Palak Pakoras/Shredded Spinach & Besan Dumplings

What I Used:

Serves 4

Cauliflower - 2 cups, cleaned and chopped
Potatoes - 1 cup, cubed
Capsicum/green bell pepper - 1, minced
Tomato paste - 1 cup (or fresh tomato puree - 1.5 cups)
Peas - 1/2 cup
Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
Turmeric powder - a pinch
Red chilly powder - 2 tsp
Pav bhaji masala - 1.5 tbsp (I used Kohinoor)
Vegetable oil - 1 tbsp
Butter - 1 tbsp and slightly more
Onions - 1/2 cup, minced
Coriander leaves - a bunch, minced

How I Made It:

1. Pressure cook the cauliflower and potatoes till tender.

2. Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan and saute the capsicum. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for another 20 seconds.

3. Add the turmeric powder, chilly powder, some salt and saute for a few more seconds.

4. Now add the tomato paste, peas, boiled potatoes and cauliflower, pav bhaji masala and butter.

5. Keep sauteeing and mashing it together till it is a smooth mixture, adding water as required. I used a potato masher like Nupur suggested and it worked like a charm. This is the step where you need a lot of patience. Do this saute-mix-mash step for about 25-30 minutes. I adjusted masala and chilly at this stage but my ingredients list mentions it with the changes I made. When you try it, change the spice level according to your taste.

6. Serve with pav if you are lucky enough to get it where you are. I served with buns, which were a far cry from the real thing. But it had to do. Slice it into half, dab on a generous amount of butter and toast it lightly. Serve the bhaji with some chopped onions, lemon wedges and coriander leaves on top.

It was a yummy dinner.

I love vazhakka in any form. Be it stir-fried, as a thoran, in kaalan, even podimas or better still, as a steaming bajji dipped in tomato ketchup on a rainy day. Bliss! TH loves them too so this time his parents visited, we made vazhakka bajji. We just used 2 raw bananas and still there was more than enough for the four of us and we weren't hungry at all for dinner.
Vazhakka Baji

This is a great party snack for kids and adults alike. Who can resist the golden, crispy goodness of bajjis?!.

What I Used:

Vazhakka / Raw bananas - 2
Besan / Kadala mavu / Chickpea flour - 2 cups
Whole jeera / jeerakam / cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Hing / Asafoetida / kaayam - 2 pinches
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Water - enough to make a thick batter
Oil - to deep fry

How I Made It:

1. Cut the banana midway and then slice them length-wise. The idea is to get thin (really thin!) slices of them about 4 inches long.

2. Mix the chilli, salt, hing, jeera and besan well in a bowl and make a thick batter with just enough water. Make sure the consistency is a bit thicker than pancake / dosa batter, but not too thick that it doesn't leave your hand when you raise it above the bowl.

3. Heat oil until nice and warm. Dip the banana slices in the batter and make sure its coated on all sides. Drop gently into the hot oil and wait for 2 mins before turning them over.

4. When the bajjis turn golden brown, transfer to a tissue-lined container and serve immediately with some steaming tea.

Goes well with tomato sauce / ketchup and the monsoon rains. Enjoy!

Palak Pakoras/Shredded Spinach & Besan Dumplings

What's better than a hot plate of pakoras and some masala chai on a rainy day? Nothing, I would say. I hardly ever make deep fried snacks or meal but this one particular rainy day, I craved for them so much that I actually went out in the rain, got some fresh spinach (palak), gram flour (besan) and coconut oil to make this lovely and crunchy snack.

What I Used:

Spinach/Palak - 1 cup, chopped

Gram flour/Besan - 1/2 cup and a bit more

Chilli powder - 1 tsp

Asafoetida/Hing - one pinch

Jeera powder - 1 tsp

Oil (I used coconut oil) - enough to deep fry the pakoras

How I Made It:

1. Mix the besan with the chilli powder, hing, jeera powder and sufficient salt.

2. Add the chopped spinach and just enough water to make a thick paste. The consistency should be such that you should be able to make rough round balls with the dough.

3. Heat oil in a pan till hot. Make small dumplings of the batter and drop into the hoil. Adjust the heat so that the oil doesn't boil over too much.

4. Turn the pakoras over when one side is done.

5. Fry till nice and brown and tranfer onto a plate lined with tissues.

6. Serve hot with tomato ketchup/mango pickle and hot masala chai.

Notes:

- Keep adjusting the heat of the oil so that the pakoras don't burn.

- Keep the size of the pakoras small, otherwise the inside won't cook properly.

Kadachakka Chips & Mezhukkupuratti Recipe

I was never much of a kadachakka fan. I didn't even know its called breadfruit in English but I wasn't surprised to see it in the Kerala store near my house one Sunday. I immediately picked up one and stashed it in the fridge to cook with later. Amma makes only two kinds of dishes with this - thoran and mezhukkupuratti. In fact, when I was younger and liked to play "what's your favourite..." with her, her answer was always "kadhachakka thoran" when asked what her favourite side dish is.

It started turning brown as soon as it was cut and I had to click like
crazy before it started looking bad. Any ideas to prevent this?
Do we dunk them in water as soon as we chop them, life for brinjals?

I, however, have always preferred kadachakka mezhupuratti and I was sure even TH would like that better so that's what I made with most of it. I am glad I came across Cynthia's post before I finished off the entire breadfruit because she has this amazingly simple idea to make chips out of them.

So, even though this is not much of a recipe, I would like to share this idea of hers with you - breadfruit chips!


