Jackfruit curry

Lunch at Suruchi. Doesn't quite have the same zing as 'Breakfast at Tiffany's" - however that was one session of gluttony (on my part).

After 8 long years I went to Suruchi yesterday for lunch. An air con has been added, some attempts at beautifying, thankfully more or less unchanged. .The ocassion was to introduce two visitors from UK to Bengali food. One of them stuck to vegetarian and the other tried bits of non-veg items from us. I sat in a corner and ate. And how. Rice, musoor dal, aloo bhaja, kanchkolar kofta curry, echor er dalna, bhetki fry, bhapa ilish, a bit of chingri, gokul pithey and ampora sarbat. This is what I ate. Regretfully, I had to turn down pabda, parshey, galda chingri and mangshor jhol that others had ordered. Afternoon at work was AGONY - felt comatose. Luckily recovered sufficiently to be able to have echor-er dalna for dinner at home! So here is the recipe for Jackfruit curry - Echorer dalna (the way its made at home, by K our cook):

You will need:

Jackfruit - 1/2 kilo
Onion - 1
Garlic - 3-4
Ginger - 1/2"
Tomato - 1-2
Potato - 1
Turmeric
Salt
Sugar
Cooking Oil
Water

For the Garam Masala
1 green ilaichi, 2 cloves, 1/2" cinamon stick in a mortar - Coarsely grind
1 bay leaf

How to:

Cut the jackfruit. I find it difficult so I ask the vendor. But if you do happen to be adventourous...remember to remove the bits which feel plasticky!

Cut it into small cubes. Wash and clean. Smear with a pinch of turmeric and 1/2 tsp of salt and cook in a pressure cooker with a little water for one whistle. Drain and set aside.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a kadai. Add the sliced onions, ginger and garlic paste. Stir. Add the cubed potatoes and fry.

Add the tomatoes. Season with salt. Stir well.

Cook till the potatoes are half done.

Add the jackfruit. Add the ground garam masala and bay leaf, 1/2 tsp sugar. Adjust for salt. Add one glass of water, cover and cook on low flame for 20 minutes or till done.

Remove from fire and eat - with rice!

PS - This dish can be made without onions, garlic and ginger. If you want more curry, add more water, lesser for a thicker curry.

Soya snack for My Legume Love Affair Event

This is my entry for the “My Legume Love Affair” event hosted by the Well Seasoned Cook.

Happily, my sis R has just returned from a trip to Bagdogra where she learnt a nifty soya bean snack recipe. Our common friend Madhu P cooked this up in a jiffy one cold evening and they had a great time gobbling it up in between R’s singing and Anand's (Madhu’s husband) strumming the guitar!

I was a bit worried if soya bean is a lentil (poor knowledge). But I have proof that they indeed are. “Peas, beans and lentils are known as pulses. They are the seeds of plants belonging to the family Leguminosae, which gets its name from the characteristic pod or legume that protects the seeds while they are forming and ripening. With approximately 13,000 species, the family Leguminosae is the second largest in the plant kingdom...”. More here at the Vegetarian Society.

You will need:
(This is what I used, the proportions can be varied)

Soya beans: 1 cup full
Pepper corn: 10
Mixed herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary): 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Water: 4 cups
Oil for sautéing

How to:

1. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan and remove from fire. Add 1 tsp salt to the water.
2. Add the soya beans, cover and let soak for 20 minutes. Drain.
3. Grind the pepper corn. I used a good old fashioned steel ham-dista (mortar and pestle).
4. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a frying pan.
5. Add the soaked and drained soya beans and stir.Sprinkle the herbs, crushed pepper corns .
6. Stir well and fry over high heat for 5-7 minutes, adjust seasoning.

Hey presto! Your snack is ready.
I tried it yesterday and although A and I didn’t sing or strum the guitar, I enjoyed it too, huddled under a warm blanket watching TV on a cold winter night.

Hariyali Matar

What a lyrical name for this simple and yet tasty dish. It lay buried in my recipe book -- perhaps overlooked because this was not one of R's, written in her beautiful handwriting but in my horrible scrawl. This was given to me by Hema who studied french with me in Alliance Francaise Kolkata. She took cookery classes on weekends and very kindly gave me a few.


You will need:

Coriander leaves: 1 cup
Garlic 8 cloves
Green Chillie: 6 (I used half a chilli only)
Onion: 1 medium
Little water

Grind the above to a paste

Tomatoes: 2 cups finely chopped
Peas: 2 cups boiled (I used frozen peas and had only to thaw them)
Turmeric: 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder: 1 tsp
Water: 1 cup
Oil: 6 tbsp
Garam masala powder: 1/4 tsp
Salt, sugar


How to:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add the ground coriander paste.
2. Stir fly lightly till oil separates.
3. Add tomatoes and stir fry till they become soft.
4. Add peas, turmeric, salt, a pinch of sugar and water.
5. Mix well, simmer till gravy is thick.
6. Sprinke the garam masala and remove.
7. Serve with rice or rotis.

