Archive for the ‘South Asia’ Category
Coconut filled rice crepes, a Bengali delicacy
Pati Shaptar Pithe/Pitha or coconut filled rice crepes. Pati means a mat, and shapta means simple in Bengali.
Grate raw coconut (or get frozen unsweetened grated coconut and thaw), about two cups, add sugar to taste and stir fry until golden brown. If you wish, you can add a tablespoon of raisins and a tablespoon of toasted and chopped cashew nuts or slivered almonds.
Pitha comes in various shapes. These are the simplest. To prepare the crepe batter, to a cup of rice flour, add a pinch of salt, and a tablespoon of sugar. Add milk, 2% or full fat preferably, until the batter consistency is like crepe. Heat up a non-stick pan. If needed, you can wipe it down with a buttered cloth/brush. Follow cooking temperature regimen for a crepe.
 Pour about 1/4 cup of batter and roll it around on the hot pan to form a thin crepe. |
 As the crepe cooks, it starts to lift off the edges. |
 Add two tablespoons of filling. Optionally, form the filling in the palm of your hand in shape of a small spheroid. |
 Roll in form of a fat cigar. |
Keep aside while you prepare the rest. These can be eaten warm or at room temperature. To take them to the next level (i.e. not simple), you can bake them in condensed milk as well but they do become heavy. Drizzling some condensed milk on top while not traditional can be an excellent substitute.
During this trip to India, I am seeing some new sweets in Bengal including baked rasogolla (boiled cheese balls dunked in sugar syrup) , Kolkata’s famous sweet and chana pora (literal translation for roasted cheese), a dish very similar to cheese cake.
Gluten free puri-aloo
Buckwheat puri with aloo and yogurt raita
This dish is a different spin on peethi-ki-puri but is equally delicious and completely gluten free.
To make buckwheat puri, combine 1 cup of buckwhat flour with 1 tsp salt and 1 Tbsp mango powder. Add enough water and knead lightly until dough forms. Buckwheat doesn’t have gluten, so the dough will not have much elasticity. Divide into 10-12 dough balls, roll them flat gently with a little rice or buckwheat flour and deep fry one at a time in 350 degree oil.
Enjoy with your favorite potato (aloo) curry and salted yogurt or raita. And follow it up with a nice long hike to work off all those delicious carbs. Here are some photos from top of windy hill summit this weekend.
 Skyline Blvd, facing south-west ward and looking down. |
 Looking east, you can see the salt ponds and Bay. |
 Looking north-west. |
 Facing south-west. |
Here is to mother’s day!
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Above is post-lunch drink. Chill the fluids – Blanton’s bourbon and Fever tree ginger ale. Combine half a bottle of ginger ale, gingerly, with an ounce of chilled bourbon. Sit back and enjoy this slightly sweet, slightly gingery, slightly heady cocktail.
Lunch was a gluten free but otherwise a very Indian meal, something any mom would be proud to serve to her brood – buckwheat fritters with potato curry and raita. Sorry no photos – food disappeared before I had a chance to wipe oil off my fingers!
Make a potato curry. If you have a pet recipe, go with it. What you are looking for are curried potatoes with lots of light gravy, not the dry kind. Make a raita – for this meal, plain yogurt with a good dose of black salt is perfect.
To make the buckwheat batter, to 1 cup of buckwheat flour, add a teaspoon of salt, tablespoon of mango powder and 1 tsp of dried pomegranate seeds. Mix, add one cup water and stir until smooth batter forms. Buckwheat and sour flavor are brilliant together, so don’t skimp on the mango powder. This can be made up to a few days ahead. Preferably let the batter sit overnight.
Bring 2 or more cups of oil to about 350F in your favorite deep frying vessel. I am loving rice bran oil. Any high temperature oil is fine. Keep a paper towel lined cookie sheet in 250 degree oven. This is to keep the fritters warm while they are made in batches. Drop a tablespoon of batter at time in the hot oil. Fry unti the bubbles minimize. Transfer to cookie sheet. Depending on the size of your frying vessel, you may be able to make up to 6 fritters per batch.
Ideally you want to serve the fritters as soon as they are cooked. But you can indeed keep the fritters warm in the meantime. Serve fritters with potato curry and raita for a not run-of-the-mill meal.
Peethi ki Poori, lentil stuffed fried Indian bread
Peethi ki poori served with potato curry
No pain, no gain. This is one of the more complex of Indian breakfasts that is better left to special occasions.
