Life is bitter sweet, but some of the tasty things in life are just bitter :) Bitter melon or Karela is one of them. As I have previously proclaimed, I love karela. I can eat it in any cooked form.
Bitter Melons or Karela
But the same was not the case with my sister. She hated it. But someone managed to turn her into a karela lover (Well... may not be lover, but at least a liker). And she came up with one of her own recipes. And her's is sooo much more tastier than many I've made and had over the years. Of late, I've been cooking karela only her way unless I'm in a more patient mood.
Karela Subzi | Bitter melons with tomatoes
Karela or bitter melon cooked with spices and tangy tomatoes
2 medium Karela / Bitter melon 1 large Tomato (Preferably the local or NaaTi variety) 2 marble sized ball of Tamarind 1 tsp Red chilli powder 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder 3 tsp Oil 1 Tbsp Desiccated Fresh Coconut 1/2 cup Water Salt
Method:
Soak the tamarind in the water and keep aside
Slice the karela lengthwise and remove the pith and seeds
Now chop the karela finely
Heat oil in pan and add the mustard seeds
Once they splutter, add the karela and fry
Cover and cook on low flame for 2 mins
Chop the tomato finely.
Add the tomato to the pan and stir well.
Squeeze out the tamarind and remove the pulp
Add the tamarind water to the pan
Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt
Cover and cook on low flame until the karela is cooked
Sprinkle desiccated coconut and serve hot with chapatis
Chips are irresistible, and of those, I love Nachos. Loaded with beans and cheese or with simple guacamole, they are simply my favorite kind of chips. I made these cause I really wanted to eat nachos. I searched far and wide for masa harina, the flour from which tortillas are made in Mexico. But nobody carries it here. In fact, I cannot even find makki ka atta in Bangalore to make makki roti :( So I stuck to what I had. I always have chapatti atta at home. Chapati is essentially Indian flatbread that resemble tortillas. You can deep fry the chips or bake them. I baked them and they turned out crisp and equally tasty. And incidentally I had a nice ripe butterfruit / avocado in the fridge to make some yummy guacamole. 1 chapati makes around 25-30 chips.
Ingredients: 1 cup Whole wheat flour/ atta (This may make 3-4 chapatis) Whole wheat flour for dusting 1 tsp Olive oil per chapati A pinch Salt Water Method:
Take the whole wheat flour in a large bowl. Add water by the tbsp. and start kneading. Knead until you get a soft smooth dough. The dough should not be shaggy and stick to your hands.
Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.
Take a small lemon sized dough ball.
Dust the counter surface with whole wheat flour and roll out the chapati as thin as you can. I suggest making a fresh chapati instead of using a leftover one. You can use leftover dough though.
Heat a tava/griddle on the gas stove, reduce the flame once the tava is hot. Put the chapati on the tava and cook until small bubbles appear on one side.
Flip the chapati and cook on the other side.
Remove from heat. Allow it to cool for 5 mins.
Cut into triangles.
Place on a baking sheet. Do not let them overlap each other. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle the salt.
How true is the wisdom of the little Muppet called Cookie monster. We should share our cookies with our friends, but when cookies are as tasty as these butter cookies, sharing becomes really really difficult. I am an absolute cookie/biscuit lover. Ah! The pleasure of dunking a biscuit into tea or milk. As kids, we could eat up entire packets of biscuits in a single go. My sister recently remembered that there was a time when she was given tea but there were no biscuits and she was confused on as how to have tea without any biscuits to accompany it. This was apparently the reason why my mom ended up restricting out biscuit consumption to 4 a day. My love story with cookies has come a long way now, instead of just eating them, I’ve moved on to baking them.
I saw some awesome cookie recipes recently and really wanted to try them out. But they all contained eggs, and as I am an eggless baker I had to improvise. I did take the basic recipe and modify it a little to come up with what’s below. Previously, when I made cookies, I added some leavening agents to it. The difference here is, there is no leavening agent whatsoever. This makes the cookies crisp and they don’t end up being cakey. The only advice I have is do not skimp on the butter. The butter is essential to give the cookies their correct texture.
