Zaiqa

I had received these lovely gifts from Mallugirl from Malabar Spices a few weeks back as part of the Arusuvai Friendship Chain..

The day she informed me that she was going to send me a surprise ingredient, I was thrilled. From that day till I received the package, I wondered every moment what the surprise ingredient might be. When I received it I tasted the surprise powder ingredient and guessed it might be something with ground Cinnamon as it had a pleasantly sweetish aroma. Mallugirl then told me that it was the Biryani Garam Masala. I also loved the fiery red hot dried chillies she sent me along. I used them in my cooking for the Baghaar (tempering), even planted the seeds from a dried chilli and the plants are doing very good. Mallu girl, I really enjoyed the yuummy chocolates and delicious other ingredients.

Aloo Gosht – Lamb meat and Potato Curry 

I used the Biryani Garam masala to prepare Gosht Ki Biryani and also prepared Aloo Gosht a few days ago using the Biryani Masala and it turned out quite delicious.

Aloo Gosht – Lamb meat and Potato Curry

Ingredients:

• Canola Oil – 1/2 cup
• Yellow Onions – 3, large, finely chopped
• Lamb/Veal Meat – 300 gms, washed, cubed and drained
• Yogurt/Dahi – 2 cups, lightly whisked
• Salt – as per taste
• Red Chilli powder – 3 tsp
• Lemon Juice – 2 tbsp
• Green Beans/Binees Ki Phalli – 20 to 30 ,fresh, each sliced at an angle into 3 pieces
• Potato/Aloo – 2, medium, peeled and quarted
• Dried Fenugreek leaves/Kasuri Methi – 1 tbsp
• Biryani Garam Masala – 2 tsp

Method:

• In a medium sized pressure-cooker at medium heat, pour oil and as soon as it gets warm add the finely chopped onions and let them fry till they are nicely browned. Keep stirring them frequently.
• Add the cubed meat and let it cook along the onions for 4-5 minutes. Pour in the whisked yogurt and salt and mix well. Let it cook for 5 minutes.
• Close the lid of the pressure cooker and let it cook till the meat is tender. Keep an eye on it.
• During this time, in a seperate frying pan, pour little oil and stir fry the french beans and the quartered potatoes seperately for 5-8 minutes each. Drain and keep aside.
• Add red chilli powder, lemon juice, Kasuri methi, Biryani Garam Masala, quartered potatoes and water (around 5 cups or according to your wish as per the consistency of the gravy you desire) and let it cook till the oil has seperated and the potatoes are soft and nicely done. Serve hot.

Suggested Accompaniments: Serve hot with warm Naan, Afghani Roti or Parathas..

I will be sending my surprise ingredient to Trupti of The Spice Who Loved Me very soon.

Luv,
Mona

Two Bottle Gourds/Opo squash

Bottle Gourd, aka Opo squash, is a very humble vegetable. Not many people like it, and it is not a favorite of many people. But it is quite nutritious, delicious, healthy, and perfect for weight watchers! Its delicate nutty flavor provides a great taste to dishes. This particular recipe uses the peels of bottle gourd and it is one no-fuss yummy curry which you will all love.

Kaddu Ke Chilke Ka Saalan – Bottle Gourd Peels with Lentils Curry

Tip : While I the peel the bottle gourd, I take care not to peel it too thin if I plan to prepare this curry out of the Peels. I peel them about half a centimetre thick (about 5 millimeters). This is because a little bit of the flesh (magz) along with the peel gives a great taste to this curry. Usually I prepare this curry with Split Bengal Gram/Chana Dal but you can prepare it even along with Yellow Lentils/Tuvar Dal. It truns out equally delicious.

Kaddu Ke Chilke Ka Saalan – Bottle Gourd Peels with Lentils Curry

Ingredients:

Bottle Gourd Peels/Kaddu Ke Chilke – 400 gms, cut into small bite size strips
Yellow Lentils/Tuvar Dal or Bengal Gram/Chana Dal – 1/2 cup
Fresh diced Tomato – 1, medium, finely chopped
Red Chilli Powder – 1 1/2 tsp
Salt – 2 tsp or to taste
Canola Oil/Sunflower Oil – 1 tsp
Fried Yellow Onions paste – 1 cup

Method:

1. Soak the dal in two cups water overnight(optional). Drain and cook the dal in two cups of fresh water till they are soft but still can hold their shape well. Drain and reserve.
2. In an another saucepan, put the cut bottle gourd peel strips with around 3 cups water and a pinch of salt and let it boil once, then simmer it with closed lid until the peels are tender. This can take about 30 minutes. Or you can simply pressure cook for a little while until they are tender.
3. Later add fresh diced tomatoes, red chilli powder, salt, oil and fried onions to it. Give a good stir.
4. Gently add the cooked dal and mix it well. Cover the lid and let it cook for 3-5 minutes. Keep checking it in between if it is sticking to the bottom of the pan. You can add a little water if it becomes too dry. Serve it warm.

