Tangy Tomato Time!

While some of us are still recovering from yesterday's blog post (Mango Mania), I know I still am (drool drool!!), here is another recipe that has been my childhood favorite and continues to be loved by each and everyone who has tasted it!  This recipe is one of my mother's original and sort of a legacy she passed down to me through her hand-written recipe book (awwww!) It is finger licking good, and I’m sure all of you would cherish it as much as me and the rest of my friends and family do ~Tomato Rice~

This is a simple, no frills or fancies, easy to make recipe.  Yes, it does require ample patience and a little bit of cleaning your kitchen after your done, coz it tends to splash and splutter quite a bit, so watch out and keep your flame on low! But while you are at it, I would suggest, double the recipe and make a big batch, coz you won't regret it ;)!!! 

Mama’s Tomato Rice

Ingredients:

For Tomato Chutney/Pickle:

1 kg ripe tomatoes

 1 cup green peas (optional)

A few curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp hing (asafoetida)

1 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp chili powder (adjust to taste)

2 ½ tsp salt (adjust to taste)

1 tsp sugar

4 Tbsp oil

For Rice:

1 cup Basmati or any other long grain white rice, cooked al dente

Cilantro to garnish

Method:

1)      Puree 1 kg tomatoes and keep aside.

2)      Heat oil in a wok or large pan, when hot, add mustard seeds and let them pop.

3)      Add hing and curry leaves followed by tomato puree.

4)      Add peas (optional), turmeric, chili powder, salt and sugar and stir well.

5)      Let it cook on a low flame for 30 minutes, till all the water has evaporated and the tomato puree now looks like a thick tomato paste. (Note: you will see the oil very well separated)

6)      Reserve half of this tomato chutney for a future date to be relished with Roti, Bread, Dosas or even on crackers (yummm!)

7)      For tomato rice, mix the other half of chutney with cooked rice (when rice is cool) making sue the rice does not break in this process.  Re-heat and serve with Papadoms and Raita!

...and I can't wait to dig into the rest of it...my most favorite being Tomato Roti rolls (ahhh heaven!!)

Happy Cooking :)

Mango Mania!

Now that Mangoes are available left-right-and center all over town, what better way to celebrate my darling niece's birthday than indulge in her favorite fruit - MANGO!  So here's a dedication to her.  ~Mango Trifle Pudding~

Mango Trifle Pudding

Ingredients:

2 Ripe Mangoes

8 tsp Mango Jam

8 slices of Fruit bread (I use Kwality here in India)

2 cups prepared Custard

2 cups Whipped cream

1 cup Biscuit crumbs (powdered Marie)

1 cup Sugar Syrup flavored with mango essence or Mango juice

8 small glasses (a little larger than shot glass)

Method:

1) Peel both Mangoes and extract pulp from one mango and cut the other mango into small 1 inch pieces. (Reserve the juices that you collect while cutting the mango, this can be added to the sugar syrup).

2) Divide the bread into half, so you should have 16 rectangular pieces.

3) In each glass, start layering the trifle with the bottom most layer of fruit bread.  Press it down firmly.  Pour 1 tsp of sugar syrup over it. 1 tsp of Mango jam forms the next layer. 1 tsp of biscuit crumb forms the next layer, press it down.  1 tsp of Mango puree, followed by 1 Tbsp of whipped cream layer.  Drop in a 1- 2 pieces of mango and repeat the bread layer with sugar syrup.  Finally top with 2 tsp of custard.

4) Decorate with Mango pieces and mint leaves.

Note: Make sure you cover the edges, as the layers are important to be seen through the glass. 

A lot more where that came from.... tucked away in the refrigerator for later ;) Ahhhh blissss!!! :)

Happy Cooking :)

A successful breakfast experiment – Pan-fried Khaman Dhokla!!

I’m sure majority of you reading this blog would agree with me when I say, deciding what to eat first thing in the morning is not only painstaking but also a monotonous exercise day in – day out!! Yeah, Im speaking more so in relation to our female readers here than the male, obviously!! I have noticed single male would most often skip breakfast, and that’s perfectly OK! The little adventurous in the kitchen prefer Cereal with milk, bread-butter, toast-jam, a cheese sandwich or if the sun rose a little earlier than they expected then maybe a Bhurji (scrambled egg) or Omelet to start their day, unless of course they have hired a cook or help!    If they reached office early, a plate of Idli-vada toh banta hai boss (must have) or had to rush in to work, again Idli-vada from the nearest Udupi joint is a necessity to tame the roaring tummy!!  And trust me, until they remain single, they don’t believe that a variation beyond this exists for breakfast!  The day heaven showers them with marital bliss (!!??!!), breakfast now becomes mandatory and it’s up to this dutiful newly wedded bride to magically come up with an array of options for the man to select from.  Okay, I’m neither into male-bashing, nor am I a female-activist, so coming back to the topic, monotonous day in – day out exercise of thinking what to make for breakfast today, can really get to you!! Isn’t it??

