(Un)Fruit Cake

I happen to like fruitcake.
Every year in December I make fruitcake. But I don't advertise this fact. The kids are all too aware of the baggage that fruitcake brings along. As I bake a lot around the holidays, a fruit & nut cake sneaks pasts them very easily!
So far I haven't been satisfied with the fruitcake doozies that I've churned out.
If making fruitcake was bad enough making a bad fruitcake would've ensured a mention in our hall of disasters.

A few Novembers ago, once again, I assembled a virtual who's-who of the nut and dried fruit world, chopped them roughly and soaked them in rum. Every couple of days I'd shake the contents then open the bottle and sniff! Goodness!!

Unfortunately I didn't get around to making any of recipes that I had bookmarked. The boozy fruit-nut remained in the fridge and my shake-sniff-swoon routine continued. Just as I had more or less given up on the idea of making fruit cake I came up this recipe for a Fig, Lemon, and Olive Oil cake. Such a glorious looking cake that was; I could almost taste the lemon & figs.
I just had to make it.

Here is the veganised version of that cake.

(Un)Fruit Cake
Ingredients
1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ cup sugar (see notes below)
½ cup olive oil
½ cup soy milk
1 tbsp lemon or orange zest
4 tbsp rum
3 tbsp orange juice or water
1 ½ cups dry fruits and nuts, chopped (see notes below)

Method
If you aren't using previously soaked fruits and nuts, combine slightly warm rum and orange juice with the fruits and nuts and set aside for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the over to 350F.
Prepare either a 8in or a 9in round pan or an iron skillet.
Mix the flour, baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl combine the sugar and the citrus zest. Rub the zest into the sugar.
Add the oil and milk. Mix well.
Add in the dry ingredients, stir to combine.
Fold in the fruit-rum mixture.
Do not over mix.
Give the batter a quick taste and add more sugar if necessary. The flavours will deepen and the cake will taste sweeter after a day or two. That is if it lasts that long.

Bake for about 20 minutes, till a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out mostly clean.
If using an iron skillet, you may need more than 20 minutes. Ovens will vary.

Once the cake come out of the oven, let it sit in the pan for about 10-15 minutes before inverting it on a cake rack.

Serve with a scoop of ice-cream, a dollop of lemon flavor whipped cream, or maybe just a dusting of powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

Notes:
I've made this cake several times now. Each time I vary the amount of sugar. The ½ cup sugar was slightly sweet, probably because of the sugar content added by the various dried fruit. If you make this cake with just figs, you'll probably need all of the ½ cup of sugar.
I used a mixture of raisins, golden raisins, cranberries, figs, dates, almonds, pistachios, cashews, pecans, and walnuts.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com or tweet @cooker_baker. Thanks for stopping by.

Jampot In My Kitchen

Jamshedpur, aka Tatanagar, Jampot, the city that Jamshedji Nuserwanji Tata built on the banks of the Suvarnarekha and Kharkai rivers. This is where my husband grew up and this is 'home' to him. Though Jamshedpur has changed in many ways, it has also remained the same. The slow and simple way of life and the quietness is much the same. Sure, there are way more traffic lights, cars, coffee shops, and the like but the charm of places like the Bistupur market remains intact.
My daughter created this Wordle to try to capture what Jamshedpur means to us and some of the places and people we associate with it.

RinaDidi's Tomato Chutney
Whenever I see recipes titled 'Matty's Scones' or 'Mrs. Johnson's Vegetable Stew' I can't help wonder about the people in the recipe titles especially since there isn't always any information about the people and the reason why we should care about these particular scones. In the case of this recipe, RinaDidi cooks in my sister-in-law's kitchen in Jamshedpur. She is more like a multi armed Goddess straight from Hindu mythology. Only this Goddess wields cooking utensils and operates kitchen gadgets. RinaDidi is equally at ease making Burmese khao suey as she is making maccher jhol, sattu-ki-roti, or varan-bhaat.

Ingredients
4-5 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
3-4 dry dates, finely chopped
2 tsp oil, preferably mustard oil
1 tsp panchphoran
1/4 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp grated ginger, loosely packed
salt, to taste
Method
Heat the oil to the smoking point and add the panchphoran. If not using mustard oil, do not let it smoke.
When the mustard stops popping add the ginger. Cook for about ½ a minute.
Add the chili powder, tomatoes, and dates.
Cook uncovered over medium-low heat till the tomatoes and dates soften; about 8-9 minutes.
Add the salt.
The resulting chutney should be sweet, sour, and slightly spicy.
If the tomatoes don't bring in enough sourness, add just a bit of aamchur or tamarind extract.
Cool completely before before serving.


Idli Dosa Chutney
This chutney is a fixture in my kitchen after tasting it first in Jamshedpur.
The recipe is courtesy my sister-in-law.

