Ragi korakattai

I'm trying to mix up the cereals in our diet, and my new favourite is ragi flour. These steamed dumplings are similar to the savoury korakattai made with rice flour, and I absolutely love them because they can be rustled up in a jiffy and taste really good. 

I use only half the indicated quantity of jaggery, but this is the original recipe. 

1 cup ragi flour

1/2 cup grated coconut 

1/2 cup grated jaggery

1/2 tsp cardamom powder

A pinch of salt

3 tbsp water

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients together (keeping aside 1 tbsp coconut), add water gradually to make a firm dough. 

Roll into lemon sized balls and press into an oval shape. 

Steam in a steaming plate or an idli maker for 10 minutes. 

Garnish with coconut and sugar before serving. 

Missal pav

Living in Maharashtra, it was only a matter of time before our love affair with misal started. Normally, we buy it, but when I saw a packet of mixed beans at the grocer, I decided to try making it myself. It turned out really good, and the kids enjoyed it because I could control the spices. 

3 1/2 cups mixed sprouts*

1 large potato cut into small pieces

1 large onion chopped fine

1 green chilli chopped fine

1 tbsp ginger garlic paste

1/2 tsp haldi powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp dhania powder

1 tsp jeera powder

1 1/2 tbsp godh masala

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp jeera

1 sprig curry leaves

1 marble sized ball of tamarind

1 tbsp jaggery

1 tbsp cooking oil

Method:

Wash the sprouts well, and pressure cook with potatoes, 1/4 tsp haldi powder and sufficient water to cover the sprouts. I reduced the flame after the first whistle and cooked for 15 minutes. 

Meanwhile, soak the tamarind in hot water for 20 minutes, squeeze out the pulp and keep aside. 

Heat the oil. Add mustard seeds, and when they stop spluttering, add jeera and saute till it releases its fragrance. 

Add chopped onions and curry leaves. Sauté till transparent. 

Add ginger garlic paste and green chillies and sauté till onions are well browned. 

Add the spices, and mix well. Add tamarind paste, and sauté till the raw smell of tamarind goes away. 

Add the drained sprouts and potatoes to the masala, stir and add 1 cup water. 

Add salt and jaggery, mix well, and cook with regular stirring for 10 minutes

Serve with pav, mixed farsan, finely chopped onions and a wedge of lime. 

* half a cup of mixed beans soaked overnight and sprouted for 1 1/2 days 

Thing Two's cheesy mushroom pasta

After Thing One's success in the kitchen, Thing Two wanted to try his hand at making pasta, and he proved to be as adept.

200 gms pasta
100 gms mushrooms, sliced thinly
4 pods garlic
2 tbsp basil leaves
1/4 cup grated cheese
1 cup milk
1 tbsp cornflour powder
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack, drain, wash with cold water and keep aside.
While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil, add the garlic pods and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the mushroom, and saute till well browned. Add torn basil leaves and toss for about 30 seconds. Add salt to taste, mix well and keep aside.
To make the white sauce, heat the milk, make a paste of cornflour with milk, mix well, and let it simmer on a low flame till the sauce attains desired consistency. Add salt and red chilli flakes to taste, and mix in the cheese.
Mix the pasta and cooked mushroom well, pour the white sauce, and serve.

Thing One's classic casserole

The holidays have started, and Thing One decided to help me in the kitchen. Since he loves casseroles, I helped him rustle this meal up.

200 gms pasta
1 cup milk
1 tbsp cornflour powder
1/3 cup cheese, grated
10 button mushrooms, sliced in half
1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
6 pods garlic, peeled
10 olives, pitted
2 tbsp basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp cooking oil

Method:
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack, drain, wash with cold water and keep aside.
While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil, add the garlic pods and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the bell peppers and mushroom, and saute till well browned. Add salt to taste, mix well and keep aside.
To make the white sauce, heat the milk, make a paste of cornflour with milk, mix well, and let it simmer on a low flame till the sauce attains desired consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste, and mix in 1/3 of the quantity of cheese. Add the torn basil leaves, and keep aside.
Chop the olives and mix well with the cooked pasta.
In an ovenproof bowl, put a layer of cooked pasta, followed by a layer of mushrooms, and a sprinkling of cheese. Repeat till all the pasta and mushrooms are used up, and top it with a layer of cheese.
Pour the white sauce over the bowl.
Bake in oven at 180 degrees for 5 minutes till the cheese melts. Enjoy.

