{Coming up} A new series on Kitchen Gardening

Picture this -- a wide pot with fresh baby spinach, a tomato plant that gives you sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh mint and basil always at hand for that fresh mojito or to garnish your pasta dish, trays of lettuce from which you can make freshly plucked salads. Kitchen garden is never about having a big farm or a large garden space. Well, if you do, then you can be entirely self sufficient, but a small kitchen garden can even start on a window sill. All you need is sun, decent soil and a little time of your day and in no time you will be addicted. 

If you have any questions for me on kitchen gardening, please leave a comment below, and I shall try and answer those in the forthcoming series - which as of now, I think will be a fortnightly affair. I don't claim to be an expert in gardening. Far from it, actually! I would love to explore this topic and encourage more people to grow little somethings in their homes and gardens. It is an extremely fulfilling experience and I just want to share it with you! So please write back to me on what you would like to hear about :)

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Making a healthier Idli using Foxtail Millet

Idli and dosai are two dishes which can be easily experimented with, with a variety of whole grains. If you are a regular reader of my blog, then you'll know that my whole-grain find of this year is Foxtail Millet- you'll find a couple of recipes featuring them already. It's thanks to our online grocery store that stocks a lot of these ancient grains and greens that you won't find in supermarkets that they end up finding their way in many new dishes I experiment with. While I've been using the millet grain in salads, patties, upma etc, this time I bought the foxtail millet idli rava to try making idlis. It turned out reasonably soft, definitely denser than white rice idlis- but that's the whole grain effect- the end products always turn out denser. The advantage of this being you can't eat as many idlis as you can of the regular ones. Initially you could try substituting 50% of the rice / idli rava with this millet rava and then go to a 100%. 

In India: Tinai, chamai, kavalai, kambankorai are some of the names for millet in Tamil. Nuvanam is millet flour. The gruel made from millet, the staple of Ancient Tamils, is called kali, moddak kali, kuul, and sangati. Korralu (Telugu), Navane (Kannada) [Source: Wikipedia]

An idli is a healthy dish as it is, being a combination of a rice and lentil (udad dal), makes a complete set of amino acids, resulting in a good quality protein. So you can alternate between regular idlis and those made using millets, to get more fiber and a variety of nutrients.

A healthier version of Idli

Foxtail Millet Idli
Makes roughly 32 or more idlis, depending on the size, you could use this batter over 3-4 days for a variety of dishes such as dosai, uthapam, kuzhi paniyaram etc.

1 cup whole or split udad dal (without skin)
1 tsp fenugreek seeds (optional)
2 cups foxtail millet rava (or use 1 cup millet rava and 1 cup rice)
2 tsp salt
Optional
finely chopped veggies to add to idlis
1/2 tsp Grated ginger, mustard seeds, chana dal, red chillies tempered in oil to add to batter before steaming

Soak the udad dal + fenugreek seeds in plenty of water. In another bowl, soak the rava in water that covers it completely.
After 3 hours- drain water from udad dal and grind to a fine paste in the mixer or wet grinder. Remove in a big bowl.
Squeeze all the water from the millet rava and grind this to a fine paste too. Add to the udad dal paste and mix well, adding salt. Add upto 1/2 cup water if batter is very thick. 
Place in a large container with a fitting lid. This will expand to nearly double volume over 8-10 hours, so keep accordingly in a sizable container.
Once fermented, you can either use this immediately to make idlis / dosa or place in refrigerator immediately and use when required (within next 3-4days).

Remove the required quantity of batter 
To make idlis, lightly grease the idli moulds with oil, pour batter into each mould (not more than half capacity), top with any chopped veggies if required, close the pressure cooker lid but remove the weight so that this steams and doesn't pressure cook. If you have a special idli maker, then use that. Keep the flame on high and then reduce to medium once the steam is in full flow. Steam for around 12 minutes on medium flame. Open the cooker after 10 minutes or so, removing the idli stand. Sprinkle some cold water on top of each mould and with a sharp edged steel spatula or a knife, unmould each idli cleanly.

Serve with any chutney or your choice, or molagapodi or ketchup for the kids. 

