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.

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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!

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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 :)

Bread, Soup and happiness

Sometimes, that's about all that's needed to put a smile on the face! A bowl of hot soup, some crusty bread to mop it up and soon life is all goodness.


I was wandering around Columbus Foodie's insanely fun blog - brimming with a wide variety of recipes that I could pick from for T&C VII. Just as it seemed like I was going to drown in eternal indecision, I saw this recipe for beer batter bread. Whoa! That sounded really delicious. Plus I've been hankering for more baking lately, so this sounded perfect. And the plan was to try this recipe out right away - how insane would it be if I posted a recipe for an event a couple of weeks in advance? Do things like that ever happen?!!

The Abster was coming over for dindin and said she was hankering for a soup. And when I mentioned bread, I could pretty much hear her jumping around on the other end of the phone line! But wait ... she *hates* onions! Well, the recipe could be reworked to use garlic instead, can't go wrong with that! And then she said she wanted swirly soup. Hmm ... I was kind of hoping to kill 2 food events with one meal here :) If we made a spicy soup instead, I could totally ship it off for March's edition of No Croutons Required!

Yay for food agendas :)

We poked around several cookbooks and the Pupp found a really simple and elegant spicy soup - a plethora of veggies, some marjoram, kicked up with some cayenne ... sounded pretty good!

We also ended up reworking the bread recipe to use whole wheat flour. And we made some muffins and scones instead of a big loaf - worked out pretty well.

Beer Batter Muffins and Scones
Mmm ... garlic! Mmm ... cheese!

Servings: 12-14 muffins/scones

2 heads of garlic - peeled and chopped into bits (not minced, unless you don't want to feel the yummy sticky garlic chunks in your mouth!)
3 cups white whole wheat flour
1 T olive oil
3 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 cup grated light cheese
1 12 ounce beer (we used amber ale)
3 T butter - melted

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Heat the oil in a large skillet and saute the garlic until lightly browned.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into a bowl.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add in the cheese, beer and garlic.
Stir/knead until the mixture is just moist and well-mixed.

Grease palms with cooking spray before taking handfuls of the mixture and plopping them onto a greased baking tray.
Another option is to drop dollops of it in a muffin pan.
(We did both!)

Drizzle 1.5 T of butter over the muffins/scones and set in the oven.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove the muffins/scones, drizzle the remaining 1.5 T of butter over them.
Set back in the oven for about 12-14 minutes till they are lightly browned.
A toothpick or knife inserted into the muffin should come out clean.

Cool the muffins and scones on a wire rack.

Opinion?

Weeeeeeee! Enough garlic to chase all those vampires away! The scones were chewy and tasty. We did think that maybe they needed a little zing - think we'll add some minced jalapeno next time around. And they tasted better today than yesterday - seemed moister than ever! And the beer definitely gave the bread a yeasty flavour - very appetizing.

Thanks Becke for this recipe, we're definitely going to try it out again!

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The Drunk Muffin
Photo Courtesy: Abbie

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While the bread was baking, we started the soup. We were a little dubious about how hearty this soup would be - it didn't seem to ask for a lot of ingredients, but my fears were totally unfounded. Simple is good, especially in soups.

Spicy Chunky Vegetable Soup
*so* fresh and happy!

Servings: 4

1 red onion - chopped
4-5 cloves garlic - finely chopped
1 small carrot - diced
1 large potato - diced
4 oz green peas (we used frozen petite peas)
2 cups of drained tomatoes
1 L reduced sodium vegetable broth
2 scallions - sliced diagonally into thin pieces
1 T butter
1.5 t dried marjoram
2 t cayenne
salt to taste

Saute the onion in butter till browned.
Add the vegetable broth and bring to a boil.
Reduce to a simmer and add the tomatoes, garlic and marjoram. Cook for about 15 minutes.
Stir in the carrots, peas and potatoes along with the cayenne and salt.
Cover partially and cook on medium for 10+ minutes till the potatoes are cooked.

Opinion?

The recipe had likened this soup to minestrone, but described a much lighter flavour. We didn't quite grok that when we first read it, but one spoonful and we knew exactly what that was about. The consistency was just right, the drained tomatoes were *perfect*, the soup tasted *so* damn fresh! Like if I was running through a garden and noshing on all the veggies! Well ... no, not quite like that. But you know what I mean - it just felt ... so right. And spicy too.

Eat (bread), drink (soup), make merry!