Ingredients
½ cup chana daal
A small knob of ginger 1 tablespoon oil
Phodni kit (mustard seeds, turmeric, and asafetida (hing))
1 (or more) green chili
Juice of ½ a lemon
Salt to taste

3-4 stalks of cilantro (optional)
4-5 curry leaves

Method
Roast the chana daal till it browns slightly.
Transfer the roasted daal to a bowl and add about a cup of water. The water should cover the daal so add more if required.
Let the daal soak for 2-3 hours.
Drain the daal but retain the water. Grind the daal, chili and the ginger using just a bit of the 'soaking' water.
The chutney should retain just a bit of texture and shouldn't be pasty smooth.
Make the phodni/ tempering: heat the oil, add the mustard seeds. When they stop popping adding the turmeric, the hing, and the curry leaves.
Pour the phodni/ tempering over the chutney. Add the lemon juice and salt.
Enjoy with dosa or idli.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by.

Variations On A Theme

Though this is a recipe for a 'basic' vanilla cake, there is nothing basic about it. Sure it is easy to prepare and uses ingredients that you probably already have, but this is a flavourful and a deeply satisfying cake.
Over the years I have baked it umpteen times and each time with a slight flavor variation.
This post lists some of our favourite variations.
Here is a picture of a loaf baked by my daughter. She added grapefruit zest to the batter.

Basic Vanilla Cake - a template
(Minimally adapted from The Joy of Cooking.)
Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 stick (8 tbsp) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Method
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease a nine-inch round pan or a loaf pan and set it aside.
Mix together and then set aside the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a large bowl, beat the the butter till creamy.
Add the sugar and beat on high speed for five minutes. You may occasionally need to scrap the bowl.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Beat in the vanilla extract and the lemon juice.
Add the dry ingredients and stir only till combined.
Pour the batter in the pan and spread it evenly.
Bake for 25 minutes (30+ minutes for a loaf pan) or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean.
Oven differ and so will the baking times. Regardless, do not open the oven to test for doneness before 20 minutes.

Spiced Apple Cake: 1
To the flour mixture, add ¼ tsp each of ground cinnamon, ground cardamom, ground nutmeg, and ground allspice.
Add in one cup grated apples (Fuji, Cortland, or Golden Delicious).
Bake in a nine-inch round pan for 35mins or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean.

Reduce the quantity of the spices to suit your tastes; we prefer a heavily spiced apple cake.

Spiced Apple Cake:2
Replace ¼ cup of the all purpose flour with an equal quantity of oat flour.
To the flour mixture, add ¼ tsp each of ground cinnamon, ground cardamom, ground nutmeg, and ground allspice.
Add in one cup apples (Fuji, Cortland, or Golden Delicious), cubed.
Bake in a nine-inch round pan for 35mins or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean.

Reduce the quantity of the spices to suit your tastes; we prefer a heavily spiced apple cake.

To make the oat flour, I run regular (not quick cooking) oats thru the food processor.

Lemon Poppy Seed
To the cake batter add in 1 tbsp lemon zest (packed) and 1 tsp poppy seeds.
Bake as directed above.

Orange Walnut
To the cake batter add in 1 tbsp orange zest (packed) and 1/3 cup finely chopped roasted walnuts.
Bake as directed above.

Upside down cakes
This batter can be used to make pineapple, apple, pear, peach, or plum upside down cakes.
Grease the bottom of the pan, sprinkle a little bit of sugar (about 1 tbsp), arrange the fruit slices, pour the batter and bake for about 25-30 minutes.
Sometimes I mix in flavors that go with the fruits, such as cinnamon & nutmeg with the apples, a bit of citrus zest to go with the peaches and plums. If the fruit is flavourful, I skip any additions.

Bananas Foster upside down In an 8/9 in iron skillet melt 3-4 tbsp butter, add in about 3 packed tbsp brown sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, some rum (optional). Cook this sauce for about a minute, turn off the heat, arrange the sliced bananas, pour over the batter and bake the cake right in the skillet.

Citrus loaf
Mix 1 tbsp citrus zest into the sugar. Use the back of a spoon to rub the zest into the sugar, applying slight pressure.
Any citrus zest will work. We've tried oranges, lemon, lime, pomellos, and grapefruits.

Fruit & Nut Cake
In ½ a cup of warm apple or orange juice, add a cup of chopped nuts and dried fruits. If you let the fruits and nuts soak overnight, the flavour will be deeper but an hour of soaking time will do.
Gently fold the fruit and nut mixture in the cake batter and bake as directed above.
For a boozy version, substitute part of the juice with the spirit of choice; think Grand Marnier, rum, etc.


If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by.

A Happy Medium

These are the results of my (seemingly) endless efforts to bake a decent loaf of whole wheat bread. Since replacing just one cup of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour does not maketh a loaf of bread whole wheat I started by using only whole wheat flour.
We suffered through numerous loaves that were either too hard, too rough, or as the children called it too healthy before I came to the conclusion that all purpose flour was required (or kneaded, get it?). I did not experiment using bread flour as I hardly ever have it on hand.
The magic ratio, for me, was 3:2 of whole wheat flour:all purpose flour. The resulting loaf is gorgeous and it slices perfectly.
Making a PB&J using home made bread for the children's lunch boxes is such a joy!

