Friday Frames | A rose is a...

Have a great weekend!

Fenugreek leaves/Menthi kura pappu

Toor dal in the cooker is like a meal made already for me. You could either add a few vegetables along with it or cook them separately, either ways you have a meal ready in about 30 mins. I usually make tomato/spinach/budamakaya (lemon cucumber) but when I can find fresh fenugreek leaves I use them to make this flavorful pappu. Fresh methi/menthi kura has a pungent flavor and when cooked its aromatic and addictive. I love it in all its forms -seeds, fresh & dried leaves.

The seeds are my best friend while making idli/dosa batter at home and also are a crucial part of pickles, the best condiment ever made. During summer, every morning my mom would force me to eat a cup of yogurt that had the seeds soaking in them overnight. This same mixture when applied to hair before washing acts a  great hair conditioner too.  Diabetics and nursing mothers are recommended a higher intake of these seeds due to their specific nutritive properties. The seeds are known to cool your body internally and even now when I see pimples peeping out, I immediately get some seeds soaking :) I always add a few seeds to the pressure cooker along with the toor dal too because otherwise I rarely use them in other recipes.

The dried leaves are that secret ingredient that adds the restaurant flavor that your north Indian curries made at home have been missing all this time. Crush a spoon of leaves in the palm of your hands and sprinkle it about 10mins before the gravy is done. The aroma that this adds and the flavor it brings will make you a want to hold the secret close to your heart when giving out recipes :) And the fresh leaves, aah, they are a delight to the taste buds. Unlike other greens, these guys have a robust flavor and are not shy to show it off. They are mildly bitter, a little sour and highly addictive :) My favorite way to use them is in aloo methi, thepla and true to my telugu roots, as pappu.

They do take some preparation when the mature plants are harvested. The stems get tough and leaves need to be picked off the stems when used for cooking. For tender plants though you can use the stems & leaves in the recipe. Fenugreek is really easy to grow at home, just soak the seeds in water for a few hours, allow them to drain and rest in a moist cheese cloth/tissue for 10-12hrs. You will see tiny sprouts begin to pop out, scatter them on loose soil and within a week you will see green stems peeking out. The plants in the photograph are < 3 weeks old. I am waiting to see how high they go before harvesting them. Not making any promises though :)

Menthi kura Pappu/Methi dal

Ingredients:

• 1 cup - Toor dal, washed & drained
• 1 cup, packed - Fenugreek leaves, washed
• 1/2 cup - Onions, sliced
• 1/2 cup - Tomatoes, chopped
• 2-3 nos - Green chillies (adjust to taste)
• a pinch of turmeric
• 1 Tbsp - thick Tamarind pulp extract or 1/2 tsp store bought paste
• 1/2 Tbsp - Oil
• Salt to taste
• Popu/flavor oil - 1 tsp ghee/oil, 1/2 tsp cumin & mustard seeds, a few curry leaves, 1 dried red chilli, sliced garlic or pinch of asafoetida/ inguva

Method:

1. Pressure cook the toor dal with pinch of hing. In another pan, heat the oil and saute sliced onions and green chillies. When the onions soften and turn translucent add chopped tomatoes, turmeric and cook until they turn mushy.
2. The washed, drained fenugreek leaves go in next, roughly chop them before adding if needed. Add a little salt and continue to cook until the leaves wilt and lose their rawness, ~ 6-8 mins.
3. The dal should be done by now, once the pressure is released add the methi leaves mixture to the dal along with tamarind pulp and cook for another 10-15mins on low simmer. Taste test for salt and add more water if needed to get to a consistency that you like.
4. Right before serving, add the popu by toasting the ingredients lightly in ghee and top it over the dal. Serve with hot rice or chapati.

Note:
You can cook all the ingredients together in the pressure cooker or, once the methi leaves are wilted in step 2 add the uncooked toor dal to the whole mixture, add required amount of water and continue cooking until done. Use a method thats convenient to you, each might have a very slight variation in taste.

I don't think I have to say how good pappu over a mound of warm rice tastes. Doing the popu in ghee at the very end will add a really great flavor and aroma to the pappu. The ghee mellows out all the high notes in the pappu and brings out the underlying creaminess of the dal. The methi is the real star of the dish though, its complex soury, bitter flavor is hard to explain and you will have to make this pappu to understand why so many of us love it.

Friday Frames | Homemade

Paneer flavored with pudina & jeera

Mint/Pudina Pulao

Dear Foodies,

Pudina is one of the those herbs that I think take time to get to the favorites list. As a kid I was definitely not a fan. My mother would make a fabulous chutney with it or add it to rasam but I just could not get myself to appreciate its strong flavor. I think the only way to get some of the pudina into me was in my dad's sandwich, which is still the best sandwich ever. But over the last few years I've gradually been adding it to recipes, initially just a few leaves sneaked in which did not really exert their presence. But later my love for chaat forced to make large batches of pudina chutney to use in bhel puri & sandwiches. I have even driven 40 mins to the Indian store to stock up on pudina, the measly sprigs sold at the regular stores just don't cut it for me.

