Fish Curry - Meen Kozhambu

Fish curry and fish fry

Before I start blogging about this recipe, just a note - I am trying to change the look and feel of the site, so please bear with me while you see some color and font changes.. Now back to the recipe blog..

My Sister has long wish list that she wants me to post. One of her ( and my ) favourites is fish curry. Fish curry is called Meen Kozhambu in Tamil, Chepala Pulusu in Telugu. Living close to the coast, we always had our share of fresh fish. Thats why whenever I see the white fish fillet here in USA, I just cannot get myself to think thats its fish. More like white spongy rubber to me !!!

My mom and my grandmother make the best fish curry I have ever tasted. Especially the nethili meen kozhambu my mom makes (slurp!! slurp!! My mouth is watering as I type this) - Every time I pass by the kitchen, I will pop one of fish in my mouth - Sooo yummylicious...

This saturday, I visited the farmers market and there was a "Straight from the Sea" stall and boy was I going to miss it !! No way !!! I got a red snapper whole fish ( cut into half, scales removed ).

I started to fillet it the way we do it in India right across the fish, and I was having some difficulty with it. Just as I was pondering how to tackle the remaining fish, I remembered Santhi's disaster in filleting the fish...So I filleted along side - It came out fine :) Thanks for that blog Santhi !! Another important thing is I did this curry in the mann chatti(earthenware)

The recipe is darn simple just as my amma makes. Only thing that is different in making a fish curry is the fish has to be slided in just a minute before it ready to switch off the stove. I love this curry next day with idlis and over dhal-rice.

Ingredients
- half a big onion chopped
- two medium sized vine-ripe tomatos chopped
- two tbs sambar powder ( If using chilly powder, use 1 parts chilly powder to 2 parts coriander powder )
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- pulp from one lemon size tamarind
- for tempering - one tsp each of mustard, fenugreek seeds, cumin

1. Heat 2 tsp oil (preferably gingely oil) and temper it with the ingredients for tempering
2. Add onion and saute for five minutes until its soft.
3. Add chopped tomato, turmeric, sambar powder, salt and cook it until the tomato becomes mushy, around 5 to 10 mins
4. Add tamarind pulp, water and cook until the onions are well cooked - 10 to 15 minutes. Adjust the amount of water to the consistency little thicker than that desired for the kozhambu.
5. Slide in the fish fillets, boil for a couple of minutes and shut down the flame.

Tips
1. Cooking with a earthenware, gingely oil, vine-ripe tomatoes definitely make a difference
2. The curry gets diluted when the fish is slided in. So the consistency has to be little thick before adding the fish.
3. Never never cover with a lid after the fish is added to the curry. It will mush up.

Tomato Rice - Bachelor Recipe

How many times do we come home tired ready to slip into the sofa - waiting for some invisible fairy to cook hot hot food for us ?? (Mostly the invisible fairy is good old mom ha!).

I remember the times when I was working in India, my amma used to have all food cooked and ready. She would beat the eggs for the omelette but not make it until I reached home. Within the time I freshened up, she would make the omelette, so that it is hot hot when I eat. Hmmmm !!

Well, now that we are no more privileged to be eating mom's food, being so far away - Recipes that dont require us to chop a lot or to have a constant eye while cooking are the ones that are life-savers at such times. This tomato rice is one such dish and I got this recipe from a Bachelor friend of mine. Its so easy all you need is some left-over cooked rice and everyday ingredients in the pantry. Most of us one time or the other would have made this recipe. Nothing new about it.

Anyways for those us who have not done it, here is the recipe

Ingredients
- half a medium size onion chopped
- two medium sized tomato chopped
- one cubed potato ( optional )
- garam masala powder 1 tsp
- chilli powder half tsp
- ginger garic paste 1 tsp
- for tempering : 1 inch cinnamon stick, two cloves, 2 tsp urad dal or split black gram, 2 tsp channa dal or bengal gram, 1 tsp mustard
- Left over rice - a cup.

Tomato rice with a dollop of mint chutney

1. Temper one tsp oil with all the ingredients for tempering.
2. add onion, potato, garammasala, ginger-garlic paste, chillipowder and saute for a couple of minutes
3. Add chopped tomato and saute for 2 minutes
4. Close with a lid and cook for 5 to 8 minutes in low-flame
5. Increase the heat to medium and cook until all the water from the tomato is absorbed.
6. Add to cooled rice and mix well. Enjoy !!

Fenugreek and dhal

Fenugreek dal with gooseberry pickle and mango slice

This week and the coming weeks are and will be very busy for me. I am cooking in batches and refrigerating them. By the way, there are a number of food blog events coming up. I really really want to participate in them. Dunno if I would have the time:

1. Spice is Right # 2 - Tigers and Strawberries May 15th
2. Stepanie's Tea party - May 18th
3. Picnic Party - Hooked on Head June 1st
4. Jihva for Strawberries June 1st

In case you missed seeing these, rumble your kitchen and see if we can add the aroma of Indian food to these fantastic events...

Wow looks exciting and yes there is LG's Green Blog Project for which I have to have to absolutely go to the nursery. What will the Food Blogosphere do to us next ??? !!!