Ingredients
2 cups (16 oz) warm water, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet of yeast)
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt

Method
In a large bowl pour one cup of warm water (between 105-110F) and sprinkle the yeast over it. Let it bubble, about 5-6 minutes. If this mixture doesn't bubble, you'll have to start over with another packet of yeast. Sorry!
Stir in the second cup of warm water and two cups of all purpose flour and set aside for about ten minutes.

Add the whole wheat flour, wheat gluten (if using), salt, sugar, and the oil. Stir till just combined. The dough will be very sticky but that is okay. Set aside the dough for another ten minutes.

Knead the dough by hand or using the hook attachment of a stand mixer till the dough is no longer sticky; about 10-11 minutes. If the dough seems too sticky even after kneading for 6-7 minutes add just a bit of flour at a time, no more than a teaspoon at a time. When the dough is smooth, form it into a ball.

Oil the inside of the large bowl and place the dough in it. Cover the bowl and set it in a warm place or a warm oven. I usually set the oven on 'warm' as I start mixing the dough and turn it off before I start adding in the whole wheat flour etc. The oven by them is warm enough.

In about two hours the dough should double in size.

Sprinkle a bit of flour on your work surface and turn out the dough. Lightly knead the dough for about a minute. Divide the dough into two and shape each half into a rectangular log. When forming a loaf, stretch the top and tuck it under the loaf. Stretch as much as you can without tearing the surface.
Let the loaves rest for about 15-20 minutes.

While the loaves of dough rest, preheat the oven to 400F.
Place the dough into lightly oiled loaf pans and score the tops with a serrated knife. Three slashes per loaf should suffice.
Place the loaves on the middle rack of the oven and then reduce the oven temperature to 375F.
Spritz the inside of the oven with water. About 7-8 spritzes should be enough. This creates steam which helps keep the loaves soft.

Bake the loaves for about 30-35 minutes or till the top of the loaves turn a golden brown. The loaves should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. If they don't, put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
Remove the loaves from the pans and set them on a cooling rack.
Cool completely before slicing. Not an easy task, I know.

Notes: Replace one cup of water with a cup of milk (2% or whole) for a more tender and slightly richer loaf.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com or tweet @cooker_baker. Thanks for stopping by.

Airline Pulao

There was a time, when the kids were very young, that occasional meals were built around a rice dish (a pulao or a khichadi). Along with a yogurt-based salad, roasted papad, some steamed carrots & broccoli we had ourselves a meal.
It was one such evening and I was winging a pulao, literally throwing in things that caught my fancy. One of the things I added was a hefty pinch of cardamom and liberal amounts of kasoori methi.

My son had a spoonful of the pulao and exclaimed loudly 'Aai, this is just like the S- Airlines pulao.' He was too young to know that this was not exactly an compliment.

Since then this pulao has been made many times. Somewhere along the line I added in some paneer cubes and, thankfully, the name changed to paneer pulao. Sometimes my nieces refer to this as that pulao.

We don't eat much rice nowadays; a couple of times a week. And when we do have some, the quantities have gone down as has the size of the paneer cubes. A bit of paneer does go a long way. I've made this pulao with white, red, and brown rice. When using brown or red rice the quantity of spices and the onion and garlic definitely need to be increased to stand up to the robustness of the rice.

Ingredients
The quantities are mere guidelines.
1 cup rice, wash and set aside
½ medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
½ tsp jeera
1 tsp kasuri methi
½ tsp powdered cardamom
7-8 cashews, roughly chopped
1 cup paneer cubes
salt, to taste
1 tbsp oil
2 cups warm water

Method Over medium heat, warm the oil.
Add the onions and let then brown.
Add the garlic and cook a bit but don't let the garlic brown.
Add the kasoori methi, jeera, cardamom, and the chili powder cook for another ½ minute.
Add the rice and saute for a bit (less than a minute) before adding two cups warm water.
When the rice is half cooked, add the salt and the paneer cubes. Give it a good stir.
Cover and cook thru.
Once cooked, fluff the pulao slightly using a fork before serving.
(Do not overcook the rice.)
Enjoy!


If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

Methi Times Three

I wish there was a clever or an amusing story to go with this recipe. But there isn't. No preamble. This is quite simply my favourite way of making methi-cha-varan/ methi-daal.
It has methi in three forms: slightly soaked methi seeds, methi seeds in the phodni (tadka, tempering) and finally glorious methi greens.