Thanks Hema, wherever you happen to be. I tried your recipe 6 years after you had shared it with me...and it was wonderful and worth the wait.

How to cook dal: Arhar

Another recipe for the number one search on Timid Cook: How to cook dal!!

Am learning to buy in smaller quantities despite the hassles of shopping more. Larger quantities, I have learnt are not really economical because they attract weevils or worse (eeks). Also, I am cooking in smaller quantities. Just enough for one meal. That way we are eating hot fresh food and not storing them away in the fridge and re-heating (where they lose their taste and sometimes I forget about them and discover later, lurking in a corner and looking distincly alien with variety of growth in it not to mention the smell)!!

I didn't look up the recipe. I just followed my hunch or rather memory of the dal from the local dhaba. And I'd say it turned out pretty well and cooking time was 20 minutes max. Just the thing for a cold winter night.

What I used:

Arhar dal: 1/2 small cup about 3 full tbsp (to be precise)
Water for pressure cooking the dal: 2&1/2 cups
Turmeric: 1/2 tsp
Salt: 1 tsp
Onion: 1 small
Garlic: 1-2 pods
Tomato: 1 small
Hing (asefoetida): 1/2 tsp
Dried red chillie: 1
Mustard seed: 1/4 tsp

How to:

1. Wash the dal with several changes of water, drain and put in the pressure cooker with the turmeric, salt and fresh water. The rule for pressure cooking is that water should be approximately slightly less than double of the other ingredient in this case, dal. But given the cold weather and the fact that arhar dal takes a bit longer to cook than say masoor or moong dal, I added 2 and 1/2 cups of water. Let it cook for quite a few whistles. (I let it cook for 7 whistles of the cooker and found that the dal was still a bit hard. So I simply added a bit more water and let it cook for another 5).
2. Chop the onions, garlic and tomatoes.
3. After the dal is cooked, add oil to a small kadai or pan. Add the mustard seed and hing powder.
4. When the seeds start popping, add the garlic, onions and stir till they are browned. Keep stirring or they might stick to the pan.
5. Add the tomatoes and fry till the tomatoes release their juices.
6. Then, add the cooked dal. If the water has evaporated while pressure cooking, add more water. Arhar dal is usually thicker than other dals, so don't add too much water.
7. Bring to a boil, adjust salt and remove.
8. Eat with chappatis!

Note: The red chillie can be added while tempering (before the mustard)....but A can't eat anything remotely hot. Also, while serving, add a generous spoonful or lump of ghee and if not, then buter! This step I omitted (lower calories for A)!

PS- We finished it all up and really fast and so there are no photos to show....alas!

Arusuvai Friendship Chain: Amaranth Spinach Tomato Mushroom Soup

The secret packet that Bhags sent me contained Amaranth seeds also called Rajagiri -- completely unknown territory to me. In fact, Bhags took pity on me and told me what it was!! I found a recipe which I altered a wee bit and it turned into one of my favorites: A hearty, healthy soup meal!

You will need:

1 cup amaranth seed

3 cups water

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 bunch spinach (or young amaranth leaves if available - I used spinach)

2 ripe tomatoes, skinned and coarsely chopped

1/2 pound mushrooms (I used 6-7) stemmed and sliced

1&1/2 teaspoons basil

1&1/2 teaspoons oregano

1 clove of garlic minced

1 tbsp onion, minced

Salt and pepper to taste (the original recipe called for Sea salt or a salt substitute)

How to:

A good place to start was to stick up the recipe on the kitchen wall.

Add one cup amaranth seeds to 3 cups of boiling water

And cook for 12-15 minutes. This is how it will look...a bit messy.

While amaranth is cooking, stem and wash spinach, then simmer until tender. Drain and chop it. Blanch tomatoes in boiling water to loosen skin, then peel and chop. Mince the onion and garlic.



Heat oil in a pan over medium heat and add garlic and onion. Sauté approximately for 2 minutes. Add tomato, mushrooms, basil, oregano, salt, pepper. Add tomato. Cook for 10 – 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Lightly mash tomato as it is cooking.

Then pour the amaranth into the spinach-tomato mixture. Raise flame to high and let the whole mixture come to a boil, adjust for seasoning, remove...

...and treat yourself to a hearty soup, with bread of your choice.

Thanks due to U for loaning me his cam...photos (a bit blurry) up on Timid Cook for the first time.

Thanks to A, for bravely tasting it altho' spinach and tomatoes are a no-no for him and he is kind of allergic to mushroom :-(

Thanks Bhags...I found out that I could!

And lastly.......

Umm...what a load of dishes to be cleaned....

PS- I know I have to pass it on....but blogging has taken the wind out of my sails....I will get around to it shortly....so, in this post, I don't have two names to pass it on to...yet.

PPS - Sushma of Cookspot is the next link in the Arusuvai Friendship Chain. I have sent her a secret packet and am waiting eagerly to see what she cook's up!

