A true Vegan~ Bobotie

Story of a true Vegan~

When you hear about a meat rich dish but the flavors sound really appealing to you and the techniques seem like a must try at least once kinda of deal...you start researching... you research high and low to find the right substitutes and combinations that will work for your new vegan dish.
One such experiment lead me to making a purely vegan version of the South African national dish called Bobotie.

The authentic Bobotie is made with curried lamb or chicken mince and topped with an egg custard and then baked for a few minutes. The flavor components and spice ingredients were so tempting, I had to give this a vegan twist!
So here's my original recipe as a vegan treat for Bobotie!

For the filling~
1 cup sprouted moong or 1 cup soaked soya granules (drained)
1 red onion finely chopped
1 cup tomato puree
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 bay leaf
4-5 cloves
2 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
Handful of sultanas or raisins
1/2 tsp finely chopped ginger
2-3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
Water as required

For the custard
1 cup chickpea flour (besan)
3/4 cup almond milk or soy milk
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tap chilli powder
Salt to taste

For garnish
Almond cream or vegan cream
Few bay leaves
Skinned almonds
Cilantro and Parsley

Heat a pan, add oil, add bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, onion and sauté until translucent. Add dry powders except salt and mix well. Add tomato puree and cook for 2-3 minutes with a little water. Add raisins and sprouts. Cook until sprouts are tender but not fully cooked. Add salt to taste. The filling should not be too dry as it needs to go into the oven for a few minutes.

To make the custard, mix all the ingredients and keep aside.

Heat oven at 180c. In a bakeware layer the filling to the bottom of the pan. Pour custard on top of filling. Garnish with bay leaf, almonds and vegan cream. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the custard is thick and forms a cake like covering over the filling.

Let it rest, cut into wedges and serve with yellow rice. I served it with white bread and it equally tasted good.

Hope you try this recipe. Do leave your comments and feedback if you would like to see more such altered vegan recipes! 

The famous gunpowder~ Molagapodi!

Molagapodi (Chutney Powder, Gunpowder)

A great accompanyment with Idli and Dosa, this podi (coarse powder) is quite a regular affair at every South Indian household.  Can be stored for a few months.

Ingredients:
1 cup - urad daal
1 cup - channa daal
8 to 10 - red chillies
1 tbsp - white sesame seeds, dry roasted
1tsp - hing powder
1inch piece of tamarind
a small piece - jaggery (optional)
salt to taste
1 tsp - oil

Method:

Roast the daals together in a teaspoon of oil, till golden brown.

Add red chillies and roast for two minutes.

Add the tamarind, hing powder, sesame seeds, jaggery and salt. Let it cool completely.

Grind the mixture coarsely.

Store in an airtight container.

While serving mix 1 tbsp powder with ½ tsp sesame oil and serve as an accompaniment for idlis and dosas. Note: Can be stored for two to three months.

Ringa Ringa Lauki~

Bottle Gourd, better known as Dudhi in Bombay or Lauki towards the north of India belongs to the Squash family.  Getting creative with Lauki can be tough one!  Its a bland vegetable and easily voted one the most hated veggie by kids, teenagers and adults alike.  I'm not kidding, haven't you seen the recent ad by Cadbury's??   Lauki if masked as Koftas, Raita or Parathas may still be consumed but just on its own, is a tough one to please many!  Lucky for me its a much liked vegetable in my home!!

I have seen recipes for stuffed Lauki before, and even used it a as a replacement for Zucchini Rolls, used it in Pasta, to make Moroccon Stew and stir fried it with Chinese flavorings!  They all work well since Lauki takes on added flavors really well.  So next time your family refuses to eat any one vegetable, don't give up!  I'm sure brussel sprouts too can be creatively handled and devoured by everyone :P (no harm in wishful thinking!!)

Here's may take on Stuffed Lauki... hope you and your family enjoy this recipe~

Stuffed Lauki Rings

Ingredients:

½ kg Bottle Gourd (Lauki, Dudhi, Opo Squash)

1 cup Besan (gram flour)

½ cup grated Paneer

1 tsp Turmeric powder

1 tsp Chili powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 Tbsp chopped Cilantro

¼ cup finely chopped green onions

½ tsp Garam Masala

Salt to taste

To Sautee

1 Tbsp oil

1 tsp Cumin seeds

Finely chopped green onions to garnish

Lemon wedges.

