Go pumpkin go

I know I promised in my last post I will be back with some stories from India (check the bottom of the post for one of them). There is another one I have been working on which looks very promising. It is about a queen and an architect and secret passageways. But the story will have to wait while I attend my hosting duties for Susan’s MLLA-51.

The last date for sending in the entrees was three days ago and as the host I should have posted at least one if not a couple of legume recipes. As things go, I posted none. I also missed the deadline for Anita’s Mad Tea Party. Actually, I almost made it to her tea party but the kid fell sick. A doctor’s visit and some tests later we found out he had strep throat. He had to stay home for the better part of the week and though it was nice not to wake up at 6.30 AM to take him to school, I prefer him in school on weekdays. Unlike his mother, he enjoys the routine and predictability of the weekdays when he is in school. Nothing makes him happier than knowing what is in store for him for the day.

I try to keep a similar routine at home for him but things tend to get a bit loosey-goosey once in a while. He doesn’t seem to mind and I feel it is good for him not to follow a strict regimen all the time. He is just in first grade after all.

First grade has been a big transition for him though after the fun and easy kindergarten class. Last year, he got a one page weekly homework. This time around, there are weekly reading logs, math exercises and spelling tests to keep him occupied for the week. Did I mention, he also has after school activities four days a week? I, as always, am on chauffer duty after three in the afternoon.

Between picking him up from school, driving him to his play dates and assorted activities, I make dinner, usually a quick vegetable stir fry. Yes, we are not big on elaborate meals. A sabzi, some roti and a salad suffice us on weekdays.

This quick pumpkin sabzi is a staple during fall. In India, this preparation is usually reserved for fasting days and the sabzi is eaten without any bread or rice. We prefer it with rotis or a bajra bhakri and another sabzi or some cooked dal on the side. Sometimes, a koshimbeer of tomato and onions substitutes for a salad.

The Peanut affair

Peanuts and I go a long way back to my childhood days. I think the love affair started when my sister and I used to play Ghar-ghar or house-house. Our mother would give us a fistful of peanuts and some jaggery to use in our make believe pantry. Sometimes the peanuts would be replaced by a piece of khopra (dry coconut). Watching us play, my mom was sure I was going to be a spendthrift and my sister the one who was careful with her money.

It turns out that my fondness for gobbling up the peanuts was not matched by my ability to spend money. I did not turn out to be the spendthrift like my mom feared. If anything, my friends feel I am a little bit too careful with my money.

However, I digress from the peanut affair. Raw peanuts, roasted peanuts, peanut laddoos, potatoes cooked with crushed peanuts, peanut chikki (brittle), nothing was off limits when it came to my affair with the peanut. Eleven years ago, in the country of Lady Liberty, I discovered the joys of peanut butter and another chapter was added to my peanut affair. I found out I could eat it with chocolate, with apples, spread on a whole wheat tortilla with some jam and sometimes just dip a spoon and lick it straight off the jar.

Raw peanut pods for Susan's BWW

However, I still keep going back to my favorite way of eating peanuts since childhood. In Indore, where I grew up, mungfalliwalas (peanut sellers) would make the rounds of the dusty lanes in my town during peanut harvest. He would have pre-boiled the tender peanuts pods in salty water. They would then be slow roasted in woks, filled with hot sand, set atop a coal stove placed at the end of his thela (push cart).

Boiled, shelled and roasted for Susan's BWW

He would serve them by the kilo in paper cones and we would all sit on the floor, after dinner, and devour the peanuts, splitting the shell by applying pressure on the beak. Biting down on the crunchy, salty outer layer we would savor the sweet, soft meat inside. Fresh, green chickpea shells suffered a similar fate but that story is for another post.

Today, I give you salted, boiled and roasted peanuts of my childhood.

There is no real recipe to boiling peanuts. Fill a big stockpot or a pressure cooker with enough water to cover the peanuts. Add about a tablespoon of salt for every one and a half cup of peanut pods. Boil the peanuts till tender.

Let cool and shell the peanuts. In a heavy bottom pan or wok, roast on medium low flame till the peanuts change color from a tender, pink to a crusty, salty smoky red. Cool a little bit before digging in.

