Ubiquitous Sandwich....

It is amazing when you think of the number of different types of sandwiches you can make, with two slices of bread. Just about anything can do for the filling. Last night's rajma ground to a fine paste or chicken curry remains or freshly sliced cucumber and tomato, put them between two slices of bread and it technically qualifies as a sandwich. A wee bit of imagination and the sandwich possibilities are endless, from basic chutney sandwiches( butter and green chutney) to more exotic grilled ones. Together with a soup they make for a complete and satisfying meal.

As children we carried sandwiches in our lunch boxes or on picnics, consumed them out of home. When Mom ran out of the regular sandwich ingredients she made them with ghee and sprinkled some sugar on top of it. I quite hated that combination. I preferred the ones with butter, cheese, eggs, sausages. Today, I use most leftovers as sandwich filling. Add some grated cheese, sprinkle some pepper, grill it and you get a great tasting sandwich. They are great as a breakfast option(filling can even be made from the night before and quickly assembled), as an in between snack or as a complete meal with a salad and soup.

Salami Sandwich

This is a fairly basic sandwich and uses egg, tomato, chicken salami in equal proportion. Have called it salami sandwich as that was my inspiration for the sandwich today. The rest of the ingredients got added along as I worked my way through the sandwich.

Ingredients

Brown bread: 8/10 slices

Chicken Salami roundels: 16 thin slices( try and get some fresh slices, those taste way better than the frozen ones)

Eggs: 2 hard- boiled, sliced thin

Tomatoes: 2 medium sized ones, sliced thin

Olive oil: 1 tbsp

Rosemary: 1 tsp

Salt: to taste

Freshly ground pepper: 1 tsp

Eggless Mayonnaise: 2/3 tbsps

Method

Lay out all the ingredients before you start. Next heat some olive oil, add some rosemary and salt to it. Drizzle the oil over the tomato slices to give them an added flavor and taste.

Lightly toast the bread. Spread some mayo on the bread slices. Arrange the salami, egg and tomato slices over it. Sprinkle some salt and freshly ground pepper over it. Cover with another slice. Cut into triangles and serve with a hot clear soup.

Alternately you could also mash the egg, add the mayo, salami bits and tomato to it and use as the filling. Add a little milk to the egg as you mash it( a tip I learnt from one of my Bong friends), helps the sandwich stay really soft even hours later. Great for picnics and parties.

Bite sized sandwiches work well as starters. Sis passed on a recipe where chutney sandwiches are cut into small pieces and then given a seasoning of curry leaves and mustard in oil. You can substitute the chutney with a pickle masala.

And then of course there are open sandwiches which in essence are mini pizzas. Mushroom, capsicum and cheese topping is the more popular variant but you could make them with a host of other ingredients like sweet corn, potatoes, shredded chicken, mince etc.

Sandwiches are also great when you want to organize a " do it your self " party. You provide different spreads and fillings, people make their own sandwiches. It is a lot of fun and one ends up discovering some new combinations. There are some like my friend S who invariably opt for "all of the above" either together or in combinations thereof.

It is always a good idea to keep a loaf of bread, some eggs and soup sachets handy. You can dish up some interesting sandwich combos in a jiffy.

Happy cooking and Bon Apetit!

Comfort Food....

Food they say is the most primitive form of comfort. Every family has their own comfort food recipes. A quick survey throws up some names, "dhuli moong daal khichdi with achar", "rice, daal and mashed potatoes", " bread with chicken stew", "konji". etc. What is common across these seemingly varied dishes is that they are typically home-cooked, warm, filling, unpretentious and provide easy satisfaction. Most of them use very few ingredients, are quick to prepare and help you achieve an improved emotional status. Just what the Doc ordered on a day you were feeling low or stressed or home-sick or nostalgic.

Growing up in a small though cosmopolitan town my early food memories (apart from the dishes that got cooked in my home) are of those that got cooked in my neighbor's kitchens. So it was Kumar aunty's Rajma, Murty's aunty's idlis, Smith aunty's vindaloo, Padmanabhan aunty's sambhar, Nanda aunty's cakes, Mohanty aunty's malpuas.....I could go on and on. Food that reminds me of comforting childhood memories. Most of this food is far from gourmet but invokes a feeling of nostalgia and security. They also make for good food stories and help us children connect even years later. Incidentally Mom managed to learn almost all of these dishes with a little help from the lovely ladies mentioned above and soon they got cooked in our kitchen too. But always referred to by the names of their original creators/disseminators. In the pre-cookbook/pre- cookery shows days recipes traveled through word of mouth and personal demos. There was a lot more of active sharing.

Macha Jhola is one such comfort food for me. While this is a commonly cooked dish in any Eastern household, the recipe varies slightly from household to household. Like some I know would skip the ginger, others might replace tomatoes with dried mango( Ambula), some others might make it sans the vegetables. But whichever way you cook it, it sure comforts.

Macha Jhola

Ingredients

Fish: 1/2 kilo Rohu

Potatoes: 2/3, cubed

Cauliflower: 8/10 florets( cut the same size as the potatoes)

Ginger: 1/2 inch, grated fine

Tomatoes: 2, chopped fine

Chilli powder:1/2 tsp

Turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp

Jeera powder: 1 1/2 tsp

Dhania powder: 1/2 tsp

Whole Jeera: 1 tsp

Mustard Oil: 2/3 tbsps( includes the oil needed to fry the fish)

Garam Masala: 1 tsp( freshly prepared by pounding together 4 small elaichi and about 1/2 an inch long cinnamon)

Bay leaves: 2

Method

Smear salt and turmeric on the fish pieces and keep for about 10/15 minutes. Heat the oil and once the oil begins to smoke add the fish and shallow fry for a few minutes. Remove and keep aside. The fish should be a little soft.

