Forbidden Rice Pudding: Two Ways

During a recent trip to China I brought back some exquisite looking black rice, also called forbidden rice.
I was told that when cooked, the colour of this rice changes to purple!
One of my favourite cookbooks has a recipe for a black rice pudding, which is what I had in mind when I bought the rice.
But that recipe called for coconut milk, and we are not big fans of coconut or coconut milk.

Even though I wanted to give coconut milk another chance, I wasn't sure of the others so I had to have another version.

After toying with several ideas I decided make some almond milk to mix with the cooked rice. Almond milk, sounds exotic doesn't it?
Well it is just soaked almonds, ground to a fine paste and then thinned with water. At least this is my version of almond milk.

Since I was making two versions of the pudding, I first cooked the rice in the pressure cooker, using the usual 1:2 rice:water ratio.

To make the pudding, mix the cooked rice, sugar, and either coconut or almond milk.
The quantity of sugar depends on how sweet you like your pudding and the quantity of the milk depends on the desired consistency.

While no one hated the coconut flavoured pudding, I had no leftovers of the the almond flavoured pudding. The colour was gorgeous in either case.

Both these puddings now make their way to Srivalli's table to join the Rice Mela.

JFI Announcement: Date Extended

The announcement for this month's JFI was made a little later than expected.
But Dee (Ammalu's Kitchen) has graciously let me extend the deadline for JFI:Carrots to December, 4th 2008; effectively overlapping her event by a couple of days. Thanks Dee.

Keep them entries coming.

Kneadless To Say It Was Wonderful

On many occasions I tried to make the knead less bread. But the time consuming process always got in the way. The prep time was difficult to fit in our every changing schedule.

So when I saw a recipe for a fast no knead bread, I started to pre-heat the oven. Not literally because once mixed, the dough needs to rest for about 5 hours. Five hours I can manage, not the 14 to 20 hours required by the original no knead bread.

There are two versions of the quicker no knead bread. Of course I tried the whole wheat version. The recipe also called for rye flour and coarse corn meal. Didn't have any rye so I doubled the quantity of corn meal.

About the corn meal, the recipe specified using coarse corn meal, but what I had was extra coarse corn meal. I should've followed the recipe and used coarse corn meal because the extra coarse grains rather spoil the texture making it quite gritty.

Despite this minor issue, I was quite happy with the outcome.

This is my entry to Suganya's Vegan Ventures Round 2.

Nibble On This

Mix sliced carrots with a bit of oil, salt, and a generous quantity of ground pepper.
Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes.
Watch them disappear before meal time.

My entry to JFI:carrots.

I'm Late I'm Late: JFI: December: Carrots.

I truly feel like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

I'm late in announcing JFI: December 2008.

JFI, Jihva For Ingredients, is one of the most popular food blog events around. JFI,the brainchild of Indira (needs no introduction), showcases an ingredient each month.

The ingredient chosen for this month is carrots.
From appetizers to desserts, carrots find a place in each course and in every cuisine.
All you creative cooks out there send me recipes that prominently feature carrots. That rabbit needs them and so do I.
No rules for participation, just some guidelines.

• Prepare a dish showcasing carrots and write about it in your blog in the month of November. No limit to the number of entries you can send. Non bloggers, email the recipe along with a picture of the dish.
  
• Make sure your post links to this announcement.
  
• Send an email to the.best.cooker@gmail.com with JFI:Carrot in the subject line. Please include the following information in your email:
  --Your blog name
  --Name of the entry
  --URL of your post
  

Updated: The roundup is here.

Reality Bites

At the start of the summer vacation I had visualised such an ldyllic setting, no homework, no projects (not that I was doing any of these myself), agenda-free days, so much time to cook and blog. Happy Happy!
Some busy times at work, guests, day trips with the kids, a family vacation, and at time sheer laziness ensured that blogging out of the (happy) picture.
The problem with agenda-free days is that there is always time to fit in one more craft project/ book/ phone conversation/ TV show etc. etc.

Though I wasn't able to cook anything from my new cookbooks (some bought, some gifted), I did get a chance to tackle the ever increasing must-try folder. The following recipes have been made so often that they are now a part of our everyday/ commonly made foods.

Here are some of them:

• A few days after I bought a microplace zester, ET posted a recipe for Cranberry-Orange loaf. This seemed like the perfect recipe to break in the zester.
  I've lost count of the number of times I've made it. I've also lost count of the variations. Mostly I experimented with reduced quantities of butter, sour cream and sugar. Greatly reduced quantities of butter surprisingly didn't affect the texture or the taste. Since this loaf almost always disappears with amazing alacrity, it is difficult to know how the reduced butter would affect it's shelf life.


• The only way I now prepare collard greens is Suganya's way. It comes together in a jiffy. Taste delicious with rice or on it's own accompanied with thinned buttermilk.


• Nicole's Silken raspberry mousse is ridiculously easy to make. It is the perfect warm weather dessert. I've tried this mousse with several fruits, but our favourite remains raspberry with an addition of orange zest (gotta use that new zester).


• The idea of steaming stuffed peppers before sauteing them is just ingenious. Such an idea had to come from Richa.


• Jugalbandi's chocolate rum cake is incredibly moist, rich tasting and quite guilt free. What more can one want from a chocolate cake?


• Shyam's tiger cake is by far the most spectacular looking cake I've baked so far. Whoever thought of this technique is indeed a genius.
  