Methi-cha Varan

Ingredients
1 cup toor (arhar) daal, washed
1 - 1½ cup methi leaves, chopped
1 tbsp methi (fenugreek) seeds, soaked for a couple of hours in warm water
4-5 kadhilimba (curry leaves)
phodni kit (1 tbsp oil, ½ tsp cumin seeds, pinch of asafoetida, and ¼ tsp turmeric)
1 tsp methi seeds
1 tsp (or more) red chili powder
a couple stalks of cilantro leaves, chopped
a pinch of sugar
salt, to taste
lemon juice, to taste
warm water

Method
Pressure cook the toor daal and the soaked methi seeds.
Heat the oil, when hot add the cumin seeds, the asafoetida, and the methi seeds.
Don't let the methi seeds brown.
Add the turmeric and then the methi leaves.
Give it a quick stir and cook uncovered for a couple of minutes.
Add the cooked daal-methi mixture, the curry leaves, the red chili powder, salt, and sugar.
Add a cup of warm water and cook over medium heat for 4-5 minutes.
Add more warm water if you want a thinner varan.
Add the lemon juice.
Adjust the salt and spice levels.
Serve with steamed rice.

Enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com or Tweet me @Cooker_Baker. Thanks for stopping by.

Orange. Oats. Almond. Love

The book was renewed till I couldn't renew it yet again. At that point I decided to buy a copy for myself.
By now I have lost count of the vegan recipes I have tried from this book. When I'm not baking from it, I'm simply perusing the recipes. A good read.

The primary reason for diving into the vegan recipes is the need to cut cholesterol for everyday foods. The other and equally important reason is that I can now easily make these for breakfast. On a weekday!
The previous night I mix the dry ingredients and then the wet ingredients (separately). In the morning while the oven preheats, I mix the wet and dry ingredients, spoon the batter in the muffin pan. In under 30 mins, start to end, the muffins are ready to be devoured by the sleepyheads ambling out for breakfast. When they are awake enough to ask 'You made them in the morning?' and I get to nod and smile beatifically. Thanks Camilla Saulsbury.

While I have baked several vegan muffins from this book, the recipe here is my own but definitely inspired by this book. I either use a mixture of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour or just whole wheat flour. I did not like batch made with just all purpose flour. I know it is fashionable to favour whole wheat flour, but in case whole wheat flour does indeed produce a wonderful texture and hearty muffin.

I'm digressing but recently at a party when the topic of discussion moved to preferences in chocolate, a friend leaned over to whisper 'I know it is not fashionable to say this but I really like milk chocolate'. This was such a what-the-football moment. The thing is that I, too, like milk chocolate and am not afraid to say it. In fact, I like it a lot. (I digress while digressing; very Inception-like...a certain blogger has been been gunning down people who use 'alot' instead of 'a lot'. So hopefully she notices the space between 'a' and 'lot'.)

Orange Oat Almond Muffins
Ingredients

½ cup regular oats, give them a quick spin in the spice grinder
1 ½ cups flour (a mixture of all purpose and whole wheat flour)
¼ cup almonds, coarsely chopped
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup sugar (or more)
zest of one large orange (see notes below)
½ cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
juice of one large orange, add water to the juice to get one cup of liquid
1 ½ tbsp vinegar (cider vinegar is better but just plain vinegar is just fine)

Method
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease a 12-cup muffin pan.
Mix the dry ingredients and set aside.
Mix the wet ingredients and set aside.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined.
(Go ahead and taste the batter to see if you need more sugar. Vegan batter, it is safe!)
Spoon the batter into the muffin pans and bake for about 15mins (oven times will vary) or till a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out nearly clean.
Cool in the pan for at least 10 mins before removing them; the muffins are crumbly.

Notes: to get more flavour out of the orange zest, rub the zest with the sugar.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com or tweet @cooker_baker. Thanks for stopping by.

So Many Fools, So Little Time

Dessert doesn't get any easier.
Berry fool: Crushed/ macerated berries mixed with lightly sweetened whipped cream.
An added bonus: the entertainment factor that comes with having the word fool in it's name, as in "Let's have some strawberry < insert the name of your favourite sibling/ cousin>."
Rather lame, I know.

Photo courtesy my daughter, A.

Ingredients
The proportions are a mere guideline.

10-12 medium sized strawberries (hulled)/ 1 cup blackberries, blueberries, or raspberries.
½ cup whipping cream, cold
1 tbsp (regular) sugar
1-2 tbsp confectioners sugar
a couple of pinches of salt (optional, but recommended)
1 tsp (or more) lemon juice
Mint leaves, for garnishing (optional)

Method
Place the berries in separate medium bowls and sprinkle just a little sugar on them.
Using a fork or a potato masher, break the berries.
Add a pinch of salt and ½ tsp lemon juice to each bowl and set aside for about an hour.

Add the confectioners sugar to the whipping cream and beat still you get soft peaks.

Layer the berries and the cream in serving bowls/ wine glasses.
Instead of layering you could also fold the cream into the berry mixture.
Top with the mint leaves, if using.
Chill in the fridge before serving.
Serves four.
Enjoy!