Peethi: Soak 1 cup dry Urad lentil, whole or broken with no husk, overnight, grind in a food processor so it is not a complete paste with no additional water. Add 2 green chilis, 1 tsp salt, roasted and crushed black peppercorn. In a heavy pan, heat 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil. Add a pinch of asafoetida and 1 tsp cumin seeds. Cook for 30-45 seconds until fragrant and add the processed lentil. Cook until the mass becomes sticky dough like. Let cool. This can be made upto a couple days in advance.
Potato curry: Peel and chop one large Idaho potato, in 1.5 inch cubes. In 1/4 cup water, add 1 tsp turmeric powder, 2 Tbsp sour yogurt and 2 Tbsp of tomato paste and make into a smooth paste. In a pressure cooker, heat 1 Tbsp oil. Add 2 whole red peppers, 1 tsp dry urad daal, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds until they splutter and add the tomato-turmeric paste. Stir until fried and add the potato pieces. Stir to coat, add 1 tsp salt and add 2 cups of water. Pressure cook at medium for 5 minutes after the pressure builds up. Switch off and wait for pressure to subside. You can keep like this this for upto two days. When ready to eat, warm up, crush some of the potatoes with the back of your spoon, adjust for salt and add 2 Tbsp of chopped coriander leaves.
Poori dough: Take 2 cups of whole wheat flour, add 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, 1 tsp salt and necessary water to make into smooth dough. Let rest until ready to use. Heat oil for deep frying and maintain temperature while you roll out the poori’s.
Now get ready to put together the meal.
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Aam ka achar, making mango pickles from scratch
Cut and sun-dried green mangos, mixed with whole spices and topped with mustard oil.
What sells for pickles in Indian grocery stores is not particularly tasty or visually appealing. Often it is an over-salted, pasty textured mass of disappointment.
Here is a young mango pickle recipe that is relatively easy to make if you have access to healthy dose of summer sun.
During early part of summer, you will find green mangoes in Indian grocery stores. Pick 4 mangoes that are super firm. Firmer they are, better they are for the purpose. Also gather some spices, you will need turmeric powder, coriander seeds, nigella seeds (aka kalounji), fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, black peppercorn, and mustard oil.
Makke ki Roti – the way mom makes it
You have surely heard stories of chefs stirring sauces with their hands. My story involves my mother-in-law shaping old-fashioned corn rotis on the hot griddle with her hands. I am presenting a story here and not a recipe. I can’t follow this recipe and I won’t recommend you try.
She estimates amount of corn flour she will need based on how hungry the family is. Adds appropriate amount of grated radish, chopped radish leaves, salt, dry mango powder, hot paprika and water. Kneads to form a pliable dough.
She puts the griddle to heat on medium-high, and keeps following things handy - a bowl of water convenient to dip her fingers in, a tablespoon and a cup of vegetable oil. She shapes tennis ball sized dough in her hands and flattens each into a fat roti with her palms.
She oils the pan lightly, places the roti on the hot griddle, dips her hand in cold water and flattens the fat roti into a thinner one. Then she ladles oil along the edges so the oil slides underneath and cooks the underside of the roti.
These rotis take a few minutes per side to cook. She flips only when the underside is done and repeats the oil treatment. The flipping is done gently as the corn rotis break relatively easily due to lack of gluten.
Voila! They are ready to serve. The rotis are crisp on the outside, melt-y polenta-like inside. Traditionally served with mustard greens that has been cooked for hours into a buttery smooth piquant sauce.
Yet another Delhi street food
This is one of the great street foods of Delhi – daal pakodas (fried lentil balls) served with grated radish and carrot and topped with chutneys. Like a small plate of chaat, this is a multi-dimensional exploration of tastes and textures. The pakodas are crunchy and the lentil is tangy. The pakodas are neither too dense nor too fluffy and provides a nice bite. Grated radish and carrot adds a refreshing crispness. Horseradish overtones and bitterness of radish and sweetness of carrots adds to the dimensions of taste. Coriander/mint chutneys are savory, tart, and gingery. Tamarind chutneys bring the taste of molasses, and dates.
 Home grown radishes |
 Frying lentil balls |
 Fried lentill pakodas |
 Add grated carrots and radishes |
Desi style Okra fritters
Following recipe serves two –
- Start with a dozen tender okra. Wash and dry thoroughly.
- Slit open with a paring knife and stuff a pinch of the following spice mixture – 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp amchoor (dry mango powder), 1 tsp anardana (dry pomegranate seeds), 1 tsp toasted and crushed cumin, 1 tsp red pepper powder
- Prepare a thin cake like batter by mixing 1 cup of besan (bengal gram flour) or chickpea flour with sufficient water, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp cracked pepper, 1/2 tsp anardana, 1/2 tsp crushed coriander seeds, 1/2 tsp nigella seeds, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp of red pepper powder/flakes
- Prepare a mustard oil bath for frying – 1-2 cups depending on your fryer.
