Charred tomato, green chillies Smitten, Gingery-Skinned-Potatoes

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Rustic old ways. Memories. Earthen. So real. And so inspiring.

When baskety mornings weave unreal dreams. And the thoughts enough to fill the day with shimmery senses.

When the sunlight playing hide n seek in the early morning hours, lure you to wake up to reality mixed with bitter, sweet hopes..waves of emotions that almost give you a headache, a hangover…that can only be cured as the day passes by with assuring and reassuring moments as the clock ticks by…

Now, coming back to the post..if you want to taste something real different and comforting.. this is the simple recipe to go for.

Charring has such a rusticness and burst of flavours  attached to it. Isn’t it? Never tried. Its never too late!

For this recipe take two big fresh tomatoes and put them over fire. Place it over your gastop directly which is the easiest  to do in an ordinary town kitchen.

Till the pulp goes all charred and charcolish. Aah.. the words itself now blend with the aroma that fills up the room.

Do the same with three to four green chillies. The green chillies should have heat in them to add to the flavours.

Green chilies and tomatoes..charred make for an impactful flavour together.

Parellel, parboil few potatoes with their skins on and some salt sprinkled while boiling them!

Once  the tomatoes and green chillies are ready.. heat a pan and drizzle some mustard oil till smoky!

Mustard oil adds to the real punch of flavours too here!

Add lots of grated ginger (about 2 tbsp) and stir fry on high heat with lotsa chopped coriander leaves.

Stir till they almost turn brownish. Add the tomatoes and mash them with a masher.

And chopped charred green chillies. Lower heat and stir for few secs.

Add the potatoes and mix them up well. Let the potatoes be stirred for atleast 2 to 3 minutes till it almost gets that roasted texture. Add some turmeric powder and salt. Throw in just a pinch of sugar.

Stir and then add very little water. Cover and let cook in slowly for another 10 minutes.

Squeeze some lemon on top.

The goodness of these charred veggies will beg for you to have these with your loved ones amidst a lot of greenery and love and conversations of fond memories! So, have it with steamed rice sprinkled with mustard oil (blissful combination of rice and raw mustard oil) and bites of raw diced onions sprinkled with some salt, lemon and raw chilly powder. Assuring you an unsophisticatedly lovely, charry, smoky, earthy, rustic, heavenly experience!

Do let me know!

Sweet Mushy Banana Coconuty Fritters

 

 

Happens to me a lot..but these fritters… I tell you they are delicious if you have the slightest of sweet tooth!

 

 

 

 

I enjoy very particular kind of sweet stuff.

And I love these. Have always done. Sweet, savoury, deep fried,  with a lingering soft taste in the mouth and something you can pop in the mouth the next day too…and the next…

Nostalgia. Family. Togetherness.  The fritters personify these things and more…

HOW  DO I MAKE IT ?

Take two almost ripe bananas to prepare this recipe. Mash them and keep aside.

3/4th cup all purpose flour / maida

Two tbsp wheat flour/ aata

One tbsp rava/sooji/semolina (For crispiness)

Two tbsp rice flour (For crispiness)

l/4th cup of ready made desiccated coconut or better still FRESHLY GRATED COCONUT..

3/4 cup of milk

1/4th cup of condensed milk

half a cup of sugar

2 tbsp jaggery

1 tsp baking powder and a punch of baking soda (Just avoid if you don’t want to use these)

 

 

 

 

Mix mashed banana, sieved all purpose flour, sieved wheat flour, sieved rava (semolina), sieved rice flour, coconut,  and sieved baking powder and soda together.

Now, preheat a deep bottomed solid pan to melt the sugar and jaggery. I usually screw up sugar caramelization process so got to be careful if you are new at this too..

Once slightly preheated add the sugar granules. Let them turn brown from the edges. Stir initially and then stop stirring to avoid them from getting crystallized. These sugary lil things can turn evil and go all sticky and hard within miliseconds.. Add the jaggery pieces after 10 secs or so . Just when the sugar granules are slightly light brown add the milk and stir till it all mixes well into a smooth consistency.

Add this beautiful liquid to the dry mixture of flour. Add slowly and keep mixing with a whisk  to avoid lumps. Add the condensed milk and let it cuddle up well too.The consistency should be slightly runny like a pancake batter but not too thin or thick. Add milk accordingly.

Now, while this liquid rests, take a deep bottomed pan in a gastop  and fill with two cups of oil for deep frying. I like to add 1/4th of clarified butter or ghee too for a beautiful flavour.  Let the oil get smoky on medium flame.

Now, take a ziplock plastic bag and fill it with the banana, flour mixture that you have already gotten ready. Or use hands!

