Comfort Foods - Stew

Theme - Comfort Foods
Send entries by - August 1st 2006


This recipe is from Anupama Puranik who sent me the entire recipe as an entry along with the photo. Here is Anupama's comfort food "RICH VEGETABLE AND CHICKEN STEW WITH CRISPY TOAST" and her detailed instructions on how to prepare the stew.

• 2 Boneless Breasts of Chicken cooked and coarsely shredded
• 3-4 cups Chicken Stock (Water in which you have cooked the chicken)
• 2 med carrots cut into chunks
• 1 med Onion also cut into chunks
• 3/4 florets of Cauliflower
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 1/2 cup french beans
• 4-5 mushrooms thickly sliced
• 1 clove of garlic slightly crushed
• 1 tspn soy sauce
• 1 tspn white vinegar
• 1 tblspn of cornflour mixed in a little cold water.
• 2-3 tblspns oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

• Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the garlic and onions until soft and slightly browned.
• Add to this all the vegetables and and mushrooms and saute these until cooked but still firm.
• Now add the cooked chicken and the chicken stock and let it boil.
• After it has boiled for a few minutes let it simmer. While it simmers add the soy sauce ,vinegar, salt and pepper. Also pour in the cornflour mixture.(the amount of cornflour can be adjusted according to how thick you want the stew).
• Now boil the entire stew again till the cornflour does its job and thickens the stew.
• Garnish with finely chopped spring onions.
• Serve steaming hot with crisp toast slathered with butter. Yum Yum Yum!!!!

From My Rasoi 7 - Comfort foods

Theme - Comfort Foods
Send entries by - August 1st 2006


Ammas' Mutton Biriyani


I sooo love mutton biriyani. My mother completely knows what biriyani is to me. She would make biriyani sometimes just for me. The best part is how we taste-test it. She will get a small plate with the steamingly hot biriyani and she will give a couple of big mouthfuls to me and my sister.. It would just be soooo out-of-the-world !!!

Somehow chicken biriyani just does not give me the flavour I get from mutton biriyani. So since its my comfort food, I am just overlooking the fact that mutton has more fat content.

If you think mutton biriyani is a tedious process, just try this recipe. I am sure you will change your mind.

First things first

• Clean and rinse a cup and half of rice
• Clean and cube a pound of mutton
• Vertically slice one large onion

Throw into the mixie and make a puree with

• one tomato
• half a bunch of cilantro
• two pods garlic
• half an inch ginger

Make a powder with the following

• 3 tsps saunf
• 3 cloves
• 4 cardamom
• 1 inch stick of cinnamon
• 10 peppercorns
• 4 dried red chillies ( add more if you like spicy )

Keep aside

• cleaned bunch of mint
• half tsp garam masala
• two tbl oil

Cooking mutton

• Add water and mutton to pressure cooker. The water should be just below the top of the mutton pieces.
• Cook until 10 whistles keeping the stove in medium high

Putting together

• Heat oil in pressure cooker or pan
• Add onions and saute for 5 minutes
• Add the powder, garam masala and continue sauteing
• Add the puree and continue to saute for another 5 minutes. At this point there should be no liquid in the pan
• Add the mutton pieces ( no water )
• Add the rice and the measure and add the mutton stock ( remaining after cooking the mutton). Ratio is 2:1 liquid:rice.
• Add salt and mix
• Place the mint bunch over the rice and pressuer cook or cook in rice cooker
• Enjoy with raita.

See my other post for instructions regarding cooking biriyani in pressure as well as rice cooker.

Enjoy !!

Idly & Mint Chutney

Idly, chutney and sambar - My entry for Breakfast Blogging 2 and Green Blog Project

Breakfast is the most important yet most neglected meal of the day!! Whoever told "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper" never knew the 1001 things we have to do just when we are supposed to have a sitdown breakfast!!

Breakfast is ofcourse is a fad at my home. Mostly oats or a slice of bread for me and coffee for ravi. I think Breakfast Blogging event is such a nice opportunity to treat(atleast on weekends) breakfast as a meal and not just a snack or a drink.

