Zuni Stew

I am re-posting this as an entry for No Croutons Required, hosted by Lisa this month. Zuni stew is a stew prepared by Zuni Indians who lived in New Mexico - this is my version.

Hi Kiddos,


I just wanted to tell you about the Zuni Stew we had for dinner over the weekend. I first tasted this on a visit to the US, at a new little restaurant called Spoon River Cafe. I loved the taste of it, and the amazing colours, so I decided I had to make it for you guys at home.


I felt it was particularly appropriate for dinner this Saturday since we would have gorged on cheese Fondue at Diva. At least, I knew dad and I would need the burst of wholesomeness that this dish would provide, and unlike many 'healthy' foods, it doesn't taste or look bland and boiled. In fact, it looks fabulous and is something I plan on feeding dinner guests in the future, since I have shifted to a 'no-fuss-entertaining' way of life.


I have to say, I loved shopping for it, buying the tiny orange pumpkins which the shop told me are referred to as 'disco' pumpkins. The orange and red capsicum, as you know, are my favourite, and I also love buying white onions - they look like giant pearls. The green capsicum and coriander add that dash of deep, rich colour, and the sweet corn kernels add their sweetness to that of the pumpkins. It was almost like therapy to cut each vegetable...to decide whether the dice should be large or small, depending on how fast that particular vegetable gets cooked, to add them one by one, knowing which one needs more cooking time and which less...inhaling the smell of the spices as they warm up in the oil and start smelling aromatic instead of harsh...


And the stew lived up to my expectations from the meal - colourful, flavourful, zingy and yet totally, sumptuously healthy! And guess what? I've taken some of my best food pictures ever with this dish. I know that's not saying much, but for me it's a huge improvement! And what's more, you fusspots had no trouble spooning this down with rice - Yaayy!!

Ingredients:

1 cup garbanzo beans

1 small Pumpkin, skinned and cut into chunks ( about 600 grams)

1-2 onions, chopped

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced small

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

Half cup of sweet corn niblets

Handful of chopped fresh coriander

1 green chili, diced

1 cup garbanzo beans (chholey)

1.5 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

Salt to taste

Dash sugar if pumpkin isn't sweet

1/2 liter water

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Soak the garbanzo beans overnight, if you're not lazy like me. (Umm, I don't know if I should admit it to you kids...but then you should know this by living with me, right?)

Heat the oil in a deep casserole dish. When hot, add the cumin and coriander powders and fry on medium until you get a warm aroma. Add the minced garlic and saute until the garlic is soft but not brown. Add the onions and the green chili and cook until soft. Pour in the water and add the garbanzo beans and salt. Let it simmer until the garbanzo beans are almost cooked and then add the pumpkin. Adjust the water if you need - it shouldn't be too liquid. Once the pumpkin is almost done, throw in first the green pepper, then after 5-6 minutes the red and finally the yellow pepper and the corn. Let it simmer until the yellow pepper is cooked but not pulpy. Throw in the fresh coriander and simmer for one more minute.

Serve hot with, if you want to be authentic, corn bread but if counting calories, any multigrain country-style crusty bread.

Of course, that's the way you are supposed to make it. I like shortcuts, so here's what I did:

Cooked the garbanzo beans in the pressure cooker( 1 whistle). Sauteed the onions, garlic and green chile with the spice powders and then threw in the pumpkin. once that was almost cooked, added in the garbanzos and the peppers one by one and topped with the coriander.

You can also serve it on a bed of rice, or eat it just by itself, with some fruit for dessert if you want to feel particularly healthy.

Tip: You can adjust the level of heat depending on how hot the chili is, by adding chili powder ( or not).

Love,

Mom

This is my entry for My Legume Love Affair, hosted by Rachel of The Crispy Cook. I love this event, started by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook, because, as you kids know, I''m nuts about beans and always running around buying unknown varieties wherever we visit.

Sweet Chile of Mine

I am re-posting this as an entry for No Croutons required, May 2010, hosted by Lisa.