Eggless Butter Cookies
"Light and crunchy Butter Cookies made without using Eggs"
Ingredients: 120 gms unsalted Butter 80 gms Sugar (powdered or icing) 30 gms Corn flour 120 gms Flour / Maida ½ tsp Vanilla essence ½ tsp Salt 2 Tbsp Milk
Method:
The butter needs to be very soft. I left it out on the counter overnight.
Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius.
Add the sugar and salt to the butter. Start with around 60 gms and then add more depending on the sweetness of the sugar and your taste. I like my cookies sweet and the sugar I had was very mild, so I used up all the sugar.
Beat/ whisk it until it is almost 4-5 times the volume. This will take around 10 mins with a hand mixer.
Sift the corn flour and the flour together.
Add the flour in 3 additions to the butter mix along with the vanilla essence and milk, and beat until just mixed. Do not over-mix this.
Line a cookie sheet with butter paper.
Fill the cookie dough in a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe out swirls.
Space them at least 1-1.5 cm apart as they will flatten and spread out while baking.
Bake for around 13-15 mins until the sides of the cookies are slightly brown. Mine took 14 mins.
Wait for around 5 mins and then move them to a wire rack as they are very fragile when you remove them from the oven.
The recipe made many many cookies :) Somewhere around 50 (I really did not count) but I have a tiny oven and I had to pipe out 6 batches.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the number and decide to cut down the recipe to make less, cause they are sooo delicate and melt-in-your-mouth cookies that you won’t even realize where the 50 or so just disappeared :)
Notes:
I made 4 batches of regular butter cookies. To the remaining dough I added 2.5 tbsp of dried desiccated coconut. If you plan to do so, add a little more milk, else the dough becomes very hard and difficult to pipe.
You can top it with dry fruits like raisins or almonds.
During these hot summer months in Bangalore, I catch myself day dreaming about summers in Goa. Summer vacations, back then was our right, now just a dream. Off to play by 9am and back home only by 8.30pm managing to squeeze in a lunch only cause my friend was called in for lunch and I would be alone in the sun. It was bliss! Hot & sweaty, all tanned up, we would play everything from lagori to chor police. When the heat got to us, we would take juice breaks. Rasna was an all time favorite among kids back then. Come summer, and all the moms would make a bottle of Rasna and keep it in the fridge for these breaks of ours. It was in times like these, my best friend N introduced me to a more natural homemade drink - Aam Panna. I loved it so much, that she had to bring me some every summer when her mom made it.
Aam Panna is a raw mango cooler. So easy to make and oh so tasty. These days we catch it staring at us from the pages of restaurant menus, but that bright green concoction tastes nothing like the real thing. Firstly, the real thing isn't even bright green :) The recipe I have below is N's mom's. The extra additions I have made to it are all the optional ingredients. You can make it without all the optional ingredients and it will still taste equally good.
3 or 500 gms Raw Mangoes 500-750 ml Water 8-10 tsp Sugar 1 tsp Pepper powder A pinch Salt (Optional) 1/4 tsp Black salt / Kala Namak (Optional) 1/2 tsp Cumin powder / Jeera powder (Optional)
Method:
Wash and peel the raw mangoes
Take 500ml of water in a large container
Grate the mangoes and add them to the water
Cover and leave aside for 2-3 hours
Drain out the water into another container. Squeeze the pulp to remove any more juice available.
Add sugar, pepper powder, salt, black salt and cumin powder and mix well until sugar dissolves.
If it is concentrated, add more water and serve it on a hot summer day.
Notes:
1) The above recipe made 750ml of diluted juice for me. If the mangoes are very sour, you can store this as a concentrate and dilute it while serving.
2) The amount of sugar, salt and spices, all depends on the sourness of the mangoes being used. I suggest starting with half the quantity of sugar/salt/spices mentioned above and adding more as required.
3) N suggested this is usually served at room temperature, however I generally serve is slightly cooler.
4) This may not be suitable if you are suffering from throat infections, it may aggravate it. There is a slightly different version you can make if you are suffering from throat troubles, boil the mangoes until then are half cooked and then peel and grate. Follow the rest of the recipe as is. This version apparently does not aggravate throat infections.
5) This stores well in the fridge for 18-20 days. However, I doubt you will ever get the chance to test this :). Mine barely lasted 3.
