Oats Idli

Ingredients: (Makes 10 idli)

1 cup saffola masala oats, ground into powder.

½ cup semolina

½ cup curd

Around 1 cup water

2 medium carrots, finely shredded.

1 teaspoon mustard seeds.

9-10 curry leaves, roughly broken into smaller size by hand

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder to taste

1/8 teaspoon soda bicarb

1 tablespoon oil.

Recipe:

Mix nicely together oats, semolina.

Add curd and water and whisk into batter. Keep aside.

In pan on medium flame, add oil, mustard seeds and curry leaves, sauté till seeds crackle and then add shredded carrot. Sauté for a couple of minutes or till extra juice from carrot has evaporated. Add this to batter along with salt and red chilli powder and mix.

Add soda bicarb and whisk for 4-5 minutes nicely or till air bubbles appear on the surface.

Now pour the batter into already greased idli maker and steam it for 4-5 minutes. To check if idli is ready, poke it with a toothpick or a knife if it comes out clean idli is ready. Serve with chutney.

Note:

Any kind of vegetable can be added in the batter.

Chinese Soya Vermicelli

Begin with soaking 1/2 cup soya grains in water, when they turn soggy 

drain the excess water and keep aside. Boil 1/4 cup vermicelli in water, 

and keep aside. In a wok, add 1/2 inch ginger chopped, 4-5 slices of 

chopped garlic and saute on medium flame, add one chopped onion, 

one chopped capsicum (1 inch size) and saute for few minutes, add 

pinch of salt to avoid browning. add 1 table spoon each or as per your 

taste of soy sauce chilli sauce tomato ketchup and mix well. Add some 

water to aid in proper mixing of masala. Add soaked soya and 

vermicelli mix well. Sprinkle green onion, add vinegar and serve hot.

Oats Pancake

Ingredients:

3 Brown bread slices

½ cup saffola masala oats

½ cup thick curd

¼ cup semolina

¼ cup all purpose flour / maida

½ cup Water, or as required.

½ teaspoon baking soda

Salt and chilli powder to taste.                                                      

½ part each of onion, tomato and capsicum finely chopped.

¼ inch ginger

Recipe:

Grind together bread slices and oats into fine grains. Add curd, semolina, maida, ginger and blend together.

Pour the batter in a bowl, add water, salt chilli powder and whisk well. Add vegetables and baking powder. Mix well and keep aside for 15 minutes for soda to work.

Then make pancakes fry them on both sides till golden in color. Serve hot with coriander chutney.

Note:

Saffola oats are available in different flavours, try this recipe with each one of them and taste a different pancake every day.

Increase or decrease the quantity of water depending upon how thick you want your batter to be.

Add any vegetable in the pancake, or even different herbs to enhance the flavour.

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. 

Onion Rings with Pineapple Sauce

Ingredients:

For Pineapple sauce:

1 ½ cup pineapple juice

½ inch ginger roughly chopped

3 tablespoon tamarind paste

1 teaspoon sugar

1 ½ tablespoon crushed jaggery

½ teaspoon or to taste black pepper

Salt to taste

½ teaspoon corn flour

For onion rings:

2 onions. Sliced and rings separated.

5 ½ tablespoon maida

1 ½ tablespoon semolina / sooji

1/8 tea spoon of soda bicarb, garam masla, coriander powder and dried mango powder / aamchoor.

Salt and red chilli powder each to taste

1 ½ half table spoon corn flour

¼ cup Drinking soda or as required

Recipe:

For pineapple sauce:

In a pan on medium flame, add pineapple juice and ginger. After it begins to simmer add sugar, jaggery, pepper and salt. Once sugar and jaggery has dissolved add tamarind paste and bring the sauce to a boil. Then strain the sauce through a sieve and pour back into the pan on high flame. Add corn flour and stir continuously. After a boil, shut the flame and strain again. Sauce is ready. Serve when at room temperature.

For onion rings:

Mix well together all the dry ingredients. Add drinking soda just before frying the rings, and mix into runny batter, like the one used for pakoras.

Dip onion rings in the batter and fry them for few seconds till they turn golden in color. Serve hot with the sauce.

Note:

You can add more flavour to the sauce by adding dry spices like cloves or cardamom or star anise or cinnamon. But don’t use in much quantity as they may overpower the pineapple flavour.

Garlic ginger paste can also be added to the batter.

