These are a few of my new favourite things….

Most of us get addicted to reading blogs before we get one of our own. I wandered into the food blog world one fine day looking for some variety in my daily cooking. Nothing fancy, just everyday cooking that would show new ways with the same old ingredients.

Here are a few that have been added to our list of family favourites, and have been cooked more than once in my kitchen. Tried and tested…

1. Get your morning off to a good start with these scrumptious Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins from Manisha - (Indian Food Rocks)
2. Pel’s (Elaichi et Cetera) scintillating Thai soup Kaeng Thom Yam, and Nam Prik Pao, the secret paste behind it.
3. Bee and Jai’s (Jugalbandi) Kootu podi (spice mix for vegetables cooked with dal) from Southern India.
4. Bhinda ni Kadhi - Gujarati okra kadhi (Spice Cafe).
5. Bisi bele hulianna, a rice dish that was the essence of Karnataka cuisine to me (still is!) from Saakshi (Healthy Home Cooking), a serving of which can give you upwards of 20 varieties of food in one dish (including spices, of course)!

Check them out, if you haven’t already! Happy eating, and repeating!

The Old Faithful: Aloo Parantha

Usually, I love my time in the kitchen. More often than not, TH stays out, and is very appreciative of the food I put on the table (even when it is store-bought bread on days such as today when I am too rushed for even a 30-minute meal). But there are (many) days when I am not inclined to step into the kitchen at all.

One such day last year was my birthday. It is rather pathetic to have to cook yourself a special meal when it’s the perfect opportunity for others to show their love for a change. Yet, neither my son nor TH can be expected to bake a cake (not everyone is like Jai!). Every time I am not inclined to cook, the son is willing to order pizza and TH is only too happy to step out to get a fresh loaf of bread. But that day I insisted on a home cooked meal, and varan-bhaat was not going to cut it.

As it crawled towards dinner time and I showed no signs of getting off the couch, TH finally got the message and decided to grab the bull by the horns . Off he went into the kitchen and busied himself to prepare paranthas stuffed with my favourite vegetable - no prizes for guessing this time - potatoes. To bide my time till the paranthas were ready was a seasonal twist on my favourite drink - mango margaritas! Yes, he excelled himself.

Sarson ka Saag aur Makki ki Roti

Spring is upon us! Temperatures are climbing steadily – we are already at 27 degrees C. But a nip still lingers at night and in the mornings. Therefore, the mustard family gets to reign for a few more weeks. I have mentioned mustard fields and I have talked about Punjab…but I haven’t yet talked about their favorite winter greens preparation.

About Saag – sarson da saag (Punjabi) or mustard greens. When I first started reading food blogs a couple of years back, I was impressed by the familiarity of the Western world (the US-based blogs, in any case) with ‘saag’ which is the Punjabi word for greens in general. Just like Kashmiris refer to one specific kind of green when we say haak, saag too refers to sarson or mustard greens, unless specified otherwise – palak ka saag (spinach greens), bathuey ka saag, so on and so forth. Punjab has never heard of saag-paneer. The saag-paneer combination intrigued me till I discovered it was the American avatar of good old palak-paneer, which, I am told (by none other than our own desikudi, Musical) is not that traditional in rural Punjab.

Moongre ki Subzi (Radish Pods)

I seem to gravitate towards strong tasting vegetables - the pungent and very-brassica smells and tastes my husband likes to categorise as oogra. Nothing brings out the link between all the diverse members of the brassica family (such as broccoli, kohlrabi, haak, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, mustard, kale, and collard) like their flowers and seeds. All of them have the characteristic four-petal blooms (thus the name crusiferae - from ‘cross’ - for this group of plants, also collectively called the mustard family) and the brown-to-black oval-spherical seeds borne in tapering bean-like seedpods (a silique). Maybe now Nabeela will see why I first identified the mustard pods in her quiz as radish pods. The flowers vary in colour from white or cream to lavender or yellow, and are all edible!

Quinoa Soup with Spinach and Pumpkin

Snap, snap…blink, blink… Okay, I am really trying hard to snap out of it. The blog-lethargy that I have slumped into. Maybe it really is the cold (it was a freezing 2 degrees Celsius here in Delhi yesterday) and my brain has frozen over, in addition to my hands and feet. I have been sipping endless cups of tea everyday, hugging the cup in my hands to warm them briefly.

