Do the Matki dance (Moth/ Matki Usal)

A couple of days ago when I was soaking the moth/matki beans my three year old asked me, “What’s that?” When I told him he asked me wide eyed, “Matki dance?” I burst out laughing because the name does sound like a dance name. The name wasn’t enough to get him to try and eat the usal but I have always loved usal because my mom would make it so much fun to eat it. She would keep bowls of chopped onions, boiled mashed potatoes, yogurt and sev for garnish. My siblings and I were allowed to choose our own toppings and we usually went with everything. It was my mom’s way of turning a nutritious sprouts dish into a fun eating adventure. Sadly, those tactics don’t work on my savvy but picky son.

Sprouting the beans:

It usually takes one to two days to sprout these beans. So plan in advance. Soak the beans in a lot of water for 6-8 hours. The beans soak up a lot of water and double in size. Drain the remaining water and wash them to remove any dirt or grit. Tie them in a damp cotton fabric and leave them covered in a dark, warm place. I usually leave them in a cabinet under my stove. The beans will start sprouting by next day. The ingredients for the usal are very few and I usually cook everything in my 3ltr pressure cooker. These beans are easy to cook and you can always follow the same method in a pot. Just cook the beans till they are tender.

Ingredients:

1 cup sprouted moth/matki beans
1 onion, chopped fine
1 tomato, chopped
1 tbsp coconut powder
1/8 cup of peanuts, soaked in water (optional)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chilli powder
Salt to taste

Method:

Heat 1 tbsp of oil and add cumin seeds, turmeric and garam masala. Once the cumin starts to crackle add the onions and peanuts.
Let the onions turn translucent before adding the tomatoes and red chili powder. Cover and let cook for a few minutes.
Add the sprouted beans, cover the lid and cook till the beans are tender and cooked through.
Garnish with cilantro, chopped onions and sev or farsan of your choice.
This recipe goes to Susan's My Legume Love Affair hosted this month by Apu of Annarasa . The matki dance also goes to Spill the beans Sunday snack event hosted this month by Priya of Akshaypaatram .

Treading Deep Waters

The month of June has been exciting and exhausting. As I get more involved with my blog and explore the wonderful world of food blogging, I am getting deeper and deeper into entering various events hosted by gracious blog hosts. It is exciting to find out about an event whose theme excites and inspires you to create new recipes and improve the ones in your repertoire. Blogs like Meena’s Hooked on Heat make me realize how far I still have to go towards building a great blog. It has inspired me to pay more attention to the little details in writing my recipes and try to take better food pictures.

It is exciting to see my post getting accepted in an event and appear on the host blog (so far just one – My entry to the CLICKS event). But it is also exhausting to keep track of different themes, deadlines and photo specifications. I have also realized that it takes more time to write, photograph, upload and link a recipe than it does to make the food, eat it and load the dishwasher.
So, for my second entry for Tried and Tested: Hooked on Heat event hosted by Kits Chow , I picked the Sauted spinach with potatoes recipe which is not only easy to cook and delicious to taste but is also nutritious and takes very little time to make or to write. Also, I had some leftover baby spinach in the fridge begging to cook it with potatoes.

Aloo Palak (Potato Spinach) stir fry



Ingredients:

6 cups of spinach, washed and chopped roughly
2 medium potatoes, sliced thin
1 small onion, diced fine
3-4 garlic cloves, chopped or mashed fine
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander powder (dhania powder)
1 tsp red chili powder
Salt to taste

Method:

Heat 2 tbsp oil and add mustard seeds. As they start to crackle, add cumin seeds, turmeric, onions and garlic. Sauté on medium heat till onions turn translucent and garlic starts giving off its aroma.
Slide in the potatoes and cook covered till almost tender. Add salt and spinach and cook till the potatoes are done and the spinach is wilted.
Serve warm with rotis and dal.

Going (a)round memory lane

They say everything comes back full circle and it has never been so clear to me since the birth of my son three and a half years ago. He has the exact sleep pattern as mine, the same picky eating habits of my childhood and the same obsessive and stubborn nature. My son did not let go of his beloved baby bottle till he turned three and just like me he got hooked on Aloo Paranthas at the age of two. His picky eating habit doesn’t give me a lot of options to feed him. So, once a week, I boil some potatoes and keep the sabzi ready to make his favorite aloo parantha at a moment’s notice.


