Recipe : Khichdi / Kichudi / Khichadi (Vegan)

Khichdi is a light and simple dish, often cooked at my husbands house when lunch has been too heavy or someone at home is sick. Its great food for someone down with a fever or a blocked nose or sinus or even an upset stomach.

If made with moong dhal (split yellow or green gram) or masoor dhal (Egyptian / red lentils) it is extremely light on the stomach and very easy to digest. My husbands mum normally makes it with arhar / toor / tuvar dhal. I personally prefer a mixture of masoor and tuvar dhal.

The dhals provide protein and nutrition and recently I have started making the khichdi with brown rice which increases the fibre content. While white rice will completely dissolve and turn into a gruel - if you cook it too long, brown rice holds its shape and consistency much longer.

My version of khichdi has a lot of spices, because we love the flavours, but you can tone them all down if you prefer. For a lot of people this is comfort food.

Ingredients :
250 gms rice
250 gms lentils / dhal (I used an equal mix of masoor and tuvar dhal)
1 tbsp oil (I use mustard, but you can use any standard cooking oil or ghee)
pinch of heeng (asafoetida)
pinch of methi seeds
1 tsp jeera seeds
1 tbsp black pepper (roughly crushed) - optional
6 cloves garlic chopped
2 large onion chopped
2 - 3 large tomatoes chopped
1.5 inch ginger grated
2 green chillies chopped
1 tbsp jeera powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 tbsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp garam masala powder (optional)
salt to taste
fresh chopped coriander to garnish

Method:
Wash and soak the rice and lentils (together or separately - as you choose) for at least 15 minutes

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pressure cooker
Add the heeng, methi and jeera seeds,
Add crushed pepper if using.

Once the spices start emitting their aroma, add the chopped garlic and fry till it starts to brown, now add chopped onions, tomatoes, grated ginger and cook until the tomatoes start to disintegrate.

Add the soaked rice and lentils and give a quick stir so everything is well mixed.
Now add green chillies, all the powders and salt and water to cover (1 inch above)
Stir well, so everything is well blended.
Cover pressure cooker and cook till done (I prefer 3 whistles on high and 2 whistles on sim)

When you open the cooker, you might find that the rice has absorbed all the moisture and there is hardly any liquid left, in that case add more water to your taste and bring to a boil (uncovered and stirring constantly.

There is no perfect consistency, its about what works best for you.
I prefer a slightly firmer, drier version
For someone whose sick, I would water it down, almost to a soup before serving.
The consistency is very personal

Optional : Add your favourite tadka to the bubbling khichdi (I'm partial to chopped garlic - crisped up)

Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve hot.

There is a saying "khichdi ke hain chaar yaar - dahi, papad, ghee, achar!" - Khichdi has 4 friends - curd, papad, ghee and pickle.

I normally serve khichdi with a dollop of ghee on top and the others as sides.
Plain curd goes best with khichdi, rather than a raita

Options :
For vegans, you can top it with a meltable nut butter or just some spicy pickle.

Papad or any kind of crispies can also be served as a side and they add great texture.

If you don't want to serve pickles, then you can serve it with wedges of lime, or finely sliced onions soaked in a bit of natural vinegar.


The possibilities are endless.


Kim's Note :
A friend married to an Egyptian recently read that the Egyptian Koshary has its roots in the Indian khichdi and she asked me what my thoughts were.

Here is my answer. What do you think?

I have heard this before: that the British kedgeree and the Egyptian Koshary come from the Indian khichdi. However, other than each of them having a bit of rice in the dish, I don't see any outstanding similarities. 

In India, khichdi is a mix of rice and lentils all cooked together with some flavourings (herbs/seasoning / onions / tomatoes etc), It is a very light dish - often fed like "chicken soup" to someone who is sick. The concept lies in - mix everything and cook to almost a pulp - so much so that anything that is completely jumbled up is also referred to coloquially as "khichdi"

In koshary, the rice, vermicelli, pasta (sparrows tongue - I forget the Arabic word now), the whole red Egyptian lentils - are all cooked separately, drained and then unified with the tomato sauce to taste, at the table.(with some fried onions or lemon ginger juice as an additional side - the fried sliced onions are used in Indian dishes of biryani, but rarely in khichdi)

The British kedgeree, includes rice, smoked fish, butter, cream, boiled eggs and was basically invented as a way to use up the previous nights leftovers at breakfast.

So for these reasons, I don't believe that they come from the same origin, although they seem to sound similar. 
 
I actually see more resemblance of the koshary with a pasta in Marinara sauce than a khichdi - in terms of ingredients and flavours.

Recipe : Goan Feijoada - Pork and Beans Stew - (Vegan option possible)

The Last batch of Joao's sausages that I bought and turned into a Choriz Fry, weren't very good (Joao's buys their sausages from various suppliers and then brand it with their name, so you can't be sure what you are going to get). The flavour was really strong, but the masala wasn't spicy or sour enough. The sausages really needed something to tone down the flavours that it did have and I needed to be able to add more spice and tartness without the salt going completely out of whack.

That's when I remembered the Goan dish of Feijoada. This is a dish that you won't normally find served in restaurants, but on the dining tables at family homes. Feijoada is a pork and bean stew that finds its origins in Portuguese cuisine, but it has been adapted to Goan sensibilities by using the Goan sausages (choriz), some Goan recipes also use the Portuguese traditional salted pork. This dish is renowned in Brazil, where it is cooked with a milder variety of sausage, and a lot of pork offal.

