LIVE TO COOK

All of us who write food blogs cannot deny a fact that cooking a dish is easier than writing a post about the dish. Those days when we are brimming with energy, words pour and ease the flow of writing. The write up will be satisfactory. On other not so energetic days, we feel the lack of such flow.

“I know I can cook. But am I able to write about it aptly?” is one among the doubts that stops newbies like me to enter the food blog world. But yet another undeniable fact is, we will find some or the other reason for writing a post, during the course of blogging.

Similar to this, we all agree upon a thing that, a good routine, started for fun will turn into addiction that we find no reason to stop it.

Well! Coming to the point, I started the “Sourdough Starter” with Rice flour and was waiting for a reason to write about it. As most of my recent posts are about Sourdough starter and Idly, I was little hesitant to write about the “Rice Starter”. But when sharmi of Neivedyam announced “Rice” as the ingredient for the event Jihva For Ingredients, I couldn’t resist writing about it.

So this is it! My entry for this month’s JFI is “Rice Starter“.

Why I established a rice starter? During my trial and error process of Bread baking, I came to know about celiac disease. I decided that some day I will explore “Gluten Free Baking” and create some recipes that will help those in need. As the first step towards that decision, I established the Rice starter.

Ingredients:

1 Cup rice flour
1 cup water

Method:

1. Mix the flour and the water in a non metallic bowl.
2. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and keep in a warm, dry place.
3. Keep undisturbed until few bubbles appear on the surface of the batter which tells the start of the fermentation process.
4. when the flour mixture started fermenting, remove half cup from the mixture and mix in 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup water
5. Continue the process for every 6 - 8 hours depending upon the time it takes to ferment again.
6. After 3 days of this process the starter will be ready and we can store it in the fridge.

Coffee from the spice cafe asked me why we remove 1/2 cup of the mixture and add the same amount of flour and water, while we establish a sourdough starter?

A starter gets the ability to raise the dough or batter, through aging. An aged starter means, it is well fermented and there are lots of living cultures in it which help the leavening process. We call the process of adding and removing of flour, water mixture as “Feeding”. To make a stater aged, we have to feed it frequently.

While learning to bake with gluten free flours, I thought of using the starter in recipes that I am confident about and that would never fail me. The wonder recipe is Idly . I prepared “Sago Idly” with the rice starter.

Ingredients:

1 cup Active Rice starter
1 cup Tapioca Pearls (Javvarisi, sago, sabudhana)
1/2 cup warm water
2-3 green chillies, chopped
5-6 Curry leaves, chopped
3 teaspoons Salt

Method:

1. Mix the Starter, Tapioca Pearls and the half cup water.
2. Allow to ferment for 3 hours or doubled in volume (The time depends upon the age of the starter. For example, a year old starter takes less time than few days old starter)
3. Add the Green chilli, Curry leaves and Salt. Mix well.
4. Spoon to Greased Idly plates
5. Steam for 10 minutes. Allow to cool for few minutes and Serve.

This is yet another “No dal, No Grind” idly. I have tried Rice flakes, Sooji, Ragi idly with the rice starter and all of them turned out good. Establishing the starter is the time consuming task. But once we have the starter in hand, lots of options open up like this.

I thank Sharmi for giving me the opportunity to write about my Rice Starter. Please click the logo for more details about the JFI event hosted by her.

OK! Friends! I am Back!

My In-Laws are here. To help them in settling down and get comfortable, I gave a small break for blogging. Life is going good now. So, Let’s start chatting.

Suganya of “Tasty Palettes” Tagged me for the “Meme” - “Seven Random facts about myself”. Well! this is the first time I have been tagged! Though the game seemed easy at the first sight, it wasn’t that easy to write. I am presenting the facts in Question and answers style.

1.Who am I?

I am Priya. I live in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Married and Working mother of a 3 year old.

2.Why do I blog and Why I named my blog so?

I was looking for friends with similar interest and passion for cooking and finally found them in blog sphere. I needed a place to invite them and hence built my blog.

When we say “good living”, it denotes both health and wealth. I believe, Home cooking saves money and gives good health. The word “cooking” comprises of everything like measuring, mixing and so on. Making things palatable and presenting it with perfection are the aims of cooking. We hate eating food that is not palatable.

