Thai Style Red Cabbage Salad with Mint

Salads are healthy and filling but the real reason I eat them are because they are tasty and easy to make! I am not lazy when it comes to cooking but its great once in a while to take time off and just chop some stuff up add a dressing and just enjoy the meal. Salads to me are also a great way to play around with textures and minimal flavours and make it really fun to experiment with!

This is again a recipe I found online but I have adapted it to the ingredients commonly found in an Indian vegetarian kitchen except the red cabbage which however is easily found nowadays at your local vegetable vendor!

Thai Style Red Cabbage Salad with Mint

For the salad

1 small red cabbage shredded
1/2 medium sized green cabbage shredded
1/4 cup mint leaves shredded
1/2 cup spring onion greens chopped
1/2 cup roasted peanuts broken down coarsely by hand

Contrasting purples

For the dressing

2 tbsps olive oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tbsp sugar
1-2 tsps chilli flakes (depending on how spicy you like it)
Salt to taste

Mix all the salad vegetables, pour the dressing and then add the peanuts last to preserve their crunch. Refrigerate for some time (about 20-30 minutes) before serving.

The photo Contrasting Purples is for The Colour Me Photography Challenge Series

Date A Girl Who Loves To Cook

She'll always have the shortest route to your heart, through your stomach.

Go with her to the supermarket. You might have to spend more than average time at the supermarket but you will see her true joys. Enjoy the twinkle in her eye as she discovers a good ingredient. Listen to her describe the putting together of the new recipe she has thought of after seeing available ingredients. Explore the regular supermarket in a new way through her eyes.

Talk to her about food and see how she is able to relate the basic-most of things to the larger things in life.

Her joy comes from varied sources: from the simplicity of a clear soup to the elegant complexity of a well put-together seven course meal. She knows of the depths and loves of both.

She will make you push your boundaries and start exploring new experiences even in daily monotony of life.

She knows that everything she will try will not always be successful, she knows of failures, she goes through them and yet takes the gamble, happily!

She understands the intricacies of various components such as texture, flavour, taste, look in creating a meal; how all the senses need to be appealed to and appeased. She  understands how small things come together to make a great experience.

She will look to you for suggestions, she will ask for your opinions and listen intently because she wants to share her love of food and the experience with you: you matter! Praise what she has made for you and you will hear her sigh softly, yes you really do matter...

Join her someday in the kitchen, hum along with her as she cooks, ask her questions, give her suggestions; she will welcome them with a lot of joy and a bright smile.

And you'll have the most obvious advantage: one of the most basic necessities of your life will come to you with lots of love... every time...

Inspiration credit: http://littlemissdorkette.tumblr.com/post/3118512524/date-a-girl-who-reads-by-rosemarie-urquico

Thukpa

I have managed to travel less so I try to travel trough food cooked in my kitchen at times. I love cooking dishes from the various regions of India: Bengal, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, south of India and I am exploring more regions as I come across more recipes to cook.

Very recently a friend travelled to North East and was raving about Thukpa: a clear soup with a piece of meat, noodles and shredded fresh vegetables to add. I googled the recipes available for it and got the basics, adapted it to my vegetarian kitchen. Whenever I have this soup I can see the snowy mountains in the backdrop and feel the cold weather of North East, despite the heavy rains of Mumbai! This beautiful, light yet filling and simple yet flavourful soup with depths of textures of noodles, broth and crispy shredded vegetables, has already become a family favourite and is eaten with great relish at least twice a week!

Hot thukpa soup with noodles and fresh vegetables

Ingredients

For the vegetable stock

1 litre water

4-5 leaves of cabbage

1/2 medium green capsicum

1 medium sized onion sliced

2 inch piece of gourd

Salt

For the broth of the soup

1-2 tbsps olive oil

6-8 garlic cloves finely chopped

2-3 green chillies finely chopped

Prepared vegetable stock

Salt to taste

1 1/2 tsp black pepper

For serving

100 gms of plain boiled noodles (rice/ hakka/ Maggi)

1 cup of shredded vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, green capsicum

5-10 corriander leaves 

Method

To make the vegetable stock, add the vegetables and the salt to one litre of water. Bring the water to a boil and then simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes and then drain.

For the broth, heat the pan and add the olive oil. Add in the garlic and fry till it turns golden. Then add in the green chillies and fry for 1 minute. To this add the vegetable stock prepared as above and add salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for about 10-15 minutes till the flavour of the garlic and the chillies seeps into the broth.

Cook the hakka/ rice noodles as per packet instructions. If you are using Maggi noodles, bring to a boil 300 ml of water, add in the noodles (and not the masala) and cook till they separate out and cook.

To serve, put in some noodles in the bowl, fill in with the broth and add the shredded vegetables and corriander leaves for garnishing. Enjoy!

All set to be slurped and crunched up!

And now I am submitting this post for my first food blogger's event! Fingers crossed! 

http://indian-delights.blogspot.in/2013/06/event-annoucement-monsoon-temptations.html

Pasta in Pesto Cream Sauce

It was liked by a close one who doesn't generally like pasta and avoids eating it! Need I say more?

