A Summer delayed and Wasted....

What happened to the summer? Who waylaid it and delayed it? It's June end and we are still venturing out with trepidation, wondering if we need a jacket or not. My veggie garden never really took off this year and its still lying low. So any day with slightly warm temperatures is like heaven sent.

The kitchen is kind of operating on low battery and will do so for the coming days. Why? well, we put our house up for sale and as per the cultural demands of the real estate "sale" business, the house has to be spotless, uncluttered, fully organized, and immaculate.

That means the closet should not over stuffed with clothes, the clothes should hang neatly, all ironed to be worn at a moment's notice, beds made all the time with the bed spreads tucked in and topped with an ornamental pillow that you toss to the floor before you go to sleep and the side tables removed of all your books and newspapers.

No pencil drawings on the wall and no chocolate toddler hand prints on the the wall, however cute they look, no juice marks on the floor...no shoes, sandals and chappals near the door, no toys, no ride on trucks lying around and no board books piled up on the sofa. And last but not the least, in the kitchen... no summet mixie, no dish rack, no dishes piled up, clean or dirty and definitely no smell of Indian cooking. Oh no..what is that stink?....eeww..smells like a gas chamber..(meanwhile..another one is thinking"hmm..what's that? mutton curry? or sambar?) One man's stink is another man's yumilicious food. We ourselves have got put off by the smell of bacon, animal's smells and fish sauce in other houses when house hunting, so can't really blame anyone for that instinctive reaction.:)

So either I cook and spent all the time stripping the kitchen of the mess (I am a messy cook and have to cook 4 things at the same time to save on labor)thereafter or scour the net for grilling options and takeouts. Anyway, this has taken the joy out of cooking ...makes me feel like I am in an episode of Iron Chef..cooking with speed. So I can only post recipes I cooked and photo-ed earlier or post w/o photos now.

While discussing the house, My Dh and I agreed on one thing....showing the house is akin to "pennu kanal" or "ladki ko dekhne aa rahe hai" (the custom of the guy's family coming to see the girl in an arranged marriage.). Anybody from India will immediately identify with the whole scene. We being the ladkiwalle or the girl's side, are supposed to be humbler and get everything just right while the prospective buyers(the guy's side or the groom) just waltz thru the house nonchalantly criticizing everything.(or so I think)...she is too small, she is too dark, too short, too tall, too thin, too fat... the lines blur and for us, I forget that its just a house ..not really ur daughter! Wish there was a love story for houses...now I am just talking nonsense so I should stop.

Anyway, so I will keep you guys updated on whether or not we are able to make the sale. The last two weeks were the worst where we were getting everything organized and very anxious about each showing, but now when a day passes with no appointments for viewing the house, I feel anxious. A friend who recently sold her house had to go thru this for six months and now I really admire her for the patience. Even as I write this, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I won't be writing on this topic six months later. So instead of BBQs ,picnics and outings, this summer seems to be dedicated to a move if possible.

Hot n Sour Soup/ ...with soba noodles

Too much happening and not too much happening..does that make sense? Well, too much to be done around the house and about, with some big decisions being taken, about which I will elaborate later. And we are all down, well, now half the family is up, but the rest of us are still wallowing in tastelessness. Blogging aside, can't even think of any food as appetizing! So here is my life savior...the amusing and entertaining Vahrevah chef with his fool proof hot n sour soup which I never knew was so easy! I added some boiled soba noodles (any noodles will do) and instant meal. Lunch and entertainment!
I don't think anyone would need a recipe after watching the video but if you do, leave a comment. SO see you later when I fully recover.

Potato Samosas..

It's a nice morning, its sunny and warm and I am planning to make a cake, maybe an elaborate meal, maybe go out and get the flowers I bought last week planted , maybe weed a bit......but all end up castles in the air, as finally my little one decides what I should do and should not do and zaps my energy.

My friend calls up and asks me if I am going to buy potatoes.. I hedge and say I don't feel like going out, thinking she is asking me to leave the comfort of my home on such a busy day..but she was just saying..don't buy potatoes, she just bought a sack of giant oversized baking potatoes and was sending some over.

