Mahanandi

Williams-Sonoma, the kitchenware shop that sells quality kitchen stuff, has a series of cook books - Like their shop, the cookbooks are very clean, organized, not a lot of recipes, but have an excellent presentation and gorgeous photos. The book size is not too big, not too small; they are like short notebooks with color photo on every page. Each book focuses on one topic. So far, Cookies, Cakes, Muffins, Breads and Risotto - these are the cookbooks, I borrowed from my local library and flicked through. More than anything, they are eye candy.

Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness, my blog friend is blogging recipes from ‘Muffins‘ cookbook. When she mentioned last week that she was going to try cornmeal-jalapeno muffin recipe, I wanted to join in and made a baking date with her. After two renewals and before returning the book to the library, I wanted to try at least one recipe. FInally last weekend, I baked cornmeal muffins from the book.

I followed the recipe mostly and also added some extras, because I was preparing these muffins for our supper. In addition to corn meal, all purpose flour, butter milk and baking powder etc, I have also added cabbage, shallot, chickpeas saut� to the cornmeal dough, so that the muffins baked would be more dinner worthy. They turned out, I can’t say excellent, but acceptable, even after all these extras. I can’t imagine the taste if I tried them bland with only just cornmeal and chillies.

Recipe:
(For 11 muffins)

1½ cups of yellow cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1½ cups of buttermilk
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 teaspoon of each - salt, sugar and baking powder
Some cheese gratings to top the muffins
Veggies I added
3 cups of finely chopped cabbage (I used red cabbage)
3 shallots and 6 green chillies- finely chopped
½ cup of chickpeas (soaked overnight)

First I saut�ed the veggies together for few minutes, until they are cooked. In the meantime, I mixed all other ingredients together thoroughly without any lumps. I stirred in the saut�ed veggie mixture to the dough. Greased the muffin pan with little bit of oil, leaving one muffin cup empty and filling it with water to prevent warping (following the book suggestion). Filled the muffin cups with cornmeal-cabbage dough. I also sprinkled cheese on top of some. Baked them in a preheated oven at 400 F (200C) for about 25 minutes, until they are golden.

They tasted like baked versions of cabbage bajjis (you know the kind, bajjis/pakoras - veggies mixed in a gram flour-jowar flour-rice flour dough, then deep fried — almost like that).

Cornmeal-Cabbage Muffins

Recipe Source: Adapted from ‘Williams Sonoma-Muffins’, page 46
Things I skipped adding (from the book’s recipe) are 2 eggs, another 1 ½ tsp of baking powder and more oil - reason for my flat muffin tops.

On a blogging break. See you all in a few days.

Thanks to the weird, spring like weather we have in this part of the world, the baby potatoes, which usually appear in market during spring and early summer, are on the market for sale in February. Rulli Brothers, the local Italian grocery shop had a sale going on baby potatoes last weekend. A pound of potatoes for one and half dollars and we could hand pick them from the pile. That’s a change from the usual prepackaged stuff. I picked out two pounds of tiny, key-lime sized baby reds, thinking they would be perfect for ‘Aloo dum’. Every home cook/chef of experience has few dishes in their repertoire, which they are certain about the outcome and happy to prepare and serve. Mine, among other things is, Indian restaurant style Aloo Dum. Baby potatoes cooked in an unforgettable flavorful sauce - the kind of dish that makes you swoon with its rich and satisfying goodness.

Recipe:

The preparation is three step. First boil the baby potatoes until they are just tender. Roast and grind the spices, the vegetables and the nuts for masala sauce. Combine and cook them together. The whole preparation takes about 30 to 45 minutes, if you have everything at hand.:) And the main chunk of it is of course to wait for the potatoes to boil.

