Showing posts with label Comfort Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comfort Food. Show all posts


Step 1 to beat the sweltering Mumbai heat this summer - have a lot of cucumber rawa dosa. 
Many of those lovely folks I have long rambling conversations with about food had never heard about a cucumber rawa dosa. Of course, there were rawa dosas and masala rawa dosas and onion ones and what not. But cucumber seems like a strange ingredient to add to a dosa. I was introduced to it by my cook and let me tell you I've been having this almost every week, except perhaps in winter, for the last one year. The first time I tried it, I thought it was a fluke, the second time was even better, by the third I realised this one is a keeper. 
Like most Indian cooks, Jayashree does not work with measurements. Nothing is ever in grams and cups and everything is as she says 'ek andaaz mein' or my mum would say 'oru kanakkinu' or as the french would say 'au pif'. Which is also why most recipes would taste different in different kitchens and under different hands. You sniff it out, add a little bit here and there, adjust according to taste and personal choice of flavours, et voila, your dish which you can claim as your own is ready.



Unlike a regular dosa, rawa dosa is not made from a fermented batter, but uses curd as a souring agent. It's almost ready made and the batter can be prepared in no time at all. Be warned, make as much as you can, I've never been able to stop at one or two. I serve it with sambar or coconut chutney. Occasionally I have it plain since it has all the seasonings required. If you're too lazy for a sambar or a chutney, ketchup might do in a pinch.



Makes 5 delicious dosas

Ingredients

1 - Cucumber peeled grated
1 - Tomato grated
1 - Onion grated
1/2" ginger grated
1 - green chilli chopped
1/4 cup - coriander leaves chopped
3/4 cup - rawa/semolina
2 tbsp - yogurt
salt to taste
Oil to season tawa/frying pan

Method

1. Grate peeled cucumber, tomato, onion, ginger into a bowl. Add chopped chillis and coriander leaves
2. The grated vegetables will release water. Into that add the rawa/semolina and curd and mix. Adjust rawa based on how much water the veggies release. Season with salt.
3. Heat the pan on low heat and drizzle a teaspoon of oil to season.
4. Scoop 1/4 cup of batter and spread on the pan with a spatula/your hand (It's easier to spread it by hand)
5. Cover and cook till lightly browned on bottom. Flip and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
6. Continue with the rest of the batter from Step 4.
7. Serve warm with a cup of filter coffee.

Cucumber Rawa Dosa


Oru naadan meen curry straight from my Mum's kitchen to me and then to you. Hopefully, there are no Chinese whispers going on here and I get it right enough, for you to get it right.

Every summer, back home, we'd have a deluge of mangoes coming in from our backyard, our ancestral home, our generous neighbours, friends and family. Everybody is gifting each other mangoes; ripe, unripe, the soft squishy local ones, the ones somebody's managed to wangle from a cousin who has an estate far away and decided to gift you just cos you're their favourite cousin. You'd think it happens across the country in summer, but I doubt anyone incorporates as much of mango into their daily dishes as Malayalees do. I might be wrong, but there are so many mango dishes it could just start coming out of our collective noses and ears.

Raw mango is a favourite. It makes its way into a lot of savoury gravy dishes - Meenum (Fish) Mangayum, Chemmeenum (Prawn) Mangayum, Chakkakkuru (Jackfruit seed) Manga are some of those common ones. Then there is Pazhamanga Pulissery, Manga Pacchadi, the list goes on. By now you would have figured out, if you're not from Kerala, that manga stands for mango in Malayalam.

Fish marinated for frying

I rarely buy fish at home. One, it's difficult to get just enough for one person. Two, I've almost never ever had the time to go to the fish market. When we were kids, being served king fish, or seer fish or any one of those big fish without tiny bones were a luxury we looked forward to. Now as adults, when you eat out, all you get are those big fillets and it does get boring after a while. So when I went to the market, I was pretty sure I wanted a smaller variety of fish, something I'd love eating with my hands, picking away the tiny bones. I looked out for a variety called Kilimeen in Malayalam and Rani here in Bombay. Distinctive because of its pinkish red colour, it is extremely tasty when fried and a nightmare when made into a curry with all its tiny bones.

I definitely wanted a fish fry out of this one, but I also wanted some kind of curry. So I called my mom and asked for the recipe of a dish I loved - Meen pollichathu. A very traditional dish of fish steamed in a banana leaf. Mum suggested why not go in for this curry with mangoes using just the fish heads. That way, I'd get the crispy tender fried fish I wanted, and also the gravy. You needn't particularly use this fish for this gravy, anything in your comfort zone would do, Here the raw mango is used as the souring agent, instead of kodampuli (tamarind) which is traditionally used  in fish curries, or tomatoes or vinegar.

Mum gives me recipes in ratios. So all she told me for this one, after listing the ingredients is, for 2 spoons of chilli powder, use 1/2 spoon of coriander powder. So the ratio of coriander to chilli powder is 1:4. Moving away from that would alter your life irrevocably and bring the wrath of all the mangoes in the world upon you. :P



Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut oil
6 shallots sliced
3 green chillis cut into half lengthwise
1" ginger pound into a paste
3 cloves garlic smashed
1 sprig curry leaves (divided to two)
1 small raw mango diced
2 tsp chilli pwder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
6 fish heads/slices of medium sized fish, cleaned
1 cup water or coconut milk(second press)
1/2 cup coconut milk (first press)
1 tsp coconut oil to drizzle on top.

Method.

1. Heat the coconut oil in an earthern ware pot/kadai.
2. Gently saute shallots, chillis, garlic & ginger till the shallots turn translucent.
3. Add half the curry leaves, mango and all the powders and stir quickly to avoid the powders burning.
4. Immediately add the fish and water to the pot and stir gently so that everything mixes in with the fish.
5. Cover and cook for 10 mins or till the fish is cooked.
6. Once the fish is cooked, add the first press coconut milk and gently simmer the gravy never letting it boil.
7. Finish it off with a drizzle of coconut oil on top and the remaining curry leaves.


Obviously I was too impatient to wait for a proper picture before attacking the fish fry.

Meenum Mangayum Chaar (Fish & Raw Mango Curry)

They say if you make three significant changes to a recipe it becomes your own. I haven't gone the stretch, but its still significant enough for me to call it my own I think,



For a while there after the 'Liqueured Peach Cake' I stopped baking. In fact I stopped going into the kitchen other than for warming up stuff, opening takeaway Chinese, and whipping up some awesome milk shakes with super tasty milk from Sarda Farms, more on that later.

Deep Chocolate Orange Marmalade Cake


Trick question: How many ingredients in this peanut butter?


Think about it? Think about it looooong and haaaardd. Are you panting yet? Ok. I'm weird

Think. Think. Think. Think.



The miracle answer is: ONE (or you could say Neo, since he's The ONE) OK. Bad Joke.

But seriously, One? like One?  like only One? YES! That's all there is to peanut butter if you make it at home.

DIY: How to Make Peanut Butter at Home


I have a slight aversion to pasta. Which would make you wonder what I'm doing putting up a pasta sauce recipe. But surprise! Surprise! I've just figured out I can really enjoy pasta sauce without having to put up with pasta. Blame me: I don't think I've gotten the hang of cooking pasta alright. Or it could be that I don't like the packaged variety (unless its angel hair pasta). Or lets just assume, I'm real picky!


Boozy Pasta Sauce - Pasta Alla Vodka!

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