Whole Wheat Crust Pizza

I'm getting progressively better at making pizza from scratch - it's such a joy to bite into a lovely thin crust pizza, choc-a-bloc with toppings of our choice. As much or as little cheese as we want - no rationing of olives....as you can see I'm not too much of a fan of store bought pizzas!

On an average, we order pizzas about once every 4 months; we almost never go out and eat pizza - though after coming to Delhi we have found a couple of Italian restaurants which serve some great thin crust pizza - Vera Pizza at Tonino's is one of them, though for some reason the M.G Road outlet is better than the Greater Kailash one.
Aming the delivered Pizzas, loved Smokin' Joes when I was in Mumbai and when they started out Pizza Express in Chennai was very good. Slice of Italy in Delhi is also a good bet on most days.

The first time I ate one of the international "chain" pizzas was the day I got married. I was determined we wouldn't starve at our reception while seeing people all around us stuff their faces, so we ordered up a pizza to our hotel room from a brand new outlet downstairs and had it while I was getting my make up and hair done! The pizza was thick and doughy and I hated it. It was a long, long time before I had another one.


Its a pleasure then, to sink your teeth into one of these babies. Here it is before it went into the oven - this was the second one and since I had already one baking in the oven in my one and only metal pan, I put the second half of the dough into a shallow oven proof glass pan. But I won't be repeating it because the glass doesn't seem to be a great idea. The pizza took longer to cook and the glass was hot when I brought it out that I burnt my arm in two places! OUCH!!!

I stuck to the recipe I have been using from Jugalbandi with just a few adjustments.

Closer to perfection each time I make it, this time was very satisfying especially since the yeast did not give me any problem. I used olives, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers and onions. The sauce was store bought this time since I didn't have the time to make this delicious roasted pepper sauce. But it was good nevertheless! Try it out and you will be a convert in no time!

Pasta tossed with Roasted Vegetables

As far as this dish is concerned - what you see is what you get. I don't even think you need a recipe for this one - its that simple! As I have mentioned many times before, I love oven roasted vegetables.....and of course I simply adore pasta. So, putting them together was the easiest thing to do.
I used broccoli, babycorn, cherry tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. Feel free to substitute with any other combination that you would prefer, including zucchini, yellow or red peppers and courgettes. Toss the chopped vegetables (1 " pieces) in a tablespoon of oil mixed with dried herbs and salt and roast in a pre heated oven for about 15-20 minutes. The vegetables will still be crunchy but have a nice sweet flavour from the roasting.

Once the vegetables have been roasted, heat up olive oil in a pan, saute some garlic and then toss some cooked pasta (already cooked, drained and tossed with a tsp of oil) and vegetables together in the pan for a few minutes. Since I already add herbs while roasting vegetables, I just mixed in some paprika powder and basil leaves additionally. A generous sprinkling of grated parmesan and you have a delicious, light meal ready!

Baked Lemon Sole with Spring Onions and Cherry Tomatoes

This absolutely beautiful baked lemon sole with spring onions and cherry tomatoes is a must-try recipe which I highly recommend. I adapted it from Jamie Oliver and it turned out succulent, light and packed with flavour. While the recipe doesn't call for it, I marinated the fish fillets (the original recipe was for whole fish) in a mixture of lemon juice, fresh coriander, green chillies, ginger and garlic pounded together - somewhat similar to this recipe I made earlier. I served the fish over some stir fried chill garlic noodles - awesome! This gorgeous beetroot apple salad on the side and the meal was complete.

We liked it so much, that I repeated the menu for my birthday dinner - replacing the noodles with a baked rice which also went very well with it. The best part about this recipe is that it doesn't take any time at all - apart from the marination, the actual cooking takes about 15 minutes. If you like your fish to have those nice grill marks, you could grill it on a hot griddle for about 5 minutes and then bake it in the oven for the remaining 10 minutes.

Feel free to experiment with other kinds of fish like sear if you prefer; also, you can substitute the cherry tomatoes with chopped tomatoes.

