Cauliflower Sambar

"Confessions of a cook book-aholic?" I am a sucker for cook books. I go weak in my knees when I walk through a book store and see all those colorful cook books adorning the shelves. Don't know what I am addicted to - the glossy prints, tempting pictures, smell of the fresh print? Whatever it is, I find it very hard to resist the temptation. Thank god for Amazon - the wish list option and a great spouse who actually is very kind towards my obsession (hope he takes the hint..lol..). I can proudly say I am an avid cook book collector and my loot is prominently displayed in the house. But the most intriguing part of all this is I seldom follow the recipe to the "T", most of the time am in a hurry or just plain lazy to open the book measure the ingredients etc. I curl up with my cook books and read it like I would a regular novel/fiction and if something interests me I make it a point to try it out before it is displaced from my memory. Am sure most of you out there will relate to this. But to be fair, I do once in a while have the cookbook open and follow the recipe meticulously - with great results.

I can categorize my cook books depending on how I use them. For instance, books such as Mark Bittman's How to cook Everything Vegetarian and Jacques Pepin's Complete techniques are my bible/encyclopedia category. There are a few other which I use to look at the pictures and drool :-) And some more which are my go-to books for authentic Indian cooking such as Dakshin by Chandra Padmanabhan and Cooking at home with Pedatha. I love the simplicity of the recipes and the lovely pictures in Dakshin especially.

The following recipe, cauliflower sambar, is my adaptation of the original recipe found in Dakshin. I took a shortcut by substituting sambar powder where the original recipe calls for grinding the masala. But the end result was very tasty. My husband says it tastes like a hybrid between sambar and korma !!

Ingredients
1 medium sized cauliflower (washed, separated into florets)
2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup toor dal
1/4-1/2 cup thick tamarind water (or as required)
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
3 tbsp Sambar Powder
1 tsp turmeric
asafoetida, a pinch

Tempering
1 tsp urad dal
2 tsp mustard
4-6 curry leaves
2 red chillies
2 tsp oil
A pinch of asafoetida

Method

1. Pressure cook toor dal along with one cup water and tomatoes, until the dal is well-cooked (normally 4 whistles and wait for the steam to be released naturally). Alternatively, you can cook the dal on the stove top for 30 minutes. Mash the dal and tomatoes well. Set aside.
2. In a quart pan, heat oil. Add urad dal. Let it turn light brown in color. Now add the mustard. Wait until it starts spluttering. Now add red chillies, curry leaves and asafoetida.
3. Add cauliflower, turmeric, asafoetida and some salt. Saute for a few minutes, until cauliflower is tender.
4. Add tamarind water. Boil for for 3 minutes or until the raw smell of the tamarind disappears.
5. Add sambar powder. Mix well.
6. Now add the mashed dal/tomatoes. Taste, adjust salt and seasoning (add more sambar powder if required).
7. Allow it to boil for a few more minutes. Add the coconut milk. Allow it to boil just for a minute.
8. Remove from heat. Serve hot with rice, idli, dosa or aappam.

Enjoy !!

MMC Ingredient 2 - Pearl Onion

The second MMC challenge is:

Sunday Lunch from Mom's Kitchen:
Pearl Onion Sambar/Chinni vengaya Sambar/ Chummna Kandhecha Sambar

For the 2nd week of our MMC challenge, M brought a twist to the story. He gave me a choice of 3 ingredients out of which I had to pick one and give my reasons for choosing it. The three ingredients are:

1. Pearl Onion
2. Dates
3 Orange Juice

As soon as I heard the choices, I thought I knew right away what I was going to choose - Pearl Onions. I wanted to share with you all one of my mom's signature dishes - Sambar with Pearl Onions. But just a few minutes later, I could hear the Dates calling my name :-) I always wanted to use Dates other than in sweet chutney that we use for Chaat. So I thought this challenge is a good platform to use Dates in a innovative way. But the nostalgia & "Mom sentiment" won over innovation and I decided to go ahead and choose Pearl onion. So I am hoping "Mom senti" will sway the judge as well as it did me :-)

When I was young, this sambar was our Sunday special lunch with Aloo subji or with idlis for the Diwali eve dinner that my mom makes. Pearl onions also known as "Madras Onions" are widely available in Madras where I grew up. These tiny ones have a very different taste, much less pungent and sweeter than their larger counterpart. But the main problem with these is peeling them. Though these onions dont bring as much tears to your eyes like the bigger ones, they still are pretty potent and added to this was the miniature size that makes it hard to peel. So before we actually got to enjoy the dish we had to go through the grueling work of peeling the onions.

