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Monday, February 11, 2013

Vada Pav

The sound of those two words together, like that, make my mouth water… Being a 'Mumbaikar' I guess I have been trained that way :)

Ingredients:

For filling:
2 potatoes boiled, peeled and roughly chopped
asafoetida (hing)
Cumin (jeera)
Mustard seeds (rai)
Udad dal
Green chillies
Garlic crushed/ chopped finely
Curry leaves
Tumeric
Salt to taste
Oil (for cooking and deep frying)

For batter:
Gram flour
Salt
Water
Hot oil

"Bread":
I used medium sized dinner rolls. These tend to be slightly sweet, but I lucked out.

Chutneys:
1) Mint chutney
Mint leaves
Cilantro
Green chillies
Roasted cumin powder
Rock/ pink salt
Salt
Lime juice
Blender

2) Sweet tamarind chutney
This recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-tamarind-chutney/

Directions:

Chutneys
- Blend all ingredients of green chutney in a blender. Use as little water as possible to speed up blending process
- Follow recipe link to prepare sweet chutney.
- These can be prepared in advance and store in the fridge (or freeze in batches for long term use)

Vada
- Heat oil in a pan. Add asafoetida, mustard seeds and udad dal. When these crackle add cumin seeds, curry leaves, garlic and green chillies. Saute for a minute.
- Add potates, tumeric and salt. Mix well, cover and let "cook" on medium high for 2-3 minutes.
- Set aside.
- Once slightly cool, tightly shape mixture into golf sized balls = 'vada'

Batter
- Mix gram flour, salt and water to make a thick paste (consistency of a brownie batter/ cake)
- Heat a little oil (1Tbsp for every cup of flour) in a pan and add to this paste. Mix well.

Cook
- Heat oil for deep frying.
- Coat the vada with prepared gram flour paste
- Deep fry until vada is golden brown.
- Place on a paper towel to drain excess oil.

Assemble
- Slit the dinner roll half (refer to pic below)
- Use green chutney on one half and sweet chutney on other half of cut bread. Use as much or as little as you want, per taste.
- Place vada in between the two halves of bread.
- Optional: stir fry some semi-hot green chillies in oil, add salt and serve on the side.

Serve hot!!!!!!

~~Cook, Share, Enjoy!~~


Sunday, February 10, 2013

Yummy Instant Vada's :)

Hi Guys,

Being Indian's Vada's are something each one of us loves to eat and Here goes the easiest recipe for them.

Ingredients:

1 cup channa dal
1/2 cup toor dal
1 onions chopped into v small pieces
2 chillies cut into small pieces
1tsp salt



Soak  the channa dal and toor dal in water for a minimum of 1 hour and then Grind the channa dal and toor dal coarsely.  Just use 2-3 tbsp of water if needed while grinding as the paste should be thick and not flowing. Once the paste is ready  add onions, chillies and salt to it and mix well. Now make small rounds of the thick paste and keep aside. Heat oil in a kadai. Oil should be medium - High hot ( I put my stove in no.7) and once oil is hot, put 3-4 rounds at a time if it's a small kadai and for bigger ones you can put upto 7-8 rounds. Keep flipping the vadas in the oil upside down till you see the brown crust forming. Once you see the brown crust being formed reduce the stove to medium ( I used no.5 in my stove) and continue flipping for next 3-4 mins untill Golden Brown colour crust gets formed. This way the inside of the vada also gets cooked properly. And here we have hot vada's ready to be served :D . Serve with ketchup or any pickle. 

Thursday, February 7, 2013

masoor dal with green beans on the side

Coming from Andhra, I have almost always had toor dal and never really tried any other kind of dal or can't really remember if I did.
Its been almost 7 years since I left home in India... been very long...don't remember if I had any other
dal  before that.

Anyways, I got introduced to masoor dal when I tasted it at Mridula's place and loved the taste of it.
You can find the recipe of that at
http://easyhappycooking.blogspot.com/2013/01/orange-masoor-dal-with-rice.html

I did exactly the same except ... I added some garam masala just before turning off the flame cause I like the flavor of that.
Also, added red chillies when I adeed cumin and mustard. Love dry red chillies and try to put them in as many dishes as possible.

I found this really easy and really tasty and perfect side for dal - green beans dish and made it.
Loved how it went with the dal as a side.

Here's the recipe:
http://hungrydesi.com/2009/03/22/dads-french-style-green-beans/

Did everything the same except added some curry powder along with all the other spices so its not bland.

And Here's a picture of my plate :)



Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Whats for dinner tonight you ask? It is a comfort food kinda night for me....

http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/italian-mac-cheese-210700191.html

Mac and cheese it is, italian style :)
Of course with a side of greens; Swiss chard that i will saute in olive oil with some onions, salt and pepper). I am trying to minimize my non-vegetarian intake, just coz, but hey cheese = protein, right? So i think  this will be a balanced meal :)

And P.S: this guy Fabio Viviani is good (http://fabioviviani.com/).
I have not made a lot of his recipes but they look ah-mazing! And if you watch his videos on yahoo.com he has some great tips....

~~Cook, Share, Enjoy!~~


Here is how it came out… half eaten….delicious!!