On growing strawberries and recipe for Eggless Strawberry Yogurt Cake

My three year old son and me have a morning routine nowadays. After his drink of milk, we go to the garden and check if there's any red peeking out of the strawberry patch. If we didn't do this, the squirrels and ants, who have been blessed with a better foraging sense than us human beings, will get to the juicy berries before we do. We don't get too much, but a small handful a day, to add to cereal or to make a couple of muffins, or to eat as it is. The latter doesn't happen often as I am not very tolerant to acidic fruits and I'm yet to taste lusciously sweet strawberries grown in India. Here, strawberry needs sugar as a partner to make it more palatable. 


But, however little, that sense of joy we get from having watched something grow for nearly eight months, and finally bearing fruit, is such a fulfilling one. These strawberry saplings were planted in June and they quickly propagated and covered the ground, but there was not a single flower in sight even after six months. The newbie gardener that I am, I quickly lost hope. Patience is clearly not one of my virtues, hence I stand to benefit a lot from gardening. I am slowly learning that nature doesn't work at the speed of a 4Mbps internet connection. It takes its own sweet time. And what sweeter time than spring time? I don't need my neighbours to drench me in permanent colours (albeit organic) and hose me with tons of water, to announce the arrival of spring (I'm talking about the one festival I dread, Holi). The new blooms and fruits in my garden had already whispered to me a few weeks ago that spring is not far away...

Just plucked strawberries basking in the morning sun

A few years ago, if someone told me that I could grow strawberries in India, I would have laughed it off. But Bangalore weather is somehow to conducive to growing almost anything. Like my friend @abithaanandh tweeted this morning -

 "Am willing to overlook 11pm deadlines,bad infrastructure,forever 90s music loop- all 4 those few precious hrs in the garden! Tk U #Bangalore"

It is so true. I'll continue to grow strawberries next year too. I'm told they bear better fruit in the 2nd and 3rd year. Only, I'll be growing them in hanging baskets, so I dont have to compete with the ants to pluck the fruit!


I've been wanting to bake a strawberry cake for a while now. Not the types where the fruit is pureed in, but stands out like red jewels, slightly mushy from the baking and a burst of flavour in the mouth, when you bite into it. And somehow, I wanted to pair it with yogurt as I couldn't use eggs in this. A Foodblogsearch didn't find me the kind of recipe I had in mind, so I did my own improvisation. Yesterday afternoon, just before the baking session, I found a bottle of strawberry essence at Nilgiri's, so the fruit, the essence and the jam made the taste pretty intense, but not in the cloying sort of way.


The recipe I'm sharing with you seems to be the most low-fat and healthiest version among all those that I went through as a result of my various searches.

Pin It

This is a tea cake or a weekend breakfast cake. I'm not asking you to believe that it's dessert. Umm...may be with ice cream, yes :)


The texture was very moist and delicate despite not using eggs or butter.
Do give it a try before the strawberry season bids us a goodbye.

Recipe for Strawberry-Yogurt Cake
Eggfree / Eggless / Lowfat
Tea time or breakfast cake
Makes 1 tall 8" cake

Ingredients

¾ cup yogurt
¼ cup milk (skimmed or toned, as you prefer)

¼ cup rice bran oil (or any cooking oil)
¾ cup sugar
2 generous tablespoons of strawberry or mixed fruit jam
1 tsp Strawberry essence or mixed fruit essence (gives a more fruitier flavour, if you don’t have either, use vanilla extract 1 tsp)

1.5 cups all purpose flour OR 1 cup AP flour + ½ cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt

Roughly 1 cup finely diced strawberries
Handful of tutti-frutty (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 180 C
2. Grease an 8” round cake tin. If using silicon pan, no need to grease.
3. In one bowl, whisk the oil, yogurt, milk, sugar and jam.
4. In another big bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well. Add the whisked wet ingredients. Fold until they come together. Over enthusiastic beating / whisking is better avoided.
5. Towards the end, fold in chopped berries and tutti-fruity.
6. Scrape the batter into the greased tin / silicon mould and bake at 180 C for around 45-55 minutes, checking with a tester if it comes out clean.
7. After 10 minutes, unmould and cool on a wire rack.
8. Cut into wedges, dust with icing sugar and serve with tea.

The same recipe will work with raspberries or blueberries to make a blueberry yogurt cake or a raspberry yogurt cake.

