Summer Colors of London

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Off to London !

Spagetti Bouquet (not-related to post :)

Hiya friends!
This week's been pretty much bereft of posts. Firstly was down with flu and a bad bout of sinusitis and then had to start packing up for my trip to London. I'm off tomorrow for the next two weeks.
It's my first time there and am very excited (finally). I say finally, because I was absolutely un-enthu at the beginning of the week, thanks to the viruses, and it's good to be back to my ebullient self.

Meeta's posts on London were quite a help. Also have been discussing stuff, with people on the Thorn Tree Forum of Lonely Planet.
Other interesting websites that I came across for Local news, food and touristy info are as follows:

www.visitlondon.com
Time Out -London
London Eats
The tube
The Original Tour

Of most interest to you would be the Indian cook out that has been organized at fellow food blogger and passionate cook- Johanna's place in London. A few London bloggers will be coming over and we shall cook Indian food. I'm really looking forward to this mini-gathering over traditional South Indian fare. This goes to show, how bloggers of the world unite over a single click.

I shall be logging on during my trip to post pictures of streets, food, and ofcourse our foodie gathering.

Catch up with you guys soon then!

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Tricolour tarts

Tricolor tart

Cooking up something one considers a 'difficult' recipe always gives that smug satisfaction. I'm no great shakes at baking, except that I follow the instructions diligently. That, combined with sensible substitutions, has always yielded me edible results. ie. no one has wanted to play bouncing ball with my muffins or use my cakes as a cheap alternative to dental extraction !!

I've baked muffins, cookies, breads, cakes but tarts are one thing I had never tried before- probably because the amount of butter that goes into making the tart shell has never been within my 'healthy' cooking boundaries. But what the hell- sometimes it's the pride of baking a beauty, that takes more priority than counting calories. As the same time as I was having those 'tarty' thoughts at the back of my mind- I came across Estelle's Basic Tart shell recipe- which seemed like a breeze. Ideas for the filling were dime a dozen, but I just decided to use stuff that needed to be used up from my refrigerator.


Armed with a couple of 4 inch tart shells and some fresh veggies and some creative juices to top it all- and the result was these two beauties,a little rustic looking though due to the not-so-perfect shape of the shells.

The twins emerging from the oven

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe Easy Quiche Crust (Actually this was a little less than half-froze the remaining dough)
My substitutions were one cup whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup all purpose flour instead of
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
Half the quantity of butter suggested
1 tsp of thick yogurt instead of creme fraiche

The dough was then spread into two, four inch tins.

For filling-
1 red onion-sliced
1 green pepper-deseeded, sliced
1 ripe tomato-deseeded, sliced
Handful of sweet corn kernels
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 T dried Italian herb mix (Oregano, basil and thyme )
1 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp salt
2 T Mozarella cheese-grated
1 egg white for glaze / 1 T milk
1 tsp freshly chopped basil
1 tsp olive oil

Method:
Heat the oil in a non stick pan. Add the chopped garlic, saute for 1/2 min. Don't let it turn brown / golden.
Add the remaining ingredients except cheese, egg and basil.
Saute the veggies for 3-4 min on a medium flame. They should be soft yet maintain their shape.
Fill the stuffing into the tarts. Brush with egg while / milk.
Sprinkle 1 T of grated cheese on each tart. Place in oven at 200 C for 5 min or so, until cheese melts.
Garnish with freshly chopped basil.

Note:
The shell was not too crispy and flaky because I didn't use the quanity of suggested butter. The herbed veggies made an excellent filling along with the melted Mozarella.
Serve as a side with pasta or tomato-basil soup.
You could even make these as tartlets and serve them as party snacks / appetizers.
More the number of colours in your food, the richer it is in anti-oxidants. There's yellow, red and green here and that's good enough a reason for me to send this for Cate's ARF Tuesdays.

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Beetroot Sambhar-Beets and lentils

Sambhar is the staple food in any Tamilian household, and I’m sure many other South Indian households too. It’s a balance of protein from lentils, vitamins from the vegetables, calcium and potassium from tamarind.
It is served with rice and a dry vegetable curry.
Many a people have this misconception that there is just one sambhar. However, a true blue Tamilian will beg to differ. There are sambhars that differ due to the kind of veggies used and due to the method of preparation.

Vegetables that can be used in a Sambhar – Madras onions (most popular, carrots, okra, Pumpkin, Radish, Sweet Potato, Potato, Drumsticks)

Greens like spinach, fenugreek leaves, sprouted pulses

Specialty sambhars like spicy lentil ball sambhar (paruppu urudai kozhambu), vettra Kozhambu and so on...

As a kid, I would love messing my hands with the peel when my grandmom used to be busy chopping beets up. I would also love the natural red blush-on effect when the peel was rubbed on the cheeks ( almost as red as a joker's make up though ) -was probably discovering organic make-up in those days by doing so- :D

I’m not too fond of the vague sweet taste, almost a metallic kind of taste in the beetroots that we get here. There are only two ways I can eat this vegetable, one is to grate some parts of it into a spicy curry-where it imparts a brilliant colour without imparting much of its taste, and the other is in a beetroot Sambhar.

Ingredients:

¾ cup toor dal (yellow lentils)
2 medium sized beetroots pressure cooked yet firm and skins removed with a tug
1 ½ T sambhar powder
2 sprigs curry leaves
1 lemon sized ball tamarind-soaked in water –extract obtained / 1 T tamarind paste
1 pinch asafoetida

Beetroot sambhar in a traditional 'vengala chatti'

Method:

Pressure cook the dal with a pinch of turmeric and asafoetida after rinsing thoroughly.Chop the cooked beets into thick slices and then quarter them.
Heat some oil in a pot. Pop the mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves.
Add the cooked chopped beets, sauté around for 3-4 minutes.
Put the cooked dal, and tamarind extract into the pot and let simmer for 2 minutes.
Add the sambhar powder, salt, and boil for 3 minutes.
Season with salt. Simmer for 2 minutes and take the pot off the heat

Serve with steamed rice dotted with ghee .

