Hmm, finding a vegetarian Indian dish to make for dinner from scratch (which doesn't require a lot of ingredients I don't have and time) is an interesting challenge 🤔
Thus, why Indian restaurants and grocery stores here with takeout counters are appealing, LOL.
If your child is a food lover, the ABCs of Indien Cuisine will certainly be a great read. Full of adorable illustrations, this picture book introduces young readers to different Indian dishes, all organized following the alphabet’s letters. From Aloo Gobi to Zeera, young readers discovers twenty six very tasty flavors presented in rich and powerful colors.
We wanted to make something good tonight so we made Gatte Ki Subzi together ❤️
A Rajasthani dish made of besan dumplings in yogurt sauce, it is one of our favorite dishes.
We are thinking about doing something more elaborate like this every Thursday evening as a way to start the weekend a bit early (since we both have WFH on Fridays 😊).
Rasam – I cannot say enough about this wonderful Tamil dish that wakens the digestive system and enlivens the palate. We have quite a number of different recipes. Today’s pic is one that includes some toor dal, is flavoured with tomato and uses lemon as its tart/sour flavour.
The fennel and white bean salad is not really Indian, despite coming from #PlantBasedIndia cookbook. 2 Indian spices don't make it Indian in my reckoning.
The original recipe uses oranges and grapefruit, but these aren't ripe enough yet, so I used what I could from the garden and pantry to layer citrusy flavours. Cumquats, lime juice, makrut lime zest, powdered dried oranges, powdered nasturtium powder and an orange-herb powder from dehydrated oranges. (Powders all from the garden produce.) Also added garden herbs and herb flowers.
The Shahi Gobi - royal cauliflower in a rich tomato base - was also delicious, although the pic in the book is quite different.
Roasted cauli is mixed with a spicy tomato-onion base, some more spices and cashew-almond cream that has saffron and rosewater in it. More of the cream over the top and some herbs.
and instead of the capsicum dish I made rasam with the horse gram I sprouted overnight. The sprouts are cooked first (best to cook horse gram sprouts), and I used the #InstantPot for that. Then most are blended with spices to make a paste. Than they are all cooked together with other spices, tamarind, curry leaves etc. Horse gram makes dark dark coloured dishes. Very earthy in tasted. Delicious. Very healthy.
Finally got around to making the Paneer last night. Decided to make Paneer Khurchan. One of our favorite restaurants in Chicago (“Essence of India” in Lincoln Square) does it really well and we were craving it. It is not a dish you often see on a menu here in the US.
It's made rustically as I was running out of time, but it is just as flavoursome. It has India (chilli paste, cumin, black pepper, ginger, garlic, peas) and sort-of Chinese (soy, rice vinegar, corn, spring onions). Just more-ish.
The last two days we had Indian style fried chicken breast and spinach in tomato sauce with basmati rice. Actually, todays version was with May turnip greens and and also aloo chaat. 😋
As for the Eat-30-Plants-A-Week plan: with 70 different types of plants in total we have far surpassed the target this week. I guess it was simply a really varied vegetable week, I can’t really see us eating that many plants all the time. But 30 should be possible. Especially when you find a display like on photo 2, loads of different aubergines in our local supermarket - I’m seriously impressed!
The last two photos show a small but pretty bowl that somebody discarded. I found it in our building’s refuse area and just had to pick it up.
Another nomenclature snag in Indian recipes in English. #NonVegetarianToot
"Mutton" can refer to goat meat, beef, or sheep.
"In South Asian or Caribbean cuisine, mutton refers to the meat of goats. In India however, we often refer to beef, sheep and goat meat as mutton"
I am working* with recipes (veg and non-veg) from Kerala atm and had to research mutton after some ambiguities. It seems that mostly goat and some beef is used there, at least by some Keralite ethnic groups.
Being curious, I even found an app to help with counting all the different plants I’ve been eating since Monday morning and can report back that it took me only two days to go over the limit of 30. The app is not quite as strict as the method described in the first article but I think I’m probably on a good track in feeding my family. looking smug
I got the dish made today that I wanted to make, and oh my goodness it was kinda exceptional.
I made Indian Coriander leaves and Mint chutney, and then Date chutney. Meanwhile par-boiled potatoes were roasting till crispy.
The potatoes were drizzled with yoghurt, the two chutneys and garam masala. Then they were topped with coriander leaves, diced carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, red capsicum, onion, radishes, pomegranate kernels and beans sprouts (that I made yesterday).
Finally, a sprinkling of chaat masala and lots of thin sev.
The tastes of Indian street food, and so many textures and flavours. Plus the roasted potatoes were uber uber good.
One of the most wonderful tastes on this planet is the tangy spice, chilli and tamarind mix of Indian street food. It is glorious, addictive, and quite mind blowing. The flavours have a party in your mouth. No, truly! If you are doubting me, head off to your nearest good Indian restaurant and try Pani Puri, or Samosa Chaat – any chaat for that matter – and even Rasam will give you a sample of the hot and sour tastes that make up Indian food.
This recipe from #Ottolenghi's #PlentyMore takes the notion of the hot, sour, salty and sweet flavour mix and stuffs it inside a potato cake made from mashed potatoes. It mimics the Aloo Tika and Potato Cutlet snacks of India, Podimas recipes of South India, and more recently I saw a fabulous BALL of mashed potato full of North Indian street-food flavours.
A few things from the weekend cookup. First, Rajma, a kidney bean curry. This was so awesome that I'll make it again soon. Not usually a great fan of kidney beans, this dish might have changed my mind.
I cooked the kidney beans in the #InstantPot, so easy and convenient, and perfectly cooked.
Gujarati Dal, another great dal from this book, made with toor dal. Again, the dal was cooked perfectly in the #InstantPot, to the point of disintegration - just how to cook it for Indian dishes as it develops s silky smooth texture at that point.
I cooked enough toor dal to put some in the freezer.
Once the lentils were cooked, the dish came together pretty easily with a tadka made first, then the lentils added
A nice crispy element to add to the others - Roasted Bhinda. Split in 4 without cutting through, they are partially roasted before being tossed in spices, ginger and garlic, then roasted again. Really lovely and an alternative to deep fried battered okra (which I love).
And finally, as well as plain rice, there was Kothmira rice (Chutney Pulao) which is a stunning rice dish made with peas and a coriander leaves-chilli fresh chutney. This has become a firm favourite.