Jeera aloo and its fight for supremacy in dieter's fortress

In my house right now - the clothes are not drying, the shoes are stinking and there is a stench from the garbage dump half a kilometre away that even sealed windows cannot keep out. Classical monsoon smells and I am not complaining.

My problem is mammoth.  I am protesting against the aroma from the kitchen of the “Deadly Deep Frying Diva” – my new neighbour to be precise, who appears to be the invincible queen of grease. The heady smell of her deep fried cuisine and her “ghee ka tadkas” ride the humid still air around her flat and have given the word “temptation” a new meaning in my life.

Fortunately our fifth floor abode is a virtual fortress and does not allow the smells inside the hallowed interiors of our blessed aspiring dieter’s paradise – but it has become a torture to open the front door and step out.

Seven ‘o clock is the chosen hour at which we step out after our staid breakfasts of dalia and fruits – and that is the time she decides to fry her “pyaz ke parathe” in ghee . I am almost swooning as I attempt to lock my door and I would give anything to eat that paratha with a huge dollop of butter.

 Thankfully however - as I inhale a lung full of the mouth watering aroma – just the excess air in my body stretches the stitches on my clothes and reminds me that this is an expensive wardrobe that I just cannot afford to outgrow, and so I scoot towards the lift (promising myself that I will take the stairs from tomorrow).

Deep fried diva does not give up so easily though. In the evening as three growling stomachs belonging to Baba Bear, Mamma Bear and Baby Bear - step out of the lift – she strategically drops a puri into the oil and stirs the intoxicating aloo ki sabji on her gas stove.

That’s it – my defences are down!

 I fling caution to the winds!

 If not puri – Aloo ki sabji is definitely on today’s menu!!!!

No I didn’t ring her bell (though I was tempted to) I made my own!

This is a life saving recipe and has saved my gasping meals from drowning several times. When I attempted it the first time, my Bengali (and therefore connoisseur by birth) Dad rubbished my attempt because the potatoes were not adequately salty at their core. Thereafter I devised this trick of cutting the potatoes small and adding a good amount of water to the final sabji and then allowing it to evaporate. The end result is not the dry jeera aloo that you can order in restaurants but a dish with adherent gravy. If you like the sour taste to predominate – you could add 2 tablespoons of curd instead of water. I love this! I just didn’t have curd on hand that day.

Jeera Aloo

1.     Boil 3 large potatoes. They need to be cooked to their centres but should not disintegrate. I generally do three whistles in the pressure cooker and then allow the cooker to cool on its own.

2.     Cut up the boiled potatoes into small cubes

3.     Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a karahi and add 1 tsp of jeera to it

4.     Follow the jeera with a pinch of haldi powder and salt (to taste)

5.     Add the cubed boiled potatoes to the oil and mix well to coat them with the masala

6.     Now add about 4 tablespoons of water to the karahi

7.     Allow the water to boil and evaporate

8.     Serve hot – on indulgent days.

The link between Real estate and Tuna

Last Sunday we were just three days away from our wedding anniversary.
Gifts have been rather one sided in the past eleven years and I have been at the receiving end. So this eleventh year I decided to push the envelope. A small push - with ideating rather than funding at its core.

The buy would smoothen our furrowed brows, reassuringly wipe away our friend’s concerned looks and purge us of the disgusted disapproval of acquaintances. It would kick-start our heretofore nonexistent foray into real estate and glean the envy of the diamond and platinum buyers.

Sunday was the chosen day and we set off with the firm resolve to sign the papers and follow it up by well deserved fine dining.

There is a reason however why certain people don’t own houses and we were destined to learn that that day.

With the agent giving us directions on the phone we were driving down a road when we passed the beautiful Pandav Garha waterfall. Picnickers were embarking on their journey up the waterfall and we began looking at them longingly. The agent no longer had our attention and we involuntarily stopped the car. In a trance we followed the picnickers down the path and up the mountain.

It was the most fun we had since we migrated to this metropolitan mela. High end shoes and sandals were soaking wet, clothes that had looked chic a few hours ago looked tattered at the end of the climb but hearts were soaring high.

Of course the flat didn’t get bought and the fine dine restaurants were closed for lunch by the time we made it back.

In our exhilaration at the miracle of nature that we had just witnessed however– we were happy with Tinned Tuna on Toast.

Tuna on Toast

I am not sure this should be called a recipe but it definitely is a winning dish in the hands of the hungry and the exhausted

1.     Open a tin of Tuna (with the good sense of a weight conscious doctor pushed into the darkest recesses of my mind - I always pick up tuna in oil rather than in brine)

2.     Overturn the contents of the tin into a large bowl

3.     Generously add 4 or 5 tablespoons of mayonnaise.( It is best to indulge in something like mountain climbing like I did before this so that you can justify your indulgence.)

