Pongalo Pongal

Wish you all a happy Pongal and Sankranti. As I am writing this, news has come out that the Supreme Court has lifted the ban on Jallikattu (Phew that was close). I shudder to think how folks from my native town would have reacted if the ban had stayed. Jallikattu reminds me of the rare occasions we celebrated Pongal at my maternal grandmother’s village. The village falls on the wrong side of Vaigai river and cannot benefit from the river water. As is the case with most Indian villages, the harvest mainly depends on the mercy of the monsoons. And we all know how our dear old monsoons behave.

The village folks rarely celebrated Pongal as there was little to harvest and very little to celebrate about. When the monsoons are well behaved, the harvest is bountiful and Pongal is celebrated with such gusto that, town folks like me wonder why our parents left the village. The huts and houses are white washed, the cows decorated with colourful dots on their body and vibrant colours painted on their horns - the atmosphere is electric. There is something in the air which brings joy by merely inhaling it. I am missing all that this very moment and to a certain extent depressed (too harsh a word, I know) that my children cannot experience it.

I do try hard to bring in the spirit at home. Although my younger troops don’t agree with the Naragasuran version of the Deepavali story (they go with the ‘Rama coming from forest’ version), bringing in the Deepavali spirit is much easier. Help comes in the form of schools discussing the ‘Hindu’ festival. When it comes to Pongal it is hard, but I keep trying. It doesn’t hurt to taste some yummy Pongal and other delicacies in the process. Pongalo Pongal !!!!!!!

Nethili Meen Varuval (Spicy fried anchovies)

Happy New Year everyone! I am back from hibernation! Here I am fulfilling one of my New Year resolutions – not to neglect my blog. Abiding by Newton’s third law, I am also breaking one of my resolutions by posting a non-veg recipe. Ah it is the first post in the New Year and it has to be a special recipe and this one sure is. Anchovy is a special fish and I can still remember the taste of my athai’s (aunt) nethili meen kuzhambu. She is one hell of a cook and fish is her speciality. The way anchovies are used in Italian and Greek cooking is wonderful and has opened my eyes to the wonders of using them as an ingredient. This recipe is an Indian one and is sure to tickle your taste buds. Since it is a small fish, they can be eaten whole, although some people insist on cleaning before cooking. For this recipe I used slightly larger ones, which were cleaned. If they are really small, I wouldn’t bother with cleaning. Here goes how to make it,

Set 1
Anchovies – 200gms
Rice flour – 2 Tbsps
Chilli Powder – 1 tsp
Coriander Powder – 1 Tbsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Salt as required
Lemon juice – 1 Tbsp

Set 2
· Onions – 1 thinly sliced
· Garlic – 3 pods crushed
· Ginger – 1 inch grated
· Sambhar powder – 1 Tbsp
· Fennel seeds – 1 Tbsp
· Lemon juice – 1 Tbsp
· Curry Leaves – a twig


Mix all the ingredients under set 1 and leave to marinate for half an hour. Pan or deep-fry them until cooked and set aside.
Heat some of the left over oil in a pan and add the fennel seeds and curry leaves. Then add the onions and fry them until golden. To this add the ginger, garlic and sambhar powder and fry until they are well mixed. To this add the fried anchovies and lemon juice and stir carefully until well mixed.This is a yummy dish that will lift your spirits and keep you going on those dark rainy winter days.

Kerala Eral Kuzhambu (Kerala Prawn Curry)

A Madhu Jaffery recipe again with a twist. This is from her book ‘The flavours of India’ and she opens the recipe with the line ‘I Love this dish with a passion’. I have made a twist, a tip I found here. Having spent 21 years of my lifetime in Coimbatore, means that the Kerala influence is inescapable. We had a neighbour from Kerala who also happened to be a great cook. She would share many of her special dishes with our family. I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Kerala and I cherish that experience. Lots of yummy food everywhere we went. Unfortunately I was with a gang who was fussy about food and was complaining. Nevertheless I enjoyed the food and loved it. Nothing I am ever going to say will do justice to Kerala food. Here goes the recipe,

• Prawns - 600 gms (Shelled and deveined)
• Onion - 1 (medium sized thinly sliced into half moons)
• Garlic - 5 (cut into thin pieces)
• Ginger - 1 inch (grated)
• Chilli powder - ½ tsp
• Paprika - 2 Tbsp
• Turmeric Powder - ¼ tsp
• Coconut milk - 400 ml
• Curry leaves - 1 twig
• Green chillies - 3
• Tamarind - lemon size
• Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
• Oil - 2Tbsp
• Salt as required