Ingredients:

12 tiny baby potatoes
For Sauce- veggies
4 medium sized ripe tomatoes, each cut into four quarters
1 medium sized red onion or 4 shallots cut into big chunks
¼ cup finely chopped coriander
1×1 inch piece of fresh ginger
2 big garlic cloves
Nuts
½ cup cashews
¼ cup fresh grated coconut
Dry masala
6 dried red chillies
1 teaspoon coriander seeds & cumin
½ teaspoon peppercorns
3 small cinnamon sticks and cloves
1 star anise
for popu/tadka
2 teaspoons of peanut oil
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds, cumin and some curry leaves
—
½ tsp of turmeric
Salt to taste

The list is long, but checkout the photo of ingredients together. It’s not much, is it?

Preparation:

Preparation is as I mentioned above, boil, roast-saut�-grind and cook.

Boil the potatoes until they are just fork-tender. When they are cool enough to handle, peel the skin. Prick them with a fork in multiple sites and keep them aside.

Gather the listed ingredients for masala sauce, ready on hand on a big plate. Heat an iron skillet and proceed like this.

1. Roast dry masala ingredients, for few minutes, until they release their smell. Remove them from the skillet and keep aside.
2. Roast cashews, then fresh grated coconut for few minutes. Remove them from the skillet and keep aside.
3. Roast ginger and garlic for few minutes. Remove them from the skillet and keep aside.
4. Finally heat one teaspoon of oil and roast onion and tomatoes for few minutes.

Let them cool down little bit. When they are cool enough to touch, put them in a blender. Add half glass of water and half teaspoon of salt. Grind them into smooth paste.

Cook: Heat one teaspoon of peanut oil in a big wide pan or kadai. Toast the popu ingredients (mustard seeds, cumin and curry leaves) until they start to splutter. Add the grinded masala paste and another half to one glass of water. Stir in turmeric. Taste and add salt if needed. Add baby potatoes. Cover and cook on medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes. Finally stir in finely chopped cilantro and serve.

My Kitchen Notes:
Don’t forget to prick the potatoes, so that they can absorb the sauce.
Onions - avoid yellow onion and go with shallots or red onions
If you want, you can also stir in cream/yogurt at the end.

Aloo Dum and Chapatis

Check out another version of Aloo dum from Lera of Myriad Tastes.

Six essential spices for Indian cooking.

Coriander Seeds, Cumin, Black Peppercorn, Cloves, Indian Cinnamon, Star Anise

Recipe.

Stone Mortar and Pestle
The big one, I brought it from Nandyala, India from my last visit. It’s weighed around 30 pounds both pestle and mortar combined. More about it here.
The small one, I bought it at Pittsburgh’s Ikea.

Sam, this is for you.

“Okay, it’s my turn now”, I said.

“What is your turn for?” she said with a curious look on her face.

“I want to make chips with the plantains we bought yesterday. You just relax and wait for a tasty snack I’m going to make for you”. I said to her. But it wasn’t just for her. It was for me too. I like plantain chips very much. But, I don’t get very good quality chips here. So, whenever I could find good quality plantains, I prepare the chips myself.

Making of plantain chips in-house started few years ago, when we were in Houston. We have a good friend, Sunil Sukumaran, who is a Keralite. I knew that plantain chips were popular snack food in Kerala and I always wondered how they were made. I thought that there would be some special process to make them, because they were different, tasted good and had a special flavor. During one of our visits to their house, I asked my friend Sunil.

“Sunil, do you know how these plantain chips are made? I like them a lot, they are really tasty.” I expected a very long answer. I will tell you the truth. I was getting ready to note down the details on a sheet of paper. But his answer surprised me. Just one sentence!

“Cut them and deep fry them in oil.”

“That’s all?!” I didn’t believe it.

“That’s all there to it, man. What more you want to do? That’s how we make them back home in Kerala. We use coconut oil to fry them, but you can also use peanut oil.”

You don’t know how much relieved I was. Oh, I can make my favorite snack food right in my home. That’s fantastic.

