Peanut Sesame Powder

 

 

When I was relatively new to the world of blogging, I didn't know too many people. I thought that participation in events was only by invitation. I felt like an outsider. I read about people receiving gifts from other bloggers and wondered how much longer it might be before I would be considered part of the "inner circle".

I then realized that there was no such thing. Most bloggers considered all other bloggers as being in the inner circle. Friendships were formed quickly and before I knew it, I received a lovely package in the email. A letter, some methkut, some murabba, some tea bags, an agarbatti holder and this little bottle of "Sesamum Chutney". The sender was Nandita!

 

S and I were hooked on to this Sesamum Chutney and we savoured even the last speck from the bottle. We ate it with everything. Sprinkled it on buttered toast, ate it with chapattis, had it with dosais and even mixed it with hot rice.

 

I tried to recreate the chutney at home nearly 5 years after I had received the parcel. It turned out quite similar to the original and I will be making this so often.

 

6 Garlic Pods

1 cup Peanuts, roasted and skin removed

1/2 cup Sesame Seeds, roasted

2 tbsp Cumin, roasted

2 tbsp Red Chilli Powder

Salt to taste

1 tbsp Oil

 

Grind the ingredients (except the oil) together. Add the oil a few drops at a time during the grinding. The oil keeps the entire mixture from becoming lumpy.

 

This is a very versatile chutney that can be used in many ways. You could also mix some in a bowl of yogurt for a quick raita. I am certain it will go very well even as a spice mix for vegetables. I must try that next.

 

Macaroni with Parsley-Peanut Pesto

There was a time I hadn't heard of pesto. Then came the time when I'd heard about it, but knew nothing about it. Then came the time when I first ate it. And then came the present. The time when I've heard about it, I know about it, I've eaten it, I make it and I experiment with different flavours. I've come a long way from asking a friend to bring me pine nuts from the US to using the humble peanut in my pesto.


At one time, I'd substitute pine nuts only with cashews. But I've become a bit more adventurous of late. Any nut and any kind of herb (needn't be a herb) and I've got a pesto going. To make it suitable for a lunch box, I added some mushrooms and some milk.


1 cup Macaroni, Cooked/Boiled with a little oil and salt

1 tbsp Olive Oil
2-3 tbsp Milk
1/2 cup Mushrooms, sliced




For the Parsley Pesto:


1/2 cup Parsley Leaves
1 cube Low Fat Cheese
2 tbsp Roasted Peanuts
2 pods Garlic
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Chilli Flakes


Salt and Pepper to taste


Grind together all the ingredients for the pesto.


Drain the pasta and keep aside.


Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the mushrooms for 3-4 minutes. Add the pesto sauce and fry for a few minutes. Add the milk to get a sauce like consistency. Add the pasta and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.


A meal that comes together in minutes. There's not much chopping involved. And since I use a food processor to grind the pesto, there's no pounding to be done either. This is a perfect recipe for times when you want a nice meal and don't want to slave over the stove too much.

I hope all of you had a good Christmas. Happy Holidays!

Beetroot Patties

I have a colleague and cabmate, S, who has a colleague and best friend, D. D's mother is, like my colleague P's mother, an excellent cook. Since I leave for work very early, and since I cook our breakfast and lunch in the morning before leaving for work, I end up eating breakfast at work because there just isn't any time. Very often, S and D have their breakfast at the same time in the office cafeteria. Every once in a while, I taste D's breakfast and I must say that her mother makes the most unusual dishes.

Last week, D brought these beetroot patties for breakfast. I had one bite and found that I couldn't stop myself from taking the second... and the third. S gave me the recipe on the way back home that evening and I was all set to try it out this weekend. All I can say is that I will make these again and again, all through this winter.

1/2 cup Beetroot, grated

1/2 cup Carrot, grated

2 tbsp Roasted Peanuts

1 tbsp Oil

1 tsp Ginger Paste

1 tsp Garlic Paste

1 tsp Green Chilli Paste

1/2 tsp Chilli Powder

1/2 tsp Amchur (Dry Mango Powder)

1 tsp Cumin-Coriander Powder

1/4 tsp Garam Masala

2-3 slices of Bread

Salt to taste

Cornflour to coat the patties

Oil for frying

Heat the tablespoon of oil and fry the ginger, garlic and green chilli pastes for a minute. Add the beetroot and carrot and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the peanuts along with the salt, chilli powder, amchur, cumin-coriander powder and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Add the garam masala. Crumble the bread slices into the beetroot mixture and mix well. Take off the flame and allow to cool.