Baked Lemon Sole with Spring Onions and Cherry Tomatoes
(adapted from Jamie Oliver)

Ingredients:

Sole fillets, cleaned - 1 kg (about 6 pieces)
Marinade: Pound together
1 cup coriander leaves, cleaned and washed
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 green chillies, chopped roughly
1" piece of ginger chopped
5-6 garlic cloves
Olive oil - 1 tsp
salt to taste

Marinate the fillets in the above pounded mixture for about an hour.

Cherry tomatoes - 1 cup, halved
garlic
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
6-8 spring onions, finely sliced (reserve about 1/2 greens chopped)
1 tbsp dried oregano
Red wine vinegar - 1 tbsp
2 lemons - grated zest and juice
1/4 cup black olives, chopped
1/2 cup coriander leaves, chopped
4 olive oil
salt to taste
freshly crushed black pepper - 1 tbsp

1.In a bowl add the cherry tomatoes, sliced garlic, oregano, spring onions, vinegar, salt, pepper, 2tbsp olive oil and the zest and juice of 1 lemon to it.
2. Mix well and spread over the bottom of a large baking dish or tray.
3. Place the marinated fish fillets on top of the spring onion mixture. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
4. Now add the olives, chopped coriander, juice and zest of the second lemon to the bowl that the tomatoes were in. Add the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil and then divide this mixture between the fish, placing an equal amount on top of each filler.
5. Cook in the preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes. You can grill the fish briefly on a griddle before baking it.

Som Tam Mia Noi - Thai Cucumber Salad

Thai food has become very popular in India in a very short time - it has Chinese food to thank of course, for laying the ground for "phoren cuisine" in India. (It is a different matter, that most Chinese food served here is not even halfway authentic!). But it is undoubtedly the fact that Thai cuisine has a lot of similarities to Indian cuisine which has made it so readily acceptable to our palate. My South Indian roots definitely play a large part in making me salivate at the thought of coconut milk based fiery curries served over steamed rice.

But there is a lot to Thai cuisine other than its Red, Yellow and Green Curries. Thai cuisine is about striking a balance between the five different flavours - sweet,sour,pungent,bitter and salty. There can be umpteen variations in the sources of these flavours but achieving a harmony between them is what makes Thai cuisine so interesting and flavourful. Many dishes also have regional variations depending on whether they come from the North, North East, Central or South of Thailand.

There aren't many restaurants which make Thai food without overloading their curries with coconut milk and even fewer ones which use authentic Thai ingredients. Many Chinese restaurants also have a Thai section which may have a couple of noodle dishes, a few curries and some of the popular soups but don't go beyond that. When I was in Mumbai I used to love Thai Ban in its 6 table version when it began on Turner Road, Bandra - we enjoyed a lot of cheap but amazing meals there. I have been again to its swankier version about 5 years back and wasn't impressed at all - and if some of these reviews are anything to go by, it isn't even exclusively Thai anymore.

In Chennai, I loved Benjarong on TTK Road - they have an excellent variety of dishes and though the fish sauce has definitely been toned down to defer to predominantly vegetarian sensibilities, you can make out that they use traditional Thai ingredients as far as possible. Lotus at The Park in Chennai will also be remembered by me as a place where I had one of my most memorable meals and probably one of the most expensive too! Their fish steamed in pandanu leaves was exquisite.
Delhi has me still looking for a good reasonably priced Thai meal; I was sorely disappointed by Ego Thai - their curries were so creamy and bland and when I asked why it didn't have the traditional pungency, the waiter offered me chilli sauce!!! Kitchen in Khan Market does a fabulous Tom Yum Soup and two curries but not much else by way of Thai, since they have a mixed menu.

Which is why, when I'm really craving Thai food, I prefer making it at home. A friend and her daughter were visiting from Australia and after deciding that they would have been plied with enough 'desi" food for the last month or so they had been in India, I decided to go for Thai.

There was a variation of the Som Tam salad, Thai Noodle Soup and Thai Red Curry with steamed rice. It was a really soul satisfying meal for me - I hoped my guests liked it too! I will start with the salad and be posting the recipes of the other dishes in subsequent posts.