Eggless Chocolate Brownie:

Ingredients:

½ cup maida

4 ½ table spoon cocoa powder

¼ tea spoon soda bicarb

1/8 tea spoon baking powder

6 table spoon powdered sugar

½ cup regular butter

½ cup milk, warm

1 tea spoon vanilla essence

2 table spoon curd / yoghurt

Recipe:

Begin with sifting maida, cocoa powder, soda bicarb and baking powder together, atleast three times. Keep aside.

In a bowl, cream butter and sugar, till light and fluffy. This will be done by whisking them using a hand blender or a whisk.

Add curd and vanilla essence and mix well.

Now to this, add half of flour and half of milk and mix well. Add remaining flour and milk mix well.

Now finally whisk or blend the batter till air bubbles start to form on the top.

Grease a microwave friendly tray, and pour batter in it. Microwave it for 3-4 minutes on high setting. Check after 3 minutes by inserting a toothpick or knife in brownie. If it doesn’t come out clean, microwave for another minute. Check again. Once knife is clean, take the brownie out and leave it to rest in its container for 5 minutes. And then de mould it.

Serve it hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Spicy Red Chutney: Momos accompaniment

Preparation: Soak 6 dry red chillies in water for 5 hours.

Recipe: Blitz together 1 medium onion, 2 medium tomato, 8-10 slices of garlic and 6 red chillies along with its water into a fine paste. In a pan add 1/2 tablespoon oil and cook this paste till raw smell of onion tomato and garlic goes away. May take around ten minutes on low flame. Add salt and red chilli powder to taste. In end add one table spoon vinegar. Chutney is ready. 

Note: There are many ways to prepare this chutney, some people blanch vegetables before blitzing them, others just grind the vegetables together without any cooking. I prefer the above recipe more because i think it tastes better and also due to the addition of oil and vinegar it is preserved and stays edible for a longer period of time.

Sindoori Cutlet

Ingredients: Makes 12-14 cutlets

1 cup rice flour

1 carrot shredded

2 cups water

½ cup curd

1 ½ tablespoon corn flour

Few strands saffron

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder to taste

Pinch each of garam masala, coriander powder and aamchoor.

1 tablespoon kasuri methi

4 slices of garlic finely chopped

Oil, to deep fry the cutlets.

Recipe:

In a sauce pan, add 1 cup water and bring it to a boil and then lower the heat to minimum. Add rice flour, stir it continuously. Flour will absorb the water instantly, but still keep stirring it. When water has been completely mixed with the flour, mix half cup of water and curd together and add to the flour. Stir again till this thin curd is absorbed by the flour nicely. After a couple of minutes, the flour will start to come together and will bind into dough. When that happens, turn the flame off and take the dough out into a bowl.

In the same pan add remaining half cup of water and heat it. Add saffron and let it simmer for a minute. Then add this to the dough. With the help of a whisk mix the dough nicely.

Now add all the remaining ingredients together and mix nicely.

With the help of spoons make small cutlets and fry them till golden brown.

Serve them hot with cold mint chutney.

Note:

Dry the shredded carrot onto a kitchen towel before adding to the dough.

Preferably use a non-stick pan to prepare the dough.

Be innovative and use these cutlets as koftas in the gravy of your choice.

Spiced Caramel Pineapple

Trust me it tastes so good that I was not able to stop myself from eating it, not that I have any grudges about it especially since making it turned out to be more arduous than I thought. I was rattled already enough with the thought of cooking this without a barbeque or a griller, and then came along the task to cut the pineapple into slices. It seems facile on television, but it’s tough like gymming on the first day, you manage to do it but regret it afterwards when the muscle pain kicks in. I also somehow managed to cut the slices out of it and was left with a couple of scratches from pineapple thorns. But all the pain was worth the taste.

Ingredients:

1 pineapple sliced

2 inch cinnamon stick

½ teaspoon black pepper powder

4 tablespoon sugar

4 tablespoon roughly crushed jaggery

2 tablespoon butter.

3/4 cup water

Recipe:

Add butter, sugar, jaggery and water in a sauce pan, and leave it to simmer on low flame till sugar and jaggery dissolves.

Now add cinnamon stick and turn the heat on. After the syrup has boiled once, turn the heat off, and leave it to cool down for a couple of minutes after which add pepper powder and mix nicely.

