Banana inflorescence (Vazhapoo Parapusili)

The banana plant is very versatile in that every part of it can be used in some way or the other.  Everybody is familiar with the fruit and hence there is no need to mention it specially.  The leaves of the banana plant can be used as disposable, bio-degradable, eco-friendly plates to eat from.  But how many people know that the stem and the inflorescence of the banana can also can be prepared in different forms?

Source:  Google images

Cleaning the inflorescence of banana:

Remove the large red bracts of the inflorescence layer by layer. Each bract covers a bunch of florettes. Remove this bunch. Take the florettes individually and remove the stamen and papery transparent petal from each of them and discard. (This is a tedious job, but the final results make the effort worth the while). Keep repeating till all the red bracts are removed and you come to the central white part of the florette. Chop the florettes finely and keep in a bowl of water with 2 tbsp of yoghurt in it (to prevent it from getting black through oxidation). Then discard the stem of the inflorescence and chop the inner white part into small pieces. (There are many video clips on Youtube which demonstrate the procedure step by step).  snapguide.com/guides/clean-a-banana-blossom-flower/‎ ,  http://www.nithyasnalabagam.com/2013/05/how-to-clean-banana-flower.html  Wash the banana florettes with fresh water and strain when ready to cook.

Ingredients:

Banana inflorescence

1/2 cup tur dal (pigeon peas)

1/2 cup chana dal (bengal gram)

1 dried red chilli

1 small piece compounded asafoetida (hing)

Oil – 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

Asafoetida – 1 pinch powdered

Turmeric powder – 1 pinch

Salt – to taste

Procedure:

1/2 cup tur dal

1/2 cup chana dal

1 dried red chilli

1 small piece compounded asafoetida

Dry roast all these ingredients together and grind them coarsely in a mixer. Sprinkle about 1/2 -3/4 cup water on this ground mix and then pressure cook it. Take it out when it has cooled and break it up into a powder.

Take a tablespoonful of oil in a kadhai (wok) and heat it. Add mustard seeds and a pinch of powdered asafoetida to it. Add the washed banana florettes to the oil once the mustard seeds have popped. Add salt, a pinch of turmeric powder and then add the mixture of tur dal and chana dal which has been pressure cooked and prepared.  Mix well.  Close the kadhai and allow to cook for 5-10 mins.

The dish is now ready to eat.

(The banana flower is rich in vitamins, flavonoids and proteins. The flower has been used in traditional medicine to treat bronchitis, constipation and ulcer problems. It eases menstrual cramps. The extracts of banana flower have anti oxidant properties that prevent free radicals and control cell and tissue damage.

Read more: Medicinal Properties of the Banana Plant | Medindia http://www.medindia.net/patients/lifestyleandwellness/medicinal-properties-of-the-banana-plant.htm#ixzz2VKfyq3g8)

Beat the Heat - Dadpe Pohe

Bangalore is ablaze and when I say ablaze, I mean literally ablaze.  The summer heat is bearing down oppressively making me want to immerse myself in a pool all day long.  Now that not being possible, I have to think of other ways of beating the heat.  Chappatis are more or less out of fashion in my home.  Everyday it is a menu of curd rice, some other variety of rice, raita .......  Cucumbers are in special favour.

Rice everyday can get pretty boring unless something else is added to the menu to provide a variety.  One of those foodie dreams took me back to my neighbour's house in Pune, where on a summer afternoon I had eaten this delightful, yet easily made stuff called "Dadpe Pohe".

Conversion of thought to action does not take much effort especially where a foodie is concerned.

So here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

Poha (puffed rice) - 1/2 kg

Coconut water - 250 ml

Fresh grated coconut - 1/2 a cup (adjust to individual requirements)

Raw mango - 1 small or 1/2 medium sized (add to taste)

Tomato - 1 medium

Onion - 1 medium - large

Groundnuts - 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon

Oil - 1 teaspoon

Green chilli - 1 medium

Corriander leaves finely chopped

Procedure:

Wash the poha through a sieve.  Allow it to soak in the coconut water.  Add chopped tomato, onion and finely chopped raw mango.

Heat the oil, add mustard, allow to splutter.  Add the groundnuts and fry.  Add the chopped chilli to this.  Allow the mixture to cool.  Add to the poha and mix well.

As is evident, it is simple to make (just think how convenient it is when you have unexpected or even expected guests :-D), healthy and yummy to eat.

Violà, its ready to wolf down.  Slurp slurp ..........

You are all set to beat the heat. :-D  Enjoy.

My Experiments With Cooking

Disclaimer: Everybody is advised to read this write-up only if they feel up to taking some shocks. The author does not intend to willfully offend anyone's sensibilities, having said which she does not guarantee the improbability that that might be the outcome. Any such effect is purely unintentional.

That I am a gourmet (and admittedly a gourmand) is a well known fact. A gourmet is one who appreciates and enjoys good cooking while a gourmand is one who can't lay off food. My motto is "I see food, I eat it" (my definition of sea-food diet). I have tried various kinds of diet, but this is the only one which I have managed to faithfully stick to and which has worked for me. (As I write this there are some lovely smells floating out of the kitchen, making me weak in the knees).