There are Goans who turn this into a Vegan stew, by substituting the pork sausages with soya sausages. But given that the choriz have their own strong spices, you will need to adjust the seasonings quite a bit from my recipe.

I looked at a couple of different recipes on and offline. Maria Teresa Menezes, in her excellent Essential Goan Cookbook advocates cooking together soaked rajma (kidney beans) or lobia (black eyed peas) with onions, tomatoes and choriz. Just all added to one pan and cooked till done.

Antoine Lewis has a slightly fancier recipe involving bacon, which I would have loved to try, but for the fact that I had run out of bacon at home.

So, I followed my friend Gia's general instructions (I had been very successful with her Goan Choriz Pulao recipe, so I trust her implicitly when it comes to Goan food).

She said "cook the beans separately first and discard the water. Fry the onions and tomatoes, add whatever spices you are using, then the sausage meat. Finally, add the cooked beans and mix it all together. At this stage you can add as much water as you need and cook further until done"
I had already cooked up the sausages with the potatoes, so I followed the rest of the recipe with inspirations from other recipes that I had read.

Kim's Tips :
I think it would be best to boil the sausages in 50 ml water before adding to the stew, but you can also let it cook in the stew. Unless you are using the home made rosary sausages. Those need to have all the string cut off and are definitely better off being pre-boiled and unstrung before adding to the stew.

Once you have boiled the choriz/sausages, you can get a better idea of the spices and seasoning that you need to add to the stew to get a better flavour. We love tartness, garlic and spicy, so my recipe reflects this.

Ingredients:
500 gms rajma or lobia (red kidney beans or black eyed peas)
pinch of heeng (asafoetida)
250 gms Goan Choriz sausage (or Vegan sausage)
2 large onions
3 large tomatoes
1 pod garlic chopped (pod not clove)
4-15 green chillies chopped (depending on your spice tolerance, I used 15 since my choriz weren't spicy enough)
1 tsp coconut oil (you can use regular oil)
vinegar to taste (preferably Goan Toddy vinegar or apple cider)
salt to taste (remember the sausages are heavily salted so keep tasting)
Fresh coriander to garnish (optional)


Method:
Soak the rajma or lobia for at least 6-8 hours or overnight.
Pressure cook with enough water to cover and a pinch of heeng, until done.
When done, strain & discard the water.

Lightly boil the sausages in 50-100 ml water
Remove the skin (I like the sausage skin, so I just leave large pieces of sausage skin in the pot for myself) and break up the meat and masala.

Take a really large pan (1.5 to 2 times the size of a pan you would really need work best with stews)
Heat the oil.
Add the garlic, onions and tomatoes and cook till onions are light brown and the tomatoes begin to disintegrate.
Add the chillies and fry for a minute.
Add the drained rajma and a little fresh water and stir well.
If you like, you can semi mash some of the beans in the pan, for a thicker consistency.

Now add the sausages and the water that they were cooked in.
Add a little water and let it stew for a couple of minutes, so the masala from the sausages disperses into the stew.
Taste and adjust vinegar and salt.
Let the stew simmer for awhile on a low flame, so that all the flavours can blend together.

Garnish with fresh coriander if using and serve hot with rice or pao bread buns.

Like most stews, this one too tastes better the next day.

I've been Interviewed on sulekha.com

Sulekha.com is a very popular Indian Website in the US. It was one of the first websites to start a Indian Recipe section way back in the late 1990's as far as I remember. While their focus has slowly changed, the food section is still quite prominent and I'm quite kicked about the fact that they wanted to interview me :)

The interview can be read on site  - here
Or
on my Karishma Pais (Kim) in Print Blog

Recipe : Malabar Inspired Chicken Pilaf / Pulao

Husband suddenly came home early the other day and wanted dinner immediately, before he had to leave again for an evening meeting (he prefers eating healthier at home, than later filling up on deep fried snacks & nuts that are served at such functions/meetings)

All I had was some boneless chicken marinating in curd, salt and ginger garlic paste that I had taken out of the fridge and I had originally planned to make dhal, chawal, roti, sabji, chicken for dinner. But obviously that plan was shot. I couldn't get all that ready in 20 minutes, so biryani to the rescue it was. I didn't have time for a heavy marinade, so I went for a fragrant rice pulao flavoured with Kerala spices. It tasted really good, so here's the recipe.

Ingredients :
1/2 kg boneless chicken (you can use 750gms if using chicken with bone in)
1 large katori curd (roughly 100gms)
1.5 tbsp ginger garlic paste
4-10 green chillies chopped (depending on spiciness and your heat tolerance)
salt to taste

Marinade :
Marinate the chicken in these ingredients and keep aside (or refrigerate, if you aren't cooking immediately)
The curd and ginger garlic paste, should be enough to completely coat all the pieces of chicken

Ingredients :
500 gms long grained rice (I used Brown Basmati for health reasons)
1.5 tbsp ghee
1 handful cashewnuts (optional)
2 inch cinnamon
2 bay leaves
4 cloves
1 all spice flower (broken into petals)
2 cardamom
1 tbsp black pepper
1.5 tbsp saunf (fennel seeds)
2 medium onions sliced fine
4 green chillies chopped (optional)
Water to proportion
salt to taste
Freshly chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method:
Wash the rice and soak (at least as long as it takes you to prep the other ingredients or about 20 minutes) and then drain.

Roughly crush the black pepper and saunf in a mortar and pestle. (I don't like getting cardamom bits in my mouth when eating, so I crushed the cardamom too)

Heat the ghee in a pressure cooker.
If using the nuts, quickly fry them in ghee on high heat and remove drained nuts from pan when browned.
The ghee will change colour, but that's nothing to worry about.