Note: the quantity of sugar largely depends on the sweetness of the berries and how sweet you like your desserts.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

Bread! hic.

My first attempt at making beer bread was an unmitigated disaster. The taste, texture, and smell: all awful. I blame the beer!
It took me a good couple of years before giving it another try. This time I made many changes to the original recipe and ended up with this lovely loaf:

As far as I know, the alcohol in the beer burns off in the 45 mins of baking time. What is left behind is the almost tangy bitterness.

Beer Bread

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
¼ cup oats, coarsely ground (optional but recommended if you like various textures in your bread)
3 tbsp oil
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
12 oz beer (I used good ol' Kingfisher)

Method
Preheat the oven to 375F.
If using a pizza stone, place it in the oven.
Lightly grease a pan or an iron skillet and set it aside.

Mix all the dry ingredients.
Add in the oil, give it a good stir.
Pour the beer and keep mixing. The dough will be incredibly sticky.
Add more flour, a tablespoon at a time, if needed. Do not add more than 3-4 tablespoons.
When you are able to form the dough into a round-ish ball, place it in the pan or the skillet.
Bake for about 45 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
Enjoy!

Let the loaf rest for about 10 minutes before slicing.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

A New Favourite

For years my favourite recipe for banana bread came from The Joy of Cooking. Moist, with a fantastic banana flavour, easy to put together; no reason to look elsewhere. Until now.

A recent Home Plates column had not one but two recipes for banana bread; specifically banana-orange bread. Sometimes one comes across recipes that you want to try right away. This was one such recipe. I even had three bananas well on their way to that ugh-I-can't-possibly-eat-that stage which is perfect for banana bread. Firmly ignoring the twinge of disloyalty I felt towards the recipe I'd used for years, I started to preheat the oven.

Picture courtesy my daughter.

As always I made some minor changes to the original recipe: what to do, I'm like that only.
I never tire of saying that and the kids invariably cringe in embarrassment when I do. All the more reason for me to keep saying that!

Here is the recipe with my changes:
Banana-Orange Bread

Ingredients
1 ½ cups sugar
5 tbsp vegetable oil
2 eggs
3 largish bananas (yielding about 1 ½ cups mashed)
¾ cup orange juice
3 cups flour (I used 1 ½ cup all purpose flour + 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour)
½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (pecans ok too)
2 tbsp orange zest (packed)
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Method
Grease two 8x4-inch loaf pans and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 325F.
Using a food processor, mash the banana.
Transfer the banana-mush to another bowl.
In the same food processor bowl (rinsing not necessary), combine the sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla extract.
Mix well, till slightly light in colour.
With the motor running add in the banana-mush and the orange juice.
Add the dry ingredients and mix till well combined.
Add the nuts and again mix well.
Divide the batter between the loaf pans.
Place the pans in the center of the oven and bake for about 50 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then transfer the loaves to a cooling rack.
Enjoy!

Verdict
Such a lovely loaf!
This recipe makes two generous sized loaves. I was worried that the loaves would turn out dry, given the baking time and the considerable quantity of the batter in the pan, but I was wrong. But, next time I'll definitely divide all this batter into three.
I'll also significantly increase the quantity of the orange zest or skip the orange zest altogether and instead add a handful of chocolate chips.
If one makes three loaves from this recipe, you have less than one egg/ loaf. Immensely veganisable.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

You Had Me At Samosa

The samosa casserole has been calling my name for a while. This week I finally got around to making it.
While the idea of a samosa filling topped by a whole wheat crust was absolutely appealing, the combination of spices and the way they are used, not so much.
Fortunately for me, I found this recipe for aloo phoolkopur samosas. Now this was more like it!

Our dinner yesterday: Bengali-ishtyle Potato-Cauliflower Samosa Casserole.
I followed the recipe for the samosa stuffing closely, just decreased the amount of potatoes and added in more vegetables (carrots, handful of chopped spinach, and corn).

The proof of the casserole was in the absence of any leftovers. The accompanying photo, as usual, does no justice to the dish.

This Pac-Man like casserole goes to Nupur's Blog Bites where the theme this time is one dish meals.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

Zucchini Overload

"I have something for you."
Flowers? Chocolate? A string of South Sea pearls?
Not even close.
The significant other then handed me a zucchini of extraordinary proportions.
So huge one could fatally whack someone in the head with it and destroy the evidence by eating it up.

The zucchini in a 13x9 baking pan.

Over the next week I was literally chipping away at it.
Here is how:

Zucchini cake
Incredibly moist and moderately sweet. Though I usually reduce the quantity of sugar, in this case when I make it again I'll increase it a tad. I stayed true to the recipe but baked the cake in a bundt pan and instead of the cream cheese frosting used a crunchy lemon glaze.

Zucchini pancakes
Omitted the egg, added a bit of chopped cilantro, and upped the heat level.
Served with a dollop of Greek yogurt and ketchup (or Sriracha sauce) it was a satisfying and guilt-free snack.

