Rosemary Potatoes

The rosemary plant in my garden is overflowing from the pot and I simply had to put it to good use. What better than to bake the classic combination of rosemary and potatoes! My kitchen was smelling like heaven when I popped them out of the oven. This makes an excellent side dish to go with any Italian salad or pasta.


Ingredients:

1. Red skinned potatoes - 2, washed and cut into any desired french-fry-like shape
2. Rosemary - 1/2 cup finely chopped
3. Salt
4. Coarsely crushed black pepper - 1/2 tsp
5. Olive oil - 1 tbsp

Directions:

1. Toss the potatoes with the rosemary, salt, pepper and olive oil.
   
2. Spread thinly on a baking sheet and bake at 400F for 20 minutes
3. Turn the oven to broil and broil on each side for 5-7 minutes or until the potatoes turn brown.
4. Let it cool for 5 mins and you are done!
   

Instant Mango Pickle / Ambyacha Loncha

This is a very simple and easy mango pickle that my mom used to make during summers when the raw mangoes were plentiful. It needs very few basic ingredients but the flavor of the mango makes up for everything and gives it a unique taste. It is best when enjoyed with ghee and rice.

Ingredients:

1. Raw mango - 1 cut into small cubes
2. Red chilli powder - 4 tsps (Try the one that is made for pickles specifically)
3. Salt - 1 tsp
4. Oil - 2 tsps
5. Mustard seeds - 2 tsps
6. Green chillies - 2 finely chopped
7. Hing - 1/2 tsp
8. Haldi - 1/4th tsp
   
9. Lemon juice - 2 tsps

Directions:

1. Mix the mango pieces, salt, red chilli powder.
2. Heat oil and add mustard, green chillies, hing and haldi. Heat it until all the mustard seeds have spluttered but not burnt.
3. Add the oil mixture to the mango along with the lemon juice. Mix thoroughly and let it sit for an hour. You will see the mangoes releasing a lot of juices.
   
4. This pickle is best stored in the fridge after a day of sitting outside.
   

Arachuvitta Sambhar

Arachuvitta sambhar is a very traditional and typical tamilian sambhar, the ultimate comfort food for any tamilian or for that matter any south Indian:). - a fresh ground powder/paste is added to this sambhar and the aroma of that sets it apart from a regular sambhar. You can add any vegetable to this one. I chose to use white pumpkin. Thanks to my SIL for the recipe.

Ingredients:

1. Chana dal - 2 tbsps
2. Toor dal - 2 tbsps
3. Corriander seeds - 4 tbsps
4. Red chillies - 10
   
5. Frozen/fresh grated coconut - 1 cup
6. Tamarind pulp - 2 cups
7. White pumpkin - 1/4th piece, peeled and subed
   
8. Oil - 1 tsp
9. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
10. Methi seeds - 1 tsp
11. Hing - 1/4th tsp
12. Curry leaves - 8 or 10
13. Toor dal boiled - 2 cups
14. Haldi - 1/2 tsp
    
15. Salt

Directions:

1. Dry roast ingredients 1 through 5 and grind to a smooth powder/paste.
2. Heat oil in a skillet and add mustard, methi, haldi, curry leaves, red chillies, hing and let the mustard seeds splutter.
3. Add the pumpkin pieces and sautee for 5 mins.
4. Add the tamarind pulp, salt and enough water and boil the pumpkin until cooked.
5. Add the dal and boil until all ingredients are well cooked.
6. Add the ground paste/powder and boil for a min or so and take it off the heat. Serve hot with rice.
   

Begun Bhaja

It feels like the cook in me is getting resurrected and that is not necessarily a good thing because it also means that my diet and focus on eating healthy goes for a toss :). Ah heck! Who cares!!! Today I was inspired to make a Bengali meal and perused several blogs for the recipe of Begun Bhaja. I finally used this one. My first taste of this dish was during my last India trip when my sister's cook make this. It seemed so simply yet tasted so good. I know it is my BIL's favorite dish and I can see why. To go with this, I made a simple dal with panch phoran masala which added to the Bengali theme of the evening:).

Ingredients:

1. One big eggplant - cut into discs 1/2 inch thick
2. Turmeric - 2 tsps (I used it liberally but you can use less too)
3. Red chilli powder - 2 tsps
4. Salt
5. Oil - 3 tbsps
6. Lemon juice - 1/2 tsp

Directions:

1. Rub the turmeric, salt and red chilli powder on both sides of the eggplant and let it sit for a few minutes

2. In a pan, add the oil and let it heat up for a min. Add the eggplant slices and let it cook and brown on one side. Then flip and let it cook well on the other side. By the time it is done, the eggplant should be really soft and the skin on the sides should have changed color.

3. Drizzle a little lemon juice and enjoy hot with khichdi or with roti and dal like I did.

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:)
   

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.

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.

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.

Pear/Apple Crumble/Crisp

This is a rather easy dessert that I make very frequently when I don't have the patience to make an elaborate dessert. It also provides a good way to use up apples or pears that you have lying around ready to spoil. When paired with vanilla bean ice cream (note, vanilla bean and not just vanilla), it proves to be a super elegant dessert.

Ingredients:

1. Pears/Apples - 3 semi ripe, sliced lengthwise
2. Cinnamon powder - 1/4th tsp
3. Brown sugar - 1 tsp
4. Lemon zest - 1/4th tsp
5. Apple crisp mix - you can get this in the store and usually it is a mix of oats, flour, sugar and some spices
6. Instant oats - 1 cup
7. Butter - 1 stick

Directions:

1. Add the cinnamon, brown sugar, zest to the sliced pears and give them a quick toss to mix together.
2. Place in a buttered and floured baking dish.
3. Mix the oats, apple crisp mix, melted butter and add to the top of the dish as shown in the picture.
4. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until the top turns brown.
5. Serve hot with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Recipe for the crisp/crumble topping: Mix together 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 cup of instant oats, 1/3rd cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 stick of melted butter and use this as a topping.

Paneer 65

Its been a long break since my last blog post and the primary reason is laziness:D:D. I know people complain about lack of time and I would too except that I know myself only too well and I know that if I wanted to make time for something, I will. Work has been exceptionally crazy and I haven't been a very creative cook recently either. Hence for the lack of a better dish, I am posting this quick Paneer 65 recipe that relies solely on the magic masala called aachi masala which Vidya akka recommended to me. Its really tasty and gives you that flavor that you get at restaurants. Here goes -

Ingredients :

1. 1 slab of paneer - chopped into small cubes
2. 1 cup yogurt
3. 2 tsps chicken 65 aachi masala (or more if you want it spicier and saltier...A word of warning - the masala itself has a lot of salt, so don't add any more. Although the masala is for chicken 65, the ingredients are all vegetarian)
4. Curry leaves - 10
5. Oil - 1 tsp
6. Geen chillies -3, slit lengthwise
7. Garlic - 2 pods, finely chopped
8. Lemon juice - 2 tsps
9. Corriander - 1 cup finely chopped
   

Directions:

1. Mix the yogurt and the masala and marinate the paneer cubes in it for 2 hours
2. Heat oil and sautee the garlic, curry leaves and chillies in it
3. Add the paneer without the excess liquid and stir fry until the paneer gets well roasted and has brown edges.
4. Sprinkle lemon juice and corriander and enjoy hot!