“Good living” can be achieved through “good cooking”, which is one of my beliefs. That is why I named my blog “Live to cook” with the explanation “Cook for living good and live for cooking good“.

3. Two characters that I consider a Plus of mine:

I am good at setting up a routine for day to day life. Any thing that I feel as a good thing to do, I will include it in my routine and follow consistently. I work hard to accomplish them than give up on them.

I love to explore new things.

4. Two characters that I consider as a minus:

I am too traditional and conservative when it comes to family life.

I am very poor at socializing. Blogging helps in over coming this. Now, I am learning to balance everything. Soon, I will amaze my friends with prompt reply to the comments left at my blog.

5. What am I reading now?

Aladdin, The Lion King for my 3 year old son.

6. What are my hobbies?

Recipe collection and cooking is my all time favorite. I love hand crafts. These bead works were done by me long time back.

Lord Ganesha:

Lord Venkatesha and Padmavathy:

7. What am I dreaming about, right now?

I am dreaming about my own house with spacious kitchen and a good back yard for gardening.

Thank you Suganya, for tagging me. It gave me an opportunity to think about myself.

Meeta of what’s for lunch Honey invited us through her Monthly Mingle for a chat about saving the earth from pollutions and the way we contribute to save our environment. I am writing in this post about my small contribution towards the concept.

When I conceived my son, along with all other questions, the question about diapering the baby also came up. Though we have disposable diapers in Indian cities, most of the families in my town still use pieces of cloth to diaper their children. All of my nieces and nephews were brought up that way. Since I am the first person in the family to deliver a baby in a foreign country, choosing the way to diaper my baby was a debate. Both my parents and in-laws requested me not to “Tie paper on the baby’s bottom”. The weather and the insufficient space conditions of the place we lived, put me in dilemma that I wanted to postpone the decision till the baby was born.

During my second trimester, we visited my brother-in-laws house. My Co-sister introduced me to the world of cloth diapers. Since it seemed similar to what I was used to, I decided to diaper my baby with cloth diapers. She taught me how to sew cloth diapers and helped me with fabrics and other necessities to start with. She sewed and bought dozens of diapers to reduce my sewing efforts initially. The decision to diaper my baby with cloth diapers was made there.

The first few months usage of cloth diapers taught me a lot which helped me to design diapers for our need and way of living. Since I didn’t have time to wait for the laundry in the apartments, I hand washed and air dried the diapers. It was nearly 2 1/2 years of efforts. We brought up our son in cloth diapers until he was completely potty trained. We used disposables only during long trips.

We are so happy that the diaper waste from our family to the landfill was very less. One might think how much landfill a baby could generate. The fact is, in 2 1/2 years a baby uses 7000 - 10,000 diapers on an average!!!

Here are some pictures of the diapers and pull ups that are sewed by me.

Diapers:

Pull-ups:

The Dish I am presenting for the Online Potluck is : Tangy Oats

Ingredients:

1 cup Old fashioned Oats
2 cups Water
1/2 teaspoon Sambar powder
2 Red chillies
1 tablespoon Peanuts
3 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Oil
1/2 teaspoon Chana dal
1/2 teaspoon Urad dal
1/4 teaspoon Mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon Sugar or Jaggery
1 pinch Asafetida
Few Curry Leaves
Lime sized ball of Tamarind

Method:

1. Soak the Tamarind in 2 cups of water until soft. Squeeze well and extract the water. Discard the residue.
2. Heat the oil in a pan and add Mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chilli and Asafetida.
3. When the Mustard seeds splutter, add the dals and peanut
4. Fry until the dal and peanuts turn golden brown.
5. Add the tamarind water and mix in salt, sambar powder and Jaggery.
6. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow to boil for 5 minutes.
7. Add the Oats to the tamarind water while stirring continuously.
8. Cook until the oats is done and absorbed all the liquid.

Every week it has been fun to create recipes for Nupur’s A-Z of Vegetables event. It gave us an opportunity to eat “The Alphabets” and to try new variety of vegetables. I was waiting for the last alphabet “Z” to celebrate the event and to pay tribute to the host, to all who eagerly participated, to all who eagerly read our posts and to all those who eagerly accepted to be the lab rat for the recipes we created ……

The alphabet is here at last, We are visiting the alphabet “Z” this week. What would be a better way to remember a food event more than creating a nice dish? So, I am presenting this “Zucchini Tower” as my tribute.

