Basic bhindi (okra/vendakkai/ladies finger) fry

Ladies finger is my most favorite vegetable. It is probably the only vegetable I can eat no matter how well or how badly it is cooked (I hate it when it is drenched in oil. When that happens, I grumble, squeeze out the oil and still eat it). I think ladies finger tastes best when it is tender and is cooked with minimal oil and mild spices just till the raw smell disappears.

Here is a basic ladies finger recipe which tastes good even when the ladies fingers aren't all that tender. It makes a great combo with rasam-rice though it tastes good with rotis and dal too.

Ladies finger fry

Ingredients (makes enough for 2-3):
Ladies finger (okra) - 1/2 kg (washed, dried and sliced into 1/8" thick rounds)
Onion - 1 big, finely chopped
Tomato - 1 big, finely chopped
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Dhania powder - 2 heaped tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste


To Season:
Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Broken urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Red chillis - 2, broken
Asafoetida - a pinch
Curry leaves - a sprig
Oil

Method:
1. Coat the bottom of a wide, non-stick pan with about 1 tsp oil and place on medium heat.
2. Add the seasoning items: mustard seeds, urad dal and red chillis. When mustard begins to splutter, add asafoetida and curry leaves in quick succession.
3. Add onions and salt and fry till golden.
4. Add tomatoes and fry till it is more or less mashed.
5. Add the chilli, coriander and turmeric powders and fry for 30 seconds.
6. Add the okra a little at a time, stirring carefully after each addition so that the okra is mixed well with the onion-tomato mixture (use a light hand or you will mash the okra).
7. Spread okra over the bottom of the pan, lower the heat, cover with a lid and let cook for 6-8 minutes without disturbing
8. Uncover, stir okra, cover again and cook for 4-5 minutes.
9. Uncover, check for done-ness. If done, cook without the lid for 2-3 minutes. Else re-cover and cook in 2 minute additions
10. Check for salt and serve hot with rice or rotis.

Koottu Rasam

I am a big rasam lover. Rasam is the first "dish" I learnt to make. Which isn't a very big feat considering how easy rasam is to make usually. Nevermind that I only learnt later that it is possible to screw up making rasam too (some people really can't cook - such is life).

Anyhoo, the most time consuming part of making rasam is boiling the tur dal to put in it. It is only a small quantity of dal which goes into rasam but still I feel that it is a must for the rasam-y taste I like.

Thus, I was thrilled when I came upon this rasam recipe on my cousin's blog which included tur dal but did not require separate boiling of the same.

Brief digression (and plug) - that blog has authentic recipes from the Kumbakonam area of Tamilnadu. My cousin's mom is a great cook and my lucky cousin has inherited those genes. Furthermore, he has been patiently and painstakingly putting down the recipes (from paper and through the telephone) onto a blog. Check those out!

I made some minor changes to the original koottu rasam recipe. Here is my version.

Koottu Rasam

Steaming koottu rasam

Ingredients (enough rasam for 4-5):


To roast and grind:
Tur Dal, 2 tsp
Red chilies, 2
Whole black pepper, 1 tsp
Cumin, 1 tsp
Garlic, 2 cloves, peeled

Roast all of the above without oil and grind into a coarse powder.

Base:
Water, 4 cups
Tamarind, gooseberry sized ball
Turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp
Tomato, 1 medium, crushed into a pulp using hands
Salt to taste

Extract the tamarind and then mix with the rest of the base ingredients

To season
Mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp
Urad dal, 1/2 tsp
Green chilli, 1 small, split vertically
A pinch of asafoetida
Curry leaves, 1 sprig
Oil, 1 tsp
Fresh coriander leaves, 1 tbsp, chopped

Method:
1. Add the coarsely ground powder to the base and mix well.
2. Heat a sauce-pan on medium, add the mixture from step 1 and bring to a boil.
3. In a separate seasoning pan, add oil, urad dal, green chilli and mustard seeds. When mustard seeds begin to crackle, add asafoetida and curry leaves in quick succession and add the entire contents of the seasoning pan to the boiling mixture from step 2.
4. Turn off heat, check for salt, garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve hot with rice.

