Wheat Pasta - Desi Style

I am back after a long break for a special reason. My comeback entry is wheat pasta made with desi masala's. I like to try cuisines from new places while my husband is more comfortable with the desi veggie flavours, so this is a perfect combo to satsfy both of us. I fried a few vegetables in oil with the readily available tomato sauce (Tostitos Salsa in this case). Then I tossed in the boiled pasta and sprinkled it with black pepper,salt and few indian spices :). Its that simple !
Still I am going to make a list of ingredients and steps to maintain the format with my postings till now.



Ingredients :
Wheat Pasta
Chopped vegetables - Onion/Capsicum/Carrots/Spring Onions/Green Chillies
Salt,Pepper, Cheese of your choice.
Spices - Coriander powder and any other masala of your choice (I used goda masala)


Steps:
1> Boil Water in a big vessel. Add pasta to boiling water and let it cook till soft.
2> Drain water from cooked pasta. If your vegetable mix is going to take a long time to get ready then add few drops of oil into the cooked pasta and toss it. This step is to avoid the pasta become one big sticky ball.
3> While the pasta is boilding, take another pan and heal oil in it.
4> Add chopped onions and chopped green chillies(I use whole chillies withjust one long cut in the middle)
5> Add he remaining chopped vegetables which may include carrots/capsicum/spring onion and so on. I avoid tomatoes because my sauce has ample tomatoes in it.
6> Add 3-4 table spoons of the ketchup/sauce alongwith the desi spices of your choice and stir the vegetables well.
7> Once the vegetables look cooked, sprinkle with some salt and pepper and and the boiled pasta. Mix it well without breaking the pasta.
8>Add a cheese slice and remove the pan from heat. As the cheese melts mix it well into the pasta and serve hot.
9> You may garnish with lemon juice and cilantro to add more desi touch.

Chapati - The fine Indian bread

Back home chapatti is an essential member of every meal. Hats off to all the ladies who make chapatti's for the whole family twice a day, every single day !
Making chapatis is a skillfull activity and it takes some practice to be able to make soft and nice chapatis. And to make them fast juggling between rolling one chapati and roasting other at the same time is another skill. I am still working on the second skill :).
Before sharing the ingrdients, I would like to mention that we need some specific utensils or tools for making chapati's. The rolling pin(latna), rolling board(polpat) and a roti press. We also need a flat pan (tawa) to roast the chapati's.

Ingredients : Wheat floor - 2 cups, Salt - 2 tea spoons, oil - 1 tb spoon, Warm water- around 1 cup.

Step 1: Kneading the Dough: Take the wheat floor in a vessel (ideally a plate with high walls called parat is used for this). Add the salt and oil to it. Slowly add water in little proportins while kneading the dough. You may use a little oil in the end to get a smooth dough.



Put the flat Pan on medium heat so that it is ready by the time we roast the first chapati. Make small balls of dough. Each ball is aroun 1.5-2 inches in diameter. Each ball is going to turn into 1 chapati. Soak the ball in dry wheat floor and roll it on the rolloing board into a small circular shape. Apply a drop of pil and fold it into a semicircle. Again apply oil and fold into a quadrant as shown in the picture.



Now the challenge is to roll this quarter back into a circle. Apply some wheat floor and start rolling at the corners and edges. Keep turning the chapati to get uniform thinckness everywhere. Make a big round chapati. Put this chapati on the hot pan. turn it when it starts puffing. Turn again if needed. A puffed chapati is a success.



You may use the roti press to press the chapati to get the chapati cook uniformly over complete area.

Store the chapatis in a casserole or serve hot with your favourite curry.

Simplest Spinach Recipe I know

Spinach is a frequent member or our regular meals and I like experimenting new recipe's with Spinach. You must like the spinach taste to like this dish as it does not have any spicy taste . It is certainly on my list of healthy and nutirtious menu options.

Ingredients :

Spinach - Coarsely chopped

2 green chillies- chopped

4-5 garlic cloves finely chopped

oil, mustard seeds, turmeric powder, asaphoetida(hing) and salt

Heat some oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and wait till they start spluttering. Add a little turmeric powder and asaphoetida followed by chopped garlic cloves and green chillies. Keep stiring for a minute or two. Finally add chopped spinach and mixit well. Cook with continuous stirring till the spinach changes color to blackish green.

Serve with fresh chapatti's :).

I had some leftover rice and no dal so I decided to mix rice with the spinach recipe and named the new dish as palak rice.

Egg Curry

Recently I happened to relish different versions of egg curry at different friends places. And today when I ran out of veggie's I decided to try a new version of my own. I am sharing a kind of flexible recipe here leaving you to adjust it to your taste.

Ingredients : 4 eggs boiled. 1 big onion, Few green chillies Tomatoes - finely chopped or puree Cumin seeds(Jeera) Salt , Turmeric Powder , Garam masala Cilantro,Ginger-Garlic Paste Curd/Milk Oil
1>Heat Oil in a vessel and add cumin seeds
2>Add Onion chilli paste(Only Onion and green chilli ground to paste) and ginger garlic paste . Fry for few mins. onion paste needs to be fried till it gets brown to make sure onion is cooked.
add turmeric powder and tomato puree. again fry till tomatoes are fried properly.
3>Add some garam masala and salt to taste. Add some water to adjust consistency.
4>Add 2 tbsp of Curd. If you do not want the curry to taste sour then add milk or cream instead.
5> Remove the yellow bulk from the boiled eggs and add the white part scrambled to this gravy and cook for few minutes. Serve the yellow part seperately so that everyone can add it as they like. The egg yellow part is fatty and members in my family prefer to limit the consumption of egg yellow. Hence following the tradition I also removed it and served seperately.
6> Garnish with fresh chopped cilantro and serve with chapatti/paratha's or even stemed rice.