Grinding

• Coriander seeds - 3 Tbsps
• Fenugreek seeds - ¼ tsp
• Pepper - 1 tsp
• Curry leaves - 1 twig
• 

Dry roast the coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds and pepper and powder it in a blender with the curry leaves. Once the powder is fine add 5 raw prawns to it and grind it with some water. Heat the tamarind with water for 2 minutes on high. Dilute with cold water and extract the juice. Heat oil and add the mustard seeds and when they pop add the curry leaves, onion, garlic and fry till brown. Once brown add the ginger and sauté for one more minute. To this add the chilli, paprika, turmeric powders and the ground paste and fry till blended. Add the tamarind extract, salt,green chillies and let it bubble. To this gravy add the coconut milk and the prawns. When the prawns are cooked, remove from fire and enjoy with hot boiled rice. If you enjoy very spicy food, the paprika can be replaced with chilli powder. The gravy is thick and would go well with Chapatti as well. This dish is a treat for your senses. It looks, smells and tastes divine.

Beans and Chickpeas Salad

Apologies to all for subjecting you to my bad photos in my previous posts. Today I found out that one of my younger troops had changed the settings in the camera and the results are – well you have already seen them. To be fair, bad photographic skills run in my family line. My dad took pictures of my mom in London with her head cut off. We ended up with many pictures of my mother from neck down. Till date I am not sure if my dad has poor sense for photography or if he did take those pictures on purpose. Anyways back to food it is salad time again. There was a warning in my previous post about S wanting to eat salad everyday (before you get all the wrong ideas, let me clarify that salad is considered a snack by S and not a meal). Now that the purpose is clear, I can go ahead with the recipe

Salad

• Chickpeas – 1 can
• Haricot beans – 1 can
• Onion – ½ sliced
• Carrot – 1 (cut in the middle and slice into thin half moons)
• Cucumber – ½ cut thinly
• Lettuce – ½ shredded
• Sesame seeds – 2 Tbsp (dry toasted)
• Green chillies – 2 (slit in the middle)
• Jalapeno peppers – 10 pieces (optional).

Salad dressing

• Sesame oil – 2 parts
• Olive oil – 1 part
• Soy sauce – 2 parts
• Lemon – 1 part
• Salt as required

Drain the peas and beans from the can and run them under cold water. Warm them up in a microwave and mix with other salad ingredients. The Jalapeno peppers are optional, I added them as I wanted to finish off the bottle. For the dressing combine all the dressing ingredients and whisk until an emulsion is formed. Since soy sauce is salty and hence less salt is required for this salad. This dressing is simply delicious. I am planning to make plenty of it, store in the fridge and add it in small amounts to any salad I make. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix it well. Since this is a warm salad, it is perfect for those cold winter evenings as a snack. As an after thought I added some dill to the salad (for no particular reason) and the dill actually went very well with salad. In retrospect, a pinch of the fennel falvour with fennel bulbs and/or seeds would also lift the salad. That is an idea for my next recipe.

Avocado Salad

A few years back, I went vegetarian (don’t ask me why) and ended up eating yogurt rice all the time. I did not have the energy or time to cook something vegetarian for me, while the family ate something else. Re entering into the Non-Vegetarian world (not because I didn’t like eating yogurt rice all the time, in fact I still love it) made me realize that my family ate very little veggie food. Since then I have made it a point to limit meat and chicken to one day a week. It has been a battle ever since. My blog is a good reflection of my battles and their outcomes. Before this entry the veggie score stands at 14 while the non-veggie is close behind at 13. Leveling the scores would mean a loss and who likes loosing. So here I am with a vegetarian salad recipe. Oh yes you read that right, a salad it is and a vegetarian one at that. It is my own recipe made with ingredients that I could reach in my store cupboard and fridge without much effort.

So here goes my recipe with a toast to all things veggie

• Avocado – 2 (Chopped into bite size pieces)
• Lettuce - ½ (tear into bite size pieces)
• Jalapeno chillies – 10 cut pieces (straight from the jar)
• Cucumber – ½ shredded
• Red Onion – 1 thinly sliced
• Coriander leaves – 2 Tbsp (roughly shredded)

Salad Dressing

• Olive oil – 3 Tbsp (preferably extra Virgin)
• Juice of one lemon
• Chilli flakes as required (how else can I convince S to eat a salad)
• Salt to taste

Place the avocado, lettuce, jalapeno chillies, cucumber, red onion and some coriander leaves in a salad bowl. To make the dressing combine the salad dressing ingredients with a whisk until it form an emulsion like liquid and adjust seasoning. Pour the salad dressing over the veggies and mix well. That is how this yummy salad can be made and can be enjoyed any time of the day. The salad turned out so yummy that S wants salad everyday – now that is something I never even dreamed would come out of his mouth. To make this salad a meal by itself, grilled or any kind of cooked chicken can be added. There I go again, am I ever going to win the battle!!!!

