Stir fry and juice are the two things I used to make with beetroot. The other day, while thinking of some new ways to cook beetroot, I came up with this recipe. As soon as I tasted it, I heard a round of applause by my taste buds. There is no doubt that I’ll be sticking with this recipe for a very long time, I mean really long.

Beetroot Chutney

Ingredients:

To Grind:

• Beet root- 2 small
• Ginger, chopped- 1 inch
• Green chilly- 1
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful
• Salt- 2 pinches

Seasoning:

• Oil- 1 tbsp
• Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
• Chana dal- 1 tsp
• Urad dal- 1 tsp
• Dry red whole chilly- 2
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Tamarind juice- 2 inch fresh tamarind soaked in 3 tbsp water
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• Grind the above mentioned to grind ingredients into a smooth paste.

• Heat a wide pan over medium heat, add oil.
• Add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
• First add the chana dal, stir constantly and let it turn golden.
• Immediately add urad dal and keep stiring, don’t burn the dal.
• Add dry red chilly and curry leaves, saute for two seconds.
• Pour the ground beetroot and combine well.
• Strain the juice from the fresh tamarind and pour it to the beetroot.
• Combine everything well and let it cook for few minutes.

• If the mixture is getting dry, you could add little water to it and cook it.
• Taste it and add salt if needed.
• Remove from the stove and transfer into a serving bowl.
• This will in fact make a great side dish for rice, dosa, Idli, chapati etc.

I had way too many leftover veggies in my fridge and it was last night that I finally  made up my mind to empty at least some of them. And I did succeed in it by making few veggie dishes, out of which this hearty veggie sauce I had made turned out to be a great sauce to top the spaghetti. And the best part is even my hard core non-veg hubby approved this dish.

Spaghetti in a hearty Veggie sauce

For making the Veggie Sauce:

• Olive oil- 1 tbsp
• Red onion, chopped small- 1
• Green pepper, chopped- 1
• Japanese Egg plant, sliced small- 1
• Zucchini, sliced- 1
• Scallions, chopped- 1 handful
• Garlic, minced- 2 cloves
• Rosemary- 1 sprig
• Basil, dried leaves- 2 tsp
• Tomato sauce- 2 cans (7.5 oz each)

Preparation:

• First, slice all the veggies and keep aside.
• Heat a wide pan over medium heat and add the olive oil.
• Add the chopped onions and saute for a minute.
• Add the minced garlic to the onions and saute.
• Now, add all the other veggies: green pepper, egg plants, zucchini, scallions along with the rosemary sprig and close the pan with its lid.

• After the veggies turn tender, add the tomato sauce and the dried basil leaves.
• Let the sauce come to a boil.

• Turn off the heat and let the sauce cool off.

Making the Spaghetti:

• Boil water in a large wide pan, add lil salt to it.
• When the water comes to a rolling boil put the spaghetti into the water and cook until it turns tender about 10-15 minutes.
• Drain the water from the spaghetti, pour lil olive oil over the spaghetti and toss it.

Plating:

• On a plate, place as much as spaghetti as you want, top it with the prepared veggie sauce and sprinkle grated parmesan cheese over it.
• Enjoy your spaghetti with this hearty veggie sauce.

Tips:

• You could make this sauce ahead of time and refrigerate it in a container.

Being born and brought up in Kerala (a state in India), Onam is a festival which is very close to my heart. Onam brings back lots of beautiful memories: beginning with the 10 days holidays which I used to get while in school, followed by the endless fun and celebration I had with my friends and family and of course the grant Onam meal which is called the ‘Sadya’.

One of the major attractions of Onam is the Sadya which is prepared in almost all houses. ‘Sadya’ means ‘Banquet’ in Malayalam (Official language of Kerala). Sadya is not the name of one dish, it’s a grant feast involving many vegetarian dishes, it could range from 15 to 24 or more dishes.

On behalf of Onam I am reposting the Sadya dishes.

