The week that was: Good Food Ideas - 1

I'm starting this new series on good food ideas from the week that was. The idea behind this being, it's tough to capture good pictures and write about every good meal, but this way, I can store away the ideas for later. This will also include links to some of the recipes tried from other food bloggers.

 It's a bit late in the week this time, but should get down to posting it on Mondays, now on.

• Cooker vegetable pulao with MTR Pulao Masala and tadka-wala raita
• Rajma Roll ups - Cooked Rajma sauted with onions and tomatoes, salt and chilli powder, rolled up into thick rotis - a perfect TV dinner to curl up and watch American Idol
• Pepper roti from Simply Trini Cooking recommended by Cynthia of Tastes like Home, with some modifications but tasted fab nevertheless. Our friend visiting us over the weekend loved it - it is one of the perfect eats to go along with a chilled beer in the summer evenings.
• Made Bisi Bele Baath after a long time. I've been following this recipe I found from this blog for about 3 years now - made it innumerable times - a perfect one pot dish - try it if you haven't yet, with this recipe, you can't go wrong.
• Have made Talimpu inspired Cabbage thuvaiyal some three times already - it featured once again on this week's menu. My aunt and uncle who got a first taste of it couldn't even figure that there was cabbage in this chutney - so this one goes for all you cabbage haters! I made it by roasting red chillies and udad dal, sauteeing the cabbage till soft and grinding it with some soaked tamarind, coconut and salt - with the mandatory tadka of curry leaves, mustard seeds and udad dal on the top- quick to make and perfect with rice.

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Baked Cauliflower in Tomato sauce

Okay, so there are people who don't like cauliflower and some who don't like me posting recipes with cauliflower in them ;) If you are reading this, you'll know this is for you!

Winter is officially over in Hyd with temperatures raring to touch 40 C. At such times, I still find spotlessly white head of cauliflower waiting to be picked up and used, so what else can I do but that? The idea for this dish comes a recipe I found in the book- From Bengal to Punjab : the cuisines of India by Smita Chandra - which has a very interesting collection of recipes and most of them are available on preview in the link above.

I've tried the recipe Gobhi Mazedar from this book, which turned out superb. In fact, the hubby and me ate off the stuff from the baking dish and that was our dinner that night.

This time to pair with the pasta, I tried an Italian version of this dish - which turned out as good. In fact if you have a good loaf of bread on hand, you can dish out an excellent meal with just the bread and this baked cauliflower dish. There are two ways to do the dish - either deal with the cauliflower whole or break into large florets which will cook / bake faster if you are short of time.

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Baked cauliflower in tomato sauce

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

1 large cauliflower roughly 750 grams - very fresh

10 medium tomatoes

2 tsp olive oil

3 medium onions

8 cloves of garlic

2 tsp chilli flakes

2 tsp oregano

2 tsp dried basil

salt and pepper

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1/2 cup grated cheese of your choice (optional)

The Cauliflower

Remove the stalks of the cauliflower. Discard or reserve for another use.

If you have a pot big enough to hold the whole flower, then fill it with around 2L water. Add 2 tsp salt. Let it come to a boil. Meanwhile keep the cauliflower immersed in a large pot of salted water to remove any worms if present.

If you dont have a pot big enough or not enough time on hand, then break the cauliflower into big florets and keep immersed in salted water, until a pot of water comes to a boil.

When the water starts to boil, remove the cauliflower from the salted water and place it in the pot bottom down (if using whole). Cover and cook for around 10-12 minutes, checking until almost done. The florets will take shorter time, around 6-7 minutes, so keep a watch. Don't let them turn too soft.

Once this is done, drain, wipe thoroughly with tea towel and keep aside.

The sauce

Wash tomatoes well. Halve them and throw them in a pot. Let them cook in their own juices on medium heat. No need to add water. Stir around occasionally until they get mashed to a pulp. At this stage you could pass them through a strainer to remove the skins or keep it as it is (which is what I did). Remove and cool.

In a saucepan, heat 2 tsp olive oil. Add the cruches garlic cloves and sliced onions, stir until the garlic is light golden and onion is soft.

In a blender, place the cooled tomatoes, onion, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper - whir to a very smooth sauce. If you find this runny, which could happen if your tomatoes were very juicy, take this back in the saucepan and thicken with a slurry made from 1 tbsp flour and 1/4 cup water, simmer till thick and then proceed with recipe.

Assembling

Grease a 9" round baking dish. Place the cauliflower in it. Reserve 1/2 cup sauce to use while serving. For whole cauliflower, spoon the sauce between all the florets and whatever sauce remains, pour it and rub it over the top, so the flavours enter every nook and cranny.

