03-SEP-2008
Plain Plantains
This is a dish I used to eat when I was a kid in Jamaica.
Ingredients:
2 Plantain bananas
1 teaspoon oil
Preparation:
Cut the banana into thin strips. Fry in the pan, till golden brown. It's funny how you know everything is cooked when it's golden brown. :)
To make this dish taste even better, add a sprinkle of brown sugar on the plantains.
03-SEP-2008
Sundar Sundal
Ingredients:
1 tin garbanzo beans (you can use any canned beans)
3 Green chillies
Frozen coconut shredds
Mustard seeds
Salt
Preparation:
In a shallow pan, add a little oil and fry the mustard seeds till they pop. Add the cut green chillies. Mix and then add the garbanzo beans. Keep frying till the beans are cooked and lose the can smell. Switch off the stove and then defrost the coconut shredds and add to the sundal.
This is a common dish during Navarathari time. Yummy!
02-SEP-2008
Alu Tikki
Ingredients:
6 potatoes
1 onion
1 can of garbanzo (channa) beans or yellow gram(this is more difficult, as you might have to buy raw and soak overnight)
Half a raw mango (available in Indian grocery stores in season)
Coriander
Some sev (available in Indian grocery stores)
Tamarind chutney (available in Indian grocery stores)
Channa Masala powder
Oil
Preparation:
Boil the potatoes. See my Dosa recipe for the different ways to boil potatoes. Peel and cut into small pieces. Once sufficiently cooled, put in a bowl, and mash. Use your hands, but put some oil on your hands so it doesn't stick. Take a handful of the mash, roll into a ball, and then flatten to resemble a cake.
In a shallow cooking vessel, add the channa, add some cut onions, add some water, add the channa masala, add some salt and cook till the consistency is easy neither watery nor too dry.
In a heated pan, add some oil, and then shallow fry the potato cakes 3 at a time, till the surface is golden brown but the inside is still soft. Add the channa mix and cook for a minute more.
Remove and serve on a plate, garnished with the sev, coriander and mango.
Yummy!
18-AUG-2008
Tacos
Ingredients:
4 hard shell tacos, available in packs of 12 in all supermarkets
2 avocados
1 Guacamole mix - McCormick Produce Partners packet
Some Kraft Mexican four cheese mix
1 can of black beans
1 tomato
1 onion
Some coriander
Taco mix pre-cut lettuce
Preparation:
Guacamole - Cut the avocados in half and scoop out the seed. Then using a spoon scoop out the ripened avocado and put in a bowl. Use a fork to mash the avocado into a paste. Add the guacamole mix and mix well. Put the mix in the freezer with a cover.
Take the tacos and put in a preheated oven at 400C. Keep for less than 3 minutes till tacos appear toasted. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE TACOS. DO NOT LET THEM CATCH FIRE. Better still, skip this step. The tacos taste just fine out of the box.
Heat some oil in a pan, and add some cut onions to the oil. Lightly fry and then add the can of beans. Remember to drain the water. There should be enough moisture in the beans to give it a good consistency. Keep mixing and frying till the beans start sticking to each other but do not mash.
Finely cut the tomatoes and take the guacamole out of the freezer and add to it. Mix well.
To each taco, in layers, add the beans, add, the lettuce, add the guacamole, add the cheese, and add the coriander. Eat!
Yummy!
17-AUG-2008
Sada Dosa no soda
Actually a Masal dosa but Sada Dosa no soda sounded better
Ingredients:
1 mix of dosa batter, - available in all Indian stores or prepared by mother when she visits. If bought at Indian store remember to add salt.
3 potatoes, 2 green chillies cut into small pieces, 1 onion, Mustard seeds
The yellow powder in you spice rack - Turmeric
A handful of peanuts, cumin seeds, curry leaves, garlic
Some oil in an easy squeeze bottle
Preparation:
Boil potatoes. Use either the cooker with the weight on for about 3 whistles, remember to add water and put the gasket on, or boil in an open top vessel and keep poking with a fork to see if boiled or put in microwave for 10 minutes with a cup of water and keep turning the potatoes every 2.5 minutes.