Som Tam ("som" means sour and "tam" means pounded) usually refers to a raw papaya salad which is spicy, sour and sweet - what I made was Som Tam Mia Noi - where Mia Noi means a "minor wife" - something which is explained here as referring to the variation in ingredients like a husband who has many wives!

Well, after that delightful explanation - lets get down to basics. I used just cucumber and cherry tomatoes since I wasn't sure whether the 8 year old (like many her age!) would be fussy about certain vegetables. You can use carrots, beansprouts and even cooked prawns. Since it was a vegetarian meal, I substituted the fish sauce (nam pla) which is usually a key ingredient, with soy sauce and palm sugar with a bit of jaggery. Pounding the garlic, chillies and jaggery along withn lime juice really combined the flavours and I would recommend it to simply mixing them together. I also added a dash of Fab India's Salad Dressing Thai Style - topped with some crushed and roasted sesame seed and peanuts it was really delicious.

Som Tam Mia Noi goes to A Fruit A Month (AFAM) - Cucumbers, which is being hosted by Neha of easyntastyrecipes and whose original creator is Maheswari of Beyond the Usual.

Som Tam Mia Noi

Ingredients:

Cucumber -2 medium, fresh - peeled and cut into strips or slices
Cherry tomatoes - 5-6 halved

Dressing:
1 green chilli chopped
2 tbsp lime juice
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 tbsp grated jaggery
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp Thai Style Salad dressing
Salt to taste
1 tbsp roasted and crushed peanuts
1 tsp roasted sesame seeds

Method:
1. Pound the ingredients for the dressing together and keep aside. Add salt carefully since the soy sauce and salad dressing will both have salt in them as well as the seasoned cucumber.
2. Slice the cucumber and keep aside for 5 minutes after sprinkling a bit of salt so that the water drains out of it - don't keep it for too long, else it will turn dry.
3. Mix in the cucumber and the cherry tomatoes with the dressing and serve - I like it chilled.

Mushroom, Red Pepper and Broccoli Roasted Salad

Summer makes me crave for foods which are light on the stomach - thin soups, cold pasta tossed with herbs, gourd vegetables, rasam and rice with bhindi sabzi (okra stir fry), koshambir (tempered salads with grated veggies), watermelon juice, buttermilk by the gallon, papaya and musk melon cubes, cold aamras (mango pulp) with chapatis....

.....AND raw mango - to me raw mangoes are inextricably linked with summer. Must be something to do with growing up in a "colony" in Mumbai which had about 5 mango trees -with atleast three of them bearing fruit every summer. So a gang of girls and boys would spend every afternoon of our summer holidays plucking fruit with the help of a contraption of long bamboo sticks tied together with rope, a knife tied to the end and a bag hanging under it. Then we would have a "kairi party" - salt, red chilli powder and a dash of lime juice (all stealthily taken from someone's kitchen) would be sprinkled over the cut pieces of mango and devoured. One particular summer when I was about 13 or 14, I ate so much raw mango that I had a severe stomach upset and was almost dehydrated! That spelled the end of mangoes that year for me....

So, tell me what are your favourite foods to eat during the summer - now and in your childhood?

The recipe I am going to post is not one I had during the summers of my childhood - I didn't even taste broccoli and mushrooms till much later. But it has become a favourite of mine - vegetables roasted in a little bit of oil and flavoured with herbs, spices and vinegar or lime juice. Infinite variations are possible and each one tastes a little bit different from the others - let your imagination flow!

I am sending this to Easycrafts Fun 'n' Sun event being hosted all this month at Simple Indian Food.

