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.