Suggested Accompaniments: This simple curry taste delicious along with a warm Roti or Paratha.

Luv,
Mona

I will never forget what I went through on April 30, 2008, those moments of acute angst!

It was one of the most dreadful days I had ever faced. Like everyday when I had logged into my wordpress account (I was posting an entry to Click-Au Naturel!) I noticed there were so many error messages saying that my ‘wp-posts’ and ‘wp-categories’ table has somehow suddenly crashed and they were all nothing but Greek and Latin to me. That gave me moments of panic and fearfulness, I was not able to post anything, my ‘entire blog’ had crashed and I had no idea how I would rectify the mess. It was all horrible. I quickly mailed some of my contacts including couple of bloggers and the company which hosts my blog and WordPress for help. Everyone was with me supporting me and asked me to have faith. I had given up my hopes and thought I had lost it all, my blog, which I had built with deep and ardent affection.. all my love..

My hubby too was upset for me and he tried to help me by every possible way. At around evening, he opened my blog on a browser window and voila! my blog was all alive, and everything was working. When I saw that, my happiness knew no bounds and I was so happy, thrilled and relieved. I was all in tears and very gratuful to those who quickly worked on my blog. I pray and hope that no blogger has to face this ever in their life!

Right now I am so much more in love with my blog. I have put in so much effort to build up this website, which sort of defines me and is a medium to express my love for cooking with the world I live in. This is when I was thinking of the precautionary methods we all bloggers should be ready with every moment for situations like these and I found some very informative posts here, here and here. I request all the bloggers to always maintain a backup of their entire blog, a database backup and a backup of their actual blog on a very rugular basis, may that be daily, weekly, or monthly or after every new post they publish.

Anyways, Life is back to normal again, and I thank my God immensely. I had been to the grocery mart a few days back and saw these very beautiful looking Bottle Gourds and I quickly bought them home. I had not ever before seen such cute little brightly colored bottle gourds in my life. I was sending these to the Click – Au Natural Event yesterday when it all happened!

Two Kaddu or Bottle Gourds 

I was in the mood of experimenting in my kitchen and I searched my refrigerator for ingredients. I found some Halal Chicken Sausages, Frozen peas ..  and I quicky came up with this idea and it was one brightly colored and appealingly delicious curry. We had it along with Roti.

Khush-Rang Kaddu Ka Saalan – Bright Colored Bottle Gourd Curry 

Ingredients:

• Bottle Gourd – 1, approx 400 gms, peeled and cut into quarters
• Chicken Sausages – 4
• Frozen peas – 2 cups
• Canola Oil – 2 tbsp
• Dried or Fresh Curry leaves – 4-5
• Ginger – 1 inch, finely chopped
• Yellow Onion – 1, large, sliced thin
• Salt – 1 1/2 tsp
• Red Chilli Powder – 2 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/3 tsp

Khush-Rang Kaddu Ka Saalan – Bright Colored Bottle Gourd Curry 

Method:

• Pour oil into a saucepan at medium high heat and as soon as it warms up, throw in the sliced onion, as they begin to brown up, add the chopped garlic and chopped chicken sausage and curry leaves and stir fry it for a minute more.
• Add the quartered bottle gourd, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric and pour in some water and cover the lid. Let it cook until the bottle gourd is tender (You can add more water if needed, but do not add too much water, the curry should be pretty dry when done).
• Open the lid and add the frozen peas and let it cook for 5 minutes more. Taste and check it if the spices are adequate for your taste and add more if needed. Remove it from heat and Serve it warm.

Suggested Accompaniments: You can have these with any kind Rotis for a filling meal and a cup of flavored yoghurt.

I’m glad I got my entire blog back and am very very thankful to my hosting company who worked on retrieving my blog and bringing it back to life and in action again! I’m thrilled!! 

Luv,
Mona

The weather has not been good at all. Been playing games with us since the temperatures actually started to be in the two digits. Its has suddenly become so very hot, this being just the Spring in Canada and not Summer yet. Weather has been too topsy-turvy for the past two to three weeks, resulting in me catching Flu. It was terrible. Now I feel alright and thank my God for the good health again. It sure is a precious bounty-Good health.