So coming back to the point, although I have always loved eating, I cannot say the same about cooking. I was a very hard nut for my mom to crack. Somehow I was an avowed women's libber in my school days and did not like the fact that people expected only girls to learn cooking while men could expect to be waited on (at least it was my perception of reality those days). So I pig-headedly refused to go anywhere near the kitchen , while continuing to eat like a larva.

While the mysteries of cooking eventually did begin to intrigue me, my big fat ego would not allow me to admit to mom that maybe I would not mind some lessons in cooking .

So one day when I was in Std. X, she went out with my neighbours to see a film, while I was left at home to study. That did not go down too well with me and I decided to entertain myself at home. What better way of doing that than eating some nice. My mind thought up a wonderful dish to eat - fried potatoes. I wanted to make it like what my friends brought in their lunch boxes. How does one fry potatoes? Well, simple. One took a wok (kadai), chopped up potatoes, put them into the wok and onto the fire, closed it with a lid and presto!!! After a while, there would be delectable potato fries coming out of the wok straight into my waiting mouth. (I could almost imagine the trajectory it would follow).

After a while of waiting, I opened the wok and checked inside. The potato did not want to part company with the bottom of the wok and it did not look like what mom made. Nor did it look like what my friends brought in their lunch boxes. I decided to take no more risks. Mom might arrive any minute and it would be a major loss of face for me to let her know that I had tried my hand at cooking. I picked up a piece of potato. It did not quite follow the trajectory I had imagined it would take. It made a brief halt in front of my eyes. Then I thought, maybe it might be alright after all. I gingerly took a bite. It was completely raw. What could I do? If I chucked it in the bin, mom would certainly spot it and my cat would be out of the bag. So with all the courage and adventurous spirit of a new teenager, I chucked the whole stuff into my biological bin. It was strong enough to biodegrade it without anyone noticing. Then came the next step of cleaning the wok and even if I say so myself, I did a sterling job of it and put it away, hoping that all evidence of the crime was wiped out.

But I realized two facts that day. One was that I would not make such a good criminal after all. Second that our CID should have made it a policy to employ only mothers. After all God provided them with a sixth sense and eyes behind their heads as well as other powers of ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). So it was to my utter chagrin that mom comes into the kitchen and asks me "Did you try cooking something today"? And being a useless liar, I decided to give her the facts straight. After that I was put through an interrogation about how I made the fries. When I told her, she said "Have you never watched me do anything? Don't you know that you need to use some oil and spices and that you need to sprinkle some amount of water to allow vegetables to cook? Why could you not ask me? Would I not have taught you"?

The years went by. When I left home for the first time, i was determined that if I were to ever feel homesick for any reason, lack of my favourite foods would not be on that list. Thus it was that I got the recipes for all my favourite items from mom before I left, and I must say it stood me in good stead. I did a pretty good job of feeding myself.

The only problem was that I did not have so much time for cooking and many of our vegetables were not available where I lived. Once when I went to the doctor with recurring headaches and tiredness, he said it must be lack of proper nutrition. I felt very sorry for myself and went shopping for vegetables at "Safeway" and decided to make a mixed vegetable soup for myself.

Once back at the hostel, I found that my pressure pan was not large enough to hold all the vegetables and borrowed my friend's pressure cooker. The soup was made and was pretty tasty. So I shared it at the communal table with my friends at dinner time. We had it for one day, then the next and the next. I had it alone on the fourth day. Finally I decided I could do without such "healthy" soups. What was I to do with the remaining stuff? It was in this way that the soup found a resting place in my freezer.

A few weeks passed. After about 3 months, I decided it was time to check out on the state of the soup. I pulled out the container and defrosted it. I did not know what to do with it. So after a bit of I had a brilliant . I added some orange masoor dal, some onions and masala and seasoning to it and pressure cooked the stuff again (just to make sure it was safe for consumption). An American friend walked in, took in a whiff of the air and asked what smelt so good. That was my chance. She was given a generous helping of the stuff and she walloped it up with great relish. I was relieved. It was not just edible, but yum. So the "new" dish made its way back to the communal table.

When asked what it was, I told my friends to taste the stuff and take a guess (nothing works like a bit of suspense). After they had finished, no one could guess. So I finally spilled the beans and was met with a horrified silence. "What? It is 'that' soup”? What if something happens to us? You – a microbiologist?" I assured them that the microbiologist had carried out a quality control test on it before it was served up. Besides I had part taken of the stuff myself. So that should be proof of the fact that it was safe for human consumption. Besides the proof of the pudding (dal in this case) was in eating it, wasn't it? And after all they had all declared it to be yum – and that was just 5 minutes ago.

To cut the story short, there was still some dal left and my friend whose culinary skills extended to cooking rice, offered to do me a favour and finish up the stuff the next day. So that was how my "healthy" soup was finally cleared up, with no detrimental effects whatsoever to anyone.

Soup and Pastas

I just love Italian food, especially pasta.  Pizzas are good, but not exactly healthy.  I can eat them once in a while, but give me pasta everyday, I would be only too happy.  There are many Italian joints around (wonder if there is any specific reason why the Italian cuisine has become so popular in India these days - is this a "foreign hand" at work????? ).

