Eggs Ahoy

Whoever has been reading this blog is probably well aware of my love-hate relationship with eggs. But I've been asked by a dietician to have a 1 egg, 1 toast dinner 3 nights a week in my nth attempt to lose weight. So obviously that's a great excuse for me to experiment with more egg-delights.


The way I make omlettes, learned from my brother-in-law, makes them a sumptuous meal - even with just 1 egg. But this week I wanted to add a little more body to them without making them fattening. Luckily, this type of omlette works well with whatever you have lying around in the kitchen/ refrigerator. So what Chubbocks and I had for dinner two days ago was a luxurious omlette stuffed with makai-palak, with grilled tomatoes on the side. Heartily filling and satisfying to the tastebuds as well!


Makai palak is a typical vegetable served in restaurants and this time at home, instead of opting for a plain old palak paneer, I asked my cook to add the corn into it. It turned out delicious, with the sweetness of the corn adding a dulcet note to that of the spicy/ astringent palak.


Makai Palak recipe
1 cup corn nuggets, boiled until soft
1 bunch palak, washed but not dried and roughly chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2 inch ginger, chopped
1 tomato
1 tsp cumin seeds
2-3 green chillies, chopped
2 tsp oil
Salt to taste


Heat the oil in a wok. Toss the cumin seeds in and wait till they brown. Add the green chillies and onion and cook over medium flame, stirring from time to time until the onion turns translucent. Add the tomato and cook until soft. Add the palak and cover the wok and cook over medium flame for 7-10 minutes until the palak is well wilted. Wait to cool, then blitz in the mixie until you get a fine puree.


Add back to the wok, then add in the corn and salt and cook until hot. Serve immediately, with rotis, bread or rice.


I prefer not to add turmeric to palak as the colour stays a fresher green that way.


Omlette with makai-palak


Break an egg into a pan. Add 1 tbsp milk and beat for 30 seconds until well mixed. Add a small blob of butter into the frying pan, with the heat on high. Add the egg mixture and turn heat to low. Cover the pan tightly and cook on low for 7-8 minutes. Remove the cover and top omlette with whatever you like - onions, green chillies, cheese, coriander. Let cook until well done, i.e. no liquid-ey bits of egg on the top layer.

This time I topped mine with sauteed onions, green chillies and a tablespoon of the makai-palak and then folded the omlette over.

A note on tomatoes - if using desi ones, just cut into 1 cm thick slices and grill/ griddle on a separate pan with a bit of salted butter. Serve on the side, topped with freshly crushed pepper - if you add them to the omlette raw, they are likely to make the omlette runny.

Garlicky Baby Spinach Salad

I love Spinach. My nickname used to be popeye in college, because like that sailor, I can have spinach five days a week, in any one of a myriad dishes. I did a little bit of research on spinach for Weekend Herb Blogging, which was started by Kalyn, and is being hosted by Prof Kitty this week. It turns out Spinach belongs to the amaranth family, and is indigenous to India/ Nepal. It comes highly recommended for inclusion in a healthy diet because of its iron and folic acid content, not to mention tons of vitamins and essential minerals and is especially recommended during pregnancy when women need more folic acid. It also adds to one's fibre intake and is low cal. Health benefits include prevention of osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, arthritis, and other diseases. And it's supposed to help the digestion and improve brain power. What more could one want?

India abounds in spinach recipes, from a simple palak paneer – mashed spinach gravy with roast cottage cheese – to an inclusion in Huli which is one of my favourite lentil dishes, palak pakodas - in which spinach leaves are dipped in a batter made of chickpea flour and deepfried crisp, to raita –steamed, ribboned spinach in a yoghurt sauce. One of my favourite recipes, though, is for Baby Spinach salad. In India, baby spinach is low on availability since Indian dishes call for fully ripe spinach, so usually I'm reduced to buying two large bunches of spinach and pawing through them to find the small leaves to make this salad. However, recently I planted some spinach in a pot in my backyard ( which now qualifies this post for GYO too - yippee!) and last week we could harvest two handfuls of baby spinach – just right for my favourite salad. Serve with crusty bread to mop up the sauce, and watch even kids enjoy this green goody.

Ingredients: (for 4 people)
2 handfuls baby spinach leaves, well washed and dried
½ cup plump garlic cloves with skin on
½ tbsp olive oil
Juice of ½ lemon ( or to taste)
Salt to taste
½ cup roast pine nuts
Pepper if you really want

Chop off the last 1 cm or so of spinach stem and put the leaves in a bowl or a flat dish. Heat the olive oil (not extra virgin, by the way, as that doesn't take well to heating) and pop in the garlic cloves. Take off the heat once the garlic cloves are lightly browned on both sides and pour the oil and garlic over the spinach leaves. Add the lemon juice, salt and pine nuts. If you want, add some freshly ground pepper and serve immediately. Let the family – or guests – enjoy squeezing the garlic skin to burst the sweet pods out and combine with the salad. Pair with a bean soup for a wonderful summer meal!

Green goodness

I remember this small salad and soup place that used to exist in Vasant Vihar called Salad Chef. They used to have a salad dressing that always fascinated me, called green goddess. Being a huge fan of green leafies, I expected something that would thrill the tastebuds with the flavour of 'greenness'. Now i have no memory of how it even tasted, but I had that name in mind when, the day after our Eid Party, I decided to rustle up a simple, light but nutritious meal for us all.

I rootled around in the fridge and found a bundle of spinach - what could be better? I decided not to go with a set recipe but to just add and subtract things, and it turned out rather well - if i do say so myself, and easy to make too.

Ingredients:
1 bunch spinach, washed, chopped roughly
1 red onion, chopped into chunks
4-5 green garlic stalks ( you can substitute with garlic pods but you won't get the earthiness that this provided), chopped
750 ml water
250 ml milk
1/2 cup well beaten plain curds/ yoghurt
Olive oil
2 tsp mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Put in a good glug of good olive oil on to heat in a wok.
Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally until translucent.
Add the spinach and cok, stirring occasionally, until wilted.
Cool and puree the vegetables finely, adding a little water if you need to.
Pour the pureed vegetables back into the pan with the 750 ml water, add the mustard and bring to a boil.
Turn the heat down to medium and add the milk (I prefer double toned but full cream would taste rather good!).
Cook for a few minutes more and turn off the heat.
Add the salt and pepper, and then pour in most of the yoghurt and whisk the soup so it gets nicely mixed in.
Garnish each bowl of soup with a swirl of the yoghurt that is left.

It would taste great with croutons or a baguette on the side.