Laksa

Laksa is one of my favourite noodle soups and I always try to order it when we are eating out at a restaurant which serves Oriental cuisine (and come to think of it we seem to land up at these places a lot because both of us love those flavours). This is a Malaysian dish, though to be more accurate it is supposed to have a lot of Chinese elements to it, so its popular in a place like Singapore as well.

I was recently reminded of this dish when I saw a vegetarian Laksa being made on Rachel Allen's Home Cooking show - she made it with sugar snap peas and bean sprouts. I suddenly had a craving for Laksa and since I am still recuperating, decided to try making it at home with the help of my trusted Tara. It turned out to be a delicious one pot meal for our Sunday lunch which even my 6 year old enjoyed and smacked the last bits from her bowl.

It was a perfect dish to have for my starved palate which has been surviving on khichdi and mostly bland food....the chicken was cooked to perfection as well. I used glass noodles instead of rice noodles and they made a nice change. You could use Thai curry paste instead of making the paste from scratch but I do believe that the freshness of the ground ingredients adds to the flavours which may otherwise get submerged in the coconut milk. Season this dish with caution since it has fish sauce as well as stock cube in it, both already have salt in them.

Chicken Laksa - recipe adapted from Rachel Allen's Laksa

Chicken - 200gms boneless cut into strips and marinated with a little salt and lemon juice
Vegetables - 1 cup sliced - I used babycorn and bell peppers
Coconut milk - 400 ml
Chicken stock cube - 1 dissolved in 400ml of water
Sesame oil - 2 tsp

Spice paste:
Ginger - 1" piece
Garlic - 4 cloves chopped
Lemon grass - 1 tbsp chopped (only the tender inner part not the tough outer stalks, if you'd rather not grind this because of the fibres, then just add the lemon grass whole to the laksa when its cooking)
Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup chopped
Fish sauce - 2 tbsp
Green chillies - 4-5

Rice noodles/Glass noodles - 250 gms, soaked in hot water till soft and then rinsed in cold water.

1. Grind all ingredients for the spice mix to a paste - it will be a little coarse and not fine.
2. Heat the sesame oil in a wok and fry the spice paste for a few minutes, then add the chicken pieces and fry on high for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the coconut milk and chicken stock to the wok and bring to boil. Then simmer for about 20 minutes till the chicken is cooked. Add the chopped vegetables and cook for 5 more minutes.
4. I usually take out a portion for my daughter at this stage and add a couple of slit green chillies for a little heat.
5. Check the seasoning and add some salt if necessary.
6. In individual serving bowls, portion out the cooked noodles and then pour some laksa over it.

Tangy Fish Curry - Meen Kozhambu

I still haven't got to the stage where I can make the "man chatti meen kozhambu" the way it's made down south - this is usually made in an earthen vessel and has only tamarind as the base. Tastes exquisite the next day. Its a combination of the sesame oil, local fish flavour and addition of just the right amount of spices, cooked for just the right time.A little like these delicious vegetarian kozhambus which I got better at making, over time and with practice.

But I was really hankering for that kind of kozhambu and also having been told to increase my protein intake, so need to include fish as well in my diet. Since I couldn't risk the curry becoming very spicy (now that I am eating food which is a bit blander than our normal) I decided to add coconut milk to the kozhambu to finish it off and ensure the sourness and spice was tempered. It turned out really well and I loved the flavours of the fish, the tamarind and the coconut milk. I would have usually used seer fish (surmai or king mackerel) but this time I had sole at home, so thats what I used.

Tangy Fish Curry - Meen Kozhambu

Sole Fish  (Sear/King fish) - 350-400gms cut into 2" pieces
Tamarind extract - from 1 small lemon sized ball in 1.5 cups of water
Coconut Milk - 1 cup( I used fresh, canned is fine, but maybe a little lesser in quantity)

Sesame oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds - pinch
Curry leaves - a handful
Onion - 1 medium sliced
Garlic - 3 cloves sliced
Green chillies - 2 slit

Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Kashmiri chilli powder - 1 /2 tsp (optional)
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
salt to taste

1. Clean the fish, marinate with the turmeric powder and a little salt for about half an hour.
2. Heat the oil in a wide pan and add mustard seeds, when they pop, add the fenugreek seeds and curry leaves.
3. Put in the sliced onions, garlic and green chillies and saute 4 minutes till onions are softened.
4. Add the red chilli powders, salt and tamarind extract and simmer for 10 minutes or till the raw smell goes away.
5. Add the fish pieces and coconut milk and simmer 8-10 minutes till the fish is just cooked, cover and let sit for 10 minutes.
6. Serve with steamed rice.

A Nigella Spread for New Year's Eve

This New Year's Eve was the third consecutive year we stayed home - After many, many years of partying the night away from home.  2008 saw our dear friends from Chennai spending New Year's with us, so we had a great time with them. Then hubby was diagnosed with swine flu on New Year's Eve last year, so that was a very quiet New Year's Eve dinner. This year too, we decided we didn't want to be driving around Delhi in the fog; also since Christmas vacation began, our daughter had been staying up later than usual and we thought it would be so much nicer to have her up with us as well, now that she is older.

So we planned to have dinner with some friends - our neighbours from upstairs and another couple of friends who live down the road, came over. It was a lovely evening - great conversation, excellent company, wine and music and a sit-down dinner to complete things.