Preparing the onions prior to cooking was a big chore; obviously those were the days before the comfort of frozen or ready to cook vegetables was readily available. My dad used to soak it in cold water to remove the dirt/mud and then all us kids had to sit down and help him peel. Wet onions, sticky peel - not a good combination; I used to hate this chore. But.. oh so in love was I with the dish that I didnt mind all the trouble. Me being the enforcer of gender equality in the household, I would fight really hard with my brothers accusing them of not doing the chore but getting to enjoy the reward alone. As any of you who grew up with brothers might know, Sunday morning will invariably have a few different cricket matches that my brothers had to run too. So it was pretty convenient for them that they'd be out the whole morning and show up just in time for the sumptuous lunch. I used to get so angry at them then but thinking of it now brings a smile to my face thinking of all that silliness :-)

So here's the Sambar with Pearl Onion the way my mom makes but in my kitchen. My mom never gives me exact measurement for any recipe coz as most mom's, she herself doesnt use any standard measurement. Its always a handful of this or a handful of that. So I have tried a few different version and have standardized it to our taste.

Note:

1. I like the taste of Dhaniya/coriander. So I have been a bit liberal with it.
2. I have used frozen red pearl onions (thawed in the microwave for a few min). You can use fresh ones as well if available.
   
3. The speciality of this dish is the inclusion of cloves and cinnamon bark. These two spices sets this recipe apart from the Tamilian/Keralite "arachivitta sambar" (Sambar with ground coconut based masala).
4. I love my pressure cooker for cooking dal as it saves me lotsa time. If you dont have a pressure cooker, boil the dal with or without onions for 20 to 30 minutes until well cooked. Soaking the toor dal in warm water for 1/2 hr prior to cooking it will help quicken the cooking process.
   
5. My husband does not share my love for the pearl onions the way I do. He is not too keen the whole pearl onions but loves the flavor when they are cooked into the dal. So I normally pressure cook the onions with dal. But if you want to retain the wholeness of the onions, I would suggest sauteing it with the mustard and jeera (step 3), wait until it gets tender before adding tamarind water.
6. I find it easy to use tamarind concentrate. But if you have tamarind, soak it in water and extract the pulp. Use 1/4 cup thick pulp in place of 1 tbsp tamarind concentrate. Depending on the sourness you'd like, adjust the amount of tamarind in the recipe. I normally go easy on the tamarind.
   
7. Masala can be made ahead of time. Can be refrigerated for a couple of days or may be frozen for almost a month.
   

Ingredients
12 oz red pearl onions (white ones are fine as well. Save a few to be blended with the masala)
3/4 cup toor dal
1 cup water
1 to 11/4 tbsp tamarind concentrate (dissolve it in 1/4 cup water)
1 tsp turmeric
A few pinches of asafoetida
Salt to taste

Masala -
1/2 cup dhaniya (coriander seeds)
2 tbsp chana dal
2 tsp Jeera (cumin seeds)
1/2 tsp methi seeds (Fenugreek)
1 inch stick cinnamon bark
6 cloves
5-6 red chillies
1/4 cup coconut (dessicated, fresh or frozen)
3-4 nos. pearl onions
1/4 cup water (or as needed)

Tadka
2 tbsp oil
2 tsp chana dal
2 red chillies
1 tsp Jeera (cumin)
1 tsp mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves

Method

1. For masala: Dry roast each ingredient given under Masala (except water, obviously) until they turn light brown and aromatic. Let it cool. Grind into a smooth paste with water. Set aside.
2. Pressure cook the dal and onions with one cup water, a pinch of turmeric and a few drops of oil. I normally allow 3-4 whistle and this works best for my cooker. Turn off the heat and let the pressure release naturally.
   
