Corn Bhel

I am a chat lover and I am fond of tasting Chats and various types of Street Food at different places and at different outlets. When we had to leave Bombay for Pune around 3 years ago, I was a bit sad and disappointed not because we were leaving the place but mainly because I was going to be missing out on hogging street food on a daily basis. Now whenever we happen to go to Bombay even for a few hours I make it a point to have chats (Dahi Batata Puri, Pani Puri, Sev Puri, Ragada Patis etc.) at my favorite joints there.

I am also very much fond of corn (Baby corn, American corn etc.). I had heard about corn chat (also known as corn bhel) but had never tried it at home before. I had purchased American corn from the market so thought of giving it a try. 

Ingredients

2 cup boiled corn

1 big onion finely chopped

2 small tomatoes finely chopped

1 potato boiled and finely chopped

3 tb spoon of coriander

Sev

Khajur (Tamarind) ki chutney (Sweet chutney) as per taste

Green chutney as per taste

1 ts spoon of chat masala

 Method

• Boil corn with salt. Drain and keep it aside.
•  In a large bowl, combine corn, onion, tomato and potato and toss to mix well
•   Add the khajur chutney as well as green chutney (I add about 3 tb spoon of sweet chutney and ½ cup of green chutney) toss the mixture again. 
•  Ladle the mixture into individual plate, garnish with coriander and sev.

Green chutney

1 cup of coriander, ½ cup of mint leaves, 3-4 green chillies, black salt ¼ ts spoon of sugar and 1 tbs spoon of lemon juice. Grind all the ingredients to a smooth paste.

Tamarind (Khajur) chutney

1 deseeded dates,2 ts spoon roast cumin seeds, ½ tamarind, ½ grated jaggery, 1 ts spoon red chilli powder, 1 ts spoon dried ginger powder and salt to taste.  

•  Combine dates, tamarind, jaggery and one cup of water in a pressure cooker and pressure cook for 2 whistles.
• Cool and blend in a mixer to a smooth paste. Add all the masala and mix well.

Quick 5 minutes Chocolate Mug Cake

It was raining cats and dogs outside and I was feeling like having something sweet within the confines of my home. I was more interested in preparing and eating something at home instead of going out due to the heavy rains. I had some cocoa powder at my disposal in my refrigerator so I started searching for some recipes related to cocoa powder on the net. Luckily for me, I came across a recipe for making a quick chocolate mug cake.

My better half warned me not to try out another cake recipe from the internet because I had prepared a different cake recipe some days ago from a blog which did not taste that good. Hence he was a bit apprehensive and suspicious with regard to how this cake would turn out.

To my spouse’s astonishment this cake recipe turned out to be rather delicious and at the end of all the drama I had to settle for lesser share of the spoils.

Adopted the from here

Ingredients:

4 tbsp flour

5 tbsp sugar 

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

3 tbsp milk

3 tablespoons oil

A pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)

2 drops of vanilla extract (optional)

Method

• Get two microwave safe mugs
   
•  In a bowl mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and sugar. Divide this mixture into two half and add it to each mug
  
• Share equally the quantity of milk, butter and vanilla essence and add to each mug. Whisk the egg in a bowl, divide into two and add to the mugs. Mix well all the ingredients; see that no flour remains at the bottom.
•  Keep one mug at a time in the microwave and cook for about 2 min on medium heat (the time depends on which microwave your using). check the cake if it is not cooked keep an additional 30 sec. The cake has to be moist and soft.
  enjoy it with ice-cream
   

Quick Green Peas Rice

After giving birth to a baby girl on 2^nd of November, 2011, things are not the same for me. My entire focus and energy goes into looking after the requirements of my little one. I am posting for the first time on my blog after a gap of more than a year as now I am getting the hang of the things. I had voluntarily taken a break from my blog during the term of my pregnancy and for some more months post pregnancy to look after my little angel. I will be trying my level best to post new recipes on my blog from time to time in the coming few weeks.

It was a hectic Monday morning as usual and I had woken up late from the bed. I had to prepare breakfast as well as luncheon for the two of us. So I was at my wit’s end thinking about what I can do for him for his Tiffin? I wanted to make something which would be quick and easy to make but look and taste good to his palate as well at the same time. In short, it has to appeal to his senses. My husband’s taste buds are well developed from a very young age and it does not accept anything which is alien to it. He has that uncanny ability to identify and reject items/ingredients in food which are not to his liking. In short, I had limited time and limited ingredients at my disposal to create a dish. I did not have any time to look at any of the cookery books or dig up some recipes online. I had a long look at the items I had in my refrigerator to work with and decided to dish out something on my own. To my surprise, my little experimentation worked and the end result came out pretty darn good. 

Ingredients

1½ cup basmati rice

¾ cup frozen green peas

4 tbsp oil

1 tbsp ghee

1 ts jeera

2 tbsp green chili paste

2 ts ginger garlic paste

2 onions (finely chopped)

1 ts garam masala

Method

• Clean, wash and soak rice for 10 min. Drain and keep aside.
• Put 3 cups of water to boil.
• Heat butter + oil or ghee in a pan, add jeera seeds.
• When jeera starts spluttering, add green chili paste, ginger garlic paste and onion and sauté till onions become golden brown
• Add rice and fry for about 6 to 7 min then add green peas and fry for an additional 2 min.
  
•  Add garam masala, add boiling water and salt. Simmer for 6 min or till the rice is cooked.

