Healthy workday salads

I have a fetish for salads and particularly towards winter, when the best of salad greens are available, it's a daily indulgence. Of late, I have been trying to reduce carbs in my diet and eat more protein, for health reasons, due to an auto immune condition I have - Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Quinoa, while expensive both in terms of cost and carbon consumption, is a great addition to the diet for its rich micronutrient profile, including magnesium and phosphorus. It also adds dietary fiber, so a win-win.

I find it easy to set a fixed menu for lunch at the office - helps my cook by shortcutting the decision making process, and the time consuming part of the prep can be done one time. So we made the quinoa at the beginning of the week and refrigerated it, similarly with the chickpeas and roasted pumpkin. To add variety, I just changed up the salad dressing through the week. So putting together the salad is, ironically, a piece of cake!

Ingredients for one serving:
1 cup quinoa, soaked and cooked
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
1 cup pumpkin, oven roasted with a little olive oil
1 apple, sliced chunkily
1 spring onion
1 carrot, grated thick
1/2 cup pomegranate
1 cucumber, deseeded and chopped into chunks
Handful of coriander leaves
1/2 cup halved walnuts

Dressing:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp honey ( depending on your sweet tooth, you can add a little more)
1.5 tsp kasundi (Bengali grainy mustard which I love)
Juice of 1 small lime
Himalayan rock salt to taste

Whip together the olive oil and mustard into an emulsion, with a fork. Add the honey and lime juice until it combines well.

For an office lunch, you can pack the dressing separately and add it just before eating.

Changes you can ring:
Ingredients:
I'm on a detox from various Hashimoto's triggers so avoiding tomatoes, capsicum, baingan, dairy etc. If you don't have any such dietary restrictions, feel free to add those veggies. A few lettuce or rocket leaves wouldn't go amiss either.

Feta, or blue cheese if you like, it are great additions

I had planned to add sunflower seeds but the pack I had bought turned out to have worms - blech! Flax seeds are also a good addition, but add them just before eating. Pine nuts also taste great




















Dressing:
Apart from the dressing above, a simple pounded garlic, lime juice and rock salt combination also tastes very fresh. If you're using kala chana, you can add chaat masala and lime juice.

My favourite is Tahini dressing:
1/2 cup hung curd
1 tbsp tahini
1 green chilli
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste
Small handful of coriander leaves

Fling everything into a blender and blend until smooth. Top your salad with this just before eating. Ps. If you're tempted to skip the sugar - don't. It adds an interesting complexity to the flavour. You can add garlic and cumin if you like, but it tastes just as good without.

Chhole bhaturey

This weekend was a very foodie one. It was A's birthday so we went out to a new French restaurant, Terroir, for dinner on Friday. Then Saturday, his parents were coming over so I enjoyed cooking up a special meal for them. Finally, on Sunday, despite a rather hearty lunch at the club, I made Ali's favourite food - chole bhature for dinner.

It's a little weird that I should enjoy cooking so much, given that as a youngster, whenever my mom tried to teach me how to cook, I'd shrug it off as a 'girl' thing in my feminist avatar. Maybe it's the appreciation hound in me:)!

Anyway, I have always loved the chhole made at Bengali Sweets in Bengali market. There really is something special about those, and when A and I used to work in CP, it used to be a regular haunt for us and our gang of friends from office. A would always unwaveringly order the chhole bhature, and I always made him ask for a second bowl of chhole for me. Some years later, I discovered a recipe for Pindi chana which recreates the same taste, except, of course, that I'm not quite so liberal with the oil as the Bengali Sweets cook.

Pindi Chana
Ingredients:
1 cup chhole ( chick peas)
2 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)
1 inch ginger, cut into thin slices
1 tbsp tea leaves
3 tbsp besan ( chickpea flour)
Black/ rock salt to taste
1 tsp anardana ( pomegranate seeds)
1 tsp Amchoor ( dried mango powder)
4 cloves
2 tsp dried fenugreek leaves ( Kasoori methi)
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp chilli powder ( or to taste)
5 tbsp oil

Cook the chhole using the quick-soak method - soak the chick-peas for one hour. Then cook them in the pressure cooker for 1 whistle. Let them soak again for an hour. Then cook them with 1 tsp of soda-bicarb and 2 tbsp oil for 2 whistles, along with the tea leaves, cloves and ginger tied in a thin muslin bag. They'll come out soft, dark and mushy and the soda bicard reduces the 'gassy' quality of chhole. Discard the muslin bag. Reserve the liquid in case it is needed later.

In a wok, put the rest of the oil and heat on medium flame. Put in the ajwain seeds and stir.
After half a minute, put in the besan. Let the besan roast until it starts giving off a warm aroma and turns marginally darker.
Add the rock salt, amchoor, anardana, chilli powder, dried fenugreek leaves, pinch of turmeric and stir to mix.
Add the cooked chhole to this and stir. add a little of the reserved liquid in case the chhole turns too dry.
Garnish with sliced onion rings, tomato rings and slit green chillies.

This chhole has a tendency to keep drying out unless you add heaps of oil, which I don't dare to do, so I add the reserved water every time I re-heat it.

It tastes wonderful with bhaturey of course, but also goes well with rotis.

Bhaturey

Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour (maida)
1 cup semolina/ cream of wheat ( sooji)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sour plain curds ( yoghurt)
Pinch salt
Pinch sugar
Warm Water

Soak the sooji in just enough water to cover it and keep aside for 10 minutes.
Separately, mix the salt, baking powder, baking soda and plain flour together.
After ten minutes, sift these ingredients into the sooji mixture.
Add the curds and just enough warm water to make it into a pastry/ roti type dough.
Put into a greased polythene cover and keep aside for 3-4 hours in a warm place.
Make 8-10 balls out of the dough.
Roll out into either an oblong or round shape (I prefer round because I have a small wok), approximately the diameter of the palm.
Deep fry by sliding gently into hot oil, then pressing down until it puffs up.
Serve hot.

I like a vegetable to join us for every meal, so yesterday I made some Indonesian eggplant to go with the chhole Bhature, and it accompanied the dish really well. This is from one of my favourite food authors, mMdhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook.
Ingredients:
4 long, slim purple eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices
4 shallots
5-6 dried red chillies
3 garlic cloves
1/2 inch ginger
2 tbsp tomato puree
salt to taste
1 tbsp oil

Grind the shallots, garlic, ginger and red chillies together.
Fry the eggplant - I prefer shallow fry though it tastes even better deep-fried.
Heat the oil. Add the ground paste to it and cook for 3-4 minutes.
Add the fried eggplant and the tomato puree and stir to mix.
Cook for 2-3 minutes so the paste infuses the eggplant.
Add salt to taste.
Serve hot.

This tastes great with rotis, puris, even crusty bread. It also provides a hot and spicy contrast to bland, creamy curd rice.