Bring it back up to smoking point and add the cinnamon, followed by cardamom, cloves and all spice flower.
Then add your roughly crushed spices and bay leaves and give a quick stir.

When the spices start emitting the cooked aroma, add the sliced onions and fry until almost brown.
Add the marinated chicken with all its liquids - if using boneless chicken, just give it a minute or so to brown a bit, if using chicken with bone, wait till the chicken is semi cooked.

Add the soaked and drained rice and give a quick stir.
Now add the green chillies and fried cashewnuts (if using)
Add water to cover upto 1/2 inch above and adjust salt to taste.
Cover and pressure cook until done. (I normally use 3 whistles on high and then 1 whistle on sim and let the pressure all escape on its own, before opening the cooker)

Garnish with fresh coriander and serve with a cool raita

My Favourite Foods

There are some foods that are my absolute favourites. When I say absolute favourites, I mean, that I can eat them anytime, no matter how full I am or what time of the day or night.

Good food doesn't just satisfy the stomach, its a feast for all the senses.

Visual - it is well presented and beautifully colored without any excess oil or synthetic colors to mar the view.

Kinesthetic - every grain or every bite is just as it should be whether it is the soft smoothness of a rasmalai or a finger dipped in chocolate ganache or buttercream icing or a spicy meet mirsang or the feel of a well set paneer.

Auditory - The crunch of a papad or the crack of a creme brulee.

Olfactory - the aroma of freshly baked bread, piping hot samosas out of the frying pan, the opening of a dum biryani, they all fill the house with such a wonderful aroma, that it is impossible to resist the temptation to dig right in.

Gustatory - And of course, the ultimate test of great food is the taste.

Any food that satisfies all the 5 senses makes for a delectable experience, which leaves me on a complete high. A high on life. So which would be my most zestful food experiences?

5. Chocolate - whether a Cadbury's Dairy Milk Silk or a a Jar of Nutella or a Box of Merci

4. A Great Steak - For me, a Perfect Steak is medium rare. Its cooked just enough, but still has a lovely meaty taste to it and is nice a soft when you bite into it. Just team up a well marinated steak with some Melted Herb Butter and some gorgeous mashed potatoes and it can transport me to heaven.

3. Creme Brulee - The best Creme Brulee's that  have ever eaten were at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Dubai and at the Surya Mahal (Udaivilas Palace) in Udaipur.

2. A Great British Fry Up - The Classic British Breakfast or Eggs, Bacon, Sausages, Toast, Grilled Mushrooms, Baked Beans with maybe some Waffles and Pancakes thrown in for Good Measure and a Lovely Hot Mug of Steaming Coffee!  What's not to love? Its a Perfect Start to the Day, but I can also have it for Lunch or Diner or as a Midnight Snack.

1. My Numero Uno Zest Inducing Food, no Prizes for Guessing is Biryani!
Lucknowi, Mughlai, Malabar, Pakistani, Awadhi, Andhra, Calcutta. The style just doesn't matter. It just needs to be beautifully fragrant rice paired with a delicious well marinated meat, all cooked together to the perfect point. a perfect Biryani is never oily or over colored. Ranging from plain white to bright orange, the colour doesn't matter as long as it tastes yum!

The Best Food is Exciting, Enervating, Energising and Zestful.

So what are YOUR Favourite Foods?

This post is a part of the #ZestUpYourLife activity in association with TATA Zest and BlogAdda.com

Black Food - #WhatTheBlack

Black as a colour in food is often associated with being burnt. As a child, my sister went through a phase where she would assiduously remove every bit of black from her food before she would even begin to eat. Given that mustard and jeera were standard ingredients in the tadkas at home, it often took her longer to pluck out the black grains, than to actually eat her food.

So can black be beautiful in food?

Of course it can!

Case in Point :

1. Chocolate - Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, bitter chocolate, chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, chocolate biscuits, Black Forest Cake  - they all come in various shades of black and each one is more delicious than the other.

2. Squid Ink - Squid Ink is rapidly gaining popularity or at least curiosity, ever since the Masterchef Australia series started airing on Indian TV. We normally used to discard all of the black bits when cleaning squids, but now it is being used to colour pasta to great acclaim in some parts of the world.

3. Spices - What would an Indian kitchen be without spices? Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, All Spice, Mustard, kala til, kalonji, are all an essential part of Indian cooking and yes, they are all black! Then you also have Vanilla Beans and Licorice (Mulethi) which have very strong flavours, but are much loved.

4. Black Rice - a beautiful nutty rice from Manipur which is excellent in kheers.

5. Some of the most expensive ingredients in the world (excepting saffron) are also black - think Caviar and Black Truffles.

Even common foods like cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes, brinjals come in shades that are almost black, so can you honestly say that black = burnt?

This post is a part of #WhatTheBlack activity at BlogAdda.com

Recipe : Sanjukta's Mum-In-Law's Drunken Dates - Cornflakes Cake (Eggless)

My friend Sanjukta, recently shared her MIL's (Mrs Ranju Dutta) Drunken Dates - Cornflakes Cake Recipe. This time, the recipe was a little more detailed than her Assamese Pork Fry recipe :)

Since the recipe needed no butter or eggs or maida (all purpose flour) or sugar, I thought it would be a great after dinner dessert (we have stopped having desserts after dinner for calorie control - they can only be consumed after lunch right now)

Sanjukta's original recipe can be viewed at the end of this post, I made a few modifications, I skipped the whipped cream topping and added more dates and rum and used a mixture of wheat and cornflakes to up the fibre quotient.