Anyway, coming back to the point, pastas when eaten outside are delicious and yummmmmmmm......  but not exactly healthy - they generally have a lot of cheese and olive oil.  OK, olive oil is healthy, but oil being oil, moderation is of the essence.

Today I was a bit fed up with the usual kind of menu and was craving a change.  So it was asparagus-broccoli soup, pasta with green pesto sauce (Sacla italia - Wild garlic pesto) and tomato based sauce (Dr. Oetker's Fun Foods - Pasta and Pizza sauce).

Lunch menu

Asparagus - Broccoli soup

The asparagus-broccoli soup was made according to a recipe I found on the net (http://chefinyou.com/2007/12/healthy-leekbroccoli-and-asparagus-soup/).  Although the recipe involved adding leek, I did not have any at home and so substituted with one additional onion. 

Coming to pastas:  Making pasta at home is advantageous in that it can be made really healthy by adding vegetables and cutting out cheese.  There are a variety of sauces available in the market - some imported like Sacla's pesto (green and red - made of sundried tomatoes), Ragu's or Prego or local brands too.  Ragu's or Prego sauces are far less oily.  The pesto sauces generally have a lot of olive oil.  So if I am using a ready made pesto, I generally do not add any additional olive oil.  I just use some of the oil in the sauce to saute the vegetables before cooking and then add the pesto with as little oil as possible (just drain out excess oil).

It is also possible to make one's own sauces or pesto with as little oil as possible.

Talking of health quotient, my individual choice of sauces would be in this order:

Home made tomato sauce = Home made pesto (no preservatives) - Ready made tomato sauce (preservatives present) = Ready made pesto (preservatives present).

The tomato sauce has no oil, but green pesto, although it has a lot more olive oil, is healthy as it has fresh basil leaves and pine nuts in it.  So it really is a trade off.  While buying readymade sauce/ pesto, please look for the green dot if you are a vegetarian.  If you are an eggetarian, check the labels carefully.  They might have a brown dot and other non vegetarian components such as fish, beef etc. or just eggs.

Vegetable pasta made with Sacla's wild garlic pesto

Recipe for home made green pesto:  There are many variations available on the net.  Here I have given the ingredients I use.

Ingredients:  

1 big bunch corriander

1 small bunch pudina (mint)

4-5 leaves of ajwain / omavalli (bishop's weed / caraway)

1 bunch of basil leaves (available in organic food stores) or a handful of tulsi leaves

1 handful of pine nuts (can be substitute with walnuts or cashew nuts or a mixture of both)

Salt to taste

Olive oil - enough to cover the pesto (or vary according to individual preference)

Method:        

Blend all the above in a blender, add salt to taste.  Mix in some olive oil.  Preserve in a glass jar.  Use immediately or freeze to preserve. 

*I have never made pesto with sun dried tomatoes. 

                                                     

       

Vegetable pasta made with Dr. Oetker's Fun Foods - Pasta and Pizza sauce

Recipe for tomato based sauce:

Chop a few tomatoes, puree them and add a few Italian herbs to them.  Also add a little bit of salt to taste.  If you like, you can defer adding salt to when you use the tomato sauce.  Use immediately or store in the freezer.

Making the pasta:  

Boil the pasta in some water.  When boiling use a teaspoonful of olive oil to ensure that the individual pieces do not stick to each other.  When the pasta is cooked (you can see the change in colour - it looks almost white and turns soft - just make sure you do not overcook the pasta otherwise it will turn into a paste), drain the excess water.

Take 2 teaspoons full of olive oil in a wok (kadai).  Add the chopped vegetables to it (you can include whatever vegetables you like), saute them.  Add a little water along with a bit of salt (1/2 teaspoonful) and allow them to cook.  Then add some pureed tomatoes or pesto to the cooked vegetables.  Add the cooked pasta to this along with whatever Italian herbs and spices you like.   Mix the vegetables, pasta, herbs and pesto / tomato sauce and cover the wok for a minute.  The pasta is now ready to be eaten.      

Pirindai (bone setter) thokku (chutney)

I had mentioned a plant known as bone setter or "pirindai" in Tamil in a previous blog.  Here I shall be giving recipes for its use.

Pirindai can be used in many different ways e.g. it can be ground with the batter for adai (a South Indian dish made of fermented batter of rice, tur dal and whole black udad dal which is then made just like dosas).

It can be ground with spinach when making keerai molagutal or keerai mashyal (spinach mash).  It can also be used when making pappads, chutney or thokku.

I shall share my recipe for thokku here, which I made with a mish mash (quite literally :-)) of pirindai, corriander, pudina (mint), karavapillai (curry leaves) and kalpuravalli leaves (ajwain leaves).