Method:

1)      Wash and Peel gourd.  Cut into 1 cm rounds.  Core then center of these rounds to make rings.  Reserve the cored center and chop them up finely. Lightly apply salt to the rings and keep them aside.

2)      Dry roast gram flour and let it cool. 

3)      To the gram flour add paneer, turmeric powder, chili powder, coriander powder, garam masala, chopped cilantro and green onion.  Add finely chopped gourd core, add salt to taste and mix well, but use light hands. The mixture should remain crumbly and no become a dough.

4)      Stuff this mixture into gourd rings. 

5)      Use a steamer (I use Idli steamer) to steam stuffed gourd rings for 10 mins.

6)      Let it stand for 5 – 10 minutes. 

7)      Heat Oil is a frying pan, add cumin seeds and gently place steamed gourd rings.  Sautee them on one side until light golden and flip to repeat.  While in the pan, top with green onions and dash of lime. 

8)      Serve hot with Rotis or can be served as a starter with cilantro & mint chutney.

Happy Cooking :)

Blessings from a Cauliflower ~ a real flower!

June is here! Dating back childhood times, June (read Monsoon) was usually the time to say goodbye to dear old Spinach! I never knew why but my mother strongly believed that eating leafy veggies grown during the Monsoon is the root cause for many stomach infections! And it was actually true! Sigh!! But thanks to super-market shopping, things have changed around quite a bit and laying your hands on a packet of bagged baby spinach or already separated Methi is a maha-boon in Monsoon (and hey I can rhyme :P)!!

Monsoon is usually the best time to indulge in crunchy, deep-fried, forget-about-calories kinda snacks!! I realized over the years of yo-yo dieting, while going on and off various diets (of coz for weight-loss, what else!!) that the amount of weight lost in Summer equals double the weight gained during Monsoon!! It’s the perfect time to laze around at home, biting away into fried pakoras and vada pavs while you wash it down with a cup of extra sweetened masala chai, usually watching a down-pour from your window-sill (ahh!! I vote this hands-down “one of the best luxuries in life”)!  So as I was saying, over the years I have learnt that Monsoon can create havoc to your eating patterns and an adverse effect on your weight-loss plans (the one’s wanting to gain weight, enjoy!!), but I usually don’t give up so easily!  I started researching for recipes that will satisfy my craving for junk-food but equally have great nutrition value.  I went over a few hundred salad recipes (honestly salads work best in Summer), another thousand soup recipes (which again work best in Autumn or Winter), Monsoon yells out for fried food :P!!  I tried a lot of savory baking, trust me baked Samosa is nowhere close to the real thing!! And never mind the numerous failed baked pakora experiments, you can never get the same crunch that you get from deep-frying (bliss!) :D. 

Last Monsoon, while my experiments continued the entire season, on one particular rainy day in July, I happened to visit my dearest friend Zed, for a veggie lunch made by a hard-core non-vegetarian! (which he promised to cook from scratch for me!). I was obviously going with heavy amounts of prejudice, of how the food is gonna suck and I’m gonna have to pick up Vada Pavs on my way back home!! Some miracle transformed in Zed’s kitchen that day, he not only changed my opinion about his cooking skills but about the limitations of Cauliflower! :)

For the first time in my life, leave alone tasting this new dish, I couldn’t envision that Cauliflower could be altered into this binge-friendly, awesomness-filled, finger-licking good Kheema! Kheema being a non-vegetarian terrain, as a vegetarian I have tried and tested it with Paneer, Soya granules and Tofu.  But to think of using Cauliflower to make Kheema, hats off boss!  While I was going ga-ga over this recipe, Zed informed me that I had washed off the whole batch of Cauliflower Kheema he had made and left nothing for our other friends (oops :P)! Well, it’s not like I couldn’t conceive the recipe, once I knew the ingredients, but I really wanted to eat more, so Zed and I made another batch of Cauliflower Kheema for all of us!  

