Mathan Thoran/Pumpkin Stir fry...

When this blog was started, I was freshly back from my hometown , brimming with experiences and memories of food whose taste still lingered tantalizingly out of reach. I wanted to write down everything...every memory, every recipe before I forgot it and so the posts flowed smoothly.

Now with so many posts and so many recipes covered, my mind feels like a sponge squeezed dry of thoughts and ideas. It feels strangely quiet and all the sounds of the last visit has faded away to an emptiness. The mind now needs to recharge, to revisit the hometown, to reabsorb the smells, tastes, and sounds of the land there. It needs to swell with the experiences of meeting family and friends and it needs to fill with conversations had with everyone...all the fuel for the blog.

So friends, I am going off on a vacation to the motherlode, and would be back with you in a month. So till then, have a nice summer or winter, wherever you are and see you soon.



I am leaving you with the simplest stir fry/thoran that gets repeat performance in my house quite frequently. I started making it as an adaptation of the popular Erissery, which is pumpkin and red beans cooked together with a coconut gravy. Somehow the erissery curry ends up on the sweet end of the spice scale and my family kept asking me to separate the pumpkin from the beans to reduce the sweetness. So the pumpkin got made on its own spiced up with dried red chilies and coconut just as a garnish instead of a gravy. Surprisingly now this gets top billing while erissery is hardly made. Well, this is definitely easier and faster which is my main criteria for a recipe nowadays.

DO toast the coconut as the taste is different than just adding the fresh coconut. My mother toasts a tablespoon of fresh coconut and adds it to the erissery in the end which gives it a crunch, so I did the same here. Apparently the "eri" word in the "erissery" comes from the final roasting of the grated coconut while preparing the seasoning for the curry( Erikkuka... ) according to a note by Archana. Do correct me if I am wrong.

You Will Need:
Pumpkin- about 4 cups or 1 pound
Dried Red Chilies-2
Red Chili Powder- 1/4 tsp
Turmeric- 1/4 tsp
salt to taste
Oil-1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds- 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves-a handful
Grated Coconut- 1 tablespoon

Preparation:
Remove skin and chop the pumpkin into very very tiny even sized cubes. Try not to get your hands cut as I do. Wash and drain. Heat the oil in a pan and when it gets hot, lower the heat, add the mustard seeds and cover till it stops spluttering. Then open and add curry leaves and dried red chilies. Saute and add the pumpkin, red chili powder, salt and turmeric.

Add 1 tablespoon of water and cover and cook for 3-5 minutes on medium heat. Open and see if it needs further cooking. Depending on the variety of pumpkin, it may have a cooking time of 3-8 minutes. Sometimes when I make it without adding that tablespoon of water, it turns into mush..kind of like mashed pumpkin.

The pumpkin with the green skin is firmer and holds its shape better so look for that if you can.

The pumpkin is cooked and ready when it is still stands separate but is tender enough cut with a fork. Cover and remove from the flame.

Toast the coconut on a skillet without any oil for about 5 minutes. No need to add oil unless you are in a hurry. When the coconut turn light brown and smells absolutely coconutty, remove and pour over the pumpkin. Serve with rice.

Plagiarism Again...and a Blogger's Ordeal

Again the issue of plagiarism has reared its ugly head. Yet another site has blatantly copied content from a lot of bloggers. More and more the question pops up in my head. Why do we blog? Is it so that other websites such as Kerals.com can easily lift off our photos and recipes and pass them off as their own and make money off it. Other sites had done it earlier, and a lot more sites lacking the imagination to make their own content will keep doing so.

Some do it unknowingly, and on being confronted with it, blame a third party and remove the content. They usually apologize and remove the photos/write ups. But there is this particular site, Kerals.com which is different.

Kerals.com have one of my recipe photos on their site (check here)published there without any permission from me. This from a so called "reputed" site. This is just one of the many copied content. There are other bloggers too whose content has been copied without permission.
Screen shot from the Kerals website

My own post on Olan

So should we complain about it to them? Sure, if we don't mind being vulnerable to threats, abuses,and hate mail totally inappropriate to the matter of plagiarism at hand. We will most probably be cyber stalked and told to shut down our website instead of them taking down the copied content.

Sarcasm apart, this is what another blogger, injipennu is undergoing right now. Injipennu of Ginger and Mango complained about photos being copied and has been subject to virtual abuse of the worst kind from the support people of that website. Read all the details about it here. She has been fighting them and I would like to express my support for her in this fight. I personally have not received any hate mails as yet but only since I haven't written to the great team there at Kerals.

