Hot-sour mango dal

I couldn't let 2009 go by without a last post (note for military-type people - please dont sound reveille, it isn't THAT kind of last post!) on this blog, especially as I'm at home and feel the irresistible need to postpone loads of housework style things that need doing NOW, ideally... so the blog, of course, takes precedence.

Since my previous post was on the 1st of December, it's kind of fitting that the last post should be on the last day of the month - and the year. I like things to be rounded off. I'm all for symmetry, wherever possible. Which is why I found the MIT building very pleasant on the eye, with clean lines and symmetrical wings. (Wasn't that just the neatest little segue to the topic of my recent holiday? I bet some of you didnt even notice what I was talking about! :D Anyway, we were in Boston over Christmas, visiting my brother and sis-in-law, packing in quite a bit of shopping/eating/doing things/freezing, and so on, into just 11 days or so.)

That was just for the record. Today's recipe has nothing to do with the Boston trip and everything to do with the unripe green mangoes that had been in the refrigerator for far too long. The same could be said of Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries that I had bought, admired, gloated over as its owner - and then stacked with the other cookbooks (although not in the refrigerator. In case that thought crossed your mind).

This mango dal is the first recipe that I've tried from 660 Curries and I've neither had it before nor made it ever. It was beautifully simple, hot from the green chillies and sour from the mangoes - comfortingly homey and oh so tasty! I personally think it's best over plain basmati rice, rather than with chapaties - but that's just one opinion.



Oh, it was called "Unripe mango with pigeon peas" but I think my title sounds better. I also simplified the cooking process by pressure-cooking the dal with the mangoes - the original method seemed unnecessarily complicated, considering that the dal+cooked mango was pureed in the end anyway. Sorry, Mr Iyer.

Recipe for: Hot-sour mango dal

Ingredients:

1 cup toor/tuvar dal
1.5 cups peeled, de-seeded and chopped unripe green mango
1.5 tsp ghee (or use any mild oil)
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 black cardamom pod
1 small red onion, sliced fine
8-10 fresh green chillies, sliced into thin strips (reduce amount per taste)



1" piece ginger, chopped or ground fine
3-4 tbsp fresh chopped coriander leaves
1/4 tsp turmeric powder

Method:

1. Wash the dal well in 3-4 changes of water.



Pressure cook with the chopped mangoes and 1.5 cups water, for 3-4 whistles. Let the pressure reduce on its own. When the cooker can be opened, stir the cooked mangoes and dal (the mangoes might have disintegrated - this is ok, it's what we're after. But undisintegrated mangoes are fine too. Just mash them lightly.) Stir in a half-cup of water if the dal is too thick.



2. Heat the ghee in a medium size pan with deep sides. Add the cumin seeds and cardamom pod and let them sizzle for 30 seconds.



3. Then add the sliced onion, chillies and ginger.



Stir-fry till the onions are lightly browned and the chillies make you cough (well, that's what happened!).

4. Now add the cumin powder, coriander powder and coriander leaves, and turmeric. Stir them in and fry for about a minute or so.



5. Add the cooked and mashed dal to the browned spiced onions in the pan,



add salt to taste and stir well.



Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 minutes, to let the flavours meld. Serve hot over steamed basmati rice, along with a dry vegetable curry of some sort.

Bitter melon brown rice

I find I'm a bit worried about getting more and more radical with my bitter melon/bitter gourd/karela/pavakkai recipes, in that I’m using this vegetable in a less and less disguised fashion, as it were. I won't hide the fact that I'm feeling kind of - wait for it – meloncholy, the sort that leaves a.... yes, a somewhat bitter taste behind...

Time was when the only way I would even look at this knobbly-looking vegetable was if it was coated in seasoned gram flour and deep fried. And even then it wasn’t exactly welcome on my plate (or on my palate, heh. Tell me you love these punny asides, because I won’t accept a negative answer. What, did you think this was a democratic blog? Tut).

First I made my own karela chips. Then this. And this. And now, karela masala rice! Where oh where will it all end???

Be warned, readers, this recipe is only for those who love this vegetable. (Although, all evidence to the contrary, I still maintain that I’m not a member of the aforementioned karela-loving group. I mean yeah, I eat it. But would I reach for karela over, say, potatoes? Or green beans? Or plantains? No way, no how.) I used brown basmati instead of white rice, and cooked it with a bit of turmeric powder as per Suganya’s advice on her blog, Tasty Palettes – note that the idea for this recipe, and part of the method, is derived from her own post. I added peanuts for crunch (and some relief from the bitterness) and had a cool cucumber raita on the side, which is also, I think, essential to balance the taste.