Well I managed to get a few fotos while doing the batch cooking. Fenugreek leaves and dal, simple, tasty satisfying food - Excellent for health. Just pressure cook a bunch of fenugreek leaves to two fistfulls of dhal and temper it - there we have the easy breezy yet wholesome fenugreek dhal - venthiya keera kootu in Tamil.

Back to Basics 1 - Stone ground Wheat Chapathis

Back to Basics - back to the way our ancestors have been cooking. The right from scratch procedure that we have ignored for a long time. I was delighted to see stone-ground wheat flour in Safeway, so I grabbed a bag but then never cared to open it for months together. Finally over the weekend, I did open it and made chappathis with it.

The flavour, aroma as well as the colour is very earthy compared to the atta that we use and the chappathis are also a tad bit harder than the ones we are used to. But knowing the goodness of stone ground whole wheat flour - its a well worth a try. The fibre content is much more higher.

I never knew how to make chappathis and the ones I made always became pappads. This was one thing my mom also missed and I used to think people from Tamilnadu cannot make good chapathis. Then I browsed for some tips and found one on ammas.com helped me a lot. That was two years ago. Now I am able to get Chappathis quite fine - enof to keep Ravi pleased.



There are only 3 tips I found you need for really good chapathis
1. Use very warm water for the dough
2. Dont roll the chapathis too thin or too thick.
3. Keep the flame to medium high for the chapathis to puff up.

The stone ground chapathis are slightly different to prepare from the atta. This was the first time I used stone ground flour and it was slightly harder. Could be I did not use enough water.

My chappathi drill is 2 cups flour to little less than 1 and half cups hot water. I cover it with a moist paper towel and leave it for 15 minutes. Once a while its good to know that we really eat something thats good for us. This chapathi dish was one such experience.

Jihvā For Mangoes - Mango Cake

Within a few hours after Indira told that she was going to host this event, I was squeezing my brain for an innovative recipe - What to do with mango - jam? chutney? Salsa ? Flan ?? Yes -Flan it is - Mango flan. Yahoooo !!!!

Even before checking out the recipe for mango flan I popped an email to Indira. "I am doing mango flan !!!!"

Indira, nice enough, congratulated me on the idea and sent me a link to Ginis' blogsite (Great detail, Gini!) where she had all these detailed instructions to do Flan. But flan is a fat-heavy dessert.

4 egg yolks ???? 2 whole eggs ??? evaporated milk ??? - Nothing wrong with the ingredients, but it would defeat my "try-my-best-low-fat-cooking", which was the basis of me starting this blog.

So next I went into googling for low-fat mango flan.. I found one which did not use a single egg, no milk and almost virtually fat free. So how DID the flan then become a flan ??? I compared the ingredients and procedure and found that it used gelatin to get the consistency. Gelatin ?? Flan ?? Something did not ring right - Oh is that mango jelly with buttermilk and caramel coating ???

Well, that is NO flan. Almost all low fat flans were the same. So my plans to do a low-fat mango flan failed miserably. Sorry Indira !! The days that followed I spoke to myself and googled most of the time (There were days when I went straight from the bed to googling mango recipes) to get a "Mango recipe". I found a lot of dessert-recipes but most of it was high in fat. I even thought of giving up and sending a link to the Mango pachadi I had blogged earlier.

Then the thought of apple crumble came across and from there I got the thread to do mango crumble cake. But I have not done any cake in my life except one betty crocker readymade cake-mix for Ravi's birthday. I became tense in measuring, did all the math I could, followed the recipe by keeping the laptop on the kitchen counter ( who has the time to take printout out eh? )and waited impatiently for the cake to come out.

Why can't I see it while its baking ?? Well, as it goes you can. So I did. I did cheat by peeking in twice. And finally after 30 minutes, the cake came out !! VOILA !! Perfect !!! So thanks to the "Maneka Nirmal", this recipe turned out great. I have adjusted the recipe so that its low-fat.

And here you go. Mango Cake - My Entry to the First JFI [Drumsroll please]


Ingredients
- Allpurpose flour(Maida) - 1 cup
- Baking soda - 1 tsp
- Salt - 3/4 tsp
- Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
- Egg whites - 2
- Veg oil - 1/4 cup
- Sugar - 3/4 cup
- Golden raisins - 1/2 cup
- Mango(diced) - 1 cup

1. Mix all the dry ingredients viz., flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder.
2. Add the wet ingredients - egg whites, oil and ofcourse mangoes and raisins.
3. Mix until all the ingredients are nicely incorporated. The batter will be initially tight. As the sugar melts it will loosen up to the consistency of rice pudding.
4. Pour into a cake pan. And pat it against the counter top or board to release the air bubbles. Let it sit for 20 mins so that the sugar will loosen up the batter.
5. Bake for 30 minutes. And allow it to cool.


Optional Topping

Add sugar, diced mango pieces with little water and heat it for a few minutes until it becomes glossy. Pour over the cake.

Tips:
If I were to do the cake again, which I will, these are the changes I would do.
1) Add two cups of mango instead of just 1 cup.
2) I would love for the mango flavour to be more dominating - good mangoes make a difference. Mango flavour would be great addition. But is it available in the market ??

Ravi had a second helping of the cake, which is pretty unusual. So there it goes the cake was a great success !!!