Hearty Soup for a cold winter day

First day of the new year dawned cold, crisp and a minor crisis of taps running dry. (It has now developed in to a major crisis since we are still without water second day). We were constantly assured of the problem being resolved in the next half hour which kept getting delayed. Around 2, I tore myself away from the net and went into the kitchen and cooked up this one dish meal...a winter favorite for us and really easy to make.

The original recipe is a non veg one with "lardon fume". But the veg version is equally easy and tasty as well.

You will need:
Onions: 1
Spring Onions: 3-4
Garlic: 3-4 (or less if you dont much care for garlic)
Bay leaf: 1
Peppercorns: 5-6
Tomato: 2
Carrots: 2
Cabbage: 1/2 a medium sized one
Pasta: 1 cup
Chicken stock cubes: 2
Salt to taste
Olive Oil
Water

How to:

1. Heat 3 tbsp of olive oil in a deep pot (I use a pressure cooker).
2. Add the bay leaf and peppercorns.
3. Add the onions and spring onions and fry till they turn pink.
4. Add the tomatotes and the veggies, lower flame, cover and cook till the tomatoes release their juices.
5. Add the pasta, the garlic (which I smash using a heavy spoon), the stock cubes, 2-3 cups of water and cook on high heat for 5 minutes. Then lower and cook till the pasta is done (as per the instructions on the pasta packet which is normally 10-12 minutes).
6. Adjust for salt, you could add some chillie flakes if you like and hey presto...

Ah! Hot thick soup warming your belly on a cold winter day or night....

The Non-Veg version differs only in one ingredient and in the first step. The rest is identical:

In a pot, add the strips of smoked bacon directly, without the oil. As it fries, it releases its fat and then follow steps 2-6. Hmm...it tastes out of this world. And beware, this heavy soup is somehow siesta inducing. So be ready to crawl under a heavy quilt after this meal, and so logically keep this dish for a lazy weekend!

Plain musoor dal

(This extremely basic recipe is for all those of you who keep coming to Timid Cook via the search for "How to cook dal" and there seems to be many such searches! Hope this helps)!

Last friday, we returned from a short trip to Goa, sun tanned and over stuffed (with goan goodies), extremely happy but to a bare refrigerator. We were too tired to go shopping immediately so I had to make do with what I could find. Rice-musoor dal-begun (brinjal) bhaja! Ah! Comfort food.

There are varities of musoor dal recipes...the difference being the ingredients used for tempering or "chowNk". This recipe uses a small onion, garlic and cumin seeds.

You will need:

Musoor dal: 1 cup
Turmeric: 1/4 tsp
Bay leaf: 1
Red Chilli: 1
Salt to taste

For tempering
Onion: 1 small
Garlic: 3-4 cloves
Cumin seeds: 1 tsp
Oil: 1-2 tbsp

How to:

1. Wash the dal well with several changes of water. Drain.
2. In a pressure cooker, put the dal, turmeric, the bay leaf and the red chillie and salt to taste.
3. Add 1 & 3/4 cup water (a little less than double the quantity of dal) and cook for two whistles (might take more in winter). Leave aside for the steam to escape and the lid to open.
4. Slice the onions into fine rings. Mince the garlic.
5. In a kadai, heat oil and add the cumin seeds.
6. When the start to splutter, add the onion and garlic and stir well. Cook till the onions turn pink.
7. Add the cooked dal to the kadai.
8. Add water to make the dal thinnish. Sometimes, while cooking the dal in the pressure cooker, all the water evaporates.
9. Adjust salt and cook the dal in the kadai on high flame for 4-5 minutes.
10. Remove from fire and serve with rice (along with other veggies ... I prefer this dal - rice combos with fries or "bhajas" - brinjal or parwal or aloo and sometimes, fish!

Bon apetit!

Okra with Panchphoron & Brinjal with spring onions

I was really eager to attend the wedding of a friend's sister today. I had been planning on this for quite some time. The saree, the jewellery, A's clothes (phenomenal for me...since I always start planning with 5 secs left to spare)! And then last night, I got fever with chills and shakes and how. And this is really ominous since chills and shakes usually is a sign of Malaria. Today, thankgod, didnt have another attack but my temperature hovered around 100 deg C. At 7pm, I sadly gave up the idea of attending and called up my friend to explain...it sounded really lame over the phone. But what to do? That done, I had to prepare dinner. Thankgod I had bhindi, spring onions and brinjals. Could whip up two dishes in about half an hour. Another 15 minutes, 5 rotis were ready and we had our simple home cooked dinner (in place of the no-doubt lavish spread at the Sheraton...).

The bhindi recipe is one I learnt from m-i-l. Before this, I had never heard of bhindi being cooked this way and was a bit iffy about it at first. But really, its quite tasty and a regular fare for us.

