Soya Koftas Pulao - with leftover rice

Leftover rice converted into a delicious and protein rich pulao - try this for sure if you are a Nutrela fan. You can deep fry the koftas or use an appe pan (please see my other 'no fry' recipes) for a healthier version.

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the koftas (makes about 8)
1/2 cup Nutrela granules
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon besan
2 tbsps chopped onion
1 green chilli chopped
1/2 tsp haldi
1/4 tsp grated garlic
Salt to taste
Oil to fry

For the pulao
2 cups leftover cooked rice
1/4 cup peanuts
1 small onion, finely sliced
2 tablespoons oil
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 tsp haldi
Salt to taste
1 green chilli,chopped
Lemon slices to serve
Chopped coriander, to garnish


1. For the koftas, microwave the granules with the water for one minute. When cool , add all the remaining ingredients.
2. In a kadhai, heat oil for frying the koftas (or you can use an appe pan for no fry koftas - my personal version)
3. Shape the mixture into one inch round balls and deep fry till golden brown in colour
4. In another pan, heat the oil for the rice. Add the bayleaf and peanuts. When crisp and fried, add the the onion and fry till brown. Add all the remaining ingredients and toss well.
5. Serve hot, garnished with lemon wedges, coriander

 

Zucchini and Tomato Rice

I think I have blogged earlier about my local subzi vendor who sells zucchini thinking that it is a member of the kheera family and surprisingly at the same rate also :)) as opposed to shelling out atleast twice more in Hypercity..our code word is 'Videsi kheera' for zucchini :) It is a great vegetable for its taste and nutrition and lends itself very easily to a lot of cuisines..chinese/mexican/italian..even Indian, next time I cook zucchini I will replicate a great recipe from my mom which combines it with bhindi ! This pulao also turned out delicious, can work as a main course or as a side dish with any continental preparation..you can use either yellow or green zucchini

Ingredients

2 cups boiled rice
1 medium sized zucchini,cut into bite sized chunks
1 teaspoon garlic ,crushed
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes,pureeed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon ajwain seeds
1 teaspoon mixed dried herbs
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
Salt to taste
Basil/corainder, to garnish

1. Heat the oil and add the ajwain seeds to splutter. Add garlic and fry for a few seconds
2. Add the onion and cook till soft.
3. Add the tomato puree and the zucchini and leave on medium flame to dry the puree out.
4. When the puree dries out , add the salt,pepper,herbs,chilli flakes,sugar and fry for a minute.
5. Toss in the rice and mix well with the paste.
6. Serve hot!

Corn n Capsicum Pulao

This is a hand me down recipe from my sister and I find it as a great option for comfort food days..it's even a great substitute for the painstaking task of preparing a veg biryani.I happened to make this today after a long time and when I opened the cooker I was transported back to sweet home memories before my sister left for University and the one-odd days that she would get into her full cooking mood. And after eating her food and my husband's, I am of the confirmed opinion that people who cook rarely make the most delicious food :) well now my sister is an expert in her own right and ends up teaching me a thing or two ..
Once you read the recipe you might notice that I have used a lot of chilli (3 types actually) but that's because this pulao tastes great spicy and hot..you can tone down as per your taste preference. 

Ingredients

1 cup rice,washed and saoked for 15 minutes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bayleaf
1 teaspoon jeera
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1 teaspoon chopped green chilli
1 onion,chopped finely
1 large tomato , chopped finely
1 cup sweet corn
1 capsicum, chopped
1/2 teaspoon haldi powder
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon jeera powder
2 tabelspoons pav bhaji masala
1 1/2 cups water
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander, to garnish

1. Heat the oil in a pressure cooker. Add the bayleaf and jeera and cook till spluttering.
2. Add the garlic and green chillies and fry for a few seconds.
3. Add the onion and cook till soft.
4. Add the tomato and cook till dry.
5. Add all the masalas and salt , fry for a minute.
6. Add in the corn and the capsicum and cook for another minute.
7. Add the rice and the water . Cover the lid and put the cooker on high flame. After one whistle, let it sim for 5-6 minutes.
8. Turn off the gas and open the cooker only after the steam has been released
9. Serve hot garnished with corainder..I added a dollop of butter for some extra love :))

Mint n Garlic Fried Rice

This note from a friend has made my day..
"Hey Sparrow(name changed:).. thanks for awakening the inner cook in me.. ur blog is an inspiration.. I never knew I wud be back in the kitchen so soon with 2 little ones... tried ur cheese tartlets, salan (made with chote baingan) and cheesecake today.. all came out sooo well.. thanks for sharing this blog and as I said 'reviving' the cook in me :))"
My reply - There is no better stress reliever for me than cooking and I am glad I can share that feeling with others through my blog !
Anyway, if I have not mentioned this earlier then I am now- my husband loves rice more than anything in the world (maybe me also :)) ..so every meal has to and has to have rice ..I have to make rice along with pav bhaji/chaat/idli sambhar/pizza..and so on ..you get the gist :)
So I am on the constant look out for rice variations and this recipe is my dear friend Richa's which I tried out today..I served it with raita and papad but you can try it with any cuisine.

