All Posts, Salads

Avocado Egg Salad

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I spent a few months with a German friend, who (obviously) made awesome potato salads. And both of us being small eaters who are very fond of salads, that was almost always dinner. So we’d experiment with whatever was in the fridge. This came up one day as a result of those experiments.

Now, avocados are tricky to pick. If you need help with choosing good ones, click here.

Serves 2 – 4
Time: 20 min

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado
2 boiled eggs
1 small potato, boiled and peeled (optional)
½ onion, chopped
1 tbsp chopped dill leaves
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp mustard sauce
Salt and pepper

Method:

Scoop the avocado flesh and shell the eggs.

Mash the avocado, eggs and potato gently. Too much pressure will make it pasty. You want it to retain some shape, so be gentle.

Mix in the onions, dill, mayo and mustard sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

To enhance the taste, refrigerate for about half an hour before serving.

All Posts, Easy Recipes, Mains, Sides

Olan (Pumpkin & Black Eyed Peas Curry)

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Olan: A creamy, light, healthy curry
Olan: A creamy, light, healthy curry

It is quite easy to get me to like a dish. Just add coconut milk! I couldn’t stop eating this the first time I tasted it. And now it is the same story every time I make it.

This is another of those super healthy AND super tasty dishes. One may wonder where the taste even comes from, because there are barely any spices here. But make it once, and you’re hooked!

Traditionally, ginger is not added, but it is an addition I love.

Time taken: 25 min (Overnight soaking required)
Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup lobhiya / van payaru or black eyed peas
1 cup cubed elavan/ ash gourd/ white pumpkin
2 green chilies
1 cup coconut milk
2 tsp ginger (optional)
2 sprigs curry leaves
1 tbsp coconut oil
Salt to taste

Method

Soak the lobhiya in enough water overnight, at least 8-9 hours.

Pressure cook the lobhiya for 8 min, or open cook until done.

Cook the pumpkin with a little water, salt, green chilies and ginger.

When done, add the lobhiya and coconut milk. Bring to a boil and simmer until it reaches the desired consistency. Check for salt.

Heat the coconut oil, add the curry leaves and pour it over the dish. Serve with rice.

All Posts, Desserts

Eggless Banana Cake

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Eggless Banana Cake
Eggless Banana Cake

I wonder why it is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The easiest way to make me happy is to gift me some great food! Isn’t it for most Indians?

Even better if I get the recipe along with the dish 😀

When a friend came over for an advanced Reiki class, he decided to bake a banana cake for me. And the moment I bit into it, I knew that it was made from atta – whole wheat flour, and not refined flour. I wanted the recipe immediately. He had it by-heart!

The most important thing to remember when baking anything with bananas is, the riper the better. It is ok if the banana looks as if it should be thrown away. All those bananas which you think need to go into the bin? Use them here.

This cake is so, so moist, it is amazing. It is also very easy to put together – do not use a blender as it will cause over-mixing and cracking on the surface. Just gently blend with a spatula.

Makes a 10″ cake

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour/ atta
1 cup brown sugar (or ½ white and ½ demerara sugar)
½ cup oil
¼ cup dry fruits and nuts (he used walnuts and cranberries)
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
4 cups mashed banana
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt 3-4 times.

Mix oil and sugar together, using a spatula.

Add banana puree and mix for 2-3 minutes.

Now add the dry fruits, nuts, vanilla essence, stir 2 min and let it sit for 2 minutes.

Slowly stir the flour in, in 3-4 parts. If the batter seems dry, add a bit more oil.

Pour into a 10″ cake tin and bake for 30-40 min until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

All Posts, Mains

Pumpkin Rice

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Rice is a fundamental food in many cultural cuisines around the world. It has ability to provide fast and instant energy, regulate and improve bowel movements, and stabilize blood sugar levels, while also providing an essential source of vitamin B1 to the human body. Do you know that rice slows down the aging process? When I learned Vedic meditation from Tim Mitchell (http://www.vedicmeditation.eu/en/ayurveda/), he told me that after the age of fifty, one should eat rice and not wheat.

