Methi with moong dal diamonds

Recently I was so bored of eating same dishes, I was dying to try something new. So I was going though my cooking bibles "Ruchira Part1 & 2" and "Perfect Receipes". From these books, I suddenly had inspiration to cook something with methi and daal. So here is my dish called Methi with moong dal diamonds

For Moong daal diamonds

- Soak 1 small cup moong dal for 2-3 hrs.

- Roughly ground about 1tsp of saunf, ajwain, coriander seeds. You can dry roast this masala if you like. You can easily replace this masala with any other spices per your liking

- In same mixer pot, add soaked daal and roughly ground same with masala.

- Add salt (to taste), red chili powder, turmeric powder, sesame seeds, kasuri methi pinch of baking soda/eno to this mixture.Make sure that the batter remains thick.

- Steam cook this mixture for 10 minutes. I spread the batter on small thali and put it in pressure cooker (without whistle).Drizzle oil on the thali before pouring batter.

- After batter is cooked, cut into small diamond shapes and keep aside

For the Saag

- Wash and dry 1 bunch of methi leaves.Roughly chop the cleaned leaves.

- In a pan heat 4-5 TBSP of oil for tadka. Add chopped garlic (4-5 cloves), red/green chillies (2-3), jeera, mustard seeds,hing, turmeric in the heated oil.

- Add the moong dal diamonds in the tadka and fry till its golden.

- Add the chopped methi leaves next with pinch of salt. Mix saag well and cook for 2 min. You can add grated coconuts (2-3 TBSP) if you like.

- Cover the pan and cook saag for 2 more min and then take it off from heat.

- Saag is ready to be served.
 
Note: When I prepared this dish for second time, I did few variations and it also tasted good. Instead of using just moong daal, I used combination of Moong dal, masoor dal and chana dal. I added ginger paste to the batter and about tbsp of oil and baked it for 20-25 min in oven at 180 degree C. And in tadka I used Paanch phoran instead of jeera and mustard seeds.
 

Sweet Idli

India is such a vast country both geographically and gastronomically. Sometimes you will be surprised to see some dishes which are eaten across two ends of the country with same love. Recently I had same experience while eating breakfast of Idlis. We are now so used to eating Idli-Sambhar and chutney, that we might not think about any other combination. In Orissa, people used to eat sweet Idlis for breakfast without any need for chutney or sambhar. These idlis are prepared in similar fashion like normal idlis.

All you need is to idli batter (2 cup rice + 1 cup urad dal soaked for 6-8 hrs and grounded to paste). Make sure the batter is fermentated for 6-8 hrs (or overnight). Add salt to taste. For the sweet filling, mix grated coconut and jaggery in equal proportion (adjust amount of jaggery depending on your sweet tooth). Now pour the idli batter in the idli moulds. You can add the filling on the batter or you can have layers like batter then filling and then again batter. Steam the idlies for 10-15 min.

You can eat these idlis as it is for breakfast.

Or if you want to serve some special sweet then, you can prepare sweet idlis in coin form and serve with chilled rabadi.

Grapes Muramba/ Grapes in Sugar syrup

My MIL has a sweet tooth. For dinner she alwyas likes to have something sweet to eat with roti. So over this weekend to impress her ;) I prepared this muramba or fruit cooked in sugar syrup. At my mother's place, we always used to have such preparations with different fruits like raw mango, ripe mango, banana, apple, basically any fruit. This was my first attempt at preparation and it turned out pretty good. Other than grapes, sugar and obviously water; all other ingredients are optional. I wanted to enhance grape flavour so I decided on using raisings and black currents which are dried form of grapes.

The receipe is very simple and you don't need lot of ingredients.

Ingredients

• 20-30 grapes
• 1 small bowl of sugar
• 10-15 sultanas/raisins and black currents (optional)
• 4-5 almonds (optional)
• 1tsp elaichi/cardomom powder
• water
• 1-2 tbsp lemon juice (optional)

Receipe

• Thoroughly wash grapes ,pat dry and then keep aside.
• In a heavy bottom pan add sugar and enough water to just cover the sugar. Keep the pan on low flame and let it simmer. Keep stirring in between.
• Once sugar syrup starts bubbling check the thickness of syrup at regular intervals. It should not be very watery. It should be almost thick as honey.
• While sugar syrup is getting ready, thinly slice almonds and clean raisins and black currents.
• When the syrup thickens add all the remaining ingredients, mix them well and cook for another couple of minutes. Then remove the pan from burner and let the mixture cool.
• Check after 10 min. or so to see if sugar crystals are getting formed. If yes, then add some water and reboil the mixture for another 3-4 min and then cool the mixture.
• For some this receipe might taste too sweet, so counter attacking it with sourness of lemon juice is good idea.