Form small balls of this mixture and flatten them slightly. Coat them in the cornflour and shallow fry on a pan until crisp on both sides. Serve with a salad on the side (or some tomato ketchup).

Please do remember that there are only two days left for the Tried and Tasted event. Do hop over to Sunshinemom's blog and pick a recipe that you've always wanted to try and send it over to me.

Baked Stuffed Chillies

I have always avoided buying chillies. But I usually end up with a bag of the "bajji" variety chillies in the hope of making mirchi bajji. I have made that once (but sadly, the post languishes in my drafts) and the other times that I bought the chillies, I saved the bag from going into the trash by making this once and this the other time.

Today was a little different. I was quite determined to use up the chillies in a different manner before they turned into something unrecognizable. I had some aloo paratha stuffing left over and I modified it to stuff these chillies.

6 large Chillies, slit and deseeded

2 Potatoes, cooked and mashed

1 Onion, chopped finely

2 tbsp Coriander Leaves, chopped

1/2 tsp Garam Masala

1 tsp Chilli Paste

Salt to taste

To be ground:

1/4 cup Roasted Peanuts

1/2 tsp Amchur

1/2 tsp Coriander Powder

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1 tsp Chilli Powder

1 tbsp Oil

Mix the potato, onion, coriander, garam masala, salt and chilli paste. Add the ground mixture and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 250 C. Use a little oil to grease a baking tray. Stuff the potato-peanut mixture into the chillies and arrange them on the tray. Brush the chillies with the remaining oil. Bake for 15 minutes, turning once in between.

This makes a wonderful side dish with some rice and dal, but as we discovered this afternoon, it is a finger licking good accompaniment to beer.

Mirchi ki Sabzi

I had this bag of chillies that I have no idea why I bought. My friend suggested that I pick it up so I could make Mirchi ka Salan. The idea seemed nice and all that, but I never did get around to making mirchi ka salan. After all, that dish tastes best with some authentic biryani on the side. Now, I’d think it is an effort to make biryani itself. So, for me to make biryani and then this mirchi ka salan would be a bit much. (It would be easier to go to Hyderabad than to try cooking all that at home, don’t you think?) Though I must admit, I ALWAYS buy these chillies hoping secretly to make salan!

The bag of chillies lay languishing in the crisper until one Saturday afternoon, when I felt really sorry for them and decided to do “something” about them. I decided to cook them in a standard tomato onion gravy. In addition to the Aashirwad Multipurpose cooking paste, I now have access to Maggi Bhuna Masala too. But when I started to make this, I got carried away by different things I saw around me in the kitchen and the resultant dish was nothing like what I’d intended it to be. But it was great tasting nonetheless. I served it with some jeera rice and while I was happy for sure, I had one very happy husband at home that afternoon. The one question he repeated over and over was: I know you experimented, but do you remember what you actually put in this?


250 g Large Green Chillies, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 packet Maggi Bhuna Masala (for gravies)


To be ground to a paste


¼ cup Peanuts, roasted
1 tbsp Sesame seeds, roasted
3 Red Chillies
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
½ tsp Coriander Seeds
Salt to taste


Heat a kadhai and add the contents of the Bhuna Masala. (Alternatively, you could heat some oil and fry 1 chopped Onion, ½ tsp Ginger Paste, ½ tsp Garlic Paste. When the onions are fried, add 1 chopped tomato and fry for a minute or two. Add a little water and make it into a gravy.) Add the chopped chillies and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the ground paste and fry again for 2-3 minutes. Add a little water and bring to a boil.

I am certain this dish would taste as great with rotis as it does with rice.

Carrot Peanut Kosumbari

When we have guests over, I usually end up making this carrot kosumbari. But this other version is a personal favourite. I don’t even need rice and dal or any of those things if I’ve made this kosumbari. I am extremely content eating this version by the bowlful. I made this a couple of times when we had some people over and it was a great hit.



