Pasta Salad

Winter is in the breeze..... a refreshing change for us who have been used to a warm/hot/hotter climate all these years. It is our first Delhi/Gurgaon winter. Winter in Delhi as I am soon getting to realize means much more than woollies. For foodies it means an entirely new range of food options to choose from. There is of course the Makki di roti and sarson da saag( much hyped in my opinion though every true blue Punjabi claims I have not sampled the stuff at the right place, read his Mom's cooking) then there are the seasonal vegetables like gobhi, matar, moolis( push cart sellers selling only mooli) that have started making an appearance at every nook and corner. Dry fruits gifted generously to each other during Diwali are consumed through the winter months and so are the gajaks( had some melt in the mouth gajaks at Gopals, a small sweet/fast food shop at Patiala), gud channa, gud badam( chikkis to the rest of the country), rewris etc. Comfort food literally as they supposedly keep you warm.

Now why am I writing all this in a blog titled " Pasta Salad". Well I am not much of a pasta fan( typically find it too heavy, chewy and starchy) but a handful of boiled pasta tossed into a salad adds colour, body and taste. Goes very well with all the tender winter vegetables that have just hit the markets. Now you know why the long preamble.

Here is a very simple salad which both looks and tastes delicious.

Ingredients

Tri colour spiral pasta( I use the Delmonte ones): 1/2 a cup

Chopped garlic( I use loads of garlic, love the flavor)

Quartered Mushrooms: 200 grams( typically one box or packet is 200 grams)

Baby corn halved or quartered( In winter switch to baby corn as they are really tender, for the rest of the year I would recommend you go with American sweet corn)

Carrots/French beans/Peas: About half a cup of each

Spinach

Capsicum: Red and Yellow( about quarter of each, cut into small square pieces)

For the Dressing

Salt

Oregano( try the Rupak Oregano dressing, widely available in Delhi, it contains other spices like Carway seeds etc.)

Olive oil( again I use the Delmonte brand, way more economical, :-))

Lime juice: 2 tbsp

Method:

Boil the carrots, peas and beans.

Saute the mushrooms in olive oil, Saute the spinach in olive oil( do this separately).

Then assemble all the veggies, add in the boiled pasta. Prepare a dressing of lime juice, olive oil and oregano.

Mix the dressing with the veggies and toss well. Allow the salad to stand for a while and then serve

This can be a meal by itself or serve it with garlic bread or soup or both.

Cheat tip: I usually cook vast quantities of spinach with olive oil, garlic and salt. Refrigerate. Then add it to salads, omelettes, curries and even to atta dough. Saves me the trouble of cleaning, chopping and cooking it each time

Peanut dip

Momos seem to have replaced chats. You see them at all street corners: veg/non veg, schezwan/ manchurian( I am sure we shall have the desi tikka version shortly), branded( Yo Dimsum!)/unbranded etc.. They are immensely popular to say the least and make for a very convenient and healthy( relatively compared to the other deep fried counterparts) starter option. Though I feel a bit like the classic " lazy housewife" who served plain Maggi and in my attempt to be different/feel involved I try and innovate with at least the dip.
Here is a dip that gets done in a jiffy and seems popular with my guests.
Take a dollop of peanut butter(I use Sunfeast crunchy peanut butter) in a microwaveable dish, add about a tbsp of water to it and microwave on high for about 30 second. Remove from the microwave, add some soya sauce and red chilli paste( even the regular chilli sauce will do) and mix well. Serve with hot steamed momos. This spicy dip with the peanut flavoring goes well with the otherwise bland momos. It is also a little different from most other dips that are either hung curd(refer my earlier blog on dips) or mayonnaise based.
Happy Eating!
P.S:In the last few weeks I happened to travel to Amritsar. The must eats include Kulchas at Bhaiyon da Dhabba and Phirni at Bhrawan da dhabba.

Simbalee Chickun

Looks like I am on the quest of "ek se anek". Same basic ingredients but wide variety of end products.
As with Dahi/Hung curd( refer earlier post), Chicken also lends itself to numerous preparations yes, even with the same ingredients like tamatar, pyaaz. Ever wondered why the dahi chicken that you make tastes so very different from your friends?
Whenever I think I have mastered all the possible ways of making chicken I discover yet another new way of making it with almost the same ingredients, with only a slight shift in that fine balance of ingredients.