See what people have to say about this cake! (via Twitter)

Dear @saffrontrail i tried your strawberry yogurt cake recipe and it came it out so well. Thanks :) — Marie Gold (@OyeMaria) March 11, 2012

@saffrontrail Love your blog.Just baked your eggless strawberry yogurt cake ,its superb!wanted to thankyou.Hope you wud reciprocate!:)
— nitisha kashyap (@nitishakashyap) March 11, 2012

Cake done. Waiting to cool ! @saffrontrailI can't find you on FB so the update is here! twitter.com/thingyimajig/s…— MushyPeas (@thingyimajig) March 10, 2012

@saffrontrail hey, just made the strawberry yoghurt cake.. came out amazing! I just wished my strawberries weren't so sour though :-( — Priya A (@priya_arun) March 9, 2012

@saffrontrail Yeah... Sounds like a healthy cake. Will probably make it before the strawberry season ends. — LoveFoodEat (@chinmayiebhat) March 11, 2012

Tempted to bake @saffrontrail's strawberry yoghurt cake tonight. But waistline concerns are there : — S (@wastrelette) March 11, 2012

Read More...

On how the monstrous zucchini got Tambrahm-ised

[Those who voted for me and got me into the final 6 Healthy Cooking Blogs, thank you! In the finals, my blog as of now is 5th. Feels kinda pointless asking to vote now as the better blogs lead by tons of votes, but if you've loved my work here, go ahead and vote for me. Directions here ]

My garden always surprises me. Which is why I like to take my morning tea up to my terrace garden, perch myself on one of the tiny stone benches and sharing that morning moment with the plants to the background music of the birds. While I try to get a few sips of my tea, a little fruit, a new flower and small shoot will beckon me to admire it. And I will go take a look at them while my tea sits on the bench going cold. Every morning, a new surprise, however little, that makes me smile and sets the mood for the rest of my day. It is an exercise in positivity. Many flowering plants that I assumed were dead, suddenly start showing signs of life as spring is round the corner. My lavender bushes, since 9 months didn't show one sign of flowering and I thought "Damn! The nursery fooled me with a non flowering variety!" And I was proved wrong when the prettiest lavender flowers bloomed this month. If there is a tiny bit of life left in the plant, come spring time and it will revive. What's more beautiful in life than hope, after all?

And then sometimes a garden makes you laugh out loud. Like this monstrously huge zucchini that had been hiding under the huge leaves for nearly a month, that had missed my keen scrutiny each morning only to be found by my driver a few days ago. He showed me this green thing nearly as big as a new born baby-and I shuddered! And then laughed so hard when I knew that it was indeed a zucchini that had hidden away from all prying eyes and grown so big~nearly 2.5 kilos.

Not to show off my (old) iPhone but to give you size perspective :)
This is after a third of the zucchini has been chopped off

I kept it on my table to admire it's beauty for the first 2 days, then it spent a few more days in the refrigerator. When other vegetables came in from the supermarket, this big fellow could no more occupy precious refrigerator real estate and he had to be brought out. 

The husband is not a big fan of zucchinis and though we had shared enough jokes about how big this sly vegetable had grown, his enthusiasm stopped there. When I was cutting it up this morning, he said, "Please, I don't want this for lunch." Since there are very few things he doesn't like, I usually indulge his whims, but this time, I just smiled and said "We will see."

Over the six years that I've been food blogging, I've seen several bloggers making Zucchini thogayal. But zucchini, in India, has always retailed at around Rs.100 a kilo. At that price, why on earth would I want to puree it to death in a blender. I wanted to see and enjoy this vegetable in salads, pasta and such. But thogayal, no way!

But when you have a 5 pounder zucchini sitting on your counter top, the thogayal did indeed seem like a good idea. And boy, did it taste good or what.

Zucchini Thogayal and Zucchini Curry (both recipes below)

For the uninitiated, thogayal or thuvaiyal is a Tambrahm style of converting mildly unpalatable vegetables (Chow-chow, pumpkins, ridge gourds, bottle gourds etc) into chutneys so Tambrahm uncles will mumble good things about the food even if they are eating some vegetable they don't like. Many blogs will say you can eat Thogayal on bread or with idli or dosai or chapathi or pasta or just about anything. I wont say they are lying. But there is only one way to really savour this. Hot rice, gingelly oil (yes, oil and NOT ghee) and thogayal and a roasted appalam on the side.

And the zucchini hating husband tasted some of it, hesitantly, after he had eaten beans curry-rice and rasam and said "Please keep some for me, I want to eat this for dinner."

I guess after this, I can well call this 5 pounder- 'Zucchini Iyer'.

