Oh! God it is only Thursday!!!!

Today was one of those typical workdays when nothing seemed to go right. To top it there were a whole host of meetings with people driving multiple agendas at the same time. I was happy when the day ended and I was back home. Kids were at play, husband was away and I had the house to myself(more importantly the remote to myself). I pretended to surf and very quickly meandered to the channel showing a cookery show. Yes, cookery shows(like I have said earlier in this blog) are therapeutic, calm the nerves( at least temporarily till the boys get back).While the show was on one of Indian channels with an Indian host it was clearly meant for the western audience. The host( with her typical Brit accent, yes even when she spoke Hindi) took the audience through a subzi mandi and exclaimed at the sight of everyday vegetables like potatoes and onions("In London these would be sold in packs, but here I get to pick and choose", can somebody please tell her that she could do the same in India), wrapped a snake gourd around her neck and thought it was funny. She finally graduated to the actual cooking( some interesting dishes and I was glad I had suffered through the long winded preamble). She made a quick mushroom dish which looked interesting and would be a perfect accompaniment to grilled fish/chicken roast/even rosemary chicken(refer blog)/or even lightly toasted bread. What I especially liked was that dish requires very basic everyday ingredients and is really quick to assemble. For all you who want to eat interesting but healthy food at the end of the day.

Mushroom Quickie(Not sure what the dish was actually called)

Ingredients

Button mushroom: 200 grams, she used them whole though I halved them

Tomato roundels: I love tomatoes and used two large ones, slice them into thin roundels

Olive Oil: 2 tbsps

Mixed herbs: 1 tbsp( I used Oregano and then some Roopak Oregano seasoning with carway seeds)

Method

In an oven proof flat dish layer the mushrooms, then arrange the tomato roundels, sprinkle the mixed herbs and drizzle with Olive oil( be a little generous with the olive oil else the mushrooms will tend to shrivel). Bake/Grill for about 15/20 minutes.

Variations: Could add green peas and/or baby corn. Could also add some finely chopped garlic though that might overpower the wonderful combination of olive oil and herbs. Maybe par-boiled baby potatoes, shallots....mmmmm! next time. The options are never ending. All they need is a creative mind and an experimentative palate.

Thank God It is Friday Tomorrow. Really looking forward to the weekend and to some more good food! Till then Happy Cooking!

Cooking with leftovers

Cooking with leftovers is so much fun. Doesn't the idea of cooking once eating twice sound lovely. Also with most of the preparatory work done it is almost like the chef getting the day off. The chef takes on the role of a magician giving the dish a new texture, form and when it is me even a new (most times an exotic one) name. The second time treats are as tasty if not better than the original. As a child I watched Mama add leftover mutton curry( which in its original form would not have sufficed for a family of five) to Toor daal, chinese noodles stuffed into omelettes, a quick pulao with leftover rice and so on. My grandpa used to make a really flavorsome dish called 'Pish Pash' with leftover rice. I used to think that the old man had been really creative in naming it so till my brother chanced upon the dish in a Dak Bunglow food festival. Then there is a friend who kneads leftover cooked saag into her dough to sneak in the greens. The possibilities are endless. Leftover mushroom baby corn saute can be added on to a green curry to give it a completely new flavor.

Rehashing leftovers gives me an instant high. Leftover keema matar into Keema Khichdi or leftover pasta into a salad. Had cooked traditional mutton curry(refer blog) for dinner last night and made a quick and easy pulao for the kids today.

Mutton Pulao

Ingredients

Leftover mutton curry: You need only a few pieces, reserve a few pieces with bones as that adds to the flavor

Basmati rice: 1 tea cup, suggest you use only Basmati or long grained doon rice for pulaos as they both look and taste better( a more khila khila pulao).

Whole spices: Cinnamon stick( one or two), green cardamom(3/4)

Bay leaves: 1/2( could add it from the mutton curry)

Ghee/oil: 1 tbsp( when I am making it for the kids I usually use ghee)

Onions: 2, finely sliced

Salt: to taste( the mutton has already been cooked with salt so go easy on it)

Process:

• Soak the basmati rice for about a half an hour( you get longer grained rice that way)
• Heat the ghee in the pressure cooker, add whole spices and the sliced onions. Saute for a few minutes
• Drain water from the rice and add to the onion base.
• Next add the mutton pieces and mix well
• Add about half a tsp of salt
• Add 1.5 cups of hot water( do add hot water as it prevents the rice from getting sticky, also helps cook faster).
• Close the lid of the pressure cooker
• Switch off the gas after one whistle and let the cooker cool.
• Serve hot with a raita. I served mine today with a palak raita. Helps balance the meat out.