Note: I have, in the past, tried to roast the peanuts in their shells. It takes a long time and a lot of stirring to get the peanuts the right consistency. Shelling the peanuts and roasting them is faster and the texture is similar to the one the mungfalliwala sold.

Guernesy literary potato peel and pie society and

a dash of cilanto-mint chutney

It is 1946. World War II has ended. London is trying to resurrect itself from the ashes of destruction and Juliet is trying to get her writer’s mojo back. A successful columnist during the war, she is now on a publicity tour of her book, a compilation of her war-time columns.

Juliet is a liberated woman for her times, who dumps her fiancé the day before their wedding. His offense, you ask? Emptying her bookshelf and boxing up her books to make room for his hunting and sports trophies. So this then is our liberated heroine, a lover of books, who is searching for a subject that will inspire her to take up writing again.

Enter The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A group of mismatched citizens of Chanel Island who inadvertently end up forming a book club and lifelong friendships in order to hide their roast pig dinner from the occupying Germans. Her interest piqued by a certain Mr. Dawsey Adams of the aforementioned club, Juliet starts corresponding with the various members of the club. Her correspondence with the literature loving simple folks inspires her to sail down to the island and find the inspiration for her book and a treasure trove of war time stories – of children separated from their parents for the duration of war, of famine and hunger, of the German’s cruelty and generosity, of the islanders’ struggle of survival in the midst of eating nothing but potatoes and turnips.

If this isn’t enough of a gist, savor the fact that this is Mary Ann Shaffer’s first and last book. Written as a series of sometimes witty, often times poignant and almost always revealing letters between Juliet and various characters in the book, it takes a few letters to grasp all the characters. Once you do, you can’t stop reading till you have read them all. It is almost like a guilty pleasure to read someone’s private letters but at the same time, the book makes you want to pick up a pen and paper and write a letter back home instead of shooting off an email.

The rava idlis that accompany the chutney were made from a box, and not from scratch.

For our book club, This Book Makes me Cook, I decided to go the way of our ancestors and tried to think up how they came up with green chutney made by grinding some abundantly growing cilantro and mint in their backyard. To be honest, I was stuck by the islander’s use of sea water in their cooking as a substitute to salt. This led me to think that maybe one of the older women pottering in the yard chanced upon some cilantro or mint and thought, “Hmm, this smells nice. Maybe if I grind it with some green chili and some garlic, it will spice up the bland rice?” In the same spirit of honesty I will also admit that the chutney is what I made in the morning and got a decent photo of it.

The recipe for this green cilantro-mint chutney is simple, really, but you can adjust it according to your taste. Increase the amount of mint to cilantro ratio or make it spicier by adding more chilies or creamier by increasing the crushed peanuts. This essential condiment in every North Indian kitchen requires the basic skill of pressing down the blender button. For this reason, the chutney goes to Aqua, who is hosting B2B this month for me. If you would like to host it for me for the coming months, send me an email here.

Cliantro-Mint Chutney

Ingredients
1 cup washed and clean cilantro/ coriander
1-2 sprigs of mint
1 green chili
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1 tbsp of roasted, crushed peanuts
Salt to taste

Method:
Grind everything to a smooth paste, adding water as necessary.

Coming up in the next few posts: The roundup of Of Chalks and Chopsticks and the second part of my story, It takes two to err… marry.

Homemade double chocolate ice cream and pantry check

                   
When Nupur of One Hot Stove asks you to check what is lurking in your pantry, you don’t dally. You head straight for the pantry, throw open the door and stare at the mess that greets you. The pantry along with the rest of the house had been neglected for the last three months due to someone’s studies. There were packets of lentils, flour, some sprouting onions, a funky smell from some potatoes that got left at the bottom of the basket.

Ladies and gentlemen, don’t judge me. I am not always like this and I usually clean my pantry every couple of months. I was running a month behind, no big deal. Besides, the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it, no less on a public blog.

Keep in mind all my kitchen essentials, except my masala dabba, are stored in the twenty square foot space which my dad calls a small kirana store (corner grocery store). Ok, my plates and bowls and glasses and kitchen utensils are also not in there.

