the body and mind in peace..

Potato dish with Roti

2 Potatoes, peeled & cubed
Green Chillies, cut lengthwise
Jeera (Cumin seeds)
Rai (Mustard seeds)
Salt
Turmeric
Red Chilly Powder
Curry Leaves
Oil

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a non-stick pan. My non-stick has worn out considerably, so I had to use more oil.

Temper the oil with Cumin, Mustard, Curry Leaves and Green Chillies...

Let the oil take in the flavours..

Then add the cubed Potatoes and toss around.
Keep the flame sim, and cover the pan. Keep stirring after sometime to prevent the Potatoes from sticking to the pan.
As the Potato cubes start getting golden-brown, add the seasonings (Salt,Turmeric, Red Chilly Powder), cover with a lid and let the Potatoes cook completely...
Garnish with chopped mint leaves and coriander...

Now to go with it,some Indian flat bread, Roti...

Knead some Wheat flour with cold water and make a soft dough.

Using a rolling pin, flat out into thin discs; Don't worry about a perfect circle, closest will do...

Put the rolled out dough on a hot plate/tawa, and let both sides turn a little brown.

Then turn the flame on high and let the roti swell into a flavourful, aromatic puff of wheat.

Enjoy the wholesome richness of simple ingredients with wonderful flavours.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

"Cooking is like making love..

..you do it well, or you do not do it at all."
How true are the lines above!! Comparing 2 exquisite arts as they belonged to one another; Timeless; Exotic; Stress-relieving and not to mention liberating like hell, with amazing dangers involved.. I have never been able to blog about food, despite dreaming and indulging in it all day.. No wonder, I believe in the saying that "Skinny cooks can't be trusted.." If you can't even eat it yourself, how could you make others even enjoy it??

So, under the continuous thunderstorm of taunts of using the new microwave as just a heating device or rice maker; I decided to utilize it better or rather, in a complex way!! So I have Samsung G273V, which is a 20L grill microwave oven..
Now, all my experience of cooking in a conventional grill oven were wasted, when I realized I have none experience of using a microwave for baking purposes.. Well, that would be taken care off later, but the urgent matter at hands were of finding a suitable recipe first.. So thanks to TasteSpotting, I came across some wonderful baked products which looked good and tasted even better.. I decided to take the base of Chocolate Cake from Bits of Taste and add it the cinnamon from the Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt Cake. What say??

Now, quite obviously, some ingredients native to foreign countries would be impossible to find here, in India.. So I had to manage things by trial and error, to suit Indian conditions..
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder / I used Cadbury's Cocoa Powder (the Purple tin one)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour / I used plain Maida
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder / Instead of baking soda, I used 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, so in total 1 teaspoon
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso or instant coffee / I used Nescafe instant coffee
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil / I used salted butter (softened in microwave at lowest power)
1 large egg / I used 3 (Since they filled the cup, I measured everything with)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Cinnamon sticks (as much as you like it..)

Method:
1. I first coated the inside of a glass baking dish with molten butter.

2. Then in boiling water, I dissolved the cocoa powder.

3. First I thought of putting the sugar directly in the eggs, but decided to ground the sugar and cinnamon together first.

4. Using a sift, I mixed together the flour, baking powder and instant coffee in a large bowl.

5. Now, my food processor came as a blessing in disguise for me, as dissolving the sugar in the liquids is the worst task ever invented in baking. I started whisking the 3 eggs in the food processor and added the sugar.. After a giving a minute fighting the flying splashes of sweet eggs, I added the melted butter, vanilla essence and cooled cocoa mixture.

6. Now by this time, the beige colored eggs mixture had turned sweet-brown and started to jump even more out of the food-processor's lid.. It's quite the task now, but add the flour mixture in step#4, spoon-by-spoon into the cocoa-egg whirlpool..

7. Give it a minute and then turn the food processor off. Then I removed the batter in the baking dish..

8. Now I got reminded of Golden rule of Baking, "Preheating the oven", the manual clearly said, "Never operate the oven empty".. So I just placed the dish in the microwave and chose Combination Cooking ( Microwave+Grill ) with 600W of Microwave for 9 minutes.. Now then I kept looking, peeping, glancing, glueing my eye to the Microwave door, hoping to register the progress of my beloved cake.. And there, Lord, Behold!! It Rose!!...