I recently blogged about the terrific Chile I had at the Steelhead Diner in Seattle. So naturally when I got home I wanted to recreate it for my family, but didn't know how to make it taste different from regular Rajma chaawal, apart from the accompaniments. Thankfully I found a great recipe in Nigella Lawson's book Nigella Feasts. I made it a couple of weekends ago when we had some close friends over for dinner. I didn't want to make a typical Indian meal with half a dozen dishes and spices, because it was really too hot to live that weekend. So we had my mom's yoghurt-paneer dip with crudités and hummus with pita bread as appetizers during drinks, followed by Spanish almond-grape chilled soup:

Middle Eastern tabbouleh and Mexican Chile for dinner. The cocoa powder adds a lovely, smoky depth to the flavour of the Chile, so it was a densely flavourful main course in contrast to the light, fresh flavours of the soup and tabbouleh.We had planned to serve a fruit salad with melon and mango for desert but we and our friends were too stuffed by that point.

The Chile was a breeze to make, and I served it with sides of sour cream and salsa.

Ingredients:
Kidney beans – 1 cup, soaked for 8 hours and then cooked or cooked using the Quick-soak method
Cumin powder – 1 tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Cocoa powder – 1 tbsp
Red chili powder – 2 tsp
2 onions, finely chopped
3-4 garlic pods, crushed
200 ml tomato puree
Salt to taste
Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp
Cheddar cheese, grated – 1 cup

Heat the oil and add in the cumin and coriander powder. When they start to brown, add the onions and garlic and cook until they turn pale brown. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the mixture turns thick.

If you want to assemble it the way the Diner did, top the Chili with the cheddar cheese and bake in a 220 degrees C oven for about 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts and just starts turning brown.

Serve with sour cream ( we don't get it here so I mixed sour yoghurt with cream and whipped the two together until it was thick and tasted like sour cream) and simple salsa – tomatoes and onions finely chopped with green chilies, coriander leaves and lime squeezed in and salt to taste.

The nice thing about this Chile is that you can eat it for days – served on toast or good crusty bread or as is, heated through or cold from the fridge…

This is my entry for My Legume Love Affair 11, begun by Susan, hosted this time by Taste with the eyes.

Ching Chong salad

This is my entry for The Heart Of The Matter.

I love salads, as any of you who've frequented this blog would know. And in winter in Delhi, it's impossible for anyone to remain untempted by the variety of lovely, fresh vegetables spilling over in the markets. But I also constantly need variety and for some time now have been wondering how to impart a Chinese flavour to a salad without necessarily using Chinese vegetables like Pak Choy and bean sprouts. Then I was watching Kylie Kwong's China tour on Discovery Travel and Living and later, Jamie Oliver, and but naturally, got inspired.

I decided to make the dressing very Chinese in flavour while retaining the salad vegetables I love. It's easy and a refreshing new variation on the same old olive oil vinaigrette. Awesome! The name of the salad comes from popular Indian cinema nods to China, in which 'Chinese' characters say something that sounds vaguely Chinese but isn't.

Ingredients:

Salad vegetables. I used lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces - and I mean bite-sized. I hate when restaurants ( or people) use whole leaves in salad - they don't absorb the dressing very well and it's very hard to fork them into your mouth! Red radish cut into quarters. Halved cherry tomatoes. The white part of spring onions, diced. Julienned red and yellow bell pepper. Cucumber, peeled and diced. Peas. Green beans, cut into 2 inch batons and parboiled. Broccoli florets, steamed lightly. You can chill the prepared vegetables until just before you want to serve the salad.

For the dressing:

1 tablespoon sesame seeds, dry-roasted

1 tablespoon peanut oil

2 cloves garlic

1 bunch coriander leaves

1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into fine batons

The green part of spring onions, finely chopped

1/2 tablespoon of jaggery, grated

Soy sauce to taste

Juice of 1 lime

1 green chilli, grated ( yes, I mean grated, so the seeds stay on the outside and only the fragrant chilli goes in the salad)

Pound the garlic, coriander and green spring onions together in a mortar. Put the paste into a bowl and add the oil, soy sauce, chilli, jaggery, lime juice and ginger. Keep aside to marinate for about half an hour.

To assemble: Put all the vegetables into a large salad bowl. Pour the dressing on top and then add the sesame seeds. Mix with your hands ( might sound icky but I find the ingredients get mised more evenly by hand than with salad spoons) and serve.