Past few days, I have fallen victim to this syndrome and no matter how co-operative my dad has been, I have been feeling a little guilty that all I have done in this past week was to feed him a range of products made from the same batter - (started with Idli on Sunday, Kanjeepuram Idli on Monday, Fried Idli on Tuesday, Dosa on Wednesday, Masala Dosa on Thursday, batter absolutely sour so had to be Onion Uttapam on Friday!).  Finally, Saturday morning I think he lost his patience too, and demanded the much disliked Poha for breakfast! LOLZ!!

In fact, just yesterday, I had been to a session by Masterchef Sanjeev Kapoor, promoting his FoodFood channel at Oberoi Mall (Goregaon, Mumbai) and one of the things he mentioned during his question-answer session was about Menu-planning! I agree, I was very big into Menu-planning and organizing my weekly menu, grocery lists, etc., while I was also big into watching my calories! Now that watching calories is kinda out of the door at the moment, I really don’t pay much attention to what’s in-line to be cooked.  An impromptu Samosa makes its way in or even a Frankie with left over Rotis and Sabzi ;)  But after the last week’s marathon idli-batter episode and dad’s intervention and Chef Kapoor’s talk, this morning I woke up rejuvenated and recharged with an idea to go back to the board and create a menu for the week! (Note to readers – menu cannot be planned at 7am, when grocery stores are still closed and veggie vendors are just setting up their carts :P).  So reality bites and back to the grind, had to check my pantry for available items for this morning’s breakfast!  What I found was a packet of Khaman Dhokla mix by MTR, which has been sitting there for quite some time as never really found the time to make it (and it’s supposed to be an instant mix :P??!!??). 

If I haven’t mentioned in any of my previous blogs already, let me mention it here, my dad was never a military man, but he is a clock-work!! Breakfast is eaten at dot 9 hrs 15 mins, yes sir!! And it was already 9am (thanks to a few productive hours between 7:30am to 8:30 am that I spent on a menu for the week!) I only had 15 minutes to make dad breakfast, and Khaman Dhokla mix was the only available ingredient in my pantry today! (Statutory warning: the instant mix takes 40 minutes to make, 5 minutes for batter to rise, 15 minutes to steam and rest of the time to cool before you cut!!)  Obviously, I had to come up with my own instant plan!! And that I did, and what a big hit it turned out to be!

I made Pan-fried Khaman Dhokla – prepared batter just as the packet instructed me to (added ½ cup extra water actually), prepared topping separately (tadka of oil, mustard seeds, little sugar, hing, grated coconut, cilantro and water) and got a heavy bottom flat pan out! I made mini pancakes of this batter, covered it with a glass lid, so that it could steam a little bit and added a few drops of oil to let it get crunchy on the sides.  Took it off the pan, topped it with tadka topping (that’s usually used for Khaman Dhokla) and served it with Mint-Cilantro chutney (luckily had made it for the IPL special Samosa previous night)! Served it to dad! Instant hit!!!! J

If I can make your life easier for one morning, ladies (and for some of you men out there), here’s an instant recipe to instant Pan-fried Khaman Dhokla!

Ingredients

1 pkt Khaman Dhokla mix (I prefer MTR, 200gms pkt)

4 Tbsp oil (as suggested by the pkt, you can reduce this or avoid it)

200 ml + 50 ml water (200 ml suggested by pkt, I added 50 ml more)

1 small onion finely chopped

For tadka Topping:

¼ cup grated coconut (I usually have it stored in the refrigerator; you can use desiccated if you are in real hurry, though fresh tastes better any day)

1 Tbsp finely chopped Cilantro (coriander leaves)

2 tsp Mustard seeds

1 Tbsp oil

1 tsp sugar

2 Tbsp water

Extra oil to pan-fry

Method:

1)      Prepare batter as per instructions on the packet. I added 50 ml extra water to make it a little runnier.

2)      Add finely chopped onion to this batter.  Keep aside for a 2 – 3 minutes.

3)      In the meantime heat a heavy bottom flat pan.  Pour a small ladle of batter in the center of the pan, it will spread naturally.  If you prefer, you can oil the sides, cover with a lid and let it steam on one side for 1 minute.  Flip the side, oil again and let it cook uncovered for 1 minute.  (Note: keep the flame on medium).

4)      Remove from pan, top with 1 tsp of tadka topping and serve with mint-cilantro chutney or any chutney of your choice!  Enjoy!

This recipe makes about 4 large pancakes or 8 mini ones.   

It was a totally different experience for us this morning, soft and spongy texture from the dhokla, but a pan-fried crispness to the edges, just made it a perfect combination, do give it a try!  I would love to hear your feedback once you have tried this at home!!

Happy Cooking! J