Ingredients

For the pesto sauce

25-30 leaves of Italian basil (not Thai basil or Indian basil, which is our very own tulsi)
3-4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsps olive oil
6-8 walnuts
Salt to taste

For the pasta in pesto cream sauce

1 cup of penne/ fusilli pasta cooked according to packet instructions
2 tbsps olive oil
2-3 tbsps of pesto sauce
30 ml cream
200 ml milk
20 gms grated cheese (optional)
Salt to taste

Method

Blend all the ingredients of the pesto sauce in the mixer till a thick paste of chutney-like consistency is formed.

Heat a pan, add the olive oil and 2 tbsps of the pesto sauce and let it saute lightly for 2-3 mins (Italian basil becomes sweeter on cooking so do not cook too much or it will lose the piquancy completely).

Pesto sauce being sauteed in olive oil

Add in the milk, the cream and the cheese and the salt and cook till the sauce thickens. Adjust seasoning and add more pesto sauce if you want more flavour.

Pesto sauce with cream, milk and cheese added in

To this add cooked pasta and stir till the pesto cream sauce coats the pasta and cook for a couple of minutes. Add more milk if you want it creamier (it's the healthier option than cream!)

Pasta added into the pesto cream sauce

Serve hot and dig in!

Pasta in a creamy pesto sauce served hot!

Papad ki Dahiwaali Sabzi

Pick up the wrong packet, add significant amount of chaat masala instead of garam masala to a dahi-based sabzi  (that already is a little sour!), panic a bit, then thankfully remember you haven't stirred it in, use a large spoon to quickly spoon out the part of the gravy where the chaat masala has fallen, throw it (literally) from afar into the sink and add garam masala... and after it is all ok, just keep stirring nonchalantly as if nothing has happened! Cooking, does have it's moments and well this one will always be associated for me with making this sabzi (because it was the second time only I was trying it out!)

Papad ki Dahiwaali Sabzi

Papad ki Dahiwaali Sabzi

Ingredients

2 cups dahi
4 tbsps gram flour (besan)
11 /2 tsps red chilly powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3 cups water
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1/2 tsp hing
3-4 whole cloves
2 whole dried red chillies

1 tsp jeera powder
1 1/2 tsp garam masala powder
Salt to taste
2-3 large papads (preferably the udad or  mung ones)
Fresh corriander leaves chopped for garnishing

Method

Roast the papads either on a tawa or on the gas or in the microwave as you prefer and break into pieces of about 2 inches.


In a bowl, whisk together the dahi, the gram flour, the salt, the turmeric and the red chilly powder.

The dahi-gram flour mixture, the papads, and the ingredients for the tadka

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan and add the cumin seeds. When they start to crackle, add the hing, the cloves, the whole dried red chillies. Pour in the dahi-gram flour mixture and let it come to a boil. Once it comes to boil, it will start to thicken; lower the flame at this point.

Stage 2 with the dahi mixture poured in after the tadka

Add the papad pieces, the garam masala and roasted jeera powder and let it cook in for about 2-3 minutes on the low flame. Do not cook too much and too fast on a fast flame or the dahi will curdle.

Adding in the papads

Garnish with fresh corriander leaves and serve hot with rotis or rice!

The fresh hot sabzi

Aloo Parathas

Very few things can be compared to the joy of licking dripping golden butter off a hot paratha. My favourite kind of parathas are the very simple and very humble aloo parathas.

I have always wanted to have the typical maa ke haath ka parathas made by a Punjabi mom (if you've never had one of these, put it on your bucket list!). I finally got this opportunity very recently this Tuesday when one of my neighbours' mother came down for a visit from Delhi. My only food request to her was the regular everyday aloo paratha and not any of the other elaborate dishes she offered to lovingly cook for me.  

So I had these awesome parathas and I managed to get the recipe too.... it was a double whammy for me! Today I tried them out and they turned out to be almost as good as those I just had on Tuesday...

Aloo Parathas 

Ingredients

For the dough

3 cups of whole wheat flour

A pinch or two of salt

Water to knead the dough

For the filling

5-6 potatoes boiled and mashed

1 medium onion finely chopped

8-10 stalks of fresh corriander finely chopped 

Salt to taste

2-3 tsps chilly powder

2-3 tsps garam masala

1-2 tsps amchur powder

Oil to shallow fry the parathas

For the dough, add the salt to the wheat flour and knead it by slowly adding small quantities of water till it forms a firm yet slightly elastic dough. Let it rest for half hour.  

For the filling, mix together the potatoes, onion, corriander, and add the salt and the masalas and mix well. Taste a little bit of the filling to check for the flavour of the masalas in the filling. If you feel masalas are just right or less, add in some more as there will be a paratha covering too.

The aloo filling for the parathas

To make the parathas, first roll out the dough into half a roti, put in a small sized ball of the filling in the middle, cover it up with the edges of the roti and roll out to a paratha.

Shallow fry on a tawa with a little oil on both sides.

The aloo paratha fresh off the stove

Serve hot with chutney, ketchup, pickles, curd or simply a dollop of butter. I had mine today with aamras!

Aloo paratha- aamras my meal today!

A Morsel of Childhood

A small hot ball of rice, mixed with a dab of ghee and a sprinkle of salt, fed to me by the loving fragrant and slightly wrinkled hands of my grandma... I want a morsel of 'that' simply flavoured rice, a morsel of the simplicity of childhood...