Spicy Bolognese sauce

Italian food is one of my favorite. It is there on my top three list and I love to try different Italian recipes. This spicy Bolognese sauce of mine is influenced by Delia’s recipe which you can find here. As a South Indian I had to spice the sauce, not that I like spicing all food that I come across. But when I read a recipe, I feel it could do with some spices and this was one such. I cut down on the meat level demanded by the original and used lamb mince instead of beef mince. This went down very well with the troops. I also spotted a potential to camouflage veggies in this recipe - will have to try that next time.

This is how it can be made

• Lamb mince – 500gms
• Canned tomatoes – 2
• Tomato puree – 4 Tbsp
• Onion – 1 chopped
• Garlic – 2 big finely chopped
• Nutmeg – 1/2 grated
• Coriander powder – 3 Tbsp
• Chilli powder – 1 Tbsp
• Cumin powder – ½ tsp
• Olive oil – 4 Tbsp

Heat the olive oil and add the onion and garlic and fry for a few minutes. Add the mince to this and fry until the mince turns brown. Add the canned tomatoes, tomato puree and the spices and mix it all up. Season with salt and pepper and enough water and let it bubble. Once the gravy starts bubbling reduce the fire and let it simmer for 2 hours without the lid(this is important). The end result will be a thick brown-reddish sauce. It tastes yummy with Spaghetti. The sauce could also be frozen and goes well with rice and chapatti too.

Meen Varuval (Spicy fried fish)

It is Fish time again. My family especially my son can’t get enough of fish. This is a pan fried recipe. The fish could also be deep fried, but pan frying saves a bit of oil and so I prefer it. The marinade is very simple and the marinating time required is also only about an hour.

• Coriander powder – 2 Tbsp
• Chilli powder – 1 Tbsp
• Cumin powder – 1 Tbsp
• Fennel powder – 1 Tbsp
• Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
• Salt as required
• Lemon juice – 1 Tbsp
• Fish steaks – 4 medium size or 2 large ones.
• Oil

Mix all the ingredients and make a paste with some water. Rub the paste on the fish and leave it to marinate for at least an hour. Heat a pan and pour about 5 Tbsp of oil. When the oil is hot add the fish steaks and fry them 5 minutes on each side. If the steak is thick the fish may need more time to cook. The fish goes very well as a side dish with many rice dishes. I made it with King Fish steak. But any firm fish will suit the recipe.

Chicken Biryani

Deepavali cannot be Deepavali without Biryani for me. My mother makes Biryani on that day. Many of friends think it is odd to cook non-veg on Deepavali. As with almost all recipes there are many different versions. I learnt to make mine from my cousin who is a fantastic cook. She was my savior when I first came to the big bad(or good) city of Chennai. She actually taught me the basics of many things apart from cooking like the art of buying make-up and draping a sari really-really fast. We don’t see each other or talk often now, living in different continents doesn’t help. Following in the family footsteps I made Chicken Biryani for Deepavali. Before I go in depth detailing my family history here is the recipe.

• Red Onions – ½ Kg
• Tomatoes – ½ Kg
• Ginger-garlic paste – 2 Tbsp
• Slit green chillies - 5
• Mint leaves – a big bunch
• Coriander leaves – a big bunch
• Cardamom – 2
• Bay leaf – 1
• Cinnamon – a long stick
• Cloves – 3
• Chicken – 1 Kg
• Oil – 6 Tbsp
• Basmati rice – 1 Kg ( 4 cups)
• Salt as required