Onam Sadya : Click on the names of each dishes to view the recipe

Main Dishes:

• Kerala’s traditional Kuthari Rice:

• Parippu or lentil curry

• Sambar (mixed veggie curry)

• Rasam

Side dishes:

• Vendakka Pachadi or Okra in Yogurt sauce

• Beet root Pachadi or Beet root in Yogurt sauce

• Mambazha pulissery or Mango in Yogurt sauce

• Kalan

• Olan

• Mixed veggie Thoran

• Avial

Pickles

• Ingi Puli (Ginger-Tamarind pickle)

• Mango Pickle

Snacks

• Plantain chips
• Upperi (Fried plantain dipped in jaggery syrup)

• Pappadam or Indian wafers

Dessert

• Semiya Payasam or Vermicelli Payasam

Happy Onam!

I’ve always loved participating in this joust which makes me think and cook something out of the box, each time with different ingredients. When I found out that the joust is back after a short break I felt quite thrilled. It’s obvious from the name of this post that the two of the ingredients for this joust are spinach and cheese. And the third ingredient is egg. I screamed out of joy seeing these ingredients for this month’s joust, as this time I don’t have to do any special shopping. I felt I had so many ways to combine these simple ingredients, but when it came to real cooking I felt quite challenged.

As one of the ingredients is egg, first thought that hit me was to combine everything and make an omelet, that would be the easiest dish I could ever make with these ingredients. On second thought, I felt this is a joust and I’ve to be creative and should come up with something unusual.

While peeping into my freezer I came across puff pastry sheets and I grabbed them out as the first step. I got inspired by the recipe given on the pepperidge farm puff pastry box which called for spinach, eggs and cheese. I made few changes and made my own spinach cheese rolls. I’ve been a puff pastry lover ever since I was a kid. When it was stuffed with spinach and cheese it tasted even more delicious. It’s crispy, crunchy and makes a perfect evening snack or for brunch.

If you are looking for a sweet puff pastry recipe, here you go: Sweet Puff Pastry

I am off to India for a two months vacation. I can’t wait to spend time with my wonderful family and my cute niece. So in India it’s going to be “cooking with my mom” for the next two months. Well, this is so not true, it’s going to be “Thas gobbling up mom’s yummy food”. Whenever I get a chance I’ll post more recipes from India. Till then, everyone have fun cooking and baking!

Spinach Cheese Rolls

Ingredients

• Puff Pastry sheet- 1
• Egg- 1
• Ground cinnamon- 1/4 tsp
• Grated Parmesan cheese- 1/2 cup
• Raisins or dried cranberries(optional)- 2 tbsp
• Spinach, frozen or fresh- 1/2 bag

Preparation:

• If you are using frozen puff pastry sheet, thaw the sheet at room temperature for about 30 minutes or so.
• Preheat oven to 400 F.
• Lightly grease 2 baking sheets.
• Beat egg and ground cinnamon using a hand whisk and keep aside.

• If using frozen spinach, thaw and drain it well.
• If using fresh spinach, rinse it under running water and pat dry it.
• Place the puff pastry sheet on a floured surface.

• Brush the top of the sheet with egg and cinnamon mixture.

• Top with grated parmesan cheese.

• Spread spinach and raisin over the cheese layer.

• Roll up the puff pastry sheet.

• Cut the roll into 1/2 inch slices.

• Arrange the slices on the baking sheets.

• Brush the slices with egg mixture.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

• Flip the rolls to the other side and bake for another 3-5 minutes, make sure not to burn the rolls.
• Serve immediately while it’s warm.

The name of this vegetable says it all, it’s terribly bitter. Don’t even think of eating this vegetable raw, you will need lots of sugar than you think to have your mouth back to normal. However, this bitter vegetable is packed with amazing nutrients and is excellent for diabetic patients. Juice of bitter gourd has been used as a home remedy for many diseases.

If you are diabetic, you should seriously consider including bitter gourd in your diet as bitter Gourd contains a hypoglycemic compound that helps in lowering the sugar levels in blood and urine. The most effective way is to drink bitter gourd juice in the morning on empty stomach to keep the diabetes in control. I know it sucks, but you have to do it for the sake of your health.