So how big can they be? Well, they turn out to be a pound each, about the size of my palm and fat. What is the first thing that would come to your mind with potatoes?
Puri Bhaji? Aloo subji? Baked potatoes? Mashed potatoes?
Guess where my mind wandered to? Samosas..Giant crisp hot, mouth burning hot samosas!

I don't usually bother making these Potato samosas... the Delhi style.. love those monstrous sized flaky pastry filled with spiced potatoes, not like the petite Malabar meat samosas and not like the cocktail itsy bitsy samosas made in spring roll wrappers. We usually drive down to buy these samosas from a restaurant nearby or just use the freezer ones.

In my days in Delhi, there was a wonderful samosa shop in our shopping area...walking distance, no need for a car!!
Some evenings,(when mom didn't make something yummy) I used to run down to that halwai and order a fresh batch of samosas and garam garam jalebis.
You can't enter the shop..its a dirty mess of cooking..more like a kitchen in action..people hustling about, kneading, pouring, mixing..all labor intensive actions, while the halwai, a jovial fat guy in a dhoti sat near a couple of large cast iron woks, stirring and frying jalebis in one and samosas in the other.
Visions were flashing... waiting for the fresh samosas to be dunked into the oil..they sink deep down into the wat of oil as they are slid in and then surface up for air as they get fried and puff up. ...and the rush to get home before it cools down and then munching them with pudina/Mint chutney and tamarind chutney..and hot dripping jalebis!!

For me, samosas and jalebis always go together...now though they are both in a different country and divorced and living separately. The crust of those samosas were like eating Matri, a flaky crunchy fried circle of maida that's eaten with tea/coffee as a snack.

Anyway, I had to make them and I did have a recipe that I used to use in my torn old book. My crust is not as flaky as the store bought one but then that's due to the water I mix the dough. For flakier crust, use more oil and very little water. It's almost like making pastry dough. And though the size of these samosas turned out to be small( i can only make the Malabar sized ones!!) and the taste is nowhere near the ones from my memories, the exercise in making these samosas was fun.


You Will Need:
Potatoes: 250 gm, or two giant baking potatoes
Onion- 1 medium sized one
Green Chilies-3-4
Ginger Grated-1 tsp
Green Peas- 1 cup cooked
Coriander(whole) -1 tsp, crushed coarsely
Cumin seeds-1 tsp
Aamchoor/Dry Mango Powder-1 tsp
Red Chili Powder-1 tsp
Garam Masala powder- a pinch.
Salt
Cilantro leaves- 3 tbsp chopped

Preparation:
Boil the potatoes (as a whole in the pressure cooker or cut up and boiled in lots of water and drained.)Peel the potatoes and smash them into small pieces. There should be some tiny lumps, not big chinks.

Chop the onions finely and fry them in very little oil till they turn transparent and then add the chilies, ginger, boiled peas, crushed coriander, and all other spices. Add the potatoes too and mix well. Taste and add salt as needed. Add more or less of spices. It should be spicy and tangy. Add the cilantro leaves in the end.

Prepare the dough: Mix 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour with 1/2 cup whole wheat and 1/2 tsp salt. Add 3 tbsp heated ghee or oil and mix well into crumbles. Add water little by little( you will need about 1 cup of water) till it forms into a tight but pliable dough. Use more oil and less water if you prefer. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes before rolling out. The crust doesn't puff up like puris, just stays as layers and layers of crispiness. Piercing the rolled dough before filling it helps. If the dough feels too springy, let it rest for a minute in between rolling out.

I make the samosas by rolling out the dough into a big thick circle and then cutting it into 4. See the photorial here. But this is another method I saw online and maybe easier for most people. For me, the quarter method is much faster, though the samosas are smaller..maybe better for our waists.:)

Divide the dough into equal balls. Apply a little dry flour to each ball when rolling into a circle of 4″ diameter. Cut each circle into two and lightly dampen the edges of each semicircle with water. Shape each semicircle onto a cone by pressing the cut edges together. Place a spoonful of the potato-pea filling into the cone and seal the edges well (apply some water on the edges if they do not seal well). Repeat this procedure with the rest of the balls.