The taste was quite yum with the rum soaked dates giving a blast of flavour in between bites, but when I made it the texture wasnt very cakelike, it was more like slightly soggy cornflakes. Husband did not mind it with the freshly chopped chilled mangoes, but I'm not sure if I would try this recipe again. It is however an interesting variation. Most of this "cake" got consumed as a slightly boozy weekend breakfast :)

It can also be made without the alcohol.

Ingredients :
1 handful dried dates
enough rum to cover the dates.
2 pinches cinnamon powder
1 pinch grated nutmeg
1 standard bowl (large katori) of cornflakes
1 standard bowl (large katori) of wheatflakes / branflakes
1 1/2 cups of milk
Fruit to serve

Method:
Soak the dates with little water and the Rum.
If you want to keep it non-alcoholic, use only water and omit the rum
Add the cinnamon and nutmeg powders.
(you can even add a hint of ginger powder, I think the flaour would work well)

After half an hour or so, the dates should get soft. So de-seed them and lightly mash by hand.
If the dates are really dry, then you can make a coarse paste in the mixi.

When your dates are completely prepped, in a bowl, add the cornflakes, wheatflakes and the milk (Just enough to soak the cornflakes).

Lightly mash it by hand (we don't want it pasty, crumb texture will work. is just fine.

Then add the mashed dates to the mixture and taste if its sweet enough (Normally the dates are sweet)
Adjust sugar if required and mix thoroughly.

Lightly grease a baking dish, add the Dates-Cornflakes mix and in a preheated oven, bake it at 180 deg for about 25 minutes.

Slice and serve hot or cold with fresh fruit.

Sanjukta / Ranju Dutta's Original Drunken (Rum) Dates - Cornflakes Cake

1)Dates- one fistful
2) Rum- about 30 ml
3) 2 standard bowls of cornflakes
3) 1 1/2 cups of milk
4) Whipped Cream
5)Butter for Greasing the baking dish

PROCEDURE:

1) Soak the dates with little water and the 30 ml Rum. De-seed it as it gets soft and mash it using hands. In case you are using the dried variety of dates, just run the mixer to make a coarse paste of the dates.

2) In a bowl, add the cornflakes and the milk (Just enough to soak the cornflakes). With your hands mash it up (We do no want a fine paste), so crumb texture is just fine.

3)Once done, add the dates to the cornflakes and taste if its sweet enough (Normally the dates are sweet and adjusts to the requirement of sugar). Mix it thoroughly.

4) In a baking dish, add the Dates-Cornflakes mix and in a preheat oven, bake it at 180 deg for a period of 25 minutes.

5)Once done, let it cool and turn the dish upside down. Once the cake comes off to the plate allow it to cool. Put it in the fridge to chill.

6) Beat Whipped Cream (I added a drop of orange colour to the cream). Pour it over the cake and again chill it for another hour plus.

Simple, tasty and healthy cake is ready to be savoured. I am enjoying my piece with my evening cup of tea

Recipe : Goan Choriz Fry

This is the simplest of all the choriz recipes that I know. My mum often made this at home and served it as a side with rice and dhal.

My friend David, used to get really good quality choriz, which he used to cut like regular sausages and then serve a piece of sausage and a piece of potato on a toothpick as an appetiser with drinks.

This is really very quick to prepare when you are in a hurry to create a protein side dish as the choriz is always stored at room temperature. Its actually faster to prepare than the accompanying Goan/Manglorean red rice.

Ingredients:
250 gms Goan Choriz
2 large onions chopped
2 medium potatoes peeled and chopped
chopped coriander leaves to garnish (optional)

Method :
In a wide pan, place the sausages flat.
Add onions and potatoes to the pan
Pour in a thin layer of water so it comes up to half the height of the sausage.
Cover and cook till potatoes are done, stirring occasionally
Slit the skin and de-string the sausages if necessary and continue to cook it with the cover open, until the water all dries up and the potatoes start to crisp up.
Serve hot with pao bread or rice and dhal.

Note:
You can chop the potatoes smaller. I chop them slightly larger, so that those who are on a "no carb diet" at home can pick them out and keep them aside. :)

Recipe : Italian Whole Wheat Focaccia (Vegan)

I've never baked bread before. I have baked cakes and savoury muffins (also known as biscuits in American terminology), but I have never worked with yeast before (except to make wines).

I felt like I had got into a cooking rut, so I wanted to challenge myself and bread seemed a great challenge to rouse myself out of a cooking lethargy.

The husband and I have been trying to eat healthy and avoid white flour / maida, so I wanted to try a whole wheat bread. But I'm not a breakfast bread eater, so a focaccia seemed like a safe place to start.

I'd bookmarked this fresh coriander focaccia from Ambrosia, awhile ago since it was whole wheat and it seemed like a great place to start to get familiar with proportions and measurements.

I wanted a traditional Italian flavoured focacia, so instead of fresh coriander, I stuck to Oregano and added some Dominos pizza seasonings to spice it up.

Kim's Tips:
My 2 major learnings were that my yeast wasn't fresh enough, so the bread didn't rise as well as it should have. Always check your yeast, (by dissolving it in a cup of warm water with sugar - it should froth up well) before mixing any other ingredients for baking, especially if you haven't used it for awhile.

The second is that if you are using ingredients like whole olives and chopped sun dried tomatoes as toppings, press them firmly into the dough, so they become one with the bread, rather than sit atop them like pizza toppings as seen in my pictures.