Let me put all your wonderment to rest and explain to you what really happened that day!  It was pouring cats and dogs as usual, and I had resolved to not put another fried stuff in my mouth the entire season (sigh sigh sigh!! Damn you resolutions!).  Zed promised me he would cook me something really tangy, flavorsome, and nutritiously whole-some, piping-hot that could be eaten with Pav, and he assured me I would forget all about my fried food cravings.  Zed’s Cauliflower Kheema did all that and more!  It was bursting with flavor; it was like a match made in heaven for Laadi Pav!  And a sweetheart that he is, he ordered Multigrain Pavs for me, so that I wouldn’t crib and cry after I over indulged.  While he kept his promise to the T, I discovered my secret weapon to craving times during the monsoon. I couldn’t believe I was missing this all these years! I probably made Cauliflower Kheema every time it rained last year, and never got fed up of it, thanks to a zillion experimentations again!

Ironically, just a few days back, I happened to see Masterchef Sanjeev Kapoor’s show on FoodFood and he demonstrated the same Cauliflower Kheema on his show…now I really doubt Zed’s creativity and the source of his recipe (which he said was original) is quite questionable! :D

 Zed’s recipe has been altered quite a bit by me, I had to cut down on a lot of ghee and make it absolutely guilt-free snacking! Here’s the recipe~

Cauliflower Kheema

Ingredients:

½ kg cauliflower

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

4 – 5 garlic pods, finely chopped (optional)

4 – 5 green chilies, finely chopped

A pinch of hing (asafetida)

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp chili powder (adjust to taste)

1 tsp coriander powder

2 tsp Garam Masala Powder

Water as required

1 Tbsp Ghee (or use oil if you prefer)

Salt to taste

Chopped Cilantro and Lemon Wedges to Garnish

Laadi Pav as accompaniment

Method:

1)      Wash and stem Cauliflower.  Grate it finely and keep aside.

2)      In a wok or large Kadai, heat ghee.  When hot add cumin seeds, followed by fennel seeds.

3)      Add hing, followed by onion green chilies and garlic (optional).  Let the onion cook until it is translucent. 

4)      Add turmeric powder and stir well.  Add tomatoes, chili powder, coriander powder and half of the garam masala powder and salt to taste.  Sautee will until ghee separates from this mixture. (about 5 minutes).

5)      Add Cauliflower and stir well.  Add sufficient water (2 – 3 cups if you want a thin gravy or 1 cup if you want to keep it dry).  Add the remaining garam masala powder, adjust seasoning, simmer and cook covered for 5minutes.

6)      Garnish with cilantro and lemon wedges.  Serve piping hot with Laadi Pav, Rotis or Bread!

Note: Do not over cook the Cauliflower as it becomes mushy, which destroys the Kheema like texture!

I have experimented with a lot of different options using Cauliflower as my main Kheema ingredient.  Ihave used mixed veggies, used only peas, I have used Paneer, Soya granules and Tofu again in combination with Cauliflower.  But each time I come back to the original, it tastes best made on its own!  Try it this Monsoon, or any time of the year! (BTW in Bombay best Cauliflower is available in Winter)…brewing an idea for Cauliflower Chili this Winter, topped with sour cream and sharp cheddar cheese....drooolll!! :P

Did you know Cauliflower is actually the flower of the Cauli plant?? On that note leme grab my Wheat Pav and burrow into the rest of the Kheema, while you start cooking!

Photo Credit:  mydiversekitchen.com

Happy Cooking :)

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 :)

Some left-over Swiss cravings~ Roesti Potatoes!

It’s been nearly 12 years since I last visited Switzerland, but I can distinctly remember each and every mouth-watering flavor that I savored during my 3 year stay in the valley of the great Alps!  Those of you who know me are surely wondering, what flavors she is talking about when she is a hard-core vegetarian!  Yes my friends, for a short moment while I lived there, let’s be honest I couldn’t identify that cheeseburger actually had meat in it…laugh all you want… but that’s a haunting truth that I have to face every time I bump into an old friend of mine from my Swiss school days!

I did give in to occasional slips; I had to, as I was studying in a Swiss hotel school, what you expect!  It’s in Switzerland I realized (during one my non-vegetarian binges) that I was allergic to Shell-fish… and since I despised the smell of fish, sea-food was naturally out of boundaries for me, thank-god!  But I still didn’t know how to avoid the Cheeseburger! A committed vegetarian living the Swiss life with all kinds of beef, pork, ham and chicken thrown out in front of you, blanketed with your favorite cheese, can actually make you go weak in the knees, until of course you hear the innocent moos and cow bells grazing in a near-by farm and you are slam-dunk back to reality!! Let’ stick to being a vegetarian J  and that I did!!  