Bhindi with Panchphoron

You will need
Bhindi / Okra 250 gms
Onion 1 medium sized
Panchphoron 1 tsp (equal parts of black mustard, anise, methi, cumin and kalonji)
Salt to taste
Sugar 1/4 tsp
Oil for frying

How to

1. Wash and drain the bhindi. Cut them into 1" pieces.
2. Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in a kadai.
3. Add the panchphoron.
4. When they start spluttering, add the onions and saute till they turn translucent.
5. Add the bhindi, the salt and stir well.
6. Cook over high flame for 5 minutes.
7. Cover, lower flame and leave for another 5-7 minutes or till the bhindis are done.

Brinjals with spring onions

Strangely, I never liked this dish although this is a popular bengali one, till I got married. A likes all things with brinjals in it. He likes them in pizza too (yes...). But once I made it (and it turned out good and really easy to make) I started liking it too!!

You will need:

Brinjal / Aubergine 1 medium
Spring Onions: 3 - 4
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

How to

1. Wash the brinjal and dice into small cubes, smear with salt and keep aside.
2. Cut the spring onions into small pieces about the same size of the brinjals.
3. Heat oil in a kadai to smoking and add the brinjal.
4. Stir well and fry till softened.
5. Add the spring onion and stir well.
6. Fry for another 3-4 minutes and remove from fire.

Both are very subtle flavored, with minimal or no spices, easy to make and tasty too!

Lemon Dal

Dal is such a must for me. Dal (of the day) along with rice and veggies are always my first course. And since we have dal day in and day out (almost), a variation in the recipe is always welcome. Lemon dal is one such variation. It makes a nice change, once in a while. Like with most recipes on this blog, mine is a variation on the original. The lemon comes from the leaves of the lemon plant and not from actual lemon itself. (Although I have a recipe from a very interesting book Life & Food in Bengal by Chitrita Banerji which uses both the leaves as well as slices of lemon). This is my variation.

You will need:
Masoor dal: 1 small cup
Turmeric: 1/4 tsp
Lemon leaves: 3-4
Salt: 1-2 tsp
For tempering
Oil: 1 tsp
Jeera / Cumin: 1 tsp

How to:

1. Wash the dal, with several changes of water. Drain.
2. In a pressure cooker, add the dal and 2 cups of water and the turmeric.
3. Close the lid and cook for one whistle of the pressure cooker. (Might need two in winters or at higher altitudes).
4. Remove cover and stir the dal properly.
5. In a pan, add the oil and the jeera. When the jeera start spluttering, add first the lemon leaves and then dal to the pan.
6. Keep on high flame.
7. Adjust salt and also, add water if the dal has become too thick. It should be fairly thin.
8. Let it boil for 3-4 minutes and remove from fire.
9. Serve with rice and veggies (of course).

Note: It could possibly be a nice and different soup for non rice eaters!

Chappati Corn Rolls

Today is 2nd October the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and therefore a holiday through the length and breadth of India. Holidays always have this getting-up-late-lazing-around-after-a-huge-breakfast feel. Specially if the holiday comes in between a work week.

The first two are fine...but the huge breakfast is a perennial problem. I have always been a milk and cereal or tea and toast breakfast person. Alas, not hubby dear. He would like oily parathas, eggs and bacon and all sorts of cholesterol laden fatty oily food. And like all such things, incredibly tasty. So the challenge before me was manifold:

• Make it tasty enough to make him forgo parathas / eggs etc.
• Make it low cal enough to make it healthy without him realising it.
• Make it with the odds and end that there are in the fridge / kitchen
• Go make it myself, curbing the enormous desire to sit in the verandah and enjoy the wonderful teeny tiny nip in the air on this lazy morning
• Also, I have sacked my irascible maid ...just yesterday.

So I summoned up all my courage and made a hodge podge of ingredients and recipes learnt from m-i-l, my s-i-l (a terrific cook) and ofcourse R (even more terrific a cook if possible).

This is what I found in my fridge / kitchen and therefore used

1/2 a capsicum (bell pepper)

1 cube amul cheese

1 small cup corn

1 small onion

6-7 garlic

A pinch dried Thyme

Olive oil

Atta / Whole wheat flour

A tiny bit of butter

This is what I did of the above

1. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan.
2. Add the garlic and stir till the garlic releases its aroms (couple of seconds)
3. Lightly saute the onions till they turn pink
4. Add the capsicum, dried thyme, followed by the corn
5. About 3 or 4 minutes later, add the grated cheese and mix well.
6. Season with salt to taste.
7. Remove from flame, cover and keep.
8. Knead the atta in to a dough and roll out five (size of a quarter plate) thin chapattis.
9. Add 3-4 pods garlic crushed into a small bit butter (about a tsp full). Melt a dash of butter (I kept the butter in a small bowl on top of the pan with the corn mix).
10. Put the rolled chappattis in a pan - be careful about not burning the chappatis otherwise they will get hard.
11. When each chappati has been dry fried (their colour change) on each side, use a spoon to put a bit of the garlic butter on each side.
12. When done, remove from fire, add the corn mix, roll and serve. Viola!

