This one sounds like an odd combination but they hit off pretty well – something like the chemistry of the geeky Farhan Akhtar and the glamourous Deepika Padukone in the movie Karthik Calling Karthik (which I very badly want to see and end my 15 month exile from the movie-hall), though I must admit that neither the chana nor the cabbage are as glamourous as Deepika, but the end result was almost there!
Archives for February 2010
How to prepare dried mint leaves & use in Indian cooking
How to prepare mint powder / dried mint – This is an excellent way to preserve a big bunch of harvested or bought mint leaves. Includes uses of dried mint in Indian cooking.
Cooking from Vidhu Mittal’s Pure & Simple
This is not a book review, just want to share a great cookbook with my fellow foodies. I spotted this book at a friend’s place. A hurried browsing (which is all my toddler allows me) made me feel that there’s plenty I can cook from this book. I’m by no means a recipe follower, always making substitutions to make things simpler, healthier and easier – and cooking with what’s on hand. Vidhu’s recipes fit in all the above criteria – they are simple, they are reasonably healthy and do not ask for any exotic ingredients. She says in the preface that most of her recipes have the Uttar Pradesh influence, and I quite like that. Small tweaks like adding gram flour to oil before throwing in capsicum and potato in the Capsicum Potato curry give a whole new taste to a daily curry
Beet, feta and water amaranth salad
Sometimes, one ingredient can be such an inspiration for a whole recipe to be built around it. Feta cheese for us is one such ingredient. Neither S nor I can resist the intense saltiness and rich flavour of feta. That so much salt isn’t good for our health is easily forgotten when we lay our hands o
Plantain Peas Podimas – a simple yet delicious curry
I tried to think what the origin of the word ‘podimas’ would be…except that podi means some kind of powder or mash, I had no other clue to this. Origin apart, this is one delicious way of preparing potatoes and plantains. The potato version featured in my post detailing the ways in which potatoes
Roasted eggplant soup and the hate-list from my childhood
Some twenty years ago, if someone told me ‘It’s kathrikkai (eggplant) soup for dinner’ I’d have won the 100 metre sprint. Yeah, eggplant was probably the only vegetable in my hate-list. Sometimes my tongue would itch after I ate a piece of this, so I hastily assumed that I’m allergic to eggplant and
Simplest ever yogurt muffins
Ever** since his famous No Knead Bread, I have been in love with Mark Bittman. Needless to say I was so excited when S got me his ‘How to cook everything vegetarian’ a couple of years ago. That book is an encyclopedia and even for someone who has been cooking vegetarian stuff all these years, I discover new ideas all the time. His muffins chapter has a simple muffins recipe and all the modifications / substitutions you can make to bake your favourites. On a Sunday morning, these seemed like the perfect things to go with a cup of milk as a light breakfast to precede a heavy lunch