We love rice and I am always on the look out to create new preparations with rice. Here is a nice dish that combines pumpkin with rice.

Ingredients:

1 cup rice
200 gms pumpkin
Salt
2 tbsps Oil
1 Bay leaf
½ tsp grated ginger
1 green chilli cut fine
A few curry leaves
¼ tsp Cumin seeds
¼ cup roasted and ground pea nuts
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsps water

Method:

• Cook the rice and keep aside.
• Clean and cube the pumpkin, smear with oil, add salt, roast in the pre heated oven at 250 degrees for ½ hour to 45 minutes. Keep a small bowl of water in the center of the pumpkin pieces so that they won’t dry out.
• Cut the roasted pumpkin into small pieces.

pumpkin
• Heat oil in a thick bottomed vessel; add cumin seeds, when they splutter, add the bay leaf, grated ginger, cut green chilli, and curry leaves. Stir for ten seconds.
• Add the pumpkin pieces, sugar and mix well.
• Add the cooked rice, salt, roasted and ground peanuts, and 2 table spoons of water.

ground nut
• Mix well and remove from the fire after about 4 minutes. Serve hot.

Pumpkin rice

 

Mains

Dal Baati Gatta Churma

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As children, we’d wait for our mother to make this mouth-watering Rajasthani dish. Traditionally baked over charcoal, we would bake it in an oven, and I still remember the excitement every time she would open the oven door.

My mom stuffed it with different fillings – potato, cheese, and that would only add to the excitement. The fact that this is served with two curries, one of which happens to be a favourite – gatte ki subzi, only made things better. Most of the times the meal would end with churma, which we would somehow manage to stuff into our very full stomachs simply because it was so tasty.

If you ever have an opportunity to eat this dish in a village or a Marwari household, skip breakfast and lunch and go for it. It is sometimes served with the baatis dunked in a bucket of ghee, but it is an experience you won’t regret!

So, here goes mom’s recipe for one of my favourite childhood memories.

Ingredients:

Baati

400 gm whole wheat flour (atta) [can add 2 tbsp sooji. we don’t)
⅓ tsp baking soda
2 tbsp ghee
Salt to taste
Water

Dal

Green gram, split, with skin – 1 cup
Green gram, split, without skin – 2 tsps
Udad dal ( black gram without skin) – 2 tsps
Bengal gram (chana dal) – 3 tsps
Salt to taste
Asafoetida – a pinch
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Water – 2 ½ cups

To season:
Ghee – 1 tbsp
Garlic – 5 flakes cut into small pieces
Ginger – ¾ tsp cut into strips
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp in 1 tbsp water

Gatte ki Subzi:

Besan ( Bengal gram flour) – 1 cup
Baking soda – a pinch
Salt to taste
Oil – 2 tsps
Water
Cut coriander leaves and garlic – 1 tsp each (optional)

For gravy:
Ghee – 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Tomatoes -2 big, grate them
Curds – ½ cup
Turmeric powder – 1/3 tsp
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Coriander piwder – ¾ tsp
Garam masala powder – 1/3 tsp
Coriander leaves to garnish

Churma:

Baked baatis (in flattened shape) -2
Sugar -75 gms
Melted ghee – 1/2 cup
Cardamom powder – 1/2 tsp

Instructions:

  • Sieve the wheat flour with baking soda and add salt and ghee.
  • Pour water little by little and knead into stiff dough.
  • Divide into eight portions.
  • Roll each portion between the palms with some pressure and make into a ball.
  • Make a depression on one side with your finger tip.

Two of the portions can be flattened, to make churma later.

  • Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
  • Put all the prepared balls on an oil smeared aluminum foil, with the depression on the top, and the two flattened ones and bake for 30 minutes.
  • Now turn them over and bake for another 15 minutes.