Caramel pudding

I don’t love sweets very much but it does not mean that I don’t indulge in sweets once in a while. I do occasionally eat sweets but only selected varieties or basically those which are not too sweet as it is not acceptable to my taste buds (I know it sounds funny but it’s the truth). On the contrary, my brother and dad have a sweet tooth and only the mention of the word sweets is enough for them to start drooling. I did not know to prepare sweet delicacies as I have never personally prepared any sweet dishes so far in my short tenure in the kitchen and my credentials are restricted to only seeing my mom preparing wonderful south Indian sweet dishes which is prepared mainly with milk like Kheer, Payasam etc on numerous festive occasions.

For this Valentine Day I wanted to surprise (or shock if the dish goes terribly wrong) my hubby by preparing a sweet dish as in my 2 years of marriage I had never prepared any sweets. This was the first time I was going to venture in that direction (unexplored virgin area for me) and God willing I hoped everything would turn out fine. I wanted to prepare a sweet dish with eggs as the core ingredient as I had some eggs lying in my refrigerator.

200 ml milkmaid

300 ml milk

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

¼ cup sugar for caramel

Method

1.    Beat egg white, when it is done add the yolk and beat well again

2.    Then add milk, milkmaid and vanilla essence and mix well

3.    Caramelize the sugar (take about ¼ cup sugar in a dry pan. Heat in a high flame till it becomes brown and melts completely. When it becomes golden brown add little water and stir gently till you get honey consistency then cool it and keep it in the refrigerator)

4.    Then pour the mixture in the pudding bowl and close the lid and cook for about 30 to 40 minutes in pressure cooker without the whistle

5.    Once it is done, cool it and enjoy it chilled.

Indian Pasta Penne Style

Pasta! When I heard the word for the first time when I was small it sounded interesting but I never really got the opportunity to taste the dish at that point of time. I was busy with my studies and my Mom was not well verse or acquainted with cooking Italian cuisine. The primary reason was that there was no Italian restaurant in the locality where I was born and brought up (in a small quaint town called Ponda in Goa). If this was not the case then I would have surely eaten it much earlier as we as a family liked trying out different kinds of cuisines at various joints.

My hubby was not too fond of pasta and always tried to escape it some way or another.  The simplest escape trick being he used to say “I will just taste it”. In other words he will just have a spoon and I have to finish the entire dish on my own (short and simple). We also never ordered the dish in the restaurant as when we read the ingredients plus sauces in the preparations of various kinds of Pasta it did not sound very appealing.

Once it so happened that we landed up at Vijay’s aunt’s (Kala Mave’s) place to give her a surprise and she happened to prepare pasta on that occasion. We both liked it so much that we became a regular fan of it. I am putting down the recipe borrowed from her. The credit goes to her. This pasta has an Indo-Italian taste, style and flavor to it and will suit our palate.

Ingredients

4 -5 tbsp oil

5 onions finely chopped

3 tomatoes finely chopped

8 garlic pieces

1 tsp of ginger paste

1 ½ tsp red chili powder

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp Garam masala powder

250g boiled pasta

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil and onions, garlic and ginger. Fry till onions become translucent.
2. Add red chili powder, fry for a minute and then add tomatoes and fry for 2 to 3 min till little oil leaves and then add Garam Masala and mix well.
3. Add paste, salt and tomato ketchup and mix well.
4. Garnish with coriander.

Spicy baby potatoes

Whenever I go to the market for vegetable shopping, I am tempted to buy Baby Potatoes. Especially in Mumbai market we get good baby Potatoes. What I mean to say is that we really get very small potatoes which are unheard of in Ponda and Pune. Both of us like it very much so I always end up in buying it. But end up preparing the same age old recipe thought by my mom i.e. with red chili powder (Dum Aloo). I always wanted to prepare baby potatoes with a little bit of gravy. So I started searching on the net for some recipes. After going through many recipes and customizing as per our taste buds I ended up with the following recipe (custom made ………..and we both loved it)

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil

½ kg baby potatoes

Cumin seeds 1 ts

½ tsp Asafetida

2 green chilies finely chopped

1 tsp ginger

1 tbsp Coriander powder

½ tsp haldi powder 

1 tsp of red chili powder

½ cup of tomato puree

½ tsp pepper powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp of kasturi methi

½ tsp of lemon juice

Method

1. Wash, boil and peel potatoes.
2. Heat oil, add cumin seeds  when it starts cracking add asafetida, green chills and ginger fry for few sec and then add potatoes fry for 2 min.
3. Add salt, coriander powder, haldi powder, red chili powder and tomato puree. Mix well and fry for a while.
4. Add remaining masala and then mix well.

Cooked Rice Dosa

If you are expecting some guests at your place and they do not turn-up at the last minute for whatever reasons and you have cooked a lot of rice which is left over then this Dosa is a very good option for that rice (vilavar korcha sitache). It is a very simple dish to make and is also very tasty and delicious at the same time. This is another option other than Sita Phanna which is normally prepared out of leftover rice. This recipe will add another dimension to your culinary skills and will keep you in good stead.

Ingredients

1 cup cooked rice

1 cup raw rice

Method:

1.       Soak raw rice for about 2 to 3 hr

2.       Grind soaked rice along with cooked rice to a smooth past does not add too much of water

3.       You need to get the consistency of Dosa batter (not too thin like neer Dosa nor to thick)

4.       Then keep for overnight fermentation.

5.       Next day add salt and ½ tsp of soda powder about ½ hr before removing Dosa

6.       Heat the tava, add little oil and spred it over

7.       Put about a ladleful of batter onto it and spread with the back of ladle (not very thin)