I have hardly been food-blogging but that doesn't mean I haven't been eating. In fact, for the past three or four days, I have been relishing the most amazing food - all home-cooked, healthy and simple, but so soul-satisfying. I have literally been pigging out on the fruit of my own labour, which is rare. Usually when I cook something, I can't really tell how it tastes and have to depend on the palates of others! All I can do is to taste during the cooking process and ensure the flavours are as I like 'em.
So it started with an experimental saaru on the weekend. I have always loved the flavour of garlic. And years ago, one of my aunts served us the most delicious tomato-infused saaru that I have ever tasted. Going through the cookbook dakshin, I came across a recipe for tomato saaru and since we had bought a large quantity of lovely, ripe red tomatoes, I thought the time was right. Of course, I didn't follow the recipe at all!
I diced 4 tomatoes and sliced two green chillies lengthwise. Then I decided to add garlic to the mix - 8-9 cloves of skinny Indian garlic. I sauteed the tomatoes, the garlic and green chillies in a tsp of home made ghee. I added this to the regular mix of tamarind extract and dal ( whizzed in a blender along with 1 cooked tomato) and saarina pudi( rasam powder), skipped the Mysore touch of jaggery and topped it all with a tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves in ghee. Divine!
One day we had Zuni stew made with pumpkin of just the right stage of ripeness and sweetness. So simple and so deeply satisfying.
A couple of days ago, I had a great craving for Moollangi huli ( Radish/ Daikon/ Mooli Sambar), a traditional favourite during winters. We had bought the first moolis of the winter a few days ago so they had been calling to me! Mom suggested adding methi( fenugreek) leaves to the sambar to add even more flavour. green-leafies junkie, I was only too pleased, thugh having no methi on hand I made do with kasoori methi( dried methi). That adds the bitter flavour but is much less flavourful than fresh methi, so I guess this dish will have to be made all over again as soon as methi hits the market. The sambar turned out every bit as delicious as my fantasies, so I ended up gorging on it. ( Made the same way as any sambar - cut the mooli into 1/2 cm slices, boil in water until just tender, add cooked arhar dal, tamarind extract and sambar powder and top wth a tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves).
We had also brought home a copious harvest of brinjals (eggplant/ aubergine) of various kinds - the long, slim purple ones, the small purple ones, the big purple ones and so on. I read a delicious sounding recipe for Rasavangi ( eggplants in gravy) in Dakshin and decided to give my favourite veggie a new twirl. Fab, fab, fab. Reminiscent of Gojju - the tamarind-jaggery-spice mix which we have with khichdi, yet with much more body ( green chillies, fresh coconut + coriander seeds, ground together; + a bit of arhar dal). Yum, yum, yum!
Yesterday, for Bojjandi's 2nd birthday lunch, I decided to make pooris with vegetable korma. My grandma has a recipe for korma eschewing onions and using cashews, but since we love onions, I decide to go for the hotel version. Easy to make, and wonderful!
Ingredients:
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup beans, cut into inch long pieces
2 potatoes
Half cup green peas
2 tomaoes, diced
1/2 fresh grated coconut
2-3 green chillies( depending on degree of hotness)
Handful of coriander
1 inch fresh ginger
1 small onion
1 tbsp poppy seeds
2 inch piece of cinnamon
6 cloves
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp oil
2-3 bay leaves
Cook the rest of the vegetables in salted water until cooked through but still firm. Add the tomatoes and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Meanwhile, grind together the coconut, chillies, ginger, coriander and onion with a little water to make a smooth paste. Dry roast the poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves and fennel seeds and blitz together into a fine powder. Add the paste and the powder to the cooked vegetables and let simmer for a few minutes. Heat the oil in a small wok. Add the bay leaves and saute for half a minute. add to the vegetables.
The Korma tastes fabulous with pooris, dosais, idlis and especially set dosais.
Showing posts with label comfort food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comfort food. Show all posts
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Monday, August 27, 2007
Comfort Food
Way back when the first space craft went into space and man walked on the moon and so on, when people pictured the future, it was very different from the way life really is right now. We were supposed to be moving around in a vehicle that floated in thin air, like the Jetsons, and wear seriously contricting head to toe gear with boots. Food was supposed to be only nourishment, i.e. we would pop food pills to keep us alive and healthy.
Well, guess what? We're still driving around in automobiles and since roads are material, unlike thin air, we do constantly get stuck in traffic jams. Clothing has moved through cycles of contricting to deconstructed and few people live in boots. And while we do pop pills, that's over and above food. Which I am thankful for, because food is just so intrinsically connected with emotion, for many cultures but particularly so in India, that living without food would be like wiping out emotions. I'm just not ready for that stage of emotional detachment yet - Nirvana can wait while I gulp down some chaat at the nearest street corner!
