Can some tofu crisps slow down the pace?

The last couple of weeks has seen life go into serious overdrive. A manic worklife coupled with coaching and running made a lot of other passions take a backseat. When the fingers are itching to start writing about food, but need to be dragged away to type a few hundred lines of code instead ... know that feeling? It is a sure sign that life desperately deserves a deep breath!


Before I even talk about anything else, a long overdue acknowledgement - I Clicked! Much to my astonishment! Thanks go to this one for helping me out with my pix. I always gawk at all the pictures in the Jugalbandi gallery and am eternally amazed by the boundless creativity that seems to come forth every month courtesy of this awesome event. And to think that I actually took a picture that people enjoyed looking at makes me kick up my heels and go skipping around town!


Thanks, Bee & Jai for organizing this event and making theme photography that much more accessible for everybody :)

And now, for some long overdue chow conversation. In spite of the hectic life of yester-couple-of-weeks, a lot of food was cooked and consumed. Guess that never changes, huh? :) And one of the tasty and fabulously simple snacks that we stumbled upon involves tofu. Sig probably just fell off her chair shocked that I'm talking about tofu (again!) :)

I love cooking wonks of tofu, sometimes marinated, sometimes just lightly browned before tossing the chunks into a sauce or saute. But one evening, I was looking for something different - a part of me was hankering for baked fries, but I didn't really want something as heavy as potatoes. Hmm ... maybe tofu fries or crisps or whatever-you-wanna-call-them?

After puttering around, I went with a seasoning similar to Za'atar (the delicious middle eastern seasoning with sumac, sesame and thyme), but I skipped the thyme and kicked up the spice instead.

Tofu Crisps
Nosh 'em while you work!

Servings: several tens of crisps

1 package extra firm tofu (we often use Nasoya - the texture is very reliable :))
2 T sumac powder
2 T sesame seeds
2 dried red chillies (feel free to up this if you want some serious zingers!)
2 t mustard seeds
2 t middle-eastern saffron
sea salt to taste
4 T extra virgin olive oil

Set the oven to broil.
Lightly saute the sesame seeds, red chillies and mustard seeds in a shallow pan for 1-2 minutes.
Grind these along with the sumac and saffron to a coarse powder.
Add salt and the olive oil to this seasoning and stir till well-blended.

Remove the tofu from the liquid in pack and pat it dry.
Slice the tofu into long thin strips (about 2"-3" long and 1/2" thick) - kind of like french fries.
Toss the tofu strips in the oil+seasoning till the strips are coated well with the spices.
Throw the tofu into a baking pan and broil the pieces till the excess moisture has evaporated and the tofu is browned and crispy.

NOTE:

A toaster oven works perfectly for this. Just set the heat setting to 'Broil' and push the 'Toast' lever down so that both the upper and lower elements are on and the tofu can get uniformly browned.


Opinion?

These crisps rocked! They're an awesome alternative to baked potato or sweet potato fries! And they work really well in a salad or with a sandwich. We ended up eating them with mushroom&black-eyed peas burgers -and yes, those warrant a whole different blog post :)

Cupcakes galore, Running Buddies and more!

Several weeks ago, I signed up to be a coach for the spring season with this awesome organization called Girls On The Run. This is a program for preteen girls (aged 8-11) that chooses to combine exciting workouts with games, exercises and discussions. In their own words:

"Girls on the Run aims to develop the whole girl— her physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual self—supporting the mission to educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living. The Girls on the Run approach also encourages the girls to be open with their families, their peers, and themselves."

It has been about 5 weeks since the spring session started and coaching has been a lot of fun, not to mention entertaining. It is quite a challenge for 3 coaches to manage a gang of 18 high-energy girls! A few of us new coaches entered the first session with quite some trepidation, but walked away at the end amazed by the energy and positive spirits these girls are teeming with. Lately, I've noticed that they've put a spring in my step, I'm usually skipping away at the end of the session :)

And the best part of all this is that the girls are working towards a goal - they will be running the Komen Race for the Cure in June - a 5 K race. This is really exciting for most of them who run around all the time, but haven't done an organized race before.

