Category Archives: Food

Thai Style Inspired Green Apple Salad

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I haven’t been cooking in a long time, in fact ever since my present helper came on board – 2 years ago! When she takes her weekly off on Sundays, I usually just put together something, nothing that I take effort to make, or make old favourites that everyone likes. So me cooking this dish is unusual in the current scenario.

I usually have a salad with every meal and was getting tired of the same ole, same ole vegetable salad! Then saw some green apples at home and went online to see if there were any recipes that I could use or adapt. I came across this one and felt this was something I could adapt for us. So here’s my version of a Thai Style Inspired Green Apple Salad

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Ingredients:

  • 2 medium sized green apples
  • 8 strawberries
  • 2 smallish red onions
  • A handful of raw peanuts
  • A handful of raw cashewnuts
  • 2-3 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt, sugar and lemon juice to taste
  • A bit of freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Cut the red onions into thin slices. Heat oil in a pan and first fry the peanuts and cashew nuts till they are crisp. Take out and drain in kitchen paper. In the same oil, fry the onion till they become brown and crisp. Drain on kitchen tissues.

Chop the strawberries into halves and chop them lengthwise. Make thinish slices of the green apple, and chop it into matchsticks. Add the sugar and salt and keep aside.

Just before eating, add the onions and nuts to the salad. Season with lemon juice and freshly ground pepper and enjoy!!

We ate this with Moong Dal Khichadi (recipe coming soon)

Note: Make this salad as close to the eating as possible as the green apples will turn brown otherwise. Also, if the green apples are sour, you can skip the lemon juice altogether.

Verdict: Yummy and different from what I usually make. My version was a tad sour, so when I make it again, I will either go easy on the lemon juice or omit it.

Rajma Paratha – Indian Red Kidneybean Flatbread

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I had made Rajma over the weekend and as usual made too much for all of us to eat. We had leftovers and I didn’t know what to do with them. I love Rajma, so thought I will eat them with rotis when I chanced upon this recipe by The Steaming Pot. I tweaked it a bit and voila – spicy, tasty rajma parathas which we had with a dash of ginger pickle and a quick raita of baby cucumbers, tomatoes and onions.

Rajma Parathas

Ingredients:

  • 1.5 cup pre-made rajma masala, blended and pureed well to make it a smooth paste
  • 3 cups whole wheat flour
  • Some warm water to kneed the dough
  • 1 tsp oil for the dough
  • ghee/oil for the parathas (optional)

Method:

In a large dish mix the pureed rajma and the wheat flour and if needed, use the warm water to make it a smooth dough. Use 1 tap oil at the very end and mix into the dough to avoid stickiness.

Roll out into slightly thicker than usual parathas. In a non-stick tava, put the parathas in medium high heat and once the first side is done, flip and put a few drops of ghee in the first side. Repeat for the second side and remove and eat hot!

3 cups of wholewheat flour gave me around 12 parathas.

Pulao/Biryani With A Twist

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I recently read somewhere in the Internet about the street foods in Mumbai and that started a nostalgic tone for me. I love the street food that Mumbai has to offer, be it vada pav, or the ubiquitous bhel puri, sev puri and pani puri or Mumbai’s very own pav bhaji. Vendors who sell this yummy dish also make a rice dish with the vegetables that go into the bhaji making a fairly different type of pulao/biryani. This pulao is therefore inspired by the pav bhaji pulao.

Pulao/Biryani with a Twist

Ingredients:

  • 11/2 cups basmati rice, washed and soaked for atleast 20 minutes
  • 2 medium sized onions, chopped finely
  • 1 fairly big potato, peeled and cubed into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 carrot, peeled and cubed into bite sized pieces
  • 1/2 cup frozen green peas
  • 1 green capsicum, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 4 medium sized tomatoes, finely chopped
  • 2 flakes of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
  • 1 tsp (or more) red chilli powder
  • 1 tsp cumin seed powder
  • 1 tsp coriander seed powder
  • 2 tsps (or more) pav bhaji masala
  • 1 tsp sabzi masala (optional)
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 tbsps oil

Method:
Heat oil in a pan and when it is fairly hot, put in the cumin seeds. When it splutters, add the garlic, stir for a few seconds, then add the ginger and give it a quick stir.

Next, add the onions, capsicum, carrots, peas and potatoes in the following order making sure you give a quick stir before you add the next vegetable. Now add the tomatoes and the spices and stir well. Once all the vegetables have been nicely coated with the spices, add the rice from which the water has been completely drained.