For the florets, arrange the florets stem down - neatly in a baking dish that accommodates it all - pour the tomato sauce (reserving 1/2 cup) all over and around the florets, pressing well.

The dish can be prepared up to this stage, covered well and refrigerated for a day or two, to be removed and baked just before serving.

Baking

Cover the top of the dish with bread crumbs, cheese, extra herbs, pepper and bake in a 180 C oven for around 30 minutes, unthttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=23919567il cheese is melted and golden.

Serve hot along with a simple pasta (preferably not in a tomato sauce) or with slices of bread.

Please do try the original recipe Gobhi Mazedar. You'll enjoy browsing that cookbook online, it has a fantastic collection of recipes. Better still if you can lay your hands on it in your bookshop / library, you can see the book in its entirety. If the link does not work, you can try searching in Google ebooks for 'Smita Chandra Gobhi Mazedar'.

This is a very hearty flavoursome dish which will make a great addition to your menu for an Italian party. I served this with Penne in Spinach sauce and the green and red complemented each other beautifully.

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Whole wheat penne in spinach sauce

I love penne and my husband loves spaghetti. Penne because, i like how the pasta gets the sauce inside the tubes - the ridges hold on to the sauce. Since I am the resident chef of our home, you'll find penne being the most-often cooked pasta. We love saucy sauces - well you know what I mean, more stuff around the pasta, instead of the dry pasta dish. We both love aglio-olio, where minimalism is the key, just good olive oil, garlic and chilli flakes - but that said, we do love the saucier versions better. Sometimes you'll find more veggies than the pasta in our dishes and we like it that way too.
This luscious spinach sauce was a result of me going overboard last week in the farmers' market. When you get 12 bunches for Rs.10, you can't really blame me can you? I washed, cleaned and cooked the leaves, pureed them and put the stuff in the freezer. It was a smart move, reducing a big bag of greens into a small container, besides cooking and freezing the leaves when they were at their freshest.

So when the day came to make the pasta, most of the work for the spinach sauce was already done - what remained was to pulse it with some fresh paneer and chillies and it was ready. It is indeed as simple as that.

Let me also assure you that I have not used any of my non-existent photoshop skills on this pic - the sauce is as green as it is seen in the picture and it looks like that even as I am about to eat it from the plate - no fooling you on that!

Recipe for Penne in Spinach Sauce
Serves 3-4 with a salad or a vegetable side dish

Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat penne pasta
Roughly 3/4 kg spinach, leaves and tender stems plucked
1 tsp olive oil
4-8 cloves garlic, peeled (4 if large, 8 if small)
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tsp dried oregano
2 green chillies
1/3rd cup paneer or ricotta cheese (I made fresh paneer from 1/2 litre milk, using white vinegar)
Salt to taste

Directions

1. Making spinach puree -Wash the plucked spinach leaves and tender stems 4-5 times in a clean sink of water or in a large tub. Dry over kitchen towels. Put these into a large pot. Add 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 cup water and let the leaves wilt. Toss around so the leaves are evenly cooked. Remove from pot, and puree along with any residual water. This can be frozen for upto a week and used as necessary. 3/4 kg of spinach will yield roughly 2 cup of spinach puree.
2. Cook pasta according to instructions on pack, drain, reserving 1 cup of pasta water.
3. Making paneer - Bring 1/2 L cow's milk to boil. When it comes to a boil, reduce heat and add from 1-2 tsp of white vinegar, stirring around till the milk curdles leaving a clear whey. Filter out pressing lightly. Reserve the whey for use in soups or to make dough for chapatis or bread.
4. In a wok, heat 1-2 tsp olive oil. Throw in the crushed garlic cloves and sliced onions. Saute on medium flame for 2-3 minutes till soft.
5. In a blender, puree together the spinach puree, paneer, sauteed onion-garlic, oregano, salt and chillies. Check for salt and adjust. This is your spinach sauce for the pasta.
6. In a large wok, bring together cooked pasta and the sauce, mixing gently till pasta is fully covered. Use some of the reserved pasta water if you want to thin down the sauce. Add freshly ground black pepper over the top, any fresh or dried herbs of your choice and serve.

I served this with cauliflower baked in tomato sauce, recipe of which will be posted shortly.

Notes

• You can serve with some cheese grated on the top, this will gain most kids' approval :)
• The sauce can be made minus the paneer but I used so as to up the protein quotient of the dish. You could use ricotta cheese from a tub to cut down on the preparation time or use store bought paneer.
• Some steamed corn added to this pasta will add lovely colour and a sweet crunch to the dish.

