Monday, August 23, 2010

Samosas





Samosa - a stuffed pastry is how wikipedia describes it. This is probably one of India's most popular and versatile dishes. Its an every occasion dish and you can see so many variations of it as you go from south to north and east to west in India. My personal favorite is the Irani samosa that you get at these Irani Cafes in Hyderabad. It is stuffed mostly with onion and sometimes a little carrot/beans. The samosa itself is a mini size and extremely crisp and flavorful. I have so many memories associated with samosa -
  • This small shop in a shopping center that used to sell these small irani samosas and a fruit drink called Soma (that goes back to my first ever memories of my home and family in Hyderabad as a kid),
  • Sunday evenings when this queer dude would come on his bicycle and sell hot samosas, of vendors outside my school selling samosas for 25 paise each,
  • This sweet shop near my place where dad would bring samosas, pakodas and it would transform into an entire meal paired with maggie ketchup and bread,
  • I had hot samosas (called singhara in north east India) in this small tea shop in Darjeeling while it was raining outside,
  • The time when I first started making samosas for my hubby out of wonton wrappers during our dating days,
  • The hot hot Bharat bazaar samosas my hubby would bring home on his way from work for my folks and sister when we were engaged
I can go on forever:)

This recipe is for a slightly different stuffing than the usual potato filling. It was arrived at in an effort to emulate my favorite Irani samosa but tasted nothing like it. It still tasted pretty good but my taste buds that have memory cells refused to like it. According to my hubby it was still very tasty and is worth a blog post. So here goes -


Ingredients:
  1. Yellow onion - thinly sliced, 1
  2. Carrot - 1, grated
  3. Peas - 1/2 cup
  4. Curry leaves - 4/5
  5. Green chillies - 2, finely chopped
  6. Ginger garlic paste - 1/2 tsp
  7. Garam masala - 1/4th tsp
  8. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
  9. Jeera-dhania powder - 1/2 tsp
  10. Salt
  11. Lemon juice - 1 tsp
  12. Corriander leaves - 1 cup finely chopped
  13. Mint leaves - 1/2 cup finely chopped
  14. Oil - 1 tsp for the filling and a wok full for deep frying
  15. Milk - 2 tsps
  16. Wonton wrappers

Directions:
  1. Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan and add the curry leaves and chopped chillies.
  2. Add sliced onions and saute until well done.
  3. Add ginger garlic paste and after 2 mins, add the grated carrots, peas, chilli powder, salt, jeera dhania powder, garam masala and cook until well done.
  4. Add the corriander leaves, mint leaves and lemon juice and cook for 2 more mins.
  5. Take a wonton wrapper and cut into half diagonally (This is for the big square wonton wrappers. You can also try the smaller ones).
  6. Fill in the center with the stuffing made above and use milk to seal the corners.
  7. Heat oil for deep frying and drop the samosas when hot. It only takes a min for each samosa to get done. Enjoy hot with ketchup:)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Cauliflower Pulao/Khichdi/Biryani


I was inspired by this recipe one evening and attempted to make cauliflower biryani for dinner. Unfortunately I am trying a new brand of basmati rice and it became really sticky and mushy. It tasted excellent though and made a very nice lunch the next day too. Lately I have been having a lot of rice cravings and been on a rice binge. There is no other comfort food as a rice dish for an Indian and I have been in my comfort zone a lot these days. :) Need to get back to my no rice restriction again and watch those inches but meanwhile I am sure I will be blogging about more rice dishes.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Appe With Chutney and Sambhar



Tonight's dinner reminds me of this song because appe is what you get when you have excess dosa batter. You don't even want to know the actual parody I was humming. Appe is a a dish made in a dutch muffin style pan(below) with leftover dosa batter.
All you do is oil the pan lightly and drop the dosa batter. Flip them using a fork or a skewer and cook on other side. Enjoy hot with sambhar or chutney.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Summer Tomatoes and A Simple Pasta



Its been an unusual summer for me this year. Not as many outdoor activities as I would have liked but have been enjoying my home a lot more. I started my spring cleaning in summer this week and accomplished a lot. Purging all the unwanted things in your life gives you such a good feeling and organizes your life and thoughts. My garden has bloomed wonderfully. Check out the cherry tomatoes and chillies in the pic below. Besides this I have rosemary, basil, thyme and mint which I use from time to time. The feeling of using herbs/veggies from your garden is awesome.



The simple pasta I made to use the cherry tomatoes was nothing more than boiled whole wheat pasta, pesto, pepper, crushed red pepper and tomatoes tossed together. The simplicity of the ingredients brought out the best flavor from the tomatoes.