Bitter gourd is widely available in India. It is used in Indian cooking a lot regardless of its bitterness just for the nutrients it has. When my mom makes bitter gourd at home, she used to cook in such a way that the bitterness of this vegetable was covered by adding tamarind juice and jaggery to it.

The amazing thing about this dish is that you get to enjoy all possible tastes from this dish: bitterness, sweetness, tanginess and spiciness.

Bitter Gourd Roast: the way my mom makes it

Ingredients:

• Mustard seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Onions, chopped- 2 small
• Tomato, chopped- 2 small
• Bitter gourd, chopped, deseeded- 2
• Chilly powder- 2 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Cumin powder- 1 tsp
• Coriander powder- 1 tsp
• Tamarind juice, fresh- 3 tbsp, soak a golf size tamarind in 1/4 cup warm water
• Jaggery or brown sugar- 1 tbsp
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 1 tbsp

Preparation:

• If using fresh tamarind juice: soak a golf size tamarind in 1/4 cup warm water, mash the tamarind in water to get the juice out of it using your fingers. Strain the juice from the seeds and skin.
• Heat a wide pan over medium heat, add the oil and add mustard seeds, let it splutter.
• Add the onions along with little salt and saute till tender.
• Add the curry leaves to the onions.
• Add the tomatoes and cook till it turns mashed.

• Now, add the chopped bitter gourd and cook covered till the bitter gourd turns tender.

• After the bitter gourd turns tender, add chilly powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and coriander powder.
• Saute, add the tamarind juice and jaggery or brown sugar to the cooked bitter gourd.
• Cover the pan and cook for another 10-15 minutes by adding little water to it to prevent the roast from burning.

• Taste it and add more jaggery or brown sugar, tamarind juice if you need.
• Combine everything and when all the water has evaporated, transfer to a serving bowl.

• This could be served as a side dish along with plain rice or rotis.

Note:

• If you are using concentrated tamarind paste, don’t add 3tbsp of it, use less may be 1/2-1 tsp or according to your needs.

Tips:

• Bitter gourd is available in almost all Indian stores, if not fresh you could find frozen ones.
• Remove the seeds from the bitter gourd and chop it.
• This dish is not completely bitter free.
• Jaggery or brown sugar and tamarind juice will give a sweet and tangy taste to this dish.

This vegetable ooops I just found that eggplant is actually a fruit but treated as a vegetable. Yay, I learned something new today. This fruit is known in different names: Eggplant in Europe and the US, Brinjal in India, Aubergine or Melangene. It’s also found in different shape, size and color: light purple, dark purple or white. I haven’t tasted the white eggplants yet, but the light purple and the dark purple varieties taste almost the same. In India small light purple varieties are common, but in the US dark purple large eggplants are common and I have even seen long skinny purple varieties in some Asian markets.

I love the soft and mushy constituency of the cooked eggplants. I often grill eggplants, make eggplant rice, often make Kerala style eggplant in coconut curry sauce. Besides these, I haven’t tried anything fancy with them. I was aware that I could make stuffed eggplants, but somehow I kept delaying it. Last weekend, I saw small baby eggplants in an Indian store and couldn’t resist buying them. Making stuffed eggplants had been in my mind ever since I bought them and I finally made it for dinner tonight.

While searching for stuffed eggplant recipes, I bumped into many websites and food blog which has the step-by-step recipe for cooking stuffed eggplant. Among them, I loved the recipe and the beautiful demonstration given in choosy-beggars.com, the incredible food blog by Tina and Mike. I made a few changes in the amount of the ingredients used and also added an extra seasoning at the end.

One thing I can say without a second thought is that even the die hard meat eaters would fall for this vegetarian delicacy. It was aromatic, the thick gravy tasted delicious along with the eggplants.

This is an authentic Maharashtrian dish.