Note:

This recipe is rich in anti-oxidants and iron. This one goes for Kalyn's WHB and a delayed entry for Anthony's curry Mela if he will take it up this time that is !

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New

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Inspirations galore - Morning glory muffins and Tricolor tarts

My morning glory muffins

I was just thinking to myself- what is the difference between a recipe I find in a blog and a recipe that I come across in some general food site?The answers were very clear. When I see it in a blog, I know for sure, there is someone just like me, who has tried and tested it and in case I face any problems with the recipe, there is always someone to fallback on. The great degree of interaction and support is what makes it so different from just another food website.

Each day I come across many inspiring recipes. Some I just admire from a distance, probably because I'm vegetarian and the recipe is not. Some, I wish I could make - but the ingredients' availability factor is a setback. Some I actually end up making ( read that as quite a few ).

Tricolour Tart

Two such recipes that I made last week (with a little modification ofcourse ) were inspired from two wonderful food blogs that I came across recently.

-Morning glory muffins from Kitchen culture by Zoubida in Canada
-Basic tart shell recipe from My French Cuisine by Estelle in Sunnyvale, CA

I loved both the blogs for their simplicity and clarity of instructions. If a written word can encourage and inspire a person in India to cook French food, then isn't that something super?

Morning glory Muffins- my version

1 cup whole wheat flour-sifted
1 cup all purpose flour-sifted
1/3 cup sugar
½ cup Splenda / Zero cook and bake
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2 cups shredded carrots
1 large apple shredded
3 T raisins
½ cup grated coconut

2 eggs
2 very ripe mashed bananas
3 T vegetable oil
½ T vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven at 175 C
Mix ingredients one through coconut in a large bowl.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, mashed bananas, vegetable oil and vanilla extract together till well blended.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry- and stir to combine well. Don’t stir too much though.

Pour mixture into lined / sprayed muffin tray. Bake for 25-30 min or until a tester comes out clean.

Note:

This is all the good stuff you would like to have in your breakfast- Wheat flour, veggies, fruits and eggs.

Makes 12 medium sized muffins. These freeze well too. So you could make a double batch, store in Ziploc, throw them into the freezer and microwave them for a minute when you want breakfast on the go or in a jiffy.

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Weekend Breakfast blogging # 4

Piled up wedges of 'handwo'

Handwo (pronounce the 'a' as in 'art' ) is a savory rice and lentil cake that is served as breakfast or a snack. This recipe hails from the state of Gujarat in Western India.

The rice and lentils are soaked, ground and fermented. The batter is then fortified with vegetables, spiced and steamed. The result is a beautiful savory cake, very high in protein and fibre, low in fat and absolutely divine to taste.

For all the plus points, this recipe does need a fair bit of preparation-which is best left to the weekends.

Let me run you through the ingredients- and don't let the long list bog you. I'm sure most of the ingredients can be found in the pantry of an Indian kitchen / or easily available in an Indian store.

1 cup rice ( I used Kolam)

1/4 cup chana dal

1/2 cup moong dal

1/2 cup tur dal

3 green chillies

1" piece fresh ginger root -finely grated

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup yogurt (preferably sour)

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp salt or to taste

Vegetables: 1 1/2 cups of grated carrots, grated cabbage, finely chopped spinach and shelled peas

For tempering:

1 tsp oil

1 T sesame seeds

1 sprig curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

Preparation--

Rinsing:

Rinse the rice in water 2-3 times and soak in sufficient quantity of clean water.

Mix the three lentils together, rinse them in water similarly and soak.

Soaking:

The soaking process will take 5-6 hours. Now, grind the rice with the green chillies into a smooth paste. Remove into a big bowl. Grind all the lentils together into a smooth paste. Mix it with the rice paste thoroughly. Add the curd to this mixture, stir well.

Fermenting:

Keep the bowl tightly covered and keep in a warm place overnight. The bowl has to be large enough, because the batter will rise due to fermentation.

Method:

Take the fermented batter. Add the veggies, salt, turmeric, grated ginger. Give the batter a good stir. You can taste at this stage to check for salt and spices. If you want it spicier, you can add some red chilli powder.

Grease a microwave safe round pan. Pour the batter into it. Microwave at 80% power for 12 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Alternatively you could use a steamer for 15 minutes or so. I used the microwave and it was very fast and came out clean.

Once done, remove and cool for 5 min. Keep a plate to cover the pan, invert the pan so that the cake falls onto the plate.

Cut it into 8 wedges. Heat the oil, add the tempering ingredients. Once the sesame seeds turn golden, remove from flame. Garnish the handwo wedges with the tempering.

Note:

The veggies are optional- but they give it a great crunch and add a huge dose of vitamins and fibre.

Using just 1 tsp of oil, it's too good to be true. Frankly, you can eat it just like that but you could serve it with green coriander chutney.

Do take the effort to make this for breakfast sometime, and you can put your legs up and relax instead of making lunch. Because this is one hell of a filling breakfast!

I'd like to submit this recipe for Cate's ARF Tuesdays.

This recipe is courtesy the LG's microwave cookbook.

(sorry for the messed up formatting, it's been giving me hell for the last 20 minutes, each time i place a line break, it all jams up together again- finally i'm giving up and posting as it is)

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