The menu came together just the day before for me - a combination of things I had in my mind for some time - they fitted together very well. For appetizers there was -  

Bacon Wrapped Dates   - A lovely mix of sweet and salt flavours - seedless dates wrapped in strips of bacon, held together with a toothpick and then roasted in an oven at 180C for about 25 minutes. Easy Peasy as my daughter would say.

 
Crackers with a Roasted Red Pepper Hummus    

This is adapted from Nigella's recipe in her book Nigella Express - it has the usual chickpeas pureed into a slightly grainy hummus, but with a twist in the form of roasted red peppers being added to the mix. Garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and a dash of paprika powder make up the rest.

                         

 

                                                                                

                                                                             

Crudites with Hung Curd Dip 

This is basically yoghurt, about 500ml, hung for about an hour or so and then mixed with salt, a tsp of chopped garlic and a tbsp of chopped coriander. Squeeze of lime if needed and sometimes a tbsp of cheese spread mixed in.

Cocktail Sausages

Another Nigella Express recipe - Sausages tossed in honey, sesame oil and soy sauce and then roasted for 40 minutes at 180C - I cut up the sausages though, instead of roasting them whole as in the recipe.

 A from upstairs, brought a  lovely broccoli salad and I had baked this Rapid Light Wholemeal Loaf earlier in the day

And for the mains there was

Spanish Chicken baked with onions and potatoes 

The original recipe from Nigella, was supposed to have Chorizo sausages, I had some Chorizo salami which I thought I would add half an hour before it was done - but I forgot. Still good though, the flavour of the roasted onions mingled with orange zest marinated chicken was fabulous - a must try addition to your party menu, because it literally cooks itself while you spend time with your guests.

And a creamy Meatball Stew with Chickpeas, Sweet Potatoes and Pumpkin served over steamed rice
This stew is perfect for winter - it brings a touch of the Carribean summer and warms you up. Nigella's recipe had store bought "mini meatballs" - I made them from scratch using minced meat (lamb or goat mince is fine) mixed with bread crumbs, egg, oil and some herbs and spices. Make balls and then deep fry or bake. These were then simmered for about an hour and a half in coconut milk and stock along with chickpeas, sweet potato and pumpkin (in lieu of the butter squash in the original recipe).

And to end the meal and begin a New Year- a decadent Chocolate Pudding

Now while, I did plan the Pudding and the Hummus - I have made the pudding before and the hummus is something I have been wanting to try - the Spanish Chicken and the Stew just came together at the last minute (especially the chicken which I made up my mind about only in the afternoon!) and it all turned out to be Nigella's recipes!! Truly, her stuff is eminently doable and so so hassle free.

 I also made some Chocolate Fudge for my daughter to have through her vacation - though mine had Macadamia Nuts and Raisins in it and she picks all the nuts out!

For any of the recipes, just mail me at peppercornmill AT gmail DOT com or leave a comment naming the dish you want a recipe for and I will be happy to mail it to you.

Maison de Cupcakes is hosting the first edition of a brand new event called Nigella Forever - this time's theme is centred around Seasonal Sensations  - "anything Christmassy, anything celebratory for New Year, do party canapes or even wintery comfort food for snow days".

Burmese Khow Suey (Kauk'swe)

 

I discovered Khow Suey quite late - the first time I tasted it was in a friend's house in Chennai. Her mother is an expert cook and she had made this dish for dinner. My friend's Dad was in the merchant Navy and had travelled a lot around the country. Her mother learnt to make this dish when they were posted in Calcutta. I was very, very impressed with that delightful mix of flavours I tasted that day - the creaminess of the gravy, the lovely array of toppings which made it a sort of a customised delight for oneself (while still letting someone else do the cooking!) and of course my undisguised love for coconut milk. The next time I tasted Khow Suey, was also in Chennai - in a delightful, little restaurant on TTK Road in R.A.Puram called Stop at Sam's (which sadly closed down) which had quite an eclectic menu. The fact that I got to meet and speak to my only fav B town hero Aamir Khan (those were the days he was dubbing for Lagaan) , may have added to my memories of the dish, but it definitely left me hankering for more.(The dish not Aamir).

But its been after coming to Delhi that I have really been able to eat Khow Suey to my heart's content. The Kitchen at Khan Market - run by the same team which manages Ploof and Blanco - serves up an excellent Khow Suey and I don't think we have managed to try much of the other items on their menu because their Khow Suey is so heavenly. They have managed to crack the code completely - not too cloyingly thick, not too sweet, not bland at all - a perfect blend of flavours which pleases the palate. Their Khow Suey counter was running well into a hundred thousand, the last time we visited. I have heard rumblings that the one at the next door Market Cafe is better, but why miss with perfection, really?! Unless of course, we are talking of the Khow Suey cooked by one of my friends in Delhi - I would abandon all pretensions of loyalty to have the one she slaves over for a couple of hours, till it is just right.

 It was after quite a while therefore, that I even decided to try this at home....I am still tinkering with recipes to create my version of what is just right - Khow Suey is perfectly suited for tinkerings, there are as many recipes there are people who love it. The main ingredients are coconut milk, onion, ginger, garlic and lentil paste for the creamy consistency. The piece-de-resistance, according to me though, are the toppings - the noodles of course are much the main dish; and then boiled eggs, chillies, lime juice, crushed peanuts, fried garlic - you can add as much or as little of what you want to create YOUR perfect dish. Soupy noodles? or noodles with a bit of gravy. More heat? Less tang? medium crunchiness? NO annoying add ons between you and your dish? As you please. It makes for a perfect dish to have on a party menu, precisely for this reason.