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Off this goes to Ms. Tinned Tomatoes for No Croutons Required.

Many thanks to Nicole for another fun edition of T&C.

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And I'll leave you with a snapshot of the craziest cat around hereplace :)

Machli ka Salan and much more!

Last week, we were hankering for a desi cookout - well, that's pretty normal except this time we decided to try out a fish recipe.

Being relatively new to eating fish, I often end up going for simple flavors that easily showcase the fish - marinades followed by grilling or broiling. But this time, we wanted obvious desi flavors, so we attempted this salan recipe from Art of Indian Cuisine by Rocky Mohan. BTW, I'm digging this book more by the recipe - it distinctly lacks cooking times, but makes up for it by showcasing really flavorful and often different dishes.

Once we picked our fish recipe, the next step was finding the right sides - after a little deliberation, we decided to skip rice and went with Aloo Kurma and collard green rotis - another greens fix :)

Madison Market has become a pretty good destination for reliable fish - the folks behind the counter totally know what they're talking about and are pretty amiable about picking the right size of fillets - especially since I'm not a fan of thick slabs of fish that don't cook through easily. The recipe just called for white fish, we we went with true cod. And we ended up skipping the mint that the recipe asked for and just used dry spices along with ginger and garlic for the marinade.

Machli ka Salan
Fish Fillet Treats

Servings: 3

1 lb true cod fillets

Marinade:
1 T red chilli powder
4-5 garlic cloves
1" ginger
1 t turmeric powder
1 T coriander powder (freshly roasted and ground works best)

1 T butter
1 large white onion - finely chopped
salt to taste

Rub the fish fillets with the marinade and set aside for 45-50 minutes.
Heat the clarified butter in a large frying pan and add the chopped onions.
Sauté until light brown in colour.
Add the marinated fish fillets.
Reduce the heat and add 1/2 a cup of warm water and salt.
Simmer, stirring carefully, taking care the fish pieces do not break.
Cook until the fish is tender and the gravy is thick.

What did we think?
Perfect. Seriously. One of the best fish dishes we've ever made.

Alu Kurma
Yay! Potatoes!

Serves: 3-4

1 lb fingerling potatoes - sliced into chunks
1 cup of thick yogurt

Masala:
Dry roast and grind to a paste with a little water

2 T almond - blanched, peeled and sliced
1 T grated coconut
1 T poppy seeds
1 T coriander seeds
1 T red chilli powder

1 T olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped onions
1 t grated ginger
3 cloves garlic - smashed
Salt to taste

Whisk the yogurt with the roasted spice paste and set aside.

Heat the oil in a wok, saute the onions+ginger+garlic till golden brown.
Add the potatoes and saute for 3-4 minutes.
Add 2-3 T of water, stir and cook covered for 4-6 minutes.
Add the yogurt mixture and salt and stir.
Cook for 5 minutes and add 3/4 cup of warm water.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook the potatoes are tender and the gravy is thick.

At this point, we ended up tossing the potatoes+gravy into a baking pan and baking it covered for about 15 minutes at 300 F.

What did we think?
Daria thought it tasted perfect, but we think the poppy seeds was a bit much - we'll probably scale back on that next time, but otherwise, the potatoes were perfectly cooked and absorbed the masala flavours really well.

Collard Greens Rotis
Go Grrreeeennnnnn :)

Servings: many many rotis

3 cups of whole wheat flour
6-7 leaves of collard greens - cleaned and shredded into small pieces
1 t salt
1 T cayenne powder
1 t cumin seeds
1/2 cup warm milk
warm water for kneading
1 T sesame oil

Cook the collard greens in about 1 cup of water till softened - this took about 5 minutes.
Knead the dough with the greens, salt, spices and milk, adding water as needed.
Once well mixed, add the oil and knead for another 5-7 minutes.
Cover the dough with a wet towel for about 20 minutes before rolling out rotis.

These were *good*! Think we'll make parathas with them next time around and maybe just stuff them with a spiced collard mix, that sounds a lot more exciting :)

Wine Pairings:
All french - a Chateauneuf du Pape (which was fabulous, thanks Daria!), a Gigondas that was quite yummy and one more that I've forgotten the name of!



The meal was fabulous, but the pictures were subpar. Oh well!

Care for some snapper?

