Green Pepper Pickle (Serves a number of people)

Sorry to have been out of action for such a long while. Didn’t mean to, just happened. Anyway no excuses, but glad to be back.

I do have a lot of recipes written down based on what I prepared for the last several months. But I wanted to get back in the kitchen and into cooking. Having been in the mood for eating spicy food lately, hence whatever I cooked in the last couple of days have been that.

I would like to start off with what I made yesterday, an Indian style pickle made with green pepper. Green pepper was chosen just because by mistake we ended up picking 7 of them during our regular grocery round, which for 2 people is quite a lot.

I borrowed on the basic pickle recipe that goes really well with mangoes and other vegetables, but just gave a a little variation by using black salt instead of regular white salt. Black salt has its own bursting flavor and unique taste that goes along well with chaat masala, and as part of seasonings. I bought some recently, and its going to feature in quite a lot of the dishes that I will be preparing over the next few months.

3 green peppers diced into small pieces (roughly 400g)
1/16 tsp asafoetida
¼ tsp turmeric powder
1 ½ tbsp red chili powder
4 tbsp oil
1 tsp black salt
¾ tsp cumin powder
¾ tsp coriander powder

Dice the green pepper into small pieces, after removing the seeds and stem.

On a non stick pan on medium heat, add the oil. As the oil heats up, add the red chili powder, asafoetida, cumin and coriander powder. Stir everything a bit in the oil as the ingredients get cooked and impart their flavor into the oil.

The moment you get a nice aroma of the spices in the hot oil, immediately add the green pepper to it and stir well. We have to make sure that the powders do not burn in the oil. Hence the timing is important.

Add the turmeric powder and black salt, and mix everything well.

Keep cooking on medium flame until most of the water from the green pepper evaporates, it loses its bitterness, and most importantly you see all the oil start separating from the green peppers. Taste the final product to make sure the peppers are cooked well, and shut the flame off.

Store it, and serve as a accompaniment to rice and dal, or stuff it between buttered bread and have a go at it. Enjoy!

Vegetable Biryani (Serves 5-6)

Finally! Over time, after a few tries and not being satisfied at all with the results, I very much loved the last modified attempt at this wonderful dish and I would like to present the recipe for the same.

I had found this recipe several years ago from somewhere on the Internet. Unfortunately I don’t have the original link with me to give the person credit.
I followed it to the dot many times, but it ended up not quite right. Hence I never posted it.

My friends came over for dinner last Thursday, and I decided to give this another shot as it is very simple to prepare and goes great with some cucumber and yogurt raita. Although it was on the spicy side, everyone loved it. My wife is finally happy with something that I made :-).

I have done some modifications over time to this dish.  Here is the recipe. Although the ingredient list below looks very long, trust me, it is very easy to make. Just follow me through here.

6 cloves of garlic, cut into chunks
3 inch piece of ginger root, skin peeled and cut into chunks
3/4 cup of yogurt
3 large onions sliced thin
4 large green chilies
4-5 medium potatoes, skinned and cut into chunks
1 1/4 cups carrots, cut into 1 1/2 inch long pieces, 1/4 inch width
1 1/2 cups green beans, cut into 1 1/2 inch long pieces
1 1/2 cups peas
6 large plum tomatoes, diced
salt
1 cup oil
1 very large bunch coriander leaves
4 cups good quality basmati rice
7 cups warm water
roasted nuts (optional)
6 tbsp milk
large pinch of saffron strands
6 bay leaves
15 black pepper kernels
1 tbsp coriander powder
15 cloves
3 inches of cinnamon bark
1 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds
10 pods of cardamom with skin
3 tbsp cayenne pepper

Heat up the milk in the microwave or a gas stove. Add the saffron strands to the hot milk and keep it aside to let all the flavor and color from the saffron get mixed to the milk. This is one of the main ingredients of biryani that gives a fantastic overall flavor and taste.

In a large soup pot or similar vessel add 7 cups of water, 2 1/2 tsp salt, 7 kernels of black pepper, 7 cloves, 5 pods of cardamom, 3 bay leaves, 1 1/2 inch of cinnamon bark and 4 cups of rinsed basmati rice, and boil for 8-10 minutes. After this, just drain away the water and keep the rice and whole spices aside in the same container.