This time I have played around with this recipe I found on the Food Fairy's blog. I brought down the proportion of lentils considerably to suit our taste, but I did think that the idea of using lentils itself was much better than the gram flour (besan) which is usually recommended. It lends itself far better to melding with the coconut milk than flour does. It also does not mask the taste of coconut milk like gram flour might. I also increased the chilli powder, since between the lentil paste and the coconut milk, the heat just wasn't coming through.

For the toppings, I added chilli flakes and fried garlic to the toppings - I would also recommend chopped spring onions since it lends a lovely crunch to the dish. Hubby loves green chillies while I like red chilli flakes and our daughter loved the boiled egg. I also marinated the chicken for a bit and it absorbed the flavours of the curry beautifully - I would definitely recommend doing this, though since it cooks for quite a bit, its not really necessary. The lentils were cooked in a pressure cooker instead of on the stove top and this saved a lot of time; plus I didn't have to puree the lentils, just whipped them and they were smooth.
With the weather turning cooler, this is a perfect dish to have. The combination of noodles drowned in a delicious, creamy curry topped with some piquant bites of this and that makes this one of those irresistible meals where you can keep going on and on.

I am sending this to Nupur's Blog Bites 8 - the latest edition is themed around One Pot Meals. While I usually don't write out the recipe for this event since the intention is to share recipes from other blogs, I have adapted this a quite a bit and have just written the quantities out for my own reference, while I go about trying to see what happens as I tweak things around a bit. Do however, visit the original post for Malini's step-by-step recipe complete with pictures.

Burmese Khow Suey

(adapted from a recipe from Food Fairy)

Egg Noodles - 1 packet, boiled in lots of salted water, tossed in 2 tbsp of hot oil in a wok for 2 minutes and kept aside. (Next time I will use thinner noodles, like the ones you get ready made in Delhi's local markets)

Chicken - 250 gm of boneless chicken chopped into cubes and marinated in a mixture of lemon juice, salt and a pinch of turmeric for half an hour.
Oil - 1 tbsp

2 onions chopped
1" ginger piece chopped
10 small cloves of hill garlic or  6 big cloves of garlic chopped
2 green chillies chopped
To be sauteed and ground to a paste.


1/2 cup chana dal soaked in water for 1 hour;
 then pressure cooked with turmeric in 5 cups of water for two whistles and 3 minutes on low. Remove, drain a little of the water and reserve and whip the lentils till smooth. I kept adding  a little of the reserved lentil water as and when the curry thickened, since we like to have it thinner.

Coconut milk - extracted from 3/4th of a big coconut (about 350 to 400 ml)

Chilli powder -  1 tsp or more, according to taste
Chicken stock cube - 1

Coriander leaves for garnish
Salt - to taste

Detailed recipe - here 

In short, the chicken needs to be sauteed with the onion paste and then simmered with the lentil puree, seasonings and coconut milk for about 20-25 minutes till smooth and creamy. Water down as needed and keep stirring from time to time.

Maw Gaeng - Thai Sweet Potato Pudding

I had some sweet potato as well as coconut milk left over from this recipe and just as I knew I wanted to make a nice one pot meal from those ingredients, I also knew that this had to go into a dessert. Luckily, there seems to be a recipe to match every mood of mine ;).

This Thai dessert (which seems to have several variations) is quite unusual in that it uses sweet potato (the dark pink, skinned root vegetable). The coconut milk and egg pudding combination is something I have seen in Sri Lankan cuisine too.

Very simple to make and equally easy to finish off! I imagine that it would be quite easy to make a vegan version with a substitute which can be used to replace the eggs.

Maw Gaeng - Thai Sweet Potato Pudding

2 eggs beaten lightly
Coconut milk extract - freshly squeezed from one half of a coconut (or use a cup of canned coconut milk)
1 cup sugar
2 sweet potatoes, boiled, peeled and mashed.
cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

1. Mix the beaten eggs, coconut milk and sugar in a heavy bottomed pan.
2. Add the mashed sweet potatoes and mix well, heat on low flame and keep stirring till the custard thickens - about 6-7 minutes.
3. Pre heat an oven to 180C and lightly grease a baking dish. Pour the custard into and bake for 45 minutes till golden brown on the sides and the top. A skewer inserted will not come out totally clean but not be sticky.
4. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream

Sweet Potato & Spinach Rice

The start of winter in Delhi and along with the weather, the produce at the local market is also changing. No more sad wilted Spinach; Methi (fenugreek leaves) along with other greens are making their appearance and soon it will be time for sarson ka saag (mustard leaves preparation) and bathua raita.

Root vegetables are also plentiful during this season and along with the turnips and yams, what I like best is the lovely deep pink sweet potato. I can have this just plain - boiled and mashed. Stuffed parathas are a favourite with my daughter. But one evening last week I wanted to have it some other way. So right after work I put the potatoes to boil and set about preparing a dish solely based on the flavours I wanted to have for dinner that night.

I knew my palate was craving coconut milk to be paired with the sweet potato but I didn't want a curry. It was also getting late for my daughter's dinner so whatever it was had to be a one pot meal since there wasn't too much time. So thats how this wonderful tasting rice cooked in coconut milk came about.

