Am so thrilled!

I was so thrilled by a comment on my blog left weeks back by Sangeeth. It just had been a few crazy weeks, summer is wonderful, but sometimes just has a life of its own, leaving very little time for this little space called my blog. Still, it is a little space where some of the creations of my favorite passion cooking are displayed. I cannot help feeling happy when someone aknowledges this effort.

It is difficult to narrow this to three blogs, especially since there are so many lovely blogs around. Some of my other favorite blogs have recieved this award already so, these are the three that come to my head today which I think may not have yet been awarded this,

Cooking for All Seasons

Jugalbandi

What's for Lunch Honey

Thank you again!

Thin Noodles - Desi Style

Nothing like ending a usual busy, crazy week with Indian style noodles. In a nutshell, Indian style noodles are pretty simple, toss noodles with your favorite combination of vegetables and eggs and some meat if so desired. Through in any variety of spices, chinese and Indian and there you have it a wonderfully simple and flavorful one dish meal. So ok, you wonder why on earth waste good space on a blog writing about it. Well, you see a lot of these tossed together ingredients have interesting nuances, tonight the combination incoporated a hint of lime and cumin, just amazing how lovely the flavors were.

Garlic-Lime Noodles with Cumin

Serves 4

Ingredients

1.5 cups thin fresh chinese noodles

3 tbsp oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions

1 tsp hot sesame oil

2 pods garlic, grated

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1 green chilli, finely minced

3 carrots grated

1/2 bell pepper thinly sliced

2-3 slices ham, julliened

2 tsp soy sauce

1 large lime

2 tbsp cilantro, minced

Method of Preparation

1. Bring the water to a boil and cook the noodles for 4 minutes and drain.

2. Heat 1 tbsp oil and scramble the eggs and set aside.

3. Heat the oil and add the sesame oil and cumin seeds.

4. Add the garlic and saute lightly, mix in the scallions.

5. Add the chili and carrots and bell pepper and cook for 2-3 minutes.

6. Add the ham with the noodles.

7. Add in the soy sauce and stir in the eggs.

8. Squeeze the lime and add the cilantro and mix well.

9. Enjoy!

Sabudana Dosa with Sambhar

It is probably an extremely rare, make that practically never day, when I think of trying to do any prepping prior to leaving for work. Well, my dear Aadi, has just been asked to get of the bottle all of 2-months back. My life has not been the same since then, I spend about 30 minutes every morning wrestling with him to drink from these silly colorful cups that I have bought him. Well, since I am pretty much stuck in the kitchen, a couple of day back, I was fussing around. I had some extra tapioca and my friend Vasu informed me this could be used for dosa.
I did not exactly remember a recipe, but this is broadly what I did.

For the dosas

I soaked

1/2 cup tapioca
1/2 cup chire (rice flakes)
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup yogurt
1 cup water

I mixed the above ingredients and left for work, I came back and found a pretty thick concoccotion. I ground this with some more water in the blender.

Then I mixed in some chopped onion, sweet potatoes, cilantro and the half granny smith apple that I had in the fridge with half the batter. I heated the tawa, added oil and spread the batter, it took a good 12 minutes and then I turned and cooked briefly, the result was a nice and really crisp dosa. The kids loved this.

Once, they were done I made some sambhar using frozen sambhar vegetables. This was a pre-mixed pack that I bought from our Indian store, I have to confess I was pleasantly surprised by the quality.

In the remainder of the batter, I added some finely chopped chillies for us. A nice fun meal!

Dressing up the Taro

There are some bloggers who present with such beauty and specificity that you want jump right out of the blog and into their kitchens. One such blog is the saffron trail, where recently Nandita featured Arbi ke Tikkey, a lovely way to dress up the humble Taro.

I followed her recipe pretty closely, with tiny tweaks, could not leave out my beloved chat masala now, could I?

Arbi Ke Tikkey - Spicy Taro Cakes

Makes 8

Ingredients

8 medium sized taro

2 limes

1 tsp cumin-coriander powder

1/2 tsp crushed carom seeds

1 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp chat masala

1 tsp black salt

1 tsp salt

Oil for frying

To garnish

Onion rings

Cilantro

Additional Chat masala

Freshly ground black pepper

Method of Preparation

1. Cook the taro for 10 minutes, till parcooked. Cool and remove the skin.

2. Squeeze the juice of 1.5 limes on the taro, and add the remaining spices to the taro. Let this sit for 1 hour stirring occasionally.

3. In a shallow skillet, add the taro in a single layer and cook on medium-low heat for about 6 minutes on each side. This should allow a thick golden crust to form on each side.

4. Remove from the oil and let this cool slightly.

5. Squeeze with the remaining lime, add the chat masala and pepper.

6. Garnish with onions and cilantro and serve with a chutney if desired.

This dish would make a great side dish for any other fish or chicken dish.

