Saturday, April 30, 2011

Whole Wheat Crepes with fresh Strawberry and Walnut and Banana in Maple Syrup


Courtesy Sadhana Prasad aka Mausi

Serves four

Ingredients
  • 1 Quart of ripe Strawberries sliced thin
  • 2 bananas sliced thin
  • 1 cup of maple syrup
  • 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
  • 1/4 inch butter stick
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • A pinch of salt
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • Approximately 1 & 1/2 cups Milk
How to :
  1. For the syrup, in a pan melt the butter and when the butter starts to bubble add the maple syrup and warm it a little
  2. Add the bananas and stir till the bananas start to wilt
  3. Add the walnuts and stir it again and warm it for a couple of minutes.
  4. For the crepe batter, mix the flour, salt, sugar and milk and whisk. Add milk till the batter is thinner than a pancake batter
  5. Ladle the batter on the nonstick round pan and spread it with the base of the ladle. 
  6. When the pan side is reddish brown flip it over. The crepe should leave the surface easily
  7. Cook the other side for a minute and then flip it on a plate.
  8. Put a handful of strawberries and fold the crepe to make a roll 
  9. Put a ladle of syrup with banana and walnut on top and serve
Serving suggestion
  • You can top with whipped cream or icing sugar to dress it up

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Bihari Tomato Chutney

Courtesy Anjana Kumar aka Ma

Serves four

Ingredients
  • 2 medium sized tomatoes
  • 1 table spoon mustard oil
  • 3 green chili chopped finely
  • 2 table spoons finely chopped ginger
  • 2 table spoons finely chopped garlic
  • 3 table spoons finely chopped coriander
  • 1 table spoon lemon juice
  • Salt and Black Pepper to taste
  • Small onion chopped finely

How to :
  1. Roast the tomatoes on fire till the skin starts to turn charred.
  2. Mash the tomatoes into a chunky chutney
  3. Add the oil, salt, pepper, chili, ginger, garlic, onion, coriander and lemon juice and mix well.
Serving suggestion

Bihari Aloo Bharta

Courtesy Anjana Kumar aka Ma

Serves four

Ingredients
  • 2 large boiled skinned potatoes
  • 1 table spoon mustard oil
  • 3 green chili chopped finely
  • Salt to taste
  • Small onion chopped finely

How to :
  1. Mash the potatoes such that there are no lumps.
  2. Add the oil, salt, chili and onion and mix well.
Serving suggestion

Bihari Baigan Bharta

Courtesy Anjana Kumar aka Ma

Serves four

Ingredients
  • 1 large sized Indian Eggplant
  • 1 table spoon mustard oil
  • 3 green chili chopped finely
  • 2 table spoons finely chopped ginger
  • 2 table spoons finely chopped garlic
  • 3 table spoons finely chopped coriander
  • 1 table spoon lemon juice
  • Salt and Black Pepper to taste
  • Small onion chopped finely

How to :
  1. Roast the eggplant on fire till the skin starts to turn charred.
  2. Remove the skin completely from the eggplant and discard
  3. Make a lumpy mash of the eggplant.
  4. Add the oil, salt, pepper, chili, ginger, garlic, onion, coriander and lemon juice and mix well.
Serving suggestion

Sunday, January 9, 2011

V for Vendetta inspired egg on a toast

Backstory!
I love omelet with toast, but not such a big fan of plain eggs (esp sunny side up). After seeing V for Vendetta, I came up with this (original) recipe of combining an omelet and toast as a single unit that can be eaten with 1 hand!

For those who are looking for the original V for Vendetta recipe, go here.

Serves 2 

Ingredients
  • 4 bread slices - I prefer wheat or something more hardy than white bread.
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 medium sized onion finely chopped
  • 1 cup diced tomato
  • 3 green chillies finely chopped
  • handful of finely chopped cilantro
  • 1 cup diced green bell pepper/capsicum
  • 1 cup mushrooms (optional)
  • Salt/Pepper to taste
Steps
  • In a large bowl, beat the eggs and salt/pepper. 
  • On a hot skillet, add 2 teaspoons of oil and cook the veggies with a pinch of salt until they lose some of their moisture. Keep the cooked veggies aside. This is done to avoid a soggy toast. You can  skip this step, if you prefer.
  • In the same skillet, add some more oil, 1/4 egg mixture and evenly spread the cooked veggies.
  • As soon as the omelet begins to cook, stick a bread slice onto it pressing gently so that the 2 bind. Don't press too hard, else the liquid will ooze out. Put a lid on the skillet to cook the eggs completely. If the egg mixture begins to ooze or spread while cooking, just push it back into and under the toast :-)
  • After about a minute or so, flip the toast and continue cooking to the desired level of toastiness!

Serving suggestions
  • You can enjoy the egg toast with some ketchup or hot sauce or Thai Chilli Garlic Sauce (SriRacha).
  • You can add some grated cheese to the toast too.

Tips
  • To make the omelet fluffy and soft, add a couple of tablespoon of milk when beating the eggs.

Khichdi

Courtesy Anjana Kumar aka Ma

Serves four

Ingredients
  • 1 cup rice
  • 1 1/2 cup lentil - mallka or masoor
  • 6 cups hot water
  • One large onion - sliced very finely
  • 4 bay leaves
  • One large dried red chili 
  • 1 table spoon cumin
  • 1 tea spoon turmeric
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 table spoons Ghee or Oil

How to :
  1. Soak the rice and daal/lentil in hot water for 30 minutes
  2. In a thick bottom pot heat the ghee or oil and add the bay leaves, cumin and red chili and let it sputter
  3. Add the thinly sliced onions and let it saute till the onion starts to turn crispy brown
  4. Add the salt and turmeric and stir in for 15 seconds. 
  5. Add the soaked rice, daal and water and bring to a boil.
  6. Cook for about 25 minutes till the rice and daal are well cooked to almost a mush.
Serving suggestion

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Vegetarian Risotto

Courtesy Alex McLaren


Serves four

Ingredients
  • 1+3/4 Arborio rice
  • 6 cups or more vegetable stock (I prefer College Inn stock)
  • Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, a few handfuls of it, finely grated.  It's also standard to have some to spoon over at the table.
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped onion (sweet onion preferred) or shallot
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped mushroom

How to :
  1. Get the stock very hot, close to boiling point. 
  2. Fry the mushroom in 3 tbsp of the butter slowly so as to soften the mushroom but not brown it much.  Getting the mushroom flavor to infuse into the butter is particularly important, so save the butter along with the mushroom.
  3. Lightly fry up the onion in the remaining butter.  A little olive oil can be a helpful addition at this step, to keep things even.  The onion should be fried only until soft translucent, not further.
  4. Add the rice to the onion/butter mixture and stir so the rice is coated.
  5. Add 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of the stock and bring the mixture to a slow simmer, stirring fairly constantly.  When the stock has been almost completely absorbed, add another half cup or so, stir it in, with the mixture still simmering.  The process should continue until the rice is somewhat firm, but fully cooked.  Al dente, if you will.
  6. Mix in the mushroom and its butter, as well as two handfulls of the cheese.  Mix it up, it should be done.  
 
Tips
  • This dish becomes very sticky and unpleasant fairly quickly, so it should be eaten when cooked.