Aloo Chard

Heylo everyone!!

Fig. 1. Aloo Chard

I know I have been very remiss.. Haven't been visiting online much, haven't been posting much and quite honestly haven't been cooking very much either. Shame-shame na.. But I'll be good now.. I'll cook and post and blog-hop too! Well, I'll try anyway! :)

Back to the food.. This post is about Red Chard. And notes to myself about using it in future.

When I go grocery shopping, I try to get something I "didn't get last time". That is actually not as easy as it sounds. Especially if I have been slacking off from the blogosphere. I tend to relapse into my old ways of buying the same-same stuff over and over. Spinach, bag of salad, onions, tomatoes, beans, carrots.. Really! And how would anyone be induced to cook with that same-old same-old!!

So every now and then I remind myself to just go with the seasons and cycle through all the fruits and vegetables over the year. But quite honestly I have little idea of what is in season and what isn't.

I try to reason that probably the in-season foods must over-fill the market in season, right? So instead of doing research and homework about it, I just hop over to the grocers and look around to see which vegetable is available in plllennty and pick up some. That way, on an average we end up eating most veggies at one time or another.

A few days ago I got a big bunch of Red Chard. I had never eaten Red Chard before, knowingly that is ;). So I wasn't quite sure what I would make with it. I wasn't even sure it was in-season at all. There was plenty of it. And it looked good and fresh. So I said.. hey-ho, lets go for it! Maybe it is the season for Red Chard!

Parotta Salad

Hey everyone.. a good lunch-box item today!

Fig. 1. Parotta Salad

Every day I pack lunch. And I find myself having to constrain the contents based on various objections. True life examples: "When one bites into a soggy sandwich, tiny pieces of food get stuck in the front teeth. Then that doesn't look good." and "Wraps drip, hands get yucky." "Egg smells." "Food that is too Indian also smells... then people look at me funny." and then there is the questionable "This aloo-palak looks too green-green. I don't want to be called a grass-eater. So let's skip too-green stuff, too brown-stuff.. anything that might elicit comment actually."

No, it is not my kids that register the above complaints, bless their little angel-hearts. No, it is not the significant other, bless his tall, dark, handsome, Prince Charming-ness. And no, this is not my dabba-service clients either, bless their well-paying, hard-working souls.

These are all my own objections.. (eyes lower with embracement.. noticing a badly needed pedicure..)

And since it is me-myself that packs lunch, such constraints mean that I eliminate about 90% of the refrigerator.

One-pot dishes are really the most convenient for lunch-boxes. And I do make pulavs and khichdis a lottt. Fortunately the world of food-blogs opens us to many potential dabba candidates. I had seen kothu parotta on several blogs. Cham's version with chalna looks like a good one to try.. somewhat more authentic looking. I will make her version very soon too. So I am noting the link here. I also found a quick and easy version of Kothu Parotta on Show me the Curry, which does not require chalna preparation. So I note that here for quick week-nights.

I will post the real Kothu Parotta sometime in future when I actually manage to make it like the recipe says. I started out thinking that I would make Kothu Parotta. But by the time I got to the refrigerator I found myself wondering if there isn't a cold version of this dish I could concoct? A Parotta Salad? I suddenly remembered a whole bunch of salads I had seen at Soma's ecurry!

So I decided that Parotta Salad it would be! I started out with the basic idea of Kothu Parotta from what I have gleaned from these blogs - mixing cut roti/paratha pieces for carbs, a source of protein (like egg or chicken), mixed vegetables and a curry or sauce to bring them all together. I just adapted the ingredients to make it a cold salad.

Methi Pulao

Hi everyone! Methi pulao is my Mom's most amazing rice dish. Many of our get-togethers back home have been flavoured by this rice and some spicy non-veg gravy based curry. And that is the most ideal recommended accompaniment for this dish.

Fig. 1. Methi Pulao

When I read about Priya's Think Spice - Fenugreek event (started by Sunita Bhuyan) I knew I could participate in it. I had a whole packet of frozen Methi sitting in my freezer that I needed to use. And no matter how little time one has, one has to eat! Question is always whether there is time to post the dish! :)

This pulao is very convenient to fill the lunch box. Lunchbox items comprise a large chunk of my cooking. The primary criterion for choosing dishes for dinner is "Can this go into the lunchbox tomorrow?" With this event around the corner, Methi Pulao just had to be made! Leftovers were packed into the lunchbox with a curry. 