I've adjusted the recipe, to included the changes that would give you the best result. I've ignored things like the salt flakes, that really didn't add much to the taste.

The smell of the focaccia as it bakes, really fills the house and you won't be able to resist, biting into it as soon as it is out of the oven.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
1 ½ cup all purpose flour (maida)
1 cup + 1 tablespoon warm water
¼ cup olive oil
1 ½ teaspoon yeast
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon oregano
2 sachets pizza chilli flakes
2 sachets pizza seasoning
2 tablespoons sun dried tomatoes (1 tbsp finely chopped for mixing, 1 tbsp sliced for topping)
6 - 8 olives for garnish

Method
Dissolve the sugar in warm water.
Add yeast.
Let it stand for 15 minutes, the yeast should froth well. If it doesn't froth, your bread won't rise.

Sift together all purpose flour, whole wheat flour and salt.
From the ¼ cup olive oil, reserve 1 tablespoon for drizzling on the bread. Mix the rest in the flour mix.
Add the oregano, 1 tbsp chopped sun dried tomatoes and 1 sachet each of chilli flakes and pizza seasoning.
Add warm water and knead for 10 minutes till the dough becomes smooth and elastic.

Transfer the dough to a greased bowl. Cover and let it rise for 1 hour or till double in size.

Oil one 9 inch round cake pan. (I used a square pan)
Sprinkle some flour on the counter. Roll the dough into a ball. Flatten it and roll into round (square) bread of slightly less diameter than the cake pan.
Transfer the bread into the pan.

Dimple the dough about a dozen times with the tip of your finger pointing straight down.
Leave for 30 minutes.

When the bread has risen well, gently press in the sliced sundried tomatoes and olives. Let them go into the dough, otherwise they tend to fall of when slicing the focaccia and they burn a bit when baking. Then drizzle the remaining olive oil on top.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 degrees C for 25 to 30 minutes or until the top is well browned.

Slice and serve hot with soup, salad or grilled meat.

Recipe : Masala Idli (Vegan)

This recipe is a great way to finish leftover idlis or rava idlis. Rava Idlis normally have chillies, peas, seasoning and some other vegetables in them. If you are using plain idlis, you may want to use more masala and spice for more flavour.

The husband prefers to have the idlis nicely crisped up in this dish. But if your rava idlis have dried up with the temperature/ weather/ refrigeration - you can crumble them up totally and turn it into a masala upma.

Quantities would depend on the size of the idlis that you have made and the flavouring (if any) that you have used, so feel free to adjust measurements as you see fit.

Ingredients:
8 rava idlis (small microwave sized) quartered
1 tsp oil / ghee
pinch of fresh jeera
pinch of fresh methi
pinch of fresh mustard
1 dried red chilli
1 sprig clean curry leaves
1 medium onion chopped fine
1 medium tomato chopped fine
1" ginger grated
2-3 green chillies chopped fine to taste
Chopped coriander for garnish
2-3 tsps of your favourite chutney pudi / gun powder (optional)

Method:
Heat a wide pan, and add the oil.
When the oil is hot, season with methi, jeera and mustard seeds.
Add the chutney pudi if using, before it can brown add the crushed red chilli and curry leaves.
Now add the onions and fry till semi transparent.
Add the tomatoes, ginger and green chilli and fry till cooked.
Now add the quartered idlis and fry till done.
Serve hot garnished with freshly chopped coriander leaves.

Kim's Tip:
If you have too many idlis and the pan isn't wide enough or your idlis are too soft or too dry, it will turn to upma.

Recipe : Stovetop Chicken and Mushrooms (Bonus : Sausage Pulao from leftovers)

I marinated the chicken for this dish, the night before and cooked it for lunch the following day. I used a lot of ingredients I had lying around like the pickled peppers and Kolahs sugarcane vinegar, you can substitute with fresh black pepper and any Italian herbs of your choice. The marinade is quite yummy, so you can even pop the marinated chicken on the grill/BBQ if you want a drier dish and omit the mushrooms.

I used skinless chicken, so it was very low in fat too.

Ingredients:
1 kg chicken
1 packet (400gms) button mushrooms (washed and sliced in half)
a few grams of sliced dried Shitake mushrooms (optional)
a few grams of dried oyster mushrooms (optional)

Marinade:
10 garlic cloves
3-4 strands of pickled green peppers (or 1 tsp black pepper)
a pinch of oregano
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp Kolah's sugarcane vinegar (substitute with balsamic vinegar to taste)
salt to taste

Method:
Roughly pound the garlic cloves and the pepper.
Add the herbs of choice and roughly pound a bit more.
Remove the strands holding the green peppers together, if you like, I removed them after cooking.
Add olive oil, salt and vinegar and mix well.

Marinate the chicken in this marinade for a couple of hours or overnight.

Take a large pan, pour out a bit of oil from the marinated chicken onto the pan.
Brown the chicken on both sides.

Then add the remaining marinade to the pan.
Now add whichever dried mushrooms you are using (if any) and cover the chicken with a tight lid.
Since you haven't re-hydrated the mushrooms, make sure they are sitting in some of the liquid marinade when you close the pan. (I find this gives much stronger flavours than rehydrating the mushrooms and then adding them to the pan)

After, the chicken is half cooked, add the fresh mushrooms.

(I initially don't let the mushrooms touch the pan surface directly, instead they steam on top of the chicken pieces, only when the chicken is cooked do I give it a stir and let the mushrooms come in contact with the pan.)

