Sunday 31 July 2011

Low Calorie Easy Bhel

Ingredients: (Serves 4)
1. 4 large cups puffed rice..store bought
2. 2 large onions, finely chopped
3. Roasted Chana or gram 2 tbspn
4. Shev/Sev (Gram flour extruded and fried)..store bought (Chitale Bandhu's or Haldirams) 1 cup
5. 1 tomato, finely chopped
6. 1 green chilly, finely chopped or chopped and mashed
7. 1 boiled potato, mashed
8. Coriander leaves, finely chopped 3 tbspn
9. Tamarind Paste 4 tbspn
10. Jaggery, powdered, 3 tbspn
11. Lemon juice 2 tspn

Procedure:

1. Mix the jaggery and the tamarind until the jaggery is completely dissolved. You can add a little water but don't make the paste too runny.
2. Mix the tamarind-jaggery paste with all the ingredients except for the puffed rice in a large bowl.
3. Just before serving, toss in the puffed rice and mix well.

Note:
1. No need to add salt as the sev contains enough salt.
2. Remember to mix in the puffed rice just before serving or else it will become soggy.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Mugachi khichdi (kedgeree)

Can't get any easier than this. You can even make this when you are down with a cold and the warm comfort it gives beats chicken soup any day! My aayee (mother) told me about this simple and quick recipe. People usually season/temper food, but this is made without giving phodni (seasoning), so no splashing of hot oil and no oily fumes!

Ingredients:
1. Rice(organic brown) 1 cup
2. Mug daal (green gram lentils) 1/2 cup
3. Water 2.5 cups
4. Salt: to taste
5. Whole black peppercorns 3-4 (optional)
6. Cinnamon 1 small stick (optional)
7. Cloves : 1-2 (optional)
8. Onion: 1 medium roughly chopped
9. Halad (turmeric powder):  1/2 tspn
10. Filtered groundnut oil/any filtered oil or ghee: 1tspn

Procedure:

Wash and drain the rice and lentils. Place all ingredients in a pressure cooker and cook for 10 minutes. Do not open the lid (let out the steam) for another 10 minutes, the khichdi is still cooking even if the heat is switched off. Open the cooker, grab a plate/bowl and nourish yourself!

Note: If you are using organic brown rice, it has to soak separately for 20 minutes before you begin cooking. Do not drain the water off after soaking, it has a lot of nutrients. So wash and drain before soaking in the 2.5 cups water.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Sprouts Pola or spicy sprouts crepe

Well, I am not sure if this is a CKP or even a Maharashtrian recipe but it is so nutritious and delicious that I had to put it here. You can even make it with overnight soaked pulses without sprouting them, think of it like a moist थालीपीठ.

Ingredients:
1. Sprouts of as many kinds as you can get except vaal, I haven't experimented with vaal yet. (Moog..green gram, Urid..black gram, Matki..moth, Chavli..cow peas, Sukhe vatane..dried peas, Methi..fenugreek seeds, Horse gram(kulith), black masoor etc). Just moog alone also taste great. Any combination of sprouts in any proportion is fine.
2. Oil/Ghee to grease the tava
3. Rice flour
4. Salt to taste
5. Ginger
6. Garlic cloves, peeled
7. Green chillies (Omit these if you do not want it spicy)
8. Coriander leaves
9. Water

Procedure:
1. To sprout the beans/grams, wash them and soak them in lukewarm water for about 8 hours. I soak them in the morning and drain them in the evening. Drain completely.
2. Place the soaked and drained grams/beans/peas in a bowl and cover it. Place the bowl in a warm and moist place for a day or two, depending on the ambient tempearture and the kind of sprouting you want. Note, the methi seeds need to be tied in a muslin cloth for sprouting, or else they take a long time to sprout.
3. After the beans have sprouted, grind the sprouts along with the chillies, coriander leaves, ginger and garlic in a mixie to obtain a grainy paste. Add some water to aid the grinding.
4. Add the salt and a tablespoon of rice flour to this mixture. Add water if required to make the mixture of pourable consistency.
5. Heat a griddle and grease it.
6. Pour a ladleful of the batter onto the griddle and spread it quickly.
7. Cover and cook for 2 minutes.
8. Flip and cook the other side for 1 minute.
9. Serve hot with curd or tomato ketchup. Yummy! and filling and very nutritious.