Stuffed omelette

Sundays are egg days- not every Sunday, but most. With half a bunch of spinach languishing in the fridge, this Sunday became a stuffed omelette kind of Sunday!

2 eggs

1/3 cup spinach chopped fine

1/2 small onion chopped

1 chicken sausage cut into small pieces

1 tbdp cheese grated 

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter

Method:

Break the eggs, and whisk them well. 

Add salt and pepper and mix well. 

Add half the chopped spinach and all the onions to the eggs, and mix well.
Grease the frying pan, pour the mixture, cover and let it cook for a minute. Add the rest of the spinach and the cheese on half the omelette, fold in half and let it cook completely. 

Brown rice in creamy spinach sauce

I loved the Spinach Rissoto that Roma Patil posted, and wondered if I could replicate it with brown-rice, and without the white wine. With garlic and spinach, I knew I couldn't go too wrong, and I was right. It was quite delicious.

Cooking oil as needed.
1 cup brown rice, washed
7-8 cloves Garlic sliced fine.
1 medium onion chopped fine
1 bunch fresh tender Spinach, cleaned and washed.
2-3 tbsp cream.
2 tabsp Cheese.
1 tsp chilli powder
10 almonds soaked for an hour and sliced
1 tsp chilli flakes
Salt to taste.
(Water as needed)

Method:.
Cook the brown rice in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes, wash with cold water, drain and keep aside.
Slice a few leaves of spinach into long thin slivers, deep fry till crisp drain and keep aside.
Puree the rest of the spinach with a little water. Add 1 cup water and salt to taste to the spinach purée and bring to a boil.
Saute the garlic and onions till translucent. Add the drained brown rice, and mix well.
Add a ladle full of Spinach purée water. After it is absorbed, add the next ladle. Repeat till the stock is over, and let it cook till the rice is almost done.
Add Cream and sliced almonds and cover for a few minutes.
Add cheese, stir again, and tip into a serving bowl.
Garnish with fried Spinach leaves.
Prepare mixture of Olive Oil and chilli flakes and dribble on the Rice, and serve immediately.

Ven Pongal

Though it tends to be overshadowed by it's more glamourus sister, Shakarai Pongal, Ven Pongal too has it's own band of followers who swear by it. I was never one of them. Even when I was a child, I barely tolerated it, and after my mother started making the Bong khuchudi, I virtually stopped having it. Till suddenly, the craving struck, and I called up my mother to get the recipe.
In, in turn, had moved on. After years of not making Ven Pongal, because the family had abandoned it, when she wanted to return, it was to a new recipe. And that's the recipe she passed on to me. The Ven Pongal didn't taste quite like the one I remember from my childhood, but I preferred it, because I could feed it to my kids with virtually no danger of them biting into a pungent peppercorn by mistake!

2 cups rice
1 cup moong dal
1 tsp peppercorns
2 tsp jeera
1 inch piece ginger
1 tbsp ghee
1 sprig curry leaves
Cashew nuts for garnish

Method:
Roast the moong dal, but not till the point where it starts turning red. Wash the roasted dal and rice, and cook with at least 6 cups water in an open vessel. When it is 3/4th done, add salt.
Meanwhile, dry roast the peppercorns and jeera, and coarsely powder them in a mortar and pestle*.
Heat the ghee, add finely chopped ginger, and the peppercorn-jeera powder. Once the jeera settles, add cashew nuts and curry leaves, and saute till the cashew starts browning.
Add to the 3/4th cooked rice-dal mixture. Mix well, and cook till done.
Serve steaming hot, preferably with gotsu.

Fresh dill and potato soup

Fresh dill and potato was one of my favourite dishes during my teen years. In fact, if you press me, I'd probably say it was my most favourite dish of all. My mother had seen the recipe in a magazine, and saved it even though she never even knew what dill was. Then on a chance trip to the market, she sighted these different looking greens, and couldn't believe her luck when the vendor told her it was dill. What made the dish extra wonderful was the fact that one could never predict when one would get it, because even in season, you didn't always find dill!
Here then it is- the dish I had when I came home after taking my Maths Board Exams- a wholesome meal in a bowl- Dill Soup.

5 large potatoes, peeled and diced
2 medium onions , chopped
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
3tbs chopped dil
3tbs curds
2 tbs butter

Method
Cook potatoes and onions in 4 cups water with salt till just tender
Add milk,caraway seeds,diland salt and pepper to taste
Simmer for 15 mins till potatoes crumble a bit
Add curds and butter. Heat well. Do not boil
Serve hot.