Notes
1. Coriander leaves give a lovely aroma to rasam. Try not to skip them unless you have to!

Spicy Masala Shrimp (prawns)

We went to the fish-stall yesterday and bought shrimp as they looked quite fresh in their shells. The store-keeper was very helpful and offered to de-shell as well as de-vein the prawns. How nice! Obviously, we took up on the offer and brought home about a 1/4 kg of cleaned prawns.

Prawns sauteed in butter and seasoned with freshly ground pepper and salt tastes divine. However, it is not so healthy. But then, prawns being what they are, they taste quite divine when cooked with desi spices too.

Spicy Masala Prawns

Ingredients (makes enough for 2-3):
[Don't be daunted by the long list. The recipe is quite easy to make.]

Marinate:
1/4 kg cleaned prawns
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red chili powder
3 tsp garlic powder (optional)

Mix all the ingredients together and leave in fridge overnight or outside for a couple of hours.

To Season:
Oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 broken red chillis
1/8 tsp asafoetida (hing)
7-8 torn curry leaves

To cook:
1 tbsp ginger paste
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 long green chilli, chopped fine
25 shallots, peeled and sliced
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp dhania powder
1/2 tsp black pepper powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder (optional)
1/2 tsp fennel powder
Oil
Salt

Method:

[Remember to bring prawns to room temperature before starting to cook.]
1. Put a wide non-stick pan on a stove on medium heat and add oil enough to coat base of the pan.
2. Add the seasoning ingredients in the following order: mustard seeds and red chilis. When mustard begins to crackle, add hing followed by curry leaves.
3. Add the ginger, garlic and green chilis. Stir all the while to make sure nothing burns.
4. When the above mixture begins to turn color, add chopped coriander leaves and stir for a couple of seconds.
5. Toss in the onions and sufficient salt (remember, you have already added some salt to the prawns).
6. Stir fry the onions till they turn golden-brown and then add in the masala powders other than fennel powder (chili, dhania, turmeric, pepper, garam masala, kashmiri chili).
7. Stir fry for a few seconds and then add in chopped tomatoes and mix in well.
8. Add about 2-3 tbsp of water, cover the pan, lower the heat and allow it to cook till the tomatoes turn mushy (about 2-3 minutes).
9. Increase the heat, uncover the pan and continue stir frying till all the water has almost evaporated
10. Toss in the prawns and spread them so each prawn has contact with base of the pan.
11. Once the prawns have changed color, flip them and cook the other side.
12. Prawns cook really fast - so steps 10 and 11 should be done in under 3 minutes. Do not overcook prawns or they will become rubbery.
13. Adjust salt as necessary. Sprinkle fennel powder and mix it in to spread it evenly.
14. Switch off heat and serve after 10 minutes or so. If you plan to serve later, when you reheat, try to do it on the stove and  reheat only till the prawns masala heats through (about 1-2 minutes).

Goes very well with hot, steamed rice or if you are feeding tongues of steel, as an appetizer by itself!

Poha (aval upma)

Long before the very-similar-to-make Sabudana kichdi joined the list of quick-meals, poha was already a permanent member. I had never heard of poha till I went to grad school where a whole bunch of Maharashtrian friends swore by it. Seeing how easy it was to make and how satisfying the end result was, I was hooked. Poha has got me through many days of "I don't want to spend much time cooking but I want to eat a nice, hot meal".

A spoonful of poha

Ingredients (enough for two):
Poha (aval) - 1 cup
Onion - 1, medium-sized, chopped
Turmeric - 1/4 tsp
Red chilis - 3, broken
Roasted peanuts - 1/4 cup, de-skinned and broken into halves
Jeera - 1 tsp
Lemon juice - 2 tsp (or to taste)
Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp, chopped
Oil - 1.5 tsp
Salt

Method:
1. Soak the poha by placing poha in a dish and pouring enough water to cover. Poha absorbs water pretty well and pretty fast so you will probably need a little more water beyond just covering the poha.
2. Place a pan on the stove on medium heat and add the red chillies and the jeera.
3. When jeera begins to crackle, add the onions and stir fry till the onions turn lightly golden.
4. Add the turmeric, salt and peanuts and continue stirring till the raw smell of turmeric disappears. Onions should only be lightly cooked, not roasted to a brown color.
5. Add the soaked poha (it should be soft but there should not be excess water) and gently stir till it is well mixed with the onion-peanut mixture.
6. Continue cooking on medium heat till the poha is heated through (about 4-5 minutes).
7. Turn off heat and add lime juice. Stir/toss, so that the juice spreads evenly.
8. Top with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Sabudana Kichdi

Every time I get busy at work, cooking immediately takes a backseat. Don't even ask about blogging.