Potato (Aloo) Parantha

This recipe goes to my darling son and to Tried and Tested: Hooked on Heat event guest hosted by Kits Chow. My recipe is very similar to Meena’s (of HoH ) Potato Parantha recipe, except I use fennel seeds and ginger-garlic paste instead of cilantro, green chilies and onions. I am also sending this to BSI:Potatos hosted by Chez What? .

Ingredients:

2 cups wheat flour
5-6 potatoes, boiled and mashed
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste (optional)
1 tsp carom seeds (ajwain)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp chili powder
Salt to taste

Sprinkle the wheat flour with carom seeds, add a tsp of oil and with some water knead into soft dough. Divide dough into golf sized balls and keep aside.
Mix salt and chili powder in the mashed potatoes.
Heat a tbsp of oil in the karahi and add turmeric and fennel seeds. As they start to crackle, add the ginger garlic paste. Let it cook for a few minutes. Add the mashed potatoes and mix well. Cook for a few minutes and turn off the heat.
Roll out each dough ball into a small circle and place 1 tbsp of potato mix in the centre. Bring up the edges and press together to form a ball. Make sure the edges are sealed tight.
Flatten the ball with your hands, dredge it in some dry flour and roll out to desired thickness. In the world of paranthas THICK = SOFT and THIN = CRISP.On a hot gridle or tava, fry the rolled out paranthas with oil or ghee or both. Serve hot with pickle and a heaping bowl of yogurt.

Indian rickshaw in my home

Yesterday, a friend returning from India brought a toy rickshaw for my 3 year old son. More than him I was excited to see it and I have to confess, I played with it a little too.
Rickshaws, for the uninitiated, are three wheeler modes of transportation that run on two horse power motors. They have a long seat in the back that can seat three people and the driver seats in the narrow front section. There are no doors or seat belts but I have never heard of anyone falling out of a running rickshaw yet. All rickshaws have the same body but they are as unique as the driver who rides it. Some will be decorated with pictures of the god or goddess the rickshaw driver believes in. Some will have colorful festoons and ribbons hanging from the roof. The hi-tech ones will have loud stereos blasting the latest film songs or religious bhajans (hymns).

As a single girl living in Mumbai, India, the ubiquitous rickshaw always came to my rescue when I needed to reach an appointment in time or a ride home in the middle of the night. Like taxi cab drivers in New York or Boston, the rickshaw drivers too had their preferences on where they wanted to go and if it was worth their time to travel a small distance or not. Especially at the end of their shift they preferred to take a passenger going in the direction of their home. On a hot, summer noon one could find them parked under a shady tree, reclining in the back seat, taking a nap. There were kind rickshaw drivers who would give you a ride when it was raining cats and dogs in the city and there were the crooked ones who would charge you an exorbitant amount of money if you were in a fix.

I remember one early morning I hired a rickshaw from the Mumbai airport and asked the driver to take me to home. On the way he told me he will have to charge me night rates since it was fairly early in the morning. Too tired to argue with him at that ungodly hour I agreed. When we reached my home he showed me the conversion chart. The amount of money he was charging me did not seem right but “the chart doesn't lie” so I paid him off and went inside. Only later did I realize he had shown me the rate conversion chart of a taxi cab and not an auto rickshaw. An expensive lesson learnt early in the day.
On my last visit to India, my then two and a half year old son had a rocking time riding in the rickshaw. There was no car seat or seat belt to confine him, he could feel the wind on his face and see all the wonderful sights a busy city like Mumbai has to offer.
You can see why I am delighted to have a toy rickshaw for my son to play with and for me to relive my wonderful, single life in Mumbai. And why I had to write about it.