We all have our own versions of comfort food. For most men, I think, it tends to be the food their mothers made, as that is probably one of the most tension-free relationships they have ever had or will have. For Madhur Jaffrey, one of my favourite food-writers, it's mucilaginous food like moong ki daal which she describes as her first favourite food. For me, it has to do with starchy carbs like potatoes and arbi. Whenever I'm feeling stressed or low, I tend to turn towards these veggies and they have to be cooked in a particular way, too. When I think about it, I find it a little strange because you would think something I ate at my mother's home, like saaru-anna, would be more like it, but no, it's potatoes.
My stress-relief potato sabzi is dry and spiced, with no added fallals like onions or tomatoes to get in the way. I typically have this veggie with rotis, but it tastes great with dal chawal, curd-rice or even saaru-anna (rasam chawal). I have even been known to eat it by itself with a bowl of curd. This flexi-veg can even go into an old-fashioned sandwich the next morning - the kind made in a square contraption into which you place 2 slices of bread with a veggie or some filling in the middle and then hold over the gas stove for it to get toasted. One of the nice things about this recipe is that apart from being fool-proof it takes only about 15 minutes to make - sometimes simplicity is divine!
Stress-relief aloos
Ingredients:
Potatoes, washed, boiled, peeled and cubed ( We typically count 1 large potato per head and 2 for the pot)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp/ to taste chilli powder
Pinch turmeric
salt to taste
Put the oil into a wok ( preferably non-stick). When hot, pop in the turmeric and cumin seeds. When the cumin turns darker, add the potatoes and turn flame to medium-low. Cook slowly, turning occasionally, until the potatoes turn browned and crisp on the outside. Add salt and chilli powder to taste. Stir to mix and serve hot.
You can replace the boiled potatoes with boiled arbi ( colocasia) which also tastes great, though I prefer slicing the arbi rather than cubing it, to ensure it turns crisp. Even jimikand tastes good this way. If you want to jazz it up, you can add amchur (dry mango powder) and a touch of heeng ( asafoetida) and top it with coriander leaves for garnish.
My ajji ( grandma) makes a version of this beloved by all her grandkids but requiring the kind of patience only a grandma can summon up. She cuts the potatoes into really fine cubes - about 1/2 cm square - and then slow cooks them until each and every golden piece is crisp, before salting and chilli-ing them. It looks ( and tastes) great and I would love to serve this at a party but who has the patience to make it?
Well, guess what? We're still driving around in automobiles and since roads are material, unlike thin air, we do constantly get stuck in traffic jams. Clothing has moved through cycles of contricting to deconstructed and few people live in boots. And while we do pop pills, that's over and above food. Which I am thankful for, because food is just so intrinsically connected with emotion, for many cultures but particularly so in India, that living without food would be like wiping out emotions. I'm just not ready for that stage of emotional detachment yet - Nirvana can wait while I gulp down some chaat at the nearest street corner!
We all have our own versions of comfort food. For most men, I think, it tends to be the food their mothers made, as that is probably one of the most tension-free relationships they have ever had or will have. For Madhur Jaffrey, one of my favourite food-writers, it's mucilaginous food like moong ki daal which she describes as her first favourite food. For me, it has to do with starchy carbs like potatoes and arbi. Whenever I'm feeling stressed or low, I tend to turn towards these veggies and they have to be cooked in a particular way, too. When I think about it, I find it a little strange because you would think something I ate at my mother's home, like saaru-anna, would be more like it, but no, it's potatoes.
My stress-relief potato sabzi is dry and spiced, with no added fallals like onions or tomatoes to get in the way. I typically have this veggie with rotis, but it tastes great with dal chawal, curd-rice or even saaru-anna (rasam chawal). I have even been known to eat it by itself with a bowl of curd. This flexi-veg can even go into an old-fashioned sandwich the next morning - the kind made in a square contraption into which you place 2 slices of bread with a veggie or some filling in the middle and then hold over the gas stove for it to get toasted. One of the nice things about this recipe is that apart from being fool-proof it takes only about 15 minutes to make - sometimes simplicity is divine!
Stress-relief aloos
Ingredients:
Potatoes, washed, boiled, peeled and cubed ( We typically count 1 large potato per head and 2 for the pot)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp/ to taste chilli powder
Pinch turmeric
salt to taste
Put the oil into a wok ( preferably non-stick). When hot, pop in the turmeric and cumin seeds. When the cumin turns darker, add the potatoes and turn flame to medium-low. Cook slowly, turning occasionally, until the potatoes turn browned and crisp on the outside. Add salt and chilli powder to taste. Stir to mix and serve hot.
You can replace the boiled potatoes with boiled arbi ( colocasia) which also tastes great, though I prefer slicing the arbi rather than cubing it, to ensure it turns crisp. Even jimikand tastes good this way. If you want to jazz it up, you can add amchur (dry mango powder) and a touch of heeng ( asafoetida) and top it with coriander leaves for garnish.
My ajji ( grandma) makes a version of this beloved by all her grandkids but requiring the kind of patience only a grandma can summon up. She cuts the potatoes into really fine cubes - about 1/2 cm square - and then slow cooks them until each and every golden piece is crisp, before salting and chilli-ing them. It looks ( and tastes) great and I would love to serve this at a party but who has the patience to make it?
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