Coming back to the sprouting onions and rotting potatoes, which promptly went on a date with the waste basket, the pantry was not as much a mess as it looked at first glance. The big cereal box from Costco was put on the top shelf, dwindling grains and lentils were transferred to cleaned, washed and saved up jam and salsa jars. The larger packets got their due space in bigger containers and canned goods were arranged with smaller ones on top of the larger ones.

Before you think I try to arrange my pantry like Ms. Martha Stewart, let me clarify. I grew up in a house where my mom cooked in a tiny kitchen. The first apartment I lived in after marriage had a galley kitchen so small I could touch the sink and stove with my arms extended. Six years later, when we bought our house, I was excited to have a pantry big enough to keep everything within easy reach.

Sabudana Khichdi 101 and a litany of rules

“I was on a high after mastering the art of making sabudana khichdi from a friend of mine.”

For the longest time I could never get the consistency of the sabudana khichdi right. I searched the net, I consulted friends and I even woke up at 5 AM to watch my sister-in-law make the khichdi. I experimented with different soaking methods over a week. An empty jar of sago later, I was no closer to making a soft khichdi then well… before the full jar.
Then one day, after eating one of the best s.khichdi at my friend R’s house, I told her I wasn’t leaving till she taught me how to cook it. She graciously took me under her wing and taught me. We soaked the sago together and I went back the next morning to learn how to make it.

These are the sago pearls of wisdom she imparted me with and now I pay them forward, once again! I did them once before here.

Pearl No 1: Wash the sabudana twice in plenty of water. Soak it overnight with ¼ inch of water on top of the sabudana. Cover the pot and forget about it till next day morning.

Pearl No 2: Use as little oil/ghee as necessary. Too much oil/ghee will make the sago pearls harder.

Pearl No 3: Once all the ingredients in the karahi are mixed, put the heat on low, cover the pot and forget about it for at least 10 min.

Ingredients:

1 cup Sabudana, soaked overnight or at least an hour
1 potato (boiled or raw), cubed

1 tbsp ghee/ oil

¾ cup roasted crushed peanuts

1–2 green chillis

1 tsp jeera (cumin)

Salt to taste

Lemon juice and cilantro to garnish

Method:

Soak the sabudana overnight. The sago pearls should have become soft and almost doubled in size.
Heat 1 tblsp oil/ghee in a karahi. Add the jeera. Once it starts to splutter, add the chopped green chillis and the potatoes.

Meanwhile, mix the sabudana and the roasted peanut powder together with salt and a pinch of sugar.

As soon as the potatoes are cooked, add the sabudana mixture, stir and mix well.

Check for salt and chili. At this point, you can add more salt or red chili powder if needed. Cover the karahi, turn the heat to low and walk away for 10-15 min.

Come back and check. The sago pearls should be soft and plump by this time. Turn off the heat, sprinkle some lemon juice, garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

Alternative cooking in the microwave:

Add the cooked potatoes and green chillis to the sago mix and pop it in the microwave. Cook on high for a minute and then covered for another 30 seconds.

Note 1: If the soaked sago turns out sticky, it had too much water. Next time, use a little less.
Note 2: Do not be tempted to keep on checking on the sago during the soaking process. Walk away.

Note 3: Excessive handling of sago during the cooking process will make it sticky. On the other hand, if you feel the sago is a little dry, sprinkle a few drops of water or some lemon juice and cover. The steam will soften the sago.

Roasted Red Chili Peanuts

Bowl: Ikea

Place Mat: World Market

Peanuts: Sprouts Farmers Market

Taste: Spicy hot!

Entry: Jugalbandi's Click: Bi-Color event

Adding on to the recipe box

Vaishali’s Baghare Baingan


I am not a big fan of baingan (eggplants) but when Vaishali of Holy Cow! posted her recipe for Baghare Baingan , I had to try it. It had sesame seeds, coconut milk and peanuts which I love. Eggplant is also something Tushar likes a lot and I don’t cook often enough for him. Since I also love Tushar a lot, I decided to make the baingan Vaishali--style and find out if I liked them as much as my better half does. Well, I wasn’t surprised when not only did Tushar and I like it but our friends visiting from Houston for the weekend also couldn’t have enough of it. I just made three modifications and one omission to Vaishali’s recipe.
Modification No. 1: I used 1 tbsp of coriander cumin powder instead of 1 tbsp each of coriander powder and cumin powder.
Modification No 2: I added a whole can (14 oz) of coconut milk instead of ¼ cup. Hey, I like coconut, what can I say.
Modification No 3: Instead of tamarind pulp, I added 2 tbsp of tomato puree.
Omission: I omitted poppy seeds (khus khus) because I ran out of it.