The one I reproduce below is really quick and easy to prepare. Very few ingredients, very little chopping and unless you look closely the ingredients and the method sounds deceptively similar to the way most of us cook our chicken. But the elaichi powder( an unusual ingredient in non-vegetarin cooking, usually added either as mixed garam masala or as a whole spice) gives it a nice aroma, subtle flavor and authentic taste.

Elaichi Murg( A Sindhi Dish)

Ingredients
500 grams of chicken
1 finely chopped onion( though I tend to use two)
1 finely chopped tomato
Elaichi powder( freshly pounded): 1 tsp
Garam Masala: 1 tsp
Salt and Pepper to taste
Oil: 1 tsp( if making on a non-stick, can avoid the oil completely)

Method

• Heat a non-stick pan and add a tsp of oil, add the onion and fry till they brown
• Next add the chicken, salt and pepper and mix well.
• Add the tomatoes, 1/2 tsp elaichi powder and garam masala. Cover and cook for close to 10/15 minutes on low heat
• Remove the lid( chicken would have left a lot of water), increase the heat and dry the dish( if you plan to have this with rotis as I did then I would suggest you leave a little bit of the water as gravy), sprinkle the remaining elaichi powder.
• Serve hot.

Suggested accompaniment: Vegetable Pulao and Palak Raita. Goes equally well with rotis.

Of Starters and Dips....

As I have mentioned in a couple of my earlier posts, I dig starters and dips. There is something about those little nibbles, arranged daintily on toothpicks around the plate...picked up gently, twirled around in the dip and popped into the mouth...all the stages quite like a choreographed orchestra resulting in a gastronomical crescendo.

What is also amazing is that innumerable dips can be produced from some fairly basic and common place ingredients. My all time favorite is using hung curd/dahi as the base. I have tried several variations of it, mixed and matched the accompaniments. The result never fails to delight.

I share below some of the dips that I have tried in the recent past are:

• Strawberry dip: Add pureed strawberry, black salt and a wee bit of sugar to hung curd, garnish with mint. Goes well with Salted Biscuits
• Palak dip: Had this at a friend's place. Pureed and cooked spinach is added to hung curd. Add chat masala, bhuna jeera and salt to taste. She had served it with wafer( basic salted ones). Add some boiled american sweet corn, a dash of cheese and it would form a good canape topping
• Mustard dip: Grind mustard, green chillies and a few pods of garlic to a fine paste. Add about a tablespoon of this to hung curd, add sugar( 1/4th of a tsp) and salt. I serve this with mustard potato( marinate boiled potato in a mustard curd marinade for a few hours, saute and serve along with the mustard dip). This dip would also go well as a topping for potato roundels, salted wafers, grilled prawns( lime juice, salt and pepper marinade) etc.
• Basic hung curd dip: Add finely chopped garlic, finely chopped onions, finely chopped green chillies, sugar, salt, lime juice and pepper. This is typically seved with cucumber with skin/carrots or with sauted vegetables like mushroom, broccoli, carrots and beans.
• Mango dip: I have made this with mayonnaise but I think it would do equally well with a hung curd base. Puree together two medium sized ripe mangoes, quarter cup of hung curd, quarter cup of chopped mint leaves, two tablespoons of pine nuts( expensive as an ingredient but add body to the dip and loads of taste). Then add salt and pepper to taste. You could serve this either on Krackjack/50-50 kind of bicuits or with cold cuts.
• Mooli/Raddish Dip: Mooli Raitas are common, in fact a favorite of Lord Jagannath too( the original recipe being replaced by more fancier versions), this dip is actually an extension of the same. To hung curd add grated Mooli, Kashmiri red chilli powder, about a teaspoon full of Shah Jeera, salt to taste and you are done. Mooli has a strong, pungent taste so maybe one could use a combination of Mooli and gajar( carrots), would look more colourful too.

The best part about the dips is that you can serve them separately with the starters, use them as toppings, as fillings for salami/bread rolls, as sandwich spreads, even as a main course accompaniment with grilled chicken. So it is Dip! Dip! Dip! all the way....