In a large wok or similar pan, on medium heat, add 1/2 cup oil. When the oil heats up, add the onions. Stir cook the onions until they turn golden brown.

Remove half the onions from the wok and set aside in a container. To the remaining onions in the wok, add the cumin seeds, coriander powder, green chilies, 3 bay leaves, 8 black pepper kernels, 8 cloves, 5 pods of cardamom and 1 1/2 inches of cinnamon bark. Stir everything together well for a few minutes. When the onions are well incorporated with the spices, add the potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, salt to taste and 3 tbsp cayenne pepper. Mix everything well and cook them for a few minutes on medium to high heat.

In the meanwhile, blend the yogurt, garlic, ginger and the onions that were set aside until it is smooth. Add this to the vegetables in the wok along with the diced tomatoes. Cook on medium to high heat until the yogurt is completely cooked and you only see the cooked vegetables and the separated oil. Turn off the heat on the gas stove.

In a 13 1/2" x 9 5/8" x 2 3/4" baking foil tray, add one layer of vegetables in the bottom, sprinkle half the finely chopped coriander leaves, and then add one layer of the rice. Repeat with another layer of vegetables, and then rice on top of that. So you have 4 layers in all.

Sprinkle the remaining coriander leaves on top of the rice. Pour 1/2 cup oil evenly over the top layer of rice. Do the same with the saffron and milk mixture, spooning it evenly over the top layer of rice. Cover the tray with aluminum foil.

Heat the oven on 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the foil tray in the center of the oven and bake for around 40 - 45 minutes. The rice would be done with a texture that is perfect for biryani in this time.

Before serving, plate the biryani individually, mix the rice and vegetables well on the plate to incorporate all the different flavors. Sprinkle some roasted nuts on top (optional) and serve hot with yogurt raita, or salad on the side.

Bon appetit!

Health Rating: Medium

Coconut based Vegetable Stew (Serves 2)

It has been a long while since I have gone near the kitchen area with the intention of cooking for the blog. Hence there haven’t been any posts.

I got the opportunity yesterday to do some cooking while my wife and daughter were busy watching TV and I had the kitchen to myself. Tranquility!

I wanted to make something really quick. A peep into the freezer, and I came out with some frozen coconut pieces and a bag of store-bought stew vegetables. Well, it could have been any vegetables for that matter. This bag contained baby potatoes, pearl onions, celery and carrots. I decided to make a coconut based stew.

I didn’t try anything fancy and just kept to the basics with simple ingredients. 

1 lb stew vegetables

1/3 cup cut green beans

1/3 heaped cup coconut pieces

5 green chilies (3 small, 2 medium)

½ tsp salt

1/16 tsp ground pepper

1 tbsp oil

1 cup low fat milk

1 ½ cups water

Small bunch fresh coriander leaves for garnish

Defrost the vegetables to room temperature. If you are using fresh vegetables, boil or steam cook them until they are just done and set aside.

In a deep pan on medium heat, add oil. When the oil is hot, add the vegetables and stir them well. Add ¼ tsp salt and ground black pepper. After a few minutes of cooking, add 1 ½ cups of hot water to the pan. Cook on medium to high heat until the vegetables are well done. With a food crusher, crush the vegetables a bit.

Defrost the coconut pieces. Blend the coconut, with 3 small green chilies, and 1 cup low fat milk.

Pour this blend through a strainer into the pan containing the vegetables. Add ¼ tsp salt and 2 more medium green chilies cut lengthwise to this, and cook on medium to high heat until the stew is boiling for a few minutes.

Turn off the gas, garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with pooris, chapattis or rice.


Health Rating: High

Scallion Ginger Tofu (Serves 2)

There is a Chinese restaurant near my work place. More often than not, I order Basil Chicken which for me is one of their best dishes. On one of my visits, scanning through the menu list I came across this dish called Scallion Ginger Chicken. It looked very promising. But when they served it, it was very evident that they had destroyed it with an overdose of oil and soy bean sauce. I think it was due to the large crowd and they were trying to rush out the dishes.

I knew I could modify this dish at home and get a great result since the ingredient combinations looked so good. The only modifications I made were that I replaced the chicken with tofu since my wife is vegetarian, and I just used soy sauce since I don't know to make black bean sauce yet :-).