I have not even been cooking since the past few days, but yesterday as I began to feel alright, I prepared Qimah Matar Aloo and had it with some warm Phulkas. It was so good. Good home cooked food is always very comforting and gives solace.

Qimah Aloo Matar – Ground meat with Peas and Potatoes Curry

For this recipe, you can use the ground meat of Veal, Lamb or Goat, whatever is available. It turns out equally delicious and I have tried this recipe with all the above mentioned meats.

Qimah Aloo Matar – Ground meat with Peas and Potatoes Curry

Ingredients:

For Gravy:
Canola/Sunflower Oil – 2 tbsp
Yellow Onion/Pyaz – 3 medium, finely chopped
Tomato – 1, large, chopped
Red Chilli Powder/Lalmirch Powder – 1 tbsp
Salt – 2 tsp
Potato – 2, medium, peeled and quartered
Tomato Ketchup – 2-3 tbsp (I use Heinz) OR Tomato Chilli Sauce – 2-3 tbsp
To Cook Qimah/Ground Meat:
Canola Oil/Sunflower Oil – 2 tbsp
Qimah/Ground Lamb/Veal/Goat meat – 700 gms, washed and drained in a very fine wire mesh strainer
Turmeric Powder/Haldi – 1 tsp
Garam Masala – 2 tsp
Soya Sauce – 1 tbsp
Lemon Juice – 4 tbsp
Matar/Frozen green peas – 1/2 to 1/4 cup (if you are using dried green peas, soak them in surplus water a day before, drain and cook until just tender in fresh water)
Shredded Cheddar Cheese – 4 tbsp (optional)

Method:
1. Pour 2 tbsp oil into a non-stick heavy bottomed sauce pan at medium high heat and throw in the finely chopped onions as soon as the oil warms up. Keep stirring them until they are lightly browned.
2. Add the chopped tomato, tomato ketchup, red chilli powder and salt and mix well. Let it cook until it is mushy. Add the quarted potatoes and a little water and close lid for 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and keep aside.
3. In an another saucepan, pour the rest of the oil, and add the washed and drained ground meat and let stand for a minute. Stir to break lumps and add turmeric powder, garam masala, soya sauce, lemon juice amd keep stirring until the water starts evaporating and the raw smell of the meat wards off.
4. Pour in the reserved gravy of tomato+onion+potato and mix the whole thing together. Let cook on low heat and when the water has almost evaporated, add frozen peas and give it a stir.
5. Garnish with shredded cheddar cheese, and serve hot.

Suggested Accompaniments:Serve it hot with Basmati Chawal / Naan/ Afghani Roti, along with a dollop of butter.

Tip: Leftovers? Use up this left over curry as the filling for Samosa for some very delicious Snacks.

Luv,
Mona

Idli, also spelled as Idly or Iddly is a food native to Southern India. It is the most favorite South Indian breakfast next to Dosa, Wada and Samabar. Idlis have been compared to the moon and jasmine flowers in literature. They are steamed cakes of dehulled black gram dal and cream of rice or wheat. These soft and fluffy cakes are easy to digest and rich in proteins and carbohydrates. They are prepared in many hotels, homes and restaurants almost every day for the morning breakfasts especially in South India and elsewhere too. It is a healthy and nutritious probiotic pure South Indian breakfast.

Idlis served along with Sambar generously poured over them

The ‘Idli Rawa‘, which is the cream of rice or wheat is available in any Indian stores. The Idli mould is also easily available in most of the Indian stores, and are sold in almost every stainless steel utensils shop in India. The Idli plates in a Idli mould have depressions  to pour the batter in those. These depressions vary in sizes in different stores. I have a medium size Idli mould which is perfect for my family.

To prepare Idli, I start its preperation from a day ahead. Like for example if I plan to prepare it on Sunday for breakfast or brunch, I start its preparation from Saturday morning. On the Saturday morning, I wash and soak the urad dal in plenty of water, and before I go to sleep in the night I drain away the water and grind the dal well, then mix it with the washed idli rawa in a bowl and keep the bowl in a warm and dark place to ferment night long. Then on Sunday morning the fermented batter is ready to prepare yummy Idlis. I use equal amounts of idli Rawa and dal for Idli preparation.

