Kuzhipaniyaram

When we first moved to the U.S., I brought with me just the bare minimum kitchen utensils and gadgets; we were not sure how long we would be here. But now, after seven years, my kitchen cabinets are filled with various items, the latest additions being a marble rolling pin from Home Goods and an aebleskiver pan.

The pan is made of cast iron and required some prepping before it could be used for cooking. I followed the instructions on the pamphlet and completed the prepping. I poured the batter into the pan and soon realized that the batter was not just cooking, it was burning at the bottom. I tried to remove the semi cooked balls but they were stuck to the pan…I panicked and turned off the heat, removed the pan from the stove and…stared at it in dismay. I then scraped out the burnt bits with a spoon and washed the pan, greased it again and placed it on low heat, and started again. No I did not give up. The result…well wait and see :-)

Ingredients

Idly batter (as required)

Chopped green chilies – 1 tbsp (more to taste)

Curry leaves – few

Finely chopped ginger – 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Method

Mix all the ingredients together. Heat the aebleskiver pan on low to medium heat, grease with cooking oil and pour in enough batter to fill ¾ of each hole. Cover and let it cook for about 2 minutes, turn over and cook for another 2 minutes or until well done.

Serve hot with your favorite chutney. Bon Appétit. 

Baked Mishti Doi, if you will!

I had seen this recipe on a fellow blogger’s page and had fallen in love with the dish, even before tasting it. It sounded simple and delicious, an unbeatable combination. Because most of my experiments are done at the spur of the moment, there are always a few ingredients missing from my stock. It happened here too, but the final product had the texture and flavor described in the blog, so I claim it a successful trial!

Ingredients

Thick yogurt – 1 cup

Sweetened condensed milk (I used low fat) – 6-7 tbsps (or more to taste)

Grape jam (or any jam of your choice) – 2 tbsps

                                       

Method

Preheat the oven to 250^o F. Mix the yogurt, condensed milk and jam and place in an oven proof dish. These can be made in many small ramekins for individual servings or in a bigger one. Place the dish(es) in a deep baking pan filled with water, coming up a quarter way up the dish(es).

Bake for 20 minutes, turn off the oven and leave the mixture inside until the oven cools down. By this time, the yogurt mixture will have set completely. Refrigerate for 4-5 hours, garnish with fresh fruits or chopped nuts and serve chilled.

For a more cheese cake like feel, make a quick crust with marie/digestive biscuits and butter. Powder the biscuits and butter together, place in a cupcake liner/pie tin and press well to make a nice crust. I tried it with just one biscuit, 1 tsp of butter and two cupcake liners, so I just put it in the freezer for a couple of hours. If you are planning to make a bigger version, you can either refrigerate it or bake it at 350 ^o F for 8-10 minutes. Bon Appétit.

Here is the link to the original recipe - http://renuka-pinchofsalt.blogspot.com/2012/04/of-memories-crossing-100-and-guest-post.html.

I loved every bit of this recipe, the simplicity of the process, the final product and most of all, licking clean the can of condensed milk. Thank you, Renuka and Ruchira for this wonderful recipe.

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Cilantro Medhu Pakoda

Whenever I try a new recipe, I just can’t wait to get feedback from my favorite guinea pig, my husband.  So, I was in the kitchen, getting the first batch out of the oil when he came back from work. He took his first bite and said,

“This tastes a bit like medhu pakoda.”

Ignorant me - “What is that? That is not what I made!”

Him – “It is a popular dish in Chennai, have you never had it?”

Ignorant me – “No, never ever heard of it before.”

Next step… I turn to Google for some enlightenment. And guess what, the basic ingredients were same for the kothimbir vadi that I had made and the medhu pakoda that he had tasted :-).

Medhu pakodas are also made with the besan and rice flour mix but have onions, curry leaves, ginger and green chilies instead of the cilantro and other masalas in this recipe. And there is no steaming involved.

Anyway, regardless of the ingredients used, as long as the final product is palatable, Aal Izz Well!