Sweets For A Sweetie

A few months ago a baby girl was born in our family.
We now have another niece and the children have another cousin to dote over, to spoil, and to love unconditionally. Though I haven't met her yet we already have a special bond; she, my father, and I share the same sun sign!

Maharashtrians celebrate the birth of a baby boy by distributing pedhe and burfi if it is a baby girl.
Why the difference? Pedhe were supposedly more expensive than burfi; the underlying thought being that the joy was greater when a boy was born and so the extra expense is justified.

In Marathi, the pedha is assigned a masculine gender while the burfi is assigned a feminine gender (to pedha ani tee barfi).
In our family we prefer this explaination to the earlier one.

This burfi is in honor of my newest niece.
Sandeepa's microwave recipe for kalakand, besides being utterly delicious, is extremely easy.

In its simplest form calls for just three ingredients, ricotta cheese and condensed milk and elaichi. I added keshar (saffron) to make it extra special.

Condensed milk is not something I enjoy as it is way too sweet for my palate. But combined with ricotta cheese the result is out of this world.

This is my entry to MBP:Less is More, hosted this time by the hostess with the mostest Nupur!

Cool Off

Recently a friend very generously shared some kokum that her family had sent all the way from India. The same day I happened to borrow from her the definitive book on Saraswat cuisine, Rasachandrika.

While perusing the book I came upon the recipe for kokum saar.
Though I had intended to serve it for dinner that day, I ended up chilling the saar and enjoying it as a pre-prandial aperitif. Since then this has been the beverage of choice for the significant-other and me. Move over carbonated drinks and corn syrup laced fruit juices!

By coarsely grinding the cumin and peppercorns, you occasionally bite on the piece of the spicy peppercorn or the comparatively sweeter cumin. Lovely!

For an oil-free version, check Ashwini's recipe for kokum saar.

Kokum Sarbat
Inspired by Kokum Saar from Rasachandrika.

Ingredients
6-8 pieces of kokum (amsool)
4-5 black peppercorns
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp oil
sizable dash of asafoetida
sugar (jaggery) and salt, to taste.
a couple of stalks of cilantro

Method
Soak the kokum in 2 cups of hot water and set it aside for atleast ½ an hour.
Squeeze the kokum to extract as much of the juice. Save the skins for a kokum chutney, see below.
Lightly roast the peppercorns and the cumin.
Grind then to get a coarse powder. We don't want a fine powder.
Heat oil, add the asafoetida and the peppercorn-cumin powder.
Add the kokum water and turn off the heat.
Cool completely before adding the sugar and salt.
Garnish with cilantro.
Serve chilled.
Enjoy!

You can make a simple chutney by grinding together the kokum skins, garlic, green chillies, and a bit of salt.

Fry Me A River: Wada-Pav

I just couldn't think of a title for this post. But when one of the kids started a rare whine-fest '....you promised you would fry something today etc. etc.' I had the title (lame as it may be).

Had we gone to Pune this year, we'd be enjoying a wada-pav right this minute.
Our favourite wada-pav comes from two small no-name places: one close to the Best Western Pride Hotel and the other at the intersection of Senapati Bapat Road and the road leading to Patrakar Nagar.
Much as we enjoy the wada-pav from these places, we cannot bear to eat them there.
Something about that ambiance and the sanitary conditions gets in the way. We enjoy them better in the comfort of our home.

This time I used AdhiPotoba's recipe ; which frankly is not too different from mine.

A must-have with wada-pav is lashni-chi chutney (dry garlic chutney) much like Nupur's.
This will tide me over till my next visit to Punya Nagari.

This wada-pav is crossing the pond as my entry to MBP:Street Food, hosted this month by Sia.

Methamba Using Apples

My kids go thru these phases when they get hooked on a certain food and for the next several days that is what they want for each meal. So sometimes it is waffles for breakfast, waffles in the lunchbox, waffles when they get back from school.....you get the idea.

Shouldn't complain too much as I, too, sometimes tend to binge similarly.
The last time this happened was when I had way too many apples on hand.

These were some absolutely delicious, crunchy, tart granny smith apples.
When looking for ways to use them up, I stumbled on a post in this thread for using up granny smith apples.
This recipe (replicated below for convenience) gave green apples the methamba treatment. Methamba is a delicious chutney/ relish made using green mangoes.

The result was absolutely delicious (and like the kids I couldn't get enough of it). This is an idea I would've liked to have thought of myself.

Apples-Methi Chutney (Methamba Ishtyle)
2 medium sized granny smith apples, cored and cut into small pieces
2-3 tbsp oil
½ tsp mustard seeds
2 tbsp fenugreek (methi) seeds
6-7 curry leaves
2-3 (or more) dried red chillies, stems removed
½ tbsp (or more) brown sugar
a pinch of asafoetida
salt to taste
2 tsp lemon juice (optional, depending on the sourness of the apples)

Mix and set aside the apples, salt, and lemon juice. (I didn't use any).
Heat the oil, add the mustard seeds and asafoetida.
Add the methi seeds, curry leaves, chillies, brown sugar, and the apple mixture.
Cook for about 2-3 minutes (more if you want a mushy chutney).
Cool completely before adjusting the salt.

Stays in the refrigerator for about a week, I think.
Given the way this chutney is attacked in our home, it has never lasted that long.
This chutney tastes good with rotis, freshly steamed rice, in a sandwich, as a dip with crackers, etc. etc.

Traditional versions of methamba are here and here.
Here is a way to make, panha, the quintessential summer drink using apples (specifically applesauce) instead of green mangoes.