End result: All rolls gone, a breakfast fit for a holiday, happy hubby and most importantly, low cal.

Low cal, despite the cheese and butter. How?

Butter: I used only one curl of butter. Curl? Well when you run a knife on the surface of the slab of butter, the knife will cut it out in a thin curl. And since I melted it, it was enough for all 5 rolls. And instead of lathering it on the chapattis, I dabbed a bit on each chappati. This is better than putting the butter in the corn mix. You'd or rather I'd need a huge amount to convince hubby that I had indeed used copious amounts of butter.

Now the cheese: I did grate one whole cube of cheese (enough for two sandwiches). However, I used only 1 tsp on the grated cheese, again sprinkled on top of the cooked corn...so that its taste was definitely identifiable!! The rest I put away in the fridge, in a small jar.

Oil: I used only 1 tbsp of olive oil.

And I was actually going to put the corn mix in lightly toasted bread. But we are all out of bread and hubby was feeling a tad lazy. And I, still dressed in my night rags, couldn't venture out.

So, the chappati innovation.

Note for other Timid Cooks like me: Bread, Pita bread are easier options than rolling out chapattis.

Note for Interpid Cooks: You might be right about laughing at this silly recipe if you happened to be anyone other than a Timid Cook. So please be kind to me, when you read this!

Cabbage Khichdi

I have managed, in this heat, to catch a cold. My head feels heavy and my movements lethargic. On top of that, my cook did no a show, but she was kind enough to inform me about that. I was not really feeling up to doing much cooking, so I made a one dish meal. This is a recipe that A taught me and it has been a life saver (mine) on many an ocassion.

You will need:
These are the proportions I used; these can be easily varied

Cabbage: 1/2 of a medium sized cabbage
Rice: 1&1/2 cups
Peas: a handful
Tomato: 1
Onions: 2 - quartered
Potato: 2, halved
Garlic: 4 cloves smashed
Ginger: 1/2 tsp grated
Bay leaf: 1
Cinnamon: 1" stick
Cumin seeds: 1 tsp
Cloves: 2/3
Green elaichi: 2 pods
Salt: 2 tsp
Sugar: a pinch
Oil: 2 tbsp

How to:

1. Shred the cabbage, wash well and drain.
2. Wash the rice and drain.
3. In a pressure cooker, heat oil. Add the cinnamon, cardamon, bay leaf and elaichi.
4. After 30 sec (by this time, the spices will have released their aroma), add the cumin seeds.
5. When the cumin start spluttering, which is almost immediately, add the cabbage, peas, garlic and ginger and turmeric and salt. Stir well.
6. After a minute, add the tomatoes. Stir well.
7. After a minute, add the rice. Stir well otherwise, the rice will stick to the pan.
8. Add the quartered onions and the potatoes.
9. Add 2&3/4 cups water - the same cup that was used to measure out the rice.
10. Cover the cooker and cook for one whistle. Remove from flame. Let the cover drop by itself. Don't lift the weight on top of the lid to release the pressure.
11. Viola! Done. Enjoy. Bon Appetit.

Note:

• The onions can be sauteed right in the begining right after adding the cumin. Any other vegetable can be used too.
• Since it's a khichdi or Khichudi in bengali, it can be accompanied by fritters - begun /brinjal, parwal /potol, papads.

And it does not take more than 20 minutes start to finish.

Faux Uttapam

A feels very hungry post his evening walk and the temptation to pick up the phone and order some calorie laden take away is enormous. So I am forever on the look out for easy at the same time tasty (enough to keep him away from fatty food) recipes. Also, if I am at work, my maid has to cook it and can't have any thing very complicated nor do I want to spend much time in the evening cooking something which requires a great deal of effort (should I be around). This is one easy and tasty recipe. And fool proof. Always turns out great and does not require exotic ingredients.

You will Need:
Semolina / Sooji: 1 cup
Curd: 2 cups (meaning double the amount of the sooji)
Onion: 1 small finely sliced
Garlic: 3 or 4 minced
Capsicum: 1 small finely sliced
Carrot: 1/2 cup finely sliced
Cabbage: 1/2 cup shredded
Coriander leaves: a few finely shredded
Oil for frying

How to:

1. In a bowl, add the sooji and double the amount of curd. I used one cup because that's all I had. Sometimes, you might have to add a bit more or less of the curd. It should be thicker, than the dosa batter. (The batter won't spread by itself on the pan. You will have to spread it out using a ladle or spoon).
2. Add the chopped veggies. These are strictly, optional. It tastes just as good with just onions.
3. Season with salt (about 3/4 tsp)
4. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a flat pan over high flame. Spread the batter out - should not be spread thinly; it might break while frying.
5. Keep on high flame for about a minute or so. Then turn it over carefully and lower the flame. Cover and keep for a few more minutes.
6. Press lightly with a wooden spatula so that all the batter inside is cooked as well.
7. The whole thing should take 6 to 7 minutes.
8. Serve with sauce of your choice!