Other recipes using Foxtail Millet
Salad with nutrition facts included
Millet-Basil Patties

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Easy recipe for a simple, all-purpose chocolate cake

What's the connection between a little black dress, a good pair of blue jeans and a chocolate cake recipe? Like the importance of a good pair of jeans or a little black dress (okay, may be not) in the wardrobe, everyone needs a good, reliable chocolate cake recipe in their cooking repertoire. A chocolate cake that is soft and springy, with nothing fancy-schmancy about it, something that tastes good just as it is with a cup of coffee or tea - that's the kind I'm talking about. While I have complete respect for the creativity and patience of bakers who make these epic cakes that look like masterpieces, I must confess that my love for all things simple & minimalistic extends to cake. Serve me a simple, no-frills cake and I'm a happy girl. Just one small confession here- I HATE cakes that reek of baking powder. That's the one thing that completely murders a cake for me.

I often love to add carrots, beets, zucchini, pumpkin, lots of citrus zest to my cakes to give them body, flavour and colour. But sometimes I stick to a plain vanilla or chocolate cake. Of course, you always have the option of adding walnuts, cherries, roasted almonds into this batter, dressing it up with fresh cream and berries or splitting it in half and turning this into a black forest kinda cake. This recipe has a lot of potential. But if you are like me, or simply a new baking enthusiast, a slice of this cake as a treat in your kid's lunchbox or in a hamper for your friends will make them a happy camper.

I've made this cake entirely with powdered jaggery, which is simply jaggery sold in powdered form. If you get big chunks of jaggery, run it in a food processor / mixer to powder and then weigh it for the recipe. If you don't have access to jaggery, feel free to use caster sugar. Jaggery gives this a deeper colour and of course there is the advantage of using an ingredient in a less refined form. I've used this recipe quite a few times and the result is an absolutely soft, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake AND it doesn't reek of baking powder. 


I've adapted from a recipe I found in BBC Food, halved it, because I didn't want a two layer cake. It's usually better to weigh out ingredients like flour, sugar etc. because it gives a more accurate quantity than measuring out using cups which have a wider margin of error. In case you don't have kitchen scales, then by all means use the metric measurement I have given alongside the weights. It is completely a beginner friendly cake as it uses oil, no creaming of butter required. It's a one bowl cake so no washing up of too many pots and pans. You don't need any fancy electric beaters or stand mixers. A wooden spoon will do. So I hope you are sold out on this recipe!

Easy chocolate cake

Makes one 8" round cake

Less than 45 minutes (just the cake minus ganache / any decorations)

Ingredients

• 112g plain flour (maida) (~1 cup minus 1 tbsp)
• 150g powdered jaggery (~3/4 cup)
• 42g cocoa powder (~1/2 cup)
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• 125 ml milk (~1/2 cup)
• 60 ml vegetable oil (~1/4 cup)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

    125 ml boiling water (may not need all of this)

Directions

Preheat the oven at 180C.

Grease and line the bottom and sides of an 8" round cake tin with aluminium foil or parchment paper.

Weigh out all the ingredients or measure them out and add everything to a large bowl except the boiling water. Mix with a wooden spoon for 3-4 minutes, until well combined.

Add the boiling water to this mixture little by little with repeated stirring. The batter will get considerably thin. If you find it getting too watery, then no need to add all of the water.

Scrape this batter into the greased and lined cake tin. Push some of the batter from the center to the sides so that it is a little indented in the center. This will ensure your cake rises uniformly and not doming up in the center.

Place in the center rack of the oven and bake for around 25-35 minutes. After 25 minutes, remove the tin out and insert a skewer / dry spaghetti into the cake to see if it comes out clean. If not, bake for another 5-10 minutes until the cake is thoroughly baked.

Remove from oven, cool for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the tin carefully and cool on a wire rack thoroughly before slicing

Plain chocolate cake not fancy enough?

If you want to do a little bit extra for this cake like for an occasion, you can make an easy chocolate ganache by heating up 100 ml cream and 100g of plain chocolate bar broken into pieces. Keep stirring with a wooden spatula on medium heat until glossy and chocolate is fully dissolved. Let this cool outside for 2 hours during which it will become thicker and spreadable. Once the cake has completely cooled, pour ganache all over the cake and smoothen out with a palette knife all around and on top of the cake. 

You can fill this same batter into cupcake moulds and use the above ganache similarly to top the cupcakes. Add some colourful sprinkles on the top and you have a soft delicious cupcake that could even be better than store-bought ones!

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Raw Banana & Paneer Kababs

Simple to make and delicious, these kababs were a part of dinner last night. Sufficiently pushed by the good folks who follow my blog's Facebook page, who asked me to share this recipe when I posted a picture - this quick post is for them :) These make a perfect starter, you could make these even smaller for bite sized pieces. I'm sure they'd taste good rolled up in soft phulka rotis.