3. In a medium sized pot, heat oil and add all the ingredient for tadka starting with the dals. Let the mustard and curry leaves splutter.
4. Now add the tamarind concentrate dissolved in water. Add turmeric and asafoetida. Allow this to boil until the raw smell of tamarind disappears. (5 min or so)
5. Now add the cooked dal and the ground masala. Add more water only if necessary. Stir frequently.
   
6. Adjust seasoning, simmer for another 5 min to 10 min, until the masala gets cooked.
   
7. Garnish with a few drops of sesame oil. Serve with hot rice. Goes well with Idlis or Dosas too.

Enjoy !!

Sol Kadi (Coconut milk and kokum gravy)

Sol kadi is a konkani dish made out of coconut milk, kokum and cilantro. This makes a complete meal when served along with rice or khichdi. A thinner version of this dish makes a very good soup. There are a few different ways of making this dish and the recipe I follow is from one of my friends who got it from her mom.

My love affair with sol kadi started almost 7 yrs ago when my friend introduced me to this tasty concoction. It was our first year in grad school, all of us students trying to live & learn together, far away from our family and taking care of way too many things than what we thought we had signed up for. On one of our very busy weekday, when we were craving for some comfort food, my friend served us sol kadi with khichdi. Her mom used to make it with coconut milk extracted out of coconut and a paste made of cilantro and green chillies. But here we were, pressed for time and with a ill-equiped kitchen. She made do with a bottle of the cilantro chutney that you get in the Indian store and canned coconut milk. And for the rest of the evening we forgot all our troubles and were licking the pot clean :-)

Now that I have graduated in more than one way, with a better kitchen: I grind my own masala with cilantro though I still seek the comfort of using coconut milk from the can. Kokum is very easily available in most of the Indian grocery stores. Kokum imparts the sour flavor to the dish. You can extract its juice by soaking it in warm water. However, I add Kokum directly to the Kadi and it does taste yummy with all the coconuty goodness. Wash the Kokum well to get rid of the dirt that is normally found in the store bought ones. If you like coconut/coconut milk you will love this dish and it is unbelievable that a dish this simple can taste so yummy....

Ingredients
1 can coconut milk
5-8 kokum pieces
4 green chillies
1 medium bunch cilantro/coriander leaves
1 clove garlic
1/4 inch ginger
salt to taste
1 tsp jeera
2 tsp oil

Method

1. Grind chillies, garlic, ginger and cilantro into a smooth paste. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a pan, add jeera and when it starts to splutter add the ground paste.
3. Saute for 2-3 min and then add kokum.
4. Now add coconut milk and allow it to cook for a few min (3-4 min).
5. Adjust seasoning and turn off the heat.

Serve with plain rice or khichidi.

To make a lighter version for soup, dilute half a can of coconut milk with half a cup water.

Enjoy !!

Baingan (eggplant) Masala

Summer this year has, like every summer before it, gone by too fast and fall is knocking at the door. As much as I love fall and the festive season it brings, I cant help but be sad when summer comes to an end. To add to my end-of-summer blues, this season I couldn't even do as much farmer's-market-shopping as I would've liked to. Makes me envious of the blessed few in CA who enjoy farmer's markets all through the year. Sighs apart, I feel thankful for friends that do manage to go vegetable-picking and share their little bounties from such trips. One such friend went vegetable-picking on one of those rare sunny weekends (this summer was such a washout for us in the East Coast) and she shared the veggies that she'd picked - delightful eggplant, robust-looking potatoes and ...
Here is the recipe for Eggplant masala I made with those yummy freshly picked eggplants. I love eggplant but bitter ones are a major turnoff for me (so are the ones filled with seeds). As all eggplant aficianados know, one bitter eggplant is sufficient to spoil the entire dish - so, I am extra careful in choosing them. For the small Indian variety, I prefer the lovely tender ones without spots - but these tend to be seasonal (even in our trusty local Indian grocery shops). However, I have almost always had good luck with the more readily available Italian or Japanese variety as well. The following recipe works well for the Indian, Japanese and Italian varieties quite well.

Note: Cut eggplant into 1" cubes and drop them into salted warm water. This helps reduce the bitterness if any in the eggplant.