Now soak pineapple slices in this syrup for at least ten minutes.

Then in a frying pan on low flame, fry these slices. Don’t add oil or butter in the pan. Just take the slices out of the syrup and lay them down one by one in the pan. The juice from the pineapple and syrup will scatter around the pan. Don’t worry; this scattered juice is what will help the pineapple get nicely caramelised.

After 2 minutes of frying on one side flip the slices and gently dab the syrup again on the slices with the help of a kitchen brush, and again fry for 2 minutes on the other side. Also during this step, keep collecting the juice scattered into the pan and pouring it back on the slices. Repeat all of this once again, and then take them off the pan.

Technically, this kind of recipe is cooked on a barbeque, but since I don’t have one, I roasted them for few seconds on nude flame on both sides, once the frying was done. This helped them get that charred flavour which naturally comes in a barbeque.

Serve them hot along with the leftover syrup.

Dahi Ke Kebab

Ingredients: Makes 5-6 small kebabs

1 cup hung curd

Handful of fresh coriander leaves

4 tablespoon corn flour

1 medium onion finely chopped

1 green chilli chopped

¼ inch ginger finely chopped

Salt to taste

Black pepper powder to taste

Oil to shallow fry the kebabs

Recipe:

In a bowl, whisk hung curd lightly.

Add corn flour and whisk again till nicely mixed.

Add all remaining ingredients together and mix well.

In a pan add oil, and form small kebabs of the mixture with the help of a spoon. This mixture is very wet in texture and will stick if hands are used directly. Shallow fry all of the kebabs on lowest flame possible on all sides till nicely brown.

Serve with any dip you like. 

Veg Fritters

Ingredients: Makes 7-8 Patties

1 small potato, boiled and chopped into fine pieces

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 cup peas, boiled

Bunch of coriander leaves roughly chopped

7 tablespoon gram flour / besan

2 ½ tablespoon corn flour

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder to taste

1/8 teaspoon Black pepper powder

Pinch of asafoetida

¼ teaspoon soda bicarb

Water to make the batter, around 8 tablespoon.

Oil to shallow fry each patty.

Recipe:

In a bowl add flour, cornflour, soda, spices and water. Whisk everything nicely so that no lump remains. Leave it aside for 5 minutes after which whisk again rigorously. The more you whisk the softer patties will be. Point to note here is that consistency should not be very thin or thick. It should be somewhat like a cake batter. 

Add all the veggies, coriander into the batter mix gently with a spatula. And leave it aside for around fifteen minutes for veggies to get marinated. The outcome now will be a thick batter with veggies.

What makes this recipe different from pakoras is that more batter and lesser veggies are used in making pakoras, where as in this batter is less and veggies are more making it more delicious.

After the marination, in a pan add little oil. Remember these needs to be shallow fried as all the veggies are already cooked. Scoop one large spoon batter into the pan, fry it for around 3 minutes on each side till they turn brown. Take them out and serve them with hot with cold hung curd dip seasoned as per your taste buds. J

Note:

Alternatively you can use refined flour to make these too.

Also add as many different veggies as you can think of. This is a perfect way to make your kids eat veggies in a hidden way. 

Honey Chilli Potato

Ingredients:

For Potato fries:

3 Medium Potato, sliced length wise

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

Pinch of salt

1 ½ table spoon tomato ketchup

2 ½ table spoon corn flour

Oil to deep fry.

For Sauce:

2-3 slices of garlic finely chopped

½ inch ginger finely chopped

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

Chilli powder to taste

Salt to taste

½ tablespoon soya sauce

2 tablespoon ketchup

2 tablespoon chilli sauce

1 ½ - 2 tablespoon honey

5 tablespoon water

1/2 tea spoon corn flour

Recipe:

For Fries:

Add sliced potato in a bowl, sprinkle salt and chilli flakes, add ketchup and give everything a nice mix so that every potato is covered in ketchup and flakes. Now add corn flour and toss the potato. This corn flour is what will help the ketchup and flakes stick to the potatoes.

Deep fry them on low heat till nicely brown and potatoes cooked. Take them out and spread them on a kitchen towel to cool down remove excess oil.

Note:

At this stage what you have are potato wedges and you can eat them as it is with some chutney. To make them taste better you can add seasoning or herb of your liking during the preparation stage. Like add oregano or dried mint or black pepper powder or roasted cumin seeds powder etc. Try different flavours every time you make them.