Zucchini skillet cake
Used shredded zucchini instead of the berries, increased the sugar by ¼ cup, and added about a cup of chocolate chips.

The rest of the zucchini was roasted along with carrots and onions and tossed with pasta.

When I first cradled that zucchini in my hands I wondered how much of it would be reduced to a neglected and slimy mess. I'm happy to say I've used up every bit of it and now I'm done with zucchini for this year.

This is my entry to Nupur's BB7:The Iron Chef Edition.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

A Party Of One

The morning tea at my Ajji's place (grandmother, in this case my paternal grandmother) was a leisurely and elegant affair. It stretched from about 7 am to 9 am; sometimes even longer than that.
The silver tea service was beautiful, the handmade cozies for the teapot and the milk pot colourful and functional, the cups and saucers light and dainty. Everything was perfect and exactly to her taste.
So was the tea. None of that prepackaged stuff. Her tea was a blend of a couple of different black teas mixed in just the right proportions.
The proportion of tea leaves to the quantity of water had to be just so and so had the temperature of the milk. Any deviation would result in gathered brows and some sharp words.
The tea was steeped in boiling water but never boiled.
She liked her tea very light. So light that a few drops of milk were enough to lighten it. During the course of the morning other family members and invariably some neighbours would come along for a cup while Ajji presided over the tea table. The tea pot would be refilled several times by our cook who expertly straddled tea time with lunch preparations.

It was an absolute delight to be asked to join her with our cup of Bournvita/ Ovaltime/ Cocoa and the buttered toasts. My Ajji a.k.a the dragon lady was one of the most influential persons in my life. Though I enjoyed those tete-a-tetes, I was more often that not too busy to join her. Just thinking of those missed mornings leave me in a puddle, every time. What I wouldn't do for a cup of tea with her right now.

My tea time right now is diametrically opposite hers and is a party of one.
I don't often drink tea in the morning nor do I crave a 4pm fix. My cup of tea is almost a night cap and helps me unwind after an invariably busy day.
I drink my tea out of a mug and instead of loose tea I use the much maligned tea bags. My current favourite being PG Tips.
Fortified with tea I reach out to my inner-Ajji and wonder what she would've said to
--that whiny parent who couldn't provide 20 pieces paper rectangles for a class project because she had guests for dinner.
--that nosely mom who wanted to know if my child got 'all correct' in the math quiz.
--those overbearing colleagues who think they are the cat's whiskers.
--to those friends who while sitting in my own living room made plans for a getaway without bothering to include me in their plans.
--to people unnecessarily doing terrible things.

Such an exercise is always therapeutic!

This post was originally written for Manisha's IFR:Memories event. It languished in the drafts folder till it was rescued for Anita's Tea Party.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com.Thanks for stopping by.

Difficult Daughter

"Difficult daughter"!
That is what my father was surely muttering under his breath as he went up and down the bylanes of MG road in Pune.
He was, on what was turning out to be, a fools errand.
Who knew it was going to be so difficult finding Parsi sambhar masala in Pune?
Finally he was lead to the home of the Parsi couple who ran a home-based business selling Parsi fare.
By the cold and terse reception he got there he was convinced the couple was Parsi in name only.
Noted playwright, author, musician, composer P.L. Deshpande (fondly known as Pu La) observed that the most inconsequential, useless, bothersome, and ignored entity in a shop run by a true Punekar is the customer.
(Put two and two together, people.)
The masala justified the means. I know, easy for me to say that.

One of the first recipes I tried with this masala was the Chana ni Dar from My Bombay Kitchen.
I had made it once before but without the fiery sambhar masala. This time around I wanted to make the chauli (black-eyed peas) variation that she suggests. Since I did not have enough of those beans on hand, used dried peas (vatana) instead.
Though I started with the recipe for Chana ni Dar, I cheated quite a bit. Didn't use some ingredients either because of a lack of resources (dhana-jiru masala) or simple laziness (potatoes).

We loved the Parsi Vatana; sambhar masala is fierce. Most certainly not for the faint of heart.

I was happy and relieved with the outcome. Relieved because after some consecutive bad meals, I was back!
Note to self: file radicchio+methi+paneer under bad ideas.

Parsi Vatana
adapted from My Bombay Kitchen

Ingredients
1 ½ cup vatana (dried green peas), wash and soak overnight
½ large onion, chopped
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 large chilli, de-seed and chop
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped (or grated)

2 tbsp oil
1 tsp turmeric
salt, to taste
5-6 stalks of cilantro, chopped
juice of a lemon

Method
Drain the water that the vatana was soaking in.
Add about 3 cups of water along with the chilli, tomatoes, turmeric, and salt.
Pressure cook for 2 whistles.