9. After 9 Minutes, I chose the Grill function and let it brown at the top for 4 minutes.. Then it started to hit, the CINNAMON.. It filled the entire kitchen and the home.. Tempting!!

10. Who would have thought, Cake in a Microwave!! :D

The glaze shown the picture is Chocolate syrup by Mapro, additional.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Butterscotched!!!

Fruit and cakes usually don't mix well, but here's a try which worked out pretty good..

DRY INGREDIENTS:
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar

WET INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter (I used AMUL which is salted any ways)
1 cup eggs (break eggs into the same cup used above, till it's full)
3-4 well ripe bananas

I used a microwave oven with combination heating (Microwave+Grill)...

1. First I greased a baking dish with molten butter.

2. In a large bowl, I put together the dry ingredients (Flour, Sugar and Baking Powder).

3. In a separate bowl, I mixed the eggs with butter.

4. When it turned creamy, I put in the roughly chopped bananas and mixed it using a fork...Don't over mix the bananas into the batter

5. Then add the dry ingredients into the wet ones; gently fold until just even.

6. If the batter is dry, add milk until it reaches the normal cake consistency.

7. Pour batter into baking dish. I used a setting of 600W with Grill for 14 minutes.. You would have to adjust accordingly!!!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Chargrilled Eggplant


It's a very unusual dish to kick off a food blog, but It's one of favourite dishes, very earthen, very country-side.. My mothers makes it the best, with just a correct amount of extra oil, spice and flavour...

A key to a good chargrilled eggplant dish (Baigan Bharta) is a good, ripe but not very seeded eggplant. Hold 2 similar sized eggplants, 1 in each hand; one feeling lighter than the other would be the better and lesser seeded... The eggplant I used was 15cm (6") X 7cm (3") approx., and weighed around 400gms.. Here, in India, the gas stove is predominately used, so roasting  the eggplant on the stove is quite easy; All those using an oven or a hotplate, could try it too, but I am not sure how the grilling would look like!

List of ingredients:
1 mid-sized Eggplant (roasted)
2 Onions (roughly chopped)
4 Tomatoes (mashed/purred/chopped)
2 Green Chillies (cut into small)
1" Ginger piece (sliced)
Turmeric
Red Chilly powder
Salt to taste
Coriander to garnish (the more the better)
Tomatoes, Green Chillies, Ginger, Onions
Now time to roast the eggplant. This is usually done by putting a stove-customized grill over the gas burner; Me not having any, just put the washed eggplant on the gas and let it burn away.. Keep rotating and turning over the eggplant for even roasting of all sides..  Keep it on lowest heat and the warm, burning. earthy smell will tell you when the eggplant is done.. Alternatively, insert a clean knife to check the softness..
Eggplant on the gas stove.
When the burning aroma sets in, turn off the heat, and put the burn-scared eggplant in a bowl of water. This will cool down the eggplant and help in peeling off the skin..
Now chop the skinned burnt mash of the eggplant and remove some seeds, if any... Then, roughly chop onions, and slice the ginger.

In a wok (Kadhai) heat some oil. Now at my home, this dish is made with extra oil i.e. extra love, but you needn't fall prey to that.. It would tale just as delicious with minimum oil.. If you use a non-stick wok (Teflon coated), the dish can be had while dieting also..

Then added sliced ginger and chopped onions. Saute them till golden brown. Add chilly pieces and cook some more...

Then add chopped tomatoes, and salt.. Cook with a lid on and medium heat till the tomatoes are mashed and there is oil on top.. You might need to stir in between to prevent the onion-tomato mix from sticking and burning...

Now you can add the turmeric powder and red chilly powder.. Green peas are also added when they are in season, or now-a-days, frozen peas have defied the laws of mother nature, so you needn't wait for winter to get those luscious, green pods.. I like peas, but not in this, so I would chuck that step...

Now turn the chopped up eggplant mess into the onion-tomato mix and stir, mash, cook, stamp, to make sure that the eggplant is totally dissipated into the spiced gravy.. Cook for few minutes on low-medium heat till it's pretty dry.. Garnish with chopped coriander, and enjoy with Paranthas, Rotis...


I know not many kids like to have Brinjals, but studies show that Brinjal can help lower cholesterol... :) Okay, which type of brinjal do you use in your cooking, normally?
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