If you like spaghetti and your partner likes penne, by all means use spaghetti for this dish!! 

Since there is a perfect event to enlist this recipe, it's going for the Healing Foods event at My Culinary Experiments started by Siri's Corner

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Chana cabbage salad with yogurt dressing - Low carb vegetarian dinner series

This one sounds like an odd combination but they hit off pretty well - something like the chemistry of the geeky Farhan Akhtar and the glamourous Deepika Padukone in the movie Karthik Calling Karthik (which I very badly want to see and end my 15 month exile from the movie-hall), though I must admit that neither the chana nor the cabbage are as glamourous as Deepika, but the end result was almost there!

I found this variety of very small chana, almost like a baby of the big brown variety (lighter in colour too) The advantage is that they cook faster, their skins are more tender and according to me they taste better in salads where they blend nicely with the other ingredients instead of sticking out.

I'm not a big fan of raw cabbage in salads, so finely shredded cabbage and chopped onions were sauteed after some tadka and mixed into the dressing along with the boiled chana. For the dressing I used hung yogurt which is simple yogurt drained of all its water to get a thick cheese like remnant. You can beat this with a few spoons of milk for a creamier taste or use it as it is. If you have no time to hang, and if your yogurt is thick enough, then go ahead use it just like that.

We had this with microwaved crispy papad strips as dinner - the papads went crunch crunch against the chew-chew of the salad and on the whole it was a wholesome fun meal. I'm focussing on high protein dinners nowadays as I want to cut out carbs at night. This is a part of that series. I will share the other stuff I make in this series.

Chana Cabbage Salad
Low carb vegetarian dinners - 1
Serves 2

1/3rd cup small chana - soaked overnight or for 4-5 hours
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
pinch of asafoetida
1 cup finely shredded cabbage
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium tomato, deseeded and diced

Dressing
1 cup hung yogurt
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp frankie masala or chat masala or cajun seasoning
pinch of red chilli powder

Shredded cabbage for garnish

Roasted papad or baked tortilla chips / pita chips to serve with the salad (optional)

Directions

1. Pressure cook the soaked drained chana with 1 1/2 cups water until soft - it took me three whistles and 6-7 minutes on sim. Since these chana varieties have a thick skin, they don't easily turn to a mush, so nothing to worry here. When the cooker has cooled off, drain chana and keep aside.
2. In a wok, heat 1 tsp oil. Add the asafoetida, cumin and mustard seeds. Once they splutter, add the onions and cabbage with a pinch of salt, stir for 2 minutes on medium flame till slightly soft. Remove from the wok and cool.
3. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for dressing. Whisk well. Add the boiled drained chana, the cabbage-onion mix and toss to coat evenly.
4. Garnish with shredded cabbage and serve chilled with papad or baked chips.

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How to prepare mint powder or dried mint

How to prepare mint powder / dried mint

1. Start with a big bunch of fresh mint leaves.
2. Wash thoroughly 3-4 times in a large tub of water till all the sand is washed off.
3. Shake off excess water. Spread on newspaper or any absorbent cloth in a single layer till dry.
4. Remove on a sheet pan or several trays as per quantity of mint stalks and keep under sun for 2 days, taking it indoors when sun is down.
5. In absence of sunlight or drying facility, spread it in microwave and on High power, zap for 2-3 minutes, turning them around a couple of times in between.
6. After two days of sun drying or microwave drying, the leaves will become crispy, and you can easily slide them off the stalks. With finger tips, crush this to a fine powder and store in airtight jar. One bunch of leaves yielded roughly 2 tbsp of mint powder.

5 uses with mint powder / dried mint

Sprinkle on parathas to make pudina paratha

Sprinkle of raitas instead of fresh coriander leaves

Add to salad dressings for a fresh taste

Add to Indian vegetable and dal preparations for adding a new taste dimension

Add to lemonades, mojitos and spicy buttermilk (chaas)

The same process can be used to prepare dried basil, dried oregano, dried coriander, dried thyme or any such dried herbs. It is a good way to preserve large packets of fresh herbs when in season or if the supermarket doesn't sell small bunches of the fresh herb.

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Tomato and mint flavoured moong dal

Moong dal or split, husked green gram has not always been a favourite - but according to Ayurveda, it is said to be lighter and easier to digest, compared to the more popular toor dal. Khichdi prepared from moong dal and rice is said to be one of the most restorative dishes during an illness. When pressure cooked, this dal tends to get somewhat slimy, which is why I wasn't too kicked about it in my early cooking days. Besides it doesn't have the kind of rich flavour that is inherent to toor dal. Add some masalas and a good tempering in ghee and moong dal turns more palatable. Cooking moong dal by the boiling method as against the pressure cooking method keeps the texture alive and makes it a much better dish, in my humble opinion.