Stir and let the rice mix well with the vegetables and let it cook for a couple of minutes.

Now transfer everything to a rice cooker, add around 2.5 cups of water and let it cook.

When the rice is done, keep it covered for another 10 minutes, then fluff lightly with a fork, garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Paneer in a Minty Yoghurt Sauce

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I’ve been on a roll recently and have been experimenting a lot in the kitchen. Hope this continues on after I’m done being a career woman and started my break. Today’s recipe is a variation on a standard paneer recipe that I tweaked. Everyone in my home, especially BB love paneer and I make some sort of paneer recipe atleast twice a month. The result was this delicious paneer in a minty yoghurt sauce.

Paneer in a Minty Yoghurt Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups frozen paneer, (cubed if not already done so)
  • 2 medium sized onions
  • 2 medium sized tomatoes
  • 3 flakes garlic
  • 1 inch size ginger
  • 3 fresh green chillies
  • 1/2 cup mint leaves
  • 2 cups yoghurt
  • 2 tbsps kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
  • 2 tsps oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • salt to taste
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
  • 2 tsps sabzi masala (I used Everest)
  • Coriander to garnish

Method:

Put the frozen paneer in a largish dish and pour hot water over it to soften it. This will take around 10 minutes. You can do the other prep work while the paneer softens.

In a grinder/blender zip the following ingredients and make it into as smooth a paste as you can – garlic, ginger, onions, tomatoes, green chillies, mint. You can use some of the yoghurt instead of water if you need.

Heat oil in a pan and when it is hot enough add the cumin seeds. When the seeds splutter,  put in the turmeric powder and then pour in the blended paste and let it cook for a while. When the paste is cooked and starts leaving the sides of the pan, add the paneer and turn a few times to make sure all the paneer pieces are coated with the paste. Now add some more yoghurt to this (as thin as you like it to be) and then lightly crush the kasoori methi in your palms and add it to the mixture. Add salt to taste and the sabzi masala and let the mixture bubble well.

Transfer to a serving bowl, garnish with coriander leaves and eat with rice or rotis.

Verdict: The recipe was a bit different due to the mint added which gave a slight minty taste to the paneer. Good to eat with pulao and rotis, but if I was going to eat it with rotis, I would make it a bit more thicker that I made it today. Definitely something to try again.

Arachavitta Sambhar

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This is a very traditional South Indian recipe. Archavitta literally means with ground spices. This sambhar is different from the usual one we make on a regular basis in that there is no sambhar powder used.

I have wanted to make this for a few weeks now. The last time I tried making it, I found I didn’t have coconut at home and so had to postpone making it. I finally made it with the basic recipe from my bible of tam bram cooking – Cook and See by S. Meenakshi Ammal. I used the recipe from Book 1 of Cook and See and tweaked it a bit using advice given to me by my mother and mother-in-law.

Arachivitta Sambhar

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup red gram dal (toor dal)
  • 1 small lime sized ball of tamarind, soaked in water and the pulp squeezed out
  • 1 cup shallots
  • 1-2 carrots, peeled and cut into big pieces
  • ½ a yellow pumpkin, peeled and cut into big cubes
  • 4-5 potatoes, cut into largish cubes
  • 2-3 tsps oil
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • Salt to taste
  • Coriander leaves to garnish

To be ground into a paste:

  • 6-8 dried red chillies
  • 2 tsps coriander seeds
  • 1 tsp Bengal gram seeds (chana dal)
  • 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
  • 4-5 shallots
  • ½ cup fresh, grated coconut

Method:

In a small pressure cooker, pressure cook the toor dal with a pinch of turmeric powder till it is soft and the dal has broken down. This usually will take around 3 whistles in the cooker.

Heat 1 tsp of oil in a pan and one by one add the ingredients to be gound into a paste and roast them till the coconut is golden and the water in it evaporates. Transfer to a mixer and when cool, grind it to a fine paste using a bit of water. Keep aside.

In the same pan, heat the remaining oil and add the mustard seeds. When they pop, put in the shallot and stir for a few minutes. Then add the potatoes, carrots and pumpkin and fry for a few minutes.

Now add the gound paste and stir into the vegetables. Once it is all mixed in, pour in the tamarind water and add salt to taste.

Let this boil for around ten minutes. Check to see if the vegetables are cooked. When the vegetables and shallots reached the almost cooked stage, add the cooked dal.

Let it boil well, check for seasoning and switch off the gas. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with white rice.