Apart from a few friendly Sri-lankans who would cook up an occasional Veg Indian meal, I never really got the chance to ever have a complete meal!  I would always find myself ordering from the Side Menu (read Carb haven!).  A breakfast of Muesli loaded with nuts and fruit yogurt and a Cheese sandwich,  lunch of grilled Cheese sandwich with side of Roesti potatoes, Kase Omelet mit Pommes fries (Cheese omelet with thick French fries) and Spaetzli (Swiss pasta) Chocolate Fondue for dinner!! Hey… no complaints, I relished every nibble of Potato, Pasta, Cheese and Chocolate dish that one could find in these Menus….and eventually the Sides found their way into my system and helped me gain a not so healthy 20 kilos!!

I could have positively stuck to a healthier diet, options were definitely available, but when you are in THE land of Cheese, Potato and Chocolates, you better not think about any other option!  Twelve years later, I still find myself constantly craving Kase Omelet, Pommes Fries, Roesti Potatoes, Schokolade Kuchen, Chocolates, Sauerkraut, Spaetzli, Fondue, Muesli, Gruyere & Emmentaler cheese, Nusskuchen, Brunsli, Magenbrot and did I mention Chocolates!  I have tried to replicate these dishes many times in my kitchen, but I never find the same taste.  The eggs never taste as fluffy and creamy as they did there, however I make my fries they are never the same, thick – perfectly crunchy outside and a melt in your mouth soft inside, the Cheese, Oh my god the Cheese after all the carbon-dating it goes through from Switzerland to India… can never be the same freshest best ever!!

Just this week, I had a friend over, a friend with whom I have relished many of the above mentioned delicacies and I decided to impress him with my Swiss cuisine…Roesti Potatoes for breakfast!  Sadly, didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted them to be!  I’m sure he noticed but he was nice enough to not mention, but simply appreciated my efforts …thank god for good friends! J But I knew I had to perfect it, now that I’m into a full-fledged gastronomical expedition in my life, I knew I had to perfect my Roesti!! And so I did! My poor father may never want to see another potato dish in his life, but nonetheless, I made the perfect Roesti yesterday, just like how I had it back in Switzerland!  A proud moment folks – do I hear a drum roll!!  Anyway…I thought of sharing it with all of you, so here it goes – my perfect Roesti recipe or Roschti as the Swiss like to call it –

 

Roesti Potatoes

Ingredients

6-8 Large par-boiled Potatoes (older the better)

1 Large Onion

1 tablespoon of salt

3 Tablespoons of Butter

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

1¼ cups of Grated Smoked Mozzarella cheese (optional)

Method

1. Peel potatoes and onion. Finely chop onion and coarsely shred potatoes. Combine onions, potatoes, and salt.
2. Heat 2 skillets. Divide the butter and olive oil evenly between them. Heat until the butter is slightly brown. Then divide the potato-onion mixture evenly between them. Cook both for 8 minutes, stirring once or twice.
3. Add Smoked Mozzarella to both skillets. Firmly press potatoes into pancake shapes.
4. Press the two pancakes together.
5. Cover and cook for 5 minutes until the bottom becomes crispy. Then flip and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve hot and relish immediately!

Now I’m craving some more… back to the kitchen! Happy Cooking folks J

It's gotto have Cilantro!

I often get calls from people asking if they can speak to Cilantro, or if this is Cilantro’s kitchen. No, my name is not Cilantro and also for the record I’m not married to a Spaniard!

The one question I’m most regularly asked by friends, family and strangers is how I came up with ‘The Cilantro Kitchen’ as a name for my venture. My instinctive answer is to say, “Coz I love to cook with it” seconded by, “I can’t do without Cilantro” and then I go about giving a lengthy (not called for) speech on how it is the best herb in my kitchen. Honestly, I don’t care for any other herb…the excessive sharpness of Parsley or overpowering Thyme and probably Rosemary can very well remain the name of a sweet little girl I once knew. It’s gotto to be Cilantro!