Sabudana kichdi is a tasty dish if you like the spongy, chewy texture of sabudana (variously called as sago or tapioca pearls or javvarisi). It requires a little bit of planning since you need to soak the sabudana beforehand but the actual making process is quite simple and quick - making it an ideal recipe for not-enough-time-to-cook times.

Sabudana Kichdi

Ingredients (makes enough for 2):
Sabudana - 1 cup
Potato - 1 medium-sized, chopped into small pieces
Green chillis - 2, split vertically
Roasted peanuts - 1/4 cup, de-skinned and lightly crushed
Jeera - 1 tsp
Turmeric - 1/4 tsp
Lemon Juice - 2 tsp or per taste
Corriander leaves - 1 handful, chopped
Salt to taste
Oil

Method:
1. Soak the sabudana in water for 8 hours or overnight. The way I measure the amount of water needed is: Place the sabudana in a bowl, pour enough water to just cover. Then pour some more water so that the level of water is up to the first line-marking (from top) on the inside your index finger when it is placed on the top layer of sabudana. A friend taught me this and this method ensures that you do not use too much or too little water.
2. In case there is any water remaining with the soaked sabudana the next day, drain it and spread the sabudana on a plate to lightly dry. Too much water will result in a soggy mess.
3. Heat enough oil to coat in a non-stick pan on medium heat. Non stick is important if you want to avoid using copious quantities of oil and prevent sticking to the pan.
4. Toss in the jeera and the green chillis and lightly stir till the jeera crackles.
5. Add the chopped potato pieces and stir till they are evenly coated with oil/jeera.
6. Add the turmeric, stir again, then lower the heat and cover the pan.
7. When potatoes are almost done (about 4-5 minutes), add in the sabudana. Stir continuously with a light hand as you add the sabudana to prevent sticking.
8. From this point, DO NOT cover the pan at any time.
9. Add the crushed peanut pieces and salt. Continue stirring lightly from time to time.
10. When the sabudana pearls turn translucent (about 5-7 minutes), the kichdi is done.
11. Turn off heat, add the lemon juice and stir/toss the kichdi so the juice spreads evenly.
12. Top with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Notes:
1. The most important thing to get right for this recipe is the sabudana. They should be soaked but not soggy when you add them.
2. If your sabudana kichdi turns out to be a big sticky ball when it is done, check the following:
a) are you using a non-stick pan or sufficient oil in case of a regular pan? With a regular pan, you would easily be looking at 2-3 tbsp of oil to avoid stickiness.
b) are you cooking on too high heat? The kichdi should be cooked on medium-low to medium heat.
c) Are you stirring with a heavy hand? Stir lightly because you are only trying to make sure that the sabudana gets coated with mild spices, not because you are trying to dissolve it into a gruel.
d) As mentioned before, DO NOT cover the pan once you have added sabudana - a covered pan is the best way to ensure a sticky ball.
e) At no time should you be adding any water. If the kichdi seems to be sticking to the bottom of the pan, lower heat and drizzle some more oil into it.

Once you get the sabudana right, the recipe is a breeze to make. I know because I did make a couple of sticky balls before I started getting it consistently right. The effort was not wasted - now I have one more tasty dish on my quick-meal options!

Moroccan orange cake

I think I have been blowing my own trumpet too much about my baking abilities. Sis (who is not in my city and hence not one of the frequent recipients of my culinary output) is so impressed that she asked me to bake a cake and send it to her. So this cake is traveling all the way to Hong Kong now!