Ingredients

4 cups cooked rice (I used long grain basmati)
1 cup mint leaves, finely chopped
1 bay leaf (tejpata)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt

To grind into a paste
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
1 teaspoon shahi jeera (this is smaller than regular jeera)
1 badi eleichi
2-3 cloves
7-8 peppercorns
1 teaspoon regular jeera
7-8 mint leaves

1. Heat the oil. Add the bayleaf ,green chilli and fry for few seconds.
2. Add the onion and cook till light brown.
3. Add the ground paste and fry for a minute with the onion on a medium flame.
4. Add the mint leaves and toss for a few seconds.
5. Stir in the rice with the salt and lime juice. Toss well to combine everything uniformly
6. Turn off the gas and cover with a lid for a few minutes before serving

Korean Bibimbap

There is no intention on my part to purposely choose dishes with such exotic names :)) the stuff in my fridge just lent itself to allow this dish (which was sitting on my calendar for over 2 months) to be made.
Again picked this up from  'Food Safari'on the FOX travel channel..Bibimbap is a dish of rice topped with vegetables and meat (optional) with a dollop of any chilli paste or chilli sauce to spice things up. Choice of vegetables is upto you...you can use whatever you have in your fridge..choice of meat is also yours..so modify the recipe as per your preferences.
For the rice I used sticky rice which I had picked up from Thailand to basically make a mango and sticky rice pudding but mango season is far away.I learnt how to cook the rice from this link - http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaisnacks/ss/stickyricehowto.htm

There are no real measurements for this dish but I have still tried to give an estimate for a single serving

Ingredients

1 cup cooked rice (you can use any short grain rice, cook the rice with salt)
1/2 cup steamed bean sprouts
1 steamed pak choy bundle (or use spinach)
1/2 cup steamed carrots
1/2 cup steamed baby corn
You can also use mushrooms/baby corn/zucchini/broccoli
Sesame oil (about 1/4 cup)
Crushed garlic (roughly 1 tablespoon)
Soya sauce (2 tablespoons)
Chilli paste/sauce (2 tablespoons)
Sesame seeds, to garnish
Spring onion ,to garnish (optional)
Omelette ,to garnish (optional)

1. To each vegetable group add little bit of sesame oil, a pinch of garlic paste and about 1/2 teaspoon of soya sauce)
2. In a wide bowl or a platter, first spread the rice at the bottom. Pour about one tablespoon sesame oil over the rice.
3. Arrange the vegetables over the rice in a circular manner (as in the picture) leaving space in the center. If you are using meat , then first perform step 1 with the boiled and shredded meat.
4. Put the chilli paste in the center of the vegetables
5. Garnish as desired and place the dish in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees Celcius for 5-7 minutes for all the juices to gather more steam.
6. Remove carefully from the oven and place the dish on a plate or mix and transfer contents to a plate and start digging in...

Since I steamed the veggies in a dimsum steamer there was left over stock in the steaming vegetable which I flavoured with soya sauce and had as a soup with the Bibimbap (bet you still can't get the name right !)

Bibimbap picture for the chicken version with the stock soup

My steamer setup with the stock collecting at the bottom..this setup was further covered with a lid..the lid is not on in the picture to show how the steamer was placed..am happy that with this dish some of the stuff I carried from Thailand was also inaugrated :))

Matki Bhaat

Bhaat is rice in and Matki is moth (मोठ ) ..basically this is a rice recipe with sprouted matki beans,handed over to me by my sweet Maharashtrian (ex)neighbour who is a cook par excellence in so many ways. I have learnt a lot from her and I now don't meet her so often as I have shifted homes and so the exchange of recipes (and bowls full of each other's respective regional treats ) has become very limited :(( 

I buy readymade sprouts but you can make the sprouts at home yourself. Just soak the beans in a wet muslin cloth , tie the cloth and leave in a strainer and you will have sprouts ready in less than a full 24 hours, maybe the heat here speeds up things . You can substitute the matki with any other sprouts but the taste of matki is unmistakable :) Have a close look at the picture below to identify what matki looks like..

