Leaving the Leftover

As a new cook, it took me a fair amount of time to figure out quantities and the very elusive 'aandaj' that all the mom's swear by. In my kitchen there was too little or too much. It was a rare occurrence to not have any leftovers. Over the years I have got my list of leftover utilisation things.

The first things which gets left over most especially during a big dinner is rice. And it is probably the most versatile thing to be reused.

Here are some quick recipes ( and I mean quick!) to help you get over the guilt of throwing stuff into the bin.

Lemon rice - for 2-3 cups of cooked rice, take 2 tbsp of oil in a pan.
When the oil is hot, add 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp urad daal, 2 green chillies slit lengthwise and curry leaves if you have any.

Let them splutter for 1 minute.
Then add a pinch of turmeric and mix well.
Now add the rice and mix with the oil.
I would suggest adding about 1 and 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice for 1 cup of rice. But the extent of tanginess is totally up to you.

Add salt to taste in the end.

Coriander rice
In 2 tbsp of oil add coriander seeds
When they splutter add 4-5 tbsp of coriander chutney/paste.
I generally have the coriander chutney frozen in ice cubes and add 1 ice cube for 2 cups of rice.
Add the rice almost immediately after adding the coriander paste.
Add salt to taste and mix well.

The second thing which I reuse is daal.
I make the chapati dough with the daal instead of water. You can even add some ground spices like chaat masala, roasted cumin powder to make it into a spicy yet healthier roti option. Do remember to add salt to the flour before adding the dal. This would your 'aandaj' or estimate considering that daal already has salt in it.

Another option which is certainly not quick is to make daal pakode.
If the daal is very thick and of toor variety you can actually cook it in a pan till all water evaporates. And you are left with a very dry mixture. To this I add sattu (in absence of that roast besan on a pan), chopped coriander, chopped chillies, chat masala and salt. You can add an egg or cornflour to allow binding. But if you have got the consistency right in the daal you would not need any binding agent.

Roll into tikkies and shallow fry them.

Other quick tips are
Over ripened tomatoes I use for making tomato chutney

Leftover vegetables make good sandwich fillers.

If you hate over-ripened banana as much as I do, the best way to them is in a cake or make a Banoffe Pie.

Leftover spinach can be dunked in boiling water and pureed to make the dough for roti. You can make a spinach parantha or just roti out of it.

An expired carton of milk is ideal for trying out the sandesh or rasogulla.

If you like pita bread, leftover curries can be used with roasted vegetables in a pita bread with some fresh salad for a quick and easy dinner.

Extra chicken pieces from a curry can be used to make scrumptious chicken egg roll. (recipe in later editions!)
And finally, stale bread, roasted or fried with a sprinkle of garlic salt to use as croutons.

I hope these may help you in becoming more savvy with the leftovers and allowing for better of your cooking time.

When puffiness is good - veg puffs

It is really intriguing how a situation endears certain things to you. Puffs veg or otherwise was no big deal to me. But when I spent 45 days in Trivandrum learning the difference between a sada dosa and ghee roast, upma and appam, a sole egg puff was my highlight of the day. The opportunity presented itself only once a day during the snack hour in canteen of the training centre. A delay of 5-10 minutes would mean a wait of another day. A golden half of a boiled egg ensconced in the crumbly puff pasty with spices was something to savour. I am not sure it was the best I have ever had, in fact I have never had an egg puff since.

Recently I came across frozen puff pasty sheets in the supermarket. I know these sort of things are easily available in the market. But frozen section gets a boycott from both AS and me, other than peas and kulfi. I tried out a simple veg puff. Actually its just a potato puff, as an experiment. They turned out well and tasted yummy. I still need to work out the best way of storing them as they lose the crunch if whatever way I try to store them. They are very easy to make and set a real good impression.

I managed to get a light puff pastry roll. Disaster struck next time though, because I bought short crust pastry. So look closely before you buy. But then I am assuming that you rush through the frozen section as I do. In that section I always feel like the dementors from Harry potter are following me. All exuberance of a supermarket experience drains away and I am left with a overbearing preoccupation with the chill. Thankfully I can shop online without these diversions.

