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!

Aloo Paratha

"Garam garam para(n)they!" Reminds me of Hindi movies!! :D

Fig. 1. Aloo Paratha

Aloo parathas are my favorite kind of parathas. And usually they turn out pretty decent. I feel that the trick to making really soft-soft aloo parathas is: 1) roll out the rotis a fair amount so it will be easier to wrap up the stuffing and 2) DO NOT stint on the potato stuffing! If you fill in plennn..ty of potato and wrap it up in the rolled out roti, there is no way the parathas can fail to wow anyone.

The only problem with supremely soft aloo parathas is, they just have to be served hot!! Once they cool down or are refrigerated they become somewhat average parathas. So I tend to make these parathas only in casual settings, with few eaters, and when I know I have time just before dinner and I can serve them still hot almost right off the pan.

That's how I served them this time, fresh and piping hot!!

Pav Bhaji

My favorite!!

 Fig. 1. Pav Bhaji

A real crowd pleaser too! Easy to make and scale up for larger numbers of people, and the best part is... it also clears up my refrigerator and pantry. I have rarely "planned" to make pav bhaji. Pav bhaji means unexpected guests! When someone suddenly calls up on a weekend and says "Hey, want to meet up for a buffet lunch?" and we groan.. not buffet.. and offer to make pav bhaji at our place. ;)

I always have onions and potatoes handy, as well as carrots in the refrigerator. Pav bhaji is the gift-of-life to all the spare, leftover vegetables in the refrigerator. Any vegetables that are left over in small amounts - a handful of green-beans, a fistful of peas, small amounts of cauliflower, that solitary capsicum.. all roll into a big pot, mash-mash-mash and we make pav bhaji.

We usually make do with ordinary bread, but occasionally we will pop over to the store to grab real "pav" or at least "water rolls" if they are available. I find water rolls work reasonably as a substitute for pav. Since I have started blog-hopping I have discovered a host of people who make their own pavs - for instance Fantasy Cooking, Jugalbandi, Spice-Club, One Hot Stove and Enjoy Indian Food . So those would be something for me to keep in mind if I get into baking with yeast in future (the woman with a half-clean pantry does not buy yeast till she is confident she will have the time and opportunity to use it in at least 3 different dishes).

The recipe I use usually for Pav Bhaji is...... the-one-on-the-box!! This is what I routinely make and is embedded in my spinal reflexes. Decent recipe. And honestly I had never paid too much attention to which pav bhaji masala I use. It happens to be Everest quite by fluke. Which brings me to note that another pav bhaji recipe to keep in mind is Nupur's Sukh Sagar Pav Bhaji. She expressly recommends Everest, skips onions (which is unusual), and her recipe is quite well spoken-for in the Indian-food blogging world. So I certainly will try that too in future.

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.