Mix Veg Salan

Ingredients: Serves 4

For curry paste:

3 tablespoon peanuts, I used salted peanuts, you can use unsalted too.

1.5 table spoon white sesame seeds.

2 table spoon coconut powder, I used dried coconut, you can use fresh too.

2 whole dried red chillies

Water as required

For Salan:

1.5 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/8 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds

7-8 curry leaves

2 medium onions finely sliced

1 cup cauliflower cut into small 1 inch florets

1 carrot sliced into rounds of ½ cm

1 potato diced like aloo chaat. ;)

¼ cup peas

1 small tomato chopped

1 green chilli chopped

1 capsicum, cut into 1 inch pieces.

1 inch ginger, finely chopped

7-8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 cup water

4-5 table spoon curd

1.5-2 table spoon tamarind paste.

½ teaspoon crushed jaggery.

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder to taste

½ teaspoon Coriander powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

Oil for deep frying

Recipe:

For Curry Paste:

Dry Roast peanuts, sesame seeds, coconut powder and dried red chilli together in pan, till they turn light brown in color. Grind them finely using some water, consistency should be like fine thick paste. Keep aside.

If using unsalted peanuts, add a pinch of salt too in the grinder.

For Salan:

Deep fry on medium flame potato, cauliflower, carrots and capsicum, one by one, till they are half cooked and they have slightly turned brown on the outside. Keep aside on kitchen towel to drain the excess oil.

In a wok, add 3 tablespoons of oil used for frying the vegetables earlier. Oil should be hot when you add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds. When they begin to crackle, add onion and curry leaves. Fry the onion till they turn light pink in colour. Then add ginger and garlic, and sauté again till the time they lose their raw smell.

Add peas and pinch of salt. Salt at this stage helps vegetable release their moisture and enable them to cook in their own juices. Also it prevents them from getting caramelised.

Cover the wok with lid, turn the flame to lowest and leave it to cook the peas.

After 2-3 minutes, add the curry paste made earlier and mix everything together nicely. Stir continuously. Add salt chilli powder turmeric and coriander powder. After 2-3 minutes of cooking the paste, add water. Gravy now should turn very runny as this water is required to cook the vegetables completely. Check seasoning. Add more if it tastes bland, because it will turn blander once veggies have gone in.

Add all the vegetables, green chilli and stir, and let the Salan come to a boil. When it does, lower down the heat, and cover with lid. Now let it cook covered for 6-7 minutes casually stirring once or twice in between. This is needed for paste, gravy and veggies to cook together and absorb each other’s flavours. Now check a pea or a potato, if a knife goes through them smoothly veggies are cooked. If not, leave them covered for another couple of minutes.

Now check how much gravy you want. Salan meaning curry, itself requires some gravy for volume, hence if at this stage gravy has gone thick due to cooking of the veggies add some more water as per the consistency you like, and let it come to a boil. Check seasoning again.

Now when you are satisfied with consistency, add curd tamarind paste and jaggery, bring to a boil and then simmer it for another 2 minutes after which the Salan is ready.

Serve hot with boiled rice.

Badaam-Moong Daal Halwa

Ingredients: Serves 6-7

1 cup moong dal.

½ cup finely ground almonds

1 ½ cup milk

10- 12 tablespoons desi ghee. You can use even more. J

1 cup sugar.

Coarsely ground seeds of 2-3 cardammom.

2 tablespoons of Kevra water, optional. It gives a beautiful flavour and fragrance to the final product.

Preparation:

Soak daal in water for atleast 3-4 hours.

Recipe: Use low to medium heat all during the cooking procedure.

Finely grind daal, without using water for assistance.

In a wok, add ghee and when it has heated add daal.

Mix nicely so that daal has absorbed all the fat. After 5 minutes or so add ground almonds and mix nicely.

Next step is to roast this daal almond mixture for next 30-35 minutes or till daal loses its raw taste. Taste it and you’ll know when it’s cooked. You can boost up the procedure by turning up the flame on high and stirring rigorously but there is risk of burning involved hence I preferred low flame. Stir continuously during this to avoid any burnt taste.

Meanwhile in a pan add milk and sugar, and let the sugar dissolve in the milk on low flame. Milk doesn’t need to be boiled if using pre-boiled milk, otherwise let the milk come to boil and then shut off the flame. Keep aside.

When daal has roasted, add milk using a sieve to avoid any impurities falling into the halwa. It may splatter around so be cautious of not burning yourself.

Stir nicely till milk and daal have amalgamated together.

Add cardamom seeds powder and kewra water (if using). Stir till all the milk has been absorbed by the daal.

Halwa is ready to be served. Garnish with sliced almonds.