Into the same pan add some whole jeera and the bay leaves. Once the jeera begins to sputter add the cubed potato and cauliflower florets and fry for a couple of minutes. Mix the dhania powder, jeera powder, turmeric powder, chilli powder, grated ginger in about half a cup of water. Add it to the potato and cauliflower. Add the tomatoes. Saute for a few minutes, till the masala coats the vegetables. Add two more cups of water to the dish and allow the gravy to come to a boil. Add the fish pieces and let them simmer. Finally add the garam masala.

Goes best with some plain rice. The vegetables along with the fish make this a wholesome and balanced meal.

"From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting....On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain."

E.B. White

Happy Cooking, Happy Comforting and Bon Apetit!

Going Bananas........

It all started with the Zucchini my Mom planted . In six weeks (Mama has a green thumb) the plant had grown really big and there were nice yellow flowers. They looked deceptively similar to pumpkin flowers. Back home batter(rice batter) fried pumpkin flowers are a delicacy and help spice things up. A favorite of my husband.

Rice batter(unless you have rice powder handy) needs some effort and planning(soak the rice for a couple of hours and then grind to a paste). An inventory scan, some quick thinking and an easier option. Tempura, the wonder batter to the rescue(SIL had given me a packet that was lying unused in my refrigerator). I made a batter of tempura, chili powder, salt and water. Dipped the Zucchini flowers into them and shallow fried the same. They were crisp and tasted delicious. Alas they did not live long enough to tell their visual tale.

Encouraged by the enthusiastic response I decided to get a little more experimentative. Thought I would delight the family with a quick dessert. So I made some more tempura batter but this time sweet, with some sugar, milk and vanilla essence. I dipped some ripe banana roundels into them and shallow fried.

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Ripe Yellow Bananas: 2

Tempura: 2/3 tbsp

Milk: 1/2 cup

Vanilla essence : 1/2 tsp

Sugar: 1 heaped tbsp

Method

Cut the banana into roundels. You could also halve the banana and then cut vertically/along the length to get your slices.

Prepare a batter by whisking together the Tempura, milk, sugar and vanilla essence. Use an egg beater to even out any lumps that may have formed.

Dip the banana pieces into the batter and shallow fry.

Serve hot. Tastes like Malpua, only much easier and quicker.

You could drizzle some honey/maple syrup over it or serve it with some rabdi( sweetened, thickened milk). We had ours plain on a cold winter afternoon. Helped perk up an otherwise insipid meal

Bon Apetit and Happy Cooking!

Quick Gun Murugan............

I have a confession to make. I have not seen the movie. My sons tell me that in the movie Rice plate Reddy kidnaps mothers because Mother's love is the secret ingredient of good dosas. But this mother cannot make good dosas( love you guys but despite that, look at the silver lining Reddy would spare me). Mother's love in plenty but for dosas we head to Sarvana Bhawan or Sagar Ratna.

My younger one was born in Chennai and proudly calls himself a Tamilian( he is definitely one by deed especially in his palate preferences). It was really convenient for me to make him Idli/dosa in Chennai. Just buy the "Mao"( no Chinese connection here, refers to the Dosa batter) and you are good to go. Now I am sure most of you( and my Mom included) would say that making the batter is no rocket science. Soak uradh dhaal and boiled rice separately, grind them separately and mix them together. After getting used to Thaiyar Mao this seems like too much effort. Also a few half hearted attempts have met with little success( the idli turns out to be hard and the dosa tends to stick to the tawa). I know I should be ashamed of myself as I come from a family where Idli/Sambhar was staple breakfast diet twice a week. Ground at home on a grinding stone my Dad had lugged all the way from Kakinada. In fact our household help had to get specially trained by our sweet Tamilian neighbour in the process of grinding(Thank God for small towns and their community living).

So South Indian breakfast it is for my kids every once in a while(probably our only eating out occasions). For the younger one it is possibly the best treat you can give him. His face lights up at the very mention of Sagar Ratna, the best South Indian joint this side of the toll gate.

This Sunday, the weather was lovely as we drove to Sagar Ratna. An empty restaurant greeted us as always. We had our usual discussion/argument about the popularity of South Indian cuisine among the people of Gurgaon, the number of South Indians in Gurgaon to help explain the poor turnout. I of course stuck to my logic of how any self respecting South Indian would not come to a restaurant to eat Idli/dosa, they would always make it at home. As I was vehemently arguing a South Indian family entered(let me be specific, a Tamilian family entered) and sat on the next table. My husband smirked and said : I rest my case.

We started with our usual Idli Wada rounds. The Idlis were soft, fluffy and nice. Wadas are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, just the way we like it. They are served with Sambhar and three kinds of chutney: an onion chutney, a coconut chutney and a green corriander and coconut chutney. I would recommend the onion chutney. On days that we feel a little more self indulgent we also ask them to get us ghee and malgapodi. The first time we asked for malgapodi the waiters drew a blank. I strated describing it and finally they got it. Oh! you mean gunpowder. Some fiery gunpowder mixed with warm melted ghee tastes yumm! Dip those soft idlis into it and you are sure to attain nirvana.

After the Idli wada we move on to the dosas. Paper masala dosa for me, Regular masala dosa for my husband, Plain dosa for younger son and Ghee roast dosa for the older one. The dosa arrives with more varieties of chutney and bowls of Sambhar. Dosa is crisp and there is sound of silence around the table as we all tuck in greedily. My husband finishes the meal with Filter Kapi(Coffee). I wait to get home to have my Darjeeling.

We head back satiated. What a perfect beginning to the day.

Bon Apetit and Happy Cooking!

P.S: This post is for you Papa, who loved his Idlis more than anybody else I know.