Sis picked orange cake and I Googled and got this recipe:

http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/dessertsandcookies/r/orange_cake.htm

The cake has simple ingredients and is easy to put together. However, contrary to what the comments in the link say, I could not detect any orangey flavor while baking. The cake did came out looking spongy.

I followed the recipe as is with the following modifications:

1. Halved the recipe - correspondingly the baking time was about 25 minutes.
2. I do not own a bundt pan, so used a regular round cake tin.
3. Sprinkled sliced almonds (or whatever version of sliced I could get using a knife, a chopping board and almonds) on top of the cake before baking.
4 . After cooling the cake for about 10 minutes, I dusted powdered sugar on top. You can skip this if you prefer milder sweetness.

Orange cake cooling on an improvised rack.

I have not tasted the cake. Will update the result of the taste test once I hear back from sis!

Update:
Verdict from sis: The cake is totally yummy. It is so spongy and soft.

Yeah, this recipe is a keeper!

Malabar parotta

Here is a great recipe and detailed steps for making the fluffy and layered Malabar parottas:

http://deepann.wordpress.com/2006/02/20/kerala-porotta/

Yes, it is easier to heat and eat the frozen parotta from the store, but this recipe lets you control the amount of oil going into the parotta and also has a delicious end-result!

How to fry fish with minimal oil

Craving fried fish but not craving the extra calories? Here's how to fry the fish with minimal oil as learnt from my mom and aunts. This takes longer than simply dunking the fish in hot oil but the extra time is worth it.

Tawa fish fry

 You'll need:
Marinated fish pieces
A tawa
A lid to cover the entire tawa
Oil

Method:
1. Coat the entire tawa with a thin film of oil.
2. Place it on a stove at medium-high heat and heat it.
3. Place the fish slices without overlap on the tawa.
4. Cover the tawa with the lid and cook till the fish starts changing color (meaning it has gotten cooked). This will take 3-4 minutes. Medium high heat should not be burning the fish, but if it is, reduce the heat to medium. If the fish seems too dry, add a few drops of oil around the sides.
5. Flip the fish over and repeat step 4.
6. Now reduce the heat further to simmer and flip the fish again. This time cook without the lid for about 2-3 minutes.
7. Flip the fish and repeat step 6.

At this point, fish will be done. Serve hot!

Remember to heat up the tawa on medium-high heat and coat it with a thin film of oil before frying every batch of fish.

Fish Marinade:
Can be any combo of the following
Red chilli powder
Dhania seeds
Turmeric powder
Cumin seeds
Saunf seeds
Fenugreek seeds (only a little, say 5-7, too much will add a bitter taste)
A few fresh garlic cloves
A little tamarind

Grind all of the above with enough salt for the quantity of fish you have got and a little water to make a fine paste. Apply on all sides of the fish and marinate for a couple of hours outside or overnight in the refrigerator. Bring down to room temperature before cooking if you had placed the fish in the fridge.

No quantities are mentioned for the ingredients above on purpose. It varies depending on the quantity of fish and your palate.  In general, the chilli powder and dhania would form the base for the marinade while the rest of the ingredients act as accents.

Beetroot Cabbage Soup

I could eat different kinds of bread everyday for the rest of my life and still die happy (provided you feed me chicken biryani from time to time). I love bread! As a side effect, I like eating salads, sandwiches and soup too - since bread makes an awesome accompaniment to these dishes.

Today is one of those "I don't feel like cooking for lunch" days. While just eating bread would have been okay with me, with my new resolution to eat more healthy, I decided I should include some veggies for lunch. The quick and easy option was to concoct a soup using ingredients in the pantry. Thus was born this healthy cabbage-beetroot soup.

Ingredients (makes enough for two as a starter or for one as a whole meal):
1 medium beetroot, chopped
1/4 of a small cabbage, chopped
5 shallots or 1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 torn bay leaf
1 tsp dried rosemary (or any herb seasoning of your choice)
5 pepper corns
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Add all the ingredients to a pan and fill with water up to about one inch above the veggies.
2. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for about an hour or until a beetroot piece can be mashed with a spoon.
3. Drain the excess water from the boiled mixture and reserve.
4. Fish out and toss the bay leaves from the boiled mixture and then cool the mixture. Grind to a fine paste (make sure the mixture is completely cooled before grinding. Otherwise you will wind up with a very clean kitchen. Because you would have wiped off the splattered mess from the walls, the ceiling, the counter-tops, the various kitchen apparatus and the floor. Trust me on this).
5. Add water from step 3 to the ground veggie mix to dilute the soup to the consistency you like.
6. Heat the soup through on the stove top or with a microwave.
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste. You can add a dollop of butter before serving, if you wish to.