Recipe for Raw Banana & Paneer Kababs

Makes 10 medium sized kababs

Ingredients

3 small raw bananas

1/2 cup paneer - finely crumbled or grated

fresh coriander leaves, chopped

2 tbsp of finely chopped onion

1 tsp coriander powder

1/2 tsp red chilli powder

1 garlic clove, grated

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp of good garam masala powder (by good, I mean fresh and fragrant)

1 tbsp semolina / bread crumbs

3/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp oil or so to cook the kababs

How to make

Cut the bananas in half (length wise) and pressure cook with peel or boil them until very soft.

Once cool enough to handle, remove peels. These will slip off easily with a squeeze, if the bananas are well cooked. Mash with a fork. 

Add all other ingredients except oil. Pinch off 10 portions, flatten on palm and place in single layer on a plate. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes or covered with cling film until you need to make them.

Grease a non stick tava / grill pan. Cook these on both side with little oil until golden. Serve hot with chutney or Tabasco sauce.

Note

You can use mashed potatoes instead of raw banana and tofu instead of paneer too! Don't use too much onion, i've deliberately used a couple of spoons only, just for flavouring and not as a vegetable.

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My grandaunt's recipe for Mango Moar Kuzhambu : Tamil style Ripe Mango Kadhi

Last week I was in Chennai, I had the good fortune to eat at my grandaunt's place. She is my father's Maami, around 75 years of age and she is one of the best cooks in our family and even a simple weekday meal at her place will pretty much end up being a feast because of the number of dishes on the table.

I remember when as a newly married girl, I went for lunch at her place with my husband, he nearly fell asleep on the table after that grand lunch. Last week, the menu at her place was Maambazham (ripe mango) moar kuzhambu, beans usili, yellow pumpkin olan, pumpkin peel thogayal, keerai masiyal along with rice. Among all the dishes, the mango moar kozhambu was a surprise for me and such a delight for the taste buds. Big chunks of ripe Banganapalli mango steeped in buttermilk mixed with freshly ground spices, mixed with rice was a new kind of high for me. I immediately asked her how she made it and Maami was generous enough to share the recipe with me. Of course she didn't give me exact quantities because they don't measure out ingredients using spoons in our homes. I assumed it would be a handful of this and a bit of that and it turned out beautifully for today's lunch. See that big mango slice intact on my lunch plate below? That's how it should turn out in the end - cooked but intact :-)

Lunch is served

A couple of weeks ago, I made another kadhi using ripe mangoes. That one was Fajeto, a Gujarati style kadhi where ripe mango is ground to a puree and added to buttermilk thickened with chick pea flour. But this recipe keeps the whole mango slice intact and it absorbs the flavours of the curry so beautifully that I'd happily cast my vote for the Moar Kuzhambu over the Fajeto. You must try this recipe while the mangoes are in season. This keeps well in the fridge for a couple of days, so you could make in advance and keep refrigerated for week night dinners as well. 

Mango Moar Kuzhambu (Ripe mango - yogurt curry)
Serves 4
Takes less than 30 minutes

Ingredients
4 dried red chillies
2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
2 tbsp dry tur dal
1/4 cup coconut scrapings
3 large Banganapalli mangoes roughly 500 grams each
2 cups water
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
2 cups sour yogurt whisked with 1 cup water

For tempering
2 tsp coconut oil or vegetable oil
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi / vendhayam)
2 sprigs curry leaves
2 dried red chillies broken into halves
1/2 tsp mustard seeds 

Soak the 4 red chillies, cumin seeds, tur dal in some warm water for 30 mins-1 hour and grind to a fine paste along with the coconut, using up to half cup of water or so.

In a wide pan, bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Cut each mango into two halves, very close to the stone. No need to peel the fruit. Place all 6 mango chunks in the boiling water gently, adding the ground masala to this along with the salt. Bring to a simmer and let this cook for roughly 10 minutes, until mango flesh is soft and cooked but not falling apart.
Add the thinned yogurt to this. Stir gently and bring to a simmer on medium to low flame. Remove from flame and keep aside.

For tempering, heat the coconut oil in a tempering ladle or small kadai. Add the fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, red chillies, mustard seeds. Once mustard seeds start spluttering, transfer this over the moar kozhambu. Serve hot with rice.


Notes:
I'm sure you can do this with any ripe mango, but banganapalli being a variety with generous flesh suits this dish well. Also, it holds it shape well and does not turn into mush on simmering in the curry.


What people who tried this have to say!