2 large Carrots, grated
1 Onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup Roasted Peanuts, coarsely powdered

2 tbsp scraped Coconut

1 tsp Green Chilli-Ginger paste
½ tsp Lime Juice

Salt to Taste

Coriander leaves for garnish


Mix all the ingredients together and garnish with coriander leaves. The addition of roasted peanuts gives this simple salad its crunch. Whenever you’re not in the mood for heavyweight cooking, this salad may just be the answer.

Puli Saadam (Tiger Rice)

Hostel. The word usually opens the floodgates. Memories come rushing in. Before I know it I’m transported to a time when the day of the week determined what we’d see on our plate. I remember our arguments at the dinner table. Initially on a Wednesday night, we’d instinctively know it was Fried Rice. At a later stage, even though the food was on our plate, we would look at it and say, “Today is Thursday, so this has to be Tiger Rice ya!” On the whole, I don’t know why I cribbed so much. The food was never great, but it was always decent. Except the idlis. Someday I will blog about the different types of idlis that my hostel mess dished out. Every Tuesday morning.

Today’s post is dedicated to the Tiger Rice of Kaveri Hostel. The dish has the colours of a tiger and puli = tamarind, but puli also = tiger. I don’t call it Puliyodarai. To me, Puliyodarai is a very different genus and species. This will always be my Puli Saadam. No puli kaachal or instant mixes, just a dish as simple as lemon rice… well almost. Puliyodarai that Amma or Paati make will have a separate dedicated post some day.

1 cup Rice, measured raw and then cooked
1 tbsp Gingelly (Til/Sesame) Oil
¼ tsp Mustard Seeds
¼ tsp Asafoetida
7-8 Curry Leaves
½ tsp Urad Dal
½ tsp Chana Dal
½ tsp Turmeric Powder
¼ cup Peanuts
2 tbsp Tamarind Paste
3-4 Red Chillies
Salt to taste


Heat the oil in a kadhai and add the urad dal, chana dal, mustard seeds and asafetida. When the mustard splutters, add the red chillies, curry leaves and peanuts. Fry for a couple of minutes. Add the turmeric powder and the tamarind paste. Add about ½ a cup of water and bring the mixture to a boil. Add salt and when the mixture thickens to about half the original volume, stir in the rice and take off the flame immediately. Serve with some appalams or crisps. My favourite way to eat this is with some avial on the side. This recipe is good for two people as a main course or for four to six people if there are other dishes on the menu.

I was in a very playful mood the day I made this. I microwaved some javvarisi vadaam (sago crisps) and then scooped up some rice in each. I still like to find ways to make food interesting enough to eat and despite my age, I tend to play with my food a lot.


Also known as Pulihora, this is festival food in Andhra Pradesh and I’m sending this off to Vani at Batasari for the RCI: Andhra Festival Foods event.

Potato Peas Peanut Poha

I like the way people influence my cooking and food. At ome point, I used to make poha with only potatoes. I didn't add onions to my poha. Then I started making it this way. Then for an earlier WBB, I added soya granules to make it fit in with the theme. An aunt of mine makes poha with green peas. A colleague of mine always asks me to add peanuts to the poha. I ended up making this with the works. This is much easier to make than the mixed vegetable version as there is no major chopping.

Ingredients:
1 Cup Beaten Rice (Poha)
2 tsp Oil
1 Onion, sliced

2 tbsp Peanuts
1 Potato, boiled and cubed

1/4 cup Green Peas, boiled
1 tsp Mustard Seeds
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1/4 tsp Asafoetida
7-8 Curry Leaves
1/2 tsp Chilli Paste
1/2 tsp Ginger Paste
1 tsp Kashmiri Chilli Powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt to Taste
Coriander leaves and scraped Coconut for garnish

Wash the poha in a colander and allow the water to drain. Do not touch this with your fingers. Add the salt, chilli powder and turmeric powder and toss until the poha is coated evenly with these powders. Keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the green chilli and ginger pastes and the curry leaves. Add the peanuts, onions and potato and saute for a minute or two. Add the peas and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the poha and mix well. Sprinkle some water, cover and cook for 5-6 minutes. Mix well and garnish with coriander and coconut and enjoy it hot.