  • You can make stuffed baatis too. Make the potato filling that you prepare for aloo paratha, and fill the battis. I like cheese stuffed baatis very much!
  • Traditionally, Rajasthanis keep the baatis dipped in ghee for some time, then take out, break them between the palms, put on the serving plate and pour more ghee over it. Since it used to be a regular dish for us and we didn’t want to consume too much ghee, I never did that.

Dal:

  • Clean and wash all the dals, put inside the pressure cooker. Add salt, asafetida, water and all the masala powders.
  • Pressure cook for 8 minutes, cool and open.
  • Heat the ghee in a seasoning vessel. Add the cut garlic and ginger.
  • When they brown, close the flame, add the chilli powder in water, mix and pour over the cooked dal.
  • Serve with lemon; it has to be squeezed into the dal before eating.

Gatta sabzi

  • Put two cups of water, with a drop of ghee in it to boil.
  • Mix the first five (or six) ingredients into a smooth dough, divide into four portions.
  • Roll each portion between the palms into long rope. Meanwhile the water is boiling.
  • Reduce the flame and drop each rope into the boiling water and keep medium flame for about ten minutes. You will see the crust forming on the surface, which means they are cooked. Remove from heat, take out the ropes and keep on a plate. Don’t discard the water, we will use it for the gravy.
  • Cut the ropes into roughly ¾ cm rounds.
  • Mash about 6 pieces until smooth.

  • Heat ghee in a thick bottomed pan, add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the grated tomatoes and let it cook for some time.
  • Add all the masala powders, stir, add the beaten curd. Mix well.
  • Add the gatta pieces, mashed gattas, stir and add the water in which gattas were cooked, add salt.
  • Let it simmer for ten minutes on low flame.
  • Garnish with coriander leaves before serving.

Churma

  • Break the baatis into pieces and let them cool.

  • Add the cooled baati pieces to the powdered sugar in the grinder, along with cardamom powder
  • Take it out on a plate, add the melted ghee and mix well
  • You can add mava (khoya) also and mix, if you want to make it more rich.

Dal baati gatta sabzi, churma

Looks like too many things to make? It just needs a little bit of planning, and you can have the entire meal ready within an hour and a half.

Let’s go through the steps. Knead the flour for baati with all the ingredients, place them in the oven and set a timer for 30 minutes. This is important because we are going to be busy with other things and it is easy to forget to turn the battis upside down for further fifteen minutes of baking.

Put  all the ingredients for the dal in the pressure cooker and pressure cook it for eight minutes

Keep the water for boiling gattas on the stove and mix the besan with other ingredients and by this time, the water is boiling. Reduce the flame and slide the besan ropes into the boiling water.

Meanwhile the dal is cooked for eight minutes in the pressure cooker. Remove from the flame and let it cool. Chop the ginger, garlic and put the red chilli powder in water.

Grate the tomatoes. Beat the curds for gatta sabzi.

The besan ropes have developed the crust by now (takes about eight minutes). Drain them from water and cut them into slices.

The timer will go off now. Open the oven and turn all the baatis upside down and keep the timer for fifteen minutes now.

Go ahead and finish making the gatta sabzi.

Open the pressure cooker and season the dal.

The baatis are ready now, so are the dal and gatta sabzi. Set the table with all the things, and before you sit down to eat, break the two flat baatis into pieces and keep on a plate to cool down. After you finish your dal baati gatta sabzi, go ahead and make the churma and enjoy the sweet dish now!

All Posts, Breakfast

Palak Adai Dosa

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palak adai dosa

My mother was visiting a friend, when she was served this dosa. Her friend had learned it in a cooking class and was experimenting at home. My parents loved it and make it often, and it turns out that the friend never had the time to make the dosa again. Destiny.

The first time I ate this dosa, I went ‘wowwwww, its so crispy!’ Look at the edges of the dosa in the picture and you get an idea. If you grind the batter coarsely like I do, you get this delightful, crunchy texture.

You could make this dosa plain, or with add-ons. Traditionally, spinach is added, but I’m sure you could experiment with other things too. I often throw in a handful of other pulses as well. You can spot horse gram in the picture below.