So here is my entry to her wonderful event, The Breakfast Blogging 2, the queen of breakfasts ( Yes ofcourse idly is a she in my mind ), IDLY

I make two types of idlies:

Idly made at my mom's - Tamilnadu

1. Ratio of idly rice : ural dal is 3:1.
2. Add a teaspoon of fenugreek to ural dal
3. Soak rice and dal separately for 4 to 6 hours.
4. Grind first the rice smoothly.
5. Then grind the dal and fenugreek.
6. Mix together thoroughly and keep closed in a dark, dry place for 8 hours and let it ferment

Idly made at my mil's - Andhra

1. Ratio of idlirawa :ural dal is 2:1
2. Wash the idlirawa 3 to 4 times and soak to just cover the rice. The lesser the better
3. Soak the ural dal separately. Allow the rawa and dal to soak for 4 to 6 hours
4. Grind the dal
5. Drain any excess water in the rawa and mix in the ground dal
6. Ferment in a dry dark place for 8 hours

Making of the idly

• Lightly mix the fluffed up batter gently. Take care not to release all the bubbles
• Add salt and mix.
• Grease idli mould with some oil spray
• Pour the batter in the moulds and steam in idli cooker for 10 minutes on medium-high.
• Leave them alone for another 10 minutes.
• Dip a spoon in cold water, run it around the idlies in the mould and carefully flip them out using the spoon

Tips for good idly

• Add water little by little when grinding ural dal and let it fluff
• The consistency of the ground dal should be like soft butter
• Mix the batter thoroughly with your hands. The yeast in the hands helps in fermenting
• Fenugreek is said make the idly more fluffier. It also gives color when you make dosais.
• Dont overmix the fermented batter. If all the bubbles are released the idlies will not be very fluffy
• Altitudes does vary the ratio of rice and ural dal. At higher altitudes make the ratio of rice and ural dal 3:1 or sometimes 4:1. It comes by trial and error only

Mint Chutney

Sometime in May or June I planted a few mint.. I buy mint every week, I stripped the leaves and cut the stems on an angle and planted it in a pot. I did not have much hope because I had tried it a couple of summers without much success. Surprisingly this time it was a success !!! Also I did not know that mint can be a creeper !!! I thought it was a shrub !!

My entry to the Green Blog Project by Guardian of Tropical Plantation - LG of Ingimanga. Every time I water the plants I remember her. I have Tulasi, Mint, Green chillies and Samandhi (Chrysanthemum) in my patio. I have planted some coriander too. Its just struggling in the heat.

I made chutney with my pudina leaves ( and added to the store bought bunch ). Just sauted the leaves in little oil along with coconut, tamarind and redchillies. I also added a fistful of cilantro. And ground up in the mixie :)

Interesting Site

I browsed through this site. Thought some of you may be interested in it. It has downloadable slokams in english, tamil, telugu, kannada, malayalam and devanagiri script.

Prapatti.com

Comfort Foods - FMR - Rice with Rasam, Dal and Egg Curry

Mashed rice with rasam, dal with egg curry - My comfort food - My entry for From My Rasoi #7

I had not left home until I was 23. At 23 I was sent to Germany for some client implementation. I was very scared to stay alone let alone speaking in german and helping in the implementaion. I was so naive to tell my client that I cannot stay in a hotel after I reached there. My client was such a nice person and offered to take me to his home and stay there for the rest of the trip. He and his wife, took such good care of me but I just could not eat german food. I was even scared to ask him to take me to a grocery stores because he was the person signing contracts for our company and I dare not mess up with him.. And he has made a big favour and let me be in his house as a guest...The entire trip was for just 12 days - so I survived on apple juice and whatever little german food I could eat !!

When it was time to go home, I called up my mother and I guessed my mother read my mind through the phone that she asked me what I wanted to eat - when I reached home.
Pat came the reply -

Amma, paruppu sadam rasam muttai poriyal ma ( dhal rice with rasam and egg curry ) !!

I reached home around midnight and did I sleep without eating !!!!! What else could be my comfort food ???

Its the simplicity of rasam and its uniqueness that each amma has a different recipe - An ideal way to connect to home for me is through food especially rasam. Here is my mothers' recipe for rasam.