So let’s move on to the recipe. There is a little amount of pre-prep for this dish. Once that is done, the dish is ready in 5 minutes. 

14oz (397gms) extra firm tofu
6 whole dry red chilies
1 ½ medium size onions
2 inch long fresh ginger root
2 bunches of fresh scallion roots (5 in a bunch)
4 tbsp oil
5 cloves fresh garlic
⅛ cup low sodium soy sauce
⅛ cup warm water
½ tsp whole wheat flour
¼ tsp salt
⅛ tsp ginger powder

Pre-Prep

• Cut the tofu into chunks (1/2 inch thickness) and boil for 5-10 minutes in water. Drain the water and set aside. This boiling process makes the tofu firmer.
• Slice the onion into thin long slices.
• Peel the skin off the ginger root and cut the ginger root into really thin long pieces.
• Take only the green leaf part of the scallions and chop them into 1 inch long pieces. Discard the white onion part of the scallions. We don’t need that.
• Chop the garlic into round pieces, not too thin.
• In a small cup with warm water, add the whole wheat flour and mix well.

Prep
Take a large wok or a deep frying pan. Keep the flame on low to medium heat, and add the oil. When the oil starts to get hot, of the 6 red chilies crush two of them completely and add to the hot oil. Add the other 4 red chilies whole. Stir for a few minutes till the oil attains the flavor of the chilies.

Increase the flame to medium to high heat, and add the ginger, garlic, and onions. Keep stirring making sure that you don’t burn anything. After a few minutes add the scallions and keep stirring.

Now add the tofu and salt and mix everything well for a few minutes. Add the soy sauce, ginger powder and the water and flour mixture, and mix well till everything gets incorporated, at the most a couple of minutes more.

Serve hot with rice. Certified yummy!

Sauteed Turnips (Serves 6-8)

My wife bought this huge turnip when she went grocery shopping. Mind you, it was an impulse buy! Well, this huge root had been sitting there for a while.

We invited  some friends over for Diwali at the last moment. We kept the cooking simple for the potluck. I decided to try and cook the turnip.

I had never eaten or cooked turnip before. I have to describe the different flavors of this lovely root. I peeled the turnip with a peeler and diced it into small cubes. When raw the turnip has a sweet flavor. I have to keep this is mind for a salad.

I wanted to experiment with this dish by combining fresh rosemary and fennel seeds, two outstanding flavors that raise the bar of food taste wise when added to complementary vegetables. Then I combined these flavors with the common Indian ingredients we all are very familiar with - garlic, ginger and plain yogurt as I wanted to add a nice base to the dish. On to the recipe then.

960 gm diced turnips (after peeling and dicing)
5 cloves garlic
2 inch ginger root
1 tsp fresh minced rosemary leaves
6 tbsp low fat plain yogurt
3 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp fennel seeds
4 tbsp oil
1 ¾ tsp salt
1 tbsp browned butter
2 cups water

Peel the skin off the turnip, and dice it into small cubes (1/4 inch size). This is the most laborious part of making this dish. After this, it is a stroll in the park. Well, not literally:-)

Grate the ginger and garlic and set aside.

In a large frying pan on medium heat, add the oil. When the oil is starting to get hot, add the fennel seeds and stir a bit. Add the ginger, garlic and ½ tsp fresh minced rosemary leaves, and  continue stirring.

Now add the cayenne pepper and just as it starts to release its aroma, add the plain yogurt. Mix everything well. Turn the flame to high and keep stirring as the water from yogurt evaporates and the oil eventually starts to rise. Throw in the turnips, add salt and mix well.

Bring the flame back to medium heat, add water in ¼ to ½ cup increments and cook the turnips. I tasted the turnips when they were slightly cooked. They tasted bitter. Interesting!

When the water in the pan dries up, add some more water. Continue cooking until the turnips are cooked ,but half crunchy and half soft. At this point add the remaining water (around ¼ cup), and garnish with ½ fresh minced rosemary leaves and 1 tbsp of browned butter (ghee). Mix well and serve hot.

I like the crunchy and soft texture as it goes well with rice ,and with bread or chapati. The turnip now tasted a little lemony, with a hint of sweetness and minuscule amount of bitterness, similar to white radish.

Actually i liked it better the next day, when all the flavors had come together.