Cut the breadfruit into thin strips and deep fry in oil. You can sprinkle them with spices or herbs of your choice, after frying. I only used salt.

When I asked Cynthia if this is an authentic Caribbean recipe, her answer was "Yes my dear, I am sure other people make them too but we do consider it to be very Caribbean :)"

Well, that's why this plate of freshly fried breadfruit chips goes over to the Monthly Mingle - Caribbean Cooking hosted by Meeta.

As a bonus, let me also share my Kerala recipe with breadfruit, or kadachakka, as we call it.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

One of my friends had this picture of baked sweet potatoes in her Facebook album and of course I immediately wanted the recipe. Not that I hadn't come across the dish online but to see someone you know had tried it and with success, made me want to try it too. She passed me the link and I tried it the next day! I am nothing if not a sucker for "immediate" action when it comes to trying out simple recipes ;)

Oven-baked sweet potato 'fries'

The potatoes came out quite well and though TH would have preferred it with normal potatoes, I enjoyed the subtle sweet flavour and contrasting heat form the chillies. I also loved the fact that it requires very little time to prepare and most of the work is done by the oven anyway! We had it as a quick snack at about 6 in the evening but next time I want to try this with russet potatoes and serve with dinner.

Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Fries Recipe
From Country Living

What I Used:

Sweet potatoes - 3 (about 300gm)
Red chilly flakes - 1.5 tbsp
Cumin / jeera powder - 1 tsp (optional)
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste

How I Made It:

1. Cut the sweet potatoes length-wise and then into 3" long pieces/wedges. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Add the olive oil, salt, chillies and cumin to the sweet potatoes and mix well until the pieces are well coated.

3. Preheat the oven to 200 degree C (about 400F). Line a tray with a baking sheet and lay out the potato pieces in one layer without any overlap. Bake until the edges are crisp and the pieces are cooked. Took about 30 mins for me.

*Notes*

- You can follow the same recipe with russet potatoes as well.

- Substitute the cumin with any dried herbs for a different flavour.

World's Easiest Snack : Ghee-fried Bananas

Okay, maybe my title is a slight exaggeration but really! This is one simple snack thats yummy too. It used to be my favourite 'tuck' when I was in school and my grandmom used to make it with so much of love and affection (not to mention the amount of homemade ghee that used to go into it - no wonder I was a fat child). Even the last vacation I went home for, Mary, our maid, made this and some pieces were deliberately overdone and burnt, cuz I like them that way. So here we go - ghee fried bananas!


You will need:

Ethappazham/nenthrapazham : 2
Ghee : 4-5 tbsp
Sugar : to sprinkle

Method:

Cut the bananas in circles. The pieces should be 1/2" thick.

Pour ghee into a pan and when it warms up, add the banana pieces. Keep fire in sim and fry them till they turn golden brown.

Sprinkle sugar generously when the banana pieces are still warm.

They taste crispy when warm and soft and spongy when cold.

Grilled Garlic Bread

This is something I made for Sig's Grill It event, but was too busy to post it on time. Its very simple and tastes heavenly. But, you need to be a garlic lover for that.

TH has sandwiches every morning and generally likes to stay from bread of any form over weekends. The one and only exception is garlic bread. We go out for pizza quite often and invariably end up stuffing ourselves because of the generous portions of garlic bread we ordered in the beginning. I like mine with cheese and TH likes it without.

This is a grilled version of our good 'ol garlic bread, except that I didn't have baguette in hand, so used normal white bread and that its grilled on a toaster instead of baked.

What I Used:

Bread - 6 pieces, cut into triangles (Use baguette slices for a more authentic look and taste)

Melted butter - 4 tbsp

Minced garlic - 6 pods

Salt (if butter is unsalted) - 1/2 tsp

Chillie flakes and oregano - for seasoning

How I Made It:

1. Mix the butter with garlic and salt.

2. Spread this mixture lavishly on the bread pieces.

3. Grill on a toaster till both sides are golden brown.

4. Season with chillie flakes and oregano.

Enjoy hot!

Simple Tomato Soup with Garlic Toast

I had been racking my brains to come up with a good recipe that focusses on garlic for Sunita's Think Spice event. This is one of my favourite spices and I almost went ahead and made my first pickled garlic. Well, note that I said almost. My laziness got the better of me, of course! So last weekend, I made something much simpler yet really tasty and filling. Tomato soup and garlic toast!

Tomato Soup

Serves 2

What I Used:

Tomatoes - 4
Garlic, crushed - 4 cloves
White pepper - 2 tbsp
Basil leaves - 2 (I used dry basil leaves powder)
Salt - to taste
Sugar - one pinch
Butter - 1 tsp
Coriander leaves - for garnishing

How I Made It:

1. Puree the tomatoes with salt.

2. Heat a kadai and add the butter. When it has melted, add the garlic, pepper and basil leaves and stir well for 10 seconds.

3. Add the pureed tomatoes and cook for some time, partly covered. You can sieve the tomato puree if required, I just removed the skin of the tomato before pureeing, that way its easier.

4. Adjust salt and spice, garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot.

This is a really simple recipe for tomato soup that I tried out on my own. Was pretty okay, but the frothing just wouldn't go off. Any suggestions on that, please pass it on.

Garlic Toast

What I Used:

Wheat bread - 3 slices, halved (Use any bread of your choice, baguette being the ideal one)
Salted butter, at room temperature - 3 tbsp
Garlic - 6 cloves

How I Made It:

I am not a huge fan of garlic chunks in the toast so I blended the butter and garlic nicely before spreading on the bread and toasting till golden brown. It was out of this world!