I soaked the rice and set to work; spring onions seemed right for this but if you don't have any at hand, plain old onions will work fine. I tossed in some chopped spinach as an afterthought to give it some crunch and balance out the sweet potatoes. Garlic, ginger and a slit green chilli were all the spices it needed and a single tomato put in a slight tang; by the time all this had been fried, the rice was soaked and ready to be put in with a small cup of coconut milk. I used a stock cube dissolved in the water in which the rice had soaked for the remaining 2 cups. 15 minutes later and garnished with spring onions, the dish was done. M daughter declared that she loved the rice and could I send this for her tiffin the next day too? I gladly did :)

This dish is a beautiful meld of flavours - the coconut milk, the sweet potato, the spinach - all add their own unique stamp to it. Definitely something I will make again. You can add some more green chillies to up the heat quotient but I would avoid adding cloves, cinnamon etc which might overpower the dish as it is. The photograph didn't do any justice to this dish so I'm not posting it!

Sweet Potato and Spinach Rice

Rice - 1 cup soaked in 3 cups water for 10 minutes ( I used short grained Sona masuri, basmati is fine too)
2 medium sweet potatoes
Spinach washed and chopped - 2 cups
Coconut milk - 1 cup (fresh thick extract or canned)
Tomato - 1 chopped fine
Ginger - 1 " chopped fine
Garlic - 3-4 cloves chopped fine
Green chillies - 1-2 slit
Spring onions - 3-4 sliced, greens chopped and reserved
salt to taste
oil - 1 tbsp

1. Pressure cook the sweet potatoes for about 8-10 minutes, peel and cut into cubes.
2. Heat oil in a pan and saute the spring onions for 4 minutes. Add the slit green chillies, chopped ginger and garlic and saute 2-3 minutes
3. Add the spinach and fry briefly on high till wilted. The chopped tomatoes go in next - fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add the sweet potatoes, fry couple of minutes. Meanwhile, drain the rice, heat 2 cups of the water in which it was soaked and dissolve the stock cube in it.
5. Add the drained rice to the pan and fry for 2 minutes, then lower flame, add the coconut milk, the stock (should make up three cups of liquid) and salt. Bring to boil, lower flame and cover and cook for 10-12 minutes or till the rice is just cooked.
6. Garnish with the spring onion greens and keep covered for another 4 minutes. Serve warm.

Parripu Payasam for Janmashtami - Lentil & Coconut Milk Dessert

For those of you who celebrate Janmashtami or Krishna Jayanthi – hope you have a joyous celebration! I am not a very ritualistic person, so celebrations at our home are usually more about having faith and giving thanks and rather than adhering to the actual rituals to the T. The story of Krishna’s birth tells us that he was born at midnight, so celebrations in Tamil Nadu usually happen the evening before…..but yesterday being a working day and today being the holiday in the North, it was more convenient for us to do the small pooja this morning.

I was glad I decided to do that, since I could spend all that time with my 4 year old daughter and answer every question of hers – from the garland of flowers, to polishing the silver lamp, to making the cotton wick, pouring oil into the lamp, drawing the rangoli, making the small “padhai” or Krishna’s feet leading from the door to the pooja room, telling her how I made the glass painting of Krishna. I guess rituals like these are more about family traditions for us and bind us together in yet another way….atleast for me it brings me closer to my family as much as it does to God.

The traditional offering for this festival that I remember when I was growing up, was “seedai” – small round balls of rice flour dough, delicately spiced (as well as sweetened) and deep fried to crisp, crunchy balls. None of that today, no time to make and nowhere to buy near our home – this is when I miss Grand Sweets in Chennai! And of course, there has to be white butter – the Makhan Chor’s favourite – and milk as well. We had freshly churned butter at home but that was more coincidence than planning! My daughter and I both enjoy eating “white” butter on our toast and I manage to collect enough cream over 3 weeks to get a bowlful.

Since hubby was working and I wanted to have the pooja before he left, I made a simple Parippu Payasam for the neivedyam. Payasam refers to a milk based sweet which is made in South India – also called Kheer in the North. It is usually a creamy dessert made with milk which has been thickened and sweetened and has either vermicelli or sago or rice added to it with raisins and other dryfruits.

Parippu Payasam is quite different in that it is made with lentils (mung dal) which have been roasted and then cooked till soft and then finished with jaggery and coconut milk. What made this version even more special was that I made it with jaggery which I had brought back with me from my last field trip to the cane fields of Uttar Pradesh. I was presented a box of jaggery “mithai” – basically very good quality jaggery which was cut into squares and had loads of almonds and pistachios in it. I had never seen anything like that before! There was no way I was going to have it the way it was recommended by the kind gentleman – “100gm everyday like a sweet - good for health”!

So, I used it to sweeten the payasam – the dry fruits were a nice addition, I would have usually just fried raisins and cashews in ghee and added it to the payasam, but the almonds and pistachios gave a nice crunch to the creamy consistency.