Ingredients

2 medium sized green zucchinis 

1/4 cup scraped fresh or frozen coconut

a tiny piece of tamarind soaked in 2-3 tsp of water

2.5 tsp gingelly oil or any other cooking oil

2 tbsp + 1 tsp udad dal

4 medium dried red chillies

1/2-3/4 tsp salt

2 sprigs curry leaves

Fat pinch asafoetida

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1 green chilli

Directions

1. Chop the zucchini into medium sized cubes. No need to peel the skin.
2. Heat 1/2 tsp oil in a pan. Add 2 tbsp udad dal and red chillies and saute on medium heat until the udad dal is golden brown. Remove onto a plate and cool for few minutes.
3. Heat the remaining 1 tsp oil in same pan. On high heat, scald the chopped zucchini by tossing it around for a minute or so.
4. Reduce the flame, add 1/4 cup water, pinch of salt, cover and cook till zucchini is tender and fully cooked.
5. In small mixer-grind the fried udad dal-red chillies, soaked tamarind and coconut to coarse paste. To this add the cooled cooked zucchini, salt and scrape the sides of the mixer and grind to a paste. Remove this into a bowl.
6. Heat 1-2 tsp oil in a tempering ladle or small kadai. Add pinch of asafoetida, mustard seeds, once they splutter, add curry leaves and udad dal. Wait for dal to turn golden and transfer the tempering over the thogayal.

Notes

Traditionally a lot more coconut is used, so you could use as much as your health consciousness permits.

If you know this one recipe, you will have at least one way to deal with most of the vegetables that the world at large considers boring.

Another way to Tambrahm-ise Zucchini : Zucchini Curry

A small clarification here. In Tambrahm cooking, a curry is not a gravy dish that Brits seem to love. It's a simply prepared dry saute with minimal spices and the star being the tempering. I pressure cooked this for a bit as it was a mature zucchini, if your's is tender, you can simply add it raw and cover and cook till done.

1. Place 1.5 cups of zucchini pieces (small) in a container in a pressure cooker. Don't add water to zucchini. Pressure cook for one whistle. 
2. In a kadai, heat 2 tsp oil. Add pinch of asafoetida, 2 dried red chillies, 1 tbsp udad dal, few curry leaves, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds and saute till udad dal is golden. 
3. To this add the cooked (or raw) zucchini, pinch of turmeric (optional), salt and toss gently to coat with tempering, on a low flame.
4. Add a bit of fresh coconut and it's ready to serve. Those who find this very bland can add 1-2 tsp of sambar powder or rasam powder towards the end and give it another toss.

See what people on Twitter have to say:

@saffrontrail thanks for reminding about this , though I didn't add tamarind and also didn't grind it fine .SuperIt is fb.me/1FlmX3yKa

— monika (@monikamanchanda) March 10, 2012

Read More...

Homies 2012 Finalist in Best Healthy Food Blog- Need your Votes

Thank you for responding to my appeal on my blog, FB page, Twitter and Facebook. Despite getting nominated with 2 days to spare, I made it into the final round of voting.


I need all your support (and votes) to win this. The voting process is a little cumbersome if you dont have an apartment therapy website log-in. So here's taking you through the process:


First, click here and go to the voting page for the Healthy Cooking Blog finalists.


If you already voted for me in the previous round, use that same Twitter/Facebook id to directly sign in and vote - using the 'SIGN IN' link on the page.


REGISTER
If you don't have an existing sign in, then you have to register by clicking the 'Register' link.

Register your email id and password as shown below

SIGN-IN

Get back to the voting page link  and click Sign in with your mail id and password

VOTE

Now you can vote for me...

It isn't as complicated as it seems, just register, sign back into the voting page and vote for me.

A big thank you, to my friend Punita for helping me with the screenshots!

Read More...

Nominated for the Best Healthy Cooking Blog - Homies 2012

This is one of the rare occasions in the last six years that I've been blogging, I'm kicked enough to do some self-promotion and ask you to vote for me as the Best Healthy Cooking Blog in the Homies 2012 awards conducted by thekitchn.com - This is the first time they have a Healthy Cooking Blog category in their awards and I'm happy that my blog fits the bill quite neatly.

The voting process is a little tedious, you need to log in with your twitter or facebook id over here
and then go to the nominations page here for Healthy Cooking Blogs, search for 'Saffron Trail' and vote for me.

This is the first round of voting for nominations which is open until March 1 (midnight EST) after which the top six contenders will be open to votes once again.

Looking forward to your support!