And on that note, this is a shoutout to all you gals out there! We're looking for running buddies for our girls. The commitment required is pretty easy - you basically get paired with one of the girls and you do 2 5K runs with the girl - a practice one and the real Komen run. Having a running buddy really motivates the girls to go that extra step, plus it totally boosts their confidence. So, if you're even remotely interested, you should check this out! :)

Anyway, yesterday was the GOTR annual auction and I had offered to bake goodies for the volunteers. After going back and forth across several delicious recipes picked from all those awesome blogs out there, we ended up going with a cupcake recipe off ChockyLit's blog - can't quite go wrong with that, huh? :)

If you haven't checked out the Cupcake Blog (gasp!), you should head there right away.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING:
The Cupcake Blog can induce insane amounts of sugar cravings. You might even hallucinate and reach into your browser hoping to snag a few crumbs!

Cheryl's original recipe called for bananas, peanuts and jackfruit in the cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting. We weren't able to get our hands on jackfruit, so we just settled for mashed bananas. Also, we used almonds instead of peanuts in the batter. And for the topping, we cut back on the sugar and went with a strawberry puree seasoning.

We've always enjoyed baking, but this was just way too much of fun! We went on this marathon baking spree - almost 50 cupcakes! The Pupp is apparently a born baker and Daria is the perfect taster :) Turned out to be a fabulous evening of baking!

Original recipe can be found here.

Banana Almond Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Chockylit, you rule!

Servings: 24 (we made 2 such batches)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup of oil
1/2 cup coconut milk (we went for a light version)
1.5 t vanilla
3 bananas - mashed
2/3 cup almonds - coarsely chopped

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl (we used the magical KitchenAid mixer).
In another bowl, beat the eggs and then add the oil, coconut milk and vanilla.
Add this egg mixture to the flour mixture and mix till blended.
Now toss in the bananas and almonds and mix to combine.
Scoop the batter into cupcake papers till about 2/3s filled.

NOTE:
Chockylit recommends using an icecream scooper to do this. We couldn't find one (?!!) and used spoons instead - was a royal pain :) Also, we ended up using muffin pans/papers - I honestly don't know if that even makes a difference!

Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean.


Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
1+ cup of confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup strawberry puree

Let the butter sit for a couple of hours till it softens and is at room temperature.
Beat the butter, sugar and cream cheese till well blended and all lumps are removed.
Add the strawberry puree and beat some more till it is combined.
Continue to beat till you get the consistency you want (feel free to add more sugar if you have an insanely sweet tooth).


Opinion?

O.M.G. How can cupcakes taste *so* good? I almost got sick just licking the batter! It took serious effort to keep our hands off the cupcakes and save them for the auction. We found them a bit too sweet and will probably cut back on the sugar next time around.

Also, I did not end up beating the frosting enough, so it was a little limp and wonky when I tried to shape it onto the cupcakes. Besides, a spoon doesn't substitute for a piping bag! Let's just call this my avant-garde frosting attempt!

And yes, these pix are kind of lame, but that was the best I could do in 70 seconds :)

Cheryl, you rock - you truly are the cupcake queen!

Chaat - Bollywood style!

Bollywood ...

Crazy hindi movies ... guy and gal running around trees ... melodrama with moms and moms-in-law ... crazy villain dude coming after defenseless heroine ... hero flexing his skimpy muscles as he pounces on the villain and his cronies and beats them to pulp ... guy and gal dancing on a train ... the plots go on and on ... and on! :)

The most popular question ever encountered about desi movies:

"So, are all Bollywood movies musicals?"

No! Atleast, I think not :) I mean, bollywood movies have oodles of songs, and folks break out into dance at every opportunity ... but they aren't "musicals", just doesn't seem right to brand them such ... guess they're just insanity-filled movies with tons of music? Does that even make any sense? :)

Anyway, Meeta set off ripples of excitement when she picked Bollywood Cooking as the theme for the current edition of Monthly Mingle. Who doesn't want to think of crazy indian movies and delicious food at the same time?