For sauce:

In a pan add ½ tablespoon oil used for frying the potatoes, add ginger garlic and sauté till they lose their raw smell. Dont let them turn crispy and brown. Low flame would help here.

Add chilli flakes, chilli sauce, ketchup, soy sauce, chilli powder, salt and 3 tablespoon water let the sauce simmer for a couple of minutes.

Add honey and mix gently.

Mix corn flour in remaining water and add to the sauce this will thicken it.

Add potato fries and toss everything together. Sprinkle with fresh coriander or chopped green onion. Honey chilli potato are ready.

Note:

In this recipe I fried potatoes the way my family likes them. However, very crispy fried potatoes are used in making this recipe normally, which is a lengthy procedure. To make your potato fries crispier, first step is to wash them nicely after slicing them. Then leave them on lowest flame in water for atleast 10 – 15 minutes. Then drain the water and soak the fries into chilled water for 2-3 minutes. Then fry them on high flame for 2 minutes and take them out to cool down. Then again fry them on lowest flame till they are cooked and crispy. This should take 7-9 minutes. Resulting fries are very crispy. Reason behind washing and leaving potatoes in water is to help them release all the excess starch.

Sambhar

South Indian classic, but the way my family likes it. 

Ingreadients: Serves 4

For sambhar:

1 1/2 -2 cups tuvar / arhar daal

Salt to taste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ cup tamarind paste

Water

For Sambhar masala:

2 medium onion sliced

2 medium tomato sliced

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 ½ tablespoon oil

8-9 curry leaves

2 ½ tablespoon sambhar masala. Use any easily available packed sambhar masala.

Recipe:

In a pressure cooker add daal along with water, so that water is around 1 inch above the daal level. Add salt and turmeric and after a stir leave the daal to pressure cook. After three whistles of the cooker, it should be cooked if not let it cook till another whistle.

Meanwhile the daal is cooking, in a pan add oil on medium flame, add mustard seeds and let them crackle. Add onion and sauté till they are cooked, don’t let them turn brown. After which add curry leaves and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add tomato and cook for another 4-5 minutes.

Add sambhar masala and give everything a nice mix. And let everything cook for another 6-8 minutes, half the time with lid on, and remaining half without it.  Keep stirring the mixture after every couple of minutes. Sambhar masala should be ready by now. Note: this masala is ready, when it does not smell like raw tomato, and every ingredient has come together and you smell mustard seeds and curry leaves in the air.

Now open the cooker and check the consistency of daal, traditionally sambhar is very liquid and runny in texture, it is because in south India, people prefer to eat it with rice and its part of their every meal of the day. Hence add water and adjust the consistency as per your likings. I generally add 1 cup of water now. And some later if needed. Let the water and daal come to a boil and then add the sambhar masala prepared before and leave everything to simmer for another 5-6 minutes on medium to low flame.

This simmering is necessary as it will help amalgamate everything together.

Now finally add tamarind paste and after a final boil tamarind will be cooked and sambhar will be ready.

Serve hot with boiled rice, dosai or instant rava idli, will save its recipe some day later.

Note:

This recipe does not contains any vegetables and hence makes preparation easy. However a traditional sambhar consists of many vegetables like eggplant, bottle gourd (lauki / gheeya) cut into chunks and added along with daal in the cooker for pressure cooking.

A traditional south Indian sambhar tastes little sweet. Thats because sugar or jaggery is added along with tamarind to balance out it sourness.

White Sauce Pasta

Ingredients: Serves one

For White Sauce:

1 Tablespoon Butter

1 Tablespoon maida / all purpose flour

10-11 table spoon milk

For Pasta:

1 cup pasta

1 slice of garlic finely chopped

Salt to taste

½ table spoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon oil

Recipe:

For White Sauce:

Boil pasta as per packet instruction and keep aside.

In a sauce pan on low flame melt butter then add flour. Cook flour on low flame. Make sure it does not change color. Keep stirring. This may take 3-4 minutes. After that add milk gradually, add 1/3^rd and stir continuously, it will thicken immediately, add another 1/3^rd and stir. Finally add all remaining milk and stir till the consistency needed or preferred by you. I like it of the consistency when its thick like mayonnaise. White sauce is ready.

