Rainbow Pulao

Pulaos are my go-to dish. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is or what time of the day it is. I love the fact that a one dish meal (the fill it, shut it, forget it kind) can be so tasty, so colourful and so nutritious. If all I’m serving along with this meal is a raita, I make sure I add soya chunks to for the protein element. I usually add all vegetables that I can find and there are times when the outcome is a complete hash. There are of course others when the resultant dish is a beautiful medley of colours. This pulao is one such.

I tend to use any spice that catches my fancy and do not have a fixed rule about which spices to add in which dish. As a result of this, it is rare that a pulao I make on one day will taste like the pulao made on another day. But when it turns out great, I always make a note of what went in. This time around, I used a tablespoonful of Tortilla soup seasoning (Southwest Spice Blend) that my friend, D, sent me from the US. When she sent it, I had no idea what tortilla soup was or how the seasoning is to be used. (It is a different thing that such knowledge is as far from you as you are from the nearest internet PC.) The spice mix has cumin and paprika among other things, so it works very well in Indian dishes.

1 cup Basmati Rice, washed and drained

1 Onion, sliced

2 Carrots, peeled and cut into 2” pieces

1 Capsicum, sliced lengthwise and cut into 2” pieces

2 Potatoes, peeled and cut into 2” pieces

15-20 Beans, strung and cut into 2” pieces

1 Beetroot, peeled and cut into 2” pieces

A small head of Cauliflower, broken into florets

½ cup Peas, shelled

½ cup Soya Chunks, prepared according to instructions on the pack

2 tbsp Oil

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

3 1” sticks of Cinnamon

3-4 Cloves

1 tbsp Tortilla Soup Seasoning (Southwest Spice Blend)

½ tsp Turmeric Powder

½ tsp Chilli Powder

Salt to taste

Heat the oil in a pressure pan and add the cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the cinnamon and cloves along with the sliced onion. Fry this mixture for 2-3 minutes. Add the other vegetables, salt, turmeric and chilli powders along with the tortilla soup seasoning (southwest spice blend). Add the soya chunks and fry the entire mixture for another 5 minutes. Add the rice and 2 cups water and mix well. Cover the pressure pan and cook for 2 whistles. When the pressure is released, open the pan and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve with a raita or plan curd.

We had this with some onion raita and lady’s finger chips from Ananda Bhavan.

I’m also very happy to be a part of the Great Vega’n Vegetarian Project that Cynthia has started. My first post came up yesterday and I hope to be a regular contributor on the blog. Tried & Tasted event event is also currently on and The Singing Chef is the chosen blog for March 2010.

Winter Vegetable Sukke

I make a lot of mixed vegetable dishes, especially in winter. I’ve gone on endlessly about how I like a colourful plate. I found a whole bunch of vegetables that needed to be used up, and quickly. It was time for my weekly vegetable purchasing spree and I had just 1-2 pieces of each vegetable left in the crisper. I made this dish for lunch and used one vegetable of every variety I had on hand. I ended up using seven vegetables. Feel free to use any combination of vegetables for this dish. I’ve found that winter vegetables lend themselves very well to this preparation.

1 Radish, peeled
1 Beetroot, peeled

1 Red Carrot, peeled

1 Purple Carrot, peeled

1 Turnip, peeled
1Potato, peeled and quartered
1Onion, quartered
1/2 tsp Fenugreek Seeds
1/2 tsp Coriander Seeds

1/2 tsp Urad Dal
1 tsp Oil
1/4 cup Coconut
3-4 Red Chillies
1 tbsp Tamarind Paste
1/4 tsp Turmeric
Salt to taste

For the tempering:
1 tsp Oil
1/4 tsp Mustard Seeds
1/4 tsp Asafoetida
7-8 Curry Leaves

Cut the radish, carrots, turnip and beetroot into 2" long pieces. Pressure cook all the vegetables with a little salt for 1-2 whistles.

Heat the oil and fry the fenugreek seeds, urad dal and the coriander seeds for a minute. Grind this along with the turmeric, tamarind, coconut and red chillies to a somewhat fine paste. Add this paste to the cooked vegetables and add salt to taste. Cook for 4-5 minutes.

Heat the teaspoon of oil for the tempering in a frying ladle. Add the mustard and the asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the curry leaves. Add this tempering to the vegetable mixture. Serve hot with rice and dali-saar or with chapatis.

Zucchini Thuvayal

Winter. I have to talk about it in the past tense. As early as the first week of March. I’ve enjoyed using winter vegetables in just about every dish these past 3-4 months and I’m going to be sorry to see them disappear over the coming 2-3 weeks. Then it is back to the Tinda-Tori-Bhindi-Kundru-Lauki routine, all the way until November. Such is life.


I bought some zucchini to make a stir fry, but ended up using it in this thuvayal. I really wonder why I don’t make these thuvayals/thogayals often enough. They’re easy, tasty and are a great way to add another vegetable dish to your table.