Stuffed Eggplants or Bharvaan Baingan( Authentic Maharashtrian dish)

Ingredients:

• Baby eggplants or brinjal, whole- 10-12

For making the Paste:

• Oil- 2tbsp for sauteing onion+2tbsp while cooking eggplants
• Cumin seeds- 1tsp
• Fennel seeds- 1tsp
• Fenugreek seeds- 1tsp
• Onion, diced small- 1
• Garlic, minced- 1tsp
• Ginger, minced-1 tsp
• Crushed red pepper flakes- 1 tsp
• Dried Fenugreek leaves or kasuri Methi- 1 tbsp
• Tamarind paste- 2tbsp
• Coconut grated, fresh or frozen- 3/4 cup
• Coriander powder- 2 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Chilly powder- 2 tsp or depending upon your spice.
• Garam masala- 1tsp
• Brown sugar or Jagerry- 1.5 tbsp
• Salt- to taste
• Water- 2 cups + 3 tbsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful

Preparation:

Tamarind Paste:

• If using fresh tamarind, soak golf size tamarind in 3-4 tbsp warm water and squeeze it using your fingers till all the juice comes out of the tamarind, strain the juice and keep  aside.

How to make slits on the eggplants:

• Wash the eggplants under running water and pat dry it.

• Gently trim the green leaves near the stem, keeping the stalk of the stem in place.

• Using a sharp knife, carefully cut the eggplant vertically from the side opposite to the stem until you are about 1/4 inch from the stem.

• Make a cut on the other side too, so that there are 4 slits on the eggplant.
• Be careful not to cut the stem, so that the eggplant will stay in place without falling apart.

Preparation of the stuffing:

• Heat a pan over medium heat, add 2 tbsp oil.
• Add cumin seeds, fennel seeds and fenugreek seeds and saute till it starts to turn golden brown (don’t burn them).
• Add onion, and little salt and saute till onion turns tender.

• To the onion, add ginger, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, dried fenugreek leaves and saute till everything turns light golden brown.

• Remove from the flame and let cool down.

Making the paste:

• In a food processor, grind together grated coconut, coriander powder, turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala, brown sugar, tamarind paste and the sauteed onion along with 3-4tbsp of water to a thick smooth paste.

How to stuff the eggplants:

• Gently, stuff the paste into the slit made on the eggplants.

• While, stuffing open the slits gently with fingers so that the stuffing goes inside and remains intact.
• Don’t open it too wide as it might break apart.
• After stuffing the eggplants, there will be still paste remaining.
• Combine the remaining paste with 2 cups of water and stir well.

Preparation of stuffed eggplant:

• Heat a wide non-stick pan over medium heat and add 2 tbsp oil.
• Place the stuffed eggplants on the oil without crowding them.

• Let the eggplants sizzle for 30 seconds, flip to the other side and let that side sizzle.
• When the skin of the eggplants turn light brown, pour the paste mixed with water and little salt over the eggplants.

• Cook the eggplants after covering the pan with its lid for about 20-25 minutes.
• Remove the lid and combine everything gently and cook uncovered for 15 minutes.

• At this point, you could pour the thick gravy over the eggplants periodically as it cooks.
• Cook till the eggplants turn tender and soft.
• Garnish with cilantro and combine it.

• Let the gravy thicken and turn slightly browned.

• Remove from the flame and keep aside covered.

Seasoning the stuffed eggplants( Optional)

• At the end I added a seasoning to the cooked stuffed eggplants. You could avoid this step if you want. This seasoning will give nice aroma and extra flavor to this dish.

Ingredients:

• Mustard seeds- 1tsp
• Whole dry red chilly- 2
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Oil- 1tbsp

Preparation:

• Heat a small pan, add oil.
• Add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
• Add whole dry red chillies and curry leaves and saute for less than a second.

• Immediately, pour this on to the cooked stuffed eggplant.

• Cover the dish and let stand for 10 minutes so that the flavor gets into the eggplants.
• Serve this with plain rice, naan or chapathis.

Note: I used light brown sugar that might be the reason why my gravy has a light color. If you use jagerry or brown sugar your gravy would have a dark brown color.

What would you like to have: sandwich, cutlets or both???…

Need a break from the usual chicken or turkey or beef sandwich? Try this protein rich and healthy vegetarian sandwich. It’s good to be a vegetarian at least once in a while.