Ingredients :
- juice extracted from one lemon sized tamarind

- one large tomato preferably vine-ripe

- two red chillies ( more if u need more spicy )

- 1 tablespoon jeera, pepper powder

- two garlic whacked

- fistful of coriander
- 1 tablespoon gingelly oil
- for seasoning a tsp each of cumin, mustard, curry leaves

Ingredients of rasam ( above ), rasam boiling in chatti-clay pot ( below )

1. Heat oil and season it with cumin, mustard, curry leaves and red chillies
2. Crush and squeeze together with your hands - whacked garlic, tomato, tamarind juice and two cups of water.
3. Add the squeezed mixture to the seasoned oil, add the jeera pepper powder and allow it to boil
4. When the rasam foams on top add coriander
5. Mash cooked rice with rasam and daal and enjoy with egg curry .

So what is your comfort food ??

Cooking from other blogs

Upma kozhukatai/uppurundai over mint chutney

I get ever so excited about cooking new dishes and discovering new tastes that I forget about the simple, familiar food that we are very much used to. Here I was searching for some more new recipes and I saw Nandita's recipe for upma kozhukattai ( we call it uppurundai ). Oh I almost forgot this childhood snack food. Its a simple, humble tummy filler and my mom used to make it when we were kids !! Do I need more reason to rediscover the taste for this snack !! I made it just as per Nandita's instructions and it came out great !!!!

Plantain podimas with mint rice

Another of my favourite at home is Vazhakai podimas. I saw this recipe by Sudha on friday so I remembered quite to bring home plantains. Again I love this recipe for its simplicity. I followed her recipe exactly. It came out great !!

Thanks for all your inquiries about my laptop.. Ravi has made temporary arrangements and hooked a desktop monitor and serves the purpose now. Meanwhile he is deciding between a thinkpad and notebook :)

Broke !!

Last week I lost my camera cable and hence no longer able to upload any pictures. Now my laptop broke... Literally... The LCD monitor is like a broken wind shield... Dont even get me started on how it broke :(

Of all the other things I need to bother because it broke, I am worried now that I wont be able to keep my blog updated.

I made a good one for Saffron Trails' Breakfast event ( Idli with pudina chutney and shallot sambar ) which was also my entry for the Green Blog Project by Ingimanga..Homegrown Mint !! sob !! sob !!

Hopefully I will get a new laptop before FMR event to be able to host it :)
Until then I will blog hop whenever I sneak in some time during lunch breaks.

Yet another act of cowardice !

Mumbai is yet again struck by ill-luck. After the horrendous rain last year, now its been hit by terrorists again. It is heart-wrenching and sad. I travel daily by train to work and it shudders to think how it would be to experience such gruesome act.

Mumbaikers are as usual showing solidarity and unity. God give them courage to deal with this!

Thanks to Indira and Payal - please look up this site for information and help. - MumbaiHelp

Vazhapoo Poriyal (Banana blosom curry)

Vazhapoo is banana blosom and is said to be very good for the stomach. Typically there is only one blosom/flower per plantain tree. After there is a blosom it is let to mature and eventually the tree bears plantains/bananas. Once the fruits are ripe, the whole tree is cut off because it does not yield anymore fruit or flower and by this time there would be a small plantain sapling just beneath the mama tree. So also to let the sapling grow the mama is felled indicating the emerge of a new generation.

Incidentally thats why we adorn both sides of marriage halls to indicate that the couple should flourish like the plantain tree and raise young ones for generations to come.

We had lots of Plantain trees back home. Whenever the tree is cut up, all parts of the tree is used up. The tender stem of the tree, called vazhathandu, the remaining of the blosom are used for cooking while the leaves are used to serve food.

Here in Bay area its rare that we see banana blosom and I have never seen the stems ( vazha thandu ). Found a blosom and here is the curry. The tricky part is removing the stamen. Yes its very time consuming to remove the stamen and the nimble outer sheath of every floret.