Whole Moong Dal

I tried a new recipe with whole moong. the typical recipe that I had learned from my mother included just garlic and green chilies to be added in "tadka". She also cooked the moong in pressure cooker before the final tadka procedure. I tried this recipe in a thick base vessel with a steam tight lid. So it was almost like a pressure cooker and that helped to cook the moog well till it was soft.
The recipe turned out very tasty so I decided to share it here right away.
I have also tried a few photography tips that I read online for this photo.

Ingrdients:
Whole Moong - 1 cup
1 Onion Chopped , 2-3 Tomatoes Chopped,4-5 Cloves of garlic Chopped, 3-4 Green chillies Chopped,8-10 dry Soyabean Chunks, Everest Sabji masala
Mustard Seeds, Oil, Salt ,Sugar, Turmeric powder, Chilli Powder, Cilantro,Lemon

Steps:
1> Soak Whole Moong in water overnight.
2> Just before the actual cooking soak Soyabean chunks in Warm water. Also add some salt to this water.
3> Heat some oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds. Add chopped garlic and Green chillies when the mustards start popping. fry for a minute and then add chopped onion. Fry the onion for few minutes.
4> Add turmeric Powder and also add chopped tomatoes. Let the tomatoes cook for few minutes.
5> Add some 1 tbsp of Everest Sabji Masala. Also add Soyabean chunks. Drain the water and chop them as required.
6> Add the Soaked Moong and mix well. Add salt,chilli powder and a spoonfull of sugar. Add warm water if required to adjust the consistency.
7> Garnish with Fresh copped cilantro and lemon juice.Serve hot with chapatis.

Palak (Spinach) Curry

Last week we visited the local Farmers Market for the first time. We had been hearing about this place and were eager to see it. Local farmers sell fresh vegetables at a cheaper rates at the Farmers market. It was nice to vistit Indian style "Bhaji market" after a long time. We picked few fresh fruits including cherries,Apples and pears. In all that excitemennt we ended up buying a huge packet of fresh Spinach.
So this week we are celebrating the spinach week. I am trying all possible recipies of Spinach. Palak paratha, palak dry veg, palak curry and may be I shall try palak pakodas tonight :). What I am sharing here is the recipe for making palak curry, Maharashtrian style.

Ingredients :
Palak leaves chopped coarsely
cumin seeds 2 tbsp
Ginger
Garlic
Green chillies
Tamarind
Jaggery
Chana dal 1 tbsp
Peanuts 2 tbsp
Besan 1 tbsp
Oil 1-2 tbsp
Curry leaves - 7-8
Salt

Steps
1> Cook Palak +peanuts + chana dal in a pressure cooker.
2> Add the besan powder and mix well so that no clots of besan remain and every
blends well into each other.
3> Masala - chop the ginger,garlic,green chillies and 1 tsp cumin seeds together in
a mixer. Soak tamarind in water and made a thick tamarind juice.Filter away the tamarind chunks.
4> Heat some oil in a pan. Add the cumin seeds and curry leaves. After a min or so add the masala from the mixer. Let the masala cook for 1-2 minutes and then add the palak mixture to this vessel. Add 1 tbsp of tamarind juice, little jaggery or sugar as per your taste. Add some salt and let the mixture cook well.

Gajar Halwa (Carrot Pudding)

While I was watching TV last evening, I happened to glance at the Hawkins pressure cooker manual which alongwith the usage instructions also lists a few recipies.Thats when I decided to try one of the recipies listed in it. I picked Gajar halwa as I had most of the ingredients required for it. The Hawkins manual and pressure cooker always reminds me of someone I met during my trip to Nainital. It was an Uncle who had worked with Hawkins research department for a long time. He shared an interesting observation with us. He mentioned, almost complained that new users of pressure cookers always consult neighbors or friends about how to use it, but never bother to read the manual. He was also keen to let us know that we could use the cooker much more efficiently if we followed the User Manual. So following his advice, this recipe of Gajar Halwa comes directly from the Hawkins Manual.

Ingredients :
1.75 kg Red Carrots peeled and grated
1/4 Cup milk , 2 Cups Sugar ,400 gms mava crumbled (optional)
7 tbsp ghee , Some Almonds/cashews/rasins for topping
Steps :
1> Put carrots and milk into cooker
2> Close cooker. bring to full pressure on high heat. Remove cooker immediately from heat. Release pressure with slight lifting of vent weight. open cooker.
3> Place cooker with carrots on high heat. Add Sugar and cook till liquid dries up.(approx 15 mins)
4> Add mava and ghee. Cook till ghee shows seperately (approx 10 mins) stirring constantly. Serve hot garnished with almons/raisins n cashews as you like.