Yesterday, after a heavy Easter lunch, one thing I was damn sure about was skipping the dinner. To burn all the calories, in the evening my husband and I went for power walking and running over the Pedestrian bridge. It was such a beautiful evening and we ran and walked for almost 2 hours. We felt really healthy and revitalized. As I had burned some calories, I felt I should have a simple salad for dinner. But, when I entered into my kitchen, I got attracted to the chickpea cans in my pantry. I couldn’t resist the chick peas, and ended up making a cutlet out of chickpeas and spinach. I just blindly added few ingredients and was pretty impressed by the outcome. I made a sandwich with this cutlet, also ate couple of the cutlets just as it was.

I had some leftover mashed potatoes from Saturday’s BBQ party, hence I smeared the sandwich bread with the leftover mashed potatoes. Placed the Chickpea and Spinach Cutlet between the breads and the next thing I did was open my mouth wide and took a huge bite of the sandwich.

Chickpea-Spinach Sandwich and Cutlets

Ingredients:

• Chickpeas, canned- 1 can
• Scallions, chopped- 1/4 cup
• Spinach, fresh, rinsed- 1 cup
• Cumin powder- 1 tsp
• Chilly powder- 3/4 tsp
• Bread crumbs- 1/4 cup
• Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Salt- to taste
• Yogurt, fat-free, thick- 2 tbsp

Preparation:

• Rinse the canned chickpeas under running water.

• Place the chickpeas, scallions, cumin powder, chilly powder, ground pepper and salt in a blender or food processor and coarsely ground it.

• Transfer the ground mixture into a bowl.

• Also, coarsely ground fresh spinach leaves separately.

• Combine the ground chickpeas with the coarsely ground spinach.

• Add the bread crumbs and yogurt to the mixture and combine well.
• Taste it and adjust the spice and salt according to your needs.
• Make medium sized patties out of the ground mixture.

• Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat, spray the pan with olive oil cooking spray.

• Place the patties on the pan and cook both sides until it’s browned.

• If the patties are too moist, add more of the bread crumbs to make it less moist.

Building the sandwich:

• Toast the sandwich breads. I used Deli swirl rye and pump breads.

• Smear the breads with mayonnaise. I smeared with mashed potatoes.

• Place the chickpea and spinach cutlet between the breads, also place few spinach leaves on the bread and close the breads.

• Next, open up your mouth and have a huge bite of this healthy sandwich.

Tips:

• Don’t make the chickpea-spinach mixture too moist, add more of the bread crumbs if it’s moist.
• You could substitute an egg for yogurt.
• Enjoy the cutlets with tomato ketchup.

This tropical fruit is abundantly found in Kerala, India. There are couple of papaya trees in the backyard of my Kerala house. Due to the tropical weather in Kerala, it grows almost everywhere and the they don’t need any special pampering or care for its growth. It just grows like a weed. I am quite embarrassed to say that I had ignored this fruit while growing up. For some reason, I couldn’t stand the smell of ripe papaya. We never had to buy papaya from any stores, we just had to pluck it from the trees standing in the backyard. May be this could be the reason why I didn’t give much importance to this fruit; the more I had it, the more I ignored it. But, things got changed when I started living in a country where finding papaya is once in a blue moon thing and frequent buying of papayas will put a hole in the wallet Apparently, papaya is one of the expensive fruits here and it never tasted any closer to those papaya plucked from the backyard of my kerala house. In the US, you could see papaya trees in Hawaii and Florida. When I had visited Hawaii, this was the one fruit that I had gobbled from the fruit bars of all the restaurants I had dined.

After knowing about the amazing health benefits of papaya, how I wish I could grow papaya trees in my backyard, sigh…

Health benefits: (www.traditionaloven.com)

• Increases quality of proteins in whole organism.
• Revitalise the human body and maintain energy and vitality.
• Encourages the renewal of muscle tissue.
• Supports cardiovascular system.
• Boosts up the immune system.
• Helps with the digestive system, by breaking down the proteins and supporting production of digestive enzymes.
• Papaya can be use also externally as a treatment for skin wounds that don’t heal quickly, for this you can use papaya peel or ointments made out of papaya.
• Prevents the cataract formation.
• Due to high vitamin A, it lowers the risk of emphysema in smokers and passive smokers.
• Alleviates inflammation.
• Helps with the nausea and constipation.
• Can benefit people suffering colon cancer and other forms of cancers and aliments of cardiovascular and gastroitestinal systems.