Robustly spicy pasta

Cannot quite understand why I am feeling so tired today, by the standard of weeks, life was not too crazy, also went to sleep early yesterday so frankly my dear, I have no clue why I feeling out of sorts. Thought blogging about this nice and colorful dish I concocted might actually chase away the tiredness, but no such luck, I left this post halfway and went to sleep. Decided to continue posting the next day.

Anyhow, the core to this dish was some really good sausage that I had gotten from Apple Farm which is actually a really good deli and fresh cheese section, pretty decent fish and acceptable vegetables. Anyhow, back to the sausage...

Sausage with peppers and vegetables

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 lb fennel sausage

3-5 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp crushed black pepper

1 onion cut into thick slices

1 green pepper cut into slices

1 red pepper cut into slices

1 can tomatoes (I use a fire-roasted organic can)

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup thickly chopped mushrooms

1/2 tsp fresh rosemary

2-3 tbsp chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Cut the sausage into small pieces.

2. Heat the oil and add the fennel seeds, chili powder, onions and peppers and saute for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add the sausage and cook stiring occasionally for 10 minutes.

4. Add the tomatoes, salt and sugar and bring to a simmer and cook on low for 15 minutes.

5. Add the mushroom and herbs and cook for 5 more minutes.

6. Serve over anywhole wheat pasta of your choice.

Bell Peppers - Shimla Baigan Bhartha

Shimla Capsicum Bhartha, originally uploaded by brinku11.

You know, I've got to tell you, I think we Indians should patent the word capsicum, I have so gotten used to saying, "bell pepper" but a part of me longs for that somewhat small slightly spicer and really flavorful capsicum.

But, on the other hand, I love colorful red and yellow peppers which you do not find so readily in India. A red bell pepper is amazingly flavorful, especially roasted. Of course, nothing like a smoked eggplant! Mix them together, you get a scintilating mix of taste and flavor.

Try this luscious bhartha, which is very simple, just takes a little time to roast the vegetables.

Shimla Baigan Bhartha

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 medium eggplants
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 onion finely chopped
2 tsp very finely shredded ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced green chillies
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin-coriander powder
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup frozen green peas (thawed)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1 tbsp chat masala

Method of Preparation

1. On an open flame, gas or grill roast the eggplants and peppers till the skin turns black. For the eggplant the outer skin should char and begin to crack.
2. Place the peppers in ziplock bags to cool for 10 minutes, the moisture helps with peeling the skin off. The eggplant can be placed on a plate.
3. Remove the dark skin of the eggplant and the peppers,
4. Coarsely chop the peppers.
5. Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds, followed by the onion, ginger and garlic.
6. Saute this till the onions begin turning golden, add in the eggplant and peppers and mix well, mashing the mixture while stirring.
7. Add in the chillies, salt, cumin-coriander powder, tomato paste and continue mixing on medium heat. Cook in this manner for about 5 minutes.
8. Add in the peas, cilantro and chat masala.
9. Serve hot

Sending this entry to Pooja, at My Creative ideas, for Jhiva and Vow - Bell peppers.

Mother Day generally speaking

Well, we decided that to beat the crowds we would actually go out for dinner on Saturday evening rather than Sunday. Ok, so we actually did both. Everything in general seemed to be planned pretty well.

Zuppa's in Yonker's is one of my favorite restaurants, I find the food innovative but really flavorful. In general a little pricey, but have always loved the restaurant and the warm earth tones and rustic set-up. The menu is not huge but has probably a very innovative selection of items that they aptly label as progressive Italian.

Now, Zuppa's on mother's unfortunately is a slightly different story. Interestingly, enough last year when I was raving about Zuppa to a colleague, he appeared unimpressed stating he took his wife over for mother's day, he was less than impressed with the experience, mentioning how noisy and chaotic the place of was, so I thought - Hello! Mom's Day is like only the busiest restaurant day of the year!

Well! Well! Well!, this year Anshul did something smart we had a pretty early reservation, which with kids is always a bright idea. The meal started in its usual relaxed manner, we ordered some very interesting Pizza for the little ones, after I managed to explain to the waiter that they did indeed have zinfandale on the menu, only it was red not white, I felt this would be the usual special experience. Not really, the pasta order that I had was too al dente, they mixed up the calamari order that appeared to me too salty, in any case when you get the fried calamari after the main course it can be, shall we say a little weird.

The dessert saved the day. Well, will I be back someday maybe, but not on some major designated holiday.

Khichuri - A different blend!

Please tell me that there were others who had no idea until late last week that there was a rice crisis brewing! Look, I am kind of priding myself on the fact that I have been pretty good with reducing the refrined, beautiful, unblemished rice in my diet and have switched to other variations of carbs, hence the ignorance!

