Heartburn

Remember that mantra: adding garam masala to a dish does not make it Indian? Neither does adding curry powder. Seriously.

I wonder if your world was rocked by the wave that was unleashed onto the net in the form of Indian dosas? Apparently, the recipe was from a cookbook. Great! Personally, I think the recipe should have been left there - in the cookbook, that is. Those who buy the cookbook will be far fewer than those who will now find the recipe online.

One more time: Adding curry powder to a pancake does not make it Indian. And, it certainly does not make it a dosa. There are many different types of dosas: the real deal made from fermented batter of ground urad dal and parboiled rice; instant dosas made from various flours; adais made from a spectrum of beans. There are stuffed dosas and there are spicy dosas with onions, cilantro, green chillies and even ginger. But, don't take my word for it, check out Srivalli's Dosa Mela and be totally overwhelmed.

That's not to say that I have not added onion, green chillies and cilantro to a boxed pancake mix. The first time I did that and placed the steaming result under my sleepy husband's nose:
Huh? What's this?
Eat it with the coconut chutney. Did you like it?
Yeah, but what is it?
Just eat it.

It had no name. I don't call it an Indian dosa, although uttapa - everyone not from Maharashtra, feel free to add an 'm' to make it uttapam - would have been more like it. I don't even call it a pancake. It's the result of a quest for savory breakfast food, a kind of strange east-meets-west fusion food. Blasphemy? Feel free to tell me like it is. But notice that I don't have a recipe for it on my blog. And I certainly don't call it Indian anything. Not Dosa. Not Uttapa. I don't even call it American.

So much heartburn.

Perhaps, I have the right remedy for it.

Jeera Goli

• 2 tbsp amchur (dried mango powder)
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 5-6 tbsp powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• salt to taste

1. Toast the cumin on a griddle or a cast iron pan at medium heat, stirring frequently until it darkens. Take care that it does not burn.
   
   
   
   Dry toasting cumin
2. Allow to cool and grind to a fine powder.
Five ingredients
3. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, reserving 2 tbsp powdered sugar. Taste the mixture. If it is too tart for you, add some more powdered sugar from the sugar you set aside. Make sure you have at least 1 tbsp powdered sugar in your reserve to roll the jeera goli in.
4. Add the lime juice and stir, bringing it together like a dough.
   
   
   
   Makes about 1/4 cup worth
5. Don't be tempted to add more lime juice when it looks like it won't come together. Use your hands and bind it into a ball.
6. Pinch off a very small amount and press it together several times until it can be formed into a ball or goli.
   
   
   
   So we had some fun as the sun set
7. Toss the goli in the reserved powdered sugar and set out on a plate to dry.  Typically these should be dried in the sun but I skipped that step as the sun was setting and they dried plenty just by sitting out on the table. Thank you, dry Colorado weather.
8. This mixture will make anywhere from 100 jeera goli to 150 jeera golis, depending on the size of your golis.
9. Store in an air-tight container and pass it around after a rather satiating meal. Or at any other time, just because.

Notes:

• I find it easier to use my fingertips than my palm to roll the golis as they are so teeny. 
• If you like, you could exercise quality control and ensure that the golis are all of a similar size. As you can see, I had helping hands and we decided not to bother.
• Don't be tempted to add a lot of powdered sugar as that will override and kill the fragrance of powdered cumin. 
• I had a huge bag of limes - to make mojitos for my Book Group on Thursday - so I did not feel like buying a lemon. Next time though, I will try it with lemon juice.
• The golis will darken in color slightly and most of the powdered sugar coating will be absorbed into the goli as it dries.

Tangy balls of delight

Jeera goli is usually eaten as an after-dinner digestive. I eat it any time I need a quick zing to break the monotony of the day.

Perfect for the party, no?

Happy Anniversary, Anita! I promise you these jeera golis will reduce the heartburn of doing a round-up!

A Quick Update to say that I have issues with the recipe, not with the group of people or any person that participated in the challenge!

Kaachi-paaki, easy-peasy

No peas in this one. But easy it is.