So, what food could be quintessential Bollywood? Chaat is the first thing that came to mind! "Chaat" literally means "to taste or to lick", so how about some chatpata chaat to honour Bollywood? And what food epitomizes Bombay more than Pav Bhaji? It is probably only rivaled by Vada Pav - and after eating that on the streets of Bombay, there is no way in hell I'm attempting to replicate it. Some things are best preserved in memory, and vada pav is one such thing ... until I can troll those dusty Bombay streets for some'o'that vada love!

So ... what is Pav Bhaji? Simply put, a motley assortment of veggies mashed together on a flat tava and cooked up with tomato puree, some spices, a wonk of butter? Throw in some pan-fried bread, sliced up onions, slivers of lime ... and you're in heaven!

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According to Wikipedia:

The origin of this dish is traced to the heyday of the textile mills in Mumbai. The mill workers used to have a short break for lunch. A full lunch which was not rushed probably needed more time than what was available. A light lunch was also preferred given that physical work followed immediately. A vendor understood this and came up with this dish using items or parts of them available on the menu. The role of Indian bread or rice was taken up by pav and the curries that usually go with Indian bread or rice were amalgamated into just one spicy concoction-the ‘bhaji’. Thus was born– the celebrated pav-bhaji!

Initally, it remained as the food of the mill-workers. The dish was then patronized extensively by the upcoming Mumbai underworld. This resulted in the dish finding its way into restaurants and spreading over Central Mumbai and other areas. The pav bhaji was made famous by the various roles played by Bollywood heroes as pav bhaji vendors, notable amongst them being the one played by Sanjay Dutt in the movie Vaastav.

Ooo ... an obvious Bollywood connection! I couldn't ask for more than that :)

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Anyway, PB recipes are a dime a dozen - often guarded jealously to protect the "secret" ingredients. But then again, it is one of the most flexible chaat recipes - most random assortments of veggies usually do the trick. Obviously, the flat tava on the open fire adds the ultimate flavour ... along with the flitting flies and the street smells!

Chatpata Pav Bhaji
Bollywood ishtyle! :)

Servings: 4

1 small vidalia onion - finely chopped
5 cloves garlic - minced
1" ginger - minced
3 green chillies - sliced long
2 cups frozen peas
2 carrots - chopped
2 medium yukon gold potatoes - chopped
1 red bell pepper - chopped
1 tomato - chopped fine
5-6 T San Marzano tomato puree
2 T pav bhaji masala
1 t sumac powder
1 t red chilli powder
3 T lime juice
2 T butter
salt to taste

Garnish

Slices of limes
Thin rings of red onions
Cilantro

Steam the veggies (potatoes, carrots, peas and bell peppers) till well-cooked (Alternatively, you can throw them into a pressure cooker)
In the meantime, heat 1 T of butter in a shallow wok and saute the onions till they start to brown.
Throw in the ginger, garlic and green chillies and saute some more.
Add 3 T of the tomato puree and cook for a couple more minutes.
Add the sumac powder and red chilli powder along with the chopped tomatoes and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Once the veggies are cooked, add them to the wok and stir.
Mash the vegetables with a potato masher or a hand blender.
Add the pav bhaji masala and remaining tomato puree and cook covered for 2-3 minutes.
Add 1 T butter and stir for a few more minutes.

Seriously, the longer the veggies simmer together, the better the flavours blend. And if you can get your hands on a giant flat tava, go for it! :)

Season with salt and take off the stove.
Stir in the lime juice after a couple of minutes.

We served the bhaji with slices of lightly buttered herbed bread browned over open fire.

****

Notes:

* We just happened to have our homemade pav bhaji masala on hand, I'll remember to post the recipe for it later this week.
* Most PB recipes call for cauliflower, but we skipped it this time around. And we didn't really miss it.
* San Marzano tomato puree honestly kicks ass - the ultimate plum tomato flavour, if you can get your hands on it, don't settle for anything else!

****

Opinion?

Mmm ... *so* close to the real thing. I closed my eyes and I could see Junior Dutt-saheb dishing out plates of PB on Juhu beach (I have no idea if he really did that in the movie!) :)


Off this goes to Meeta for MM. This is *so* not a glamorous or elegant dish by any means, but it seems so evocative of the sights, sounds and smells of Bollywood. Besides, I can't imagine this hunk ever declining a plate of Pav Bhaji!