Parippu Payasam

Ingredients:
1 cup moong dal split
1.5 cups thick coconut milk
1 cup grated jaggery
1 tsp elaichi powder (cardamom powder)
1 tbsp raisins and cashew nuts
1 tsp ghee

1. Roast the moong dal for about 5 minutes on a low flame till it gives out a nutty fragrance taking care it doesn't burn.
2. Cook the dal in a heavy bottomed pan in about 4 cups of water (just enough) till soft and can't hold its shape.
3. Then add the grated jaggery to it and half a cup more of water if needed so that it melts.
4. Put in the coconut milk and cook on a very low flame for about 4-5 minutes, taking carre it doesn't split.
5.Meanwhile, fry the raisins and cashewnuts in ghee and then add to the payasam along with the elaichi powder and remove from heat.
6. Serve warm or cold.

Lentil Coriander Soup

Most people seem to have a love-hate relationship with soups. There are the keen aficionados who love everything from the fiery Tom Yum to the nostalgic "sweet corn" soup. And then there are the nay sayers who consider it "diet" food or even "patient" food! I fall into the former category and love trying out different soups. There was a time in my life though when I had only clear soups for almost a year, so that pretty much kept me off soups for the next two years when I actually started eating solid food.

But now I'm back to experimenting both at home and when I'm out - the Tom Yum at The Kitchen in Delhi's Khan Market is absolutely amazing as is the Roasted Pumpkin Soup in Chennai's Eden. I particularly like noodle soups and other one pot meal soups like this one made with beans. I recently tried the Laksa at a new restaurant in Delhi called Tasty Tangles and it was so good we ordered seconds - the coconut milk was just right - not too creamy and spiced just right!

Speaking of coconut milk brings me to the subject of this post - a lovely lentil soup made just a little creamier with some coconut milk and flavoured with lots of coriander. This was one half of a typical soup and salad meal at home - going through my posts I realised that we tend to do these a lot especially during summer when the thought of a full meal is just too oppressive.
I paired the lentil soup with a quasi-Caesar salad - chicken,peppers and bread croutons roasted together with olive oil and herbs but served without the all important mayonnaise dressing - I instead tossed it with a simple vinaigrette. The combination made a very nice meal - lots of protein from the chicken and the lentils and the crunchiness of the bread croutons going wonderfully with the creamy soup.

This lentil soup uses red lentils (masur dal) cooked together with ginger and garlic. I didn't bother blending it in a processor and instead just mashed them with the back of the ladle and mixed in the coconut milk before returning it to the stove. Lots of coriander really lifts this soup, so don't skimp!

This Lentil Coriander soup goes to No Croutons Required - that amazing soup and salad event hosted by Lisa and Holler. This month's event focuses on leaves! "We are looking for a soup or salad that features leaves. Think spinach, watercress, kale, swiss chard, salad leaves, herbs ... Go crazy! If it's leafy, then add it!" says Holler.

Lentil Coriander Soup

Red lentils - 3/4 cup (soaked for 15 - 30 min)
Ginger - 1 inch piece whole or grated
Garlic - 6 cloves
Green chillies - 2 whole, slit
Tomato - 1 chopped
Onion - 1 chopped fine
Oil - 1 tbsp

Coconut milk - 1 cup (I use fresh, but canned is fine too)

Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup chopped

salt to taste

freshly crushed peppercorns - 1 tsp

Method

1. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan or in a pressure pan.

2. Add the ginger, garlic and green chillies and saute 1 min. Then add the finely chopped onions and fry for 3-4 minutes. Once transluscent add the tomato and fry for a further 2 minutes.

3. Add the soaked dal, 6-7 cups of water and cook on the stove till soft and mushy; or pressure cook for 2 whistles.

4. If there is excess water, drain it off and reserve and mash the dal with the back of spoon taking care to remove the slit green chillies and the ginger piece (if not grated). You can also run this through the food processor after cooling it.

5. Add back the reserved lentil stock and the coconut milk to get the consistency you want. Put in the chopped coriander, salt and crushed pepper and simmer gently on low, for about 3-4 minutes taking care not to boil.

6. Serve warm.

Gaeng Daeng - Thai Red Curry

The Thai meal I had mentioned a couple of posts back had one of my favourites - Thai Red Curry. Nothing as satisfying as a well made Thai Red Curry - the curry redolent of the spices and herbs and made creamy with coconut milk - but not cloyingly so. I seem to prefer the Red Curry to the Green Curry and while I can't exactly pinpoint where the preference stems from, I think it might be due to the fact that the flavours are much more subtle in this one.

The curry that I made was vegetarian and while red curry seems to be associated more with meat and the sweeter green curry with vegetables, that is probably an association shaped from restaurant menus than any culinary tradition per se. In fact, as this beautiful pictorial post about Thai Red Curry tells us - red curry is the household standby which uses readily available ingredients and is often made with vegetables like white Thai eggplant, bamboo shoots and green beans. I used babycorn, bell peppers, tofu and mushrooms and they went very well with the curry.

The curry pastes used for each curry in Thai cuisine are distinctive because of their ingredients and are key to making sure that one doesn't taste like the other. Fortunately it has become easier in the past decade to get most of the ingredients needed for Thai cooking, in India. So basil, galangal and lemon grass can be found at the bigger supermarkets or even some of the local markets in the bigger cities. I substitute Gandhraj lemon leaves for the kaffir lime leaves ans their amazing aroma along with freshly squeezed coconut milk, seals the deal for me!

Packaged Thai curry paste can of course be used to make this dish, but with just a little planning to assemble the ingredients, you can have Thai curry made from scratch and the difference is just too obvious to miss. This lip smacking curry goes to Vaishali's Its a Vegan World - which is being hosted by Priya of Akshayapatram this month and who has zeroed in on Thai cuisine as the flavour of the month.