Note: Its quick, uses less oil, simple to make, tasty. However, you CAN while frying, add a bit of butter to the oil or use only butter, if you are not counting your calories. It tastes terrific when fried in butter. You can fry them out in any shape. Normally they should be round and the size of a quarter plate. But you can make mini pizza size or like today when strangely while spreading the batter, it took a oblong shape. Tasted just as good!!

R's Noodles for Comfort

I have a biggish collection of cook books. Not for trying out recipes mind you. But to drool over the exotic recipes while I eat my every day fare!! (Ok, weird I know...). A new addition to this collection is one on Noodles. Udon, Soba and what not. I have gone through it cover to cover several times...but somehow, have never tried out any, although I keep meaning to. Instead, I bugged R several times to send me her own personal recipe - this I am going to try out. Perhaps tomorrow. It is really tasty. Try it. And simple. No fancy ingredients.

Poor R has been suffering from a very bad back and despite that (or perhaps I harrassed her a bit too much), she typed out the recipe and sent it to me. So here it is:

You will need:

Noodles: 200 or 250 gms (she hasn't specified what type of noodle - so can I dare to say "ordinary" noodles?)

Green chillies: 3-4

Assorted vegetables (carrots, beans, mushrooms, cauliflower) : 2 cups

Green Capsiscum: 1 medium sized

Garlic chopped: 6-7 cloves

Soy sauce: A dash

White vinegar - 1/2 cup

Maggie Chicken cubes: 2-3

Oil for sauting the vegetables

Salt, Pepper, Sugar

This is How:

• Boil the noodles and plunge in cold water. Drain, smear some white oil and keep aside.
• Chop the green chillies and put them in a pan with the vinegar. Add a little bit of water and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove from fire and keep aside.
• Julienne the beans, slice the carrots and mushrooms.
• Parboil the beans and carrots (and cauliflower if using)
• Slice the capsicum finely.
• Saute the mushrooms in white oil with pepper and salt.
• Heat some oil in a pan and throw in the chopped garlic.
• Add somefresh chopped chillies, then add parboiled veggies,
• Add the sauteed mushrooms and the capsicum
• Then add two tsp sugar and finally a little soy sauce, vinegar and chicken cubes.
• Finally, add the noodles. Mix well, taste and adjust seasoning.

Viola! There you have it. The chillies in vinegar is optional. Really. But it does add such a lovely tang to the noodles. The recipe reads so simple and easy...but believe me, its Comfort food.

Note:

• You can add your own combination of veggies. Shredded, sauteed meat / prawns too can be added. A would insist on adding eggs too....
• Chicken stock cubes are usually salty. So is vinegar and soy sauce. Be careful about the quantities.

Carrot Mushroom Fusilli

Just around 6pm, I feel so hungry. And the temptation to pick up the phone and order a take away is enormous. And that means my carefully planned dinner is put in to the refrigerator for tomorrow. I almost succumbed. And then I remembered a line from Everbody likes Sandwiches:

Just thinking about dinner — let alone getting up the energy to make it happen seemed like too damn much. But being the frugal girl that I am, I didn't want to order in take-out…Instead, I did what most modern cooks do. I went online to epicurious and typed in a couple things I had in my fridge and out popped a couple super simple recipes.

I did not go onto epicurious. Instead I looked in my fridge and kitchen and cooked up an easy dish with what I found.

Here is what I found:

1 small carrot
half a cube of Amul cheese
Dried mushrooms – a handful
Fusilli – a handful
Garlic – 3 cloves
Salt, pepper and dried rosemary
Olive oil

This is what I did:

Put the dried mushroom in a pan of water and let it simmer for 20 minutes while I watered the plants on my balcony. I also pruned some of them, in case you are wondering that my balcony must either be enormous or I must be having a veritable hanging garden. Neither. By the time I had finished with the plants, the mushrooms were tender. I drained them.
Next I put a pan of water to boil for the fusilli.
Then I scraped the carrot and washed it. And then using the peeler, I got really fine strips of carrot.
I chopped the garlic finely.
I grated the half cube of cheese.
I put a little olive oil into the frying pan and added the garlic.
As soon as it started to brown, I added the carrot strips and mushrooms.
Sprinkled some salt, paprika and dried rosemary.
Then I added the drained pasta and mixed well.
Lastly, I sprinked the grated cheese on top, turned off the flame and covered the pan and let it sit for couple of minutes.

The dish really looked good. The beige of the mushroom nicely contrasting with the orange of the carrots. (Alas no photos). And then, I ate it all up.

Upshot of this: The small quantity served as an appetizer and now I am really hungry and not really looking forward to the homely dinner. Eeeps!

Lau Ghonto: My short cut

Lau or Lauki is a summer staple for us bongs. For others too since the markets and mandis seem to be flooded with it. Tired of making the same old dal-lauki dish, I got a bit adventorous and tried "Lau Ghonto", from my bible to bengali cooking: "Baro mashey tero pod" (Thirteen courses for twelve months" written by some one's great grandmother.