Ingredients:

Pirindai (I used about 100 gms of it)

Corriander - 2 large bunches

Pudina (Mint) - 1 small bunch

Kalpuravalli (ajwain / bishop's weed leaves) - 6 to 8

Red chillies - 6-8 (add to taste)

Tamarind - a ball the size of a medium sized lemon

Ginger - 1 inch

Methi (fenugreek) seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Asafoetide (hing) 1/2 teaspoon

Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 tablespoons  

Procedure: 

Wash the pirindai well and break it into bits at each node.  Wash the corriander, the pudina, curry leaves and ajwain leaves well, remove the thick stalks while keeping the tender ones intact.  Roast the methi seeds and red chillies in 1 teaspoon of oil till they are browned.  Let this cool.  Then grind with asafoetida and salt in your dry grinder to a coarse consistency.

Heat one tablespoon of oil and add the pirindai, corriander, pudina and ajwain along with the tamarind.  Roast till the leaves wilt.  Cool this.

Add this mixture to the coarsely ground paste along with the ginger and grind in the blender.  It should not be too finely ground. 

Now heat the remaining oil, add mustard seeds, allow them to pop and then add the ground paste to it.  Saute it for 5-6 minutes on a dry flame and allow it turn a dark green.

This can be preserved in a bottle in a refrigerator for quite long.  You can even keep some amount for immediate use in the refrigerator and store the rest in the freezer section till required.  This can then be thawed and used later.

This can be eaten with chappatis, dosas, to mix with rice or as a chutney for sandwiches.

Chakka Pulincurry

Yippee, summer is here.  So what if it is too hot and vegetables are hard to get, not of great quality and expensive.  Summer brings its compensation.  Mango season is just round the corner.  Jackfruits are already here.  Time for raw jackfruits and all the delightful dishes that can be made of them.

My memories of my ancestral home in Kerala bring back images of an estate with rubber plantations, mangoes, coconuts (oh the bubbly coconut water!!!!! Slurp), jackfruits, tapioca, raw pepper climbers, grapefruit and nutmegs, and all the yum dishes made with these freshly grated coconuts.  Kerala cuisine is almost incomplete without the ubiquitous coconut.  

So friends, time for chakka pulincurry today.  Chakkai in Malayalam means jackfruit.  Puli is tamarind. 

Ingredients:

Tender raw jackfruit
Tamarind extract - from one medium sized ball
Red chilli - 1 to 2 (or add to taste)
Raw rice - 1 tablespoon
Freshly grated coconut - 1/2 a medium sized katori
Asafoetida (hing) - 1 small piece or a pinch of powdered hing
Turmeric - 1 small pinch
Mustard - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 1 teaspoon
Curry leaves - 5 to 6

Procedure:

The toughest part of making any dish with jackfruit is cleaning it (but the results are more than worth the effort - you can take that as a personal guarantee).  To clean a jackfruit, you would need a fairly large, sharp knife, a bit of oil (to oil the knife as well as your grease your palms - pun unintended) and the husk of a coconut and a container with water.  OK, if you have all these things at hand, you are ready to go.  

WARNING:  Be very careful when cutting a jackfruit.  It is not very difficult to cut your hand.

Cut the jackfruit into half.  Clean all the latex that comes out of the core with the husk of the coconut.  Clean the knife (keep doing this as you go) with oil and coconut husk.  Once it stops dripping cut it further into 4 pieces.  Cut these further into halves (so you now have 8 pieces).  Then remove the core of the jackfruit as well as the outer rind.  Use the fleshy part to cut into fairly large chunks (as seen in the picture above).  Place these pieces in the bowl of water as you go, so they do not turn black.

Once you are done with that, cook the pieces in the tamarind extract with salt and turmeric.  Dry roast the coconut, red chillies, asafoetida and raw rice and then grind in a mixer.  Add to the cooked jackfruit.  Allow the mustard seeds to splutter in heated oil. Use these mustard seeds and curry leaves to temper the pulincurry.  

This is best eaten mixed with boiled red rice.  Beans curry and raita goes very well with this combination. Of course, add pappad and I promise you a trip to heaven where you can spend a good hour in the company of angels playing their harps.

So folks, enjoy.  And remember me as you do. :-)

P.S.  If you are animal lovers, you would do well to feed the rind and the core to any stray cows you see around.  They will bless you generously.

Healthy Home Made Fast Food

Fast food has got a very pretty press and stands for everything that is yum but unhealthy.  It need not necessarily be so.  One can make "fast food" meaning an all in one meal which saves one a lot of time and effort but is tasty all the same.

For example, make a pongal with all imaginable vegetables in it.  Or think of bisibele bhath, oats upma, broken wheat or bansi rava upma with all veggies in it.  One dish and you are done.  If you get fed up of the same things, you can try quinoa as a substitute for rice or rava.  Check out http://satchitananda-fromlifespages.blogspot.in/2012/03/vegetable-quinoa.html made in the same way as a pulao.  You could well add some cashewnuts and/or groundnuts to the dish.

Today it is vegetable quinoa pongal (khichadi) instead of pulao.  High on protein and vitamins.