Well, anyhow, a couple of weekends back, I go to my local indian store, which has become just so much better than anything I could dream of a couple of months back, and find this somewhat small unassuming pack of pretty pink rice call Rose Matta, liked the looks brought it home, I figures how wrong could you go with 2 lbs. of rice. Looked up this discovery some more and here is what I found,

Jugalbandi gave me an insight into a lot of interesting rices including my new discovery, of course Mahanandi, and finally yet another blog that convinced me, Go Rosematta!

So, not quite sure what to do, I decided to do an bengali-style khichuri. A khichuri is a lentil-rice combination, no matter how you slice it, what makes a khichuri a bengali one, in my opinion is the spicing!

So, this is what I did!

Gota Moong Kichuri - Whole mung kichuri with RoseMatta Rice

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 tbsp oil

1 onion thinly sliced

1 tsp cumin-coriander powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp salt

1 tsp red chili powder

3/4 cup green moong dal ( with the skin on)

1/2 cup rose mata rice

1 large potato, cut into 8ths

1 tomato, quartered

1 cup cauliflower, florettes

1 tbsp ghee

2-3 bay leaves

2-3 whole green chillies

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a pressure cooker and add the onions with the cumin-coriander and turmeric and saute for 5 minutes.

2. Add in the salt, chili powder, rice and dal and mix in for 2 minutes.

3. Add in the potato, cauliflower, tomato and stir well.

4. Add 1.5 cups water and cook under pressure for 15 minutes.

5. Cool for 1o minutes and check and adjust for seasonings.

6. Heat the ghee and lightly cook the bay leaves and chillies.

7. Serve hot and enjoy a much healthier and new cheaper khichuri!

Chicken boti kabab masala

Having cream handy is a really bad thing, it makes one want to use the cream more often than is needed. This friday I wanted to do something classic but quickly. I had some chicken legs that I had marinated a day back in tandoori masala. So a variation of the classic tikka masala emerged. Tikka by defination is made of chunks of boneless chicken and the sauce is much smoother. However, this recipe is sure to be a crowd pleaser as well.

Chicken Boti Kabab Masala

Serves 4

For the Boti

1 cup lowfat yogurt
1 tbs tandoori masala (I use the commercial Swad Brand
6-8 skinned chicken drumsticks
1 tsp salt (optional)

For the masala gravy

2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp cumin-coriander powder
1 cup baby bella mushroom, sliced
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Marinate the chicken with the yogurt, tandoori masala and salt if using for 6-8 hours or overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees farenheight.
3. Place the chicken in the oven and cook for 20 minutes, turn and cook for another 10 minutes. Reserve any marinade leftover.
4. Let this cool sightly.
5. In the meantime, heat the oil and add the cumin seeds.
6. Add the cumin-coriander powder and the mushrooms, onions and garlic, cook stirring frequently for 5-7 minutes.
7. Add the tomatoes, chicken, salt and cook on high for 10 minutes.
8. Add in the saved marinade with 1/2 cup water and cook on low for 10-15 minutes.
9. Check the seasonings and add in the cream and mix well to let the flavors mix and cook through for about 2-3 minutes.
10. Stir in the garam masala and garnish with cilantro and serve with any kind of Indian bread.

Through a quick scan of the blogosphere, I realized Meeta at What's for Lunch honey was hosting her monthly mingle featuring Bollywood Cooking. I think I could send this out to mingle and dance with the stars, so here it goes.

Coconut-Cashew Mixed vegetables or fruit of the refrigerator

Coconut-Cashew Mixed vegetables
Originally uploaded by brinku11

I cannot even believe this is something I am writing about, but there you have it, sometime the strangest of things thrown together work just fine. This was last friday, I was trying to make something to complement the fish, I had one zucchini, a quarter head of cauliflower, 1-2 carrots and a few pods of okra. This is how I through them together.

Cashew Coconut Vegetables

Serves 4 people

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
8 -10 curry leaves
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp channa dal
1-2 dried red chillies
1 tsp crushed peppercorns
1 small onion thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups mixed vegetables (I used the ones mentioned above)
2 tbsp coconut powder
2 tbsp broken cashews

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin and mustard seeds.
2. When they crackle, add the curry leaves and the lentils and cook for 1 minute.
3. Add the chillies, peppercorns and the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add the vegetables, mix well and cover and cook on low heat for 5 minutes.
5. In the meantime dry roast the coconut and cashews till aromatic and add this to the vegetables.
6. Check for seasonings and serve with any other accompanyments of your choice.

While there are lots of interesting flavors in this dish, the ingredient I would like to highlight is curry leaves, these are incredible flavorful and used extensively in north and south indian cuisine. The freeze wonderfully and adds elegance and flavor to anything it is added to.

This goes out to WHB, being hosted by Ann at Food Lovers Journey.