Gaeng Daeng - Thai Red Curry

Red Curry Paste

8 kashmiri red chillies, soaked in warm water for 10 minutes
3 dried red chillies, soaked in warm water for 10 minutes
5 small onions (sambar onions) chopped
4 garlic cloves , peeled and chopped
1 " galangal chopped
2 stalks lemon grass chopped
2 stalks coriander leaves
3 Gandharaj lemon leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black peppercorns

Drain the water used to soak the chillies and grind to a paste in a mixie. Store the paste in an air tight container and freeze.

Red Curry

6 tbsp red curry paste
3 cups coconut milk
(Grate 1/2 fresh coconut and grind with 1.5 cup warm water, squeeze and strain the first milk and keep aside. Grind the coconut again with 2.5 cups warm water, squeeze and strain the second milk and keep aside separately)
3 Gandharaj leaves, torn
2 cups vegetables sliced long (I used mushrooms, bell peppers and babycorn)
1/2 cup tofu cubes

1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oil
salt to taste

1. Heat oil in a pan, add the red curry paste and lightly saute for 3 minutes.
2. Add the mixed vegetables, saute on high for 2 minutes and add the second (thinner) coconut milk and tofu sauce and simmer for 10 minutes till the vegetables are tender.
3. Add the tofu, adjust the seasoning and then pour in the first extract of coconut milk, simmer along with the lemon leaves for 3-4 minutes and remove from fire.
4. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Thai Noodle Soup

I thought I was more or less done with soups once the dog days of summer began. But surprise, surprise! summer this year was much kinder than it usually is. We had lots of showers and cloudy days, cool evenings with a light breeze, balmy mornings with a hint of rain. Perfect weather for soup!

Lisa and Holler's blog event No Croutons Required is a perfect place to look for some great soups; check out the round ups here, here and here for some fabulous ideas.

I did, and came across this delicious soup posted by Pixie of You Say Tomato....which is actually a One pot meal in itself.

A few variations to the original recipe and I had a delicious meal in a bowl! The flavours of coconut milk, the vegetables, peanut made it so appetising and the best part of the whole meal was the lemon leaf my friend gave me; its called Gandhraj (Gondraaj by the Bongs!) and is comparable to the Kaffir lime leaves in flavour - just one leaf lent an incredible aroma to this dish.

Thai Noodle Soup goes to this month's edition of A Fruit A Month (AFAM) which is being hosted by Suganya of Tasty Palettes. June's chosen fruit is the Coconut and the originator of this event is Maheswari of Beyond the Usual.

Thai Noodle Soup

100gm Rice noodles halved
4 babycorn sliced lengthwise
1 carrot sliced thin
5 spring onions sliced thinly, greens chopped fine
1/4 cup mixed sprouts

1 tsp oil
2 dried red chillies
Half a coconut grated
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 tsp haldi (turmeric powder)
1 tsp chilli powder
4 cups vegetable stock
juice from one lime
1 or 2 Gandhraj lemon leaves (I keep these frozen and they keep very well)
handful of chopped coriander leaves

1. Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed pan.
2. Add the dried red chillies and the garlic and saute for half a minute.
3. Put in the sliced spring onions and saute for 2 minutes.
4. In the meantime, add one cup of warm water to the grated coconut and blend in the mixie. Remove from blender and strain well to extract the coconut milk. This is the first extract and is thick.
Add one and a half cups of warm water and return the strained coconut gratings to the blender and run it one more time. Run it through the blender again to get the second extract which will be much thinner.
5. Add the second extract of coconut milk, peanut butter, chilli powder, vegetable stock, babycorn, sprouts, carrots and salt and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce flame and simmer for about 10 minutes till the vegetables are cooked.
7. Add the first extract of coconut milk and the noodles and simmer on a low flame for another 3-4 minutes, then add the lemon juice and Gondhraj lemon leaves and cover tightly and leave for about 5 more minutes till the noodles are cooked through.
8. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and spring onion greens. Serve warm.

Appam and Vegetable Stew - WBB - Balanced Breakfasts

Appams are something both of us love and when in Chennai, we hardly needed a reason to go out to the neighbourhood Kerala joint and feast on those lacy fluffy circles of heaven. I haven't been very successful making aapams at home, though to be honest I didn't really try too much - why bother with facing failure when we could just as easily eat out!

Then we moved to Delhi - if I thought Chennai needed Mumbai's Udipi restaurants when I moved there, then Delhi definitely needs any kind of South Indian restaurants (yeah sure, Saravana Bhavan is here with meals that cost a minimum of Rs 300 per head!!; Sagar Ratna restaurants are few and far between)

So we pined for our appams with chicken curry and vegetable stew......The last straw was when Hubby started travelling extensively to Cochin for a month and used to come back raving about the food. That's it - I decided that it was time to shake off the laziness and crack this thing!

I found a similar story to mine on Ginger and Mango and was quite inspired by Inji Pennu's success in making perfect palappams - they looked so delicious! The rice flour paste in her recipe was the one major difference between other recipes I have tried before, and also appears in Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for Appams.

Well, it did the trick and I was able to make fluffy appams for the first time. I was afraid that the batter wouldn't ferment enough since February in Delhi was still quite cold, so I left it out quite long and it became a tad sourer than needed. Easily remedied the next time round! And there is definitely going to be a lot of next times!