P.S.: I finally get to pay homage to the very first song in my running mix :)

Click a 'shroom or 3?

Au Naturel.

Endless possibilities ...

Which just means I'm stumped.

And it gives me infinite reasons to procrastinate :)

15 minutes till the deadline. Guess this will have to be it.


Details:

Pic: Hon-Shimeji mushrooms
Camera: Leica Digilux 3
Kit Lens
No tripod, but lots of gyrating was involved

10 minutes ... Damn, Bee is going to kill me! :)

Mushroom Lemongrass Soup (Tom Yum Het Mangsawirat)

No, I did not know the full name of that soup. Like most other people, all I call it is Vegetarian Tom Yum. I just looked up the name so I could increase my coolness factor tenfold :)

I've often felt like writers' block is nonexistent when it comes to talking about food. Except for today. I read Mele Cotte's post about her Cooking to Combat Cancer event a few days ago and finally figured out a recipe I wanted to try out in honour of it. But attempting to write about it has been insanely difficult. As I've sat here typing/editing/erasing sentences over and over, I've can't stop thinking of people I've encountered who have battled the disease - some survived, others didn't, in all cases the disease seemed to take a toll on everybody involved. And, in all cases, the indomitable strength displayed by everybody involved is just phenomenal. The will to live, to battle it out, the will to stand by friends or family - it makes for amazing stories of humanity.

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Mushrooms - apparently, they're a powerfood when it comes to foods that fight cancer.

• All wild mushrooms ostensibly contain the complete natural range of trace ingredients (72+).
• Several mushrooms contain polysaccharides, especially Lentinan - that help build immunity. They also contain lectin, which attacks cancerous cells and prevents them from multiplying.
• Mushrooms that contain thioproline can stimulate the production of interferon in the body.
• Extracts from mushrooms have been successfully tested in recent years as an adjunct to chemotherapy.

Feeling empowered by all this new found knowledge, I marched off to a couple of stores determined to find atleast one mushroom variety that I wasn't familiar with! Well, that's a pretty easy task - there are probably a zillion that I've never eaten before :) The booty for the day ended up being a pretty fun stash:

Enoki - These insanely cute looking mushrooms have a delicate fruity flavour and are usually served raw.
Clamshell - Apparently, these have a taste evocative of shellfish (I wouldn't know anything about that!). They're best when blanched or cooked.
Brown Beech - Also known as hon-shimeji mushrooms, these are highly esteemed in Japan. These are often grown on wood, especially beech trees hence the common name beech mushroom.
Crimini - Probably the most familiar of all - apparently, these are portabellos that are harvested real young! They tend to retain their firmness with cooking and work great in sauces and soups.

End-of-Botany-Lesson :)

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So, in spite of the disappointing adventure with drunken noodles last week, the craving for thai flavours has not mellowed in any way. Tom Yum flavours are always so light and comforting, and with the mushroom booty on hand, how could one resist trying out this soup?

TYHM is the vegetarian version of Thailand's most popular soup - spicy and sour, it is usually served scalding hot in a pot with a fire underneath - very exciting! :) Well, we didn't quite go for that ultra traditional effect, though the spice in the soup more than made up for the flames! :)

The original recipe was for a clear soup with just mushrooms and tomatoes. I went for a couple of variations - some shallots, a slew of grated carrot and a few spoons of coconut milk. Also, we ground the thai chillies so the spice blended in a little more - which it totally did, the last batch of bird's eye chillies from Uwajimaya pack a whopper!

Tom Yum Het Mangsawirat
Oodles of mushroom goodness!

Servings: 4 cups/2 bowls

2 small shallots - sliced long and thin
3 cups water
1 lemongrass stalk - cut into 4" pieces and smashed
4-6 whole torn lime leaves
3 slices galangal (about 1 t)
8-10 crimini mushrooms - sliced
4 small thai chillies (Prik Kee Nuu Suan)
2 cups of mixed mushrooms (enoki, brown beech, clamshell)
1 medium carrot - grated
1 tomato - cut into eighths, lengthwise
3 T coconut milk
2 T white soy sauce
1 t sugar
3 T lime juice
1-2 stems cilantro
1 t sesame oil

Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the shallots till lightly browned.
Add the water along with the crimini mushrooms and boil covered on medium-high (6-8 minutes).
Once the mushrooms are completely cooked and soft, remove them from the water.