For pasta:

Add oil in a pan and Sauté garlic for a couple of minutes on low flame. After which add white sauce and mix everything together. Add salt oregano and simmer for a couple of minutes. At this stage if sauce gets to thick then add a couple of spoon milk, though it’s optional. Finally add boiled pasta and toss everything together. Pasta in White sauce is ready.

Manchurian

Ingredients: Serves 3-4

For Gravy:

3 medium capsicum, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

6-7 garlic slices, finely chopped

1 inch ginger, finely chopped

1 tablespoon oil

Salt, red chilli powder and black pepper powder to taste.

1 ½ tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon chilli sauce

1 ½ tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

3 cups water

1 tablespoon corn flour

Manchurian balls:

For Manchurian balls I used McCain’s chilli garlic potato bites, as they work perfectly with this gravy. Cook them as per packet instructions and keep aside.

Recipe:

In a wok add oil and leave it to warm up on medium flame.

Then add garlic, ginger and sauté for a couple of minutes, after which add onion.

When onions begin to change color, which happens after 2-3 minutes, add carrot. Put the lid on and leave it to sauté for 2-3 minutes.

Now add capsicum and cook it for 2 minutes after which add salt red chilli powder and black pepper powder. Mix nicely.

After couple of minutes add soy sauce, chilli sauce, sugar and mix nicely. Then add 2 ½ cup of water to the wok and bring a boil to it on high flame.

Meanwhile in the remaining half cup of water mix corn flour so that no lumps are formed.

When water has come to a boil turn heat low, add corn flour water, and leave it to simmer. This will thicken the gravy. When that happens, finally add vinegar stir it gently.

Finally add Manchurian balls in the gravy. After final simmering of another minute or so, Manchurian is ready to eat.

Macroni Pasta

Ingredients: Serves 2-3

2 cups Macroni

1 medium onion, cut into wedges

1 medium capsicum, thinly sliced

1 medium tomato, cut into thin wedges

1 garlic slice finely chopped

½ inch ginger finely chopped

1 ½ tablespoon oil

4-5 tablespoon water

Salt to taste

1/8 teaspoon black pepper powder

1/8 teaspoon coriander powder

Pinch of red chilli powder

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon chilli sauce

1 tablespoon tomato ketchup

Juice of half lime

Recipe:

Boil macroni pasta as per instructions on the packet, and keep aside.

In a pan on medium flame, add oil ginger garlic and sauté for one minute.

Add onion and sauté 3-4 minutes, then add capsicum and sauté for another 3-4 minutes with lid on.

Add tomato and all dry spices, herb and mix everything nicely. Then add water and leave everything to simmer for 4-5 minutes- half time with lid on and then without lid. Do not let all the water vaporise. This water is what gives the pasta a saucy texture.

Add chilli sauce and ketchup and gently stir. By now wok will be containing of cooked vegetables with slight amount of thick sauce/ gravy.

At this stage add boiled pasta and toss everything together. Avoid stirring using a spatula as it may break pasta.

Sprinkle lime juice and with a final toss pasta is ready.

Note:

Alternately, grind all the vegetable masala before add sauce and ketchup into thick paste, if you want full saucy pasta.

Use herb other than oregano like thyme or rosemary.

Tomato puree can also be used in place of ketchup

Tangy Aloo

Ingredients: Serves 2

2 medium Potato, boiled and cut into small pieces

1 Medium tomato, cut into wedges and then halved

1 Medium Onion, cut into wedges

Few Curry Leaves

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

1 dried whole red chilli

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder to taste

¼ teaspoon coriander powder, garam masala, turmeric each

2-3 tablespoon water

Juice of half lime

1 tablespoon oil

Recipe:

Put a wok on medium flame, pour oil and wait till its warmed up.

Add mustard seeds, dried red chilli, onion and sauté till onion have lightly turned brown. Then add curry leaves. And sauté for 1 minute.

Add tomato and all dry spices. Sauté them for around 3-4 minutes with lid on.

Add potato and water. Give everything a nice gentle stir. Water is added to help all spices and ingredients blend together.

Leave it to simmer till water has completely dried up. After which add lime juice and give a final stir. Tangy aloo are ready.

Note:

Eat them with rice or chapati.

Alternatively use them as stuffing in grilled sandwich.

Mash them together nicely and then use them as dosa masala.

Instead of water, add curd and you have tangier aloo with gravy.