Remember that rhetorical question I asked earlier? The one I didn’t answer, because it was rhetorical? (See paragraph 3.) Well, its status has just been downgraded from rhetorical to literal, because I’m answering it.

The karela radicality, my dear friends, does not end with this post. It cannot, because there is more to come, a recipe that is even more uncompromising when it comes to bringing the bitterness to the fore. And no clue, not one, about where that radicalisation will end, or when, or even how...

But for now, here’s the recipe to go with this post.

Recipe for: Bitter melon brown rice



Ingredients

1-1/2 cups brown basmati rice, soaked in water for 10 minutes
3 cups bitter melon/karela, sliced
3/4 tsp tamarind paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp oil
a few fresh curry leaves
3-4 tbsp garlic masala powder (or to taste)
Salt to taste
1/4 cup roasted salted peanuts
chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method

1. Cook the soaked brown basmati rice in plenty of water to which 1 tsp turmeric powder has been added.



Drain rice and cool when cooked.



2. Dissolve the tamarind paste in 4 cups water and pour along with sliced karela in a saucepan.



Cook the karela till done, but not mushy. Drain the cooked vegetable and reserve.



3. In a wide kadai or wok, heat the 2 tsp oil. Add the curry leaves, urad dal and mustard leaves. Cover till the mustard seeds pop, and the urad dal is golden brown.



4. Add the cooked karela now and stir till the tempering is evenly distributed.



5. Sprinkle 2-3 tbsp of the garlic masala powder and stir it in.



6. Roast the karela over medium heat in the pan, till it starts to crisp up. (You can add 2-3 tsp oil to speed up this process, if you like.)



7. Add the cooked rice now, add salt to taste, and mix carefully till the vegetable is evenly distributed.



8. Stir-fry the rice till it's heated through, then add the peanuts and mix in.



9. Sprinkle the chopped coriander over, and serve the rice hot with a cool cucumber raita and crisps or poppadums.

Spinach corn muffins

When I tasted cornbread for the first time (I made it myself) I have to say that I was not particularly impressed – it was so bland! Now, I know that at that point, I considered all foods bland that were not chilli-hot. That’s an attitude endemic to (most of) us Indians because so much of our food contains chillies and/or strong spices and flavourings. If you’re used to loading vegetables with lots of masala, for instance, plain boiled green beans with just salt and pepper would definitely be termed as “bland”. It’s not just vegetarians, either – even non-veg Indians find it difficult to face plain roasted chicken (or other meat)… they usually like their meat cooked in a spicy sauce or maybe coated in a fiery masala.

I remember going with my friend Lakshmi (or KiwiGee fame, such as it is) to a restaurant in Mount Road that specialised in “western” food (I cant remember the restaurant name now, it was many years ago while I was working in the Indian Express). We had been there before and enjoyed the vegetable au gratin – or maybe it was the sheer novelty of it, vegetables in a cheesy white sauce - and decided it was time we educated another colleague and friend in the ways of international cuisine.

Poor chap, he had the most awful struggle to get it down. He was through-and-through a traditional South Indian - he wasn't even really into North Indian cuisine, and he had probably never wanted to try anything European at all. But he was a sweet uncomplaining pal, and he let himself be forced by us into having a go.


Two forkfuls into the gratin, and he turned green and said he couldn’t finish it. We, being cruel to be kind, perhaps – or maybe just determined to introduce him to “sophisticated” food - sat there, one on either side of him, insisting that he shouldn’t give up so easily. He sprinkled crushed red chillies, stirred in industrial quantities of chilli sauce, and in general did all he could to mask the blandness of the white sauce and the grilled cheese topping… but in the end, he just balked at eating any more of it. For quite a while after that I think he avoided any mention of “treats” from us…

What I didn’t realize then, I do now – that it takes a conscious effort to let your taste buds slow down and adjust to fewer spices, and enjoy the real flavour of whatever vegetable you’re eating... or even get used to the lack of chillies and the presence of unfamiliar spices and seasonings. Of course, in this I speak mostly for myself and my taste buds, which sadly did not grow up amidst authentic international cuisine and therefore were ignorant and inexperienced in many ways for the longest time.

So anyway, long story short, I did eventually learn to like vegetables that weren’t cooked to mush, steamed veg that had the most basic of seasonings - I may have mentioned this before, but fresh green beans cooked just so, eaten immediately with just a sprinkling of salt is probably one of my greatest pleasures now! - pasta that did not have crushed red chillies (at the very least) sprinkled all over it, cheese-on-toast without sliced green chillies on it… and so on. I tried to keep my mind and tastebuds open to new flavours and give new foods at least one good try before condemning them.