As this dosa has so much more dal than usual, it is higher in protein. Also, because of the dal, I feel that it doesn’t pair too well with sambars or dals, and is best served with just chutney, or maybe even curds.

Time taken: 30 min (Plus time for soaking and fermenting)
Makes 10-12 dosas

Ingredients:

1 cup rice
½ cup toor dal/ pigeon peas
½ cup mung dal
½ cup urad dal or split skinned black gram
½ cup chana dal or Bengal gram

½ onion, chopped finely
1 cup palak or spinach leaves, chopped
1 tsp chopped green chilies (optional)
½ cup grated coconut

1 tsp saunf or aniseed
1 tsp jeera or cumin
2-3 dried red chilies
1 tbsp chopped garlic
Salt to taste

Method:

Soak the dals and rice together for 4-6 hours. Grind into a coarse batter.

 

Fermentation is an optional step in this recipe, so if you have the time, let it sit for a few hours or use immediately.

Grind together the aniseed, cumin, chilies and garlic. Traditionally, this is ground on stone, and that gives a different flavor, but you can use a mortar and pestle or a mixer.

Mix the onions, chilies, spinach, coconut, and the paste into the batter.

Spread on a hot oiled tava or skillet, and flip over when the bottom surface has browned sufficiently. You can check this by raising a corner.

Serve hot with mint and coriander chutney.

All Posts, Breakfast

Ragi Puttu

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Ragi puttu with kadala curry

Did you know that ragi has about 8 times the calcium that rice and wheat contain? Half a cup of ragi flour will take care of a third of your daily calcium needs and half of your daily vitamin B1 (thiamine) needs. How cool is that!

It is also a wonderful food option for diabetics, as it contains no gluten. It also has 3 times the fibre content that rice and wheat have, making it a wonderful digestion aid.

Making ragi puttu is one of the best ways to cook ragi, as it primarily involves steaming, which preserves much higher nutrition compared to other methods of cooking.

Serves 2
Time: 20 min

Ingredients:

2 cups ragi flour
1 cup freshly grated coconut
½ cup water
Salt

puttu-vesselSpecial Equipment:

The puttu vessel is traditionally used to prepare puttu

Substitutions: A coconut shell with one eye pierced and placed over the valve of a pressure cooker might be used as a substitute.
A steamer could also be used.

Method:

Mix boiling water into ragi flour in small quantities. The water is mixed in by rubbing it into the flour, so that the flour becomes granular, resembling the texture of bread crumbs. It should not be too dry or too wet.

Mix 5 tbsp of grated coconut and salt into the flour..

Place a layer of 2-3 tbsp of coconut at the bottom of the puttu vessel and then put the rice flour mixture, followed by another layer of coconut.

Steam for 10 minutes.

Remove the puttu from the vessel and serve hot with kadala or payar curry, plaintains or just sugar and ghee.

All Posts, Desserts

Banana Sheera

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Satyanarayana Puja Prasadams - Banana Sheera
Satyanarayana Puja Prasadams – Banana Sheera

Banana sheera for me always conjures up memories of being invited to beautiful satyanarayan pujas. This was a sweet we never ate at home and was my favourite part of the puja, something I would eagerly look forward to. It was always a bit frustrating to receive so little as prasad, although as kids, we would sometimes turn on the charm and ask for more. The elders were always happy to oblige.

It was such a joy to learn to make this, and it remains one of my favorite dishes to whip up when cousins come visiting, as this is always, always a hit.

Traditionally for the puja, they use 1 cup of all the first five ingredients, along with a cup of water. This being too rich and too sweet for me, I tend to reduce the quantities a bit.

Ingredients:

1 cup semolina/ suji
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup ghee
2 cups milk
1 cup mashed banana
3 tbsp raisins and nuts
¼ tsp nutmeg powder

Method:

Heat the ghee and add the rava. Roast.

While the rava is still roasting, heat the milk and sugar together.

Once the rava is fragrant, pour the hot milk in and continue cooking. Be careful at this stage as the milk tends to boil violently and splash all over the place. Be ready with a lid to be safe.