I have started storing cooked potatoes in the fridge and there is always a bag of frozen peas in the freezer. So, this entire breakfast is ready in under 15 minutes. I'm sending this to myself as an entry for this month's WBB: Express Breakfasts.

Sabudana Khichdi

This is the dish that took me years to master. I think I came close to perfecting the art this time. The day I made it, I actually ate it 4 times. For breakfast, as a midmorning snack, for lunch and an evening snack.

My entire extended family knows that this is a favourite. I once went to Bombay with a friend and over the two weeks that we were there, we got invited to all my relatives' places for all meals. Whenever it was a lunch or dinner, my aunts served us Avrya Bendi and at snack time we got Batat Phow and sabudana khichdi. I joke that my friend must have believed these to be the entire universe of amchi cooking. But there are some items that I truly never tire of eating.

I once soaked the sago overnight and I got a glue of some sort the next morning instead of a khichdi. I tried soaking for an hour and then making it, it turned out to be too hard on our teeth. Finally, I soaked the sago for 2-3 hours, drained the water and then left it overnight. That seemed to do the trick. And the more oil you use, the better the dish turns out. At these times I always hear my Amma saying, "haath ghatti kornaka, chikke chadavat tael tup sollari, randap chang zatta" (Don't hold your fist too tight, if you use a little extra oil or ghee, your food will turn out tastier.) I did use a little more oil than I normally would and the dish did turn out the way I'd expected it would.

Ingredients:

1 cup Sago (Sabudana)

2 tbsp Oil

1/4 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/4 tsp Cumin Seeds

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

7-8 Curry Leaves

1 tsp Green Chilli paste

1/2 tsp Ginger paste

1/4 cup Roasted Peanut (coarsely powdered)

Salt to taste

Soak the sago for 2-3 hours, drain, and keep aside overnight. (If making in the morning, that is). When you are ready to make the dish, mix the peanut powder with the sago.

Heat oil in a kadhai and add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the green chilli and ginger pastes and the curry leaves. Fry for a minute or two. Add the sago-peanut mixture and salt. Cover and cook for 5-6 minutes.

Remove the lid and allow portions of this to crispen. Those will be the tastiest bits of this dish. Fasting or no fasting, this is one dish I absolutely dig.

Capsicum Curry

On some days, I don't plan at all. On others, I plan and plan no end (and end up leaving the lunch box at home!) This dish, however, is the result of no planning at all. Amchi cuisine has a capsicum dish called Kayaras and that is what I wanted to make one morning when I had loads of capsicum in the fridge. But I was too lazy to pick up the Rasachandrika from the shelf and refer to it. At times like these, I remember what Amma always says, "When nice ingredients go into a dish and the intentions are good and loving, it can never taste bad." The first time I heard this was when I tried to make chikki. The recipe called for caramelized sugar instead of the jaggery syrup that is usually made and my chikki didn't turn out like anything I'd expected. I was about 10 at the time.

Now, I have a reasonably decent sense of combinations: what goes well with what... what flavours ingredients will impart to a dish. And this helps me experiment. So, I went beyond aloo capsicum and paneer/soya capsicum to create this dish.

Ingredients:

1/4 kilo Green Capsicum, chopped

1 Onion, sliced

2 tbsp Peanuts

1 tsp Sesame seeds

2 tsp Oil

2 Red Chillies

1 tsp Tamarind Paste

1 tbsp Coconut

1 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

Salt to Taste

In a small kadhai, heat 1 tsp of oil. Add the sesame seeds, coconut, chillies, and peanuts and roast for a few minutes. Transfer this to a mixer jar and grind it to a paste along with a little salt and the tamarind paste.

In a larger kadhai, heat the other teaspoon of oil. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida. When the seeds splutter, add the onions and fry for a minute or so. Add the paste and fry for another minute. Add the chopped capsicum, a little water and some salt if needed. Cover and cook until the capsicum is done. I like my capsicum crunchy and don't cook it for too long.

I packed this along with rotis for lunch and I found that it actually tasted nice. My colleagues told me it would be very heavy because of the sesame, peanuts and coconut. I didn't find it too heavy, but it wasn't the lightest dish I'd made or anything.