Vegetable Quinoa Pongal

Ingredients:

(To serve 5)

Quinoa - 1 cup

Moong dal - 1cups

Beans - 5

Carrots - 1/2 a large carrot

Peas - a handful

Sweet corn - a handful

Capsicum - 1 small

Cauliflower - 3-4 florets cut into smaller pieces

Onion - 1 (optional)

Jeera / cumin seeds - 1 tablespoon

Dried red chillies - 2

Pepper corns - 5-10 (depending on how spicy you like your pongal)

Hing (asafoetida) - 1/4 teaspoon

Oil - 2 tablespoons

Turmeric - A pinch

Salt - to taste

Procedure:

Heat the oil.  Add the cumin seeds (jeera), red chillies, pepper corns and asafoetida (hing) and allow the cumin seeds to turn brown.    If you want to add onions, add them and allow to turn brown.  Then add the vegetables and the quinoa and saute it for a minute.  Transfer this to a large vessel, add 3 cups of water to it.  Add the turmeric and salt.  Cook in the pressure cooker.  Your vegetable quinoa pongal is ready to serve.

Serve it with raita, roasted pappad and vadu mangai (whole mango pickle) and I promise you will be unreachable for a while.  You will be with the angels listening to them playing on their harps. 

P.S.  If you wish to add carbohydrates to your meal, you could make some curd rice along with this.

A well balanced meal - quick to make and tasty as well

Vegetable quinoa

Some time ago my sister in law got me a packet of a grain which is called quinoa, telling me it is very healthy and a  better option than rice in one's daily diet.  The packet lay in my cupboard untouched, unused, simply because I did not to do with it and eventually forgot about it.

When my brother in law came this time and asked if I had used it, I was suitably embarassed and decided it was time to do something with it.


So it is that I made "Veg Quinoa" today and I must tell you, it was simply divine.


What is Quinoa?

Source:  Wikipedia

Source: http://informedfarmers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Quinoa-Grain-crop-027.jpg

Quinoa is very rich in amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and contains all 9 essential amino acids. It is particularly rich in the amino acid "lysine" which helps in tissue repair.  It is very rich in manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and folate. It is particularly helpful to people suffering from migraines, atherosclerosis (thickening of the arteries which lead to heart attacks) and diabetes.

Source:  http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?dbid=142&tname=foodspice and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa

Quinoa is very rich in amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and contains all 9 essential amino acids. It is particularly rich in the amino acid "lysine" which helps in tissue repair.  It is very rich in manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and folate. It is particularly helpful to people suffering from migraines, atherosclerosis (thickening of the arteries which lead to heart attacks) and diabetes.

For further nutritional information and to know more details of health benefits refer the above links.

Now friends, I think it is high time to end the suspense and share my recipe with you.

Ingredients:

For 4 people:

Quinoa - 3 katoris

Onion - 1

Carrot - 1

Beans - 5-6

Capsicum - 1

Peas - a handful

Baby corn - 3-4

Cauliflower - 3-4 florets cut into smaller pieces

Mozarella cheese 4 - 5 tablespoons (optional)

Oregano, dill, rosemary, basil, or mixed herbs

2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
Red chilli flakes 

Method:

Heat olive oil in a kadhai (wok).  Add the onions and fry till brown.  Add the vegetables and sauté them.  Add the quinoa and add 4.5 katoris of water.  Cover and allow to cook for about 15 minutes.  Add the herbs and the mozarella cheese and cover for a further 2-3 minutes.  The quinoa is ready to serve.

Other variations are also possible - one could make it like upma or like pongal / khichadi .....  Stretch your imagination, try out whatever variations you can think of and share them with all of us.

Tomato Rasam - Say Goodbye to your Cough and Cold

Tomato Rasam

Rasam is a spicy Indian version of a thin soup which can be drunk on its own or mixed with rice and eaten.  The word "ras" in Sanskrit means juice.  There are various versions of rasams such as molagu  (pepper) rasam, jeera (cumin) rasam, poondu (garlic) rasam, elmachampazham (lemon) rasam .....

The most common rasam which is made on a daily basis in most South Indian homes is tomato rasam.  This is made with tamarind extract, tomatoes and tur dal (lentils).  The tomato rasam I am going to describe today is a slight variation with pepper and ginger and no tamarind or dal.  I find this a very soothing drink whenever I have a cold or cough.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes (preferably the indigenous variety called "naati" tomatoes in the South - they are very sour and hence we can avoid adding tamarind) - 250 g

Ginger - 1 inch

Powdered pepper - 1 large pinch

Garlic - 3-4 cloves

Powdered cumin (jeera)- 1 large pinch

Turmeric powder - A dash

Gingelly oil or ghee - 1 teaspoon

Whole cumin (jeera) seeds - 1/4 teaspoon

Rasam powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Salt - to taste

Corriander leaves washed and finely chopped


Rasam Powder:


Dhaniya (Corriander seeds) - 2 measures
Tur dal - 1 measure
Red chillies - 2 measures
Pepper - 1 tbsp
Jeera (Cumin seeds) - 1 measure


Dry roast all the above ingredients and powder finely in the dry grinder jar of your mixer.

Procedure:

Boil the tomatoes.  Blend them in a mixer and strain the juice.  (Try and retain some of the pulp and remove the seeds).  Put it on to boil.  To this add finely chopped ginger and garlic.  Add 1/2 a teaspoonful of rasam powder (this can either be home made or bought.  MTR, Nilgiri's, 777 are some of the popular brands of rasam powder available in the shops.  The recipe given above is my aunt's and I can vouch it tastes absolutely fantastic.  Add water to adjust thickness to individual needs.  Add salt and turmeric powder.  Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the flame.  