Cook until it is nearly dry, and then add the raisins and banana.

Take off the flame when it has reached a semi solid consistency.

Heat some ghee and add the nuts. When light brown, pour them onto the sheera.

Serve Hot.

Serves 2 for breakfast, or 4 as dessert

All Posts, Sides

Capsicum, Drumstick Flower Masala

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Ingredients

6 big green bell peppers (capsicum) de-seeded and cut into cubes
1 onion, cut into large pieces and separate the layers
¾ cup drumstick flowers, stem removed and washed
1 potato, peeled and cubed
2 cups water
2 tbsp oil
½ tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1 bay leaf (tej patta)
2 pods cardamom (elaichi)
salt to taste

For the masala:

2 tsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp white sesame seeds
6-7 cashew nuts
2 tbsp peanuts
2 tbsp grated coconut
1 onion, chopped
1 green chili, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
½ tsp turmeric powder
⅓ tsp red chili powder
1½ tsp coriander powder
½ tsp garam masala powder

Method:

Dry roast the pea nuts for about 8 minutes, add cashew nuts, poppy seeds and sesame seeds till they lightly brown, add grated coconut and stir for another 3 minutes. Remove and put on a plate to cool

Add 1 tbsp oil to the same pan, fry the finely cut onion and green chilli. When the onion browns, add the ginger garlic paste and fry for a few seconds.

Add the tomato pieces, stir and cook till it is cooked. Add all the masala powders (ingredients # 10 to 13), and cook till it starts leaving the sides.

Remove from the flame and let it cool completely

Grind the dry roasted ingredients and the onion tomato mixture with a little water to a smooth paste

Heat the pan again with 1 tbsp oil, add jeera, bay leaf and cardamoms.

When the cumins splutter, add the cubed capsicums, potato and drumstick flowers and fry till the capsicum pieces soften.

Add salt and 1 cup water. Cover and cook on low flame for about 8 minutes, till the potato pieces are almost done.

Now add the ground masala, stir well and add the remaining 1 cup water slowly, to adjust the consistency.

Simmer for about five minutes and remove from the flame.

It is a great accompaniment for chapatis, and goes well with steamed rice too.

All Posts, Mains

Kala Chana Pulao

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Kala Chana Pulao
Kala Chana Pulao

There are two kinds of cooks. Those who plan ahead, and those who open the refrigerator when they are hungry and wonder what they should make. I belong to the second category. I have, believe it or not, had to train myself to plan ahead, because as a result of my nature, I ended up never getting to make things like idly, or anything that needed planning.

Anyway, this dish came about as a result of exactly that lack of planning. I was visiting my sister, it was a lazy afternoon and suddenly we realized that we didn’t have a plan. It turned out that there was some soaked kala chana. And rice. I was too lazy to make kadala curry AND rice. So I just threw everything into one pot. We liked the result so much that I had to note the recipe down and email it to everyone 😀

Serves 2
Time: 30 min

Ingredients:

1 cup kala chana
1 cup rice
1 cup chopped vegetables – baby corn, potato, carrot
½ cup chopped onion
1 tsp chopped green chili
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp chopped garlic
½ tsp haldi/ turmeric powder
¼ tsp chili powder
½ tsp dhania/  coriander powder
2 sprigs curry leaves
½ tsp mustard seeds
¼ cup fresh coconut, grated
2 tbsp coriander leaves
1 tbsp coconut oil or ghee

Method:

Soak overnight, and pressure cook kala chana in 2-3 cups water for 10 min.

Drain and reserve the water.

In a pressure cooker, heat oil or ghee, add mustard seeds, curry leaves, chopped ginger and garlic, and green chili. Add onion.

Add the vegetables and chana and cook for a couple of min, then add the rice. Add 2 cups water (can use the water in which the chana was cooking), salt, haldi, chili and coriander powder. Pressure cook for 5 min.

When done, add grated coconut and chopped coriander leaves. Yummy pulao is ready!!