Ingredients

2 cups matki sprouts

1 cup rice (long grain)

1 teaspoon roasted jeera powder

1 teaspoon roasted coriander powder

1 onion, finely chopped

1 green chilli, finely chopped

1 teaspoon mustard seeds (rai)

pinch heeng

1/2 teaspoon haldi

2 tablespoons oil

1/2 teaspoon garlic paste

1/4 cup chopped corainder

2 cups water

Salt

Lemon wedges

Fried onion, to garnish

1.Soak the rice for 15 minutes in water

2.Heat the oil in a pressure cooker. Add the heeng and the rai seeds. When they splutter, add the onion and green chilli and cook till onion is soft on a medium flame.

3. Then add the garlic paste (don't add this earlier) and cook for 15-20 seconds. Add the jeera powder, coriander powder, haldi, salt and fry for 30 seconds. 

4. Add the sprouts and toss in the mixture and cook for a minute. 

5. Add the chopped coriander, salt, water on a high flame.

6. Drain and add the soaked rice. Cover the pressure cooker.

7. After first whistle, reduce to a slow flame and leave on sim for 5-6 minutes. Turn off the gas and wait for the steam to release.

If you are cooking in a pan and not a pressure cooker, then add the rice after the water is added and begins boiling. Cover slightly with a lid and leave to cook on a slow flame. When all the water is soaked, cover with a tight lid and turn off the gas. Leave the rice to cook in the steam and open only after 15 minutes.

In either case, serve hot hot with the garnish (lemon and fried onions) and with my standard rice accompaniments - papad and curd :)

Burmese Khow Suey

Sunday dinner for me has to be exotic (which only means not the usual dal-roti-subzi ) or  has to be  Dominoe's pizza delivery.  Since I am still stuck with all those coconuts from last few days pooja attendance , I had to come up with something that uses coconut. Had I not been blogging , it would have been dosa with coconut chutney but my mind is on a new track to come up with more interesting ideas. Thai cuisine also uses a lot of coconut but the other ingredients are not so easy to source so I decided to try out making Burmese Khow Suey.
So what is Burmese Khow Suey...it is a one meal noodles (or rice) and curry dish and has obviously originated from Burma .The curry can be of meat or vegetable. The curry is served on top of rice /noodles and is topped with a very interesting variety of condiments. This is a vegetarian version , but can be made the same way with meat, just add chicken/fish/prawns instead of the vegetables and about 2 tablespoons of fish sauce along with the regular soya sauce. The list of ingredients is long but that doesn't mean that making it is a daunting task and the beauty of the final product is totally worth it!


Ingredients (serves 4)

2 cups mixed vegetables (french beans, carrots, cauliflower,broccoli,baby corn, green peas)
1/2 cup paneer pieces
3 cups thin coconut milk
1 cup thick coconut milk
salt to taste
boiled rice/regular noodles  Or steamed rice

For the paste :
5-6 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 tablespoon cumin powder
1" piece ginger
3 medium onions,roughly chopped
3 green chillies
1 tablespoon haldi powder

3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons roasted besan
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons palm sugar(or regular sugar) - can add as per taste, I prefer this slighlty extra sweet
1 tablespoon light soya sauce

For the garnish
roasted peanuts
chopped coriander


For the condiments :
crushed potato chips
chopped spring onion
fried onion
fried garlic pieces
lemon wedges
chilli flakes
green chilli, chopped
boiled egg,grated (for the meat version)

1. Grind all the ingredients of the paste in a blender to a smooth paste.
2. Heat oil, add this paste and fry on a medium flame till the paste is well roasted and the oil leaves the sides
3. Add the besan and mix well, the paste would become lumpy at this stage.
4. Add the thin coconut milk and stir all the ingredients with a whisk to remove the lumps. Add the vegetables/meat ,salt and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the flame and let the the sauce boil till the vegetables/meat become tender
5. Add the sugar, lemon juice and the soya sauce (and fish sauce)
6. Finally add the thick coconut milk and let the sauce simmer for 1-2 minutes.
7. Pour into a bowl, garnish with coriander leaves, peanuts.
8. Serve with all topping condiments arranged around the main bowl.

'How does one eat this ?' is what you will surely be asked..well pretty simple, put the rice/noodles in a bowl ,pour the curry on top and then garnish your bowl with ALL the condiments to get the trueeeee flavour..this is Sunday comfort food!!!