Nadia chakuli/ Coconut dosa

Before marriage I used to think dosa is mainly south indian breakfast. But different versions of dosas are available across  India, like Maharashtrian Dhirade or Oriya style peetha/chakuli. This dosa is prepared with coconut and rice. So don't keep batter for too long. The ingredients are very simple. Soak 2 cup rice for 5-6 hours. Separately soak 1/4 cup urad daal for same time. Grind rice and urad dal separately into smooth paste. Mix both tastes together. then add 1-1.5 cups of grated coconut and grind for couple of minutes. Keep it in fridge for later use or you can use it immediately. We generally have this dosa with potato fry. But sambhar or any chutney will also work as side dish.

Back to Basics: Peanut butter

During my onsite stint in USA I tasted PBJ sandwiches for the first time and loved them. I am in love with peanuts in any form since childhood. My maternal grandfather used to harvest peanuts, so during our summer vacations we used to have heaps of peanuts to eat while we played. So when I tasted peanut butter it was love at first bite. After coming back to India, I saw peanut butter jars from same US brands I was happy till I saw the price tag. Thats when I decided to prepare peanut butter at home. With help of youtube I successfully prepared the butter.  All you need to do is nicely roast the peanuts. Remove the skin and then grind in mixie till you get a very smooth powder. If you like butter slightly sweet, add couple of tsp of powdered sugar or honey.Add salt to taste. To get a smooth paste of peanut butter, add oil (preferably peanut oil or any other vegetable oil) and grind till you get smooth peanut butter. If you like it chunky add some roughly grounded peanuts. You make make any variations of peanut butter like red chilli flavour, chocolate flavour etc.

Simple delights of life: Varan Bhaat

Staying away from home is not easy specially when it comes to food. Till my BE studies, I had never stayed away from home and definitely never alone.So when I first moved to Pune and then to Bangalore, I was happy that every day I can eat in restaurants. But that joy was short lived as it gets boring to eat same paneer,kurma,naan day after day. I started craving for home cooked food and I had no other option but to start cooking. I used to help my mother here and there and knew recipes in theory. But theory is very difficult than practical is what I realised. So I thought that at least on weekends I should cook something nice.Then I committed my first mistake which most beginners do; try to cook something very elaborate like they show in TV shows. Most of the times the result is disastrous. I don't remember what exactly happened in my case. But anyway I turned my attention to very basic recipes. As I used to see how my Mom used to cook a recipe, I tried to visualize the steps and then confirmed with her on each stage. Once you start cooking on regular basis, you get handle on ingredient quantities, time to cook. Post which cooking some elaborate,complex dishes becomes very easy. Now I cook regular daal,chaval,roti,subzi almost every day and on weekends I try some special dishes. But still sometimes I try to attempt recipe modifications even when I'm trying it for first time and some times results are horrific but now the ratio of failed v/s successful recipes is better.

Here is my recipe of basic varan (boiled daal) which is common in Marathi household. I think each beginner cook should learn this. This will help you survive when staying alone :)

Ingredients*:
1 cup toor daal (this will be enough for 4-5 people or more)
1/2 tbls turmeric powder
1/4 tbls asafoetida(hing)
2 tbls grated jaggery (or 1-2 small pieces of "halls" size)
1 tbs salt

*Note: These are approximate quantities. You can change quantities as per taste.

1. Thoroughly wash the daal. If you've time keep the washed daal aside for 1/2hr. This will help in faster cooking.
2. Add the daal in pressure cooker with 3-4 cups of water depending on the thickness of the cooked daal you want. Generally for cooking rice 1:2 ratio of rice and water is used and for daal its 1:4.If you heat water little bit on high flame (by the time you wash your daal)and then add all ingredients then cooking is faster.
3. Add all other ingredients and close the lid.Light gas burner and keep on high flame.
4. After first whistle, reduce gas flame to low and wait for 2-3 whistles.Switch off burner then.

Varan is served mostly with hot rice. Add lemon juice and ghee in hot varan-bhaat to experience heaven on earth.

Simple delights of life : Dalma

Few simple things can give you so much pleasure. One recipe I learned after my marriage is a very simple daal. On weekdays when you want quick and healthy meal, this daal can make your life easier. It has daal, vegetables so its complete meal with rice. If you want you can serve mashed potatoes or any simple dry subzi with it.
This daal needs very few ingredients
1 cup moong daal
1 cup vegetables (like pumpkin,plantain,brinjal,drumsticks,beans etc.)
1 tbs paanchfodan(equal mix of mustard seeds,cumin seeds,kalonji,fenugreek seeds,saunf)
2 tbls oil
1 tbs turmeric powder
2 red chillies
Salt to taste
1/2 tbs Cumin powder + red chilli powder for final touch

1.Dry roast the daal lightly
2.In pressure cooker add daal,vegetables, turmeric powder,salt with enough water. Cook till daal and vegetables are well done.
3.In a kadhai, heat oil. Add paanchfodan,red chillies and let it splutter.
3.Then pour cooked vegetables and daal.Add some water to adjust thickness.
4.Boil for 3-4 min.Switch off heat and finish with cumin powder+red chilli powder.
5. Serve with rice