Green Beans with Moong

Dear foodies,
Green beans are another of my favorites vegetables - quick cooking, delicious and very versatile. I use them when making pulaos, fried rice, pau bhaji, vegetable kurma and many other mixed vegetable recipes. I might have mentioned this before, but I cook by color to ensure that we have enough vegetables in our meal. I try to make sure that there are atleast 2-3 colors on the plate and green beans, of course, are the green component. I usually have them on hand, and a handful is just enough.

Friday Frames|Spring is coming

Dear Foodies,

Have a great weekend!

Eggless Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Dear Foodies,

During my Masters, we had a Subway sandwich place inside our campus and it was just outside the building that housed my lab. Needless to say a veggie sandwich was my lunch far more times than I can count. I hardly go there now, but every few months I start craving that sandwich. My sub would have most of the veggies and the dressing combo was always sweet onion & chipotle always. After a few months I did not have to repeat my selection at all, the moment I was spotted walking into the place, they would have my sandwich started. I had a well ordered 'usual' on the menu and recognized at most of lunch spots around campus. I know I should not be proud of it, but well it felt good in some twisted way...:) On the days that I knew I was going to have a long day ahead of me in the lab, I would add a cookie to my order at Subway, either the oatmeal raisin or the white chocolate macadamia nut. These cookies are massive, and a mini meal by themselves. I think this was my first introduction to cookies too, and though not the best ever, they atleast did not put me off cookies either. I've eaten many more cookies since, and also experimented with making them at home. These fabulous chocolate cookies were made last two Christmas's, to share with friends & family and I think it'll continue to become a tradition from now on.

One challenge that I face when baking at home is my aversion to using eggs. I've experimented with different egg replacements for different recipes to see which combination resulted in the best end product. Applesauce, flax seed, banana puree, leavening ingredients, cornstarch, tofu, vinegar have all been tested. Muffins, cookies and small cakes turn out really well using these substitutions and you'll never notice a difference. These cookies today use flax seeds to replace the eggs in this original recipe.

Ash Gourd/Boodida Gummadikaya Halwa

Dear Foodies,

Here is that halwa I promised you. When I bought a huge chunk of ash gourd/white pumpkin from the store last time, I used up half of it to make this yummy kootu. The other half was saved up to make this halwa on V's request. And since we both lacked a sugar sweet tooth, I was surprised to hear such a request coming from him. I postponed making it for as long as I could because of all the scary stories associated with the word halwa in my mind. Halwa to me was that mandatory neon orange/green chunk that come in every assorted sweet box. Who knew what went into it, or how long it took :) But when I started looking around for recipes and asking my mother about it, I was pleasantly surprised.

So before you begin conjuring up images of ghee oozing out of every spoonful, long hours of stirring and the very fickle natured sugar syrup stages, I have a secret to share. This halwa has none of those horrors attached to it, so breathe easy. In fact this might even be one of the easiest desserts to make. Apart from the grating there is hardly anything labor intensive to do. It takes probably a maximum of 30 mins from start to finish but tastes like someone has been lovingly slaving over it for hours, just for them :) And you wouldn't have to tell your guests otherwise either, Ssshhhh ;) The best though is that you get to strike off a vegetable portion for the day while still enjoying dessert. Score!

Chane ki dal

Dear Foodies,

Dal/Pappu finds a place in almost all the varied regional cuisines in India. And more often than not, it also ranks high on everyones comfort food ranking. Simmering lentils akin to bread baking, fill the kitchen with an aroma that calms our senses and gets us to a happy place. A long road trip usually ends with a comforting pappu dolloped over warm rice. None of the exotic biryani's or complex stews will ever garner the same effect that my mom's rasams, my frnd Manjari's tomato pappu, and now V's spinach pappu receive.

But until recently, I've been partial to using kandi pappu/Toor dal alone with an occasional presence of moong dal in my kitchen. As I began reading other blogs I came across recipes using chana dal, urad dal & masoor dal. I had never cooked with masoor before, urad was mainly for idli/dosa and chana dal was for adai and popu/tadkas alone. I began to experiment with them and added some newness to my dal repertoire. Masoor dal are bright orange colored lentils that cook really quickly and so you don't have to bring the pressure cooker out at all. One less dish to clean makes them an immediate winner in my books. It has creamy,mellow taste and can be paired with many vegetables.

Chana dal on the other hand is robust, holds up to longer cooking times and stands up to pungent flavorings. These pale yellow lentils are surprisingly made from kala chana. The outer skin of the kala chana is peeled and the legume is split to yield chana dal. The slight downside of this lentil is that it causes flatulence when eaten in large portions. But since we come from a country that knows how to use its spices this effect is mitigated by cooking it with carminative ingredients such as hing/ginger/cumin/coriander. So no reason to not try it if you already haven't.

Indulgence

Dear Foodies,

Rich & Creamy Dulce de Leche

Happy Valentine's Day to you all :)

P.S: None of the dulce de leche was wasted in the making of these photographs :P