Kaachi-paaki, literally translated from Gujarati, means uncooked-cooked. Or raw-cooked. That's what this sabji is all about. It's partly cooked to retain the inherent flavor of the vegetable, in this case cabbage, as well as a fresh crunch. For best results, the cabbage needs to be shredded very fine so that the fiery tempered oil can coat every strand of the vegetable. I usually buy a bag of Angel Hair Coleslaw and ignore the fact that some brands also contain carrots. When I am in one of my moods though, I do spend some time slicing the cabbage into fine strands with a sharp knife.

Kaachi-paaki

Cabbage salad

• 1 packet Angel Hair Coleslaw
• 1-2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• pinch asafetida
• 7-8 kadipatta
• 2 green chillies, sliced vertically and deseeded
• 1 tsp urad dal
• salt to taste
• 1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• cilantro to garnish, if you like

1. Heat oil in a large pan
2. Add mustard seeds and when they start to pop and splutter, add asafetida. Keep a splatter screen ready to prevent a mess on your stove.
3. Add cumin seeds, curry leaves, green chillies and urad dal. Lower the heat and fry till the urad dal turns golden in color but without burning any of the other seasonings.
4. Turn up the heat, add the coleslaw, salt and lemon juice and toss quickly till the coleslaw is nicely coated in the oil. The more time you spend on this, the less crunch you get.
5. Take the pan off the stove and garnish with cilantro, if you are using it. Allow the flavors to meld and serve with hot rotis or eat it by itself! It's great warm or cold.

Notes:

• Use more green chillies to up the heat. You can slice them vertically to blend with the cabbage. I avoid this because it gets too spicy for Medha.
• I have made this with dried red chillies as well and it is just as good.
• Add as much lemon juice as you like. I tend to make this a little on the sour side, sometimes adding as much as the juice of half a lemon.
• Depending on the amount of crunchiness you like, adjust the time you spend tossing the coleslaw on the stove. I've had it several ways: less crunch, easy to chew and less noise at the dinner table! More crunch, more noise, more flavor! We like it crunchier.
• With Angel Hair Coleslaw, this Kaachi-paaki takes about 5 minutes to make!

Try it with red cabbage, too! And yes, I buy Ready-Pac shredded red cabbage if I can find it.

Trivia: This is what we had for dinner exactly a year ago today. (And, several times every month since it's so easy to make and a real favorite with us.) It's kind of interesting how my photo archives are more focused on food and landscapes than on portraits! I need to fix that! Or do I?

Update: I am sending this to Kalyn's Kitchen for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, which calls for recipes and/or informative posts featuring any herb, plant, vegetable, or flower. Veggie, it is. Cabbage.

IFR Quick Fix: Patal Bhaji

I know what you are thinking: she accepted the Schmooze award and promptly did an about turn and became an UnSchmoozer. Well, not true. If I had hogged the Schmooze Award, polished it, displayed it, gloated over it and then morphed into a turncoat, some of that earlier statement might be true. But I shared it with a go forth and multiply attitude. And multiply, it did!

This pesky thing called life has been very hectic on all fronts. If there was an overflow:delete command, my trigger finger would have been poised over it at all times. So, to those of you who have visited my blog in the last few weeks and left comments, I offer you my most sincere apologies. I have read all your comments and I hope to catch up with you, here and on your blogs, in the weeks to come.

Since all work, dishes, laundry and no play makes Manisha a sad girl, we made a quick dash to Moab, Utah and stared in awe at glorious arches, buttes and canyons in Arches National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park, along with ancient petroglyphs. We almost rented a Jeep Wrangler for some off-roading and jeeping but destiny decreed otherwise. The person who rented it before us smashed it up by taking a stock vehicle on the toughest 4-wheel trail in Moab. All we would have done was Shafer Trail to see the Colorado River gooseneck through Canyonlands. It was all very well as Medha's cold gripped her left nose as well as her right nose - yes, she has several of that appendage - and she even ran a fever later that day.

This short getaway was full of fun. And even though it was too-darned-hot, I had to have lots and lots of tea. Iced tea would have been just dandy but the timing of Salubri-tea could not have been worse. It came too late! That, too, when we were huddling under blankets and putting panes back into our windows instead of at a time when sunshine was in abundant supply, in Utah! You see, no matter what, I always take my 10 year old trusted tea-ball with me whenever I am travelling. That, and my tea leaves.

This time, I even carried limes that I had on hand and some sugar. We had delicious nimboo-pani (limeade) at the end of each day in Utah. Sure beats drinking stuff out of a can or a bottle!