Once again - the links

To log in - http://community.apartmenttherapy.com/sign_in

The voting page - http://www.thekitchn.com/best-healthy-cooking-blog-nominations-the-homies-2012-166622

Thanks a lot!

Read More...

Raw banana (plantain) kababs

Vazhakka or plantain is one of my favourite vegetables. There are at least three favourite ways I make this in true Tambrahm style. One is a roast, where it is sliced thinly and slow roasted until it turns crispy. The other way to make it is to cube it, cook it and saute it with whole red chillies, udad dal, mustard seeds and curry leaves with a garnish of coconut. The third one is a vazhakka podimaas. All three taste yummy with rasam-rice or mor kozhambu and rice. 


Since there are three yummy ways to make this vegetable, I rarely end up making anything else. This time I picked up the plantains with the sole idea of making kababs so they don't end up in one of my favourite curries. I did a quick google search for plantain kababs and the one that appealed most was from Vah Chef Sanjay Thumma. Mine is an adaptation of that recipe.


Kababs are best served with roomali rotis, which are not that difficult to make at home provided you have a tough aluminium/ cast iron kadai that you can turn upside down on the flame and cook the roti on the upturned kadai. Please don't try this with your expensive teflon coated non-stick kadai. 


Also, there is no need to indulge in the dramatics of the chef in the Punjabi restaurants of the 80s and 90s where they would throw a roomali roti in the air in open buffet counters to grab the interest of the diners. 

Roomali Roti

 For the dough, I use a mix of 3 parts atta and 1 part maida, salt and water, rest it for 30 minutes and then roll them out into big sized rotis as thin as i possibly can. I cook this on the upturned kadai kept over a big flame for a few seconds until golden spots appear and repeat on the other side. Fold into quarters and keep in airtight casserole until ready to eat.

Carrot-Radish-Rocket Salad

You can serve this with sliced onions soaked in vinegar for some 30 minutes. I shredded a radish, carrot and sliced a small bunch of rocket leaves-dressed it with lemon juice, salt, pepper and tiny pinch of sugar. It tastes better if you cover this bowl and leave it in the fridge for sometime.

Dinner is served

Recipe for Raw Banana Kababs
Makes 16-20 1" kababs




Ingredients
2 raw bananas
1 potato
1 medium carrot
3 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1/4 cup grated paneer / tofu
handful of finely chopped coriander
1 heaped tsp amchoor powder
1-1.5 tsp salt


Dry roast till fragrant:
1 tsp caraway seeds (shahjeera) or cumin seeds
1 tsp aniseed (saunf)
1 tsp coriander seeds
5-6 whole black peppers
4 cloves
2 green cardamoms


Once cooled, grind to fine powder in spice grinder


Directions:
Halve the raw bananas. Place 1 L water to boil and put the halved bananas. Boil for around 10 minutes, until bananas are tender. Remove from water. Cool, peel and grate.


Pressure cook potato, peel and grate.


Peel carrot and grate.


Add the grated raw banana, potato, carrot along with all the other ingredients included freshly ground spice powder and 1-1.5 tsp salt to the mix and knead until all ingredients are well mixed to make a smooth dough.


Roll into small lemon sized balls and flatted on palm to make 1" sized patties. Place on hot greased tava and cook on medium flame until golden brown. Flip and cook on other sized for 5-7 minutes until golden, adding some oil around the sides, if required.


Serve with roomali roti, salad and chutneys.


I served it with a simple shredded radish-carrot-rocket salad seasoned with salt, sugar, pepper & lemon juice and spicy green chutney.

Read More...

Morkeerai or Spinach and yogurt stew : Garden to plate

TamBrahm cooking or the recipes from Tamil Brahmin households could well vary from house to house. While I've eaten Tambrahm food all through my growing years (albeit sometimes reluctantly) - when this recipe for Morkeerai came to me for posting in Tambrahmrage Cooks - I was surprised I've never eaten this. I'd never even heard my grandmum, aunts or mum mention this ever. 

Spinach patch

Chilli Plant

Plucked and ready for the recipe

Spinach seeds

Since we have having a good crop of spinach and chillies currently in our small terrace garden, this seemed like the perfect way to use freshly grown produce. The procedure to make this Mor-Keerai (more:buttermilk and Keerai:spinach in Tamil) seemed to be like that for Mor-Kozhambu. Grind fresh spice paste with coconut, add it to sour yogurt / thick buttermilk and bring to a simmer. Spinach was an addition to the regular mor-kozhambu recipe.