Serve hot with toasted bread on the side.

A variation would be the "sweat" the vegetables before boiling them. Sweating refers to the process of adding butter/oil to a pan to coat, adding the veggies, stirring it a bit and then covering and cooking them on a low flame for about 5 minutes. This will get rid of the raw smell of the veggies. This is the tastier, albeit slightly less healthy variation of making the soup.

Fresh apple cake

As you can see, I am on a baking spree. This very easy apple cake recipe made a very tasty apple cake (3 of us finished 3/4ths of the cake in about 15 minutes):

http://hubpages.com/hub/Fresh_Apple_Cake_Recipe

I followed the original recipe since the cake was for a special occasion and I wasn't sure if using whole wheat flour would taste good. The only changes I made to the recipe were to add some chopped cashews to the batter along with the sugared apple pieces and cutting down the sugar to about 2/3rd of a cup. For some reason (I think it was the baking soda I used), the cake refused to hold together and kept crumbling upon touch. But since the taste was so good, we just called it "Apple crumble" instead and enjoyed it all the same!

I will probably try the healthier version of this cake sometime and update this post.

Fruit cake

http://deepann.wordpress.com/2006/03/30/rich-fruit-plum-cake/

For some reason, this recipe had been calling out to me ever since I first laid eyes upon it. I love "plum cake" loaded with fruits and nuts that we get in bakeries in India and this recipe sounded like a great one for baking my own.

Making this cake to ring in the New Year seemed like a perfect occasion marker. I set out soaking the fruits a week before baking day - it should have been earlier but we did not get the brandy till that day. Though I had mostly bought broken nuts, chopping the cherries, almonds and dates still took quite a while. Seriously, prep work is the most laborious step of most recipes. I soaked the dried fruits and nuts in brandy and put in in the refrigerator. In retrospect, I should have simply left it outside but I was worried that it would go bad given Chennai's humid climate. I ultimately wound up leaving it outside for about 1.5 days and the rest of the days in the fridge.

On D-day, putting the cake together took longer than I expected (so, what's new). Here's what I did, bullet-point style:

1. I assembled all the ingredients first before starting any mixing.
2. The right time to add water to the caramel is when the sugar/water mixture melts completely and then begins to foam/bubble up. The original writer is right, there IS a lot of splashing, so be very careful.
3. I had no powdered spices other than nutmeg. So I simply ground whole cardamom, cloves and cinnamon and sieved it with a tea-strainer before using. Nutmeg is a must for the fruit-cakey taste.
4. I had no dry ginger powder either. So I ground fresh ginger along with the orange juice for the last step and strained and used the ginger-orange juice instead.
5. I don't have an electric mixer and I got a very good arm workout with the hand mixer and plain old hand whisking.
6. One mistake I made was to use fresh lemon peel in the soaked fruit-nut mixture. This peel refused to soften and showed up as weird unchewable bits in the cake. As Mom said, this was the drishti for the otherwise absolutely yummy and professional tasting cake. You could use candied lemon/orange peels if you want to - I think that should be fine.
7. This recipe makes 2 generous-sized cakes (with 8" round pans). The cakes are loaded with fruits and nuts in every bite when made as per the original directions.
8. In case you are wondering, it is impossible to taste/smell the brandy in the finished product. So don't worry if you don't like the alcohol taste.
9. Baking the cake took longer than 45 minutes (closer to an hour perhaps) for me. So keep checking for done-ness every few minutes from the 45 minute-mark.
10. This blog has some more pictures for the same recipe:
http://yummyoyummy.blogspot.com/2010/06/fruit-cake.html

The cake tastes best when cooled. This recipe is a sure keeper. All the effort is totally worth it.