In India, my hair dryer was my never-fail companion. In the US, it has always been my tea-ball and tea leaves. In 1997, when we drove across the US and back, I carried tea bags. Towards the end of that trip, I found my tea-ball and it's been with me ever since. So attached am I to it, that I thought I had left it behind in Canada in July and was rather morose for days till my husband found it tucked away in the khauchi pishvi. Life was just peachy again!

Is there any must-have that you take along with you when you travel?

In other news, this weekend we are going on our annual neighborhood camping trip to listen to the elks bugle and watch their rut. It's quite an amazing experience to hear that high-pitched call emanate from a hulking bull with even larger antlers perched on his head! Elk cows and calves invariably traipse through the campgrounds and we get a real up-close and personal experience. Some elks take it a step further. Residents of Estes Park had to recently deal with an elk that decided to take on a swing, instead of another bull! Don't miss the images that go with the story.

Since we haven't seen or heard from our tent after our camping trip a year ago, we opened it up and camped in our backyard on Saturday night. Urban camping rocks, I tell you! Drink water and beer with abandon for a toilet with running water is just a few steps away. Cold? Run inside and grab a comforter and another beer, too! Just because!

That's Medha trying to be scary. And the light inside? It's what made this campout in the backyard even more über. We had long - and I mean really long - extension cords going from the patio to the tent and we had a bedside lamp in the tent. Its glow reflected off our faces while we had a blast playing rummy late into the night. And since it was a cool night with temperatures in the mid-forties, we slept in and woke up quite refreshed. So refreshed that I even thought of cooking instead of just putting things together. I had some lovely organic red chard and after that cool night, a patal bhaji was what my soul yearned for. But with such gorgeous weather, I did not want to toil over the stove so I took the easy way out and made my Quick Fix Patal Bhaji.

If you are a purist or believe that things must be cooked in a certain way only, then stop reading now! I believe that cooking is constantly evolving. There is no one way of doing things. Doing something a little differently does not make a dish less authentic. If I had all the time in the world and all the inclination, I might do things the way my grandmothers did. And if you're thinking, "But this is not how patal bhaji is made!" Well, my answer to you is: It's how I make it.

Patal Bhaji (paht-tull bhah-gee) is a Maharashtrian dish that is essentially veggies or greens in a coconut sauce. Usually there is an accompanying dal that gives the sauce some extra body. In our family, we make patal bhaji just with whole masoor (red lentils), no veggies or greens. The main seasoning is usually kala masala but since I am all out and too lazy to make my own, I grind my own masala just prior to making patal bhaji. It's a breeze and goes from stove to table in 30 minutes or thereabouts.

Patal Bhaji with Chard

• 1 bunch chard, chopped including the stems
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• pinch asafetida
• 1 dried red chilli, broken into two pieces
• 1/8 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 cup tur dal, washed and uncooked
• 3 cups water
• Tamarind, the size of a dollar coin
• 1 cup coconut milk, canned is just fine
• 1 tbsp grated jaggery or brown sugar
• 1 to 1.5 tbsp fresh ground masala
• salt to taste

For the masala

• 3 tsp coriander seeds
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 3 tsp whole black peppercorns

1. Toast the whole spices in the oven or on a tava. Allow them to cool and crush to a fine powder in your spice grinder.
2. Heat oil in the pan of your pressure cooker.
3. Toss in the mustard seeds and when they crackle and splutter, add asafetida, and the dried red chilli
4. Add the chopped chard, the washed tur dal and 3 cups of water
5. Soften the tamarind by heating it in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds in some water. Mush it up and discard any pips and fibres. Add to your pressure cooker pan.
6. Add fresh ground masala, jaggery and salt
7. Pressure cook this for 4 whistles or its equivalent - as long as it takes for tur dal to cook in your pressure cooker
8. Once the pressure cooker has cooled, open it up and add 1 cup of coconut milk and bring to a boil again.
9. Serve this right away! It tastes great with steamed rice. Or as I found, it's like a spicy hearty soup that can eaten while engrossed in a good book!