Deep fry in medium-hot peanut oil in batches on medium flame till crisp and golden brown. Remove onto a paper towel. Serve with pudina and tamarind chutney.

Pazham Pori or is it Appam? /Smushy Plantain Fritters

If I stay away from the computer for too long then I feel hesitant to come back and blog..it's like entering a party late and hoping you haven't missed out on the happenings.
I had another exam to cover last week and I had a blogging ban by my better half so resisted spending all my online time surfing aimlessly. So I wrote anyway but put all my thoughts into draft, saving it with the intention of blogging everyday! This week, kept wondering which one to start with and hesitated...finally got tired of seeing the same post and decided to change it before people unsubscribe to my feed burner!

The weather is changing for the better and the days are getting longer, meaning I am out of the house longer... taking the kids to their myriad activities and then to the park etc..Dinner seems to come in the way of savoring the sunlight. It's so beautiful all around now... with all the dry dead brushes and bare branches all covered with flowers and leaves.

When there is so much greenery sprouting around, it's hard to sit down and put it into words. The lushness of the new leaves, the soft carpets of the lawns, the feathery leaves on the trees....the light green reminds me of the diminishing paddy fields but only just so.. the green in Kerala is a vivid green, contrasting so deeply with the red laterite soil that it stays in the mind long after the image has faded.

Laterite is quarried and cut into blocks and used as brickstones for house-building. They are used for rough walls between properties and for lining wells and ponds. The laterite is a soft stone with surface texture and it allows the roots of the plants to penetrate it, becoming a planting bed if the surface is not closed with plaster. When the walls are broken down, the blocks are crumbled and worked back into the earth

The rambling vines and undergrowth cover every inch of the laterite walls to create a symphony of varying shades of green and red. The undergrowth is always renewing itself and the color is always lush. Truly an organic and sustainable building material!!!

Here in two more weeks, the lushness will give away to a dull green, as if the leaves were forever there and the greenery will fade into the background. The lawns will slowly reveal what they really are.. just dry wild grass forced into submission by weekly (expensive) mowing and endless watering...the trappings of suburbia.



But let's enjoy the intermittent spring showers and new growth it brings. What's the best way to celebrate this cool weather? Maybe fry up some fritters and a cup of tea...hmm...maybe masala tea. These plantain fritters can be made with regular bananas too. I end up making this whenever I buy plantains and they get too ripe too soon.

You will need:
Fully ripe blackish colored plantains-2
All Purpose Unbleached Flour (Maida)-1 cup
Rice flour (optional)- 1 tbsp
Sugar -1tbsp
Kalonji/Onion Seeds - a pinch
Water - 1/4 cup
Salt -a very small pinch.
Oil - for frying

Preparation Method:

1. Peel and cut the ripe banana into 2 sections. (Wash your hands well if you are using hands.) Then smash the banana with your hands into a mushy mess. It should have some lumps left for texture and should not be a puree. This is fun.... you could even get your kids to do it. They enjoy the messiness of the banana squirting thru the fingers.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add water slowly while stirring to make a smooth paste. It should be lump free and not too watery. If it does become watery, add a little more flour. Add the banana and mix it well.
3. Heat oil in a skillet. You could fry this in a Unniappam chatti/Aebleskiver Pan too.
4. Slowly slide one spoonful/dollop of the banana mix into the oil.You could fry 4 or 5 at a time based on the size of your pan. Deep fry on medium heat till it turns a golden brown. Make sure the oil is hot before adding the batter. (It's hot if you put a drop of the batter and it rises to the top in a second.)If the oil is not hot enough, the fritters will absorb too much oil. Once it heats up, you could reduce it to medium heat. Drain onto paper towels and serve.

Vegetable Pulav/ Pilaf/ Pulao...

A very Belated Happy Vishu to all my readers and blogger friends. I just got back from spending some days with family in CA and I am still stuck between time zones. The West Coast is only 3 hrs behind the East Coast but for the biological clock, it seems like much more. Plus coming to an empty house with all the chatter still ringing in my ears, didn't feel like blogging.