I loved the subtle flavours of this stew. You can use any seasonal fresh greens such as amaranth, water amaranth, agathi keerai or Bathua. I have promptly passed this recipe on to my mom.

 More Keerai served with Carrot Curry and Brown Rice

Recipe for Mor Keerai
Spinach and yogurt stew
Serves 3-4 
Originally posted on our other blog 


Ingredients
2 tbsp chana dal
1 tbsp raw rice
1/3 - 1/2 cup coconut scrapings
2 sprigs curry leaves
Handful of coriander leaves
4-6 green chillies
2 cups thick yogurt
3 packed cups of finely chopped spinach leaves
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp udad dal
pinch of asafoetida
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp pure coconut oil (optional)


Directions

1. Soak 2 tbsp chana dal and 1 tbsp rice for about half hour.

2. Grind to a fine paste: 

1/3 - 1/2 cup coconut scrapings 2 sprigs curry leavesHandful of coriander leaves4-6 green chillies-depending on how spicy they are& the soaked chana dal and rice.

3. Mix this paste into roughly 2 cups of thick sour yogurt

4. Wash and finely chop spinach leaves to get 3 cups packed

5. In a kadai, heat 1 tsp oil-temper 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 2 tsp udad dal and pinch of asafoetida. Add chopped spinach with a pinch of salt. Saute for a few minutes until wilted. Sprinkle some water and let the spinach cook thoroughly. 

6. Add the curds with spice paste to the cooked spinach and salt as required. Once this starts frothing, remove from flame and garnish with pure coconut oil. Dont let the curds boil or it will split.

Serve with hot rice and a vegetable curry.

Read More...

Black eyed peas curry with fresh ground masala

Do you follow the Tambrahmrage Blog? If not, check it out now so you are not deprived of the laughs we have been having over the last few months. I am happy to announce that Saffrontrail along with the Tambrahmrage blogger have started another blog called Tambrahmrage Cooks. It is traditional tamil brahmin cooking served with dollops of sambar humour and real audio files means that you literally hear the recipes from the Maamis' mouths.

------------

This post is hot off my kitchen counter. I made this for lunch today and one taste of it finally made me shake off my blogging lethargy. My generous self felt that this recipe MUST be shared with the world at large. And here it is for you...

You can use any beans for this curry. Some of them I can think of are dried peas (white / green), green moong, whole masoor, moth beans, rajma beans, fresh lablab (mocchai) or anything else. Simple rule to remember is, if the beans are dried, soak them overnight.

Red Chauli - Dry (click for a larger picture)

Fresh beans like mocchai can be pressure cooked without soaking. 4 hours should do for the smaller varieties like moong, masoor, moth, black eyed peas (white/red), while the bigger beans like rajma or dried peas do well with an overnight soak.

Black Eyed Peas Curry with fresh ground masala
Time taken - Under 30 minutes with a pressure cooker
Serves 3-4

Ingredients
3/4 cup black eyed peas (I used the red Chauli)
3 medium tomatoes

To be ground into a paste:
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped roughly
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh coconut
2 tsp coriander seeds
3 dried red chillies
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 medium cinnamon stick
3-4 cloves

1 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
asafoetida
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garam masala powder or 1 tsp rasam/sambar powder

Lots of finely chopped fresh coriander

Directions
Use a pressure cooker with separators. In one compartment, place the rehydrated peas with just enough water to cover.
Halve the tomatoes and place in another compartment. No water required in this.
You can cook rice in the third compartment if you want to serve this curry with rice. Pressure cook for 2 whistles and keep on sim for 5-7 minutes and remove from flame. Open when cool enough.
The peas should be cooked to very soft but maintain their shape. Tug off the tomato skins, mash with fingers and keep aside.
In a large kadai, heat 1 tbsp oil, add 1 tsp cumin seeds, fat pinch of asafoetida. Once the cumin splutters, add the ground paste to the oil and fry on medium flame for around 5 minutes, until oil separates and the onion and garlic is cooked off.
To the cooked paste, add the cooked black eyed peas and the mashed tomatoes. Add turmeric, salt and garam masala powder. Bring to a simmer. Add some water if it is too dry. Let this simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from flame and add fresh coriander.

If you don't have / use / like a pressure cooker-
Boil the soaked beans in plenty of water for around 45 minutes (until really soft) and blanche the tomatoes in boiling water, peel and mash them with fingers-proceed with recipe.

Serve with steamed rice or rotis.

The fresh mocchai beans are still in season. You must give this recipe a try with them. No soaking required, directly pressure cook as directed above.

Read More...