Papaya Milkshake

Ingredients:

• Papaya, ripe, diced- 1/2 papaya
• Milk, skim milk- 2 cups
• Sugar or honey- 2-3 tbsp

Preparation:

• Wash the ripe papaya under running water.
• Cut it into half, peel off the skin and remove the seeds from it.

• Cut the papaya into small cubes.
• Put diced papaya, milk, sugar or honey in the blender and blend it into smooth milkshake.

• Pour this into a milkshake glass and enjoy.

If you are in south India and if you haven’t tried Dosa, you sure is missing the most popular veggie delight. I don’t think anyone can ever miss this as this is seen on the menu of almost all South Indian restaurants. They even have a separate menu for dosas and when you go through it, you would get pretty confused on which one to pick. Some of the common varieties are Plain dosa, Rocket dosa, Masala dosa, Butter dosa, Paper dosa, Onion dosa, Open dosa, Mysore masala dosa etc. I could go on and on…

I still remember the first time I had Rocket dosa, when I was 8 years old at my favorite Arul Jyothi restaurant in Trivandrum, kerala. When the waiter heard my order, he actually stared at me for a while. I felt quite weird about his staring. But, when the rocket dosa was placed in front of me, first thing that came out of my mouth was: Oh My God! I literally looked around embarrassed and almost everyone in that restaurant stared at me astonishingly. Just as the name rocket, that dosa was around 5 feet long, not to forget this was ordered by an 8 year old. While ordering it, I had no idea how it would look and never thought it would be this huge. My parents started to laugh seeing my embarrassed expression on my face. Soon I overcame my embarrassment and started to dig in. I couldn’t even eat half of that dosa, let alone finishing it. It’s been several years yet the taste of that dosa still lingers in my mouth, it was crispy, thin like a paper, crunchy and absolutely delicious.

What is Dosa?

Dosa is a crepe made from rice and black lentils. This is the popular breakfast served in most of the houses in south India.

Dosa is made rather small in houses. But in restaurants they make it huge and paper thin with different stuffings inside it. I am still unsure about how they make super crispy and super thin in restaurants. It seems it’s a secret known just to them. I need to bribe a South Indian chef to reveal this secret of making crispy dosas

Hot dosas with chutney or sambar along with filtered coffee, Gosh! even the mere thought of it makes my mouth flood like crazy.

I don’t make this quite often, hence on the days I make dosa, I devour it until my stomach can hold any further. My favorite way of having dosa is with Tomato chutney, which my aunt used to make often.

Tomato Chutney:

• Recipe courtesy-My dear Aunt

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes, chopped – 4 nos
• Small onion, chopped – 10 nos
• Garlic, minced – 1tsp
• Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
• Chilly powder – 3/4 tsp
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – 2 tsp

For seasoning:

• Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
• Dry Red whole chilly – 2
• Curry leaves – 4 – 5 nos
• Oil – 1 tsp

Preparation:

• Heat oil on a wide pan, add onion and saute till tender.
• Add the tomatoes, cumin seeds, garlic, chilly powder, salt and saute until the tomatoes get mashed up.

• Remove from the flame and let cool down slightly.
• Grind this to a smooth paste and pour it into a bowl.

• In the same pan, heat 1tsp oil, splutter mustard seeds, add dry red whole chilly and curry leaves to it.
• Remove from the flame and pour this seasoning over the tomato chutney.
• You could even sprinkle chopped cilantro over it.

Dosa:

Ingredients:

• Raw Rice, ponni rice or sonamassori rice- 2 cups
• Black lentil or Urad dal- 1cup
• Chana dal- 1/4 cup
• Fenugreek seeds- 2 tsp
• Water- enough to make the batter
• Ghee

Making the Dosa batter:

• Wash the rice, lentil and chana dal well.
• Soak rice, lentil, chana dal and fenugreek seeds in water for about 6 hours or overnight.
• Drain all the water from the rice and lentils and grind it to a smooth paste by adding little water to it.