It was no fun to get back to the blow hot blow cold weather we have been having all week long but the wonderfully warm weather yesterday was heaven sent. We went to a park nearby and it was studded with so many families that it looked like we stumbled on a convention. All winter long the parks and lakes lie dormant, empty, cold and uninviting and now the trees there are laden with flowers, there's lush green grass and humans crawling out of the woodwork.

To get back to the west coast stories, it was nicer weather there though it did get cold along the waterfront. We inland people couldn't resist being along the shore at the slightest pretext and so there were all of us at the beach shivering away while the kids were playing in the cold wet sand!! The skies and beaches there are so clear and blue that the photos don't do justice to the beauty.

Got to eat some good stuff from my mom's pantry and also some "healthy" west coast food. The highlight of the trip other than meeting family, having kids of different ages underfoot and pandemonium everywhere was getting live Dungeness Crabs from a fishing boat,(2 1/2 pounds each), getting home in time to cook it, and then eating it 15 minutes before leaving for the airport to come back home. My siblings had warned me that this is not the crab season so don't expect it, and when we got it from the boats, we were skeptical. We were all pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of it. Yummiest crab ever..I even considered moving to CA for the availability of these crustaceans.

We also got to try a new crab in my food vocabulary..Box Crab. We were talking to the fisherman after packing our crabs and he picked up a piece of coral like rock. I thought it was a crab shell and was listening to his description about the other crabs swimming in the tank when the rock suddenly moved and out popped the legs!! It was a live crab so expertly camoflagued as a coral piece!!The thin, spindly legs of box crabs can be withdrawn close to the body, giving them a box-like appearance. I didn't have my camera with me!!If I get any photos from the locals there, I will add to this post. The taste..more like lobster, richer creamier than regular crab. There were mixed reaction to this crab in the house. Some liked it but some didn't.

Vegetable Pulav is an odd item to combine with the crab stories but this is what my mind stopped on. This is my mom' style of veg pulav...quite light and it goes well with almost any curry. It tastes like a cross between veg fried rice and ghee rice.

Note: The combination of vegetables will change the taste of the rice. Red peppers, soft vegetables like zuccini, etc are strong flavorings and personally, I don't think go well in the rice. The green peppers and scallions are the ones which give it the Chinese flavor. You could use this rice as a base and change the flavor to your liking.. add more spice, add some biryani masala to it to make it more pronounced South Indian pulav or add chili garlic sauce to it to change the orientation to a South East Asian rice. I use a frozen bag of diced mixed veggies and add scallions and peppers for a quick pulav.

You Will Need:
Basmati Rice: 2 cup
Onion- 1/2 medium sized one. sliced finely.
Green Chilies -2-3
Ginger- Garlic Paste-1 1/2 tbsp
Vegetables- 2 cup chopped(peas, beans, carrots, green peppers, scallions, cauliflower)
Ghee/Butter- 4 tbsp
Cilantro- 2 tbsp chopped
Garam Masala-1/2 tsp
Ground Black Pepper-1/4 tsp
salt to taste

Wash and soak the rice for at least 10 minutes. Drain and keep aside. Chop the vegetables into small even sized dices. Boil the vegetables in very little water for just 3-5 minutes. Drain and keep aside.

Heat 2 tbsp of the ghee and saute the onion. When they are slightly brown, add them to the rice cooker along with the rice and 3 1/2 cup water(water to rice ratio is mostly 2:1 for most kinds of Basmati rice but some just need 1 1/2 :1 so check the cooking instructions) Add 1 tsp salt to it and let the rice cooker do its work.

If you are using a frying pan, just add the rice to the pan after the onions are sauteed and then mix them. Add the water and salt. When the water boils, cover the rice and cook on low heat for 10-12 minutes. Fluff it and let it rest covered for 5 minutes. Open and fluff it and let it cool slightly.

When the rice is cooked, open the rice cooker and cool the rice.