But this cornbread – plain cornbread without cheese or onions or anything else savoury... it literally WAS too bland and boring. It was just blah - and blah it remained despite my sternest lectures to myself to be open-minded. I didn’t bother with making cornbread again for ages, until I came across other recipes for it on the Net (this after I had started this food blog) and decided to give the whole thing another go.

Now of course I adore cornbread – as long as there’s no sweetness involved. I don’t understand or like the addition of honey or sugar. I do add onions, scallions, quick-cook vegetables like spinach, cheese (although not excessively) but, most important of all, green chillies. Yes, I'm aware that I lectured about chillies or the lack thereof, thanks - but there are SOME things which totally require heat. Cornbread, as far as I’m concerned, is one of those things. That’s how it has to be. It’s just one of those things.

These muffins make a nice snack by themselves or, more traditionally, you could serve them with chili con (or sin, in my case) carne. I didnt use fresh chillies this time - I just chopped up some super-hot-but-fruity sliced manzano chillies in vinegar that were lurking in my fridge, and used those.

Recipe for: Spinach corn muffins



Ingredients:

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup plain flour
1 large egg
1 cup milk (I used semi-skim)
1/2 cup canned corn niblets
1/8 cup oil
1/2 cup spinach leaves, shredded
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp freshly milled black pepper
2 tsp finely chopped jalapeno peppers (I used manzano chillies)
salt to taste

Method:

1. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt.



2. In another, smaller bowl, whisk together the oil and egg.



3. Pour in the milk and stir it in.



4. Pour the egg-milk mixture into the bowl containing the flour



and stir till just combined. Do not beat.



5. Add the corn and spinach and stir them in gently.



6. Sprinkle the ground pepper



and add the jalapenos (if using), and stir them in.



7. Fill muffin pans with the batter about 3/4 of the way to the top and bake in a 180C/350F oven for about 15 minutes. Test to see if the muffins are done; if not, give them another 5 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and serve warm.

Tomato-cream cheese pasta

I'm not a great fan of cheesy pasta recipes - there's really only so much cheese I can take before my taste buds put their hands up in the air and beg for mercy. Cheese is something I can take on board only in small amounts - VERY small amounts. This applies to any cheese that has a pronounced flavour - cheddar, parmesan, feta, halloumi, whatever. Paneer doesnt figure on this list because it doesn't have a definite taste. And blue cheeses don't count as food, as far as I'm concerned... unless they're classified as "food that was once alive but is now putrefied".

So, as far as pasta goes, my preference is for tomato-based sauces. I don't mind cream cheese, as long as it's mixed with herbs... and a recipe for a pasta sauce that combined tomatoes and cream cheese seemed doable. I would have added chillies, or possibly chilli sauce to the recipe, but since this was to be a quick-fix dinner for me and Pete, I had to keep the hot stuff at bay.

The sauce was, as I'd suspected it would be, very nice with the flavour of tomatoes melding nicely with the cream cheese. I added lots of fresh basil (two types, both home grown, yay!), and a topping of crisp crumbled bacon for Pete and sort of crisp, crumbled facon (= fake bacon, or bacon-style strips) for me; and with a bottle of wine on the side, the pasta made a very pleasant meal.

Recipe for: Tomato cream cheese pasta



Ingredients:

Wide egg noodles for two (approx 75 gm uncooked per person)
2-3 medium tomatoes
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small red pepper, deseeded and sliced
2 cups fresh spinach leaves
4 tbsp non-fat garlic-and-herb flavour cream cheese (or plain will do as well)
1/4 cup basil leaves, shredded
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp olive oil
2-3 strips bacon (or facon), cooked crisp and crumbled, for garnish

Method:

1. Put the pasta/noodles on to boil as per directions on the pack.

Quarter the tomatoes, then puree smooth.



2. Fry the garlic in the olive oil till just soft, but not brown.



3. Add the sliced peppers.



4. Then add the spinach leaves,



and stir till the leaves wilt and the pepper just begins to soften.



5. Add the cream cheese to the pureed tomato.



6. Whisk them well to form a sauce.



7. Add the cream-cheese tomato sauce to the pan with the vegetables and stir it in. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.