Thanks to you Vaishali this finger licking recipe is now an integral part of my recipe box.

Few Weddings and a Chutney (Till Kuttaa)

I have always enjoyed attending weddings especially the ones in my family. Every time one of my numerous cousins would get married our whole family would converge to participate and help in the wedding preparation. While the kids were busy running around and the bride-to-be shopping all over town, my mom and aunts would gather in the kitchen and cook food while catching up on family gossip. Through all those scrumptious meals the one constant for me was my mom’s sesame and peanut chutney or till kuttaa as it is called in Maharashtrian households. She would make a big jar of it and everyone had it by the spoonful with their meals. It is also a dining table staple in our house the rest of the year as well.


It is one of those things you get so used to you never pay much attention to it -- till you have to make it. When I decided to enter Think Spice – Sesame event, hosted by Padmaja and originally started by Sunitha , I immediately thought of my mom’s sesame chutney. Of course, my mom always eyeballed the ingredients so all I could get from her over the phone was “a handful of seasame and a bowl of peanut, some red chili and some grated coconut.” I experimented with different proportions of peanuts and sesame till I found the right match. Here’s my mom’s sesame peanut chutney.

Sesame Peanut Chutney

Ingredients:

1 cup peanuts, roasted and crushed

¼ cup sesame seeds

4 tbsp shredded dry coconut

1 clove of garlic (optional)

1 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp sugar

Salt to taste

Method:

Dry roast the sesame seeds on low heat till they start to pop. Separately dry roast the shredded coconut till it turns a light brown color.

Let the sesame seeds and coconut cool down. Grind all the ingredients in a mini food processor or blender to a coarse consistency.

Caution: Do not grind it too much or the oils from the sesame, peanuts and coconut will make the chutney lumpy.

The chutney will keep in an air tight jar for up to two weeks if you don’t finish it off first.

This chutney also goes off to Pavani of Cook's Hideout who is hosting JFI -- Peanuts this month, originally started by Mahanandi .

Rohini’s Sabudana (Tapioca) Khichdi

This recipe is courtesy of my friend Rohini. For the longest time I could never get the consistency of the sabudana right. It would either be too dry or too lumpy. Thanks to Rohini not any more. According to her there are three important tips to making the softest, non-lumpy sabudana khichdi and they all work for me.
Tip No 1: Wash the sabudana twice in plenty of water. Then soak it overnight with ¼ inch of water on top of the sabudana. Cover the pot and forget about it till next day morning.
Tip No 2: Do not put more oil/ ghee than necessary. Too much oil will not make the khichdi taste any better, instead it will end up spoiling the texture.
Tip No 3: Once all the ingredients in the karahi are mixed, put the heat on low, cover the pot and forget about it for at least 10 min.

1 cup Sabudana
1 potato (boiled or raw)
¾ cup roasted crushed peanuts
1 – 2 green chillis
1 tsp jeera (cumin)
Salt to taste
Lemon slices and cilantro to garnish

Soak the sabudana overnight. (Ref to Tip No 1 above). It should almost double in size and the kernels should not be sticky. If they are, you put too much water.
Heat 1 tblsp oil/ghee in a karahi. Add the jeera. Once it starts to splutter, add the chopped green chillis and the potatoes.
Meanwhile, mix the sabudana and the roasted peanut powder together with salt and a pinch of sugar.
As soon as the potatoes are cooked, add the sabudana mixture, stir and mix well.
Check for salt and chilli. At this point, you can add more salt or red chilli powder if needed. Cover the karahi, turn the heat to low and walk away for 10-15 min.
Come back and check. The khichdi should be soft and yummy by this time. Turn off the heat, sprinkle some lemon juice, garnish with cilantro and serve hot.