Soups : Broccoli with Cream Cheese

With the temperatures dipping further down,the only thing comforting is a hot bowl of soup. A recently purchased book on Soups coaxed me to try some new soup recipes. The Broccoli and Cream Cheese soup proved to be a good choice to start as it ranked high on our health and taste quotient.

Ive followed most of the recipe from the book. Only alterations made was i increased the amount of rice and decreased the cheese added.

Ingredients:
14 oz broccoli ( from 1 large head)
2tsp butter
1tsp oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 leek, thinly sliced
1 small carrot, finely chopped
5 tsbp of rice ( recipe said 3)
5 cups of water ( adjust according to desired thickeness)
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp heavy cream
1 oz cream cheese ( recipe said 3)
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
croutons to serve


Method:
Divide the broccoli into small florets and cut off the stems. Peel the large stems and chop all the stems into small pieces.
Heat the butter and oil . Add onions, leeks and carrot. Saute for abt 5 mins.
Add broccoli stems, rice, water, bay leaf and pinch of salt. Bring to boil and then simmer covered for abt 15 mins. Then add broccoli florets and continue cooking covered for another 15-20 mins till rice and vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaf.
Stir in the cream and soft cheese. Season soup with nutmeg, pepper and check for salt. Simmer for few more mins.
ladle into warm bowls and serve with croutons.

We had this soup with a russian salad made by my Armenian friend. The bright maroon salad with beans, potatoes, onions, beets and pickles was a perfect compliment for my creamy broccoli soup. The rice added made the soup very hearty.

Conquering Demons: Goan Crab Masala

Finally a demon conquered. There are certain things in life that we fear or avoid for no apparent reason. But overcoming it gives a new joy of victory. Cooking crabs was one such demon. I always thought it was too complicated to cook crabs so never even thought of trying it. Until my hubby, whose normally a meat eater, wished to have homemade crabs. So off we went to the Chinese Supermarket. Having no prior experience of shopping for crabs, we just picked the ones which looked similar to Indian crabs.

At my parents home, live fresh crabs were always delivered to our door. It was like the excitement of having a new pet, even though that may just last for a few minutes till they are cooked and find their way to our bellies. The live crabs would be kept in a tub till my dad was ready to clean them. There were times when a crab or two managed an escape till the living room or worse till the bedroom until they were discovered. I would be jumping and calling out to my father as i traced their paths around the house. My brother would enjoy the drama safely sitting on top of the dining table. I watched in amazement with the dexterity with which my father would place his big toe on the crab's back, hold both their claws in each hands and pull them back to break them. After this they were reliably harmless. Then he would chop them into pieces for my mother to cook. It was fun to watch then but now i could never do it myself. Thankfully the cleaners at the fish store spared me the guilt. They chopped and cleaned and packed the crabs for me.

The recipe is from my mom and is in true Goan style.

Ingredients:
6 crabs, cleaned and chopped into 2
1 onion chopped
1 potato chopped into big pieces
Salt
4-5 kokum pieces

For masala
2 tsp oil
4 cloves
4 peppercorns
1 inch piece cinnamon
4-5 garlic cloves
1 onion, sliced
1 cup grated coconut
1/2 tsp turmeric pdr
1 heaped tsp bedekar's sunday masala or any garam masala ( if using other garam masala, add 1/2 tsp of chili pdr, bedekar masala has chilli's included)

To begin, wash the crab pieces well.
In a big pot, put crabs, chopped onions and potatoes. Add little salt and water to cover and cook till crabs are done. Crabs would generally turn pinkish orange once done and of course the amazing aroma .
In another pan, put 1 tsp of oil. Add cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon and garlic and roast. Once they give aroma and garlic has changed colour, remove from pan and keep aside.
Then in another tsp of oil saute the sliced onions till brown. Remove
Roast the coconut till light brown.
Combine all these with turmeric pdr and garam masala and grind into thick paste.
Once the crabs are cooked, add the ground masala. Once it comes to a boil, add the kokum pieces Check for salt and spices.
Serve with white rice and salad.

I savoured the crabs with double the pleasure. Nostalgia and victory.

Simplest Mutton Biryani

Cooking Biryani at home has always been known to be painstaking process with long elaborate ingredient list, too many complicated procedures. And yet the taste was never guaranteed to be restaurant type. Ive had many frustrating trials. Until i got this recipe. Its the easiest, fastest and equally tasty recipe as vouched for by all the people who tried it out.