Heat oil. When hot add the onions till they start browning. Add the ginger-garlic paste and the sambhar masala. If the mixture starts sticking to the pan, add a bit of water to keep things moving.
Add the cooked vatana along with a cup of warm water. More if you want it soupier.
Cook over medium heat till the oil separates and floats to the top.
Add the cilantro and lemon juice.
Adjust the salt level.
Enjoy!

The first day we enjoyed the vatana with steamed rice and plain parathas.
The next day the flavours deepened fantastically. Needed no accoutrement except maybe some yogurt.

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by.

He Cooked. And How!

As the kids get older they are no longer satisfied staying on the other side of the kitchen counter. As a result, the kitchen is getting crowded and I couldn't be happier.
I will be using this space to list some basic recipes, family favourites, and ideas for quick meals for their reference.

The son usually plays the role of a consultant. Sitting by the kitchen counter very generously doling out comments, advice, and suggestions.
      You could go with less garlic!
     Potatoes and Paneer, now that's some combination.
     This tastes too healthy.
     Are you stressed? Cos this really doesn't taste that good.
     etc. etc.

When he actually attempts to cook something he, like his father, asks so many questions that in exasperation I ask him to step aside and end up finishing what he tried to start.

The daughter on the other hand gets into the kitchen and just gets it done. A couple of weeks ago, amongst other things, we got a bunch of radishes and a jar of basil-sunflower seed pesto in our CSA bag. As soon as we got home she went into the kitchen, washed & sliced the turnips and spooned a bit of the pesto on it! It was wonderful.

He wanted to repair his reputation. So he offered to make something simple, all by himself. So we switched spots and I took my place on the other side of the kitchen counter.

About the recipe: years ago it started as an attempt to re-create a restaurant style pineapple rice but it has morphed into something else. Though the ingredients are similar it tastes nothing like the offerings of a Thai restaurant. But we like it anyway.

Pineapple Fried Rice
Ingredients
3 cups rice (brown or white), cooked.
4 large cloves garlic, minced
1½ inch garlic piece, minced
4-5 spring onions, chopped (we used 4-5 baby leeks)
6-7 pineapple rings, chopped
½ cup chopped nuts
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 jalapeno, chopped. Discard seeds.
1 (or more) tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp oil
1 cup chopped vegetables (carrots, peas, green beans)
½ cup Thai basil leaves, roughly chopped. We used baby basil leaves and didn't chop them
salt, to taste
juice of a lemon

Method
After the rice is cooked, spread it on a plate making sure the rice doesn't clump together.
Heat oil over medium-high heat.
When the oil is hot add the garlic, ginger, and the jalapeno.
When the mixture starts browning slightly add the leeks (or the white part of the spring onions).
When the leeks (or spring onions) start browning add the soy sauce, red pepper flakes, and the vegetables.
Cook for about a minute.
Add the rice, salt, nuts, and the pineapple pieces.
Cook for another minute.
Adjust the level of spice and salt levels.
Cover the pot and turn off the heat.
Squeeze the lemon before serving.
Enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments, please write to me the.best.cooker@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by.

How to cook rice

The crowded kitchen
As the kids get older they are no longer satisfied staying on the other side of the kitchen counter. As a result, the kitchen is getting crowded and I couldn't be happier.
I will be using this space to list some basic recipes, family favourites, and ideas for quick meals for their reference.

The easiest and quickest meal, I think, is varan-bhaat. Especially if both the rice and the daal is cooked at the same time in the pressure cooker. The downside of this approach is that the rice is almost invariably overcooked because of the difference in the cooking times for the daal and the rice.
This is one reason why I prefer to cook rice in a pot. The other reason is that the excess water and starch can be drained off from the pot!
Though this post talks of white rice I hope to update it soon with information about brown and red rice. This post is very much a work in progress.

Rice
Ingredients
1 cup rice (Basmati, ambemohar, or sona masuri)
2 cups (or more) water

Method
Wash the rice in several changes of water.
If you have time, soak the rice for a couple of hours.

**Pressure cooker method (results in a stickier rice)
Add about 2 ½ cups water to the pressure cooker.
In a pan/ pot that fits inside the pressure cooker add the rice and water (1:2 proportion)
Put on the whistle and pressure cook for 1-2 (not more) whistles.
Allow the pressure to come down (7-8 minutes) before you open the pressure cooker.

**Pan method
In a pan add the rice and enough water to cover the rice and then some more.
Cook over medium-high heat for approx 8-10 minutes.
Drain the excess water, cover the pan with the lid and leave undisturbed for 4-5 minutes.
Fluff with a fork.

While such a rice is perfectly fine as an accompaniment to amti or daal sometimes what you need is just plain fluffy rice where each grain stands apart, phad-phadeet bhaat as we say in Marathi.
If cooked in a pan the rice grains do not stick to each other as much, but for me this is a hit-or-miss sort of thing. So when I need rice for a pulao-type dish such as this one here is what I do:

Wash the rice (preferably Basmati) in several changes of water.
Add enough water to cover the rice and set aside for several hours or at least one hour.
Drain the rice.
To a pot add the rice and three times as much boiling water.
Cook over high heat for exactly 10 minutes.
Drain the water.
Add about ⅛ cup water and ½ tsp butter for each cup of rice, give a gentle stir, cover with a kitchen towel and put the lid on.
Leave undisturbed for about 15 minutes.
Fluff with a fork and serve!