Heat the ghee/butter in a pan and saute the ginger garlic paste and green chilies. When they are fragrant, add the vegetables and saute just for 4-5 minutes. They should still have a bite left in them. Add the cooked and cooled rice to the pan and mix well. This is done on medium flame so that the rice is not getting fried again.

If you mix the veggies with the hot rice, the hot rice grains will break up, so wait for it to cool a bit.The veggies are not cooked with the rice to avoid them getting mushy.)

Garnish with cilantro, garam masala and pepper if you like the flavor and mix it in.

Note: You could combine all the steps into one pot method for a weekday. Don't boil the veggies. Just mix the oil and ghee( use less ghee), saute onions, and add veggies. Then add the ginger garlic paste and stir well. Add the washed rice and stir fry for a minute till the rice turns opaque. Add salt and water and cover and cook for 10-12 minutes on medium heat. Open and fluff the rice and add garam masala and pepper.

Baigan Ka Bartha/ Roasted and Mashed Eggplant...

I would love to know where baigan ka bhartha originated.. was it in India or in the Arab and Mediteranean lands? It has a very unappetizing name, meaning "mashed eggplant", but more colloquially the term "bartha" is used to connote "a mess" or a "mishmash".."or everything mixed in together".

It's the similarity in the eggplant preparation that made me curious. Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines have similar recipes of eggplant that is roasted and then mashed and seasoned. They have the baba ganoush, roasted eggplant salads, roasted eggplant dip, Greek Eggplant Dip, another dip from Romania and so on.
Our humble badly named bhartha is eaten with chapathi...is it used as a dip? Well, if you notice, we scoop up the bhartha with the chapathis similar to the pita with the dip.. So are they long lost cousins from a Persian invasion?
We like eggplants in any form...fried as a pakoda, baked in layers with other stuff, pureed, or sliced, marinated with red chili powder and turmeric and deep fried, and sometimes even as a side dish. In that case, this is my first go to recipe.

Season this any way you like, but this is the basic recipe that I follow. The eggplant is bland with just a smokey flavor so is open to any kind of interpretation. You can make it more tomotoey, more tangy with more spices if you want to. My Bombayite friend just roasts it and adds fresh raw chopped cilantro, green chilies and onions and gives it a seasoning of cumin in Ghee. That tastes good too. But then I like eggplant in any form.:)

You Will Need:
The Big 2 pound Sized Eggplant -1
Red Onion - 1 finely diced
Medium sized Tomato -1 finely diced
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tbsp( use fresh paste or finely chopped)
Hot Green chilies - 4 chopped
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Red Chili Powder -1/4 tsp (adjust with the spice of the green chilies)
Coriander Powder -1/2 tsp
Garam Masala Powder -1/8 tsp
Jeera Seeds -1/2 tsp
Chopped Coriander/Cilantro leaves - 2-3 tbsp for garnish
Lemon Juice - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Oil - 2 tbsp approx.

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to the broiler setting. Wash the eggplant, wipe it dry and place it on a foil lined baking tray right under the broiler in your oven. Bake it for 10-12 minutes, turning it over once so that the outer skin gets burnt all around evenly. The roasting can be done over a gas flame too, turning continuously..but it gets quite messy. Or you could even cook it by microwaving for 5 mts but then you don't get the smokey flavor.
2. Wrap the eggplant in the foil and allow it to cool. Then remove the outer skin. Mash the eggplant well and keep it aside.
3. Heat oil in a pan and toss in the cumin seeds. Add the onions,green chillies and saute well till the onions start tuning brown only at the edges. Add the ginger garlic paste. Mix and saute and then add the red chili powders, turmeric and coriander powder. Fry it well. Add the chopped tomatoes, salt and the mashed eggplant. Cook on medium low heat for 5-10 minutes, taking care not to let it stick to the pan. Stir once in a while. The color slowly changes from the greyish brown to a deeper brown. If the onions were fried too much then the gravy would start turning a darker brown. Add the lemon juice in the end just to balance the flavors. If the tomatoes are sour, you may not need lemon juice at all. Add the garam masala and cilantro leaves and check for salt.