It is the recipe for “Kudalai Idly” from Meenakshi Ammal’s recipe book. I love this recipe for two reasons. The first reason is, it has no Rice in it, which gives me a variation in idly recipes. The other reason is, it calls for “Mung dal”, which I can replace with “Mung Sprouts”. Usually this idly is steamed in a cup made up of tender Banana leaves. As I am not able to find banana leaves in US, I use stainless steel cups or glasses (Tumblers), instead. I added Zucchini and it gave very soft Idli. The taste was amazing.

The Recipe is:

Ingredients:

1 cup whole Mung Bean
1 cup Urad dal
1 cup Shredded Zucchini
1 tablespoon Cashew nuts Chopped
1 teaspoon Black Pepper
1 teaspoon Cumin seeds
1 teaspoon Ghee or Oil
3 teaspoons Salt

Method:

1. Soak and sprout the Mung Beans.
2. Soak the Urad dal for 2 hours.
3. Grind the Mung bean and Urad dal to a smooth Batter.
4. Add the salt and mix well. Ferment overnight.

5. Heat the ghee in a small pan. Add the Black Pepper and Cumin seeds. When they splutter, add the cashew nuts and fry till golden brown.
6. Add to the Batter and Mix in the shredded zucchini.
7. Grease the cups with oil and spoon the batter, 2/3 full.
8. Steam for 10 minutes in a big pot or pressure cooker.
9. Allow to cool for 2 minutes. Remove from mold and serve.

I thank Nupur for hosting this wonderful Event.

I love cuisines that are versatile, that allow me to play with the ingredients. I love Indian Cuisine for that matter. Any vegetable, fruit, Legume or grain, we can easily turn it into delicious food. All we need is to understand the nature of the food item that we choose, the spices that will complement it and the method that will make it presentable and palatable. Sounds challenging, huh? Yes. It is! If you have to feed the picky eaters, the process turns tough too.

I always love to take that challenge and opportunity to try new food items. When I was searching for a vegetable that starts with alphabet “Y“, for Nupur’s A-Z of Vegetables Event, I came across “Yampi“.

Yampi is a Yam variety from Jamica. I could gather only this much information from internet. I had to explore myself and find a way to use it in recipes. As I didn’t know how it will taste or its texture, I decided to cook the yampi alone. I poked small holes on the yampi with a fork and popped into microwave oven. I set it to cook on “Potato Setting” (which is approximately 3 minutes in 100% power).

The yampi started cooking and the cooking smell brought everybody at home, to kitchen. Oh! No! No! It is not that fragrant. It had a distinct odor that none of us could tolerate. It made me think that I made a mistake. My husband’s face looked like “Dinner? Forget it!”.

But, I wanted to give it a chance. So, I let it cook completely. When it cooled down to room temperature, I peeled the skin off and tasted a small bit to check whether it had the distinct odor in the starchy part too. My goodness! It didn’t! Yampi tasted like Taro and had the texture of Sweet Potato. I felt lucky and started my “exploration” vehicle with “Creativity” Fuel. Want a ride?

Travel Plan : Yampi Paratha

Travel Necessities:

2 Yampi roots, cooked and mashed
2 cups Whole Wheat flour
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup chopped Cilantro
3 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Oil
1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala
1/2 teaspoon Amchur (Dry Mango Powder)
1/4 teaspoon Red chilli powder
1 pinch Asafetida
1 pinch Turmeric powder

Travel Preperation 1 : Paratha Dough

Mix the whole wheat flour, 1 teapoon salt, oil and knead to a soft dough with the help of water. Cover it with damp cloth and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Travel Preperation 2 : Yampi Stuffing

Mix the cooked yampi, cilantro, 2 teaspoons salt, Garam masala, Amchur, Red chilli powder, Asafetida and Turmeric powder. Shape it in to lime sized balls.

Travel Guide:

1. Take a lemon sized ball of the paratha dough and pat it into 3 inch discs. Place a ball of yampi stuffing in the center and bring the edges of the dough together. Pinch well to seal.