Ingredients

Besan (gram flour) – 1 cup

Rice flour – 2 tbsps

Cilantro leaves – 1 ½ cups

Finely chopped ginger – 1 ½ tsps

Chili powder – 1 ½ tsps

Cumin powder – 1 tsp

Coriander powder – 1 tsp

Garam masala – ½ tsp

Turmeric – ¼ tsp

Sesame seeds – 2 tbsps

Carom seeds – ½ tsp

Baking soda (I used Eno) – ¼ tsp

Sugar – ½ tsp

Salt to taste

Water to make thick batter

Oil for deep frying

Method

Mix all the ingredients (except water) in a bowl. Add water, little by little, to make a thick batter. Pour into a greased vessel and steam for about 20 minutes. I used my mini idly stand and placed it in the cooker. You could use a flatter vessel and pour the whole batter into it and steam it in a wide mouthed pressure cooker. A toothpick poked into the steamed mixture should come out clean.

Remove from the vessel and allow it to cool. Heat oil, add the cooled pakodas and fry until they turn slightly brown. These can be served as is, with ketchup or with mint chutney. Bon Appétit. 

Note – The pakodas can be shallow fried in a pan too.

Link to the original recipe - http://www.spicy-aroma.com/2012/04/kothimbir-vadi.html

Tofu Skillet Pie and Confessions of a Procrastinator!!!

I have had pot pies before but have never made them, the main reason being I can never get the texture right on the pie crust; I prefer making my own (no offense to the numerous frozen puff pastries out there). I have 2 little confession to make…I bought this 8” iron skillet a few months ago, with plans of using it for cooking and baking. But let’s just say that I did not find an inauguration worthy recipe until two days ago.

I also have quite a few cookbooks lying around, many of which have not been touched for ages. I was flipping through Food & Wine’s Annual Cookbook 2009 when I found this recipe for a skillet pot pie. The first thing that appealed to me was that this pie did not need a pie crust…I couldn’t ask for anything better. So what is the substitute? Read on to find out.

Ingredients

Firm tofu (diced) – 1 ½ cups

Chopped onion – ¾ cup

Potato (diced) – ½ cup

Mushrooms (sliced) – ½ cup

Peas – ¼ cup

Milk – 1 cup

All purpose flour – 1 ½ tbsps

Water/vegetable stock – ½ cup

Butter – 1 ½-2 tbsps

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Chili powder – 1 tsp

Thick slices of bread

Method

Preheat the oven to 425^o F. Heat the iron skillet on the stove and add 1-1 ½ tbsps of butter. Once the butter has melted, add the onions, potatoes, and mushrooms; season with a bit of salt and pepper, cover and cook on high heat for a minute. Lower the heat, uncover and sauté until the vegetables are tender. Add the flour and the chili powder and stir for a minute (making sure the flour does not burn). Add the water and mix until the sauce thickens a little.  

Add the milk and bring it to a light boil. Add the tofu and peas, add salt and pepper if required; mix well and take it off the stove. Arrange the pieces of bread to cover the the skillet completely. Brush with the remaining butter and bake for 20 minutes. Serve hot. Bon Appétit.  

Note 1) If you do not have an iron skillet, you can do the sautéing in a pan and transfer to an oven-proof dish later.

    2) Place a pan in the lower rack to catch the drippings from the skillet. The pie filling will bubble  over and burn (happened to me).

Lotus Seed Munchies

Doesn’t there always come a time, either while watching TV or reading a book, when you yearn for something crunchy to munch on? This is just the right snack for such times; it is healthy, tasty, and absolutely munchable.

Ingredients

Lotus Seeds – 3 cups

Turmeric – 1 ½ tsp

Chaat masala – 1 tsp

Olive oil/any cooking oil – 1-2 tbsps

Salt to taste

Method

In a wide pan, heat the oil (on low heat) and add the turmeric, chaat masala, and salt and mix well. Now add the lotus seeds and incorporate all the masala onto it. Sauté for 5-6 minutes or until the lotus seeds become crunchy. Bon Appétit.  

Note – I usually make just enough for one or two servings so haven’t found the need to store it. But I guess it will keep fresh in an airtight container.

Parfait my Way

As you all might already know, I am not a big fan of eating sweet things for breakfast. So, for me a parfait is more of a snack/dessert than a breakfast dish. Anyway, I have wanted to make it for a while now and just got around to it yesterday. That’s when a thought struck; why not create a parfait that can be had in one mouthful?

Click here for my granola recipe.

I took about half a cup of granola and added some honey to it and mixed it until it was sticky. I then took a tablespoonful of the granola and placed it in a mini cupcake liner and pressed it in, to form a cup shape. My oven was warm (from having baked the granola), so I placed these little cups in there for 30 minutes. They were set in their liners by that time and I transferred them to the refrigerator, to be used soon.