We did! And we're glad we did! :)

This is a long overdue post from a couple of weeks ago - with Navarathri and travelling and all, things have been really hectic and I'm woefully behind with my food postings. But things are back to being relatively normal, so the postings shall flow again! :)

A couple of weeks ago, the guy at City Fish convinced me to buy some of what he called "super fresh" snapper - so much better than the cod, he said! Well, that sold me - anything better than fresh cod must be good, real good! And this worked really well for dinner a couple of nights later since Megan got all excited in anticipation of a seafood meal :)

We poked around several recipes online before finally settling on a version of blackened snapper that sounded pretty happy. Simple seasoning, delicate fish, "herbalicious" sauce topping - all goodness!

Blackened snapper with tomato-dill sauce

Servings: 3

3 fillets skinned snapper - 8 oz each
2 T olive oil
a handful of chopped parsley

Seasoning
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1 T cayenne
1 t kosher salt
1 T garlic salt
1.5 T onion powder
1 t ground black pepper
1 T fresh thyme

Sauce
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3 roma tomatoes - peeled and chopped
1/2 red onion - finely chopped
3 cloves garlic - smashed
1 T coriander powder
1 t cayenne
2 T chopped dill
kosher salt
1 t olive oil
1 t turmeric

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onions+garlic. Once browned, throw in the tomatoes and spices and cook for about 12-14 minutes till the tomatoes are cooked and blended. Mash the tomatoes with a wooden ladle and let the sauce simmer for a few more minutes. Finally toss in the chopped dill. (I *love* the explosive smell when the dill is thrown into the sauce - so overpowering!)

Fishy fishy
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Mix the seasoning ingredients till well blended.
Brush the fillets with olive oil and rub all over with the seasoning. Place the fish in a large greased skillet and cook over low for about 4-5 minutes. Drizzle a few more drops of olive oil as the fish cooks. Flip the fish over and cook for another 4-5 minutes.
Place a fillet on a plate and spoon the sauce over it. Let it sit for a couple of minutes before serving - the fish was delicate enough to immediately start absorbing the flavors of the sauce!
Top with the chopped parsley.

Our first side was pretty simple - oven roasted fingerling potatoes dusted with salt, pepper and some thyme - yum! The other side was even happier - hierloom tomatoes sauteed in their own juices along with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious! :)

Our camera was not super happy that day, we only have one substandard picture as testament to a yummy meal!

Wait ... there is more! Megan brought some yummy desserts from Whole Foods - we decided the flan was too rich, but the raspberry tart was tasty and the chocolate mousse was simply decadent!

Cabbage koottu - supreme comfort food

Last night felt like a "home" food night - classic south indian, like my mum makes. Since we didn't get a chance to do our grocery trips this last weekend, I started poking around in the fridge to find something I could work with. A cabbage! Yay! I love cutting cabbage! *so* much of fun :)

Cabbage koottu was always a favorite growing up, about on par with onion sambar and mor kozhambu. I love the funny (almost stinky!) smell of cabbage cooking - very nostalgic. Ok, so cabbage koottu it was going to be. I also found some baby brinjals and dutch potatoes that I could work with. I poke around and found this posting on Indira's blog, figured I could rework it a little bit! Thanks, Indira :)

Cabbage Koottu

Servings: 4

3/4 medium green cabbage - chopped into 1"-2" long shreds

1 cup cooked tual daal

2 T channa dal - boiled till cooked (but not mushy)

1 small ball of tamarind

salt

Seasoning:

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1 t sesame oil

1 t mustard

1 t urad daal

2 red chillies

1/2 t asafoetida

7-8 curry leaves

Masala:

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1.5 T coriander seeds

2 red chillies

2 T grated coconut

Garnish:

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Chopped cilantro

a few fresh pomegranate seeds

Roast the masala ingredients and grind to a coarse powder.

Soak the tamarind in 1/2 cup of hot water till the juices can be completely extracted. Squeeze out the tamarind and save the water.

Heat the oil in a wok and add the seasoning.

Once the mustard sputters, add the tamarind water and turmeric.

Once the water boils, add the cabbage and cook covered for 7-8 minutes.

Add the cooked channa daal and stir for a couple of minutes.

Now, toss in the tuar daal along with the masala and salt and simmer for about 5 minutes just so the flavors can blend.

Garnish with cilantro and pomegranate seeds (I've never tried these before - the sweet crunchiness was a perfect complement to the tart and spice of the koottu).