And it isn’t just cups of tea that I have been downing. Winter makes it hard to control calories. This is the time when peanuts (and all nuts and fruits that make up dry fruits) are consumed in large quantities in North India. The most popular way to consume peanuts is to throw a lot of woolens on and around yourself, huddle in a familial group, shelling and stuffing yourself while watching TV. They are the preferred snack at most Delhi bus stops where the peanut seller sits with his pile of peanuts-in-their-shells. He picks the nuts from just under the small earthen pot that has a gently smoldering piece of cow-chip in it, to weighs out hot peanuts that give sustenance and warmth, and also pass time while you wait for your ride to arrive.

Soups do that too - warm us up from the inside out. Winter is also particularly bountiful where vegetables are concerned. There is an abundance of greens: spinach, mustard greens, dill, methi, bathua, kohl rabi, and of course, haak and soutchal, two wonderful Kashmiri greens. Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, beetroot, corn, carrots, and tomatoes, add to this bounty, and make this a great season for soup.

101 uses for Mystery Powder

Before Srivalli completely gives up on me, here I am with my experiments with the mystery powder I received through our very own Arusuvai Friendship chain last month. For all my professed past-life claims, the podi Srivalli sent me had me at a complete loss. I have already admitted I am not good at de-constructing spice blends; I totally relied on Manisha’s intuition for kanda-lassun masala.

After staring at the yellow-orange-powder sitting in a packet on my kitchen counter for two days, I gingerly wrote to Srivalli about my predicament… The yellow powder was going to test my self-professed Southie-ness. I could taste turmeric… dhaniya… and… the rest was a mystery. Now, I have made a few South Indian podis: kootu podi, bisibele hulianna podi, milagai podi; this was definitely not one of those. Well, that left only one other podi I knew: sambar masala! So, I prayed and sent an apologetic note to Srivalli asking if that was Sambar podi I had in my possession. It amused her that I was so unsure… but of course, it was! Whew! I heaved a sigh of relief. My reputation (rather, claim) was intact; at least, for now.

Sookhi Gobhi Aloo

I love my vegetables and am especially fond of gobhi or cauliflower. All through winter it is the highlight of our menu on at least three meals a week. If I had to pick my favourite way to serve this, sort of like the-first-amongst-equals, it would have to be the Punjabi sookhi goobhi aloo, dry (here meaning without curry) cauliflower with potatoes. I wonder how I didn’t share this sooner?

One of the reasons it is such a regular part of our winter meals is because this vegetable is an all-pleaser. Everyone in this family actually agrees on this vegetable. Thank God for small mercies. There were initial mutterings about the other recipe (before I joined the household) that I would never cook…but they settled eventually on their own. This is a star recipe, and comes together very quickly. While the vegetables are cooking, you can prepare the roti and you have a wonderful meal ready in 30 minutes! Dal with it is good; yoghurt, better. Slice some mooli (daikon radish) on the side, or maybe you have some leftover bharleli mirchi, and you have put together a delicious meal in a jiffy.

Fried Rice, Again!

At last I have a recipe using brown rice that the whole family will eat. I might also come out in the open about the fact that I love white rice. While I do on occasion cook brown rice, I find white rice is more suited to absorbing the curries we all love so much. You can mush it up with dal, or with dahi (yoghurt), and it feels right. Brown rice just refuses to soften up despite all the pressure-cooking I subject it to, and then it dares me to refuse. A lot like dalia (cracked wheat). But I put dalia in its place once I realized I could eat my cake and have it too, sort of. I needed a recipe for brown rice that would make it really sing instead of the forlorn ditty, “I’m good for you.”

I tried Musical’s mothaan di khichdi (using sprouted moth as Nupur had done) and reluctantly agreed with my teen son that it would have been better with regular white rice. My son will not touch brown rice with a ten foot pole. But lap it up he did with his 10 inch chopsticks when I made it into fried rice!

Now, who doesn’t like fried rice! I bet that all of us have our own favourite version of this classic Chinese dish. There are many traditional Indian avatars of this dish too using leftover rice – Maharashtrians have their phodnicha bhath (literally, rice with tempering), and the many South Indian rice preparations use the same concept too (chitranna, tamarind rice) – leftover rice mixed into seasoned oil, with or without the addition of vegetables.