They are behaving like street henchmen, called "goondas" in Hindi, threatening her, trying to set up fake websites and email addresses under Inji Pennus name, discrediting her and asking her to close her blog. Today it's her, tomorrow it could be any of us. So lets protest about it the way we can.. thru our posts. Publicize this as much as you can through your posts and words.

Click:Yellow For Bri/ Potato -Bell Pepper Stir Fry

Yellow is the sign of hope...the sliver of light that signifies the sun rising after the darkest hour of the day. If happiness had any color denoting it, it would definitely be yellow. Doesn't the picture of a field of sunflowers brighten up your day? Through the work of the LiveStrong Foundation, it has also come to signify the fight against cancer.

Cancer is a somber subject, the full extend of which can only be understood by people affected by it, directly or indirectly. I am not informed enough to say anything about it here so I won't try. But I can introduce you to Bri, a fellow blogger fighting cancer, for whom the June edition of CLICK is dedicated to.

I came to know about Bri only through Jugalbandhi's efforts. About her strength, about her courageous fight with cancer and thru her blog, you also can see her uncynical outlook towards life which makes me ashamed to complain about the silly things in life.
I like to think I can help in my small way....by publicizing her story, by admiring her courage and by supporting her.

This is an appeal on behalf of a group of food bloggers who are friends of Briana Brownlow @ Figs With Bri.

Bri was diagnosed with breast cancer two and half years ago. A mastectomy, chemotherapy and two years of relatively good health later, the cancer is back. It has metastasized to other parts of her body. At the age of 15, Bri lost her 41-year old mother to the disease. Now, she’s waging her own war against breast cancer. More about it here.

She is going through intensive chemo and other treatments and needs to focus single-mindedly on healing and finding what treatment works best for her. Her health insurance, unfortunately, does not cover holistic alternatives which she would like to try. Bri and her husband Marc have enough on their plates right now in addition to worrying about her medical bills.

The team organising the JUNE edition of CLICK at Jugalbandi has organised a fund raiser to help Bri and her family meet her out-of-pocket medical costs for ONE YEAR.

CLICK is a monthly theme-based photography contest hosted by Jugalbandi. This month’s theme is: YELLOW for Bri

Yellow is the colour of hope. Through the work of the LiveStrong Foundation, it has also come to signify the fight against cancer.

The entries can be viewed HERE. The deadline for entries is June 30, 2008. The fundraiser will extend until July 15, 2008.

The target amount is 12,000 U.S. dollars. We appeal to our fellow bloggers and readers to help us achieve this. Bri deserves a chance to explore all options, even if her insurance company thinks otherwise.

There’s a raffle with exciting prizes on offer. After viewing the list, you may make your donation HERE or at the Chip-In button on any participating site.
Your donation can be made securely through credit card or Pay Pal and goes directly to Bri’s account.

This month’s photo contest also has some prizes. Details HERE.

You can support this campaign by donating to the fundraiser, by participating in CLICK: the photo event, and by publicizing this campaign.

So, please get involved as you can and help Bri - because every little bit counts.
Potato -Bell Pepper Fry..



For the click , I made this extremely simple stir fry which ended up a mellow yellow..yellow bell peppers with potatoes.

Potato Bell Pepper Fry

For the click , I made this extremely simple stir fry which ended up a mellow yellow..yellow bell peppers with potatoes.
The potato part of the recipe was inspired by an unusual potato fry that I recently tried out and ended up making back to back for a couple of days. It was Nandita's spicy potato fry as described here which is absolutely crunchy and delicious. Just the addition of rice flour to a the standard cumin-coriander-red chili powder combination spiced up the whole dish with a crunch as if the potatoes have been deep fried and not just sauted.

You Will Need:
2 medium potatoes,
Yellow Bell Pepper-1 sliced thinly
2-3 tbsp oil

Spices:
Fine rice flour-1 1/2 tbsp
Turmeric powder-1/4 tsp
Cumin- 1/2 tsp (substitute with roasted cumin powder)
Red Chili Powder(hot)-1 teaspoon (use less for less spice)
Coriander powder-1 teaspoon
salt to taste
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro for garnish

Preparation:

Peel the potatoes and wash it well. Cut it into thin slices similar to French fries. Rinse it once more and then cook it in a microwave safe glass bowl with double the quantity of water for 3-4 minutes. It should be almost fully cooked and should cut break easily.

Rinse with cold water and drain the water and dry the slices on a paper towel or clean cloth. Now sprinkle the spice ingredients (except cumin)on the boiled potato cubes, tossing lightly with a spoon.

Heat 2 tablespoon oil in a heavy bottomed/non stick/hard anodised pan, add the cumin, stir till the aroma comes through and then add the potato slices and mix lightly. Let the potatoes cook on a medium low flame without stirring it too much.