4.     Mix the mayonnaise and the Tuna.

5.     Pop slices of bread into the toaster and wait for them to become brown and crisp

6.     Layer the Tuna mixture on the toast and pamper your taste buds.

Cheese croquets, Chrysanthemums and a bygone era

December evenings were ripe with anticipation in that house at the end of the sleepy little lane. Two little girls waited with bated breath for a certain white ambassador to roll down the sloping road and come to a halt in front of their gate.

I was one of those little girls, the years were the eighties and the place was Jamshedpur.

Nothing much happened in Jamshedpur in those days and I think it was the absence of events that engendered the happiness in the little things that did.

I remember tripping in my favourite ghagra several times as I ran to the gate when the white ambassador came to a halt in front of our gate and a beaming man stepped out to open the trunk. We gasped every year as he carefully lifted out two burgeoning flower pots of multi coloured Chrysanthemums grown by one of the most talented ladies in the city.

The pots were the pride of the garden for the rest of the winter. We lured friends into our garden and proudly showed off these priceless gifts from Ramalingam Aunty.

In my gardening stints in Jorhat I tried hard to recreate that mental picture that is still so vivid in my mind. I think it is superfluous to mention that of course I failed.

I am hoping for a Ramalingam Aunty for my daughter so that she can love Chrysanthemums the way I do.

Today’s recipe is Cheese croquets – needless to say a shortcut. I think I chose the recipe because of the Cs it has in common with Chrysanthemums.

Cheese Croquets

1.     Boil two potatoes and grate them. The easiest way is to seal them in a plastic bag and microwave for 5 minutes and then give them a standing time of 10 minutes before you take them out. The potatoes can be mashed instead of grating them but frankly I find mashing more tedious.

2.     Grate some cheese. The amount of cheese can be varied according to taste. We are a cheese loving family and so I like to mix in as much cheese as potato.

3.     Mix the potato and cheese together. Add salt if you like but usually the cheese makes it salty enough.

4.     Shape the mixture into little cutlets with your hands

5.     Now break an egg into a quarter plate.

6.     Spread bread crumbs onto another  quarter plate

7.     Heat oil for shallow frying in a frying pan

8.     Dip the cutlets in the egg and coat them well

9.     Roll the egg coated cutlets in the breadcrumbs so that all the surfaces are coated

10.                        Fry in hot oil.

The trick with frying cutlets in the frying pan without having burnt crumbs all over the frying pan and none on the cutlet is – to keep the oil hot enough through the frying. When you put the cutlet in, it cools the oil considerably so you have to quickly whack up the flame.

Also keep the cutlets small – it will be much easier to fry them.

Of course frying is an indulgence. On diet obsessed days – grill each side for 5 minutes in a grill pre -heated to 200°C for 10 minutes

Never mess with doctors - you may end up eating Taheri

Surprise and on some occasions shock, is the usual reaction when I tell people that I can cook and in fact enjoy cooking.

I am not sure whether this is true of women in other professions but I can safely say that doctors at least are never expected to know how to cook.

My Mother is a gynaecologist and her hilarious batch mates, even when they  come visiting her decades later, actually sneak into the kitchen to check if she is really cooking what they are eating. One of them even said that if he knew doctors could cook, he would’ve certainly married one.

My husband is on that batch mate’s side, and categorically states that he married me because I could cook. He has learnt not to mention this too often however, because when he does, he ends up cooking for the next whole week.

I’ve even had rookie technicians who knew nothing about working in the laboratory daring to trip me up with exotic culinary terms. One such guy who was the prized only son, used to rattle off his exotic lunch menu every day just to watch my bewildered look and gloat over the fact that I could not even identify many dishes, leave alone cook them. One such dish was “Taheri”.

He used to offer me “taheri” every day and I would politely decline. One day I decided to get to the bottom of the matter and asked him the recipe. Turned out it was just a vegetable pulao. Anyway I learnt how to cook it just to avenge myself.

What I now cook is a shortcut of course but it is a great lunch box idea any way.

Taheri

For the uninitiated, taheri is actually a North Indian Pulao with lots of vegetables. Now in my kitchen the only vegetable that is unerringly present is in a bag in the freezer - frozen green peas. All the others need hard work from lazy me, to revamp into their pulao avatar. My strategy then on busy days is to substitute the sabjis with dal but keep the texture from becoming like khichri.