You will need:
Lauki: 1 (The one I had was about a foot long)
Daler bori: 5-6 (Lentil dumplings)
Cumin grains: 1 tsp
Bay leaf: 2
Green Chillie: 2
Coconut flakes: Half a coconut
Kabuli Chana: These are the small dark variety, soaked the night before
Milk: 1/2 cup
Atta: 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Sugar: 1/4 tsp or less

How to or really what I did:

1. Peel the lauki and wash the gourd well.
2. Slice finely
3. Grate the cocounut
4. The kabuli chanas should be soaked the night before, but hey, I already had some
boiled ones left over in the fridge. Boiled channey stay well and are a handy
addition to salads.
5. Heat 1 tbsp oil to smoking in a kadai / wok.
6. Add the boris and stir. They will brown in a few seconds. Take them out and keep.
7. Add the cumin grains and bay leaf to the remaining oil in the kadai.
8. When the cumin grains start popping (which almost immediately), add the sliced
lauki.
9. Add salt (about 1 tsp)
10. Add the sliced chillie. This is optional, but chillie does give a very nice flavour.
11. Add half cup water.
12. Cover, lower flame.
13. The lauki should be cooked (softened) in about 5 minutes. But it would still
remain watery.
14. Sprinkle some sugar...just a few grains really, add the grated cocounut and the
kabuli chana.
15. The water will dry up in a few more minutes.
16. While waiting for the water to dry up, stir 1 tsp of atta in the milk so that
there are no lumps.
17. Add it to the lauki.
18. Stir well and remove from flame.
19. Keep the lid on for a while, so that the milk is soaked well into the lauki.
20. Use a pestle to lightly grind the boris.
21. Sprinkle them evenly over the lauki and serve!
22. Best eaten with, as all things bengali, rice.

PS - So what was my shortcut? I didnt have coconut. And so I left it out. Tasted quite nice without it.

Panicked Paneer

We returned home yesterday to a near empty refrigerator and hungry stomachs. It was simply too hot to go out for dinner, so I asked A to get some paneer. It was almost 8pm when I ventured into the kitchen to find that I was left with a motley bunch of ingredients. I made a mish mash of the various paneer recipes I knew to come up with this:

Ingredients or what I started with
So, at random, I chopped 2 onions.
2 small capsicum / Shimla Mirch cut into sqares (like in chinese dishes)
Eeks. Out of garlic...completely
One potato cubed (that's all that was there)
Paneer 200gms
Panch phoron (bengali 5 spice)
Jeera powder / Cumin 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder 1 & 1/2 tsp
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
Oil
Salt

Here is how I did it:
1. I heat 2 tbsp oil in a kadai
2. Added panch phoron. Panicked as I was, I forgot the 5 spice combination and made up one of my own (jeera / kalonji / methi / anise / ajwain instead of the mustard).
3. Added powdered jeera, dhania and turmeric to the oil and fried well with a little bit of water. (When the water dries up, repeat the process couple of times so that the masalas are well cooked).
4. Then I added the cubed potato (I had to cube really fine since all I had was one aloo), stirred well. Added a cup of water, salt, covered and lowered flame to cook till potato were softened.
5. Egad. I had to fry the onions in the oil first. Which I didn't. Never mind.
6. In between, I managed to heat some water with a little bit of salt. When it started boiling, I removed it from flame and add the paneer to it, cubed (so that it could soak up the salt).
7. In another pan, I heated 2 tbsp oil, fried the diced onions and capsicum. Then I drained the paneer and added it to the pan. Till it was lightly fried.
8. In the meanwhile, in my other kadai, the potatoes had softened. I put another half cup of water in to make some gravy, adjusted the salt, let it come to a boil. 9.Then I added the onion/capsicum/paneer fry to the gravy.
10.Added half tsp grated ginger. Covered it and let it cook over low flame for a few minutes.
11. Adjusted seasoning and then served with chapatis (which thankfully came out fine).

And what do you know...it was nice. A asked for second helpings and we finished all of it. Phew.

Umm, so, the lesson I learnt was:
It is not the recipe which is important (it is, but not overtly so, atleast when u are cooking at home and in a rush), but keeping a cool head while all about you is hot (the weather -- it was so humid and hot...I had difficulty in keeping the sweat trickling down everywhere, but mostly into my eyes) is equally important while cooking!

Bok-Phul Bhaja

After the terrible heat wave when temperatures went up to 47 degrees and continuously for nearly a week, we have had the blessed rains and how. This weekend was so wonderful, waking upto overcast skies. Rain mean kichudi and lots of fries (vegetarian and non vegetarian). This would include: fried parwal, fried brinjal, fried fish and "bok phul bhaja". Oh god, how long has it been since I have eaten some bok phul bhaja. I was about to pen down my recipe (the way it is cooked at home, and infact pretty much the way its cooked, or should I say deep fried!) when I found this nifty recipe already up at Senskitchen. So, do follow the link for the recipe.