I served this with a vegetable stew (ishtoo) which is easily the dish for me, which has the simplest of ingredients and the richest of flavours!

I am sending this breakfast duo to Weekend Breakfast Blogging #20, the brainchild of Nandita of Saffron Trail which is being hosted this month by Mansi over at - Fun and Food. This month's theme is "Balanced Breakfasts" and Mansi makes it easy with this definition - "A balanced and wholesome breakfast is something that combines 2 or more of the food groups below to fulfill nutrition needs.

Fruits or vegetables (dried fruits are fine too)
Grains and Cereals (whole grains, oats, high-fiber foods)
Dairy (skim milk, low-fat yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese (paneer) )
Proteins (eggs/egg whites, peanut butter, beans, nuts, sprouts, protein isolates)"

With rice in the appam and vegetables in the stew, I think this breakfast is as balanced as they come...not to mention so so tasty!

Kerala Vegetable Stew

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 2 medium peeled and chopped
Carrots -1 medium peeled and diced
French beans - 8-10 diced
Green peas - 1/4 cup
Cauliflower florets - 1 cup
Coconut milk - 1 cup thin milk and 1 cup thick milk
(If using coconut powder, then just make 2 cups of coconut milk as per the instructions)
Onions - 2 sliced
Green chillies - 5-6 slit lengthwise
Ginger - 2.5 cm grated
Curry leaves - 10
Salt to taste
Coconut oil - 1 tbsp
Cinnamon stick - 1 "
Cardamom - 1
Cloves - 3-4

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the whole spices to it (cloves, cinnamon, cardamom). Saute for 3-4 minutes
2. Add half of the curry leaves and the green chillies, all of the grated ginger and sliced onions. Fry till onions turn translucent and then add the chopped potatoes, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of thin coconut milk and salt.
3. In the meanwhile, boil the chopped vegetables in 3/4 th cup of lightly salted water till just cooked and keep aside.
4. When the potatoes are soft and well cooked, add the cooked vegetables, rest of the green chillies and curry leaves and the thick coconut milk. Gently heat through for about 5 minutes, take off fire and serve with hot appams.

Creamy Curried Eggplant and Pumpkin Risotto

My efforts to include rosematta rice into our diet are still on, though not as often as I would like. After consuming raw rice for so many years, it's a little difficult to have plain rosematta rice with our usual sambar, kootu and rasam. And since I know it would probably put hubby off brown rice totally, I don't even try; preferring instead to make other kinds of dishes with it. And that's definitely not an everyday affair.

One evening while deciding dinner (can't we have some kind of lottery system for this?), I felt like eating kathrikai murungakkai thokku (a curried eggplant drumstick preparation) which is a favourite on hubby's maternal side - it's delicious and one aunt who specialises in making it, is the de facto "thokku chef" for every family gathering. Well, with no drumsticks in near sight and a firm resolve to make brown rice for dinner, the "thokku" seemed like a pipe dream. But one can always improvise, n'est ce pas?.......

I soaked some rosematta rice and then played it by the ear. Pumpkin seemed to be a good substitute for the sweet fleshiness of drumsticks. The thokku has a bit of sambar powder added to it, so if I wanted to do the same with the rice it seemed apt to add coconut milk to balance things out. As you can see, my train of thought may make no sense to anyone else.....but that's how things get cooked in this house!

I had no idea how this dish would turn out, but when it was finally done, I knew this recipe was a keeper. The rice cooked in coconut milk was as creamy as risottos come and the pumpkin and eggplant made a whole lot of difference - I doubt if the usual french beans and carrots would have tasted as good. The sambar powder was not overpowering, so it lent a nice touch to the dish.

This dish goes to the Monthly Mingle event which Meeta of Whats for Lunch Honey?, hosts, where this month's theme is One Dish Dinners.

Creamy Curried Eggplant and Pumpkin Risotto

Ingredients:

Rosematta rice - 1 cup, washed and soaked for about an hour, in 3 cups of water
Onions - 1 big, sliced thin
Tomato - 1 medium, chopped roughly
Red pumpkin (kaddu/paringikai) - 1 cup of 1" cubes
Eggplant (brinjal) - 3-4 small, cubes
Green pepper - 1 small, cut into squares

Coconut milk - 2 cups ( I added a couple of green chillies to the coconut while extracting the milk; if you are using canned or powdered extract , then you could add a couple of slit green chillies with the whole spices to increase the heat)
Vegetable stock - 1.5 cups kept hot (can be substituted with broth made from one soup cube)

Oil - 1 tbsp
Star Anise - 1
Bay leaf - 1
Cinnamon - 1"stick
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Sambar powder - 1 tsp
Ginger garlic paste - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large nonstick pan and add the whole spices to it (bayleaf, star anise, cinnamon), when they change colour put in the cumin seeds.
2. Toss in the sliced onions and saute till golden brown. Then add the ginger garlic paste, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.
3. After a minute, add the chopped pumpkin, eggplant and peppers. Saute on high for five minutes, then sprinkle the sambar powder and fry on low for 5-6 minutes till the vegetables soften. Cover for another 2 minutes till they are cooked, but firm. Throw in the chopped tomatoes and fry a couple of minutes.
4. Drain the soaked rice and add to the pan, fry for about 4 minutes till it is well coated with the oil and a bit toasted.
5. Add about 1 cup of hot vegetable stock and salt and bring to boil, reduce flame and simmer covered till the water is absorbed.
6. Mix the remaining half cup of hot vegetable stock with one cup of coconut milk and pour into the pan. Cover and simmer again till all of it is absorbed. (If you have divided the extract into first and second, then start with the second extract, which will be thinner)
7. Check the rice and adjust salt if needed; add the remaining cup of coconut milk, cook for about 4-5 minutes, turn off the flame while there is still some liquid in the rice and keep covered for 3-4 minutes. Serve warm.