Houston is a very lively city with all kinds of people from all over the world. Also a great place to get all kinds of food and vegetables. Most importantly (for me), I could get four fresh plantains for a dollar! How nice! Bought four of them and brought them home. Washed them thoroughly and scraped the outer skin lightly. I didn’t remove the skin completely. Cut them into circular chips. In the meantime, I had a big cast iron frying pan with peanut oil heating on the stove. When the oil reached proper temperature for frying, I dropped the chips in oil. One after the other, I filled the pan until the whole oil surface was covered by the chips. Reduced the heat to medium-high, and fried them for about three or four minutes. I turned the chips in the pan occasionally to make sure that both sides are properly fried.

I was very happy. Why? I just made the first batch of plantain chips myself. They looked just like the chips I was used to buy in Kerala bakeries. I sprinkled little bit of salt and they were ready to eat. I thanked my friend in my heart for sharing the great secret with me.

Now, coming back to Boardman, Ohio, there I was making the chips again, for Indira (and myself too). A full bowl of chips were ready in just few minutes and they also disappeared in just few minutes. But, I was quick enough to take some pictures to share with you. Here they are, tasty and crunchy, homemade plantain chips.

Plantain with outer skin scraped and sliced into thin round chips

Deep-frying Plantain Chips in Peanut Oil

Homemade Plantain Chips

-Guest post by Vijay Singari

Our love for idlis, the soft, fluffy white, round discs made of rice and lentil batter, began when we were children. Two, three year old babies with tiny idlis in their hand, playing around mom, is a common scene you see in many Indian households. As we grow up, the role of idlis also changes - first as toddlers’ teething food, to childhoods play, fun kind of food. Then in teenage years, the kind of breakfast we really enjoy eating without complaining much. Later In twenties and thirties - we try, struggle and wonder how folks back home make those fluffy cloud like visions of idlis so effortlessly. Try as we may, we can’t recreate those beauties here, because the weather, the grain and even the water is different here.

Method of making idlis is very simple yet little bit time consuming, only in the sense that you have to plan ahead. Whether idlies turn out like cotton soft or solid, white round bricks - it all depends on fermentation (that means where you live and how you grind the batter etc.,). Most of the times, the recipe I follow gives good, decent idlis, considering I live in a very cold climate area. See, if my recipe works for you.

Idly stand and idly plates, some filled with urad dal- rice ravva batter

Recipe:

Urad dal and rice ravva (cream of rice, rice suji) in a ratio of 1:2
1 tsp of fenugreek seeds
Pinch of baking powder
Utensils
Blender/wet grinder
Idly stand with idly plates (see the photo above)
And a vessel with tight lid (suitable to fit idly stand)

Soak urad dal in just enough water overnight or for at least 4 to 6 hours.
Drain the water and keep the drained water aside.
Grind the dal into silky smooth batter. To get the medium tight consistency, add the drained water kept aside, as needed to the batter,while grinding. Remove the batter in a vessel.
Add rice ravva and mix thoroughly without any lumps.
Keep it covered, for overnight fermentation (at least 6hours) in a warm place. By morning, the batter will be doubled in volume. Stir in salt and baking powder. Consistency of batter must be medium (like condensed milk), not too tight or too watery. Add water if necessary.

Idly plates filled with rice ravva-urad dal batter all ready for steam cooking***Idlies after steam cooking

In a big vessel (fit to idly stand) with tight lid, add about half to one glass of water and bring to a boil.

Separate the plates in idly stand; pour spoonfuls of batter in round impressions (see the photo above). Fill all the plates with idly batter and place these filled idly plates, back on the stand. Place this idly stand with filled plates in the vessel with boiling water. Cover it tightly and cook them on steam. The plates are perforated and allow the idlis to be steam-cooked evenly.

After about 15 to 20 minutes, the batter will be hardened and when touched, won’t stick to your fingers like a wet batter does. Turn off the heat and remove the idly stand from the vessel. Run a spoon under each impression to separate steamed idlies from the plate. Remove them all like this and get ready to steam the next batch of idlis.