Bok phul, looks like this and its scientific name is (had to search for that)is Sesbania grandiflora Leguminosae!

I thought we were alone in eating bok-phul ,(we as in bengalis). But apparanently, not so. Accroding to a FAO , in Vietnam, Sesbania grandiflora (Leguminosae) form a delicious ingredient in the very popular local sour soup called canh chua.

More pictures and description on this page.

Mimi's Veg Macaroni

Another recipe from R. The comments too are hers.

Its funny how friendships develop often over recipe swaps or over kitchen news. It was a bit like that with Mimi. Although we had known each other from before, we began talking about food and then friendship simply followed.

I learnt three very basic recipes from her and am writing as I remember them. I first sampled each from mimi's reserve of recipes. Then I tried them out and only then did I write them down in my dog eared very pathetic looking old recipe diary.
I do hope that I have kept it close to what was said by Mimi in the first place---she was good at anything she did and though she had turned vegetarian after joining IISCKON, she always had a non veg recipe, ready on her lips -- as fresh as if she ate them the day before.. As I write this, many memories of her are flashing by--so its really an ode to her, for she left us all in 2003 August 25th. Here is the first of those recipes:-

Mimi's Vegetarian macaroni

You will need:
2 pkts of macaroni boiled with salt water and dried under fan and slightly smeared with oil after cooling
1/2 cup prefried tiny cauliflower florets
1/4 tsp hing or asoefetida
1/2 cup Capsicum cut into small squares
1/2 cup carrot cut into small squares
1/2 cup beans julienned or diced
1/2 cup peas
3 tomatoes cut into very small pieces and pureed

How to:

Put keep 2tsp soyasauce,3 tsp vinegar, 3-4 green chillies cut into small pieces in a pot with a lid.

Add 3-4 tbsp oil to a pan. Throw in carrot, beans, peas and hing.
Add a bit of salt, according to taste. Cover the pan and allow the veggies to soften.
Do remember to stir the veggies a few times, though.
When the veggies are a bit soft, add capsicum. Add the tomato puree.
When puree starts to dry add soya sauce mixture,sugar and finally the prefried cauliflower. Set aside.

In a pan add 2 tbsp oil,add the macaroni and fry. Add the vegetable mixture to the macaroni and stir for three to four minutes. Mix well and remove from fire.

Enjoy!

Moong sprout cutlets

R got this recipe from somewhere and passed it on to me. Quick and easy.

You will need:
Potatoes 2 cups boiled and mashed
Moong Sprouts 1 cup
Green chillies 3 finely chopped
Grated ginger 1 tsp
Garam Masala 1/2 tsp
Carrot 2 tbsp chopped
Bread 2 slices
Oil or ghee for frying
Salt to taste

How to:
1. Boil the carrot pieces and mash them gently.
2. Soak the bread slices in water and squeeze out the water.
3. Mix well the potatoes, carrots, bread slices, green chillies,
ginger, salt and garam masala.
4. Take lemon sized portions and shape into cutlets.
5. Press about a tablespoonful of sprouts on one side of the
cutlet.
6. Shallow fry on both sides using a little ghee.
7. Serve hot.

Aunty's Cauliflower Recipe

(I can't think of any other name)

Soon after we had moved into our own place in Calcutta, our neighbours came over and brought with them a plate of this wonderful dish. All of us relished it and R, went over and got the recipe from the lady next door and so happily, not only did we only got to taste it from time to time, the "lady" next door became our dear aunty. So here goes:

You will need:
1 large cauliflower
1 tsp ginger paste
4 tsp garlic paste
3 medium onion
4 tbsp white vinegar **
2 tsp sugar
salt to taste
2-3 green chillie paste
3 tbsp oil
1&1/2 cup water

How to:

1. Cut the cauliflower into biggish florets.
2. Pierce the thick stem portion to facilitate easy seepage.
3. Place in a bowl, the ginger, garlic, onion juice (reserve the pulp), sugar, salt to taste, and vinegar. Marinade the cauliflower florets for 1 to 1&1/2 hours.
4. Turn the florets from time to time so that they soak up the marinade evenly.
5. Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in a wok or kadai.
6. Add the reserved onion pulp and fry till light brown.
7. Add the cauliflower and not the marinade and fry for 6-7 minutes.
8. Take a pressure pan or cooker, add 1 and half cups water, cauliflower, the marinade and cook till done. 1 whistle should do-if not two whistles.

Bon Appetit!

** (In my blissful ignorance before my entry into cooking, vinegar to me meant - white or red. Simple. This basic simplicity turned my first shopping venture into a nightmare. At the supermarche - I was faced with rows and rows of vinegars in all sorts of colour and ingredients. God. What do I do??? Give me my simple white or red vinegar back and now). I am wiser now. But since this recipe has been provided by R and she has not mentioned the exact type of vinegar, I am putting it down the way she has and yet I hesitate).