Ingredient list: ( it make look like a long list but its usual pantry staples)
2 pound mutton, chopped to desired size pieces
2 cups Basmati rice
a pinch of Saffron strand
1tsp milk
1 big potato, chopped
1 tbsp Shan Biryani masala
2 tsp ghee
1 inch cinamon stick
4-5 cloves
4-5 peppercorns
4-5 cardomons
2 bayleafs
2tsp oil
1 cup water

For marination:
1 large onion,chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves
1 1inch piece ginger
4-5 green chillies
1/2tsp turmeric pdr
1/2 tsp red chilli pdr
1/2 tsp cumin pdr
1/2 tsp coriander pdr
2 tsp mustard oil
salt
sugar


Method:
Grind together onions, ginger, garlic and green chillies. Marinate the mutton with this mix and all ingredients in the marinate list. Keep for atleast 1/2 an hr but the longer it stays, the better. Wash and soak the basmati rice also.
In a pressure cooker, add the oil. Once hot, add the cloves, cinamom, cardamom, peppercorns and bayleaves. Saute till they are fragrant. Then add the marianated mixture and saute. Add 1cup water and put the lid on. Make sure there's enough water to blow whistles. Add more if required but dont make it too gravy as the mutton will also release water. Cook till 7 whistles. Simultaneously in another saucepan cook the rice till 3/4 th done.
After 7 whistles, open the cooker, you can check if the mutton is cooked and taste the gravy to make any adjustments. Add chopped potatoes now and cover the pressure cooker again for 3 more whistles. Wait till the steam has exited then open the cooker.
In a small bowl, immerse the saffron starnds in milk and warm it up. you can crush the strands to relase color and fragrance.
Take a large vessel to asseble the biryani. Add some ghee at the bottom to grease the pan. Then add a layer of rice, followed by mutton, then again a layer of rice. Add some Shaan biryani masala pdr, some safron in milk, some ghee. Again add mutton and rice. Keep replicating layers to use up all rice and mutton. Covre the pan and cook on very low heat for 15-20 mins.

Once done you can also garnish with fried onions or dryfruits to make it extra special.
Dont forget to dig deep and serve, so that you can reach all the layers.

I had made it for my daughter's Birthday. It was very well recieved by everybody. Even those who generally find indian food too spicy. The white and saffron coloured rice complemented the masala in the mutton very well. This dish has earned a special place in our family for a long time to come.

Ingenious Preparation - Stuffed Mushroom Masala

This is one recipe i can take absolutely full credit for since it has not been inspired by anything ive ever tasted or seen before....it's a pure figment of my imagination and an ingenious experiment whose result have left a very happy hubby and me.

All attempts to find recipes for stuffed mushrooms led to Continental food websites containing cheese and ingredients i had never even heard about. A few Indian recipes found were for starters. As they say "Neccesity is the mother of all Invention/Creativity", i set about to discover my own recipe for Stuffed Mushroom masala. All i knew is that i wanted to stuff my mushrooms with spinach and i also wanted a creamy gravy as a base. Here's what i did....

Ingredients:
1/2lb big size button mushrooms
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 cup shredded spinach
2 chopped green chilies
1/2tsp chilli pdr
1 tsp garam masala
7-8 cashew nuts
2 tsp curds
1 tsp vinegar
salt
oil

Method:
Clean Mushrooms well and cut out the stems to create a hollow space. Dice the stems seperately.
Lightly steam the spinach.
Add a tsp of oil and lightly saute the mushroom cups in it. Keep aside.
In the same pan, saute garlic, green chillies and onions till colour changes. Add diced stems
Add salt, chilli pdr, garam masala.
Add spinach and vinegar and saute for a few min.
Stuff the mushooms with some of this mixture. Keep aside
The rest of the sauteed mixture, grind together with cashewnuts and curds to form a creamy paste.
In the same pan, add some oil and saute the grinded mixture.
Add the stuffed mushrooms.
Cover and cooks for 5-7 mins.

Serve hot with flavoured rice. I served it with fried rice. It was wiped off so fast. I had to immediately write this post before the recipe gets wiped off from my memory. Just in case my hubby ask me to recreate this magic again.