Heat the oil / ghee separately.  (Ghee gives a wonderful aroma and flavour to the rasam, but for those who can't use ghee for health reasons, gingelly oil is a good alternative).  Add the cumin seeds to it and wait till brown.  Then add the cumin powder and pepper powder to it and mix.  Add to the rasam.  Garnish with corriander leaves.

Voilà, your tomato rasam is ready.  Tastes absolutely divine, doesn't it?????  Get prepared to say goodbye to your cough and cold.  

A typical Palakkad Aiyer meal

Menu from back left in clockwise direction:  Avial, Nellakai pachadi, Rice, Keerai Molagutal, Tomato rasam, Bhindi

This is a typical meal to be found in any Palakkad Aiyer home.  First let me explain what each dish is.

Avial:  A mixture of various vegetables - generally white pumpkin, beans, carrots, yam, raw banana, drumstick, red pumpkin, potatoes - cut long, cooked with salt and turmeric.  To this is added coconut and green chilli ground finely in a blender with a bit of tamarind water or yogurt added in at the end.

Nellikai pachadi:  Amla/gooseberries, ground together with a small piece of ginger, coconut and green chilli and then mixed with yogurt, seasoned with mustard seeds.

Keerai molgutal:  Same as molagutal explained in my post http://satchitananda-fromlifespages.blogspot.in/2011/08/simple-lunch-menu.html.  Only difference here is that instead of other vegetables, spinach/palak is cooked, mashed and used to make the molagutal (with dal and ground masala).  All other details remain unchanged.

Tomato rasam:  Made with tomatoes, pepper, ginger strips and corriander.  I do not add any dal to this rasam.  The pepper and ginger are very soothing especially if one has a cold or cough.  This rasam can be drunk just like soup or mixed with rice like any other rasam.

Nutritionally speaking, this is a very healthy meal.  The avial gives one a wonderful mix of vitamins and minerals that one can get from vegetables.  The amla is a rich source of Vitamin C as well as an anti-cancer fruit.  The keerai molagutal is a rich source of iron and the dal provides the protein.  The tomato rasam again a source of Vitamin C and Bhindi a rich source of Vitamin K.  The only objection once could possibly have is that coconut is used in many of these dishes - avial, nellikai pachadi and keerai molagutal.  But if one considers the total amount of coconut that goes into cooking these dishes and then the amount that one eats of it in the portions one consumes, it is not really such a major cause of concern.  Besides this being fresh coconut, it is not so harmful.  Although traditionally coconut oil is used in cooking these dishes, these days one dispenses of that ingredient and uses normal oil.  I personally prefer to use gingelly oil for everything.

Today's gastronomic offering

Dinner time and it is time to think of what to eat again.  I want to eat something really yum - of course it has to be healthy as well.  Peas (Matar in Hindi or Vatana in Marathi) season is still on.  So what better dish to contemplate than the "Vatana-Batata-Flower rassa"?

So here friends is how you make it.  :-D

Ingredients: (to feed 4)

Florets of Cauliflower (small sized)
Shelled peas (250 gms)
Potatoes cut into medium sized pieces (2-3 small sized)
Grated coconut (1/4 of medium sized coconut)
Large onions -2
Green chillies (1/2 medium sized - adjust to individual needs.  This is for a mild-moderately spicy preparation).
Garlic (3-4 cloves)
Pepper corns - (4-5)
Cinnamon / Dalchini - 1/2 inch piece
Cumin seeds / jeera - 1 tbsp
Oil - 2 tbsps
Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
Salt - to taste
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
Corriander leaves (finely chopped)

Procedure:

Chop the onions and fry till brown with the grated coconut, pepper corns, cinnamon, chilli and garlic (1 tbsp of oil).  Blend in a mixer.  Keep aside.

Heat one tablespoonful of oil, add the cumin seeds and allow to brown.  Add the vegetables, turmeric and salt to taste. Allow to almost fully cook.  Then add the blended gravy to the almost cooked vegetables and allow to cook fully.  Add the lemon juice and corriander leaves after taking the vegetable off the fire.

This is a great dish to eat with phulkas and shrikhand.  Ummmm......... Yummmmmmmm...........

So go ahead friends, enjoy. :-D

The Ritual of Eating

After a very long time, I had the good fortune this morning of eating phulkas directly off the fire.  Being a foodie at heart, but a healthy eater by practice, I normally avoid using butter or ghee.  But the piping hot phulkas brought back of those eaten in my childhood with home made ghee on it.  A foodie cannot resist such temptations, but making a concession to healthy eating, I liberally smeared two phulkas with Nutralite (manufacturers are you listening?  You could consider giving me a small percentage off your sales for voluntarily promoting your product!!!!!) and ate it with piping hot mixed vegetable gravy (cauliflower, capsicum, potato, peas, carrot, beans and soya paneer).