While most of the dishes consumed in India under the “Chinese food” label have the most superficial of resemblance to the cuisine of that ancient country (Chicken Manchurian is as Chinese as Chicken Tikka Masala is Indian), I will wager that home-cooks serve a decent version of Chinese fried rice. That is because the home cook likely limits his Chinese pantry items to the generic soy sauce; and most Indian homes are never out of ginger, onion, and garlic. I have since also bought myself a bottle of hoysin sauce, and will be using it in this rice (and pray that it is not blasphemy); fermented beans are on my list next.

How many have you? Nine kinds of rice in my pantry: Clockwise, from bottom: Goan brown rice, fragrant white Basmati, black rice (a gift from a friend!), a mix of Kerala red rice (rosematta) and a dark red rice from Uttaranchal (from Navdanya) - I use the mix in soups, par-boiled rice for idli (from Madras Store, INA), short grain brown rice, brown Basmati; center -lightly fragrant short grain rice from Madhya Pradesh, which I have been saving for Ver)

The fried brown-rice happened quite by chance. I had (pressure) cooked a big pot of Goan brown rice, swearing to eat no white rice for a whole month. The following day I Google-chatted with a certain friend too late into the afternoon that cooking lunch on time was not likely.

My family will readily eat bread and butter, or bread and eggs, whenever I forget them on account of this computer affair. Only, I feel guilty if I do that more than thrice in a week. And there was that healthy bowl of brown rice sitting in the fridge…and since Kylie Kwong, I don’t ‘chop fine’ the vegetables for my Chinese recipes…Half hour later we were enjoying a delicious healthy lunch of fried rice - egg fried rice for the son.

Easiest Fried Rice
(Serves 3)

4-5 C cooked brown rice (if using leftover brown rice, pressure cook or steam again to refresh)
2 + 1 T peanut oil
1 medium onion, sliced
a few cloves of garlic, smashed
1 T fresh grated/julienned ginger
2-3 whole red chillies (fresh or dry), sliced thin, on the bias
2-3 green chillies, sliced thin, on the bias
2-3 C prepared vegetables of choice (shredded cabbage, sliced carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms, green beans, broccoli florets – I had only green peppers that day)
1 T soy sauce
1 T hoysin sauce (optional)
1-2 t vinegar (optional)
¾ t ajinomoto (or salt to taste) [yes, I do]
1 egg, lightly beaten (optional)

To a hot karahi or wok, add 2 tablespoons of oil. To the hot oil, add garlic and ginger and stir till fragrant but not browned. Add the red chillies and onions and stir it all around till the onions change colour (a minute or so). Add the prepared vegetables and cook, stirring all the time, for 2-3 minutes, till the vegetables have all brightened up. Add the hoysin sauce and the soy sauce and mix. Add the cooked rice and stir. Sprinkle ajinomoto (or salt), and stir till heated through. Mix in the vinegar before removing to a serving dish.

Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the wok. Pour the beaten egg (to which you have added a pinch of salt) into the hot oil, swirl the wok around and lift the egg slightly to allow it to spread and cook. As it starts to set, break it up into large chunks. Tip a third of the fried rice into the wok and stir to combine. Serve this portion to the egg-lover in the family.

Other takes on Fried Rice:

Kylie’s Delicious Fried Rice
Manisha’s Leftover Chicken and Rice
Inji’s Indian-Chinese Fried Rice
Sig’s sunny Sweet Corn Fried Rice
Japanese Fried Rice
Thai Fried Rice
Chinese Fried Rice

Tags: brown rice, fried rice, egg fried rice, rice, Chinese, egg, under 30 min!, vegetarian

Spicy Nutty Cluster Beans

Yes, about that stunner gavar recipe. I never cared much for these beans. It may have something to do with the name - in Hindi the word also means ‘a country bumpkin’.

Haak Time - It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If you are surprised at how heavily the dice is loaded towards Southern India on our dining table, then I have also been amazed to meet non-Kashmiri souls that have haak-rus ( haak- broth) flowing through their veins. Some even wrote poetry in the praise of haak! But for them, I would have never thought of writing about this most favourite of our greens – haak. Haak is the Kashmiri equivalent of the term ‘greens’ or the Hindi ‘saag’. So, we have monjji haak (cohlrabi greens), mujj haak (radish greens), vopal haak (dandelion greens), and vast haak. But the greens we love the most, we just call haak.