Cover and cook till done.
Once cooked, open the lid and serve immediately if you like some gravy, else cook without a cover until it thickens / dries up to your choice.

Serve hot with foccacia or on its own.

Bonus Recipe with Leftovers:

When we were done with the chicken, there was some oil left in the pan and it had great flavour, that I didn't want to wash out. If you find yourself in a similar situation, you can try this recipe.

Add a piece of cinnamon to the hot oil, then add a bit of chopped garlic and onions and fry till browned.
Add some sliced sausages and saute till cooked.
Now add the cooked rice (I used brown rice), salt and some green peas.
Saute until peas are cooked and serve hot.

Twinings Green Tea - Lemon & Honey

Ever since my sister got me started on Green Tea as a way to increase my metabolism, I have finally been converted to a tea drinker. Prior to this, I would only have a hot coffee in the peak of winter when I needed to warm myself from the inside, otherwise I never drank hot tea or coffee.

Initially it was tough to drink green tea in the summers, but I now end up having my 3 cups in the night after 11pm. I'm a night bird, who is normally up till 2am or later, so it works for me.

In the mornings, I have one cup of hot water with lemon and ginger with honey, so I was quite excited when Twinings sent me a gift pack of their latest - Lemon & Honey Green Tea, that I was hoping I could have in the mornings.

 

The White Box, that you see in the picture, had a really lovely note written on it:

"Not everybody has a discerning taste for tea.
Not everybody has the detailed knowledge about the finest and the oldest tea makers.
And you being the select few with admirable knowledge on fine tea drinking, make us want to celebrate that classic taste.
Since you are now a true Twinings Connoisseur, we would love to honour you with an exclusive Twinings gift pack.
For that refined taste you share with us and your fine disposition as a tea drinker, you are truly valued and admired.
We would be delighted to bring to you more such surprises..
Stay connected with us through our facebook page.
Enjoy your tea time."

Yes, as you may have guessed by these words, I had won a quiz on tea, held on their facebook page, but don't you just love the wording?

The package arrived in the evening and I couldn't wait until morning to taste it, so we opened it up immediately to try this new flavour.

I have to mention, that I am a huge fan of Twinings black tea in Lemon and Lady Grey Flavours and their green tea in Mint and Jasmine Flavours. The Lemon and Honey was a bit of a disappointment though. While I could taste the lemon, the honey was just the fragrance of honey without any flavour or sweetness, that feels quite weird.

Fabindia's Organic Tea has a sweet flavour in their Tulsi - Sweet Rose tea, that is lovely. This honey tea, did not have any of that sweetness. So this flavour ended up tasting like the regular Twinings Green Tea Lemon, with an aroma of honey thrown in. I'll stick to the Jasmine and mint options for now and have Fabindia's Organic Tulsi Ginger Green Tea in the mornings when I want some tea in the cold weather.

My Fantasy Dinner Party!

Someone asked me, what would be my ideal dinner party menu.

Now, I've cooked for and hosted multiple dinner parties - from sit down dinners for 4 to buffet style dinners for 50+ people. The largest party I've ever hosted though was in 2006 for Diwali in Cairo. Our house was an open house throughout the day - with our closest friends coming in early for a late breakfast and staying on until late night for cards and groups of people who were invited throughout the day, for lunch, tea, puja, dinner or late night snacks. I think the number of people who ate at home that day crossed a 125. And except for a few friends who brought in some dishes for lunch, everything was cooked at home, by me with some assistance from my friends and my aunts who were visiting us.

But coming back to my ideal menu, I considered multiple options, but finally realised that the star of the evening would have to be biriyani - my absolute favourite dish and the rest of the menu would have to revolve around it. Also, my ideal dinner party size would be 10 (including us) - so we could have great freewheeling conversations together, rather than breaking up into smaller groups.

As soon as our friends arrive, we would greet them with chilled strawberry flavoured iced tea in tall Glasses. This will be a lovely way for them to cool down from the blazing heat of Ahmedabad, before the procession of heavy food to follow.

A few bowls of honeyed coconut nuts would be scattered around on the side tables, so people can help themselves to some sweet and spicy, crunchy goodness, while waiting for everyone to arrive and for the hot snacks to be freshly prepared.

The tiranga chicken tikka kebabs would be previously marinated for around 24 hours and freshly grilled when all the guests arrive. Juicy succulent morsels of boneless chicken in 3 flavours. A delicate red chicken tikka in a chilli + ginger garlic paste and yoghurt marinade, a creamy white malai tikka marinated in ginger garlic + cashewnut paste and cream with some kasuri methi and a hariyali tikka with a green chilli and fresh coriander marinade. These would be served in alternating colors in a beautiful chip and dip bowl with a spicy mint chutney in the center.

Next to follow would be beautifully soft and smooth Shikampuri Kebabs in individual Mini Plates. A crisp coating, followed by smooth spicy mutton paste and a surprise of crunchy onions marinated in lime juice at the center.

Jugs of non-alcoholic mojitos and chilled badam milk (we are currently living in a dry state) would be on hand, to cool the mild burn of spices in the kebabs and chutney.

The next course that I would like to offer my friends would be the exotic Hyderabadi speciality of haleem. Mutton and wheat cooked together for hours with special spices until it all blends into one creamy mass of deliciousness, topped with some crisply fried onions and freshly torn mint leaves. Since its easy to get stuffed on just haleem, I would serve it in Individual portions.