[We only want the "mushroom stock" flavour from the crimini - I have a couple of ideas on what to do with the cooked crimini, I'll try to post about it in the next week.]

Crush the lemongrass in a mortar and add it to the water. You could alternatively just shred/separate the lemongrass if you don't want to deal with fishing out small pieces from your soup later :)

Add the torn lime leaves along with the galangal.

Turn up the heat and bring to a boil, for about 5 minutes - to release the flavours of the herbs. The water should be murky brown/green when done.

Add the mushrooms and ground chilli paste. Boil for 2 minutes till the mushrooms are just starting to get soft.

Add the tomatoes along with the coconut milk and cook for another minute.

Take the soup off the heat and stir in the soy sauce and sugar. Add the lime juice just before serving - you want to hold off on this till the end since lime juice loses its tartness when boiled.

Check the flavours before serving - tom yum is traditionally served *hot* and is insanely spicy and sour!

Transfer into bowls and garnish with sprigs of cilantro.

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Opinion?

Yum! This was exactly what I wanted tonight. Simple, flavourful, elegant, insanely spicy. If someone threw me into a giant bowl of tom yum, I could just swim around and drink it forever!

I'm sending this to Chris for her awesome event - Cooking to Combat Cancer - Stay strong and healthy, Chris!

This is a shout-out to all those incredibly brave survivors and fighters out there - we raise a toast to your strength and hold many good thoughts for you as we revel in this simple and healthy meal.

Eat a cheesecake pop, will you?

When I first read about cheesecake pops being the DB challenge for April, it took me a while to figure out what these crazy things were. I had to read and re-read the recipe before understanding how these pops got done. They're made of cheesecake, but there's more to them. They look like lollipops, but that isn't what they are. They need to be frozen, but they are not icecream. They're a crazy olio of dessert techniques leading up to these really fun looking finger foods! Crazy, eh? There's a DB challenge for you :)

This month's challenge was organized by Elle (Feeding My Enthusiasm) and Deborah (Taste and Tell)- they picked these funky cheesecake pops from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor. Seriously, this is the perfect title for a book that has a recipe for cheesecake pops! They're gooey all right, was quite a bit messy assembling them, sticky - a bit ... chewy - somewhat :) I've never baked anything from this book before, now I'm totally intrigued about what other quirky recipes it contains!

These cheesecake pops make for the perfect party food. And given that tomorrow is Vodka's b'day, I decided to tailor these for him. A few pops got the prescribed chocolate dunk, but a few others were set aside for Vodka - they got a yummy crust of sliced almonds in a vodka-honey sauce. That's the tradition - for the 9th year running - the pooch gets a Vodka-based dessert on his birthday :)

This was actually a really simple and straightforward recipe - a basic cheesecake baked using a water bath. There is plenty of flexibility in the dipping flavours and colours which was fun! I ended up going for the traditional cheesecake balls instead of any fancy geometric shapes, but the fun started with the dipping and decorations. The first few got dunked in semisweet chocolate and topped with sprinkles - very festive! And then Vodka's preferences took over - which made for a big hit!

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Cheesecake Pops
(based on Jill O'Connor's recipe from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey)

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream
Boiling water as needed
Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks
1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)
Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

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Allowed Variations

Yes you can make some changes to this cheesecake as long as you promise to use the basic cheesecake recipe (although you can add a flavor to it if you like) and do keep it white (sorry, no chocolate or coffee or mocha), and keep the pops to the 2 ounce size.

The dipping flavors and colors are completely up to you.

If you want to use decorations, go for it. Same with drizzles and ribbons on the sticks. Or leave them plain after dipping them. You can even dip them in graham cracker crumbs and then the chocolate – to get more of the cheesecake feel to them.

You can cut the cheesecake into geometric shapes instead of making balls…triangles or squares or diamonds…just keep them about 2 ounces each. We can't wait to see what combinations our Daring Baker come up with…just make sure to use the basic cheesecake recipe, to make the pops 2 ounces or close to that in size, and to dip each pop in chocolate or confectionary coating and have it on a lollipop stick.