- Heat mustard oil to smoking.
- Coat the okra in batter, a few at a time, and fry until golden.
- Drain on a paper towel and serve with chutney.
Stuffing Okra with spices
Chilke ki roti – Vintage punjabi cuisine
Chilke (husk) ki roti
This recipe is from my grandmother’s generation that believed in the motto “waste not want not” and uses the husk of lentils to lighten up the traditional roti. Following recipe serves two.
Preparing the lentil: Take a cup of green mung bean (split or whole). Rinse the beans and soak overnight. If using whole beans, prepare for the beans to sprout and let the bean sprout for a day or so which eases removal of husk. When the beans are ready, place the lentils in a large container and fill with water. Gently rub the lentils to loosen the skin. Collect up the skin that floats to the top. Squeeze the skin to drain all water and set aside. If making daal from the washed and de-skinned lentil, click here for one particular recipe. The sprouts can be served as a simple salad when mixed with salt, pepper and lime juice.
“Shorshe Ilish” aka Mustard sauce Hilsa fish
 Hilsa rubbed with turmeric and salt |
 Mustard paste |
 Add Hilsa to wok |
 Toss the fish in the wok |
Since this dish is being cooked on day one of my visit to homeland, clearly this one is among my favorites. Between “posto” and “shorshe ilish“, it is hard to argue which one is the more quintessential expression of bangla soul. If you are thinking that being vegetarian or not produces a clear choice, stop right there ’cause Bengalis consider fish to be the vegetable of the sea. So there.
The key to this dish is the quality of the mustard paste. Poorly ground mustard paste will result in a bitter dish. So pay particular attention to the quality of mustard and how you grind it. Typically, hilsa fish is used for the dish but for those of you who don’t live in the vicinity of Ganges delta, weep and then feel free to improvise.
Ridge gourd “posto”
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Writing from the Kolkata land. My mother is busy in the kitchen making some of my favorite foods. Posto is the Bangla term of a vegetable curry made with white poppy seed paste. One can use a variety of vegetables including potatoes, eggplant, or okra but my favorite uses ridge gourd.
Following recipe from my mother’s kitchen serves 6-8 people. One key feature of my mother’s cooking is use of mustard oil. The pungency of the oil does wonders to the flavor of the dish. Start with some fresh and young ridge gourd, about 1.2 kgs or so. Rinse, peel and chop (1/4 inch semicircular rounds) to make about 1 kg of gourd. Peel and chop 2 medium potatoes in 1/4 inch dice.
Samosa sandwich
Samosa sandwich – hot crisp samosa sandwiched between sliced white bread with some mint or coriander chutney. Conceptually, this is not far from chip butty.
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In a pinch, ketchup can be substituted for chutney. Or Sriracha. In a pinch, wheat bread can be substituted for white. And by the time, you have substituted Trader Joe’s frozen samosa for the real ones, the purists will cringe. But it will satisfy the Punjabi-ness of your being.
Orzo pudding – three decades apart
Orzo pudding
A memory from the first decade of my life – a winter afternoon in a small town in India, sitting in the verandah underneath a warm sun, mother patiently creating rice shaped little grains of dough. For a child, perhaps tiny objects are fascinating. I may have helped her make 50 of those grains. She made 500 more or perhaps a 1000 more. She sun dried the grains for a day or two and then made a pudding, like rice pudding. My mother is a master pudding maker, she usually cooks a handful of rice in a large pot of milk and adds crushed cardamoms and jaggery. Although the grains cook in milk for hours, they are always perfectly melted, never pasty. The jaggery enriched condensed milk tastes like melted butterscotch icecream. There was extra excitement over the grains of dough pudding but the memory of the taste is lost among hundred other perfect puddings.
Time shift a few decades later. Now I make this quick orzo pudding, a few times a year. Sometimes to honor that lazy afternoon and sometimes to satisfy an immediate craving for a dessert.
One thousand and one nights: Lentil soup recipe
Chana daal
Why 1001 nights? I reckon there are at least that many lentil soup recipes. I am adding mine to the mix.
Why is this special? Aside from the fact that I am not an impartial judge, this one has a variety of textures and flavors that are noticeably distinct but combine to form a wonderfully aromatic and light soup.