The main course of biriyani would be served on the dining table. While 10 people would be a bit of a squeeze, biriyani is meant to be shared at a table. I love assembling the biriyani in a glass Cook and Serve dish, before the final dum. This tends to show off the beautiful layers of milky white rice and rich delicious chunks of chicken in spicy masala. The transparent glass top, gives a peek into the mild yellow saffron stained top layer of rice. And this dish has to be opened at the table. The aroma that escapes when the dish is finally opened is meant to be shared by all and not just a guilty selfish pleasure of the person cooking it.

Bowls of birasta - crisply fried onions with a crunchy texture and sweetish taste and kachumber - a cucumber, tomato, onion and coriander salsa would be on the table, so each guest can serve themselves according to their personal preferences.

Individual katoris of creamy piquant onion and green chilli raita would be served to all.

Given that dinner has only biriyani on the cards, I would go a bit overboard on dessert. A light and airy Mango and Cardamom Cheesecake served in a Fluted dish would be a dessert with Greco-Roman roots, but with Indian flavours.

A large Bowl each of gooey Gajar ka Halwa with crunchy slivers of almonds and a smooth, creamy and soothing Sevvaiyan Paysam / Vermecilli Kheer with little nuggets of fried raisins that pop in the mouth with a burst of flavour.

Our guests could serve themselves, their choice of desserts and I would hope that they would try all 3.

Knowing our friends, we still wouldn't be done talking by the end of dessert, so after such a heavy meal, they would definitely need something to wash it down, while we continued gabbing into the night. While I think that a pot of Suleimani chai or the Bedouin Shai with their minty fresh taste and digestive properties would be perfect for this purpose, I would also offer my guests a selection of green teas.

We would be forced to say goodbye around 5am, so that we could get a couple of hours of shuteye before the next days program begins.

So, what would your ideal dinner party be?

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This is my entry for the My beautiful food contest on Indiblogger.

Happy to share that I am one of the 50 bloggers shortlisted for Round 2 from over 350 entries.

Recipe : Gharwala Rajma - Indian Homestyle Kidney Beans (Vegan)

Rajma in some ways is comfort food for me, which is strange. Mum and grandma hardly ever made Rajma when we were growing up (since our diet was primarily non vegetarian, we did not need the proteins from lentils/dhals, when a tastier meat, egg or fish curry was almost always on the menu) except occasionally in the monsoons, when fish wasn't available and to have a change from meat.

But we kids often turned up our noses at dhals in those days and much preferred the humbler saar / daali thove - a thin lentil dish, to the time and effort intensive rajma or channa. So, obviously mom and nana, hardly cooked with rajma.

When I was in hostel in Jamshedpur however, rajma was on the menu once a week and this was one of the few dishes that was made in the mess that went well with rice, so I hardly missed a meal when rajma-chawal was on the menu. I later had much better tasting Rajma, cooked by mothers of my Punjabi and UP friends when they knew that a South Indian rice-eating girl was headed to their home for a meal. My husband's mom and maami (mothers brothers wife) make some kick-ass rajma too.

This recipe however, is my own. You can stir in some cream in the end if you want to make the whole thing creamier. I prefer stirring in some smoothly beaten yoghurt/dahi to keep it low fat. But it can be served as is, especially if you want to keep it vegan.

You do get "rajma masala" powders in the market, my Mother-in-law feels that the "meat masala" powder works very well with Rajma. In a pinch, I have also used "channa masala" powder. Most Indian mixed-masala powders would work reasonably well with this dish. Ideally the masala powder will have a bit of powdered amchoor (dried mango), jeera (cumin), haldi (turmeric), dhaniya (coriander), cinnamon and chillies. You can use any masala powder that has these spices and maybe a  few more, don't worry about it too much.

How much masala you add will depend on which brand you are using, how strong their masalas are and how spicy you like your food. So keep stirring, smelling and tasting to find your balance.

Ingredients:
2 katoris / 150-200 gms rajma / red kidney beans
3 medium onions
5-10 chillies to taste (according to its spiciness and your spice tolerance)
10-12 cloves of garlic
2 inches ginger (1 inch for grinding, 1 inch julienned for tempering)
5 red tomatoes or 200 ml tomato puree
1 tbsp oil
pinch of hing (asafoetida)
pinch of methi (fenugreek seeds)
1 inch cinnamon
1/2 tsp jeera seeds
1-4 tbsp rajma masala (to taste - depends on brand. See above)
2 tbsps chopped fresh coriander to garnish


Optional : 
2 tbsp smooth cream or smoothly beaten yoghurt

Method:
Soak the rajma for 8 hours / overnight and pressure cook till done.
Discard the water that rajma is boiled in. This is the only dhal whose cooking water we discard.

Grind the onions,  half the chillies, garlic and half the ginger to a smooth paste.

In a large pan, heat the oil.
Add the hing and methi seeds (this with the jeera, helps reduce the gassiness caused by rajma)
As the seeds start to brown, add the cinnamon and the jeera seeds.
When the jeera seeds splutter, add the julienned ginger and fry till it crisps up.
Now add the ground onion paste and fry on a slow flame, till the onion paste is cooked.

In the meanwhile, grind the tomatoes in the same mixi that the onion paste was ground in.

When the onion paste is cooked, add the tomato puree (fresh or packaged) and the rajma masala and cook for a few minutes.
Slit the remaining green chillies and add to the curry paste.
Rinse the mixi in a little water and add this water to the curry.
Cook on slow flame until there is no raw taste left.
Now add the cooked rajma.

Let it bubble away on a slow flame for 5-10 minutes.

