Red Pepper Chutney

This is a well loved dish in my home and among my friends and family and was definitely making the top 100 list, but has been hastened to publish by request of Gow...

Kudos for this recipe goes to my friend Nithya Hari - It was love at first taste for me and this chutney.
I know sometimes our kids don't like certain vegetables and one quick fix way to make them love it is to make a chutney of it  - Before I go any further with the recipe, I highly recommend a Vitamix blender for your homes - It is the king of my ktichen - the prepaid Slave king I use for all my preparations, starting from the blended fruit mix that we start our day with to making dry powders, wet chutneys, batter for Vadais and Idlis -  the Lakshmi or Kamala, Chandan or Chottu who we cannot afford to hire in the US. Yep - it does it all!

This chutney is great as a spread on bread, as a dip with celery, cukes and raw veggies, or even raw red peppers themselves! on pita bread; or as a chip dip - Indian options - great with vathakozhambu, or chappatis and better yet with hot idlis and dosas. Preparation time is under 15 minutes.

Ingredients:
Washed and diced large - 3-4 red peppers
3 tbl spoons of  Urid dal
1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
1 pinch of Asafoetida
1 stem of curry leaves
5 red chillies (dried cayenne)
1 tbl spoon of olive oil
salt to taste

Preparation:

I a pan, heat the olive oil and add the urid dal, asafoetida, curry leaves and chillies. Once the dal turns golden, add the diced peppers. Stir well and then keep pan closed for about 3 minutes. The pepper cooks pretty fast.
Add the salt and stir it well and let it cool. Put in blender and grind to a fine paste - NO water required. The water from the pepper is amply sufficient for the job. Gather in a nice container.

Garnish: 1 teaspoon of butter or olive oil - 1/2 tsp of cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp of mustard seeds. heat  the oil/butter, add the mustard seeds and allow them to pop; add the cumin seeds. Turn heat off and pour over the chutney.

Secret tip: If your peppers are not already sweet enough, a pinch of sugar does wonders to enhance the taste.

Note: all ingredients are available in Whole Foods or our local Indian store. Photos to follow!

 

The whole grain goodness of barley - New York Holistic Health | Examiner.com

The whole grain goodness of barley - New York Holistic Health | Examiner.com

Barley Bonanza

It is hard to keep a south Indian away from rice for too long - And yet, study after study claims that white rice is simple sugars and the carb of all carbs! With a strong diabetic gene in my family, and being luck enough to learn , I am exercising extreme caution with rice - This is not to say it is out of our lives - Hardly! But it only makes its appearance once or twice at the most in a week. That's been pretty good control for us - Heck who wouldn't trade a good rasam shaadam or sambar shaadam with a scrumptious curry on the side for a plate of raw veggies? H'uh?

By the way, the usage of Curry is rather loose - All it means in certain homes, like the one I come from, is a sauteed veggie on the side to be had with rice and lentil soups for want of a better word. 

I was going to call this dish Barley Baath until I googled the meaning of Baath, a Kannada word for rice - Ironic, given this is a substitute for that incredible white soft fluffy thing .... oh well..

I must tell you something about my barley experience. A good doctor who has been helping me overcome some joint pains suggested a change in dietary habits in which figured "puhl baali" - This is, I swear, how I'd made a notation - I thought that if I went to the store and showed it or asked for it, someone would recognize what it was - For the life of me I did not connect it to PEARL BARLEY - I kept going back to my list to check on other foods that were good for me and bang! Like a shot, it came to me - could it be pearl barley that he spake of in such affable terms? So, last night, I came home armed with 2 bags of it - caught a good sale - and  following instructions on the bag, soaked a couple of cups in water overnight. 

Ingredients: 

4-5 veggies of your choice: I picked onion, yellow squash, green bell pepper, red bell pepper and zucchini.

1 tsp of grated ginger - also amounts are as per desire (sample in picture below)

3 green chillies (optional for the faint hearted)

curry leaves

2 cups of barley soaked in water over night and pressure cooked for 10 minutes - if cooking in a covered pan, it will take longer; Microwave, my guess is about 8 minutes (not recommended)

2 teaspoons of olive oil or sesame oil

Salt to taste

Preparation:

Including chopping of veggies, but excluding the time it takes to cook the barley, this dish should not take more than 10-15 minutes. 

In a large pan, heat the oil and add some rosemary to it. Quickly add all the veggies and stir them around the pan in high heat. They will soften in a couple of minutes. Then add the barley on top and gently stir it into the veggie medley. Turn the mixture a few times until the barley is mixed in well with the veggies. Turn off stove.

Garnish: There are several garnishes that can be used for this - But cilantro is always a good choice, which is what I used today. Optional garnishes I've suggested are raisins, pine nuts and fresh squeezed lime for a tangy zest.  You can substitute pine nuts with peanuts, cashews or roasted almond slivers or walnuts even. 

This dish can be served hot or cold per personal choice. 

Secret tip: If you have a finicky child who is not into trying anything new, just grate a cheese of his/her choice and melt it over the dish. Although my older children have blind faith in my cooking skills - nothing mom makes can be bad - (praying that lasts forever) they are both cheese heads, born in Madison WI - Hence anything topped with cheese tastes better!