8. Stir in the chopped basil.



9. Drain the cooked pasta and add the pasta to the pan.



10. Gently mix it with the sauce and heat thoroughly but do not let it boil.



11. Serve in warm bowls with the crumbled bacon/facon on top as garnish and some fresh basil leaves.

Simple curried brown rice

I've always been convinced that white rice is best for South Indian food - Sona Masoori rice, for preference. Even basmati rice, that queen of all rice, comes second here... if only because its own heavenly aroma and flavour tend to get downplayed by the competing flavours of the accompanying dishes. Sona masoori rice, however, is the perfect vehicle to exhibit the pungent, spicy, hot, sour and piquant flavours that are the trademark of South Indian dishes such as sambar, rasam, kootu etc, without itself taking centre stage.

So with sona masoori and basmati rice in my pantry, I was not sure that brown rice would play a big role in my cooking. Still, when I came across a small packet of brown basmati rice in the supermarket, I impulsively bought it.

It was surprising how long it took to cook the rice - way more than any white rice, and the typical aroma of basmati wasn't immediately evident either. Since I didn't quite know what to make with the cooked brown rice, I decided to make a sort of vegetable fried rice, only without too much of the frying.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the taste of the brown basmati. It was chewy in a nice way, with a flavour reminiscent of "aval" or "poha" (beaten rice). I liked it a lot, and while it will not be replacing my beloved sona masoori or Tilda basmati any time soon for traditional Southie dishes, I think I will be using brown rice a lot more in other areas. It's nice to no longer be a brown rice virgin!

Recipe for: Curried brown rice



Ingredients:

3 cups brown basmati rice, cooked and cooled
1/2 cup green beans, sliced into thin rounds
1 medium potato, chopped into 1/2 cm pieces
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 scallion, sliced thin
2 green chillies, sliced vertically
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp sambar powder
2 tsp oil
Salt to taste
Fresh coriander leaves, to garnish

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the cumin seeds and green chillies. Fry for 40 seconds or till the seeds turn a darker shade of brown.

2. Add the vegetables to the pan now and stir, then pour in 1/8 cup water, cover the pan, turn the heat down to medium-low, and let the vegetables steam-cook till done.



3. Now add the red chilli powder and sambar powder to the cooked vegetables along with salt to taste, and mix it well. Turn the heat up and let the vegetables caramelize a little.



4. Throw in the cooked brown rice and stir till everything is well mixed.



5. Add chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with a raita, if preferred.

Garlic masala powder

Maths doesn’t play much of a role in my life, other than when absolutely, utterly unavoidable. I go to great lengths to avoid such occasions, so when one does occur, you can bet your booty that it’s as rare as a 300 carat diamond. Only a lot less interesting, and involving much swearing and general blasphemy. That’s the only way I can get through it – that, and help begged from anybody capable of looking a math problem in the eye without flinching and bursting into tears.

What does maths have to do with a cooking blog, or this recipe, one may wonder. Happily, not much with the recipe itself – just a mention on the blog for the sake of getting some content for the post leading to the recipe. And this is a recipe for a home-made ready-mix powder used to make spicy flavoured rice. Kind of like paruppu podi, but different in the ingredients used. Paruppu podi doesn’t involve coriander seeds at all, and they play a big role in this powder. The shels life differs, too. This masala powder, containing raw garlic as it does, doesn't have the extended shelf life of paruppu podi.

So where does the maths bit come in?

Only in that this masala powder, redolent of garlic and coriander, adds up to much more than the sum of its component parts. My kind of mathematics, you see, because when I add up a column of figures, you can bet your bottom dollar or pound (or other currency of choice) that the sum will invariably exceed the total of the individual figures. Which is terrible for a maths problem, but very welcome in a recipe.

PS: Original recipe here

Recipe for: Garlic masala powder



Ingredients:

2 tbsp urad dal
1/4 cup coriander seeds
2 tbsp cumin seeds
10-15 dried red chillies (depending on heat and to taste)
1 tbsp black sesame seeds
5 cloves garlic
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Dry roast the red chillies, urad dal, coriander seeds and sesame seeds over a medium fire, stirring frequently, till the dal is golden brown, the chillies turn a darker red and the coriander seeds are aromatic.



2. Let cool completely, then add the garlic cloves.



3. Pick out the red chillies and grind them to a fine powder separately, then grind the rest of the roasted ingredients to a fairly coarse powder. Add salt to taste and store in a tight-lidded container.



To eat, add the masala powder to taste to cooked cooled rice. Fry up a handful of peanuts and a few curry leaves in a tsp of ghee or gingelly oil, then mix with the masala rice. Serve hot with crisps or papads and a raita.