Churros with Chocolate Dip

My inspiration: Nigella Lawson. She made this recipe in one of the episodes of her series Nigella Kitchen.

Ingredients:

For Churros:

2 tablespoon sugar

2 inch cinnamon

1 cup maida

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon oil

Around 2/3 cup hot water, not boiling but hot.

Oil for deep frying

For chocolate dip:

50 grams dark chocolate

15 grams milk chocolate

¼ cup fresh cream

1 tablespoon honey

Pinch of salt.

Recipe:

For Chocolate Dip:

Add everything in a bowl, and place that bowl on a pan with water on medium flame. That is, you need to melt everything together on a double boiler. When chocolate has melted, mix nicely to amalgamate everything together. And luscious chocolate dip is ready to be gorged on.

For Churros:

Grind together sugar, cinnamon, sift and spread it on a plate. Keep aside.

In a bowl, sift together maida and baking powder.

Add oil and mix.

Slowly add water while stirring maida to make sticky dough. It should not be runny and it also should not be thick like chapatti dough.

Leave it to rest for ten minutes.

Add oil in a pan for deep frying, keep the flame on high.

Then fill this dough in a pastry bag or a cake decorating syringe with a star nozzle in front of it.

Slowly squeeze the dough in the pan till it is 2.5 inch long then cut the dough using a knife. Repeat for all the remaining dough.

Fry till golden in color.

Crispy on the outside but soft and gooey on the inside churros are ready.

Place them on the sugar cinnamon powder and cover nicely.

Serve them with chocolate sauce. Yumm to eat.

Note:

If you don’t have a pastry bag or cake decorating syringe, use what our mothers used to make sevaiyan or chikki. If you don’t even have that, then simply use a plastic bag, fill it with dough, make a slit in one corner and squeeze the dough through it.  

Chana Masala

Ingredients: Serves 4 easily

3 Tablespoons desi ghee

1 bay leaf

2 cloves

1 black cardamom

2 inch cinnamon

1 dried red chilli

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 medium onion roughly chopped

1 inch ginger finely chopped or paste

5-6 slices of garlic, finely chopped or paste

2 medium tomatoes roughly chopped

Salt and red chilli powder to taste

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

3 tablespoon packed chana masala, easily available at any grocery store.

Water as required

2 cups white chana, also known as kabuli chana or chickpeas. Pre soaked in water, overnight is better.

Recipe:

In a pressure cooker, add ghee, cumin seeds, cloves, bay leaf, dried red chilli, cardamom and cinnamon. Fry these till you start smelling their aroma in the air. Keep flame on medium as we donot want our dry spices to burn.

Add onion and fry till they turn pink in color and their raw smell has gone away. Then add ginger, garlic and stir it for another couple of minutes. We don’t want the ginger and garlic to turn brown, just want to remove their rawness.

Add tomatoes, salt, turmeric, chana masala and fry the mixture till tomatoes have turned soggy, and oil starts to separate from the masala. Stir occasionally during this.

Taste the masala and add some chilli powder if it needs a little bit of heat. I personally add around 1/8 teaspoon of chilli powder at this stage.

Now add soaked chana and mix nicely but gently so chana doesn’t break into halves.

Add water till 2 cm above the level of chana. Give a nice stir, and taste the water, add salt if it needs any more. I believe that secret to a great dish is constant tasting at every stage as it helps in understanding how it is turning out and what else does it needs.

Close the cooker with its lid. Turn the flame to its highest level. And after three whistles of the cooker turn the heat to lowest and leave the cooker to simmer for next 10 minutes. Then turn off the flame. And leave the cooker as it is till it releases all the pressure on its own. It may take another 5 – 10 minutes. Then open the cooker, everything should have amalgamated by now, check some chickpea, if they are completely soggy and getting easily squished by hand or spoon, chana masala is ready. If not, put them back on flame and let the cooker whistle again for once only and recheck.

Now all is left is for you to decide on 2 things. One, how much gravy do you want. If you want chana masala to be runny then add more water and bring it to a boil and then chana masala will be ready for you. Two is whether you like your chana a little mashed or not. I like to mash my chana masala a little as it mixes the flavour of chana with masala making it more delicious, preference is yours completely.

Garnish them with some fresh coriander or green chillies or ginger juliennes. Serve them hot with rice/ puri/ bhatura/ paratha or chapatti.

Note:

Longer the chana has pre-soaked in water, lesser will be their cooking time in pressure cooker. I had chana soaking in water for around 3 hours, and it took 5 whistles of the cooker to get perfectly cooked chana.

Cooking time also varies as per the pressure cooker. So please donot blindly follow the above mentioned pressure cooking procedure and adapt it as per your cooker.

Follow the same recipe and make delicious rajma. Instead of chana use rajma, and in place of chana masala add rajma masala.