• Pour the thick batter into a large bowl and add enough water to thin it down.

• Keep the batter aside in a warm place and allow it to ferment, which will take 6 hours or so.
• During summer the batter will ferment faster, so you could keep it on the kitchen counter top.
• During winter it takes a long time, so keep the bowl with the batter inside the oven this will speed up the fermentation.

Making Dosa:

• After the batter has fermented, take as much as batter as you want in a separate bowl and refrigerate the rest which will last for few weeks.

• Add little salt to the batter and combine well.
• Heat a non-stick pan or cast iron over medium high heat.
• Spread little ghee on the pan.
• Fill the ladle with dosa batter and gently pour the batter onto the center of the pan till the ladle is empty.

• Now begin to spread the batter in circular motion till it forms a thin round shape.

• The dosa will start to develop tiny holes at this time.
• Drizzle little ghee over the dosa and lift the pan and swirl so that the ghee will spread all over the dosa.
• When the top part looks cooked, flip it to the other side.

• The bottom part will have a golden brown color and let the both sides turn light golden brown.
• Remove from the pan and keep aside.

For making Tomato Dosa:

• Spread the prepared tomato chutney over each dosa and fold it.

• Serve this with tomato chutney on the side.

Tips:

• Serve dosa while it is hot.
• You could keep the dosa batter in the refrigerator, it will last for few weeks.
• For making crispy dosa: increase the amount of Rice.
• For making soft dosa: increase the amount of Black lentil or Urad dal.
• You could increase the size of the dosa accordingly, for making huge rounded dosa you need huge pans.
• Make dosa on a cast iron, this will give better results.

Plantain flowers, a Kerala veggie delicacy that I used to devour while growing up, that too plucked right from the plantain plant grown in the backyard of my house in kerala…

The scene of plantain flowers or blossoms hanging from the plantain plant is quite common to those living in Kerala. If you are in Kerala, you just have to look around to spot a plantain plant, you could spot not one but many plants standing in a row, soon you will be in the middle of plantain farm. While growing up, seeing a plantain plant or plantain flowers didn’t excite me much, as this was an everyday sight for me. But things got changed after coming to the US. Every time I see plantains in any grocery stores, I get excited. But, when I saw plantain flowers the other day at the Asian supermarket I got super excited and without any second thoughts I snatched one of them.

Lots of sweet childhood memories unwrapped along with this plantain flower…

Almost all parts of the plantain plant are useful in one way or the other. Not just the fruits from the plantain plants are edible, even the flower and the plantain shoots can be turned into delicious dishes. Plantain will fruit only once, so after harvesting the fruit, the plant can be cut and the layers peeled, the inner most white cylindrical shaped shoot is used for making delicious dishes, which has high health benefits. The plantain leaves are also used in preparing fish and other sweet dishes, by wrapping the fish or other ingredients in the leaves and steaming it will give nice aroma and flavor to the dish. Also, fresh plantain leaves are used instead of plates in South India and food is served on that. Leaves are also used as wrappers. Again, the fiber thread like part that comes out of the plant when pulled off is used for tying jasmine flowers and for making garlands, its stronger than the cotton thread.

Plantain flowers or Banana flowers:

The banana flower is a large, dark purple-red blossom that grows from the end of a bunch of bananas. Its sizable bracts, or leaves, snugly enclose delicate, sweetly scented male flowers. The female flowers, which do not require fertilization to become fruit, grow farther up the stem from the male flowers. Once the tougher, darker outer bracts are pulled away, the paler and more tender inner leaves are used in a number of dishes, prepared in a variety of ways: From Wise Geek.

Whenever my mom finds a banana flower, she used to make this stir fry and I loved this. When I saw this flower in the grocery store, I was reminded of the delicious stir fry my mom made and my mouth watered instantly. When I bought this, the only thing that I was aware was that the cleaning was a tedious and time consuming process. I recalled how my mom used to clean this staining her hands, that time I only cared about the tasty dish I would get to gobble, not helping her in anyway. I was a big time slacker then

After coming home, I called the expert, my mom and took notes on how to clean the flower and make the stir fry.