Monday 18 July 2011

Modak Ladoo!

Morya re bappa morya re!

Can't do without these favourites of Ganpati bappa! Modak Ladoo! This is my mother's recipe and it never fails to yield delicious modaks oozing with the taste of jaggery and coconut (chav)!

Ingredients:  Makes about 30 modaks
1. Rice flour 1/2 kg (I use flour made from organic red rice(patni), I am lucky to find it in the stores by the brand-name "Navadarshanam". The modaks look a lovely pink!)
2. Grated coconuts: 2 whole coconuts
3. Powdered jaggery: 1 cup (This too, I get from "Navadarshanam", powdered, organic)
4. Cardomom powder 2 tspn
5. Ghee 2 tspn or more if you like
6. Water: 2 cups
7. Salt: pinch


Procedure:
1. Mix the grated coconut, jaggery and cardomom powder and cook the mixture in a thick bottomed saucepan for about 7 minutes until it becomes dry. Note: the jaggery will first melt. On cooking a little, it will become dryer. Do not heat upto high temperatures or the jaggery will caramelize and become hard on cooling.
2. Leave the coconut-jaggery mixture out on a plate to cool. This mixture is called the "chav" and will be referred to it as such here onwards.
3. Boil the water, salt and ghee. Mix the rice flour in the boiling water. Switch off heat, cover and let stand for 15 minutes. Note: Letting the mixture stand covered is very important as the starch will be released during this steaming and will make softer modaks. Uncover and cool the mixture.
4. Knead the rice flour and water mixture until a smooth dough is formed, some more cool water can be added to the dough at this stage if required.
5. Knead for 5 minutes until the dough becomes a little elastic.
6. Make about 30 balls of the dough.
7. Apply ghee/oil on your hands. Take each ball of dough and with your fingers, spread it and make it into a cup while maintaining uniform thickness.
8. Spoon some chav into the cup of dough and close the cup from the top by stretching the dough and making a kind of a point at the top. Your modak is ready to be steamed.
9. Repeat until all the modaks are made. Note: If there's extra dough and the chav is all used up, don't worry, the extra dough can be flattened and steamed without the chav, it tastes amazing when eaten with "vaalacha birde". The dough can be refrigerated for later use too. If there's extra chav, no problem, refrigerate it and stuff a paratha with it for a sweet paratha! Or scoop it up for dessert.
10. Place the modaks in a steamer and steam for 10 minutes.
11. Relish hot from the steamer. You can even refrigerate the modaks and steam them for 3 minutes before you want to eat them.


Rice flour is traditionally used by CKPs for making modaks and I personally love the traditional version. However, I tried making them with wheat flour as my husband does not like the taste of rice flour. Well, it's soooo.. much easier to make modaks with wheat flour! Mix the wheat flour with milk instead of water to make a dough. The rest of the procedure is the same. I tried baking some and steaming the rest of these wheat flour modaks and they came out well both ways!

Ambatvaran how could I miss this one

Ambatvaran is basically daal(lentil soup), but I will not insult it by calling it that. It is an ultimate comfort food for me, served on top of steaming hot rice..yumm!

Ingredients: (two servings)
1. Tur daal (split lentils) 1/2 cup
2. Turmeric powder 1/2 tspn
3. Laal tikhat (Red chilli powder) 1 tspn
4. Methi seeds (Fenugreek seeds) 5-6 nos.
5. Hing (Asafoetida powder): pinch
6. Water 1 cup
7. Jeera (cumin seeds) 1/2 tspn
8. Lasun (garlic) 3 cloves, peeled/not and tapped with something heavy until slightly crushed but not completely (thechun). I love the flavour of it with the peel on.
9. Salt to taste, I use natural sea-salt, 1/2 tspn
10. Filtered groundnut oil or ghee: 1 tspn (can be substituted by any filtered oil, do not use refined oil, it's bad for you.)
11. Jaggery to taste I use 1/2 tspn organic jaggery powder
12. Dried Kokum: 2 halves (can be substituted by 1/2 tspn tamarind paste)
13. Grated coconut: 1 tspn for garnish
14. Kothimbir (coriander leaves) for garnish

Procedure:
1.Boil ingredients 1-5 in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes. Do not open the lid for another 10 minutes.
2. Open the lid of the pressure cooker and check if the lentils have cooked. Smash the lentils by stirring vigorously with a spoon. Note: If the lentils have not completely cooked, they will not be smashed on stirring. Then you need to boil it some more.
3. Heat oil in a kadhai (wok). Add the crushed garlic cloves and brown them. Then add the jeera, cover with a lid and switch off the heat. (I switch it off because I am afraid of the daal splashing or the jeera burning, but if you are an expert, then go ahead without switching off the heat)
4. Pour/spoon the contents of the pressure cooker into the wok. Add more water as required and bring to a boil.
5. Add the jaggery and the kokum and simmer for a minute.
6. Garnish with grated coconut and kothimbir.
7. Pour over steaming hot brown rice, mix well and gorge on it!

