Breakfast, Desi Style: Akoori

Yield: 2-3 breakfast servings

6 green onions, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, grated

1 tsp ginger paste

3/4 tsp cayenne pepper or 1 green chili, sliced lengthwise

3/4 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp cumin-corriendar powder

2 small roma tomatoes, finely chopped

4 eggs

salt to taste

vegetable oil

Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Sautee the onions for 1-2 min until slightly softened. Add the garlic, ginger paste, and green chili (if using), and sautee for another minute. Add the remaining spices and the tomatoes, and cook until the tomatoes have released their water and the water has evaporated. Add the eggs and scramble. Cook to desired done-ness. Add salt to taste. I love to eat this with toasted english muffins with a light layer of mayo, or fresh hot rotis. mmm

Dosa: South Indian Crepes

Dosa is a thin crepe made from a paste made of soaked rice and beans. They're filled with all sorts of (savory) things, most often potatoes and peas. Sometimes, they are made really large (up to 18in). Here's a picture of a couple of smaller ones cooking on the griddle...you can tell how thin they are because you can see the griddle itself through them!

And here's a terrible-no-good picture of a typical potato and pea filling (I got too busy eating to remember to take another pic! oooops)

Goan style shrimp curry

Adapted this recipe for a DELICIOUS and simple curry that i've made several times now. a few comments:

- tastes great with other proteins too, like chicken or tofu

- the spice proportions in this recipe make it INCREDIBLY spicy...you can cut the dry spices in half and it would still taste delicious

- i put in twice as much coconut milk...because it comes in 1/2 cup cans so it's easier to just use up the whole can...plus it tempers the spice...and of course...it's so amazing(ly bad for you, but let's not think about that!)

- i like to put in about twice as many curry leaves too

- tasted delicious with some red wine

Chicken Tikka Masala

(Please excuse the lousy picture, I kept getting too busy eating this dish!)

This is a dish all my non-Indian friends recognize from the Indian restaurant, and it's surprisingly easy to make, so, it's one of the first dishes I consider making for other people. It's actually not a dish from my region of India, so it's not something I grew up eating. Hence, I have to admit, I've adapted an online recipe :P My version is quite spicy, so if you like the milder restaurant version, replace the green chili with half a jalapeno, and halve the coriander-cumin powder, chili powder, and garam masala in the sauce.

Chicken Tikka Masala (Yield: 6 servings)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1inch cubes

Marinade:
1 c. plain yogurt
2 Tbsp. lime juice
2 tsp. cumin-coriander powder
2 tsp. red chili powder
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger paste

Sauce:
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tsp. garlic paste
1 green chili pepper, sliced
3 tsp. cumin-coriander powder
1 tsp. red chili powder
1 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. salt
6 medium tomatoes, chopped and blended in a food processor
2 c. half and half

Veggies-I like potatoes and bell peppers, but many others will work too, e.g. green beans, peas, etc.

First, combine all marinade ingredients, and then mix chicken cubes in. Allow to marinate for 2 hrs.

While the chicken is marinating, melt the butter on medium high heat in a pot. Add garlic and chili pepper and cook 1 minute. Stir in dry spices and salt. Stir in tomatoes and other veggies. Simmer 15 minutes. Remove green chili so that no one eats it accidentally! Stir in half and half and simmer to thicken--about another 5 minutes.

Remove chicken from marinade and broil until cooked through. Add to the sauce and simmer another 5 minutes. Serve with brown basmati rice or naan.

Chhole-Bhatura and Aloo Shaak

Chhole is a dish of chickpeas in a tomato-based sauce, and it's traditionally eaten with bhatura, which is a fried bread made from white flour. A few weeks ago (I'm way behind on my posts too!) we made this dish with a simple potato dish. The chhole and potato recipes are direct rips from my mother's recipes. We never really made bhatura at home (my mom generally made poori instead, which is fried, unleavened bread made with whole wheat flour) to eat with these dishes. Additionally, we'd usually eat them with shrikand, which is a dish made by pressing the water out of yogurt and then adding sugar and saffron. But that process generally takes over a day so it didn't happen :)

The potatoes are made just like the aloo gobi from last month, omitting the cauliflower. I added a handful of defrosted frozen peas after the potatoes were done cooking to add some color.

The bhatura were made based off a recpie found here. The recipe turned out to make the dough waaaay too moist, so we ended up doubling the flour and the baking powder, and adding a few tablespoons of oil and water.

Chhole-Bhatura
yield: ~7 servings

For the Chhole:
4 small-medium onions, chopped
7 plum tomatoes, chopped
vegetable oil
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
3 green chilis, spliced once down the vertical center
1 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin-corriendar powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cans chick peas

For the Bhatura:
2 cups of white all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup non-fat yogurt
Water
Vegetable oil (lots of it--for frying)

Coat a medium-sized frying pan in vegetable oil and place over medium-high heat. When the oil is heated, add the onions and stir until coated in oil. Cook the onions until translucent, about 5 minutes. Keep stirring occasionally and cover if necessary to keep from sticking. Add the garlic paste, ginger paste, and green chilis and cook for another minute. Then add the remaining spices and the tomatoes. Stir and cover. Reduce heat to medium and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes until tomatoes have reduced and the onions are cooked through. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Remove the green chilis and discard. Place the onion-tomato mixture in a blender and puree. Return the mixture to the pan (or a saucepan) and add the drained chick peas. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes to allow the chick peas to soften slightly and absorb some of the flavor.