In the hot oil deep fry by slowly adding little rounds of the mixture. See how they puff up ! 🙂 Dont worry about the shapes 😉 its okay to have uneven shapes. They add to the rustic memories…and traditions of cooking homemade recipes..

 

 

Do it in a batch of 4 to 5 fritters if you are new at this.  Keep an eye to make sure the oil doesn’t get so hot as to burn up, so keep lowering the heat as and when you feel the fritters are going too dark. Look for golden brown . Try different shapes if you want.

Some like to shallow fry it too like tiny pancakes…

Let the oil get absorbed in a paper towel every time you take they off the pan after frying.

 

 

 

Participated in an interactive forum Fiesta Friday hosted at http://thenovicegardener.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

Sewai Kheer/ Vermicelli dessert – a rich noodly milky delight

Sweet vermicelli kheer or dessert

A lil birdie visited me today. I saw her and thought to myself, she must be hungry… And so was I… Well she flew away, but the thought remained…

The TV telecasted sweet savories and the mind played tunes of some sweet and bitter memories…while calls poured in since it was a so-called special day…

While I sat back relaxed…not in the mind though, I decided to whip up  a sweet vermicelli/sewai kheer.

Rice Kheer is a popular dish on special occasions, but many like the sewai version better because its less heavy and tastes beautiful and sometimes like sweet soupy noodly goodly delight…

As Wikipedia aptly informs…”Vermicelli is a traditional type of pasta round in section similar to spaghetti.…The dish in the original language are variously known as seviyan in Urdu and Hindi, shemai in Bengali, sev in Gujarati, shavige in Kannada, sevalu or semiya in Telugu, and semiya in Tamil and Malayalam. The noodles are used in a number of dishes including a variation of kheer, a sweet dessert similar to rice pudding. Vermicelli are also used in many parts of India to make a popular dish called upma. ”

Sometimes, you don’t want a full fancy meal but want to revive old memories…you want replicate the original with right proportions..and nothing fusiony, experimental.. because somethings are good the good’ol original way!

For this recipe for two servings..

–>You need One litre of full cream good quality milk. Since milk is the main ingredient here. So no comprise!

–>Half a fist of sewai/vermicilli or a ratio of 2:6 (6 being milk)

–>Sugar: one fourth quantity of the milk or 2 to 3 tbsps of sugarfree sweetners for the calorie conscious.. sigh!

–>Milkmaid or condensed milk

–> Cashews, raisins, almonds

–>Cardamom powder if you like the taste of cardamom

–>Saffron (Optional..add if you want to add that shaahi/royal touch)

• Let the milk boil in a deep thick bottomed pot on low flame till reduced. Try reducing it to half by continuously supervising that the milk doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pan. You can ensure that by stirring it in between, and keeping a ladle in the milk.

• Take  another pan and roast the broken vermicelli in half tsp of ghee/clarified butter.
• Use a roasted vermicelli packet in which case you need to roast these for 2 to 3 minutes only otherwise till lightly pink or golden brown.

• Keep the vermicilli aside and roast the nuts in the same pan in ghee and switch off flame once they are just about roasted. Keep an eye to avoid burning of these nutty nuts.
• Meanwhile once the milk starts reducing add the sugar and milkmaid.

• After stirring and having reduced the milk to desired level,  add the vermicelli evenly.  (Actually since we are using condensed milk, you might avoid reducing it all the way to half, reducing it just a little to get a thicker texture is enough)

• Stir to avoid lumps from forming.
• Add the raisins so that they swell up and cuddle up with the lovely ingredients that have already created a storm in the pot with a lovely aroma.

• After another 10 to 12  minutes add the roasted nuts and if you like few roasted grated almonds.
• Sprinkle little pinch of cardamom powder.
• Add the few saffron strands.
• Switch off the flame.
• Let it stand for couple of minutes. Serve slightly warm in your favourite bowl and I say two spoons for a sweet, memorable experience with your loved one.

Might be good to keep in mind:

–> Vermicelli  have a tendency to thicken up in milk so its better to take lesser quantity compared to the milk and have it warm.
–>Roasting the nuts before adding to the kheer helps get a rich aroma, although personally I like the kheer without any nuts or raisins somehow
–>The things with such sweet /dessert is that the proportion is very important and the method helps make or break the dish.
–>Sometimes lot of people do not reduce the milk for this kind of dessert, but reducing it gives the rich gooey creamy taste and texture of milk that makes the cooking worth it. Just make sure that the quantity of vermicelli is much much lesser to the milk.

–>Once you add the vermicelli the texture starts thickening. So its good to keep an eye.

–>If you in trouble reducing the milk and to not burn it at the bottom consider using a thick bottomed kadhai and you are safe!