For the little parfait cups, take one granola cup, place a tiny scoop of yogurt in it and top it off with your favorite fruit. I used mangoes and strawberries. One little suggestion, eat them as soon as they are assembled or they will fall apart. Bon Appétit.

A Disastrous Dinner and New lessons Learned!

A couple of evenings ago my husband and I went to this Persian market nearby. The trip was supposed to be a double winner, good quality fruits and vegetables at a much lower price and an interesting dinner. The first part went really well, we bought some delectable grapes, pears and iceberg lettuce.

We have bought food from their restaurant on two earlier occasions, but we had safely ordered some sandwiches and soup. Their sandwiches were delicious, more like vegetables and tzatziki all rolled in a piece of naan-like bread. Their food usually takes at least 20 minutes to be ready so we decided to place an order first and then go shopping.

We looked through the menu and decided to get a little bit more adventurous. Here’s what we ordered,

Tahchin – Basmati rice mixed with yogurt, egg, chicken, saffron; served with shirazi salad. Tell me honestly, what would you think of after reading this description? We could very clearly visualize some form of biryani. And what did we get?? A block of baked rice, layered with chicken, garnished with barberries (extremely tart, small, red berries). 
Panir Sabzi – A colorful plate of imported feta cheese, walnuts and fresh herbs (mint, basil, watercress, tarragon and radish). Even though the description is pretty clear, the Indian in us expected some kind of a paneer sabzi. But this platter was a flop too. Not the feta and walnuts, but the greens. I do love salads but not raw mint and basil. What did I do with that...you know the saying, when life hands you lemons etc etc..so I made pesto.

Barbari Bread – Assuming that the panir sabzi would be a sabzi of some kind; we decided to buy some bread from their bakery. One of their breads looked exactly like naan, so we did not want that. We wanted to be adventurous, remember? I saw this name ‘Barbari’ on their menu and asked a very friendly lady at the counter to show me the bread. She did, and I liked the look of it. What we did not know is that you could only buy it as one whole piece…which is big enough to make an XXL rectangular pizza. Luckily it wasn’t too expensive. She suggested that the bread could be cut up and stored in the refrigerator and toasted whenever required. That was a solace… we did not have to eat up that much of bread in one or two days. As of now, I have used it for breakfast, with butter and jam…it was yummy.

So, what did we finally have for dinner that night? We managed to have the rice dish with the cucumber, onion and tomato salad that came with it and some yogurt.

Paal (Milk) Poli

My husband was a small boy when his first uncle got married. The marriage was in Bangalore, Karnataka. My husband recalls that the marriage feast had a fairly good mix of Kanadiga cuisine along with the traditional Tamil cuisine. It was in this wedding that my husband had Paal Poli for the first time. And there’s something about that age which makes certain events, though it may sound trivial to a grown-up, lasting memories. This dish falls into one such memory.

So, a couple of Sundays back my husband wanted to have paal poli and asked his mother if he could have it for his evening tiffin. My ever enthusiastic MIL said that she could make the dish within an hour’s time.

I was intrigued and asked her to give me step-by-step instructions while I made the dish. At the end of the process, I added this to my list of quick and easy recipes for a gathering.

Ingredients

For the Poli

Maida – 2 ladels and 2 tbsp for dusting

Rava – 2 tbsp

A pinch of salt

Oil for deep-frying the polis

For the Milk

Milk – 2 cups

Saffron – 1 tsp

Cardamom – a pinch

Cashew – 1 tbsp

Almonds – 1 tbsp

Sugar – ¼ to ½ cup (adjust to taste)

Method

Knead maida, rava and a pinch of salt into firm dough. The dough should be smooth and without too much water. Let the dough sit for five minutes.

Grind the cashews, almonds, cardamom and saffron into a fine powder. Add a spoon of sugar while grinding to make a fine powder.

In a microwave safe bowl, boil the milk for five minutes. Stir it and boil it for another five minutes. Add sugar and the ground powder and stir well. Boil for another five minutes. If you want the milk to be thicker, boil it for another five to seven minutes.

Heat oil in a kadai for deep-frying the puris. Divide the dough into equal sized balls. Roll them out like puris using a rolling pin. Fry them in the oil and spread them out on a paper towel.

Take a serving bowl, lay out two or three puris and pour the prepared hot milk on top of the puris. Serve extra milk in a cup.

Enjoy this sweet dish anytime of the year.