Have a good day!

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Tomato amlate(omlette)

Whoever said you can't make an omlette without breaking any eggs! It's called "cheela" in hindi. My aayee pronounces it "chilla" :) We have always known it as "tomato amlate". It's basically a kind of a spicy pancake made with chick-pea flour. It's ideal for those 5 pm hunger pangs when you also want something to tickle your tastebuds and also support you through the evening until dinner. You could even sandwich it between two slices of healthy brown bread and eat it with ketchup. My six year old loves it (his is made without the green chillies).
Ingredients: (makes 5-6 omlettes)
1. Besan (chick pea flour) 6 tbsn heaped
2. Onion, 1 medium, finely chopped
3. Tomato, 1 small, finely chopped
4. Green chillies 1-2, finely chopped
5. Coriander leaves finely chopped
6. Salt 2 tsn
7. Water 1 cup (approx)
8. Oil/ghee 5 tspn for the skillet(tava)

Procedure:
Mix ingredients 1 to 7 in a bowl. Note: add the water slowly until a thick batter is formed (something of the consistency of cake-batter, a little thinner).  Heat the tava (heavy iron griddle). Check if the tava is hot by sprinkling a few drops of water on it. The water droplets should bounce off the tava, not just sizzle into steam. Warning: If the tava is not hot enough, the omlette will stick to it and scraping it off and cleaning the tava wastes a lot of time!
Do not use non-stick, the teflon's not good for you. Spread a tspn of ghee/oil on the skillet. Use a ladle/big-spoon to scoop up the mixed batter and spread it as quickly as you can on the hot griddle. You may cover it with a lid till one side is cooked(about 2 minutes). Scrape it off the tava with a spatula(this requires some skill), flip it and do the other side for half a minute. Repeat until all the batter's used up. You could even refrigerate the batter for tomorrow, only bring it to room-temperature before making the omlettes. Serve straight from the skillet onto the plate with a bowl of curd (plain yoghurt) as dip. It's yumm and 2 of them quite fill me up!

Friday 8 July 2011

Easy and healthy Vaalacha Beerda

We the ckps all love our beerdi and one all-time favourite is vaalacha beerda! Here's an easy recipe:

Ingredients (Serves 2 beerda-lovers):
250 gm Kadve (bitter) Vaal (field beans) sprouted and peeled
1 tspn jeera powder
1/2 tspn turmeric powder
1 tspn red chilli powder (tikhat masala which has red chilli powder mixed with coriander powder and a bit of fennel). Add more if you like it spicy.
Dash of asafoetida
2 tspn salt
1 tbspn extra virgin olive oil or filtered groundnut oil
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
1 cup water
1 tspn grated organic jaggery
2-3 pieces Dried Kokum  (you can see images here), can be substituted by 1 tspn tamarind puree
1 tbspn grated coconut and chopped coriander leaves for garnish


Procedure:
1. Sprout the kadve vaal. Soak the dry vaal overnight. Drain the water in the morning and keep them in a warm moist place for 1-2 days until they sprout well.
2. Peel the sprouted vaal (ask the maid/husband/child/anyone who happens to be in the immediate vicinity for help).
3. Take the peeled vaal in a thick saucepan/cooker, add all the ingredients except for the jaggery,kokum, coconut and corainder leaves.
4. Place a lid on the saucepan/cooker(do not pressure-cook, this will cause the vaal to be over-cooked and the flavour will be lost) and cook the mixture on medium flame for 15 minutes (until the vaal are cooked).
5. Open the lid and add the kokum and jaggery and stir gently. Boil for a minute.
6. Remove from flame and garnish with the grated coconut and coriander leaves.
7. Relish with phulka/brown rice. Bon apetit!