The filling for this pastry can be anything savoury. You can try mixed veg, paneer. This is just a template for anything you want to adapt it for. I tried with a really spicy potato mixture because it seemed to go well with the intended blandness of the puff. Also you need to resist the urge to overfill the parcels. Because you need to account for the fact that the puff will expand. I made morsel sized parcels. You can try bigger sizes , but then they would take longer to cook so adjust the timing accordingly.

Ingredients

2 big potatoes boiled and mashed

1 sheet of rolled puff pastry

1 onion sliced 

garam masala 1 table spoon

coriander powder 1 tbsp

red chilli powder 1 tsp

chat masala - according to taste

Cinnamon- 1 pinch(option)

Defrost the puff pastry.

Boil potatoes. Peel and mash them up. To hot oil in a pan add sliced onions. Cook them till they turn transparent. To this add coriander powder, garam masala, red chilli powder, amchur or chat masala. The pinch of cinnamon is optional. Add the mashed potato and mix well. Add salt to taste and let it cook for 10 mins.

I spread the mixture on a plate to let it cool quickly. While it is cooling, you can prepare the pastry. Roll out the sheet and cut vertical strips of about 4cm in width. Slice the vertical strips into squares. Spoon in about 1 teaspoon is the mixture in the middle. Bring the two diagonal ends of the pastry piece together. Have a little bit of water handy in a bowl. Slightly touch the two end with water and bring them together. This should seal the two ends together. If this feels difficult work, you can simply fold it lengthwise, or even bring the four ends together to make a parcel.

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C. on a baking tray put foil paper and put the pastry parcels keep space between then because they are going to grow in size. For the size I have got here, it took 15mins. I knew the filling was cooked so all I looked out for was the layers of the puff rising up. When the top layer is turned a slightly darker shade than golden, it is time to take it out.

Spread them out on a cooling rack. I did not have one so I just put them on the place settings we use for crockery. The steel ones with slots. It is best to put it on something which allows the base to cool. Otherwise it gets soggy.

Since I have not yet worked out the best way to store them, I must ask you to savour some of them as soon as they cool.

I want to make the egg puff one of these days when intent and stamina are both in tandem. It was after an egg puff which started it all.

Kalatop ,maggi and movies

Watching movie in a theater is a big occasion for us. There are only few movies which inspire us both, and even fewer which justify an evening spend at a movie hall. Especially with a new arrival on way we tend to stay away from noisy places and a movie hall counts as one.

Recently though there has been a spurt in the number of movies which meet our stringent criterion. So finally last week we decided to take advantage of a midweek 2 for 1 ticket offer and went for a night show of Lootera. The songs and the trailers promised a good movie (in our case good does not always equate to happy!). Do not worry, I am not going to give a movie review. All in all we managed to sit through three hours in spite of the hero's insipid acting. The sets, costumes and songs were binding enough. But the best bit was the second half, which was shot at a place we had been three years ago.

The house which represented the Dalhousie home, is actually a forest guest house in a place called Kalatop, some hundred feet above Dalhousie. In December 2010, we had been on a forest tour with my papa in Himachal & Punjab covering Dalhousie, Kalatop, Kajjiar, , Gurudaspur and Amritsar. We did not know it at the time , but that was to be our last trip with papa. Seven months later he left us all. But left us with so many rich memories to treasure for a lifetime.

Kalatop guesthouse has thus got a special place in my thoughts.

Kalatop gets its name from the dense forest around it. The foliage is so dense and dark green that it gives a sheen of black when viewed from the panoramic clearing of the guest house. Hence the name Kalatop (Kala- Black, top - cover)

We only stayed there for a night. It was -2 degree C outside and we sat ensconced in the heat from the crackling wood burning fireplace, electricity being a premium commodity. It was a very clear night and there was a veritable traffic jam of stars in the sky!

Looking through the photographs of the trip I came across some great photos of the Dalhousie market.

Among the usual hill station street food staples of boiled eggs, tangy pickled fruits and warm crunchy peanut, interestingly enough there were vendors selling maggi. I tried one of them and this post is about it was made the himachali way. I have called the Dalhousie Maggi Masala.

