Category Archives: Recipe

Recipe: Cabbage Salad

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Cabbage Salad 1I’m typing this from Yogyakarta, Indonesia where we are for our semi-annual holiday. We’ve been here for just a day now, but I love what I saw so far!

Before leaving, I wanted to finish off the vegetables in the fridge and saw this quarter head of purple cabbage. I decided to make a salad out of this and it was such a hit, I made it three times this week! I experimented with purple cabbage and green cabbage as well as other vegetables, and each variation was superb! Even S who would not eat a salad if he could was raving about it.

This recipe requires a bit of prep work beforehand, but it is completely worth it!

Cabbage Salad

Cabbage Salad 3Ingredients:

  • 1 half head of cabbage (I used purple cabbage in this photo, but you can also use green cabbage)
  • 2 carrots
  • 2 onions
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • Coriander leaves to garnish

For the dressing

  • 3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 tbsps lemon juice
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • a pinch of sugar
  • a handful of cashewnuts
  • a handful of almonds
  • 2 tsps white sesame seeds

Cabbage Salad 4Method:

  • Shred the cabbage (you can do this easily using a madolin slicer, otherwise, just shred finely with a knife)
  • Grate the carrots
  • Chop the onions and bell pepper lengthwise in fine strips
  • Chop the cashewnuts and almonds into small pieces or silvers and dry roast them in a pan till crisp. Remove from flame and dry roast the sesame seeds till they are slightly brown and crisp. Let this cool completely.
  • Toss and mix the shredded and chopped vegetables well. Add the coriander leaves and keep aside till it’s time to eat. You can pop it into the fridge till needed.
  • Around 15-20 minutes before it’s time to eat, remove the salad from the fridge and make the dressing.
  • For the dressing, in a small bowl, add all the dressing ingredients – olive oil, lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper and stir well.
  • Pour over the salad and toss well. Add the chopped and roasted nuts and serve.

I also added grated radish to one of my versions, and that too tasted great!

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Recipe: Vendakkai Puli Kozambu aka Okra Tamarind Stew

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A typical recipe from the Tamil heartlands, this is a hearty, though slightly spicy and sour stew which goes very well with rice. This is not a typical tambram recipe. It’s quite funny that while I love garlic and love it in most north Indian sabzis, for some reason, probably due to my tambram genes, I can’t stand it in typical south Indian food. While the original recipe calls for whole garlic pods in the kozambu or stew, I ground it along with the other spices. I served it with brown rice and a stir fried vegetable and loved it. Here’s the recipe which I tweaked!

Vendakkai Puli Kozambu aka Okra Tamarind Stew

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Ingredients:

  • 1 lime-sized ball of tamarind, soaked in warm water for 15-20 minutes, then squeezed to get the water, which will be used. Alternatively, use 1-2 tsp of tamarind paste which can be brought in any Indian store.
  • 1 cup ladies finger or okra, cut into 1 inch circles
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 tbsps gingelly oil
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • Salt to taste

To be ground into a paste:

  • 8-10 garlic cloves
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 tomato, chopped
  • 2 tsp coriander seeds
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
  • 5-6 dried red chillies
  • 1/4 cup coconut
  • 2 tsps oil

Method:

  • In a pan, take the oil (not the gingelly oil) and fry in the following order the spices: coriander seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds and dried chilli. Stir each spice for a few seconds before adding the next spice.
  • Next add the garlic and let it become slightly golden, then the onions and let it become translucent and last the tomatoes.
  • Add a tsp of salt to help the tomatoes to lose water and become slight mushy. In the end, add the coconut and let it cook a while. Once it has cooked around five minutes, switch off the gas and let it cool completely. Once cool, blend it to a fine paste.
  • In another pan, add the gingelly oil and fry the ladies finger/okra until it cooks and becomes crisp. Remove from the gas and keep aside.
  • In the same pan, with the balance oil, add the mustard seeds and then chopped onions.
  • When the onions become translucent, put in the blended paste and stir for a few seconds. Now add the tamarind juice and let it come to a boil.
  • Add the crisp ladies finger/okra and salt to taste and let the stew boil  for 10 minutes.
  • The stew is done when the oil floats to the top.
  • Enjoy with rice and a vegetable of your choice!

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Recipes: Roasted Vegetables, Indian Style

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Usually, Sundays, which is R’s weekly off is the one day in the week when I can cook what I want. Usually the Sunday lunch is some variation of an Indian meal – a rice or roti dish with a gravy dish and some salad or raita to accompany it.

This weekend, I was bored of cooking the same old food, week after week and so decided to do something different. I decided to pair a soup with some roasted vegetables and then to kick it up a notch, I decided to make it with an Indian twist. So here’s some roasted vegetables, cooked in Indian style and with Indian spices!