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour for the rice to cook, so you can tend to other stuff while it cooks (I grated some bottle gourd(ghia) for a raita to go with the risotto - recipe to follow).
The risotto doesn't need constant supervision and is quite forgiving as compared to white rice which, when I started cooking fried rice or pulao on the stove top, would either get mushy or dry out and stick to the bottom.

Brinji (Vegetable Fried Rice in Coconut milk)

There are some recipes which I learnt from my MIL, like this one here, which are staples in hubby’s extended family – either everyday ones or special ones for close family gatherings (read minimum 50 people!).

Some of them are traditional recipes from her maternal home while others are popular Tamil recipes – not necessarily hoary and traditional, but just ones which are made in many Tamilian homes irrespective of where the family is from. Someone tastes the dish, likes it and asks for the recipe – soon it becomes a favourite in their home. And then before you know it; it’s on your local cookery show on TV!

This recipe is something like that. I hadn’t ever heard of it growing up in Mumbai. But in Chennai I came across many versions of it – and it didn’t matter what community they were from, so I had to assume that this is one of those rootless dishes, so to speak – all the more unique and flavourful for that!

Birinji or Brinji is basically a mixed vegetable pulao, the difference being that it has coconut and spices ground into it and fried; the rice is then cooked in the spice paste and coconut milk which gives it a creamy flavor. Which is why I think of it as a fried rice and not a pulao.

Don’t confuse this with the “Thengai saadam” or Coconut rice which is made down South, no, not the one with grated coconut and tempering made on festival days, but the one which is tempered with whole spices and then cooked in coconut milk. No other masala, no vegetables, nothing else to intrude on the creamy coconut flavor. This one is different.

I tried to figure out the etymology of the name…….but didn’t get very far. Some people say that the name comes from “birinji elai” – the Tamil word used for Tej Patta – a spice similar to Bay leaf used to flavor this dish. But I don’t think that’s correct. If anything I would think that the spice got the name from the dish! Very much a chicken and egg situation….

I did find this reference to birinji though; in a discussion on the etymology of rice and where it originated, the author of the article refers to “birinji” or “brinji” as being the Persian word for rice.
Another article on the Kirghitz tribe in Afghanistan refers to a dish they have called Shier brinji – which is boiled rice in milk.

So I’m assuming that the word we now use for this dish, originally referred to the rice used in the dish – probably a basmati kind of long grained rice which came from the North. If anyone has more interesting or authentic information on this, do let me know!

Whatever the origin, this dish is one surefire way of making an ordinary day a festive occasion. MIL turns this out perfectly each time she has guests over, making it in her electric rice cooker in a largish quantity and it’s always a hit.

I don’t wait for guests to stop by – a Sunday afternoon at home is reason enough to have this delicious dish; some pickle, pachadi, papad and we’re good.

Brinji/Birinji

Ingredients

Basmati rice – 1½ cups
Onions – 2 peeled and sliced
Mixed vegetables – 1 ½ cups cut into fingers (potato, carrot, beans, peas, capsicum)
Coconut milk – 2 cups (1 half of a medium sized coconut)
Cloves – 2
Cardamom – 2
Cinnamon – 1 “piece
Tej patta (similar to bay leaf) – 1
Oil – 2 tbsp
Salt – to taste
Spice Paste:
Grated coconut – ½ cup
Green chillies – 4
Ginger – 1 “piece
Garlic – 4-5 cloves
Coriander leaves – ¼ cup packed tightly
Mint leaves – handful
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Method
1. Soak the rice in 3 cups of water for about 10 - 1 5 minutes.
2. Grind the ingredients for the spice paste, adding a little water till it is smooth.
3. Heat the oil in a large non stick wok/kadai and add the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and leaf. 4. Sauté for 1-2 minutes, then add the onions and sauté till lightly browned.
5. Add the spice paste and fry for another 4 – 5 minutes on a low flame, taking care that it doesn’t stick to the bottom
6. Add the mixed chopped vegetables and fry for 2-3 minutes.
7. Drain the rice and reserve the water. Add the rice to the pan and lightly fry for about a minute. Then measure out the coconut milk, add two cups of the reserved rice water, so that the total liquid equals 4 cups and add to the rice in the pan.
8. Add salt to taste – if you taste the liquid at this stage, it should taste a bit salty; it will be then just right after it is cooked.
9. Bring water to a boil and then cover and cook on medium flame for about 5 minutes. Open, stir the rice gently, cover again and cook on a low flame for another 5-7 minutes.
10.If the rice is cooked after this time and there is still a little more water, uncover and cook on low for about a minute or two till the water dries out.

The rice should be just about cooked when you turn off the flame; it shouldn’t be falling apart since it will cook a little bit more in the residual heat and might turn mushy by the time it is served.

Cover and keep warm till serving time. Garnish with mint leaves and serve with pachadi /raita (yoghurt salad)