2 Zucchinis, chopped

4 Red Chillies

1 tsp Mustard

3 tsp Urad Dal

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

3 tsp Oil

1 tbsp Tamarind Paste

Salt to taste

For the tempering:

1 tsp Oil

1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/2 tsp Urad Dal

a pinch Asafoetida

5-6 Curry Leaves

Place the zucchini pieces in a microwave safe bowl. Add 2 tbsp of water and cook on high for 2 minutes. Squeeze out the water when cool.

Heat the oil and fry the red chillies, mustard, asafoetida and urad dal for a couple of minutes. Grind the chillies along with the tamarind paste and salt. Add the zucchini pieces and grind again. Finally, add the fried mustard and urad dal and grind lightly.

Heat the teaspoon of oil for the tempering in a frying ladle. Add the mustard, urad dal and the asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the curry leaves. Add this tempering to the zucchini mixture.

Serve this with rice and a little ghee and some papads or vadams on the side. We ate this with rice, rasam, and Kootu.

Matar Kulcha

February came and February went. The entire month just whizzed past without a single post on this blog. In fact I haven’t been off to a very good start to The Singing Chef this year. While my other blog has seen a post, OK, a picture, a day, two months in 2010 have gone by with just one post here. I have been cooking. I’ve been cooking a whole lot more than I normally do. I haven’t been cooking too many new things. In fact, I’ve been looking to my own blog to recreate some of the dishes I’d made earlier and had promptly forgotten about once I posted them on the blog.

A fellow marathoner, Divya, is hosting this month’s Tried & Tasted event. This is an event started by Zlamushka and I am very happy to let you all know that The Singing Chef is the chosen blog for March 2010. I hope you will all enjoy going through this blog and cooking some of my favourites. Thanks for the logo, Ksenia.

I visited my folks in Bangalore earlier this year and did some cooking there: Parottas and kurma, dosakaya pachadi, wheat flour dosas and carrot soup. I also baked my parents a carrot cake. I haven’t done much baking apart from that and have only made one batch of banana nut muffins.


I’ve been cooking a lot of traditional food as my in-laws are visiting us right now. Breakfast has been semia upma, sabudana khichdi, batat phow, etc. Lunch and dinner are stuff like khichdi and kadhi, radish and shallot vathal kuzhambu, aloo gobi, adraki dal, turnip and onion sambar, tomato rasam, brinjal curry, onion thuvayal, carrot thuvayal, zucchini thuvayal, chow chow kootu, etc. Some recipes will be up on the blog soon.


One of the dishes that I made at home for the first time this year was the famous street food of Delhi: Matar Kulcha. I’ve eaten it several times, but had never bothered to find out how it is made. I bought some kulchas from the supermarket in the hope that they would help me with dinner on a day that my cab takes me home really late. Then I found a bag of dried peas and soaked a cupful hoping to make sundal for breakfast. During the cab ride back home, I suddenly put two and two together and decided that I could make matar kulcha if only I figured out the recipe for the matar. My cab mate told me it was the simplest thing to make and taught me how to make this. The original street food version is made with dehydrated yellow peas, but I used green instead.


1 cup Dry Yellow/Green Peas, soaked overnight and cooked
2 Onions, finely chopped
2 Tomatoes, finely chopped
2 Green Chillies, finely chopped
¼ cup Coriander Leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp Ginger, finely chopped
¼ tsp Garam Masala
1 tsp Chat Masala
Juice of 1 Lime / 1 tsp Amchur/ 1 tsp Tamarind Paste
Salt/ Black Salt to taste


To Serve:
6 Kulchas/ Bread slices
1 Onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp Coriander Leaves, finely chopped
Lime Wedges



Mix all the ingredients while the cooked peas are still hot. The final consistency of the dish should have the peas in a mushy form. Garnish with onions and coriander leaves and some lime wedges. Toast each kulcha on both sides on a hot skillet for a minute or so on low heat and serve with the peas mixture.



If you have kulchas or bread with you, and remember to soak the peas when you leave for work, this is your perfect dinner item. While the peas are cooking, you can do all the prep work and your meal will be ready before you know it.

Stir Fried Mushrooms with Spaghetti

The new year has been around for over three weeks and I have not visited this space to post anything. I haven't really cooked anything new. And if I have, I haven't had a chance to take a picture. In those rare cases where there is a picture, I haven't uploaded it. If I have, I simply haven't gotten around to blogging about it. I have been actively participating in the Project 365 and a fair bit of my attention was diverted there. I have also started reading and am onto my fourth book for 2010 already. To all my readers here at The Singing Chef, wishing you a happy new year.

I took part in the Taste & Create event almost two years ago. I really enjoyed it. I made the most amazing pumpkin cake from Ben's blog. More than the actual act of recreating a dish, I enjoyed going through the blog in detail. So, when I decided to participate in the same event this time around, I was paired with Vanilla Strawberry Springfields. Everytime I went to her blog, I got lost. One visit there and you will know why.