2. Roll the prepared ball of dough with the stuffing in to a 4-5 inch disc

3. Heat a griddle until a small drop of water evaporates immediately. Place the rolled paratha on the hot griddle and cook until brown spots appear on both sides

4. Serve with Simple dal or Curry and Yogurt.

Travel Experience :

The texture was like “Aloo Paratha” (Potato paratha) with the taste of taro in the place of Potato.

“Naan”!

Every time I hear the word, I smile. Of course, the recipe is from Punjab, India. Apart from that, there is yet another reason for that smile.

As I always mention, I am from a traditional and conservative town of Southern India. Though the town is technologically developed, changes to tradition are accepted very slowly. This applies to Food and Tastes too. One can find only South Indian Dishes in my town. Very few high end restaurants have North Indian dishes like Channa Masala in their menu.

One day, a cousin of our neighbor(my friend) came to our town for her summer holidays. She was from Mumbai. As we were of the same age, we quickly became friends. We talked about everything. She was explaining to us about a party at her school. The Talk turned towards the food they ordered for their party. She was talking about the baaji, subji and Naan.

The moment the cousin said the word “Naan”, both me and my friend were astonished. Most of the families in our neighborhood are vegetarians. Very few families eat meat, that too rarely. If they cooked meat at home, they say, “I cooked “Non” today!”. They don’t say what kind of meat they cooked. Anything from chicken to lamb meat is “Non”.

As the sound and pronunciation of “Naan” and “Non” are same, as we had never seen or heard about “Naan”, we took “Naan” for “Non”. And top of all, we were afraid of what will happen if elders in the family hear us talking about “Non” . We ended the topic there and it was secret between me and my friend that her cousin ate “Non”.

We maintained the secret very well. Both got married. My friend settled down in Bangalore and I came to US. My husband took me to a nearby Punjabi Restaurant. It was our first dining out in US. I asked him about the restaurant’s specialty. He said their “Naan” is the best. I screamed “You eat Non!!!!”. He said “Yes!!!!”. Both looked at each other and the look meant “Are you Crazy?!!!”

In the restaurant’s buffet table, I saw the “Naan”. Now, You know how I felt and the story behind the smile .

Ok! Now it is time to talk about preparing the “Naan”.

Ingredients:

1 cup Active sourdough starter
2 cups Unbleached All Purpose flour
1/4 cup Home made Yogurt
2 tablespoons Oil
2 teaspoons Salt
1/2 teaspoon Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Baking soda

Method for Preparing the Dough:

1. Mix the starter,yogurt,sugar,1/2 teaspoon salt and flour. Knead to a smooth dough. Add water or flour as necessary.
2. Cover with a plastic wrap or damp towel and keep in a warm place. Allow to double in bulk.
3. Punch down and add the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoon salt and the 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. Knead well to incorporate the salt and soda.
4. Allow to rest for 15 minutes. Roll or shape into circles or oblongs.

Method for cooking the Naan:

I used to cook the Naan like the method explained by Coffee of “The Spice Cafe”. After seeing my passion for cooking and the efforts it takes to cook a Naan, my Mother-in-law sent me a wonderful Gift, A “stove top Tandoor”. Though it is not made up of clay like traditional Tandoor, this stove top Tandoor does a wonderful job.

After shaping the Naan, I will sprinkle few drops of water on the Naan and stick it to the inside of the lid and close the Tandoor. As it is a hollow drum below, direct heat from the stove helps the Naan to cook evenly.

It takes 3 minutes to cook 3 Naan simultaneously . To quicken the process I will place the Naan that are cooked on one side, upon the grill provided in the Drum. In the meanwhile, I will stick other 3 Naan to the lid.

When the Naan is done on both sides, I will brush the top with few drops of Butter or Ghee and cover with a Fresh Tea towel. This will help the Naan to soften a bit. The Naan will be Ready to serve.

This Stove top Tandoor is a thoughtful gift. I am exploring the possibilities with it. I Prepared a veggie Kebab and it turned out well.

This is my entry for Lakshmi’s RCI Event, hosted by Richa and to thank my mother-in-law for the wonderful gift. My In-Laws are visiting us soon. This blog is going to be a pleasant surprise for them. I can’t wait to see the smile in their faces.