Palak Raita

Again had made this with some leftover cooked palak. Actually I tend to cook palak the day it is purchased and then add it to various dishes like stir fried veggies or to a pasta salad or like my good friend to atta dough. I even love a palak no spinach omelette( sounds better when you call it spinach omelette)

Ingredients

Palak: One bundle finely chopped

Garlic: 4/5 pods, again finely chopped

Olive oil: 1tbsp( try the Del Monte range, good and economical).

Curd: 1 cup

Sugar: a pinch

Black salt: to taste

Process

• Heat a kadai, add a tbsp of olive oil. Once the oil heats up add the garlic and saute for under a minute. Next add the palak, you may need to do this in batches if your kadai is small. Add salt and cook till done. Make this in large quantities and keep it handy in the refrigerator( it is otherwise painful to clean and chop palak each time). You can even store this in your freezer. Allow the palak to cool.
• Whip curd with sugar, salt( I use the Roopak Dahi bhala masala, gives raitas a nice flavor), add about 2/3 tbsp of the cooked palak. Mix well and chill.
• Serve with any pulao or as a raita with your regular meal

One could just go on and on about cooking with leftovers. In fact almost every dish you cook cam be rehashed differently, add boiled veggies to leftover daal, upma out of leftover idlis, dips into sandwich spreads, chutneys as flavoring for gravy dishes etc. etc. In fact after a point you purposefully make that little extra so that you can rustle up something quick with the leftover.

Process

The hills are alive with the sound of music......

Just back from a trip to the Kumaon hills. Days were crisp and sunny, nights were cold. We had lovely Kumaoni food during the day, some soup and barbecued chicken sitting around the bonfire in the evening. The mountain air, all that trekking did wonders to our appepite. My kids seemed to wolf down food like there was no tomorrow. They seemed hungry all the time, at meal times/in between meals times and post meal times. We sampled some really different and nice stuff- Single( a sweet made with sooji, dahi, banana and saunf, resembles a jalebi: yumm!), Kapa( palak in a light besan gravy where the taste of palak dominates unlike in a kadhi), choley( cooked with chopped onion, tomato, ginger and garlic- not a thick gravy like their Punjabi counterparts) and many more. Surprisingly even my kids loved all of the above. We were quick to replace our regular tea with herbal tea( brewed with fresh herbs plucked from the garden and a dash of honey), nimboo pani was sweet and flavorsome( you guessed it, the nimboo plucked from the Lime tree in the orchard). What we have carried back is loads of herbs: rosemary, thyme, jumboo, basil etc. etc. and some apricot and cardamom preserve. We had rosemary chicken for dinner today. Polished off , so sorry no pictures accompanying this blog. I reproduce the recipe below and promise to add a picture the next time I make this dish, which should be pretty soon.

Rosemary Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken: About 400 grams
Lime juice: 1tbsp
Finely chopped garlic: 2 tbsp( I love garlic in my food so go a little overboard)
Rosemary: 1 tbsp, crush it lightly with your fingers when you add it, enhances the flavor
Chilli flakes: 1 tsp(optional, I happened to chance upon a packet of leftover Pizza Hut seasoning and added the same on impluse)
Salt to taste
Olive Oil: About 2 tbsp( you could use less but the oil does keep the pieces succulent)
Cornflour/maida: 1 tsp

Method
Marinate the chicken with lime juice, salt, rosemary and garlic( you can also add the garlic later while you are cooking the chicken) for 3/4 hours in the refrigerator.
Heat olive oil. You could add the chopped garlic at this stage if you have not added it to the marinade. Add the chicken with the marinade and cook on high for a few minutes. This I am told seals in the flavor. Keep turning the chicken a couple of times. Then cover and cook for about 20 minutes. Once the chicken is done remove the lid, add the corn flour dissolved in 2 tbsps of water and the chilli flakes. Mix well and let the corn flour coat the chicken. Please remember to use very little corn flour. Serve hot with buttered toast. Would also go well with sauted veggies and mashed potato.
I am really excited about trying the other herbs(given the success with this one), they add a mild flavoring to the dish and make it taste quite different. One however needs to ensure that the flavor of none of the other ingredients dominate.

The hills fill my heart with the sound of music......and inspire me to cook some more!

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