This time I added tomatoes and flavoured it with ginger and a pinch of mint powder for a bit of mystery in the background and if I may say so, it did turn out pretty good. This is best had with rotis as it doesn't have any liquid to mix around with rice.


Sukhe Moong Dal

Serves 2 as an accompaniment to rotis


Ingredients

1/3rd cup Moong dal, washed and soaked in 2-3 cups water for at least 30 minutes, or more if possible

1 tsp oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp finely chopped or grated fresh ginger root

pinch of asafoetida

1-2 green chillies, finely minced

2 medium tomatoes, finely diced

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

3/4 cup water

1/2 tsp salt or to taste

1/4 tsp dried mint powder


Directions

In a pan, heat the oil. Splutter cumin seeds and then add ginger, asafoetida, chillies and saute for 30 seconds.

Add the tomatoes and stir for a minute or so before adding all remaining ingredients except mint powder.

Once water comes to a boil, add soaked moong dal. Cover and cook for around 8-10 minutes, checking in between to add tbsp of water if dal is drying out.

Look for a stage when the dal is cooked, yet keeps its shape well and water is dried out. On a medium flame, this would take around 10 minutes. Sprinkle mint powder towards the end, give it a stir and remove into a bowl. Serve with rotis.


Next post : How to prepare mint powder / dried mint

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Beet, feta and water amaranth salad

Sometimes, one ingredient can be such an inspiration for a whole recipe to be built around it. Feta cheese for us is one such ingredient. Neither S nor I can resist the intense saltiness and rich flavour of feta. That so much salt isn't good for our health is easily forgotten when we lay our hands on this one cheese. I for one will willingly compensate with a salt free meal, if I have to, but never miss an opportunity to bite into this salty bit of heaven.
A few weeks ago we went shopping in the recently opened Hypercity supermarket in Inorbit Mall at Hitech City. This supermarket in Malad, Bombay was our favourite weekend haunts to stock up of food stuffs and we were so glad to find an outlet here. This is one place where foodies and non-foodies can easily go overboard buying all kinds of stuff to last several months.
We go in with a list of some five items, needlessly take the HUGE shopping cart thinking that we make our toddler sit in while we browse around peacefully. In the end the best laid plans go to dirt. Atri is in my arms, the shopping cart is full of items we never imagined that we wanted and three of the five simple items on my list were not in stock that day :) Such is life!

So we managed to pick some Danish brand feta cheese on that visit and with beets sitting in the fridge, the idea for a simple salad was tossing around in my mind. Later that day, some local greens called Ponnaganti / ponnanganni / water amaranth made their appearance from cart vendor and happily joined the salad party. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm only too happy to try out the local greens in all kinds of dishes - along with vegetables, in dals and in salads. So what if I don't find the endives and rockets of the world, or the ones i do find are all wilted for want of a home, I'm happy to substitute them with locally available greens, saving on all the food miles and reducing my carbon footprint . Cooking 'glocal' is the way to go, isn't it?

Here's the recipe for this very simple salad.


Beet, feta and water amaranth salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 large or 3 medium beets
100 grams of feta cheese
1 cup washed, picked and towel dried water amaranth leaves
Dressing
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic
Freshly cracked black pepper

Directions
Pressure cook whole beets. I generally cook it for 3 whistles and then leave it on sim for 7-10 minutes. Remove when cooled. Slide off the skins. They'll come off very easily. Dice into medium sized cubes and keep refrigerated until it's time to use them.
Crumble / dice feta into small cubes.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for dressing. I did not use salt in this as the salt in feta makes up for it. Add the beets, greens and feta. Toss with a gentle hand so as not to get the feta all mashed up. Serve chilled with soup or pasta.

Notes
More about ponnaganti koora from the ENVIS website
Useful resource - The ENVIS centre on medicinal plants has listed a huge variety of species with vernacular names and medicinal benefits making it easy for us to identify new plants.
I learnt a recipe for ponnaganti koora from my neighbour where it is cooked with split moong dal with a light tadka. This made a delicate tasting accompaniment to rotis.

A bunch of fresh water amaranth

Water amaranth also features on some other food blogs -

• Anjali in her blog Annaparabrahma does a stir fry using these Honegone greens (that's what its called in Kannada)
• Srivalli does a stuffed paratha with these greens 
•  Talimpu has a recipe similar to the one given to me by my neighbour, the one with moong dal

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