Ingredients

1 packet Maggi

1/4 Onion chopped

1 green chilly finely chopped

1/4 capsicum chopped

1/2 tomato  chopped

The process starts with adding 1 tbsp of oil to a hot pan. To this green chillies and onions are added and sautéed. After 2-3 mins the onions should turn transparent, then the tomatoes are added. While the tomatoes are being cooked add the contents of the maggi masala (leave a bit to be used for garnish) to it along with the chopped capsicum. Capsicum is optional but I have found it does lend a nice edge to it. A couple of minutes of mixing everything together till the tomatoes disintegrate. Now add the required water ( iw would add 1-1/4 cup of water for 1 packet maggi). Everybody has their own preferred consistency of their maggi. Let the water come to a boil so that all the taste is absorbed into the water. Then add maggi to it and cook to your level of consistency.

Garnish with coriander leaves and the leftover masala.

It might not be the epitome of culinary delight, but in the December chill of Dalhousie the heat and spice from the maggi was really great.

I dedicate this post to the location manager of Lootera who short listed the kalatop guesthouse. If not for you, it might have stayed in my memories and might not have been recorded on a post.

PS : I recently came across a kiosk in the 'famed' DB mall in Bhopal which sells food items made exclusively of maggi. I have tried the spring rolls which were different (another way to say it did not endear itself to me).

Soya Chilli for Auld Lang Syne

"Purano shei diner kotha" is a song written by gurudev RabindraNath which is known by even the most distant of bengalis. It is sung almost like an anthem at farewells and reunions. It is evocative and you cannot but let yourself go down the memory lane as you listen to it. Imagine my surprise when during the my first new year celebration in london, I heard people singing what suspiciously sounded like this song. It turns out that Robert Burns wrote the poem Auld Lang Syne (losely translated as 'for old times sake') and Gurudev was inspired by it to create purano sher diner kotha. It always takes be back to the college and hostel times.

Apart from friends; food figures a lot in my memories of college and hostels. Panipuri from naka (junction), egg roll from sector six, chuski (crushed ice served with coloured sugar syrup) from benarasi thela , chowmein & pav bhaji from civic centre, dosa from Indian coffee house....the list is broodingly long.And this is just the first four years. Recently I remembered one such addition to the list.

There were two canteens in our engineering college. One for students and other called 'Chachaji's canteen' for teachers.The latter was out of bounds and by virture of this was the preferred one, especially for the samosas and kachoris. But there was one item for which the student's canteen was favoured. Soya chilli. It was a dark drab looking preparation. And it cost 12Rs a plate. Any spend in double figures were written with red ink in my monthly ledger.A few rash double digit spends could blow off the monthly budget of 500Rs. But soya chilli had to be had. At the cost of walking from college to hostel instead of tempo, or forgoing the other extras. If lucky, one could find someone ready to share the plate and more importantly the cost. If you could do with only half a plate of it, that is. Time and travel had faded out the memory of the precious plateful of tangy, fiery nuggets of nostalgia.

A recent dinner brought me together with some friends from those times. A last minute addition as remembrance of those days was soya chilli.

I did not have any recipe to refer to, so i made it mostly by instinct, trying to recreate the taste.

Ingredients

2 cups of Soya Nuggets 

1 medium onion sliced in rings

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

2 green chillies sliced lengthwise

1/2 inch ginger sliched into thin lengthwise

3 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tbsp light soya sauce

1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce 

1tsp lime juice

Like with everything else the story here starts with onion and garlic. In 4 tbsp of hot oil add the garlic and follow with the onion almost immediately. If you prefer the fried falvour of garlic more than the pungency than let the garlic cook for 10-15 secs before adding the onion. Save some onions rings for garnishing, if you want.

While that is cooking, soak the soya nuggets in hot water. I put them in the microwave for about 2 mins. I also add some salt to the water so that the soya granules get some of the salt deep inside as they soak up. you can either slice them up and i did or blitz them in a food processor to get smaller granules. The latter is good when you are pressed for time.

Add the chillies, part of the ginger and the soya chunks into the oil. after a minute of mixing them around, add the tomato ketchup and dark soya sauce and the lime juice. Mix well and let it cook covered for 4-5 minutes. Taste and add the light soya sauce. Let it be absorbed for the next 3-4 minutes. Check the salt and add more if required. 

The nuggets would already have got the salt from when they were soaked and the light soya sauce would have added to it, so it is best to check if you need any salt at all.

If you prefer you can change the proportions of the sauces to match your taste.

The ginger is an optional. It just adds a bit of zing and bite to the whole dish....and the canteen always had ginger in it.