Yes! The smile continues…………

For this week’s Alphabet X, Nupur said,

“In mathematics, the letter X represents an unknown value. X is the letter of mystery, so here is the challenge for X: Choose any fruit or vegetable that is unknown to you…either you have never tasted it, or never cooked with it. Then, use it in any dish of your choice that uses Indian flavors. Here is your chance to scour your grocery store or farmer’s market, or go find some exotic ethnic store in your town, and try something fresh and new, do some Xploration! It should be Xciting :)”

So, the formula to be proved before us is Dinner = Cuisine(Recipe (X)), where Cuisine = Indian Cuisine.

If we substitute the value for X, we will get the solution. Quite a challenge. Huh!

After some research, I found some values for X , here and here. But, I am not able to find any of them in grocery stores. As always, Asian terms come handy. I substituted the value for X with Xiao Baicai. Xiao Baicai in Mandarin language means “Small White Vegetable” and it is known in different terms like Bok Choy, Pak Chay, Chinese chard, Chinese mustard, celery mustard and spoon cabbage. It is easily available in Asian groceries and looks like this:

To prove the formula, I came up with two recipes Pak Chay Paneer and Pak Chay Palya.

Recipe 1: Pak Chay Paneer

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped Pak Chay (Bok Choy)
1 cup chopped Onion
1 cup chopped Tomato
1/2 cup Paneer Cubes
1/4 cup Non fat Dry milk powder (I always replace “malai” or Milk Cream with this)
1/8 cup Oil
3 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon minced Garlic
1 teaspoon minced Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala
1/2 teaspoon Red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon Sugar

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add the paneer cubes. Spread them that each piece is separate.
2. Reduce the flame and Keep undisturbed until the side that is in contact to the pan is browned.
3. Turn the cubes and follow the same steps. Brown all the sides and set aside.
4. Now add the chopped Pak Chay to the remaining oil and allow to wilt.
6. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
7. Grind onion, ginger, garlic and tomato to a paste and add to the same oil.
8. Cook until all the liquid evaporates.
9. Now add 1/4 cup of water and mix well. Again boil until the water evaporates. Follow the same step one more time. This helps to cook the onion completely and no raw smell is left.
10. Add 1 cup of water and mix as a gravy.
11. Add salt, garam masala, red chilli powder and boil until oil separates.
12. Add the sugar, paneer and wilted Pak Chay. Add 1/4 cup water if necessary.
13. Allow to boil. Sprinkle the milk powder and mix well.
14. Boil for a minute and serve.

Recipe 2: Pak Chay Palya (Pak Chay Stir fry)

Some times I feel so lazy that I end up mixing unusual ingredients and fix up a meal. This is one such recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups Pak Chay chopped
1 Yellow Squash chopped
1 Carrot chopped
2 table spoons lime pickle residue (You can replace with 1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder and add lemon juice at the end)
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Oil
1/2 teaspoon Garam masala
1/2 teaspoon Mustard seeds
1 pinch Asafetida

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add Mustard seeds and Asafetida.
2. When Mustard seeds splutter add carrot and yellow squash and stir fry until soft.
3. Add the Pak chay and cook.
4. Add salt and garam masala and stir fry for 2 minutes.
5. Add the pickle residue and mix well. Reduce the heat and cook for a minute.
6. Serve with Roti.

When I read about Sourdough Starters, I was first hesitant to start and maintain one. The reason was, Bread and related products are not regular items in our daily diet routine. But, all the good things about sourdough inspired me to establish one. After establishing a successful starter, I could not ignore it. So, I started to find different ways to use it efficiently and more regularly. I am amazed by the outcomes. It reminded me about something.

In “Mahabharath” , the great epic of India, there was a scene. After losing everything to “Kauravas”, the “Pandavas” go to jungle to start their life. One day when Lord Krishna visits them in the jungle, Draupathi worships Lord Krishna and requests him a boon that her family should not starve for food. Lord Krishna Gives her “Akshaya pathra”, a miracle pot and says that whatever Draupathi adds into the pot will double in volume. And thereafter Draupathi was able to create lots and lots of variety of food from that pot.

The above scene might seem like a great imagination of the author. But If you ask me, I will say, Lord Krishna would have given Draupathi, a pot of sourdough!!! Let’s talk about it now.