Konkani Fare

Having experimented with a lot of Bengali food..i decided to go back to my roots and dish out some of my comfort foods...and to my delight my Bengali Hubby enjoyed them as well.
Konkani/Goan food known to most are the Portuguese influenced dishes commonly served in restaurants. There are a whole range of dishes never known to the outside world since they are only cooked at Konkani homes.This is my humble effort to introduce you to some authentic dishes cooked by my mother.
Starting the series with simple saatvik dishes made out of lentils and dals generally cooked during Ganpati festival. This is the most important festival for any Goan Hindu. Describing the amazing experience of Ganpati celebrations deserves another blog. Coming back, today i will introduce you to Mugagathi, green sprouts cooked in a mild gravy of coconut milk, accompanied with Daliche Wade, chana dal wadas. Konkani cuisines uses chana dal very sparingly. The only other dish known to be made with it is Mangane, a sweet dish. Watch out for my next post for more details.

Mugagathi
Ingredients:
1 cup green moong
1 half cup coconut shredded
4-5 green chillies
1 small ball of tamarind
1 big spoon grated jaggery
1 tsp Turmeric pdr
salt to taste
2 tsp Oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp hing
4-5 curry leaves
7-8 cashewnuts halfed

Method:
Soak the green mung in water 24 hrs before you plan to cook this dish. After about 8 hrs , they would have enlarged. Remove them into a cloth and tie them tightly. Leave it aside overnight to germinate. Once ready, you can either remove the skin or cook it by itself. I prefer to retain the skin since its enriched with proteins and flavour.
At the time of cooking, add some water to the sprouts and cook them.
Saute chillies in 1 tsp of oil
Grind together coconut, sauteed chillies, turmeric pdr and tamarind.
Add this mixture to the sprouts when they are half done.
Add jaggery and cashew nuts and cook till the sprouts are done.
In another small pan, add 1 tsp of oil and give tadka of mustard seeds, hing and curry leaves. Once the curry leaves get aromatic, Add this mixture to the cooked sprouts.
Mugagathi is ready. A mild coconut moong gravy with a hint of spicy, sweet n sour touch.

I served this with plain white rice and another konkani side dish called Daliche wade.

Daliche Wade
Ingredients:
1/2 cup chana dal
1 small onion chopped
1 small piece of ginger chopped
3-4 green chillies chopped
few strands of coriander leaves chopped
salt to taste
oil for frying

Method:
Soak the dal for about half an hour. Grind coarsely.
Add the remaining ingredients to it.
Heat little oil in a shallow pan. Drop small portions of the mixture and flatten it with the back of your spoon. Make small 5cms diameter circular wades. The wades have to be shallow fried.
Cook till brown n flip over. Brown the other side too.
Daliche wade is ready.
Serve as side dish with any meal or as an evening snack with chutney or ketchup.

Both dishes are very high on the health quotient and taste as good. Stay tuned for more exciting Konkani homemade dishes!!!

Bengali Servings

Most Indian meals are served in a thali with all dishes neatly arranged in a pattern. I actually remember being chided by uncle for not serving the Taat(Plate) according to the set norms. In my Konkani home, esp on festival days, all the dishes cooked for the prasad, has to be served in a defined pattern on a banana leaf.
Now married into a bengali family, i was exposed to a whole new world of food n etiquette.Bengali cuisine may be well know for its diverse cuisine but what i found interesting is their serving style. It follows a 5 course meal pattern similar to the West but with an Indian touch.
The first course is lighter, easier on the stomach kind of menu consisting of rice, dal, vegetables cooked in mild sauces(alu poshto/dalnas) and a fried option(alu bhaja/begun bhaja). Second course is rice with some fish serving. Third course is the main course - a meaty option, generally with chicken or lamb dishes. The fourth course is part fruity-part vegetable dish called Chaatnis. But unlike the usual chutneys used as accompanements, these chutney are eaten as a dish by itself. They are gen sweet, rich with dry fruits and in a semi liquid state (Tomato-Khajur-Raisin/ Pineapple Chutuney). Lastly they end their meal with a wide range of famous bengali sweets.

Coming from a non bengali family, i always wanted to serve a complete bengali meal to my bengali hubby. With recipe advise n lots of support from my mother-in-law, i actually managed to achieve this feat. Since my hubby is vegetarian, my sec and third course got combined into one heavy duty vegetable option called labra.

For this meal i made rice, masoori dal, alu poshto, pumkin fry, labra, tomato-rasin chaatni and ended the meal with store bought rossagullas. Need i say how happy n excited my hubby was that day.