To say my soul was touched would be an understatement of the day.  "Annadaata sukhi bhava" automatically sprung to mind.  It was a sudden reminder of the original meaning and sentiment behind these seemingly simple Sanskrit phrase which is so loaded with gratitude and fulfillment.  When I said it today, it came from the bottom of the heart and I really understood not only the literal meaning, but also the full contentment and joy that brings out the blessing for the one provides us food.

Talking of which I was also reminded of a Marathi prayer which we are taught to say before every meal in childhood.  It goes:

Vadani kawal gheta naam ghya Srihariche
Sahaj hawan hote naam gheta phukache
Jeevan kari jivitva anna he poornabrahma
Udarbharan nohe janije yadnya karma

This is a prayer which reminds you to remember the Lord when taking every morsel of food. It says, taking the name of the Lord while eating makes eating an act of offering or a "havan".  Anna (or food) is the complete God principle which bestows life on the living.  Remember eating is not just an act of filling your stomach, it is a yagnya karma.

If we were only to remember this everyday, it would help us to respect our stomachs and bodies and offer good, nutritious and healthy food instead of just overloading and stuffing ourselves silly.

It reminds one to sit quietly in one place in a happy frame of mind with family and/or friends and eat every morsel of food with gratitude to the ones who helped put this food on your plate and with consideration for the body which needs it as fuel.  Treat your stomach with due respect, not as a dumping ground.  Treat the food which you get with the same respect.  Don't waste food.  There are many who are not so fortunate as you.

Let us first thank God for having given us rains that helped the crops, the means to buy our food, the farmer who sowed the seed and harvested the crop, the bread winner who earned us the food and the one who toils in the kitchen to put the food in edible form on the table.  

Ayurvedic Rice

Of late I have been craving to eat something different - something that is tasty, easy to make and easy on the stomach. Besides, a constant topic of conversation on chats with my friends these days is "Food". Also being a member of the group "Foodies" on Facebook, it is always pictures of food, discussing menus, drooling over the simplest of dishes .......

As I snuggled under my blanket this afternoon, I closed my eyes and pictures of a simple, colourful, healthy rice floated to my mind's eye. Voila - a recipe was born. OK, you might say, what's so new about it? Just that I have never made it before, my mom has never made it before and I don't remember eating it anywhere else either.

Of course any recipe has to have a very fancy, "in" name.  So here it is "Ayurvedic rice".

So this is the recipe:

Ingredients:

A.

Half a bunch of corriander
1 small leaf of ajwain
3 curry leaves / kadipatta
1/2 green chilli
1/2 inch piece of ginger
1 tsp of udid dal
1 tsp of jeera
1 kashmiri / bedgi mirch
1 small piece of tamarind (to taste)

B.

1 small carrot
4-5 beans
A handful of sweetcorn
6 cashew nuts
1 tbsp chana dal
Salt to taste

Method:

Cook 1/2 katori of rice. Allow it to cool.

Fry the udad dal, kashmiri mirch and jeera and grind it to a fine paste with the remaining ingredients under A. Don't make it too wet.

Heat a tablespoonful of oil in a kadai. Fry the chana dal and cashewnuts in the oil. Chop the vegetables diagonally and add them to the oil and cook lightly with salt and a bit of water. Once the veggies are fully cooked, add the rice to it. Add the paste and salt to taste. Mix well. Close the kadai and allow to cook further for a minute or two. Remove it from the fire and serve.

A simple lunch menu

I love cooking.  Having said that, I generally love cooking routine dishes.  Am not a specialist.  My food is pretty decent and hence I am daring to write a blog on cooking.  However, this is the first time I am writing about cooking on a blog.  Hence E & O E.  :-)

Today I am going to start sharing some simple lunch menus.  Some of the dishes which are not so well known will be described with the recipes.

Today's lunch has simple chappati, rice, ladies finger, potatoes and cabbage "molagutal".  

"Molagutal" is a very typical part of the Kerala Iyer menu and is a generic term for any vegetable or combination of vegetables that are cooked in dal.  The various vegetables that can be used is a combination of cubed (small - medium sized) bottle gourd/dudhi/lauki or white pumpkin, carrot, peas, beans and potato, or just cabbage, or finely cubed banana stem or  palak which has been cooked and mashed in a mixer or in a "kalchatti" i.e. a vessel made of stone as shown below.  (More on the "kalchatti" below).  

Recipe for Cabbage Molagutal:  

Ingredients:  One medium or small sized cabbage.  

                       1/2 coconut (small sized) grated.

                       1- 2 red chilli(s) - to suit taste 

                       1 table spoon jeera (cumin seeds)

                       2 teaspoons  udad dal

                       Asafoetida (hing) - a small piece or a generous pinch.

                       2 teaspoonfuls of oil

                    Tur / Moong dal - 3/4 to 1 cup (vaati) (depends entirely on individual   preference)

                       8-10 kadipatta/curry leaves 

Method:

Heat a teaspoonful of oil.  Add the hing, jeera, red chilli and udad dal to the oil.  Allow to roast till the  udad dal turns a light brown.  Add this to the grated coconut and grind finely in a mixer.  Keep it aside.