Key ingredients? Fresh pickled ginger, finely chopped pickled lime, slow roasted garlic, …
Yogurt curry with spinach dumplings
Yogurt curry with steamed spinach dumplings
The yogurt curry is like hot raita. It is tasty and when had with a bowl of white rice, is a light and easy to digest meal. The lovely yellow color comes from turmeric, a spice with anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory responses. An ingredient is this spice, called curcumin, is now being tested against Alzheimer in scientific studies. The nutrition in the meal comes from the steamed spinach dumplings.
Ingredients for the steamed spinach dumpling (6-8 servings):
- A pack of frozen chopped spinach, microwaved for a few minutes until warm.
- 3/4 cup of besan (de-husked black gram flour). Can be substituted with chickpea flour.
- 4-5 pickled pearl/cocktail onions finely chopped (optional)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp amchoor (mango powder)
- 1 tsp lightly crushed coriander seeds
- 1 tsp paprika
Mix the above ingredients to make a soft dough. Prepare your steamer – I use a bamboo steamer. Make small dough balls with your fist, shape is not terribly important, and steam for 12 minutes. Cool and chop into bite size pieces.
Cook’s reward: Pop a few of these pieces in your mouth while you proceed with the rest.
Homegrown la ratte potatoes
Freshly harvested la ratte potatoes
This year’s potato crop is a bit of a disappointment. We got La Ratte seed potatoes from Seed Savers Exchange but the yield hasn’t been very encouraging. Perhaps the unusually cool weather is the culprit.
Slow cooked la ratte (serves 2-3)
- 40-50 of the small potatoes (~ 1/2 lb) scrubbed clean but skin on
- 2 Tbsp of European style unsalted butter
- Fleur de Sel or other flake salt to taste
Melt butter in an omelette pan. Cover and cook the potatoes on lowest setting for 20-25 minutes. Pick up the potatoes with a slotted spoon and serve hot with sprinkling of salt. Typically, fleur de sel is used in this quintessential french recipe but I didn’t have it handy. The flesh is buttery and nutty. I found the skin a little peppery. Fantastic with a glass of chilled white wine.
Calcutta street to California home – Kathi rolls unwrapped
Home made Kathi rolls
After eating Kathi rolls at Kasa, I was inspired to make this quintessential Calcutta street food at home. When you take on such a formidable challenge, you know you are not going to win. There is nothing I can do in my California kitchen that will replicate the experience of eating outdoors at one of Calcutta’s busiest streets. Neither can I hope to replicate the rich interplay between textures and flavors that the street vendors have mastered. When my father’s generation talks about eating out during their college days, they often reminisce about these mouthwatering rolls!
So what can I hope to achieve? I can definitely beat Kasa. I can make mine with healthy, fresh, organic ingredients, mindful of the calories and the nutritional balance. I can bring my experience with modern techniques to traditional Indian cuisine to create something healthy while preserving the authenticity of tastes and flavors.
There are several key aspects to a perfect roll – the paratha, the kabab and the chutney. These ingredients need to come together in a timely manner. The container that wraps the kababs, paratha, should be chewy and flaky. The filling itself, kabab, should be charred and juicy. The condiment, chutney, should create a taste explosion in your mouth.
Mochar ghonto – a quintessential Bengali recipe
Flower on a banana plant
Mocha or banana flower is one of the more complex Bengali cooking but it brings out the flavors of rural Bengal – fields of paddy, fresh rain on dry earth, and the green smell of ponds…..
On a recent visit to Delhi, had some mocha chops at My Calcutta restaurant. So, inspite of its robust flavors, it is not merely the terrain of a home cook. Once the basic prep method is complete, it can be moulded into various forms – chops, kofta curry etc.
Stinky goodness of sun dried cauliflower
Sun dried cauliflower
Not as bad as your stinky tofu or durian but we are splitting hairs. When cooked, it is yummy – obviously. So, lets take this cauliflower journey – from raw to sun-dried to hydrated cauliflowers.
Lentil bombs
Moong Daal Vadi
OK, thats not what they are called. But I am tired of the spelling variations – vadi, badi, bodi…
So what is this bomb?
Why not a chaat truck?
Everyone knows a taco truck in California – the truck that come rolling around with sounds of simple jingles and sells fresh Mexican staples with their mouthwatering salsas. Fresh, yummy and cheap is what a good taco truck fare is.
My question is this – what not an Indian version of the same serving chaat and tea?
In the afternoon, when my vampire’s nest (I call my windowless, sunless, fluorescent tube lit, office cubicle that) is at its dullest, I often find myself craving for some samosa and chai. On a winter afternoon, when the incessant rain is doing its worst damage to your mood, a plateful of samosa is the only escape. Sex would be better but samosa is safer. Surely.
Locomotoring 