My first post about sourdough starter talked about establishing a Mother Starter.

The next step after establishing a “Mother Starter” is to reactivate it and use it in recipes. There are lot many ways to do that. The way, that I found comfortable was to take a good amount from the Mother starter and Create an “Active Starter“.

An Active starter is one that can ferment the flour and water added to it, within 2 - 3 hours. The refrigerated Mother Starter will be dormant and will take long time to raise the bread dough. So, every week, I take the mother starter out and bring it to room temperature. I take a cup of starter from it, add 2 Cups of flour and 1 cup of water to it and mix everything in a separate bowl and place it on my kitchen counter. I cover the bowl with plastic wrap and poke a few hole on the wrap. After 2 hours, the active starter will look like this:

In the meanwhile, I add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water to the Mother starter for the 1 cup of starter I removed. After Mixing it thoroughly, I will leave it undisturbed. Once the well fed mother starter raises in the next hour, it is ready to be stored in the fridge for future use.

Creating the active starter depends upon the recipes we are planning to do. Suppose we are planning to bake 2 loaves of bread and half dozen of pan cakes, we will need 2 1/2 to 3 cups of active starter. These are some points that I observed which will help anyone who wants to explore the sourdough world.

• 1 cup Active Starter = one 0.25 packet of commercial yeast = 1/4 teaspoon of commercial yeast = 1 egg (YES! active starter can be used as replacement for egg to make egg free recipes!!)
• 2 cups of flour + 2 cups of water, mixed with 1/2 cup of mother starter will give approximately 2 1/4 cups of Active Starter, after fermentation.
• More the starter, sooner the dough or batter raises. But if the starter is more than the mixed flour and water, the outcome will be too sour. 1/2 : 1 Proportion of starter to flour mixture works well and gives nice raise and taste. For 2 cups of flour and 2 cups of water, 1 cup of Mother starter will match the 1/2 : 1 Proportion.
• Using warm water in winter speeds the fermentation process while ordinary or room temperature water controls over fermentation during summer
• Salt delays the raising and fermenting process. So it is good to add it after fermentation.
• Baking soda and powder kills yeasts. Adding it during fermentation delays the process as considerable amount of the yeast creatures die. It should be added at the final stage. Baking soda releases Carbon-dioxide when mixed with flour. Natural yeast releases carbon-dioxide when they die. That is why both are used as leavening agents.
• After leaving the active starter for an hour in room temperature, we can refrigerate it. It will still raise in the fridge. So, By mixing the active starter in the evening and let it raise in the fridge overnight will save some time the next day.

Oats Othappam is one recipe that I created using the active starter this week. “Othappam” is a savory pancake from Southern India. Soft and spongy food items are denoted as “Appam” in Tamil Language. “ootrudhal” is the word which denotes “To Pour”. Batter poured in to hot griddle and cooked until soft and spongy is “othappam”.

Usually leftover and over fermented Dosa or Idly batters are cooked as othappam. We can also prepare a batter specially for othappam by grinding soaked rice, urad dal, chana dal and fenugreek seeds and fermenting it for 12 hours. But “Oats Othappam” is a no grind recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup Active Starter
1 cup Steel cut oats
1/2 cup Whole Wheat flour
1/4 cup of Water
2 teaspoons Salt
1/2 cup chopped Onions
1/4 teaspoon Baking soda
2 Green Chillies chopped (optional)
2 -3 Curry leaves chopped(optional)
1/8 cup oil for shallow frying.

Method:

1. Mix the starter, oats, whole wheat flour and water in a large bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or cheese cloth. Allow it to double in volume. This will take 1-2 hours depending upon the age of the starter.
2. After fermentation, Mix other ingredients to the batter.
3. Heat a Griddle until a drop of water evaporates immediately.
4. Pour 1/3 cup of batter in the middle. Slightly shake the griddle to help the batter to spread a little.
5. Pour 1/2 teaspoon oil around the batter.
6. When the edges turn golden brown, flip and cook the other side too.

This my another entry for WBB#13 Event hosted by Madhuli.

Note: To Prepare the recipe without sourdough, replace the starter with 1 cup home made yogurt and ferment for at least 5 hours.