@saffrontrail made and ate this:D romba super! The proportions u've told is just perfect... :)
— sowmya (@vishalsowmya) May 30, 2013

Other varieties of Moar Kuzhambu / Mor Kozhambu
The regular one
Morkeerai - a variety with spinach in it

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ChefAtLarge Table: The big Sunday Brunch at Novotel

Novotel, located in Outer Ring Road, one of the business districts of Bangalore, targets customers for both business and leisure. Their signature restaurant, The Square, offers a global buffet concept with a mix of live cooking added to it. The Sunday brunch is mainly laid out in The Square and it extends into their new restaurant Blue Terrain, on the first floor.

As a part of Chef at Large bloggers table, we were invited to one of the Sunday buffets. It's fun to meet the fellow bloggers (in this occasion with the spouses & kids), for a relaxed weekend meal over conversations. When we got in, the others were already tasting the food and clicking pictures (well of course!) and seeing the vast spread laid out, I was surely in a spot as to what to eat :) A few sips of their house sangria was very much in order.

Where you start all depends on what you are in the mood for. If it's breakfast you are after, there's a variety of freshly baked breads, with bacon, chicken sausages and baked beans to choose from to construct your own version of the full English breakfast. You can get freshly made eggs, waffles, pancakes, french toast and dosas to order, at the live stations specially set up for all of the above. 

After this, it's a good thing to do a full survey of what's on offer, because there's an enormous variety here - A whole range of veggies, meats, cheeses and dressings to make the salad of your choice, Pav Bhaaji / Kheema Pav station, SE Asian curries, noodles, soups, South Indian varieties, Continental varieties, Pasta and Pizza stations. Needless to say it's impossible to even taste everything and it can even get a bit overwhelming with one not knowing what to eat.

I started with a salad picking some of the fresh vegetables on display with the Italian dressing. A little more attention to keeping all the raw ingredients covered (especially the cold cuts) will get them more points on food hygiene.  Since I love Mediterranean food, I hovered around the antipasti section which had the mushrooms, rosemary olives, hummus, tabbouleh, marinated cheeses and eggplant and chose the hummus with some bread, along with some olives and mushrooms. 

Some of the kababs, the saffron fish etc. were lying on the hot plates for too long, looking somewhat shrivelled and overcooked. It would be good to do the basic prep and then prepare these nibbles when the customer asked for them. From the mains, I had a Mediterranean Style Grilled Veg with Cous Cous, which was a good dish, the vegetables generously grilled and flavoured and the couscous light and fluffy. I would have loved to have a go at one of the Thai curries which I was told had the options of red, green, massaman and yellow curry, unfortunately I didn't find when I was looking for it and so had to give it a miss when I discovered it well after dessert :)

This brunch extends to Blue Terrain on the 1st floor which is a barbecue restaurant by the poolside. You could choose from chicken, fish, meats and also a selection of vegetables, fruits and paneer. Personally I wasn't over enthusiastic over the barbecue spread at the poolside, probably because I'm vegetarian, or because the spread at the Square was so much better. The vegetables on skewers and the grilled fruit were two of the dishes I liked here. The paneer dish was quite under seasoned and didn't have anything much going for it. With their menu listing a number of rubs and marinades, I'm sure they could have done better with the paneer after informing us of the available options. The swimming pool here is bound to be a hit with the kids and adults to love to swim and work up an appetite. My meat eating friends quite enjoyed the steaks done to their liking and the chicken on skewers. 

Grilled veggies, Paneer Tikka, Grilled fruit, Mango Mojito

After a few nibbles on the barbecued stuff and cooling off with mango mojito, we went back down to the Square, to escape the heat of the outdoors and to have a taste of the desserts.

The dessert counter again had plenty to choose from - the macarons especially were very well made! A live churros counter where you could choose to have the churros with chocolate, vanilla or caramel sauce was interesting addition to the array of desserts served, such as the Picardi, baked chocolate tart, a blueberry based dessert and a seasonal mango dessert which was a light sponge topped with some chopped fresh mango.  I very much loved the mango based sponge dessert and the macarons were just the way they should be - a mix of crisp and chewy. The deconstructed cheesecake kind of dessert served in a glass was definitely the show stealer for me.