Khichdi- my "comfort" way

Khichdi is one of my favourite comfort foods, one that I make it as often as I can get away with. Hubby and kids are not particularly fond of it, but as long as it is sufficiently runny and has lots of ghee, they don't mind having it, so it gets made at least once every fortnight. This may not be the authentic version, but it is my favourite version.

2 measures rice (I use a small cup as a measure)

1 measure masoor dal

1 measure dhuli moong dal

Mixed veggies cut into bite sizes (I use carrots, beans, cauliflowers, peas in various proporitons) - 1 cup

1 or two potatoes cut into bite sized pieces

2 onions sliced fine

1 inch piece of ginger

2 green chillis (more or less according to taste)

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp jeera 

salt to taste

1 tbsp cooking oil

Dry roast the dals, and keep aside

Heat the cooking oil, temper with jeera. Add onions and ginger when the jeera stops spluttering, and fry on low heat till onions start turning transparent.

Put all the ingredients in a pressure cooker, add water (two parts water for every part of rice and dal), and pressure cook for two whistles (first whistle on high heat, second on low heat).

Put a dollop of ghee, and stir well before serving (you can also throw a red chillie in heated ghee, and temper before serving).

Meal in a dish

When you have too much of soya bhurji to finish off, you learn to get creative. I used the bread-pudding proportions for savoury dish, and it worked perfectly.

 
3 slices bread
Soya bhurji leftover from the previous day
Half a capsicum, or other veggies
Cheese
1 egg
3.4 cup milk
salt and pepper
Butter

Method
Grease the ovenproof dish
Place a layer of bread, cut into triangles (or squares)
Put a layer of soya bhurji (onions, ginger-garlic paste, salt, red chilli powder fried)
Sprinkle half a capsicum, and any other veggies you might want to throw in
In a bowl, beat 1 egg and 3/4 cup milk, with salt and pepper. Pour over the dish, ensuring all the bread gets covered (next time I am doubling quantities to see how it works).
Grate cheese, and pop into a microwave oven for 3 1/2 minutes.

Bisi bele bhaat

A purist might say that if you use store bought masala, the recipe is not an "authentic" recipe. But when one particular masala works perfectly, you'd be a fool not to use it, specially since it makes cooking so much easier.

Cook one measure of tur dal, with haldi powder, till soft.
Half cook the same measure of rice, add chopped vegetables, and cook till rice is fully done. You can use any vegetables you like- I like beans, cauliflower, peas, carrot, potatoes and one medium onion cut into eight pieces (the boiled onion adds a special flavour).
Lightly fry desired quantity of peanuts and keep aside.
In a large kadhai fry peanuts, grated copra (about 1 tbsp for each small cup of dal/ rice), green chillies. When the copra is nice and brown, add the cooked rice, and dal, and mix well.
Add 3 tbsp of MRT Vangibhat masala, salt and tamarind juice (one marble sized tamarind for each small cup of dal), stir well, and let it cook on low heat for a few minutes. Depending on how mushy you want it add the peanuts (early if you like it soft, right at the end if you want it crunchy).
Add a tadka of mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chillies. Add a dollop of ghee before serving.

Alphabet Soup

This was a particular favourite of mine when I was a kid, and long after I had grown up and moved out, my mother always made it for me at least once when I visited. I think it is based on a Gujarathi dal, but my mother called it "alphabet soup" because that was something Dennis the Menace would have (and anything he did, I had to do too), and the name's stuck.

Luckily, the kids have inherited my love for this dish, so I can indulge without feeling too guilty.


3/4 cup tur dal
1/2 tsp haldi powder

1/2 tsp methi seeds
1 tsp chilli powder
Pressure cook together till soft.

Add salt (little less than normal), 3 small tomatos chopped, lots of dhania patta (I add an entire bunch- destemed), 1 tsp amchur powder, 1 tst jeera powder, and water, and boil for 5 minutes. Ensure that the dal is very watery, because it will thicken a lot later.

While the dal is cooking, make dough with atta, salt, jeera powder and 1 cup chopped methi leaves. Roll into rotis (about as thick as a naan), and cut into diamond shaped pieces.
Drop the roti pieces into the dal, and cook for 15 minutes.

Temper with with red chilli and jeera, cover and let the tastes soak in for about 5 minutes.

Garnish with fried onion slices and butter, and serve.