This results in phad-phadeet bhaat each time.

This is my entry for Jaya's Back to Basics event.

Cake Pops: Finally

I've wanted to make these cake pops for the longest time.
Today I finally got a chance to make them.
Here they are:


Seriously, how cute are they?

They were quite easy to make: crumble cake/ cupcakes, mix in some frosting, make the balls of this mixture, poke in a candy stick, freeze them for a bit, dip in melted chocolate or candy melts, decorate, and finally ready yourself for the oohs and aahs.
There were a couple of botched cake pops before we (daughter and I) got the hang of the dipping process. But once we did, we were just cranking them out. The sprinkles were fantastic in covering up the mistakes; just made them more colourful!

These cake pops go to the anything goes a.k.a the Potluck edition of BB6 hosted by Nupur of One Hot Stove.

Rosemary Daal

My daughter and I love rosemary in everything. Literally everything. In addition to the usual (savoury) suspects such as bread, salad dressing, and flavoured oils we especially like it in daal. Usually moog daal (split mung beans) or toor daal (split pigeon peans, arhar, tuvar). Though rosemary-toor daal is good too, my preference is for the rosemary-moog daal combination.

The non-distaff side of the family mocks us when we rave over rosemary-daal; more for us.

Rosemary Daal
Ingredients
1 cup cooked moog daal
1 tsp chopped rosemary
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt, to taste
juice of ½ lemon (not optional)
1 tsp oil, mild
1 cup (or more) warm water.

Method
Heat oil over medium-low heat.
Add the garlic, do not let it brown.
Add the cooked daal. Add water to thin it as per your preference.
Add the rosemary and salt.
Bring it to a boil.
Add the lemon juice just before serving.
Enjoy!

Serving Suggestions
We like this daal with some freshly steamed rice or we just sip devour bowls of this daal much like a soup.
The daal is great warm as well as at room temperature.

This is my entry to MLLA#25, a long running blog-event celebrating legumes. This event is the brain child of The Well-Seasoned Cook.

Simple Food

The simplicity of this dish takes your breath away.
This is a simple and unpretentious way to prepare chard.
The addition of rice gives it such a fantastic texture.
If you use red chard, the rice grains take on that colour. Beautiful!

Increase the quantity of rice and this becomes a meal in itself.

Red Chard-Rice Bhaaji

Ingredients
1 bunch chard, washed and chopped
1 (or more) green chillies
1 inch piece of ginger
¼ cup rice, coarsely ground (a spice grinder works best)
Phodni kit (mustard seeds, asafoetida, and turmeric)
1 tbsp oil
salt, to taste
lemon juice

Method
Make a paste of the ginger and green chillies. Set aside.
Over medium heat make the phodni (tempering): heat oil, when hot add mustard seeds, when they stop dancing, add the asafoetida and the turmeric.
Add the ginger-chilli paste and saute a bit (about 10-20 seconds).
Add the chard and give it a good stir.
Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the rice and salt and give it another good stir.
Cover and cook for another 5 minutes, or till the rice is cooked.
Add a bit water if the chard starts sticking to the pan.

Adjust the salt.
Squeeze a bit of lemon juice.
Enjoy!

Berry Good

Several months ago my friend A lent me her cast iron skillet; one which she hardly used at all. I'm seriously in love with this skillet. I've used it so often for so many things that unless A explicitly asks for the skillet it is mine.

The first thing I baked in the skillet was a whole wheat-semolina bread. It was to die for. The recipe needs some fine tuning before it is ready for prime time (on this blog).

Meanwhile here is a muffin-cake that I recently baked. This is Vaishali's recipe for blueberry muffins baked in a skillet instead of a muffin pan. They take longer to bake than regular muffins but I think the results are absolutely worth the extra time.

We loved this muffin-cake. The grainy raw sugar added a nice crunch and the oats provided the nuttiness.

I had to make some minor changes to the original recipe because I did not have some of the ingredients (milk) on hand.
Here is the recipe with my modifications.
The original recipe is here.

Berry Muffins
(makes one large or 11 medium muffins)
Ingredients
1½ cups flour (I used a mixture of whole wheat, oat, and quinoa flours)
½ cup all purpose flour
¾ cup raw sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
zest of 1 lemon
½ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup lemon juice
¾ cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 - 1½ cups berries

Method
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Mix all the dry ingredients together and set aside.
Mix all the wet ingredients and add to the dry ingredients.
Combine well.
Add in the berries.
Pour the batter in the skillet and bake for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the skillet comes out clean.
Enjoy!