Today i will be blogging the recipes for Labra and Tomato Raisin Chaatni.

Labra:
This dish requires 9 different vegetables. But its very important to have the said vegetable to maintain the bengali taste. This is a typical bengali Saatvic dish with no onion garlic.

Ingredients:
Pumpkin
Bottle gourd (Doodhi)
Ridge Gourd (Parwal)
Small parwal (called Zinga in bengali...looks slightly bigger than a tendeli)
Eggplant
Sweet Potato
French Beans
1-2 pieces of radish(Just for flavour)
Potato
If any one of these vegetables are not available, you can substitute with squash or turnip.

1 tsp mustard oil
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 tsp panch phoran
2 bay leaves
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp turmeric pdr
1 tsp sugar
2-3 green chillies, chopped
2 tsp ghee
1 tsp wheat flour
salt to taste

Method:
Chop all vegetables to medium-to-large size pieces.
Heat a mixture of both oils.
Add panch phoran n bay leaves. Saute till aromatic.
Then add all the vegetables. Mix well. Add salt.
Lower the flame n let the vegetables cook in their own juices.
When almost done, add some more water, then add ginger paste, turmeric, sugar, chillies n ghee and mix well.
Add atta lastly n cook for a while.
All vegetables should get mushy and becomes as one. Thats when the dish is done.

It may not look very appealing but the subtle taste of ghee n panch phoran takes it to a whole new level.


Tomato-Raisin Chaatni
This chaatni has many variations. You can make it with only tomatoes, or with tomatoes and raisins or with tomatoes-raisins-dates. The possibilities are endless.

Ingredients:
3 big tomatoes. chopped
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp garlic juliens
1 tsp ginger juliens
2-3 slit green chillies
1 tsp panch phoran
2 tsp mustard oil
3 big tsp sugar
1 tsp crushed methi seeds
3-4 dry red chillies
salt to taste

Method:
Heat 1 tsp oil and add panch phoran.
Once aromatic, add ginger, garlic n chillies. Saute for a while
Then add the chopped tomatoes
Let this mixture cook for a while.
Just when the tomatoes are losing shape, add sugar and raisins
Let it caramelise.
Lastly add little salt.

Heat the other tsp of oil in another pan.
Add methi seeds and red chillies. Saute till chillies turn dark brown.

Add this tempering to the tomatoes and cook for some more time.
The dish is done when the tomatoes have mashed well n u can smell the red chillies in it.

This dish is sweet slightly spicy preparation.

Fusion Corn

My earliest introduction with CORN was the ubiquitous "Bhutta" which was available during the monsoon season. Bhutta is a perfectly roasted corn on a bed of coals held within a Shedgi or stove. The bhutta bhaiya would fan the coals to create the required heat to roast the corn. After roasting, he would dip a lemon piece into a mixture of salt n red chillie pdr and apply this spicy-sour-salty mixture to the bhutta. That was the perfect snack for a rainy day.

For a long time, this was the only form of corn i ate. Till we had a brigade of fusion food in Mumbai...from American Bhelpuri to the now famous Corn in CUP. Now that ive experienced the taste of fresh corn, its founds a way into multiple indian dishes...creating a new fusion experience everytime. Today was one such experiment. I converted the usual palak paneer to a new fusion dish Alu Corn Palak. And it tasted really good. This recipe can also be used to make only Alu palak or only Corn palak.

Alu Corn Palak

Ingredients:
Bunch of spinach leaves, blanched n pureed
1 big potato, chopped
1 cup fresh corn kernels
1 onion
1 inch ginger
2-3 garlic cloves
2-3 green chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tomato..pureed
1 tsp turmeric pdr
1 tsp red chilli pdr
1 tsp cumin pdr
1 tsp coriander pdr
1-2 tsp yogurt or fresh cream
salt to taste
1 small tsp sugar
oil

Method:
Heat some oil, add cumin seeds..let them sizzle
Grind together onion, ginger garlic green chillies. Add this mixture to the oil. Saute till brown.
Add tomato puree and the masala pdrs. Let the mixture cook till aromatic
Saute potatoes in little oil. Then add potatoes to the masala mixture and cook till almost done. Can add little water if mixture is drying up.
Next add the pureed palak and corn. Cook till done.
Lastly add cream or yogurt.
Adjust salt n sugar

I serve it hot with jeera rice and dhaniya ka bada. Truely Fusion Experience!!!!