Baby Brinjals and Potato curry

Servings: 4

7-8 baby brinjals

5 dutch potatoes

1 t sesame oil

1 t cumin seeds

1/2 t turmeric

1.5 T sambar powder

salt

Chop the potatoes into long pieces (4 per potato). Cut off the stems of the brinjals and make a plus cut at the tops (just like for stuffed brinjals).

In a wide skillet, heat the oil and toss in the cumin seeds.

Once browned, add the potatoes and sprinkle some water. Cook covered for about 6-7 minutes. I liked the idea of roasting the potatoes instead of boiling them just so they could be more crispy.

Once the potatoes are parboiled, add the brinjals along with the sambar powder, turmeric and salt. Cook covered for about 6-8 minutes till both the potatoes and brinjals are done and have absorbed the spices. You could optionally simmer for another minute (uncovered) in case any water needs to evaporate.

Simple, yet delicious - seems like eggplant behaves best when left to its own devices :)

Halibut meets grape leaves

This was one of those perfect seafood meals. It was also one of those "Damn! The camera is on the fritz!" meals! :)

While poking around for interesting fish recipes, I came across JenBlossom's post about halibut with lemon butter. Soon, I was trolling the Food&Wine recipe collection looking for other halibut recipes. This one about halibut roasted in grape leaves caught my eye. We haven't had grape leaves in a long while, and this recipe sounded really simple and quick. In one of those rare instances, we pretty much followed the recipe, except for using halibut fillets with the skin on - not a problem since it peeled off real easily once they were baked.

We really wanted to get all pieces of our meal ready at the same time, it truly sucks when an entree sits around getting cold while the sides are still being worked on! After a little juggling, we figured out how to create a packet of grape leaves, drizzle it with olive oil and chopped thyme and seasoning and wrap the halibut in it. Soon, 4 pretty pouches went into the oven :) In the meantime, we chopped up some yukon gold potatoes and sauteed those with vidalia onions - seasoning was a dash of cayenne, some cumin powder and rock salt. And this time, we seasoned it with a bunch of italian parsley instead of the usual cilantro. It worked really well!

The other side was an old favorite - fresh green beans sauteed in a soy sauce+rice vinegar+grapeseed oil+sesame seeds reduction. Tasty, like always!

Once the fish was out, we unwrapped the grape leaves and drizzled the lemon-mustard dressing over the halibut - it was so yummy, can't wait to try it on some veggies next time!

It was a fabulous meal, but the camera was out to lunch, so all we have is this one sad picture!


End result: Autumn was happy! Very happy! :)

Broiled Salmon in Citrus-Cilantro Pesto

We stumbled across an old edition of Cook's Illustrated that had a pretty interesting article about broiling salmon in a variety of sauces. Having never broiled salmon before, we jumped on this article and proceeded to dissect it :) We quickly discovered that this "How to Broil Salmon" article was incredibly confusing - every sauce recipe (there were 5 of them) refers to a part of one of the other recipes! *grr*

We finally figured it out and went with the cilantro pesto sauce - a very refreshing flavor for a hot summer evening. But we soon ran into bigger problems - the broiler didn't quite seem to be working! So, we had to stick with using the oven instead - the flavors were great, but we didn't quite get the crispy crust we wanted. I think we're going to try the crushed potato chips + bread crumbs for the crust the next time around.

We seasoned the salmon fillets (about 1 lb) with some olive oil, kosher salt and pepper and let it sit under the broiler for about 7-9 minutes. In the meantime, we made up the sauce by blending these:

1 bunch cilantro
5-6 cloves of garlic
1 bunch scallions
1 jalapeno
juice of 1 lemon

We went back and forth on whether we wanted shallots or onions or scallions. And the scallions were perfect - not overwhelming, just a little pungent, quite yummy!

Hmm ... broiler disaster! So, we upped the oven temperature to about 475, let the salmon bake for a couple more minutes and then coated it with the pesto, rolled it in panko and stuck it back in the oven for another 7-9 minutes. Hmm ... still not browned! Another 7 minutes? That helped some, but this crispy crust needs some work!

Well, the sauce perfectly complemented the salmon, so no complaints there! And our sides were perfect - roast potatoes with onions, cumin and a dash of cayenne and green beans cooked in a soy-rice vinegar reduction with sesame seeds. The green beans side was the star of the night, I'll need to cook that again soon!

The picture I took was way too lame to post, I'll just have to cook this again for a good picture :)