1.     Wash half a katori of moong (yellow)  dal well and soak it in water for an hour. If an hour is too much to wait, soak it in hot water for 5 minutes.

2.     When the soaking time is up, wash half a katori of rice. The rice has to be cooked immediately – no soaking.

3.     Take a pan and heat 2 tablespoons of oil in it.

4.     Add a teaspoon of jeera to the oil and fry it till it turns golden

5.     Now add the washed rice and the soaked dal. Fry these for a bit in the oil.

6.     Add some salt to taste

7.     Add a handful of frozen peas (more or less depending on your relationship with peas)

8.     If there are some other chopped vegetables like florets of cauliflower or cubes of carrots or chopped beans available add them now and fry them for a bit.

9.     Add 1 katori of water. Water added should be exactly double of the amount of rice used.

10.                        Cook until the rice gets cooked.

The dal and rice remain separate entities in this and do not merge to become a khichri. The end result is separate grains of rice as you get in a pulao.

Serve hot or pack away in your lunch box.

When I make this for my daughter I use ghee – that tastes heavenly.

Non vegetarians who want to make a meal out of it should take a boneless breast of chicken and chop it up into small pieces. Sprinkle a little salt on it and stir fry it in a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan for a minute. Add this to the taheri.

The smell of a new city in a Chicken sandwich

As a hostel fresher I lived for a long time on a steady diet of smuggled mess food. The just edible food was cold and unpalatable by the time it reached us and could only be salvaged by generous dollops of homemade pickle from all over the country.

This was Bangalore in the nineties. The city was just acquiring the reputation of being the Pub City with a great night life, and here we were stuck in an underground dormitory poring over Anatomy text books and shivering at the sound of footsteps. If there was a definition for anticlimax – this it would be.

A month into this dump, I remember sneaking out with a friend on the pretext of buying Air tickets and going to MG road. MG Road at that time was THE destination. It was the hippest part of town and the coolest hangout spot. Menial freshers attempting to even look at M G Road before the fresher’s night was over, was unheard of.

Dowdily clad we stepped out of the auto at MG Road, in the light drizzle that then characterized Bangalore. It was then that I first smelt the real Bangalore.

It was a heady irresistible smell. We were drawn to the smell as if we had heard the call of the Pied Piper. We moved towards it – oblivious of the disapproving upturned noses of the swish crowd that took in our dowdy appearance.

 The trance ended only when we sunk our teeth into the smell - that had converted into a Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich and it made its way down our throats and ended in nothingness.

When I close my eyes I can still taste that sandwich in my mouth. I have tried unsuccessfully to replicate that taste in the many sandwiches that I have assembled since that day. Maybe I have never been that hungry since.

Today’s recipe is the ubiquitous Chicken Sandwich. It is not grilled but it is super simple and a sure fire hit every time it is served.

Chicken Sandwich

1.     Open a pack of Boneless Breast of Chicken (250gms). Boil it with some salt (to taste). I always pressure cook it for one whistle, but then I have to be excused my idiosyncrasies as a Microbiologist. Anyway pressure cooking works just as well.

2.     Once the chicken is boiled, shred it. I just chop it up with the knife like I’m chopping onions.

3.     Now chop up a tomato as well

4.     Put the chicken and the tomato in a bowl and add 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I buy my mayonnaise)

5.     Mix all this well

6.     Now take the best sandwich bread you can find and layer this mixture on one slice and place another slice over it.

7.     With a sharp serrated knife, cut the sandwich up into two rectangles. You could make triangles but they are more prone to breaking and so I never try that shape.

8.     Repeat this until all the mixture is over. You should have at least ten sandwiches by then

9.     The sandwiches are now ready

10.  Until you serve them refrigerate them. It is a good idea to wrap the sandwiches in a moist kitchen towel and keep them like that even when you put them on the table to prevent the bread from becoming crusty.

Enjoy. ...........................

The quest for perfection in a bowl of pepper rice

Every time I served up mushy or crunchy rice I wished for a magic rice pot.

I was always a victim of the untrue promises on the packs of Basmati rice.

Precious minutes would be spent in the rice section of the departmental store playing inky pinky ponky with the various brands of rice in their shiny packaging. The busy crowded aisle would be braved at least four times (apologising to glaring fellow shoppers) to exchange the chosen rice packet for a different brand and a different packet colour. 

Back home the instructions on the pack would be replicated with scientific accuracy (God help the husband if he dared to discard the pack).

 Surprise! Surprise! The result would always be the same. There were two easy words to aptly sum up my efforts – overcooked or undercooked.