It's been over a month since my last post. I can attribute it to nothing but heat, laziness and of course, my travels. With so many recipes in the backlog, I must be more diligent but sometimes laziness just rules :) Anyway, better late than never.
You can love it, you can hate it, but ignoring the bright vibrant magenta vegetable is very difficult. I hate the way it colours almost everything it touches from my chopping board to my hands. But its earthy sweetness lets me forget this. I generally just stick to the simple beetroot palya or sambhar. But this time thought of doing something different. I assumed a beetroot pulao would end up being red and sweet. I was wrong on both accounts. The colour is actually due to turmeric and spices rather than the beetroot and the taste was very earthy rather than sweet. I added other vegetables because I had them. You can add any vegetable you like or skip them altogether. This is one simple one-pot meal I've made multiple times...
Beetroot Pulao with mixed Vegetables
Pilaf / Pulao made with beetroot and other mixed vegetables. Recipe Type:Main Course Cuisine:Indian Prep Time:30 minutes Cook time:30 minutes Yield:2-3 Servings
Ingredients:
3/4 cup peeled and cubed Beetroot 3-4 Babycorn 1 small Capsicum 1 Onion 1/4 cup Green Peas 50gms Paneer (cut into small cubes) 1/2" piece or 1 tsp paste of Ginger 2-3 cloves or 1 tsp paste of Garlic 3/4 cup Rice (uncooked) 1 Bay leaf 1 tsp Cumin seeds 2-3 dry Red Chillies (as per taste) 1 Tbsp Coriander Seeds 1/2" piece Cinnamon 1-2 Clove 1 Cardamom A pinch Nutmeg 1 cup Water 1/2 cup Milk 3 tsp Oil 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder 1/2 Maggi magic cube (veg) Salt
Method:
Wash the rice 2-3 times. Soak the rice in the 1 cup of water and keep aside.
Dry roast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf, cardamom, nutmeg and red chillies until slightly brown.
Remove from heat and allow it to cool.
Grind into a fine powder. You can store this powder in an airtight box for 1-2 months.
Heat the oil in a pressure cooker.
Add chopped onions and fry until translucent
Crush the ginger and garlic into a paste and fry along with the onions until fragrant.
Add the pulao powder and mix well
Add all the vegetables and mic well. Stir fry for around 30-60 secs.
Add the rice along with the water.
Add the milk.
Add the turmeric powder, maggi cube and salt.
Pressure cook for 3 whistles.
As soon as you can open the cooker, fluff the rice with a fork to prevent it from forming a sticky mess.
Serve hot with some cool raita.
Note:
1) If you are in a hurry, you can replace the pulao powder with 1/2 tsp or more of garam masala or store bought biryani or pulao masala
2) The vegetables used here are optional. You can replace it with anything available and still have a wonderful pulao. By anything available, I mean any of the traditional vegetables used for pulao/biryani and not vegetables like brinjal/eggplant, okra which may mush up on cooking.
3) Maggi's magic cube is a taste enhancer. You can replace it with a pinch of ajinomoto or skip it all together. It is better to skip this if you plan on giving this to kids.
We Indians love our gobi / cauliflower,
especially in North India. But our Gobi Manchurian is a favorite all across the
country. While cauliflower tastes great when deep fried, it actually tastes
equally awesome when baked. I’d never eaten baked cauliflower, but this recipe
called out to me. So easy to make and also, so quickly it disappears.
We Indians love our sweets. I don’t think there is any other
place in the world that has as many varieties of sweets as much as we do. Every
festival or any good news is marked with at least one type of sweet. We even
invented the art of refining sugar from sugar canes. So our love story with
sugar and sweets is a long and strong one.
These days with our hectic lives, we mostly end up buying sweets outside except may be on festivals. What if we could make an awesome sweet in less than 30mins? Yes, 30 mins aka half an hour. I saw this easy coconut laddoo recipe on Fox Traveler’s Food Safari when they showed the India episode. Since the day I saw how easy it was, I wanted to make it. And to think I didn’t even like coconut laddoos (until of course, I made it myself and ate it). So on a weeknight, when I came home early from office, I thought why not make these yummy laddoos. It needs only 4 ingredients. I always have cardamom at home and butter/ghee is also generally available. So I needed to just buy the coconut powder and condensed milk. I found the coconut powder at Nilgiris. I know that FoodWorld also stocks it. I’m sure a lot of supermarkets stock it. Coconut powder is not the same as coconut milk powder. Coconut powder is just desiccated coconut but it is slightly dried. You get this in all Indian stores abroad.