Floret with and without the stamen

and sheath

Ingredients

- One banana blosom cleaned as above and finely chopped

- one onion roughly chopped

- For seasoning - one teaspoon each of mustard, cumin, curry leaves

- Two red chillies ( increase if you like it hot )

- one tablespoon shredded coconut

1. Heat oil in a pan and season. Add chillies and onion

2. When the onion is translucent add the chopped blosom florets and saute for a few minutes.

3. Add salt and very little water and close with a lid. Allow it to cook for 15 to 20 mins

4. when all the water is drained up add the shredded coconut and enjoy over rice.

This curry will be slightly bitter - more the bitterness the better for health is what my mom used to tell to make me eat this :)

Check out Sudha's vadai recipe with banana blosom

What have you done Sailu ??? JFI -3

What have you done Sailu ??? You hosted "Jihva for Dals" and all the food blogs are flooded with Dal recipes. People are trying out different dal recipes!!! Now I went to the Indian stores and guess what ?? Dals are in shortage - No kidding Guys !!!! A big pack of any Dal is $7.99. That too not more than one packet per customer. The Dals dont come to the shelf. I had to pick up mine from the packing area..

I wish Sailu was the reason - but itseems there is a shortage in production of Dal in India and imports have gone down itseems. People in Bay Area already know what I am talking about !!!! How is it in your area ??? Is it the same in all places or these local grocery guys playing some fool with us ???

For my part to this I am going to post my entry for JFI. I know this post is a bit late for JFI. I saw some of the great recipes. Especially the one by Pushpa - never knew I would have to discover a new one with Dal. Dal Pasta ???

Well for the holiday weekend, after almost 5 years I had a blast of time with fire crackers - There was a stall where they sold fire crackers,(on occasion of independence day in USA) and in a park near by we had such a fun time lighting the fire crackers. It was a really great experience.



So since I have very good reason to have skipped Jihva for Dal on July 1st. But I made the dish in advance - Ulunthangali ( Urad dal halwa ). This dish is typically given to girls when they attain puberty, for it is said to strengthen the bones making it easy during child birth.

The ingredients are simple - coarse urad dal, sugar, gingely oil or ghee. My mother uses gingely oil in this recipe

So here is the procedure:

1. Roast the dal slightly till aroma comes
2. Coarse grind the roasted dal
3. Heat a pan add a tsp of gingely oil and the ground powder
4. Add sugar ( half cup of sugar to 1.5 cups of powder ) and little bit of water
5. Keep stirring until the dal is cooked around 5 to 10 mins. Take care not to burn the dal. If it becomes dry and sticks to the pan add water or oil.
6. Switch off and allow it to cool.
7. Add a dab of ghee or gingelly oil before serving

From My Rasoi # 7

Let me host this months' From My Rasoi Blog Event by thanking Meenakshi for letting me do this and congratulating Paz for hosting last months' FMR.

The feeling we are associated with when we hear some music for the first time, lingers back every time we hear that music again - literally making us feel the same way - Good or Bad !! Isn't food and music the same in this aspect ?? For me whenever I cook mutton biriyani, it just takes me to those wonderful sundays back home when junglebook would be screaming in the tv, cooker whistling in the kitchen, my mother constantly yelling at me to do this and that, my dad busy with the sunday magazine and me peacefully having one eye on tv and another eye on the biriyani cooking in the kitchen. Wonder what my sister was doing ???

So where is this leading to towards this months FMR theme ?? Dishes that rewinds time for us to take us into the bubble of comfort zone reminding all the wonderful memories associated with that time. - Comfort Foods - is the theme I chose for this months' FMR. I am sure all of you will have fantastic stories associated with each dish/meal.

Wiki so aptly describes "Comfort Foods" as "any food or drink to which one habitually turns to for temporary respite, security, or special reward"

General rules for FMR are :

1. All you have to do, is come up with a recipe to share based on the announced theme, "Comfort Foods", that will highlight the taste of India/or anyother cuisine. It can be anything and in any form, shape or size, sweet, savoury or even drinks!
2. Email me the link to your post by the 1st of August to revathicsm at yahoo.com, there will be round-up on all the participants and submissions.

So, take a break, relax and close your eyes and think about all those wonderful dishes that make u feel cosy and comfort you and share it with us - We are all waiting to hear it !!!!

Have a safe and happy July 4th weekend !!!!!