The Promised Land was far away. The land of long grains that miraculously fell away from each other with ease while being perfectly cooked inside and fluffy and white on the outside eluded me.

All the rice I had ever eaten, mocked me as I stared at my plate of squishy squashy rice that still had a few crunchy grains in between.

Then one day something magical happened. I was blessed with a neighbour whose rice was legendary. The aroma of her rice was a crowd puller and it was difficult to remind yourself that you were on a diet when she started cooking rice.

Many days of growling stomachs later I finally begged my neighbour for her secret. It was unbelievably simple – she just cooked rice in the rice cooker.

There was a mad dash to the market. The magical gadget – the rice cooker was bought and commissioned – and lo and behold – I was the rice queen too.

And now Dhruba – thanks to you – I can make the perfect bowl of rice too.

This recipe is dedicated to you my friend Dhruba.

Pepper Rice

1.     Measure out a cup of rice.

2.     Wash the rice well in two changes of water. Be gentle so that the grains don’t break

3.     Heat a tablespoon of oil in a kadhai

4.     Add a teaspoon full of whole black pepper and a teaspoonful of jeera to the oil.

5.     Add some salt ( to taste)

6.     Put the rice in the rice cooker and add exactly double the amount of water to the rice. In this case - two cups. Make sure it is the same cup that you used to measure out the rice.

7.     Now pour the oil with the spices over the water in the cooker

8.     Mix a bit

9.     Switch on the rice cooker. When the rice is done and the rice cooker switches off on its own, gently prod the rice with a fork. Some of the spices that remain on the surface can be pushed in deeper with this. Be careful not to mix too much otherwise you will break the grains.

Serve up! This goes really well with everything but my favourite pairing is either with chicken, or Dal Makhani or Boondi raita. Ah! Heavenly.

Thanks Dhruba.

The deep fried coup and Desi Quesadillas

Ever since we reached our thirties, my husband and I have been subject to guerrilla wars and coups every year. The year begins with The revenge of the parathas that we have tucked into all winter.

By May we usually manage to suppress, if not uproot the paratha guerrillas that have subjugated us and fashioned unsightly bulges on our persons.

 It is a true moment of pride therefore, when we manage to fit into our swim wear without looking like aliens.

We then resolve to swim away the last of the bulges and slip into complacence.

We are blissfully unaware therefore that as we swim - another coup is gathering on the sidelines - The conspiracy of deep fried junk food.

These conniving soldiers station themselves innocuously next to all swimming pools. The samosas , aloo bondas , French fries, and cheese balls are the first cousins of the parathas and they have their vendetta chalked out.

They demurely perch in their cases as we walk in. Then as we are on our sixth lap and our stomachs are just beginning to growl, they leap into the oil to entice us with their aroma. By the time we are out of the changing room, they have won the war. We the pro food democracy champions, firm believers in balanced diets, are overthrown by the evil conspiracy of the junk food.

This summer however parental instincts were ruling. We had our daughter to protect. We didn’t want her to suffer the anguish of jumping in and out of overweight categories forever. So I devised a counter attack. A delicious (healthy) snack would stand guard in the changing room as we swam. It would faithfully jump in to sacrifice its life to satiate our growling monster stomachs as soon as we got there. With our greed satiated we would then be armed against the coup awaiting us outside.

Today’s recipe is a tribute to the faithful snacks that have fortified us against summer long coups.

 Desi quesadillas

I cheat a good bit. So instead of making or buying tortillas I just use leftover roti.

My filling varies every day –

Day 1 – Boiled chicken shredded from the bone and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Day 2 – stir fried bell peppers, simply seasoned with salt and pepper

Day 3 – shredded chicken stir fried with some tomatoes and onions until done and seasoned with salt

Day 4 – egg bhurji

Day 5 – Left over chicken noodles from the previous day’s dinner. This was the biggest hit. There after I’ve decided to smuggle away a bit of all favourite dinners to fill my Desi Quesadillas the next day.

The method

Heat the tawa and grease it with a few drops of oil

Place the roti on the tawa and place the filling on one half of the roti

If you have grated cheese handy, line the edge of the filling and thereby the edge of the filled half of the roti with grated cheese.

Now fold the roti in half to cover the filling. Press the edges together with a spatula or spoon

The cheese along the edge of the roti melts in a few seconds and the semicircle sticks along the perimeter

Flip the folded roti over once the edges stick together and fry the other side as well.

Both the sides should be crisp.

Take the roti off the tawa and allow it to cool slightly and then cut it up into three pieces.

You are now armed to overthrow any coup. Feast on!!!!

(If you don’t have cheese at hand you could make a paste of flour and water and stick the edges with this.)