Making it Simples....Poha (fluffed rice snack)

Sometime back we were given the name of Sinha Tours and Travels by our long suffering friends. Mainly because of our inclination to plan a trip to death not just for ourself but for those unfortunate enough to trust us with their trip details. We have improved over the years..in the sense that we do not bore others anymore with our planning. But like all good tour advising companies, we do not mind a bit of PR. With that in mind we have been sharing our travel experiences with friends in form of calendar. It combines two of our three loves..travel and photography (in case you are wondering, third is food). The latter is still a work in progress. This year I added some quotes to it, all related to passage of time. The most insightful one was

Not enjoyment and not sorrow, is our destined end or way; but to act, that each tomorrow, finds us further than today.

It is a simple concept. All it asks for is to make sure that what we do today has a positive impact on tomorrow. And if all our tomorrows turn out better than yesterdays would we not have achieved ultimate happiness? But simple in concept it is really difficult in practice! But does it mean that we should always exist in a state of strife and unrest? I do not think so. One set of people are always on the quest for more without really appreciating what they have at hand. There is another set of people who are so complacent with what they have that they do not strive for better. The path to steadfast sense of well being is actually a very tightrope walk. The straddling of past, present and future is probably why the religions came into existence to resolve.

One thing that strikes me as a shortcoming of our society is that perusal of scriptures is relegated to the sunset of life. Our vedas and upanishads transcend geography and religion in their wisdom. It is a distillation of the experiences of people who worked to make sense of our existence. They should be read and applied as we go through the daily churn of life rather than realize too late what we did wrong. 

On this eve of another year, let me set this as my goal. Hopefully a simple resolution to last a year. It feels good to set a goal for that elusive happiness within for the coming year.

New year's eve and a party due in the evening calls for some big recipes. But I just wrote couple of paragraphs about simple concepts so I will try to keep this simple.Or as Aleksandr Orlov calls it Simples.

Poha is a simple and healthy snack. Anyone brought up in central or western india could not have gorwn up without being familiar with it. In bengal it is called chirer pulao. In bhopal you can find cartful of golden fluffy poha with amber succelent jalebis to start the day with. In mumbai kanda poha, batata poha, masala poha are almost synonyms with the snacks routine.

It was never on top of to eat list of things. When AS and I, we were pursuing the usual correspondence that accompanies an 'arranged marriage',  I was in the process of disillusioning him about my non existent cooking skills. In our six months of courtship he put up a brave face and had probably reconciled himself to a lifetime of drudgery in the kitchen. He mentioned poha as his favourite thing to eat. It was also our first joint venture in the kitchen, with me in the role of something even below Souz chef. My first couple of trials met with exemplary failures. I learnt a few tricks from my mother-in-law on my next visit. Simple things which make a vast difference to the outcome.

Ingredients

4 cups medium flaked poha

1 medium onion chopped

1/2 cup peas

1 tbsp Mustard seeds

1 tsp turmeric

5-6 curry leaves

1/2 cup chopped coriander

1 tbsp sugar

juice of 1 lime

3 tbsp oil

salt to taste

 The first step is wash the poha in water. Twice. Drain the water immediately before the flakes start absorbing it. The sprinkle 5 tbsp of water on it. Add salt, just a little bit less than what you would eventually want in our poha. Add half the lemon juice and sugar to this. Mix with your hands and let it soak it all up.

Heat the oil for 2mins. Add the mustard seeds. After they splutter add the curry leaves. 10 secs later add the onions. Cook them till softened but not as much as you would for a gravy. they should hold their shape. Now add the turmeric and the peas. After the peas get some colour from the turmeric (which would be 30 secs to 1min), add the poha. Mix quickly so that it absorbs the colour of turmeric. The first 5-6 secs it might seem that you do not have enough of the turmeric. But keep faith and keep mixing and you will be rewarded.

Add the remaining lime juice and sugar. Check the salt. the reason for adding half of the sugar and lime juice later is that the taste remains fresh. You can adjust the lime juice, sugar and salt as per your taste.

At this point if I find the poha flakes are dry-ish, I sprinkle some water, cover the utensil and let it be for 5 mins at low flame.

Garnish with fresh coriander, pomegranate and freshly grated coconut.

Simples....