Ingredients:
6 medium sized eggplant (baingan)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp jeera (cumin)
1 tsp mustard
2 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp amchoor powder (dry mango powder)
2 tsp dhaniya-jeera (cumin-coriander) powder
Cilantro, finely chopped for garnish (optional)
1 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan, when it gets hot add jeera, mustard, minced ginger and garlic.
2. Once garlic gets golden brown, add onions. Saute it for a few minutes until onions brown.
3. Now add tomatoes, turmeric and salt. Cook until the raw smell of tomatoes disappears.
4. Now add the cut pieces of eggplant and cook for about 5 min until the pieces are tender and well-cooked.
5. Now add amchoor powder, red chilli powder, garam masala and dhaniya-jeera powder.
6. Saute for a few more minutes until the spices get incorporated well.
7. Garnish with cilantro.
8. Serve hot with rotis/rice.

This will be my entry to "IAVW: Indian" hosted by Erbe in cucina. This event is a part of the series "It's a Vegan World: A food event" started by Vaishali of Holy Cow - Recipes from a vegan Kitchen.
Enjoy !

Simple Tomato Chutney

Everytime I make tomato chutney, it brings back memories of grad school. A small university town, harsh winters, chugging along trying to finish grad school would make even the bravest of souls depressed. The best anti-depressants we had to tide over those blues were food and friends. Put the two together and you have potluck parties - our secret to tasty yet inexpensive entertainment. Each one of our friends had different specialities; even the ones that paid only ceremonial visits to the kitchen had some yummy little recipe up their sleeve. And tomato chutney was one such specialty of one of my friends. He made it almost always unless he decided that we needed a change and switched over to rasam. And needless to say we always licked the bowl clean !! :-)
Here is my recipe for making tomato chutney really quick. I use it with everything from rice to rotis/parathas to dosa/idlies. This is the chutney I had mentioned in my previous blog to go with the buckwheat crepes.
I have used methi powder to give this chutney a pickle like taste. But if you dont have it, no worries. The chutney tastes perfectly good even without it.

To make the methi powder: Dry roast the methi seeds and grind it into a powder. Store the powder in an air-tight container. Stays well in the fridge for months.

Ingredients:
4-5 medium sized tomatoes or 1 14oz can diced tomatoes
1 small onion
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp chana dal or yellow split peas
1 tbsp split urad dal
1 tsp jeera (cumin)
1 tsp mustard seeds
4-5 red chillies
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp methi powder (fenugreek powder) - optional
salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a saute pan.
2. When it is hot add chana dal and urad dal. Then add jeera and mustard seeds.
3. When they start to sputter, add red chillies, then onions.
4. Saute until onions turn light brown. Now add the tomatoes, sugar, salt and turmeric.
5. Let it cook for 5 to 10 min or until raw smell of tomato disappears and oil oozes out on the sides.
6. Now add methi powder, stir once and then switch off the flame.
7. Serve with rice, rotis, idlis or dosa.

Enjoy !!

Cooking in a Jiffy - Green Beans Koottu

With cooking time reduced to an hour or less, I have started looking for innovative ways to cut down the cooking time. A friend of ours from Ames was visiting us and we had a mini get together talking about good old grad school days. As usual the talk veered towards cooking and we were reminiscing those simpler grad school days, living with room mates, taking turns to cook where one ended up cooking for just once or twice a week. Now that we have all moved on to the next phase in life, living with significant others or living all alone, working 8-10 hours a day, cooking on an everyday basis is getting harder. But I guess each one of us has tried out different things and have finally managed to devise our own ways to tackle this day-to-day problem.
Eating out is a very simple alternative but may not be good for health or for the wallet. Cooking 4 different dishes or so on Sundays, as one of my friends does eliminates the need to cook over most part of the week. Yet another way to minimize cooking time is to partially cook and freeze the dish for use over the week. And this is my way of saving cooking time on weekdays. In fact I try to make substantial amounts of masala for different dishes, portion control it and store in the freezer. This way, a major part of my cooking is taken care of and it hardly takes 15-20 to mix the masala with veggies or lentils to make an entire dish.