Roasted Vegetables, Indian Style

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Ingredients:

  • 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
  • 1 capsicum (any colour) chopped into large pieces
  • 20 baby potatoes, chopped into half or quarters (depending on size)
  • 2 large sweet potatoes, chopped into large pieces
  • 2-3 carrots, chopped into large pieces
  • 2 onions, chopped into large pieces
  • 2-3 tbsps Oil

Spice Mixture

  • 1 tsp red chilli powder
  • ¼ tsp turmeric powder
  • 2 tsps cumin seed powder
  • 1 tsp coriander seed powder
  • 2 tsps dried methi (kasoori methi)
  • 2 tsps dried mint powder
  • 2 tsp chats chat masala
  • Salt to taste

Method:

  • Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius (392 degree Farenheit)
  • Mix the spices into a powder and keep aside.
  • Chop all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces, wash, dry and put into a large utensil which should be large enough to mix well.
  • Pour enough of the spice mixture and oil and mix the spices into the chopped vegetables, ensuring that every piece is coated with the spice and oil mixture.
  • Line a large baking tray with aluminium foil and pour the coated vegetables into it. Make sure the vegetables are even in the tray.
  • When the oven is heated, bake the vegetables for approximately between 40 – 60 minutes, depending on how crisp you want it or how much the quantity is. I found a full shallow tray of root vegetables needed 60 minutes while other vegetables were done in less than 40 minutes.
  • Let it cool and enjoy!

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I paired this with my carrot, coriander and pumpkin soup and it was a hit! We had this for both meals and nobody missed having rice or rotis with this meal!

Recipe: Rajma

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Another Punjabi dish which is is probably not as well known as it’s cousin Chole, but just as ubiquitous everywhere. This is a protein rich dish and is super yum with jeera (cumin) rice

The way I make it is inspired by Sanjeev Kapoor’s recipe. I remember seeing him make this on television many many years back and started making it the same way. Over the years it’s been tweaked, so does this make it an original recipe?

Punjabi Rajma

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Ingredients:

  • 1 cup dried kidney beans, soaked in water overnight
  • 2 onions, roughly chopped
  • 4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
  • 5-6 cloves of garlic
  • 1 inch piece of ginger
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • Salt to taste
  • 1-2 tsps red chilli powder
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 1 tsp cumin powder
  • 2 tsps rajma masala
  • Coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

  • Wash the rajma thoroughly and cook it in a pressure cooker for 4-5 whistles till it becomes soft. You can also cook it without pressure, in a pan, but it will take quite long.
  • Chop the onions and tomatoes and peel the garlic and ginger and chop them into pieces.
  • Heat oil in a pan and when warm, put in the cumin seeds. When it starts popping, add the garlic, ginger and stir for a few minutes. Then add the onions and stir and cook till they turns translucent.
  • Add the tomatoes next and a tsp of salt to help the tomatoes start watering. Let the tomatoes cook till they are mushy and well cooked.
  • Switch off the gas and let it cool completely. When cool, blend it till it becomes a smooth puree.
  • In the same pan, pour this puree and let it boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, add the cooked kidney beans, chilli powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and rajma powder. Check for salt and add more if needed.
  • Let this cook well and once the whole mixture is nice and thick, switch off the gas and garnish with coriander leaves
  • Enjoy piping hot Rajma with Cumin (Jeera) rice, Rotis or Nan.

Tips:

  • You can put a pinch of baking powder/soda while soaking the kidney beans overnight. This will soften it up. Remember to wash it well before cooking it to remove all traces of the baking powder/soda
  • You can buy ready-made rajma masala at any Indian store. I prefer to use the Everest brand, but you can use any that is available or the one that tickles your taste buds.

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Recipes: Red Chilli Chutney

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I love having chutneys in the house and will have one or more lying around at any point in time.

A couple of weeks back, while making veggie burgers with my Mixed Veg Kofta recipe, I played with this recipe and found one that suits me! Don’t be fooled with the name, though its made from red chillies, it’s not as fiery as the name suggests.

This chutney is made from fresh, largish red chillies which are not spicy. I suspect they will be very nice with red peppers also, though I’ve not yet tried them with them.

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Fresh red chillies

Fresh Red Chili Chutney

IMG_5357Ingredients:

  • 1 cup fresh red chilies, chopped into large chunks
  • 2 onions, chopped into large pieces
  • 10-12 cloves of garlic
  • 1 large handful of raisins, soaked in warm water for a while
  • Salt to taste
  • 1-2 tbsps lemon juice

Method:

  • In a blender, using the water used to soak the raisins, blend all the ingredients except the salt and lemon juice.
  • Use water sparingly to keep the chutney thick.
  • Add salt and lemon juice and blend till you get the consistency you want.

This chutney is amazing with bread and also goes very well with chats and and any fried food like samosa, pakoras etc. The chutney was not very spicy and the raisins helped cut the spice factor even more. If you can take a lot more spiciness, you can reduce the amount of raisins, or increase the chili amount.

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