In a kadhai or a pan (preferably nonstick), pour the
condensed milk., 1.25 cups of coconut powder to it and mix well.
Add powdered cardamom and mix.
Place this on the stove and on low heat cook for around
8-10mins stirring occasionally. Be careful and don’t let it burn.
Remove from heat and allow it to cool for 5 mins.
Grease a plate with ghee/ unsalted butter.
Now very carefully, take little of the mix and make a ball
with it. Remember, the mix is hot but this can only be done when it is
hot/warm. It will set as it cools.
Roll it in the remaining coconut powder and place it in the
greased plate.
Babycorn and Capsicum Masala is a vegetarian curry made by simmering sliced baby corn and diced capsicum in a restaurant style browned onion based gravy.
There are days when all you want to eat is something simple, down to earth and closer to the heart. Something familiar. But there are those days too when you want that restaurant style dish. If you eat out often, I'm sure you have realized that there are just a few types of gravies in Indian cooking and most places just change the vegetable added. The most common of these is that brown colored gravy. I used to always think that since it is brown, it must be made of tomatoes, but it never tasted of tomatoes. The restaurant brown gravy was always a mystery. I then found out the base, browned onions. Yes, just browned onions.
I used to love capsicum as a kid, in fact I was nicknamed "Dabbu menasinkayi" (capsicum in Kannada) by my dad, I'm sure the fact that I was a chubby kid just added to the name. But somehow I outgrew loving it. Now a days, I buy it for hubby dearest and then think of various ways to transform it so I can eat it too. One experimental evening, I decided to try the brown gravy to go with the capsicum. And this time, I nailed it... I however, deviated from the regular recipe a little, generally cashew nuts are used to add creaminess. I did not want to add too many of those (watching my fat & cholesterol intake), so I added just a few and I added a bit of boiled cauliflower. It gave the same taste and the same creaminess. Next time, I'm going to try it without any cashew nuts.
If you made this recipe, let me know! Leave a comment here or on Facebook, tag your tweet with @oneteaspoonlife on Twitter and don't forget to tag your photo #oneteaspoonoflife on Instagram. You can also email me at onetspoflife@gmail.com I'd love to see what you are upto.
If you like this recipe, do not forget to share it with your friends and family!
1 large Capsicum 10-12 Baby Corn 3 small Onions 1 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste 18-20 Cashew nuts 0.5 tsp Red Chilli powder 0.5 tsp Turmeric powder 0.25 tsp Garam Masala 2 Tbsp Fresh Cream 1 tsp Jaggery or Sugar (Optional) 6 tsp Oil Salt to taste Water as required
Method:
1. Heat 2 tsp of oil in a kadhai 2. Once it is hot, add chopped onions. Fry until the onions are brown. Be careful,do not burn them. I prefer cooking them on low heat. 3. Remove it onto a dry plate and allow it to cool. 4. Blend together the browned onions, soaked cashewnuts and ginger garlic paste with a little water until it is a smooth paste. 5. Heat 2 tsp of oil in a kadhai and add sliced baby corn and diced capsicum. 6. Saute until the vegetables are cooked. Remove from heat and keep aside. 7. Heat the remaining oil in a kadhai and add the onion-cashew paste. 8. Add the turmeric powder, red chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala and salt. Mix well. 9. Cook on low heat for 4-5 minutes while stirring frequently. 10. Add a little water and simmer for 4-5 minutes. 11. Now add the cream and mix well. 12. Add 2-3 tbsp of water and cook on low flame for 3-4 minutes. 13. Add the sugar or jaggery if you are using. Add water to get the desired consistency. 14. Add the capsicum and baby corn and allow it to cook for 1 min, 15. Garnish with the chopped coriander leaves. 16. Serve hot with roti or chapati
For the coastal people of Konkan, the banana plant forms an integral part of life. Every part of the plant is used for something. The fruit is eaten when ripe, it is used in cooking when raw, the blossom and the stem are also used for cooking. Of all these, the raw banana is probably the most versatile. We make chips out of it, bhajji, sabzi / palya etc. But I recently learnt that a few Jains use it as a replacement to potato in sabzis and paratha. I'm yet to try that out, but apparently you just cannot make out the difference once you add all those aromatic spices...