Lasooni Dal

Hi everyone! Browsing through blogs is a fun pass-time for me when I am free. Sailu's Kitchen is a great blog I found.. simply amazing pictures and spicy dishes! :) One such tantalizing dish I found there is Lasooni dal. It reminded me of a spicy garlic dal I had eaten at a Punjabi restaurant some years back. Actually there are plenty of really good Andhra and South-Indian style recipes too at Sailu's website. This dish just happens to be North Indian and is the first one I have tried from there.

Fig. 1 Lasooni Dal

This Lasooni Dal recipe is really very "Hotel" or "Dhaba" type. And still, requires very basic and minimal ingredients. So it's good to serve when casual friends have suddenly dropped-by on a Sunday morning and you don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen, but wouldn't want to serve plain dal-roti either.

I really liked how good the garlic garnish looks in Sailu's picture!! The dish tastes great too. Be sure to garnish the dal! Even for yourself, when you have no guests and are not taking pictures! :) I didn't have chopped fresh coriander, but that would be nice for additional garnish too.

I have made a few changes in the original recipe to match whatever ingredients I had. No spinach or onions for instance. So here goes..

Palak Paneer / Aloo Palak

Hey everyone..! Today I am making Palak Paneer (Spinach with Cottage Cheese)... a quick and easy dish.

 Fig.1 Palak Paneer

Usually I make  Aloo Palak (Spinach with Potatoes). It is supposedly easier to absorb the iron from Spinach if you consume it with something which contains Vitamin C. Since potatoes have plenty of Vitamin C, I try to make Aloo Palak more often than Palak Paneer. It is the same recipe. In any case I like to add some lemon juice at the end. I hope that kicks in a tiny bit of Vit-C too. --OR-- I just force everyone to drink orange juice with the meal! ;)

Today it's the Palak Paneer version. Who doesn't like Paneer! This recipe is originally from Sanjeev Kapoor's book. Here I am making this by memory, since I don't have the book handy. I will update the post later if I find there are any changes in the original recipe.

Aloo methi

Hey everyone..! Aloo methi with rotis today.

Fig. 1. Aloo methi

I love methi. No fresh methi here. Had some frozen methi chunks in my freezer that I needed to use up. Also wanted to make something that has heeng. My old heeng (ordinary store bought) was nothing compared to the heeng I was recently gifted by some family. Hmmm.. strong fragrance! I disagree with those who think heeng stinks. Ok, it's not great to smell.. but it's the distinct smell of seasoning! Seasoning isn't seasoning till heeng seasons the seasoning. (Goodness.. this is why people will soon be telling me not to blog!!) Anyway, this is my entry for Think Spice - Heeng, at Kharas Mithas which is part of the Think Spice event series started by Sunita Bhuyan.

Here's some info about Heeng on Wikipedia and about Methi on wikipedia. Do you like to read up about food? I do! I would like to read up about anything if given enough time. :)

Actually I'm sure there are more elaborate recipes out there which use heeng. But this is a start. This recipe is my Mom's. Don't know where she got it from. When I just started out cooking on my own, she had gifted me a nice diary where she had written up a pretty decent number of her recipes for me to take along with me. :) So this was one of the first recipes I tried on my own, written in her own hand. And I still always read it from the same book in her writing! :) Comes right every time!

Ingredients:
Potatoes, cooked, peeled and chopped ~ 2 medium
Methi (fenugreek leaves) ~ 3 frozen blocks (must be roughly 1 cup after defrosting)
Onion, finely chopped ~ 1 medium
Oil ~ 1 tablespoon
Rai (mustard seeeds) ~ 1/2 teaspoon
Jeera (cumin seeds) ~ 1/2 teaspoon
Heeng (asafoetida) ~ pinch
Haldi (turmeric) powder ~ 1/2 teaspoon
Green chillies ~ 1 or to taste
Salt to taste

Procedure:
1) Season rai, then jeera, then heeng in oil. 
2) Add finely chopped onion. Saute till translucent. Add haldi.
3) Add methi and fry till slightly oily.
4) Add salt and chopped green chillies.
5) Add chopped, cooked potatoes and salt for potatoes.
6) Add very little water as per your preference (if you want slight moistness). Mix and cook.

Combination: I like to serve this with the simplest possible dal and rice or rotis.The flavour of methi gets overpowered by stronger accompaniments.