Take it off the fire and add the smoothly beaten cream or yoghurt if using.

Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot with phulkas or rice.

I love serving this with a side of onion raita and we have shifted almost completely to brown rice at home now.

Recipe : Brain Cutlets

On my recent review of Daddy's Deli, Bangalore, I had described their wonderful brain cutlets, so a friend asked if I knew how to make them.

There was a time when we made these cutlets quite frequently at home, but nowadays, its really tough to get clean mutton brains in a quantity large enough to make these cutlets, especially in Ahmedabad. You will normally find these cutlets (if available) in a Parsi restaurant / cafe.

Its pretty easy to make at home, if you get brains that are completely cleaned.

Method :
Clean the mutton brains and cook in water salt and pepper.

Drain the brains, mash them and mix finely chopped onions, green chillies, fresh coriander and salt & pepper to taste.
(proportion - mashed brain 80-90% and 10-20% cuttings)

Form into cutlets.
Dip in a beaten egg and fry. (deep fry is better, but shallow frying works too and is healthier)

Serve hot with tomato sauce or green chutney.

The creamy flavour with the kick of green chilli is delightful.

Roohafza - A Cooling Summer Sherbet/Sharbath

My husband absolutely loves this drink. Its something that brings back memories of carefree childhood summer days playing in the sun and coming home to an ice cold glass of cooling sherbet/sharbath.

For me, I much prefer the regular rose syrup /sherbet to Roohafza. On our last trip to my inlaws place, his mum had made ice candies with the syrup (add syrup to water and freeze). It tasted much better than the drink which is made by just the syrup mixed with ice cold water and ice cubes.

The packaging of the bottle hasn't changed much since I was a kid. I still can't drink the sharbath made from the syrup, but I do like it in the ice candy / ice lolly form. I think it will be quite good in chuski / gola (syrup poured over crushed ice on a stick - kind of like granita on a stick) form too. I also don't mind a very weak mix with milk.


Hamdard Laboratories, the maker of Rooh Afza makes it products based on herbal secrets of the Unani (Greek traditon) The company has over 600 products in its portfolio and Rooh Afza is over a century old. Rooh Hafza has a number of strange ingredients in its composition including palak (spinach) but the sum of its parts are supposed to be excellent for its cooling properties.


Currently Hamdard, is repositioning its brand Rooh Afza as an all seasons drink rather than just a summer cooler.

Recipe : Korivikaram - Red Chilli Chutney - from Cooking at Home with Pedatha (Vegan)

At the market the other day, I saw these beautiful plump ripe red chillies and just bought them on impulse. Once I brought them home, I realised that I really didn't have a plan for them, as I have never cooked with ripe red chillies before.

Going through my favourite cookbooks (only 10 of them are currently unpacked in the new house), I found that Cooking at Home with Pedatha had a recipe for a Ripe Red Chilli Pickle. Since I was planning on making dosas too, this was the perfect recipe for me.

The recipe is quite simple and I was very happy with the final product. If I had to make any changes, I may deseed half the chillies next time. These seeds aren't spicy, they just get stuck in the teeth when eating the chutney/pickle since it is coarsely ground. Grinding the chutney fine, would make it lose its otherwise lovely texture. So what would work, I think is reducing the volume of the seeds.

I also think my problem could be because I used the plump red chillies (the not so spicy ones, the ripened versions of the chillies used to make bhajiyas), so they were less spicy and had more seeds than normal red chillies would.


These ripened red chillies are only available in the summer, so try it out now, before it goes out of season.

Ingredients: 
1/4 kg Fresh Ripe Red Chillies
1 tbsp thick tamarind pulp (I used the Dabur Homemade, but remember to readjust for salt)
2 - 4 tbsp oil
salt to taste

1st Tempering:
1 tbsp dhuli urad dhal (split and husked black gram)
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp methi dana (fenugreek seeds)
1 tsp heeng (asafoetida)
1 tbsp coriander leaves roughly chopped (hara dhaniya)

2nd Tempering:
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/4 tsp heeng

Method : 
In a wok, heat 1 -2 tbsp oil and fry the chillies on a low flame for 2-3 minutes (ensure that every chilli is constantly in direct contact with the pan - fry it in batches if necessary)

Remove chillies from oil, drain well (place on absorbent paper if required, I prefer to leave it in a sloping pan and reuse the oil for flavouring) and remove the stalks.

In 1 tbsp oil (I reuse the oil in which the chillies have been fried), add the urad dhal, as it turns golden, add mustard and methi.

Turn off the flame, wait a couple of seconds, when the methi turns brown, add the heeng and coriander leaves.

Grind this first tempering with the tamarind pulp and salt to taste to a fine paste.
Then add the fried red chillies (deseeded if you prefer) and grind coarsel.
Move this paste to a serving bowl or to a bottle (if you plan to immediately refrigerate)

Heat 1 tbsp oil (leftover from previous tempering if you choose), add mustard and methi.
Turn off the flame, wait a couple of seconds, when the methi turns brown, add the heeng and stir for a few seconds.

Add this tempering to the chutney / pickle.

Serve immediately with idlis, dosas or mix into steaming hot rice with a dollop of ghee.

If stored and refrigerated in a clean dry airtight bottle, it can be preserved for months. (If it lasts that long)

Kim's Tip : I prefer to leave the stalks on when roasting the chillies, and remove them just before grinding. Leaving the stalks on, makes it easier to turn the chillies in the pan when roasting them.




Also this recipe goes for the Cooking from Cookbook Challenge - April Week 4