Mushroom, Pepper and Broccoli Roasted Salad

Ingredients:

Button mushrooms - 8-10 washed and cut lengthwise
Broccoli - 1 cup florets
Red Pepper - 1 (can be yellow, red or green) deseeded and cut into 1 " squares
Tomatoes - pulp removed and cut into 1 " squares OR cherry tomatoes halved
Spring onions - white part sliced OR Onions - separated into layers and cut into squares
Garlic cloves - 2-3 crushed

Olive oil - 1 1/2 tbsp
salt to taste
Freshly crushed pepper - 1 tsp
Mixed dried herbs - 1 tbsp
Freshly chopped mint or coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Lime juice - 2 tbsp
Red wine vinegar - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Take a roasting pan or a shallow oven proof dish and mix all the chopped vegetables.
2. Drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil over the vegetables, season with salt, pepper and the dried herbs
3. Roast the vegetables for 8 to 10 minutes and then check whether it is a little tender but still a bit crunchy. If it needs a little more roasting, drizzle the half tablespoon of olive oil and roaste for 4-5 minutes more.
4. Remove from oven and drizzle the remaining olive oil if not already used on top of the vegetables and transfer to a serving dish.
5. Mix the lemon juice, vinegar, chopped coriander or mint and toss the salad briefly. Cool and serve.

Note: You can use almost any other vegetable in this salad - carrots, babycorn, peas and french beans go well - but root vegetables like sweet potatoes and potatoes will take longer to cook.

I am sending this luscious salad to the monthly event - No Croutons Required - hosted alternatively by Lisa and Holler. This month's edition is being hosted by Lisa and the theme is a salad or soup centred around mushrooms.

For a fresh salad without roasting vegetables, try this Babycorn, Cherry tomatoes and Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese

Babycorn, Cherry Tomatoes & Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese

This is a beautiful salad - winter fresh veggies and lightly steamed sprouts drizzled with a light salad dressing bursting with the tanginess of lime; its piquant flavour balanced with crumbly salty feta cheese and crunchy lettuce.

Delightfully light and yet so satisfying that you can make it your meal - my friend almost did and I had to steer him gently to the rest of the dishes on the table!

One forkful says it all - no stories needed.

This salad made so flavourful with a simple lime juice dressing goes to Jihva for Ingredients - Lime/Lemon being hosted at The Spice Cafe this month; the event itself is the brainchild of Indira of Mahanandi and while I have been following it for a long time now, this is the first time I am contributing.

Babycorn, Cherry Tomatoes & Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese

Babycorn - 6-8
Cherry tomatoes - 100gms
Mixed bean sprouts - 100 gms
Coriander leaves - handful
Iceberg Lettuce - 3-4 leaves
Spring onions - 3-4 (not the greens)
Feta cheese - 4-5 tablespoons - crumbled or diced into small pieces

Dressing:
Juice of one small lime
Red wine vinegar - 1 tablespoon
Olive oil - 2 tablespoon
Salt
Freshly crushed black pepper


1. Wash the babycorn and cut lengthwise into halves. Rinse the sprouts.
2. Boil salted water in a large vessel and add the babycorn and sprouts to it. Turn off the gas after a minute and keep covered for another 3 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, wash and halve the cherry tomatoes. Slice the spring onions thinly.Wash the coriander leaves and lettuce thoroughly, drain water and keep aside. Crumble or dice the feta cheese.
4. Combine dressing ingredients, mixing them together briskly.
5. Drain the babycorn and sprouts;keep aside till cool.
6. Take a salad bowl and put in the babycorn, tomatoes, sprouts and onions, tear the lettuce into bite sized pieces and add it along with the whole coriander leaves - then toss in the feta cheese.
7. Pour in the salad dressing a little at a time and gently toss till well combined.

Spaghetti in Meat sauce (Ragu) with Fresh Red Peppers

This recipe is adapted from the recipe I use for Tagliatelle alla Bolognese; most of us are familiar with "Spaghetti Bolognese". But Bolognese may well be a misnomer at times, and you might not find it on many menus in Italy - the country of it's origin.