Being a mom to a 4 and a half year old boy, I must give special mention to the kid friendly aspects of this brunch. They had a separate menu laid out for kids at a low level so kids can serve themselves, including a special candy section. Kids' menu comprised of fried potato wedges, pasta gratin, mini samosas, fish fingers among other stuff. There was an extremely friendly lady in the lobby with a fully set up table to do anything arty and crafty the kids wanted to do. She also turned out to be so good with face painting and balloon art. The kiddie pool at Blue Terrain means the kids will completely exhaust themselves splashing around and will be ready for a long snooze once you hit home.
(This review is a part of the ChefAtLarge Bloggers' Table)

Novotel Bengaluru Techpark, Opposite RMZ Ecospace Business Park, Marathahalli - Sarjapur Outer Ring Road, Bengaluru – 560103

Sunday brunch-12 noon – 3.30 pm

Rs 1499 (Plus taxes) Includes Buffet at the Square, Barbeque Grills from Blue Terrain, Unlimited Soft Beverages and complimentary usage of pool. One Kid below 10 years of age eats for free with every paying adult.

Rs 1899 (plus Taxes) Includes Buffet at the Square, , Barbeque Grills from Blue Terrain, Unlimited Alcoholic Beverages and complimentary usage of pool. One Kid below 10 years of age eats for free with every paying adult.

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Easy Eggless Choco-Vanilla Cookies

"If I hear "I'm hungry" one more time, I'm going to check myself into a nearby hotel and switch off my mobile phone!"

 That's me telling my four year old, who tells me he's hungry every 15 minutes and the minute I rustle up something, he conveniently forgets about his hunger and runs off to rebuild a Lego castle for the 500th time. But yesterday, I went out for a beautiful wine evening at The Sheraton #socialhour- it's when people at Sheraton Hotels around the world come together for a toast at the decided time. What's more, the wine served at each hotel across the world is from the same winery, for that week. After multiple cabernet sauvignons & rieslings, a good night's sleep at my cousin's place & breakfast with a wonderful friend at the legendary Veena Stores, I'd had enough of me time and couldn't wait to get back home to my mischief monger boy. So today, when he said "I want cookies, mummy" - my guilt pushed me faster than a runaway train to start the oven and then think of something to bake on the spur of the moment.


It started with creaming some butter & sugar, added flour and one thing led to the other. I ended up with these oh-so-cute brown & cream cookies. When I posted the pics on Twitter & Saffrontrail FB page, I was goaded into doing this quick post on how I made them. I'm sorry I'm unable to provide very exact measurements, I hope it's very close to the quantities I've used. Anyway cookies aren't as unforgiving as cakes, so they should turn out okay! They only take 20 minutes, and I promise it will make your child (or the inner child in you) smile :-)

Recipe for Half & Half Cookies
Takes under 30 minutes
Roughly 30 cookies of ~ 2" diameter

Ingredients
4 heaped tbsp soft unsalted butter (if salted, reduce the salt by a pinch)
1/2 cup sugar + 1/2 tsp sea salt - pulsed in mixer for few seconds
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract or powder
1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
few tsp cold water 
1-2 tsp cold milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 180 C.
2. Line a big baking tray with tin foil or parchment.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar-salt mix with a spoon for 2 minutes, adding in the vanilla extract, until well combined.
4. Sift the flours and baking powder together on a sheet of paper or mix it with a fork in a bowl and add it to the creamed mix.
5. Mix well until it forms a dough, adding 1-2 tsp of cold water or milk to bind, if required.
6. Divide roughly in half. Keep one half aside. To the other half, add the cocoa powder, a few drops of cold milk and knead gently to make a smooth but stiff dough (or you cant slice them).
7. Now you'll have two rounds of dough, one white and one brown.
8. Divide each into two logs, to get two white logs and two brown logs.
9. Join one white log and one choco log and roll into a log on a clean smooth surface. It's not necessary, that the white and brown parts are exactly half and half, don't stress out over this-just make sure each log as some white and some brown.
10. At this stage you could refrigerate for 15 mins or so and then slice into 1.5 cm thick slices or go ahead without chilling.
11. Place each slice on the baking tray leaving some space between each cookie.
12. Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes, until the white parts start turning golden. At this point they will still be very soft, so don't overbake. They will crisp up as they cool
13. For chewy cookies, remove them a little earlier.

Note
You can bake as many as you want at a time and freeze the remaining logs / slices to bake as and when required. You dont need to thaw the dough. Slice frozen dough and bake as it is in a preheated oven-adding 1-2 minutes extra for fresh cookies on demand :)

What people who tried this have to say!

Cookie making debut. Made choco-vanilla cookies for the wife and kids. instagram.com/p/ZdS0Gnpeog/
— Obstetrix (@ScissorTongue) May 18, 2013

@saffrontrail wow luks super.. hey i made the kung fu panda cookies today.. turned out well :) thks for making my kid happy too :)
— sowmya (@vishalsowmya) May 17, 2013

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