Idli – Steamed Rice-Lentil Cakes
Makes : approx 40 Idlis

Ingredients:

Urad Dal (or) Mask ki dal/Split husked Black gram – 1 1/2 cups
Cream of Rice (Idli Rawa) – 1 1/2 cups
Baking powder – 1/2 tsp
Salt –  1 tablespoon
Canola Oil – to grease the Idli Plates

Idli batter in the Idli Mould & Cooked Served Idlis

Method:
(Note: Read the entire post before you proceed to prepare the Idli)

1. Wash the Urad dal in several changes of water and soak it in surplus water for about 6-8 hours. Later, drain the dal. In a wet grinder, or a food processor, blend the Urad dal adding just a little of water to aid in the blending to a very smooth and fluffy paste. Do not add to much water, it should be added just so that the mixer/grinder motor runs smoothly. The fluffier the batter, the better it is, so grind well for 10-15 minutes. Transfer the batter to a very large stainless steel mixing bowl (as the batter will ferment and rise and overflow if the container is small).
2. While the urad dal is grinding, wash the idli rava with water about 2-3 times and drain it completely. There is no need to soak the idli rava in water. Make sure no excess water remains after draining the water. Add this to the urad dal batter. Also add baking powder and mix it all completely using a spoon without any lumps. The batter should be as thick as possible. Cover and leave the batter undisturbed overnight so that it ferments and doubles in size. If you are not living in India or live in cold temperature places, you could use the oven to ferment the batter: Set the oven on to minimum (lowest setting/warm) for about 5-10 minutes, then turn it off. Cover and keep the mixing bowl with the batter in the warmed oven so that it ferments for about 8-15 hours or overnight.
3. The next morning the batter should have fermented well and the volume almost doubled. Once the batter has risen it can be used immediately to prepare idlis. If you are not going to make idlis immediately, store the batter in the refrigerator or else the idlis will be very sour. Add salt to the batter and mix it well. The consistency of the batter should be like condensed milk, not too thick nor too thin. You can add more water if needed to achieve that consistency.
4. Grease all the Idli plates with a few drops of oil and pour about 2-3 tablespoon of batter in each depression in the Idli plates.
5. Before filling the idli plates, add some water in a large pressure cooker and switch on the stove. So by the time you are done with the batter the water will start boiling and you can place the idli stand in the cooker and close the lid. Make sure the water does not touch the lowest idli plate in the stand. The water level in the pressure cooker should be well below it. Close the lid of the cooker and do not put the weight on it. In about 10 minutes you will see steam escaping from the vent of the cooker. Using an oven mitt remove the idli stand from the cooker and place it on the countertop. Scoop the Idlies out of the plates using a spoon in a big serving bowl. Cover the serving bowl with lid to keep the idlis warm. Repeat this process with the next batch adding water to the cooker as necessary until the batter is all used up.

Suggested Accompaniments: Serve them hot along with Sambar, Coconut chutney, Hara Dhaniya aur Pudina Ki Chutney at breakfast or as a brunch or a snack.

Tips:

1. If you live in warmer places, you need not add baking soda to the batter.
2. If you live in a cold place,  it happens that the batter has not fermented at all. If the batter has not fermented and doubled in size by next day, do not use it for Idli. Instead make Dosa out of it.
3. If you do not find Cream of Rice, you can even use Cream of Wheat as the Idli Rawa.
4. This is the basic recipe for the prepartion of Idli. You can alter it by adding a few chopped french beans, carrots, cilantro to the batter.
5. Adding a dollop of butter to the steamed idlis while having them hot along with sambar makes it even more delectable.
6. These Idli moulds are the traditional methods to prepare Idli at home. If you are somehow not able to find the Idli Mould, you can use little metal bowls which can be kept in a steamer or an egg poacher or tiny aluminium molds for cakes and muffins. I have however never used these. I only use the Idli Mould each time I prepare Idli.
7. You don’t need a pressure cooker for steaming idlis. Simply use any vessel with a vent on the lid which is big enough to fit the idli plates stand you are using. Add some water to the vessel and heat it while you fill the batter. Place the stand inside the vessel and close it with a lid. If the lid does not have vent for the steam to escape, leave a small portion of the vessel open. Steam it for 10-15 minutes. Insert a toothpick or a knife in the center of the idli and if it comes out clean the idlis are ready. Switch off the stove and serve it after a couple of minutes.
8. You can even freeze the leftover idlis to be used some other day. Simply place cooled idlis on a tray seperately and let them freeze for 3 hours. Once frozen, transfer them all to a zip lock freezer bag and store until needed. When you want to have them, simply place the frozen idlis in a plate and microwave for 2 minutes approx.

Luv,
Mona