To make the bhatura, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine slowly with the yogurt and a few tablespoons of water and oil until a manageable dough forms. Set aside for 1-2 hrs in a warm place. Then break off small balls of dough (golf-ball-sized) and coat with more flour. Roll into circles about 2mm thick. Heat ~4 inches of oil in a thick-bottomed pot (eg the bottom of a pressure cooker or a wok). To test the oil, slide a tiny ball of dough (size of a whole black peppercorn) into the hot oil. If it sizzles and floats and cooks immediately, the oil is ready. Slide the bhaturas in 1-3 at a time (depending on the size of your pot). Cook on either side for a minute until golden brown. Remove from oil and drain on a paper towel.

Serve everything together warm, with yogurt. Make sure you eat the traditional Indian way--with your hands! :)

Tindora Subzi

My favorite vegetables are tinora, which are also called tindola or giloda. They're like little cucumbers, except you cook them. I've never seen them in a non-Indian store, so I have no idea what you'd call them in English. But anyway, they don't have too much taste, but they have a really fun texture. I cook them the same way as the aloo gobi, but I omitted the black peppercorns and the chili. Just a note--if they're pink inside, they've gone bad! It's always sad when that happens :(

The whole gilodas:

At home we always slice them up lengthwise. My mom and I have decided that if they're chopped any other way, they just don't taste as good!


For some reason, we also always eat this subzi with sliced potatoes. Somehow the thin giloda slices with the wide potato slices make for a very fun experience :)

Best thing to eat these with: chapattis, or rotlis. These take a while to make and I haven't quite gotten used to our stove so I can't get the baking temperature just right, so I don't usually make them. But I hadn't seen good giloda in the store for a long time, so I figured I'd go all out.

The little balls of dough ready to be rolled:


And ready to be baked:


The finished product! Slathered in butter, of course...

Aloo Gobi

Aloo = potatoes and gobi = cauliflower. This dish and its variations are some of the most basic staples in my parents' house. By variations, I mean that the spices and the method of cooking stay the same, but the vegetables vary. You can use basically any vegetable you like (for example, the snow peas were a random addition because I had some leftover from another dish). The generic term for this kind of dish is "subzi", so if you want to use other vegetables but still sound exotic just say that :). The standard veggies I use are cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, romanesco broccoli (this stuff is amazing--the taste of broccoli, consistency of cauliflower, but better than either), okra, green beans, bell peppers, and--my personal favorite--tindola (it's sort of like a 2" cucumber, with the consistency of a squash. sort of. hard to explain, and hard to find in the US). If you add tomatoes, eggplant, onions, spinach, you can make it a little soupier and eat with rice (or kichdi, a mixture of rice and lentils--carbs and protein in one shot, yay!). But I'll save a post about that for another day...

Aloo Gobi
yield: ~ 2 small servings

1 small head of cauliflower (I use a head that's ~2-3: in diameter--something I've only ever seen at the farmers' mkt in Mt View--but feel free to scale up the recipe or only use ~1/3 of a normal-sized head)
1 large russett potato, peeled
10 snow peas (~a handful)
~1/2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp garlic paste
1/2 tsp ginger paste
1 Thai green chili (optional--if using this, be careful, it will be spicy! consider omitting the cayenne pepper)
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns (you can use ground pepper too, but it will make the whole dish look darker--personally I like it bright yellow)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cumin-corriendar powder
1/8 tsp gaharam masala
1 tsp salt

Cut the vegetables into cubes/small pieces. Any size is ok, smaller pieces cook faster, so the size will be a function of your personal preference and how much time you have. Keep the vegetables segretated. Since different vegetables require different cooking times, you'll want to put them into the pan separately.

Heat vegetable oil and mustard seeds in a skillet over medium-high heat. Use enough oil to coat the pan generously (but doesn't have to be TOO generous). Stay close by, because the mustard seeds will begin to pop as they heat up. Allow to pop for ~30 seconds, and then add the garlic and ginger pastes and the chili pepper if you're using it. Stir to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. After ~30 seconds, add the remaining spices and the potatoes (or whichever vegetable takes the longest to cook), and stir to evenly coat the potatoes with the spices. If the potatoes seem to be sticking (as they will if you're using a non-nonstick pan), add a few tablespoons of water. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and cover the pan. Stir the potatoes occasionally and if they seem to be sticking feel free to add more water (but just add a little at a time--if you add too much then you'll have to boil it off). Once the potatoes are about half done, add the remaining vegetables and stir thoroughly to get some of the spices onto the newly added veggies. Again, cover and allow to cook until the vegetables are done to your liking. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Garnish with cilantro (if you must--personally I can't stand cilantro haha) and serve with bread of some sort. My favorite is roti or paratha, but naan would be fine too. Serve it hot, but it will keep for a day or so.


My variations/recommendations:
-If I'm making this with okra or broccoli, I generally omit the cayenne pepper, turmeric, and cumin-coriendar powder and I do use a green chili.
- I like to use the combination of zucchini, yellow squash and a little bit of spinach.
- Potatoes are a standard addition to any other vegetable