Serve idlis piping hot with sambhar, coconut chutney and idly karam podi ~ for a traditional, proper south Indian breakfast.

Idlis with coconut chutney, idli karam podi and shallot sambhar ~ Our weekend brunch

Answering questions about my Idly routine:

I usually prepare idlis for our weekend brunch. My prep work for Saturday’s brunch of idli starts like this. I soak the urad dal on Friday morning, around 7-9 AM. It takes at least 4 to 6 hours for them to soften. Around 6-8 PM evening, I grind them into smooth, silky smooth batter. I remove the batter into a big vessel and mix up with store bought idli rava. Then I keep it covered overnight for fermentation. By morning, the batter will be fermented and changed in looks and consistency. After stirring in salt and little bit of baking powder, I pour ladleful of batter into the impressions on idly plates and steam cook them.

The tips I follow:
1. I use round urad dal(whole and white). Somehow they are better than the broken ones for idlis.
2. I soak the urad dal in just enough water and while grinding I add this drained water. This tip works only in cold climate to aid the fermentation.
3. While grinding I also add one or two teaspoons of soaked fenugreek seeds. This is an old tip, to improve the taste and fermentation.
4. Urad dal batter- the smooth the batter, the fluffy and silky, the idlis will be. Grind, grind and grind, run that blender motor until it gets hot.:)
4. Rice ravva- I use store bought kind.
5. Fermentation- I set the oven on to minimum (lowest setting/warm) for about 5 minutes, then I’ll turn it off. By the time I’m ready with batter, the oven will be warm. During bitter cold wintertime, keeping the batter in this cozy, warm oven aids fermentation process.
6. In the morning, I usually add a pinch of baking powder to the batter (old time tip).
For more tips, check out this wiki article on Idlis.

Recipe source: Amma

Last week I purchased one packet of shallots (baby onions). With them, I prepared a south Indian special ’shallot sambhar’ i.e. tiny, baby onions are first peeled out of their dry skin/coverings, then cooked as whole, in thick lentil (toor dal) soup. Tasty and delightful! Like all babies, they are tiny bundles of joy, a gastronomic kind:) and worth the high price.

Shallot Sambhar - Light and refreshing

Recipe:

My sambhar cooking routine is a three-step process.

1. Pressure-cook the toor dal until soft, so that it can be mashed/pureed into smooth paste. Soak the tamarind in water to extract the juice.

2. In the meantime, cut and cook vegetables for sambhar- usually tomatoes and vegetables (shallots). The process I follow is like this. Heat one teaspoon of oil a big saucepan, add and toast popu ingredients. To it, I’ll add chopped tomatoes and cook them until they turn soft and mushy. Then I’ll add and cook shallots (or vegetables), one cup of water and also the seasoning (sambhar powder, turmeric, red chilli powder and salt).

3. Simmering 1 and 2 together- To the cooked tomato-shallot mixture, add the mashed toor dal paste and tamarind juice. Stirring in between, let simmer for about 15 to 30 minutes. Just before turning off the heat, garnish with finely chopped cilantro and serve.

Ingredients:
4 fistfuls of toor dal (3/4 cup)
12 to 15 shallots (baby onions)
2 ripe juicy tomatoes
Seasoning:
1 tablespoon of tamarind juice
1 tsp of sambhar powder
1/2 tsp of red chilli powder and salt
1/4 tsp of turmeric
Cilantro for garnish
Popu or tadka:
1 tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin, urad dal, curry leaves, minced garlic. Also few curry leaves and dried red chilli pieces
Variation
I prepared this sambhar for idlies and for idly sambhar, I usually add half tsp of cloves & cinnamon powder, to spice up the sambhar a little bit.

Ingredients for shallot sambhar

For more detailed sambhar recipe (like how to prepare home made sambhar powder etc.,), check out my other blogged recipes- Okra Sambhar and white radish sambhar.