I time and again wonder where I got this obsession for Cilantro from. Apparently, the most obvious answer, it’s gotto be my roots… I’m Indian you see and we can’t do without our Dhaniya. Oh did I mention Cilantro has many many names. One can also know it as Corriander leaves (they have seeds too) or Chinese Parsley, Culantro and Vietnamese Parsley even. Though the latter two belong to a different generic family and should not be confused with Cilantro (Spanish name for the Corriander plant). Indians ofcoz know it best as Dhaniya patha! If you wanna read up more about Cilantro, please do feel free to Wiki it… :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriander

It’s an obsession undoubtedly… no meal I cook in my kitchen is ever complete without a generous garnish of freshly chopped Cilantro! Like Fennel or say even Mushrooms or Aubergine… Cilantro tends to develop an either you love me or you hate me kinda relationship with most people. If you are addicted to Indian, Thai, Mexican, Spanish, Chinese, Cajun or even Mediterranean cuisines… you sure ought to like (read love) Cilantro. And my kitchen surely brims with flavors from these regions and I love how just a sprinkle of chopped Cilantro can lift up a boring soup or spruce up an under-dressed salad. The moment I wash a bunch of Cilantro, run my knife delicately through them, the aroma just captivates me. Well…I can go on and on…simply put…the burst of flavor that Cilantro releases; no other herb could ever match.

Now that I have established my deep rooted love for this herb, you can understand why it’s an obvious choice to name my endeavor after the very ingredient I just can’t do without. It’s this commitment kinda thing I have going on with Cilantro… everything I cook…It’s gotto have Cilantro in The Cilantro Kitchen.

So here is my salute to this herb and I bring you two recipes, where East meets West to celebrate my favorite herb straight from my favoritest hangout spot…The Cilantro Kitchen. Happy Cilantroing :)

Caramelized Onion and Cilantro Pesto Pizza

Ingredients:

For the pizza dough• 2 cups whole meal flour (plain flour can be used as well)

• 1 cup warm water

• 1 sachet active dry yeast

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• ½ teaspoon salt

For the caramelized onions• 3 large brown onions, sliced finely

• ½ cup water

• ½ teaspoon chilli flakes

• salt and pepper to taste

For the Cilantro pesto• 2 cups fresh Cilantro

• ¼ cup Almonds

• ½ cup Grana Padano or any other hard cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan

• 2 cloves of garlic

• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil

• salt and pepper to taste

1. First prepare the dough. Put the dry ingredients in a food processor. Switch it on and add the oil and water until it combines and forms a ball. Remove and knead on a floured surface until smooth. Coat with olive oil and leave in a warm area to rise for about an hour.

2. Heat some olive oil in a wide frying pan. Put in the chilli flakes and fry until fragrant. Add the onions and salt and cook until softened (but not caramelized yet). Now add the water and turn up the heat a bit. Stir at regular intervals until the water has evaporated and the onions are a rich brown.

3. While the onions are cooking make the pesto. Combine all ingredients in a blender and whiz until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly. If you prefer more garlic or a stronger cheese flavor add more of the required ingredient accordingly.

4. Heat the oven to 400F / 200C. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to fit a greased 12” pizza pan or a medium-sized roasting tin. Spread the pesto over the pizza base and top with the caramelised onions.

5. Drop the oven’s heat to 200F / 100C before you put the pizza in. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the base is crisp and cooked through. Slice and serve immediately.

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Coriander, Curry and Yogurt Crusted Tofu with Cilantro Pesto

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup plain yogurt

• 1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 tablespoon whole coriander seed, crushed

• 2 teaspoons mild curry powder

• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• 1 -2 tablespoon olive oil

• 4 pieces tofu, fillets, about 6 ounces each

• Cilantro Pesto (see recipe above) and Lettuce leaves (to garnish)

1. In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, garlic and cumin. In a separate bowl combine the coriander seeds, curry, salt and pepper.

2. In a very large nonstick skillet or sauté pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, dip the tofu into the yogurt mixture to lightly coat each side, and then sprinkle each side with the curry mixture, dividing the seasoning evenly among all the tofu.

3. Immediately place tofu in the hot pan and cook until just done, about 2½ minutes on each side. Serve on a bed of lettuce with a generous layering of Cilantro Pesto.

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