I dragged my feet on this event and suddenly I remembered that the last day for the event was round the corner. I went to the blog once again and I was, at the same time, wondering what to make for lunch. The very first post on her blog that day caught my eye. I had almost everything the recipe called for and this recipe called out to me. Without further ado, I bring to you Stir Fried Mushrooms with Pasta.

It is a keeper recipe and everything comes together rather quickly.

100g Spaghetti, prepared according to instructions on the pack

200g Mushrooms, sliced

1 cup Spinach, roughly chopped

1 cup Spring Onions, chopped (whites and greens)

1 cup Capsicum, sliced (I used red, yellow and green)

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Groundnut Oil

1 tsp Garlic paste

1 tsp Soya sauce

1 tsp Chilli Sauce

1 tsp Sugar

Salt to taste

Heat the olive oil and fry the spring onion whites and garlic paste. Add the mushrooms and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the capsicum and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the groundnut oil and the spinach and cook until the spinach wilts. Add the spring onion greens along with the soya and chilli sauces, sugar and salt.

Serve over a bed of spaghetti. See, I told you. It doesn't get much easier than this. A wholesome meal is ready in minutes.

Super Moist Spiced Chocolate and Beetroot Mini Muffins

Good things come in small packages!

That is how I feel about the year that just went by. It was one of those years when nothing "big" happened. But, all the same, it will be remembered as the year with a lot of "small" events, the sumtotal of which is bigger than any "big" event. It has been a year well spent, surrounded by friends and family right from the word go. We started the year with a long drive and will be ending it with yet another. There were several memorable trips in 2009. Karnal, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Shekhawati, Kasauli, Allahabad and Varanasi. I also made one trip to Chennai in the middle of summer, while S went to Hyderebad at the same time. We traveled to Mumbai to attend the 5th birthday of my niece. We'll end the year with a drive to Mussoorie and ring in the new year in the company of our closest friends. In 2009, my parents visited us twice and my brother also made two trips. We've hosted the maximum number of parties/informal get togethers in 2009. We hosted the karaoke show on weekends, something we both love doing. I got my first payment from Foodbuzz and will soon receive my very first payment from Adsense. It will be remembered as the year in which I closed my housing loan entirely. It will also be the year in which I walked on hot burning coals for the very first time. The year in which I hit 500 posts on this blog.

Little drops of water

Little grains of sand

Make the mighty ocean

And the pleasant land

This is very true and has been my motto all along. And something tells me that that must have been the inspiration behind the invention of the mini muffin pan. I end this year with these little beauties. Perfect for a little burst of happiness on an otherwise dull day.

1 1/2 cups Flour

1/3 cup Cocoa Powder

3 tsp Baking Powder

1 cup Sugar

a Pinch Salt

1/2 cup Oil

2 Eggs

1 cup Milk

1 cup Grated Beetroot

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Allspice

Icing Sugar to decorate

Sift all the dry ingredients for the muffins together into a food processor jar with the dough blade. Pour in all the liquid ingredients and run the processor for 2 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Prepare the mini muffin pans by lining them with paper muffin cases or spraying them with baking spray.

Stir the grated beetroot into the batter and pour into the prepared muffin cases. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Dust with icing sugar.

I hope that all of you had a good 2009. And I hope that you have chosen to dwell on the good more than on the not so good. Life is what we make it and memories are almost always what we choose to remember. Let us remember all the good that 2009 brought us, all the big and small pieces of happiness. And let us wish that 2010 turns out to be a better year. In every way.

Here's to lots of good health and happiness. May you be surrounded by friends, family and everyone and everything you hold dear. That is my New Year Wish for you and yours. Happy New Year 2010!

Macaroni with Tomato-Ricotta Cheese Sauce

When my parents spent a month with us, I realized that I barely cooked. I seemed to cook lunch for S and myself, but Amma took care of almost everything else. One weekend, I decided to drag my lazy self into the kitchen and cook a meal. I wasn't donning the chef's hat yet, so I wanted to be out of the kitchen as soon as possible. So, pasta it was. I got a lot of appreciation for a lunch that involved emptying different cartons/bottles from the refrigerator. Now, who can complain?

2 cups Macaroni, prepared as per the instructions on the pack.

1 cup Pizza Sauce (I used American Garden)

3/4 cup Ricotta Cheese

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Garlic Paste

1 tsp Parsley

1 tsp Basil

1 tsp Oregano

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the oil. Add the garlic paste and fry for a minute. Add the pizza sauce, parsley, basil and oregao and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the salt and cook for a minute. Crumble the ricotta cheese into the sauce and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Season with pepper and pour the sauce over the macaroni.

Enjoy this with some Garlic Bread or Garlic Toast. And wait for the compliments to come pouring in.