Opinion?

This isn't my typical kind of dessert, I'm not even a big cheesecake fan, but these things turned out pretty good! I was afraid the cheesecake was going to be super dense, but it was actually pretty light - probably courtesy of a couple of changes I made to the recipe - I used neufchatel cheese instead of regular cream cheese, I skipped the egg yolk and heavy cream in favour of a couple of tablespoons of silken tofu - these made for a much lighter cheesecake! Dipping the pops in chocolate was a cinch, rolling them in sprinkles and nuts was ... a piece of cake! :)


The best part of it all was that Vodka absolutely loved his treats and then sat around licking his chops for a while after! :)



Thanks, Elle & Deborah for this really really fun challenge. I had a blast and Vodka is thrilled to bits - nothing like making a pooch happy on his birthday!

And now it is time for me to stay up all night checking out all the other awesome DB posts!

Sweet'n'Tangy Kumquat Daal

We chanced upon some kumquats at Uwajimaya a few days ago. And I couldn't hold my curiosity any longer. So, we bought a bunch of them even as we kept wondering what we'd do with them! I'd eaten them raw a couple of times and liked them as long as they were perfectly ripe and juicy (except for the damn seeds which are bitter and sometimes a weird blue in colour!)

And I realized earlier today that these crazy cute fruits are the theme for April's round of AFAM. Hmm ... we'd come full circle. Now, we had to come up with a recipe for these crazy cute citrus fruits! I poked around on the web - the most interesting recipes I came up with were Elise's salsa, Sig's cocktail and a few relish ideas on CookingLight, all of which sounded delicious :) But I was hoping for an idea for a main dish for dinner. Hmm ...

Anyway, I love this whole AFAM idea. By the time we end up working with a fruit, we've read so much about it, I feel like I have a new best friend :) Before today, we'd seen kumquats, tasted them, we knew they belonged to the citrus family ... that's about it. And now, I'm a minor font of information!

• Kumquats are not part of the citrus family, but are related to it and belong to the genus Fortunella. The slow growing trees produce 80-100 fruits a year.
• Kumquats readily hybridize with citrus fruits to produce limequats and orangequats - hmm ... these could be the makings of a comic series!
• Kumquats make for a great martini garnish and can be macerated in vodka or any clear spirit.
• Candied kumquats are pretty popular in China.

Back to our recipe search ... after much dithering, we finally decided to experiment with a daal recipe! Simple lentil flavours can never be wrong, right? :) And we're huge fans of raw mango daal - the tartness is so overwhelmingly delicious. Maybe we would enjoy the flavour of kumquats too!

Sweet'n'Tangy Kumquat Daal
Little bits of juicy goodness

Servings: 4-6

1/3 red onion - diced
20+ cherry tomatoes
4 thai green chillies
20 kumquats - sliced and deseeded
1 cup whole moong daal
1 cup masoor daal
1 T sesame oil
1 t cumin seeds
1 t mustard seeds
1 t urad daal
1 t turmeric powder
salt to taste
Chopped cilantro for garnish

Rinse the moong and masoor daal and cook with 4 cups of water either in a pressure cooker or on the stove.
Heat the oil in a wok, add the mustard, cumin and urad daal and let them splutter.
Add the green chillies and onions and saute till the onions start to brown (4-5 minutes).
Throw in the kumquats and tomatoes along with the turmeric and saute for another 4-5 minutes.
Add 1/2 cup of water and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Add the cooked lentils, season with salt and simmer for 1-2 minutes for the flavours to blend.
Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Opinion?

Wooo Hoo Hoo! Love it! Those crazy little kumquats rock! The daal just oozed with this sweet+tangy citrus flavour. And the sauteed kumquats softened up and tasted *so* juicy and chewy. Yay! Happy :)



Off this goes to Coffee and Vanilla who is hosting this month's edition of AFAM (Maheshwari's brainchild). Thanks to both of them for organizing this fruit fest!

And we're so hooked onto these fruits, we already have a couple of other ideas for working with them! Expect to see a post about this in the next week or two!