–> Try the chilled version with kulfi and some chopped cadbury chocolates for another heavenly experience

–>Adding the raisins while cooking helps them swell up which many love to eat that way only

  

Participated in the interactive forum Fiesta Friday hosted at http://thenovicegardener.wordpress.com/

Sauteed roasted boiled potatoes with butter & black pepper

When you feel like having nothing but something… 

 

 

Something comforting, delicious yet light…that melts into your mouth and satisfies that sudden craving for munching onto something memorable…try this easy recipe..

 

4 to 5 Potatoes: Pressure cooked with two whistles maximum

Peel off the skin. Cut these cooked potatoes into two portions.

Use a sautepan, season/pre-heat  it.

Drizzle few drops of oil (to avoid the butter from burning).

Add two tsp of butter and spread evenly. Add the potatoes to it and saute for 5 to 6 mins into the butter till it turns slightly golden and crisp.

Sprinkle half tsp black pepper powder, hint of salt, oregano, sprinkles of minutely cut green chillies and pinch of red chilly powder.

Atlast add finely chopped pinch of coriander leaves.

Tastes heavenly!

Image source: Google images

 

 

adrak ki chai and life!

Ginger tea is the quint-essential ingredient to my day!
The flavour rejuvenates my senses and can make one believe in life all over again 😉

Tea and India is an inseparable pair. To know more about Tea/ Chai read below.

Chai (pronounced as a single syllable and rhymes with ‘pie’) is the word for tea in many parts of the world. It is a centuries-old beverage which has played an important role in many cultures.

Excerpt from chai-tea.org/ :

Chai from India is a spiced milk tea that has become increasingly popular throughout the world. It is generally made up of:

• rich black tea
• heavy milk
• a combination of various spices
• a sweetener
The spices used vary from region to region and among households in India. The most common are cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and pepper. Indian chai produces a warming, soothing effect, acts as a natural digestive aid and gives one a wonderful sense of well being. It’s difficult to resist a second cup.

 

 

Drinking chai is part of life in India and most Indian’s are amazed at all the current fuss in the West. Many who have traveled in India come away with fond chai drinking experiences. We have included many of these in our Chai Experiences section.

In the past three years we’ve seen a phenomenal growth in the popularity and interest in chai. Chai has become very common at over-the-counter specialty beverage shops and there is a growing line of prepackaged consumer products. Many industry analysts are predicting that chai will eventually become as popular and common as coffee lattes and cappuccinos.

Great chai can often be found in Indian restaurants along with great food, but making your own chai provides immense satisfaction (and makes the house smell yummy!). Recipes and tastes for chai vary widely and a multitude of chai recipes are used around the world.

Indian grocers carry various chai masala mixes which you can use to make your own chai. Commercially produced concentrates can be found at many health food grocers and coffee shops. Ingredients for making your own chai are available just about everywhere. See our Recipes Section for a wide variety of chai recipes.

Of course the modern world has elevated chai to new planes of experience–chai ices, milkshakes, chocolate chai, non-fat, low-cal sweeteners, decaf, and so on. We have included a section on New Chai Serving Ideas.

We prefer traditional freshly made chai: hot, creamy, fragrant with black tea, fresh cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, peppercorns and enough sugar to bring out the spice flavor. While we personally drink regular tea without sugar, chai must have sweetness or the spices seem to lose their full robustness.

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How to make Ginger Tea:

For making 2 cuppa Chai/Tea:

Take half a cup of water in a saucepan and heat. When its starts bubbling, add half tsp of chai patti or branded tea leaves to it (I prefer red label natural or even tajmahal is good)

 

 

 

 

Along with it add half tablespoon of of grated ginger. Add two cloves, and tiny bit of crushed elaichi to it and tiny pinch of black pepper powder. Let it come to further boil till a gentle yet strong aroma fills your senses to the brim!

Image Source: spicelines.com

Add 1 and half cup of milk to the liquid along with 2 big spoons of sugar as desired.

Switch off the gas/flame/stove for half a  minute.

Switch it on again and bring to a quick boil.

Strain the same through a sieve and relish the monsoons!

 

 

Tricks &  Tips:

1)Keep a check that the final output that is the chai is not too blackish in colour . The colour should be slightly brownish and milkish. So make sure not to add too much of tea leaves and not too boil it beyond a point.

2) Stuff other than ginger are optional. It varies according to taste preference.

3)Its good to taste a slightly creamy frothfilled chai just like coffee..just not to that extent. So, all you need to do it keep stirring the liquid in between once milk is added and making it slightly frothy as possible.

4)Serve/have this tea hot! Sip it as ease to relish the flavours.

5)Try Mathris/bhujia sev or your fav biscuits with it just like Oreos dipped in milk 🙂

6) Make sure to separate the cream/malai from milk while adding to the liquid