Shred cabbage finely.  Cook with salt, turmeric and half a spoonful of sambar powder (available in various brands such as 777, MTR, Nilgiri's etc.  Can also be made at home.  Shall share the recipes of various masalas very soon) and the curry leaves.  Cook tur dal or moong dal well and mash it well.  When cooked, add to the vegetable.  Add the ground masala to the vegetable and dal.  Allow to froth.  Then allow the mustard to splutter in 1 teaspoonful of oil and add it to the molagutal.

The molagutal is ready to be eaten with steaming hot rice.

P.S.  Although traditionally no onions are added to "molagutal", I am no purist.  I do tend to add onions and/or garlic to it, if I want to eat it with chappatis.

P.P.S  The "kalchatti" is a very traditional container which is extremely versatile and can be used to cook a variety of items.  It absorbs a lot of heat and keep the food piping hot for a very long time.  It can be used for cooking, serving as well as for storing food.  It is available in certain places in South India like Srirangam (near Tiruchy).  It needs to be seasoned before use failing which it will crack as soon as put on the fire.  To season a kalchatti, a mixture of oil and haldi is applied to it inside and outside and it is kept out in the sun.  This process is repeated for 4-5 days.  Then water is boiled in it for a couple of times till any traces of fine stone vanish.  Only after this it is ready to be used for cooking.  A bit tedious, may be, but food cooked in it has a special taste to it.  I am a complete kalchatti freak.  

Another point to be taken care of is that there should ALWAYS be some water in the kalchatti.  DO NOT ALLOW ALL THE WATER TO EVAPORATE otherwise the food will get burnt and the kalchatti will crack with the heat.  It is therefore best suited to cook dishes such as sambar, molagutal and kadhi.

The kalchatti, being heavy, should NEVER be picked up with tongs.  Always pick it up using a cloth. 

Of course the "kalchatti" is not indispensable.  In fact very few people use them these days.  An ordinary vessel will do very nicely too.  :-) :-) :-)

Help I'm Going Nuts

"So what's new about that? Where is the question of going nuts? We all knew you are already confirmed, raving, hooting crazy and just humour you out of the milk of our human kindness" did I hear you say?

Please, please, please don't say anything about "milk"  and I think I should refrain from the word "nuts" too. Every morning I wish I could crawl back under my blanket and remain safely ensconced from all the harm and damage that food and air could do to me. DH was threatening the other day to have me shipped to the nearest loony bin if I continue this way and keep being paranoid about everything in my environment.

Tell me, what else could any sane person do? First thing in the morning you have a cup of coffee in your hands and a newspaper in the other. The newspaper does not bring any good tidings and what's more it brings some horrendous news. It tells you that you should go and chuck that cup of milky coffee down the closest sink. It is full of hormones and antibiotics that were fed to the cows and if you drink that milk, you will soon start resembling one . I decide this paper is no good and switch to the other. The other one tells me that unless I eliminate the coffee completely and drink the milk neat - maybe upto 4 cups a day - my bones will be seriously unhappy with my attitude and take me to task . Which paper do I listen to ?

Come lunch time and I am faced with another dilemma - veggies. They have chemicals sprayed on them and some of them liked the taste of the pesticides and soaked them in completely (to stave off pests like me, who love to eat them up at the least provocation). So now if I eat those vegetables, then I might land up being eliminated. I took care to buy the most attractive looking carrots on the market the other day, only to be told that dyes are being injected to make them look colourful and attractive. So I can't eat them. And if I buy organic stuff, then I run a serious risk of ingesting some parasitic cysts and may land up with cysticercosis (parasitic cysts lodging in my brain and gnawing away at whatever little of it is left, bit by bit). The proverbial choice between the devil and the deep sea, or between the rock and the hard place or Hobson's choice (at least I am giving you so many choices here - something that is entirely denied to me these days). 

Now white rice, which I love is not a good choice, or so I am given to believe. In fact eating rice will make me fat - so the dietician at the nearest health spa tells me. I may eat only fruits and veggies, which takes me back full circle to where I started off. 

Eggs could cause salmonellosis, contained devastating amounts of bad cholesterol and were bad for the health . But this week, their cholesterol content decreased and are at latest count indeed very good for the health. Suddenly this week the Vit D content of eggs has also increased . I wonder if the NECC (National Eggs Coordination Committee) or the Venkateshwara Hatcheries have anything to do with these new improved eggs!  . 

By the way, wasn't alcohol supposed to be injurious to the health? Yes, indeed, until the French secret of healthy, active and loving hearts was traced back to all the red wine they drink. No wonder we were told it was not good for health. The French wanted to reserve all the wine for themselves.

But hold on, alcohol was also known to be the cure for all sorrows, until last week, when it was decided it increased one's sorrows.

Hey, you scientists out there! Can you make up your minds once and for all? Why the hell do you not keep your research to yourselves? Oh yes, unless you publish your findings and send the unsuspecting public on a roller coaster spin, you don't get paid, do you? That is why I gave up this profession and vowed not only to live happily ever after but (as far as I am concerned) to let the general public do the same. But I should have done more. I should first have discovered a selective bomb to wipe out all researchers, quit my research career (I have to foolproof my safety you see) and then hurled the bomb at the remaining scientists.