Best Dessert in the World

Summer Fruit Bonanza

If there is anything I like better than eating a fruit dessert it is eating fresh fruit. It is also one the reason why summer is my favorite season of the year. Nature’s bounty is at its most generous during the three long, hot months and I love gorging on berries, cantaloupes, oranges and water melons. These three months my family and I eat a generous helping of fruit salads which is just a fancy word for lot of cut up fresh fruit tossed together. I don’t add anything to it except a fork. No fruit chaat masala, no lemon juice or sugar. Just plain, simple fruit as nature intended. After all, what dessert can replicate the taste and texture of fresh fruit bursting in your mouth?

Mad about Mangoes

As a kid if you have ever eaten a ripe, juicy mango in the heat of the Indian summer, you know what I am talking about. As kids we would get a mango every afternoon after lunch. We would squeeze them all around to get the juices flowing and then tear off one side to get to the juice and the fibrous, sweet flesh. By the time we finished it off our arms and faces would be sticky with mango juice but our tummies would be happy in a way no dessert could equal.

As I grew a little older I was allowed to scrape the flesh off the Hapoos mangoes for the aamras. My siblings and I would fight over the dibs for the mango skins and scrape them clean with our teeth. Those summers were magical and heavenly; when the scent of mangoes hung in the kitchen and after lunch we would darken the common room and start the cooler fan. In that dark, cool room satiated with a good lunch and bowls of aamras, everyone would fall asleep for the noon.
In the US, it is hard to get good mangoes at the local Indian grocery store so I sometimes buy the canned mango pulp. But the canned stuff is too sweet and has an aftertaste that is hard to explain and not easy to get used to. I usually use this pulp to make mango lassi (with yogurt) or mango shakes (with milk). The other day I found a recipe for mango sorbet and decided to give it a try.
The original recipe calls for fresh mangoes but since I had the canned pulp I decided to improvise. The result was a creamy sorbet with just a hint of coconut and the crunch of cashew nuts.
This is also my entry to SHF 2009 event hosted by Mansi. The event calls for the recipe to include at least a fruit and a nut. I wrongly assumed coconut to be a nut but a search on the net revealed it is in fact a seed! Who knew? This also goes to Srivalli’s Mango Mela and to  Ben's Homemade #5 Challenge .

Mango Coconut Sorbet

Ingredients:

1 can (1 lb 14 oz) of mango pulp
1 can (14 oz) can of coconut milk
1 tbsp roasted and coarsely crushed cashews
Cardamom powder to taste (optional)

Mix the mango pulp and coconut milk in a freezer safe container.
Pop it in the freezer for two hours or till is just about sets. Take it out and with an electric hand mixer beat the pulp to break up the ice crystals.
Whipping the pulp this way also infuses it with air and makes the sorbet light and fluffy.
Repeat three to four times, every couple of hours till the desired consistency is achieved.
Serve garnished with cashews (which is a nut) and coconut flakes. Sprinkle cardamom powder to enhance the taste of mangoes and serve chilled.

My mother-in-law’s secret…

When I got married, my mother-in-law passed on a family secret she had also passed on to her other two, older, daughters-in-laws. Well, it is more of a cooking tip than a secret but it is such a family staple that everyone know about but no one talks about (well, till now!) that I think of it as her ‘secret’.

Well, as all things brilliant go this one is actually quite simple. Indian households, including my MIL’s, use large quantities of ginger-garlic paste in preparation of curries and other varied recipes. With three growing sons and a husband fond of good food, she learned early on that it made her life a little easier if she ground ginger-garlic-green chillis and cilantro into a paste and stored it in the fridge to be used when needed.

As her three sons grew older and eventually got married, the tip was passed down to every new bride. To me, who had not cooked a lot before getting married, the simplicity of the tip was just brilliant.

A jar of this paste in the fridge lasts about 10-14 days, if you don’t finish it all off first. It is really handy when you are cooking for a lot of guests or if you make curries that call for ginger garlic paste. I also use it for marinating meats and fish.

Ingredients:

1 cup coriander

14-15 cloves of garlic

4 inch of ginger

5-6 green chillis (vary according to preference)

1 tsp of salt

Grind the ingredients together to form a smooth paste. The salt helps preserve the paste for a couple of days.

The addition of green chillis and cilantro to the paste gives the curries and marinades a flavor that is hard to describe but tastes very good when the dish is cooked.