I’d heard of Aloo Palak and Aloo Methi, but never of Palak Mooli. Over lunch, one Rajasthani colleague mentioned that they make palak mooli. I generally make mooli sabzi with its own greens, but never with any other greens. The greens mellow down the spiciness of the mooli. But finding fresh mooli with its own greens is quite a task in Bangalore. The only people who sell it are the ones with the carts. If you buy mooli from supermarkets, then they definitely won’t have the greens. This sabzi works well then. I immediately picked up mooli and palak the next day and decided to give it a try. I must say I like this more than the Aloo Palak…
Palak Mooli | Spinach with Radish
A Rajasthani dry curry made with white radish and spinach
When one thinks of Bengali sweets, the first thing that comes to mind is the Rasgulla... the next is its creamier and richer relative, the Ras Malai. Whenever we enter a sweet shop, hubby dearest always drools over the ras malai. This was my biggest motivation to try and make it at home. I did fear initially that it is difficult to make, but I was simply fretting. I actually made it on a weekday evening when I was home early and in a good mood :)
Clockwise from top left: Curdled milk, Chenna, Kneaded dough, Flattened balls
Flattened balls in sugar syrup, After cooking
The below recipe makes around 13-14 pieces.
Ras Malai
Bengali dessert made with cottage cheese/ paneer and almond flavored milk
1.5L of Milk 3/4 cup + 1/3 cup Sugar 2.5 cups + 2 tsp Water 1 Tbsp Cornflour 2-3 Cardamom 8-10 Almonds 8-10 Pistachios 1/2 tsp Turmeric or a few strands of Saffron 1 Tbsp Lime juice
Method:
To make Ras malai, we first make chenna.
Bring 1L of milk to a rolling boil. Lower the flame and add 1 tbsp of lime juice to help curdle the milk.
One the milk curdles, allow the milk to boil at low flame until all the milk solids come together into a lump.
Strain the milk using a muslin cloth. Tie the muslin cloth loosely and apply a weight on it. Or you can hang the cloth for around 1 hour until all the water drips off.
If applying the weight, allow the weight to be on the chenna for around 5-8 mins.
Take a large pan, add 2.5 cups of water and 3/4 cup of sugar. Boil until the sugar is dissolved. Continue to boil for 5 mins. Switch off the heat until you are ready to cook the ras malai.
Place the chenna onto a clean surface or in a large bowl. Add 1 tbsp of cornflour and knead. If it feels too dry, add 1 tsp of water and continue to knead for 5-10 mins. You know you are done with the kneading when you can make balls out of the chenna which do not have any cracks. Kneading for too long will make them rubbery and chewy.
Make small balls of the chenna and flatten them using your hand. These are boiled in sugar syrup, so remember they double in size.
Turn on the heat on the sugar syrup. Let it stay at medium heat. Place the flattened balls gently in the sugar syrup. Do not overcrowd them. Cover and cook for 15 mins.
You will know that they are done, when you touch the balls and they spring back. Do not overcook them, they will become hard.
Remove from heat and allow it to cool.
Once the balls are completely cooled, heat the remaining milk in a pan.
Boil the milk until it reduces to half.
Add the 1/3 cup of sugar and the turmeric/saffron strands. Boil until sugar dissolves.
Crush the cardamom into powder.
Add the cardomom powder to the milk and boil for another minute.
Remove from heat.
Add slivers of almonds and finely chopped pistachios.
Remove the balls from sugar syrup. With the help of 2 spoons, gently squeeze the balls to remove excess sugar syrup. Be very gentle. Place the ball into the sweetened milk.
Allow it to cool and then refrigerate it.
Serve chilled, garnished with more almonds and pistachios.
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