Slice the onions thinly, and chop the tomatoes finely. Chop the coriander and the mint leaves finely. Wash and rinse the rice. The preparation and cooking takes time. Heat the oil in a hard bottom vessel and add in the spices. When they start to pop add the green chillies. And when the skin of the green chillies start to turn white add in the sliced onions and fry. This is the most important stage of cooking. The deep dark brown color comes from these well fried onions. The quantity of onions should reduce to at least one fourth the original volume. When the onions are a deep brown and reduce considerably in volume add the tomatoes and fry them till the oil floats on the top. After this add the ginger garlic paste and fry till the raw smell disappears. Then add in the chopped leaves and again fry till they are well combined and sweated down. Add the chicken into the masala and coat the chicken well with this. Add the washed rice and 6 ½ cup of water and mix well. Season with salt and leave the vessel open until bubbles start to appear. Close with a lid and get the stove flame to as low as possible. You could also finish the cooking in a mild oven. To maintain the flavours, you can seal the lid with dough made from wheat flour. It takes approximately 25 minutes to cook, you can check by opening the lid to see if all is well. You can serve the Biryani with onion raita. I always make more, so there will be plenty of left-overs for the next day. The re-heated Biryani, the day after tastes even better. Enjoy!!!

Cabbage and Pattani Poriyal (Cabbage and peas stir fry)

Stir fry dishes are very popular in the region I come from. But they are not called stir fries, we call them poriyal. With a simple tempering process, the vegetables are transformed into delicacies that one craves for. Strangely I like cabbage poriyal, in fact I like cabbage in all forms. This poriyal is generally had as side dish for rice and would go well for Chapatti as well. This recipe can be adopted for any vegetable. I just added the peas to get a two dimensional color to the finished product. With the daylight becoming shorter, the photos of the food under my kitchen light are shaded and sometimes they end up like stills out of a badly shot Mani Ratnam movie.

• Shredded or grated Cabbage – 2 cups
• Peas – ½ cup
• Green chillies – 2
• Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
• Urad dal – 1 tsp
• Curry leaves – 1 twig
• Salt as required.

Steam the cabbage and the peas till nearly done. I like a little crunch, but if you like it well done, you can cook it thru. Heat a spoon of oil and add the mustard seeds. When they pop add the urad dal and when they turn golden add the curry leaves and the slit green chillies. After a few seconds add the steamed cabbage, peas and season it with salt. Stir fry it for a few minutes and remove from fire. It is a simple and easy dish.

Tandoori Chicken

I love all things food. I remember cherishing a copy of Folio – food edition that came long ago with ‘The Hindu’. The food of a region reflects the culture to some extent and one of favorite day dreams while traveling is – discovering an ancient recipe book while digging (I am always a foodie anthropologists in my day dreams) in the Indus valley (thinking big). I love to know what the ancients ate, no matter the geography and wouldn’t mind trying out recipes. Anyway back to reality and the best I could do is watch cookery programs on TV. As a native I am interested in how the British perceive Indian food, so of particular interest are the food programs that are actually shot in India. All famous TV cooks have done it. From Keith Floyd to the latest Gary Rhodes many have made the trip. Of them all, Madhu Jaffery’s series scores the highest and Gary Rhodes the lowest. He did not find a pudding in India worth cooking and that I guess sums it all about his understanding of Indian food. I chanced upon the Tandoori chicken recipe on the Indian series that Madhu did. This chicken was made by a street vendor in Amritsar. I can’t kick myself enough for not committing the recipe to paper. But I made an attempt with the aid of my brain calls and the results were certainly worth a try. Especially if you have parties, this recipe can come in handy as you can marinate the chicken the day before and cook it in an oven on that day.

You will need

• Chicken thighs (with legs) - 4
• Single cream – 50 ml
• Ginger-garlic paste – 2 Tbsp
• Coriander powder – 2 Tbsp
• Chilli powder – 1 Tbsp
• Cumin powder – 1 Tbsp
• Garam masala – 1 Tbsp
• Red food color – ¼ tsp (optional)
• Lemon juice – 2 Tbsp
• Chat masala – 2 Tbsp
• Salt as required

Make the marinade by mixing all the powder except the chat masala with the cream, lemon juice, ginger-garlic paste and salt. Remove the skin from the chicken and clean and dry them. Make deep slits on the thighs. Rub the marinade on the chicken and well into the slits. If you want to reduce or increase the heat, adjust the chilli powder accordingly. Cover with a Clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, the more the better. When the chicken is ready to cook, preheat the oven to as high as possible. Bring the chicken to room temperature and rub it with some oil. When the oven is really hot, keep the chicken into the oven on a baking tray. After 10 minutes turn the chicken over and baste it with the juices in the tray or with some oil. When both the sides are cooked (you can check by piercing the chicken and if the juices run clear then it is cooked) remove from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Then cut the thighs into 2 (you will get a drumstick and the actual thigh part). Toss the chicken or rub it gently with chat masala powder (this does make a difference) and the chicken is ready to serve. Every time I make it, the chickens are well received.