Where we twist a little

Tags

breakfast, Friday Feast, idly, indian, oats, recipe, sandwich, snacks, uthapam

recipes that is 🙂 I love to experiment in my kitchen and regular readers know it by mostly… So when I read this post by Roop, which says that she finds desi cooking boring. This is what she has to say

No matter what cookbook I read, it’s the same recipe one after another. A combination of various spices to be tempered, onions to be browned, garlic/ginger to be added if liked, and the rest. True, you can add in new flavors, play with ingredients – example, adding chickpeas to your standard fare of baingan ka bhartha – but really, the base of all cooking remains similar. How much can one ignore the mundane?

Well I for one couldnt disagree more 🙂 I started to type a looooooong comment to her and than thoought of giving a couple of recipes to prove otherwise 😀 😀 roop I hope these are good enough to make it intersting for u 😛

Uttapam Sandwich

Yes you heard it right, I had first read about it long long ago in a magazine somewhere and since than I have been making it at home regularly and I can’t tell you what a hit it is at home… I make it with various stuffings and turns out well with every one of them… this one is my favourite though, something about combining the chinese and the indian flavours

What I used

• Dosa batter
• Mix vegetables I used yellow and red peppers, onions and carrots
• Soya sauce – 2 tsp
• Vinegar – 1 tsp
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive Oil for stir frying

How I made it

• Heat oil in a pan, add onions and fry till pink
• Add the cut and grated veggies and stir fry on high flame till just about tender
• Add salt, pepper and sauces fry for another 1 minute
• Keep it away to cool down

• Now heat the dosa tawa/pan and spread the batter on it a little thick to make a utthapam
• Flip when cooked and cook the other side
• Cut from the center and spread the veggies on one half

• Cover with second half and grill it, I use the sandwich maker and griller that I have at home

And gulp them down 🙂

Oats Idly

There is no limit to what can we done with the humble idly, the variations that I make with idlies are so many that when I wanted to choose one for here I was totally confused, I make pumpkin idly, cucumber idly, spinach and cheese idly and ofcourse the good old rava idly… What is my favorite here is the oats idly… I have said that on the blog before that I love oats and a cereal but unfortunately no one in my house eats it… hence I keep discovering recipes that contains oats in forms other than porridge and that is when I chanced upon oats idlies and trust me they are worth the try… totally nutritous and give the regular idly such a nice facelift

What I used

• Oats – 1 1/2 cups
• Semolina/Rawa – 1/2cup
• Mix veggies – 1 cup (I used grated carrots, capsicum, chopped onions and boiled peas)
• Sour Curds – 2 cup
• Green chilli – 2 chopped
• Corainder leaves – a handful
• Curry leaves – 6-7
• Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
• Chana dal – 1 tsp
• Urad dal – 1 tsp
• Oil – 1 tsp
• Eno Fruit Salt – 1 tsp

How I made it

• Mix oats, rawa and curds and keep aside for 30 minutes
• Heat oil in a small pan, add mustard seeds
• when they crack add curry leaves, channa dal and urad dal
• fry till it turns light brown in color
• Add the tempering to the oats mixture.
• Add the veggies and salt to taste and mix well
• Grease the idly mould and keep them ready
• Add the eno fruit salt and pour in moulds immediately
• Steam for about 15 minutes and your idlies and ready to be demolished

Dunk in a bowl of sambhar and relish

or if u like my little one who just wants to touch sambhar and eat, ur loss 😉

So roop does this excite u enough 🙂

Palak chutney

Tags

chutney, cocunut, complete my thali event, dosa, Friday Feast, idly, indian, palak, recipe, roasted gram

I love various forms of chutneys with dosas, idli and even paranthas 🙂 so I am always in search of good recipes plus due to the fact that I am dieting (atleast trying to eat sensible) and mil has high cholestrol, the standard cocunut and peanut chutneys are made very rarely in our house…

So when I chanced upon Palak chutney recipe in Sanjeev Kapoor’s Rice, Bread & Pickles, I was almost jumping with joy, the fact that I love spinach was just an added advantange 🙂

I did make a minor modification to the recipe though… The original recipe used grated cocunut and due to the reasons stated above I replaced the cocunut with roasted channa dal…

I also seasonsed the final chutney with little mustard seeds which was not mentioned in the original recipe somehow a chutney without that tempering seems incomplete for me specially if I am going to eat it with idly/dosa

So here is the final recipe, if u want to stick to the original recipe just replace the roasted gram with cocunut and skip the seasoning in the end and bingo…

What I used

• 1 tbsp skinless split black gram (urad dal)
• 1 tbsp spli bengal gram (channa dal)
• 4 dried red chilli (reduce it if u dont want it fiery)
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1 medium tomato chopped
• 1 green chilli chopped
• 1 tbsp roasted gram
• 1 tsp tamarind pulp
• 1 bunch (roughly 250gm) spinach or palak, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp oil
• salt to taste

for the tempring/seasoning

• 1 tsp oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

How I made it

• Heat oil in a pan, add the burad dal and channa dal and roast to golden brown, take care not to burn it though
• Add the red chillies and onion. Fry for 2 mins
• Add the tomatoes and green chilli and saute for 5 mins
• Add the palak, roasted channa, tamarind pulp and salt  and mix well.
• Remove from heat and cool
• Grind to a fine paste
• Season with mustard seeds cracked in hot oil

We eat these with crisp dosas this morning and the taste is still lingering in my mouth

This is off to Complete my Thali – chutney event hosted at Joy Of Cooking

PS:I may post somemore chutneys as this event sounds very intersting and there is no limit on the no of entries so stay tuned and dont run away from the scare of getting drowned in chutneys 😉