How to clean a banana or plantain flower:

• Wash the whole flower under running water.
• Cleaning the flower will stain your hands, so use kitchen gloves or you could even apply oil on your hands before doing this.
• Peel off the tough red bracts or leaves and save the bunch of florets attached to the top part of the leaves.

• Peel off all the tough red leaves till you reach a point where you can’t peel any more leaves and when you find tender ivory colored inner part in the shape of a bulb.

• You could use the red leaves for presentation, so save them.
• Save the ivory colored inner part of the flower, you are going to chop this finely, no need to separate this bulb as it’s tender.

• You can’t use the florets you saved as it is, you need to remove the stamen, looks like a string which tastes bitter.

• Open up the flower and you could see the stamen with a bulb shaped top, pull that off.

• The florets attached to the outer part of the leaves are quite big, so the stamens are visible and can be removed easily compared to those in the inner part.

• Florets found in the inner part are small, you have to open them gently with your fingers and remove the stamen from them.
• Once you separate the stamen from the florets and the inner tender bulb from the flower, chop these coarsely with a sharp knife and put them into a bowl of water drizzled with lemon juice, this is to prevent the oxidation of the flowers and to prevent them from turning black in color.

• In a fresh banana flower, the florets attached to the outer leaves are white in color, but in not so fresh flowers it would look pale and black, discard those flowers and use only the white colored florets which is found inside.

I know what exactly you might be thinking now, “what a tedious and time consuming process”. I second your thoughts, but for someone like me who grew up eating this and who wants to enjoy the taste of this dish after so many years, could blindly go through this lengthy process. I actually had fun doing this and felt so happy when I made this dish from scratch. If you are someone who wants to try this exotic flower, next time when you see this don’t let go. Follow the instructions and it’s worth making this. This dish is really tasty, packed with many nutrients and great for your health.

What are Plantains?

Plantains are a member of banana family. They are starchy, longer than bananas with thicker skin. Raw plantains are treated like veggies, while ripe plantains can be eaten as it is or used in making many sweet dishes.

Here are some of the sweet dishes you could make with plantain:

Steamed Plantain Cake

Stuffed Plantain Fry

Sweet Plantain Fry

Plantain Pancakes

Plantain Flower Stir Fry: A Kerala veggie delicacy, recipe courtesy: My dear Mom

• Plantain flower, chopped- 1 flower
• Mung bean, cooked- 1 cup
• Mustard seeds- 1tsp
• Chana dal- 1 handful
• Urad dal- 1 handful
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Dry whole red chilly- 3
• Onion, chopped- 1
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 2tbsp

To grind:

• Coconut grated- 1/2 cup
• Cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Garlic, chopped- 1tsp
• Chilly powder- 1/2 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Water- 1 tbsp or so

Preparation:

• Chop the separated floret and the inner ivory colored bulb and put them into a bowl of water drizzled with lemon juice.

• Wash Mung bean taken in a strainer under running water and cook it in a pressure cooker with enough water and salt until it’s cooked well. keep aside.

• In a blender, grind the above mentioned to grind ingredients to a paste.

• Heat oil in a non-stick pan, add mustard seeds and let it splutter, add dry red chilly.
• Then add chana dal and when it turns golden, add urad dal and saute till it turns golden brown.

• Add curry leaves, onions, little salt and saute till onions turn tender.

• Drain the water from the chopped flowers and add to the onions and saute.

• Add little more salt and saute the flowers till it turns tender and cooked.
• At this point, add the cooked, drained mung bean and combine with the cooked flowers.

• Now, add the ground coconut mixture and saute for few minutes.

• Combine everything well and remove from the heat.

• Serve this on the red leaves you have saved from the flower for a fancy plating.

• This makes a perfect side dish for rice or with any other flat breads.

Tips:

• In the US, I’ve seen banana flowers in Asian super markets and in some Indian stores.
• You could find mung bean, chana dal, urad dal in any Indian stores.
• Adding mung bean to this dish makes this even more delicious and rich, so don’t skip this.