Notes:

• I use tamarind that is called Thai Tamarind Fruit Pulp. I find it easier to use than the dried and salted tamarind from India. I can pull out as much as I need without needing any kitchen tools and since it is already soft, it doesn't take long to extract a thick tamarind juice. Tamarind extract can be used, too, but it lends its dark color to a dish and its flavor can be overwhelming if it is not used judiciously.
• Patal Bhaji has to be spicy for it to be good. 1.5 tbsp of the fresh ground masala was at the extreme end of the spectrum for us, especially since my dried red chillies also pack in a punch. And, 2 tsp is way too less. Even Medha said that I could add some more spice the next time! Start with 1 tbsp of the masala and add more later, if you think you would like more heat.

I am going to be busy preparing for the camping trip so I won't be able to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi, like we did last year. I'm hoping to make some chavde and besan ladu when we return. See you all next week!

Leftover Matters: All that Chicken and Rice

When I opened my refrigerator the other day, I saw rice, rice and more rice. It's easy to make rice. It's even easier when Medha makes it.

And also staring at me was the rotisserie chicken, begging to be eaten. But we'd eaten it with salad, in salad, sandwiched it and no matter what I did, there was always some leftover. There was next to no choice but to pair them together.

Leftover Chicken and Rice

• 3 cups of steamed rice
• 1 cup of cooked rotisserie chicken, deboned and diced into small pieces
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• pinch asafetida (optional)
• 2-3 tsp of kanda lassun masala
• 2-3 tbsp water
• dash of lemon juice
• salt to taste
• chopped cilantro for garnish

1. Heat oil in a kadhai
2. Add mustard seeds and when they splutter, add asafetida (or not)
3. Add chicken pieces and kanda lassun masala and stir fry for a couple of minutes
4. Add cooked rice and mix well
5. Sprinkle water over the rice to moisten it unless you are using rice that was just cooked. If your rice has been sitting in the refrigerator for more than a couple of days, then that little bit of water helps.
6. Cover and cook on medium-low till the rice and chicken have been warmed through and the flavors have come together
7. Add lemon juice, stir and do a taste test for salt. Kanda lassun masala has some salt in it, so you may or may not need more salt, depending on your sodium intake.
8. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve right away

Kanda Lassun masala powder is very versatile and I get a quick ride to Bombay and back when I have anything that has been liberally spiced with it. Vada-pau is what comes to my mind!

There are, of course, a myriad variations: add some green chillies or dried red chillies and/or curry leaves in the phodni, add some fresh julienned ginger, add some steamed veggies and so on. Rotisserie chicken and rice is by far the simplest and the fastest, especially for lunch when I don't have much time to spend in the kitchen or think about food.

My days are very hectic and long, and they get doubly so in summer when I have a demanding 9 year old at home. No leisurely cups of tea or time to sit and plan the next meal. Lately I have been wondering why I didn't learn from the previous year and keep Medha busy at a summer camp. But, no matter how much I am looking forward to the first day of school - just 2 more weeks, yay! - I have really enjoyed having her at home. And, she's been a great help in the kitchen. She can now boil eggs, make her own breakfast as well as a simple lunch. She helps lay the table, too; although I had to stop her from using up so many paper napkins. She was very disappointed when I told her that we don't need our silverware wrapped in a napkin. But she cheered up considerably when I told her to do it to save the Earth. That works like a charm, every time! I must admit that what I was not prepared for this summer were the pre-pubertal hormones that are kicking in and the quick repartees. Especially the conversation after we had Leftover Chicken and Rice for lunch! I had to rush back to my office for a meeting, leaving me just enough time to clear up in the kitchen but not the table.
Me: Medha, could you please clear and wipe the table?
Her: But, Mumma, why do I have to do it?
Instead of giving her a list of reasons or dipping into the Why-do-I-have-to syndrome, I simply glared at her
Me: Let me put it this way: I am going to remember this!
Her: But...but...but, Mumma! That would be a waste of memory space!

Right. No carry-forwards. No leftovers.

I hope your summers are going as well as mine! Despite a persistent but mild migraine, we went on a 5.4+ mile hike to Ouzel Falls in Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend. Here's a picture of Calypso Cascades that we encountered on the way. It's raw nature in your face up in the mountains.

Have a good one!

Update: I just realized that this fits in very nicely with Mallugirl's Summer Express Event. So off it goes!

Credits: Bowl and plate by Medha