Hope the pictures below are appetizing enough to set the gastric juices flowing :-)

Simple Cabbage Curry

It's Sunday evening and it's been a hectic day - in the nicest way, I mean. Garba last night was a great workout and it was lovely to see Samyuktha, my older daughter dancing with a few new friends from the community, with her hair flowing softly down her back (and legs).
Okay! So Cabbage is NOT a hot fav in our house - It is call Gose in Tamil and kids often jokingly refer to it as gas curry - Funny and true, but, not cool. Let's face it! Most anything that is healthy for you stinks! For more enlightenment on the goodness of cabbage, I recommend http://be-healthy.blogspot.com/2005/12/goodness-of-cabbage.html
Our friend and protector, cabbage is indeed the leader of the stinky pack ;-) But I will reveal to you how not to stink up your kitchen as you cook this blighter!
There are a few ways to prepare Cabbage and i will share them with you along the way - This one requires the services of a food processor. This dish takes about 12-20 minutes.

For the calorie conscious: You can make a meal out of this -with buttermilk on the side, south Indian style

For the Rice lovers: Mix preparation with hot rice and have with favorite pickle or pappad

For the moderate: Have as side with chappatis

Browning grated coconut

                                                                                 

Final Presentation                                    

                                                              Finished product
                                                      
Ingredients:
1 medium green leaf cabbage - finely grated in food processor
2 green chillies - finely chopped
1/2 inch finger sized ginger - finely grated
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of mustard seeds
1 pinch of asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon of urid dal
1/2 cup grated coconut, thawed(frozen pack available at Indian grocery store). If you are using dry coconut powder - sprinkle some water on it and let it soften.
Salt

Preparation
Heat your pan, pop the mustard seeds in the oil; then add the rest of the ingredients, before adding the cabbage. Hold off on the salting until the very end. The idea is to not let the cabbage get soggy. At high heat stir continuously - do not cover with a lid at any point. The cabbage should be slightly under cooked.  Just before removing from the pan, add the salt.

As this is happening, in a smaller pan, dry fry the coconut until it turns slightly golden - add on to the cabbe and stir in gently.

Secret tip - Garnish with roasted cashews and curry leaves to give it a festive look. Completely healthy and entirely edible :-)

Priya's Pakodas - pakoras, if you will!

These are my quick fix pakodas -what in tamil will translate to 'dhedeer' pakodas  -
First Caveat - Not part of a healthy diet plan, but a devilishly good indulgence every once in a while - After all, it is the weekend - so indulge :-)

Prep time - 10 time, actual making time -20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup of  Besan ( or chickpea flour)
1 cup of rice flour
1 big red onion finely chopped
1/2 finger length pice of ginger finely chopped
4 finely chopped green chillies
1 pinch of asafoetida
3-4 pinched curry leaves
salt 1-1/2 teaspoons  ( taste batter before adding more)
1 tablespoon of butter
2 cups of oil to fry them in

Preparation

I hate to mix the onions raw into the batter - so I fry it lightly in 1 table spoon of olive oil and then add them to the flours. knead the onions into the flour after adding the other ingredients - melt the table spoon of butter and add to the mix and knead some more - my trick is to add very little water - The end result should be that the batter should be loose, and somewhat dry and textured not soggy.

Heat oil; start adding the batter in loose balls into the oil; fry until golden; finished product should look crunchy, edgy and mouth-watering. Again, I will post pictures of these when i make them next.

Secret tip:  None :-( sorry!

Creamless Muttar Paneer

http://akilaskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/10/event-announcement-dish-name-starts.htmlThis is my first blog post so please bear with me. I, like the millions of us out there, have become a lot more health conscious and this reflects in my cooking. If there is one thing I've had to be consistent about the last 17 years, it's been cooking - esp now that I have a teenage son with a thunderous appetite  - just kidding - not!
For starters, I am going with a very popular dish. I have never liked the creamy, rather tasteless Muttar Paneer that is served in the Indian restaurants in America.
A small clarification to myself, mostly - Paneer that is fried out of its wits is what's uinhealthy. Paneer per se although high in fat also has some protein. The fat is amplified by the frying of it! Moral being - don't fry the crap out of the paneer!

FYI to all my American friends - Paneer is now also available at Whole Foods. Although the Indian store may be a dash bit cheaper.

Here is my healthy, simple make-under-15 minutes recipe
Ingredients:
1 can of Hunt's diced tomatoes
1 pack of Nanak's or other paneer
1 pack of frozen peas (microwave thawed)
1/2 tsp of turmeric
2 cloves garlic
1 onion diced big
1/4 inch bark of cinnamon (optional)
2 green chilies
2 red chillies
2 cloves
few black seeds of cardamom
1 tablespoon of Olive oil
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of rosemary (for final garnishing)

Preparation
In a big pan, heat olive oil lightly, add the garlic, onion and spices (except the rosemary) and fry for a couple of minutes
When the onions are turning golden, add the diced tomatoes and let it all simmer. Let cool for a few minutes and then grind well in a blender.
In the same pan add the peas and the paneer. Dribble a little olive oil over both and stir lightly. Then pour the blended concoction over the peas and paneer and let them soak in the sauce on low heat for a few minutes. When the sauce is bubbling, turn the stove off
.
Pour in an attractive dish and then garnish with rosemary and it's ready to serve.
Secret tip: If the consistency of your sauce is not what you desire -or - for a "creamier" look, dry grind 10 roasted cashews and add to sauce.

Try it out and let me know how it turns out: I made this today and garnished with cilantro - just as good as Rosemary!

Baby will be waking from nap any time ... gotta run. Until next time, alvida