I love challenges and explore new things. Nupur’s A-Z of Vegetables Event gives opportunity for both. When the week’s alphabet doesn’t have a vegetable name starting with it, the event turns more challenging and interesting. I took it as a motivation to try new things. The event turned our usual grocery purchase more interesting. For this week’s alphabet “W”, I bought “Chinese Water Chestnut“.

Water Chestnut is new to my pantry and cooking. It is used in Chinese cooking. We can add it to salads and stir fries. It has a nutty taste and texture. Even after cooking for a long time, it retained the nutty texture like that of a Coconut. I prepared two simple recipes with that.

Recipe 1: Water Chestnut Masala:

Ingredients:

1 cup of Water Chestnut
1 cup Home made yogurt
1 Onion chopped
2 Tomatoes chopped
3 teaspoons Oil
3 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon minced Garlic
1 teaspoon minced Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Garam masala
1/2 teaspoon Red chili powder
1/2 teaspoon Sugar

Method:

1. Boil the Water chestnut in water for 7-10 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the chopped onion. Fry till it turns brown.
3. Add the ginger and garlic. Cook for a minute.
4. Add tomatoes. Cook till done.
5. Add the Spice powders and salt.
6. Whisk the yogurt until smooth and mix with the tomato mixture.
7. Allow to boil. Add the cooked water chestnut and sugar.
8. Cook until the gravy thickens and serve with Roti or Steamed rice.

Recipe 2 : Water chestnut Mor koottu: (water chestnut and buttermilk stew)

Ingredients:

1 cup Water chestnut
1 1/2 cups Buttermilk
1/4 cup shredded fresh Coconut
3 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon Mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon Urad dal
2 Green chilies
2 Dried Red chilies
1 Pinch Asafetida
2 - 3 Curry leaves

Method:

1. Cook the water chestnut in water for 7-10 minutes. Drain and keep aside.
2. Grind the Coconut, green chili and cumin to a paste.
3. Mix with buttermilk and add salt.
4. Bring to a boil and add the cooked water chestnut.
5. Simmer until the Gravy thickens. If it is took watery, make a paste of flour and water. Add to the gravy for thickening.
6. Heat oil in a small pan. Add the mustard seeds and urad dal. When the mustard seeds splutter and the dal turns golden brown, add Asafetida, Curry leaves and Red chilies.
7. Add to the gravy. Mix well and serve.

Every week, we all folded our sleeves and jumped into action to prepare recipes for the most interesting event A-Z of Vegetables hosted by Nupur. With full of enthusiasm, we were riding at full speed. After a small stop, it is time to start again from the alphabet “W”. As sugar gives quick energy, Let’s start with a sweet treat, “Dhumroot“.

I first tasted “Dhumroot” in my engagement party. I liked it very much. But I could find an opportunity to find out how they made it. Day’s went and we visited India for my son’s first birthday. While me and my mother-in-law were talking about the Dessert items for the birthday party, I recalled Dhumroot and told that I am eager to watch the way they prepare it.

I learned a new dessert recipe and am happy to share with you all.

Ingredients:

2 cups Shredded Ash gourd (also called winter melon , white gourd, white pumpkin….)
1 1/2 cups Sugar
2 tablespoons Ghee or Butter
2 drops of food color (I used Yellow)
1/4 teaspoon Cardamom Powder
1/4 teaspoon of Vanilla or Pineapple or Almond Extract (Optional)

Method:

1. Heat the Ghee or Butter in a heavy bottomed pan.
2. Add the shredded Ash gourd and stir fry.
3. Cook until the gourd turns glossy. Stir frequently.
4. Add the Sugar and mix well.
5. The sugar will dissolve in the water released by ash gourd. So there is no need for any kind of liquid.
6. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer.
7. Let it simmer till all the liquid evaporates and the sugar syrup starts to form single string consistency.
8. Keep stirring every now and then.
9. Add the cardamom powder and the extract (if using) at the end.
10. Turn off the heat and store in a sterilized jar. Use as a spread or a Dessert. Decorate with toasted Cashew and other nuts if desired.

Please find the wonderful picture of whole Winter melon posted by our blog friend Sailu. Thank you Sailu, for the wonderful picture.

Here’s another post about Winter melon from our friend Annita. The White colored squash in the picture is Winter melon (Ash Gourd).  Thank you Annita, for the picture and the recipe.