After it is boiled, peel the potatoes (remember to keep the hot potatoes under cold water before you attempt to peel) and chop into small pieces.
In a frying pan, pour some oil, and when it is reached a certain warmth, add some mustard seeds. Then add the onions, fry till golden brown and then add the chillies and fry some more. Come on, fry till you can't fry no more. Then add the potatoes, mix, add half a cup of water, and mash the potatoes slightly into the rest of the mix. Add some of the turmeric powder. Let it cook and simmer till the water evaporates. Your masal is ready.
Heat some oil, add garlic, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves. Lightly fry. Then let the mixture cool. Add this to the peanuts, roasted, and put in a coffee bean grinder. Mix till it becomes a paste. This is your chutney for the dosa.
Heat the Pan (tawa) on medium till you can feel the heat about 2 inches above the pan. Do not touch the pan. The best pan is apparently a cast iron one and not the non-stick ones. It is also better apparently to keep a separate pan for dosa and chappatis.
Take 1 scoop of batter in a karandi and pour at the center of the pan. With a graceful yet manly, but yet fancy wrist action swirl the batter around the tawa till it is spread thinly in a round shape.
After about 10 seconds squeeze drops of oil around the edges of the batter. With gloves on, rotate the pan such that the oil now flows around the contour of the dosa.
After a few seconds, 30 maybe, using a flat karandi, turn the dosa over so that the other side can cook. Keep this side on the pan for a shorter period. Turn it over once again and add a portion of masal into the center and fold over.
Keep on the pan for a few more seconds and then remove and serve onto plate with the chutney.
Yummy!
11-AUG-2008
Curd Rice with Raw Banana Curry (Vazhakai curry)
Ingredients:
1 cup rice
3 cups curd
Mustard seeds, ginger
Grapes
2 Raw bananas
Salt and chili powder
Preparation:
Let's cook the curry first. Cut the bananas into small pieces. Fry in a shallow pan with a tablespoon of oil. Add the salt and chili powder and keep stirring. It's done when the banana is soft, yet juicy.
Cook the rice with 2 cups water in a rice cooker. Cook the seasoning by adding the mustard seeds and ginger to a teaspoon of oil till they burst. Take the rice and mix well the curd. Add the mustard seeds and ginger and add the grapes.
Eat! Make Merry! Sleep!
04-AUG-2008
Corn on the cob
Ingredients:
Corn, Butter, Red chili powder, lime, salt
Preparation:
This is one of the easiest but healthiest snacks. Boil the corn, available in a packets of four in the supermarket or if you have more time, you can buy fresh corn and peel.
Once boiled remove from vessel, let it cool just enough for you to be able to touch.
Spread a little butter on the corn. Skip this step if you don't have a naturally high metabolic rate.
Cut the lime into two halves and pour some red chili powder and salt into each half. Then slowly squeeze the lime onto the corn, touching the surface of the corn at all times.
Yummy!
04-AUG-2008
Rava Idli
Ingredients:
MTR Rava idli packet (available in Indian grocery stores)
2 spoons curd
Preparation:
Cut and pour the contents of the packet into a bowl.
Add water and the spoons of curd and mix till you get a paste.
Oil the Idli plates and pour the paste into the plates.
Put the plates in the cooker, add water to the bottom of the cooker and cook.
Enjoy my favorite dish. Yummy.
11-FEB-2007
Vegetable Biryani
Ingredients:
Cut vegetables (beans, peas, carrots, green peppers - all available in pre-cut form)
2 potatoes
1 cup rice (serves two)
Salt
Chili powder
Preparation:
Easy. Cook the rice with the vegetables. For 1 cup rice add 2 cups water. Halfway through the rice cooker, open and mix salt and chili powder and mix the preparation well. Let it finish cooking.
Yummy!