And in Bologna itself, the province from which this dish gets it's name, meat sauce is "never served over spaghetti" and "the meat used is ground beef.Period."
Thus speaks that grand lady of Italian cooking - Marcella Hazan. She of the quick scorn for Americanized versions of "Italian cooking" and probably the one who taught many non Italians the traditional way of cooking Italian cuisine, through her very popular book "The Classic Italian Cookbook" and more recently "The Essentials of ClassicItalian Cooking"

The base of this dish is meat sauce - spaghetti or any other pasta can be used with the meat sauce which is called ragu.
Ragu refers to any meat sauce which is cooked long and slowly, simmering till the meat is tender and the sauce is imbued with the flavours of the meat cooked in it - making the sauce rich and satisfying.

The Italian word ragu originates from the French word "ragout" which means "stew". And even more interesting, "ragout" in turn comes from the French verb "ragouter" -"to stimulate the appetite".

So, a meat sauce cooked in the Bolognese style would be one with just enough tomato to give it a slightly sweet flavour, not the meatbits-drowned-in-tomato-sauce-version, which is what one sometime gets.

It is also characterised by milk being added to the meat to reduce the acidic content of tomatoes which come later, and definitely by being simmered for "a long long time"

I have been following a recipe for sometime now, it is in my book of handwritten recipes and dates back to the era when I didn't think it necessary to jot down where I got it from. But pretty much produced some really nice Bolognese ragu over the years. Except for the beef. *ahem*
I have even used chicken mince instead of lamb at times.

So, this time since it was just for the two of us (felt bad calling the delivery guy for a small quantity for this mutton dish,so ordered a quarter kilo of mince as well ...*sigh*), I decided to try something different.

I put in cooked Kidney beans (rajma) which I then cooked again with the mince.

Fresh red chillies and peppers in the sauce boosted the flavour. I did add some chilli powder and a touch of cumin since the kidney beans,while giving the sauce great body, tends to temper down the taste.

Together the fresh chillies, peppers and the rajma made a lot of difference to this sauce and it was very interesting.

I am posting the original recipe which I normally use and the changes I made are in brackets.

Tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce

Pasta - 300 gm tagliatelle (I used spaghetti)

Ragu or meat sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter

Onions 2 medium - finely chopped
Celery - 1 cup finely diced (didn't have any on hand so omitted it)
Carrots - 1 cup diced (I used half a cup of carrots and added 1 big fresh red chilly sliced and I small red pepper deseeded and diced)
Mutton mince - 200 gm
Milk - 1 cup
Marjoram - 1 tbsp dried (I used dried thyme)
1 bay leaf
pinch of grated nutmeg
Tomatoes - 250gm,blanched,skinned and chopped finely (I used six medium tomatoes and omitted the puree)
Tomato puree - 2 tbsp
White wine - 1 cup (this could be omitted)

Freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste
1 cup kidney beans soaked overnight and then cooked till tender (they shouldn't be overcooked) and 1 clove of minced garlic were other additions to this recipe.
.
1. Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy bottomed pan, and chopped onions and fry till it changes colour.
2. Add celery and carrots (and the garlic,chopped chilli and peppers) and fry for another 2 minutes.
3. Stir in the mince,some salt and pepper and continue cooking till the meat loses its raw colour, stirring constantly till the mince is free of lumps. (add the cooked kidney beans at this stage)
4. Mix in the milk and let it simmer till the liquid evaporates, stirring frequently. Add the wine next and simmer again till it also evaporates.
5. Add the bay leaf, nutmeg, herbs, chopped tomatoes, puree,salt and simmer gently for about an hour and a half till the meat is tender, the fat separates from the sauce and the mixture has no water but is a thick sauce. ( I have tried pressure cooking the mince and then simmering it in the sauce and that just doesn't give the same taste as cooking the mince in the sauce.)
In the initial stages, you might have to keep adding water a bit at a time to prevent it from sticking, that's ok.
6. Adjust the salt, add freshly crushed pepper and mix well.

15 minutes before serving, bring water to boil for pasta with a tsp of olive oil and cook the pasta in it till tender. Drain and toss in a tsp of olive oil and season with salt and freshly crushed pepper.

Plate the pasta into 3-4 portions and ladle the ragu over the pasta. Serve warm.


This dish joins Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth every week over at Once upon a Feast....this event is fast approaching it's first birthday!!!