At this point, add the thinly sliced yellow/orange bell peppers and mix well. Turn them around only after 10 minutes, to brown the other sides. The whole sauteing should take somewhere between 10-15 minutes to get the nice crunchy crust. You may not need more oil unless the pan is stainless steel.

Add oil by drops if further required. Keep the heat constant and try not to break up the potatoes by mixing which is what I did the first time around.:)
Once ready, garnish with coriander and serve hot.Garnish with cilantro.

Croissant Bread Pudding..

I started the guessing game and then got so caught up in other activities that I forgot to release the comments. I moderated it so no on could cheat. My better half who amuses himself reading the comments couldn't find any for the latest post and asked if I stopped the comments. That then reminded me that I still haven't published the rest of the post. Blogging has a way of making you talk to yourself. I could be driving or shopping and something would click ...bang..one part of my head would start formulating sentences for the next post.If only I could write in my mind and it would get translated to the computer...

As always the range of the guesses is amazing...let me see..who got it right?Bervin, Nabeela (hey, I need an invitation to your blog now), Indo, Afailingcook,Creating Humus, Ranji,Umm and Anon D. well, almost right, coz nobody guessed croissant bread pudding.:)
Seagull and Sajitha will understand why I like this recipe.. It does remind one of the famous "chattipathiri" a Malabar specialty dessert that has been my post drafts but not yet posted.

According ot the Joy OF Baking site which is a encyclopedia of baking recipes, "Bread Pudding is an old fashioned dessert that had humble beginnings in 13th century England. It was first known as a "poor man's pudding" as it was made from stale leftover bread that was just moistened in water, to which a little sugar, spices and other ingredients were added. Fast forward to today, and you will find that we still make our bread puddings with bread but the breads we use are often made especially for this pudding and the types are wide ranging; breads like brioche, challah, croissant, panettone, French, Italian and sometimes even raisin bread or scones."

Bread pudding is common in all cuisines in one local form or the other.
Malabaris have the Chattipathiri, which is rotis/chapathis/tortillas made of flour dipped in a mixture of egg, milk and sugar, layered with poppy seeds,eggs, butter,nuts and raisins and baked. Arabs have Umm Ali,made with layers of phyllo pastry and condensed milk...yum!! As for the story behind the unusual name.. Asha had regaled us with the story some time back.Then there is the Shahi Tukda which is fried bread soaked in a milk and sugar bath, probably a derivation of the Arab dessert.

Well, to cut my rambling short, this is one recipe that was enticing me ever since I saw Barefoot Contessa on Food TV carefully slicing old croissants and then gleefully dunking them in a rich bath of eggs and heavy cream and baking it. The 8+4 eggs and cream daunted me while the pudding haunted me till I saw 4 croissants still sitting on my counter top, too old to eaten as is though still good enough. So I searched for a lighter recipe. Guess what I found..a site dedicated to just Bread Puddings!
But this recipe from Joy Of Baking is what I finally used. I followed with only 2 variations..I like nuts so topped the whole thing with sliced almonds and since I used croissants instead of bread, I reduced the butter. You could add raisins too or even cranberries, dried fruit etc. So this is what I ended up with..a slice able cake like dessert, good cold with whipped cream or ice cream, or served warm as is.

4 large croissants or 6 small ones
4 cups whole milk or half and half(or 1 1/2 cups heavy cream and 1 1/2 cup whole milk)
4 eggs beaten
3/4 cup of sugar (maybe a little more as per your taste)
1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup raisins (optional)
2 tablespoons of melted butter, cooled

Preheat oven to 350F.
1. Brush the melted butter all over the baking dish. Cut croissants into halves along the length and place into a buttered baking dish. Sprinkle the croissants with the raisins and nuts. I opted out of the raisins as my family is not heavily into it.

2. Mix the egg yolks, sugar and butter together in a bowl. Then stir in the heavy cream or milk and vanilla essence.

3. Pour the custard over the croissants. Press down on the pieces until the croissants are soaked with the custard. Let the croissants rest for at least a couple of hours so that it is fully soaked. Pour the left over custard (if any) over the croissants and press down just before baking to make a more custard rich layer. Top the pudding with a layer of almond slices or any other nut that you prefer.

4. Place the baking dish pan in a larger one filled with 1-inch of hot water. Place both into the oven. Cover the larger pan with aluminum foil, tenting the foil so it doesn't touch the pudding. Cut a few holes in the foil to allow steam to escape. The water bath makes the custard moister and bakes it evenly.

5. Bake the pudding for about 45 minutes until golden on top. If you insert a knife into it, it should come out clean, similar to when you bake a cake. Cool 10 minutes and serve warm or refrigerate and later serve cold with whipped cream or ice cream..