Heads up: Time saving tips

• Grind coconut, jeera, peppercorn and green chillies ahead of time and pop the ground mixture in the freezer. This stays good for 2-3 weeks. Increase the amount of ingredients to four fold (or as per your need), grind it all at once, portion it into 4 different containers and use it on 4 different days.
• Beans is just one of the veggies that I had on hand. Feel free to substitute it with cabbage, greens, carrot & peas or just about any vegetable.

Ingredients:
2 cups chopped green beans (1/2" long pieces)
1 cup moong dal
1/4 cup toor dal
One large pinch of turmeric.

To grind: (This part can be done ahead of time and the masala stays good in the freezer for 3-4 weeks)
1/2 cup shredded coconut
2 tsp jeera
2 green chillies
5-7 peppercorns

For tadka:
2 tsp oil
1 tsp channa dal
2 tsp split urad dal
2 tsp jeera
1 tsp mustard
A few pinch hing
Few curry leaves
cilantro for garnish.

Method:

1. Boil green beans and dal until well cooked, about 20 min.
2. Soak all the ingredients listed under 'to grind" for 15 min and then grind well to a smooth paste.
3. Add the ground mixture to boiled dal and beans.
4. Let this mixture boil for 15 min.
5. In a small kadai heat 3 tsp oil, add all the ingredients for tadka.
6. Add the tadka to the boiling mixture and let it boil for 2 more min.
7. Garnish with cilantro (optional).
8. Goes well with rice or roti.

Isn't that simple....

And this is my entry to "WYF: Colour in Food" event hosted by Simple Indian Food blog.

Ghatte ki Subji (Steamed Chickpeas Flour Dumpling in Onion-Tomato Gravy)

Moving from one royalty to another, from the Mughals to the Rajputs. The recipe I am sharing with you all today is a Rajasthani dish called ghatte ki subji. Rajasthan being a desert and all has limited availability of fresh veggies and water. Hence the cuisine is greatly influenced by ingredients that were readily available such as dried lentils, flour. Besan (gram flour) is widely used to make ghatta (pl. ghatte), pakodi etc. Ghattes can be used in subji, kadi or even pulao. Once the ghatte are ready, the whole dish can be made within 20-30 min which makes this a wonderful dish for a busy weekday meal. To boost its nutritional value, I have added bell peppers; vegetables such as carrots, cauliflower etc can be also added.

Ingredients:
For Ghatta:
2 cups besan
1 tsp ajwain
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp Dhania-jeera powder
1/2 tsp amchoor
2-3 tbsp vegetable oil salt to taste
For gravy:
1 onion
3 tomatoes
2 bell pepper (cut into big pieces)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced
11/2 chilli powder
2 tsp dhania-jeera powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp amchoor
1 tsp jeera
1 tsp fennel
2 tsp thick yogurt or sour cream
1 tsp kasoori methi
cilantro for garnish

Method:
Ghatta:

1. Mix all the ingredients for the ghatta with enough water to form a tight dough (like that of a chapathi dough).
2. Roll it out into an inch thick cylinder and cut into bite size pieces.
3. Drop the pieces into salted boiling water and let it cook for 10-15 min or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
4. Drain them and let it dry for a few mintues.
5. Shallow fry or saute these ghattes in a few tablespoon of oil.

At this point, ghattes can be frozen and they stay good for a month or so.

Gravy:

1. Heat oil in a saute pan, add fennel and jeera.
2. Add ginger, garlic and onions. Saute until the onions are golden brown.
3. Now add the tomatoes, turmeric and salt. Cook until the raw smell of tomato disappears.
4. Add chilli powder, dhania-jeera powder, amchoor and let it cook until it becomes thick.
5. Now add the yogurt/sour cream and mix in bell peppers.
6. Add 1/2 cup water and let it boil for 5 min or until the bell peppers are cooked but firm.
7. Now add the ghatte and let it boil for 10 more mins or until the ghatte are soft.
8. Sprinkle the kasoori methi and cilantro.

Serve with hot rice or roti.

This post is my contribution for the "curry mela" blog event hosted by Srivalli of Cooking 4 all seasons blog. Hope you all like it :-)