Marching into 2015 with Coconut Oil

I hope 2015 has been good to you thus far and keeps bringing you small joys and big happies as it unfolds its plan for you. I wish you all that and so much more!

Warm Fuzzies to You from My Family!

Jump for the New Year!

Medha jumped for more than just the New Year. She was thrilled that she would be bringing in the New Year at Disney World on a marching band trip. It was the first New Year's Eve that we weren't together. It's just the first of many more to come but that's how life goes. She came back from Florida with an upper respiratory infection that snowballed into other health issues, and is only just getting some normalcy back in her life. Into all our lives.

While she struggled with her health, I struggled with writing the year properly on all the heaps of documents and forms that I found myself signing. No, I didn't write 2014 instead of 2015, like the rest of you! I wrote my birth year. I kid you not. Nothing quite like telling everyone just how old and foolish I am.

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Catching up on May over Pan Fried Fish

May is about the craziest month of the school year around here. School ends on the Friday before Memorial Day, and, if there are several days in May left after that as there were this year, May becomes a very short school month for us. End-of-year performances, state-level competitions, piano recitals, graduation parties, Balvihar picnic, not to mention finals were all crammed into 24 days of May, of which only 17 were school days.

We also had two bomb threats in our high schools, one real and one not, and an 'accidental' spraying of pepper spray that added to the stress of May. No parent needs this kind of excitement.

I cooked a lot of fish last month. We experienced protein cravings more often, given that we were in overdrive when it came to our schedule. Pan-fried fish is the simplest kind of fried fish to make. There is no leftover smelly oil to dispose of either!

Pan-fried Fish

The recipe is on the Whole Foods Market Cooking Blog. It's pretty darned good and saw us through several nights in May. 

Read on...

Mustard oil dilemmas

Soon after I posted my Bengali Dal on Cooking Boulder, I was quickly taken to task for posting a Bengali dish that was not made with mustard oil. My pleas of but that's how I make it and have been making it for what seems like forever did not impress until I remembered why I don't have mustard oil as an essential pantry item. The FDA disapproves. Bottles of mustard oil have warnings that range from "Not for human consumption" to "For external use only" to "For massage only."

In the past, I have tried using mustard-flavored oil, a blend of regular cooking oil and mustard oil. No wonder my mutschgand did not taste anything like hers. I think I poured most of that oil into my used oil container, and it was eventually recycled.

Pure mustard oil can be found on the shelves of Indian grocery stores, rubbing shoulders with peanut oil, coconut oil and cooking oil. But, according to the FDA, you are not supposed to cook with it. Bengalis, however, have been cooking with it for centuries and are still some of the nicest people I know. So it's not doing anything to their charming disposition, nor is it affecting their intelligence or creativity in any way.

Read on...

Feeding those Cravings

The Vietnamese really know how to do it right. For me, that is. My throat would be parched from the incessant humid heat and they would welcome me with a mild jasmine iced tea, always on the house.

Iced tea on arrival

Rejuvenated, I could then focus on the task at hand: ordering a steaming hot meal! In this case, Mì Quảng, a noodle soup from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. According to our driver and guide, it is like Pho but with a lot less water.

Mì Quảng

Read on...

Fatehpur Sikri beckons, as does Kadhai Jhinga

Before we left Delhi, Anita thrust a beautifully written and researched paper on Fatehpur Sikri into my hands. It had a grade of A+ and was written in 18951995 as part of her course work in Dorothy-land. It was also the only copy that existed of that paper. I knew I should have asked for a photocopy, especially since I had just burned her sheets.

You know what's coming next, don't you? And you're right.

I couldn't find it once we settled into our hotel room in Agra.
We turned the car inside out. No paper.
We turned the room inside out. No paper.

My husband, The Finder of Anything Lost or Put Away Safely, discovered all sorts of forgotten knick-knacks, like a long wooden shoe horn, hair brushes, pens, one of a pair of earrings, but no folder with continuous stationery paper that had been fed into a dot-matrix printer. Tell me, do you remember those? In that case, you are as ancient as her (and me.) But that's besides the point! We asked room service to do detailed reconnaissance to no avail.

The Finder and I looked at each other; he, flummoxed; me, worried. I chewed through all my fingernails and wondered if I should attack my toenails next. My heart sank further as I realized I would never ever get to eat authentic haak. Or taste that one mutschgand that was sitting in her freezer.

If she heard a strain in my voice or undue stress when I spoke to her from Agra, she made no mention of it. Luckily for her, me and the paper, it appeared magically under one of our heaviest suitcases. The Finder obviously had not done as thorough a job as he is wont to do, leading to his demotion and change of title to The Finder of Most Things Lost or Put Away Safely. With a spring in my step, haak in my near future and a mutschgand with my name on it, I had no qualms about leaving Agra for Fatehpur Sikri, the seat of the Mughal Empire for a brief period during Akbar's reign.

The Tomb of Salim Chisti

Read on...

Agra Fort and Kebab Secrets

Everyone is usually blown away by the Taj Mahal and its love story, even though it's more morbid than romantic since it's a mausoleum where the Emperor and his beautiful Empress are buried. Shah Jahan is remembered more for this legacy than the terror he inflicted as a Mughal Emperor, transforming the empire into a military machine and demanding more revenue from the peasantry. However, the arts — music, crafts, architecture — did flourish under his rule.

I was more awed by the Agra Fort for its sheer history: it was the seat of the Mughal Empire for over two hundred years from the mid-1500s. Six Mughal Emperors ruled from there — Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb — with each one adding his distinctive mark to the architecture of the fort.

Formidable entrance

Read on...

More than a little creeped out

Strange are the ways of the world. It certainly feels that way sometimes. Take for instance this endeavor that is worth almost a billion dollars and yet it looks like that? Yes, Mukesh Ambani's home. There are mixed reactions everywhere: from claiming that this has put India on the map (uh, wasn't it there already?) to calling it an ugly display of wealth. I'll agree with the ugly because I don't know what they were thinking when they designed that. Wealth? It's theirs to do with as they please, hopefully with a dose of social responsibility; but what does interest me more are the sustainable features, if any, that were built into this 27 storey behemoth that will be home to 4 people with 600 employees and a 160 car multi-level parking lot.

Next up was the revelation that good tomatoes cannot be found in India (thanks, Sra for the link!) and must be imported from upscale supermarkets in the UK. Huh? Ever considered growing your own heirloom varieties? Or paying someone in your local area to grow them for you? And, this 'wisdom' comes from a high profile Indian foodie. Again, where is the social responsibility?

Worse still, those hideous Red Delicious apples grown in the US are being imported by India. Anyone with a little bit of taste steers clear of these apples, in particular!

What happened to good sense along the way?

Read on...

Even More Unusual

They ran into the house, panting, "Mr. and Mrs. P's house is on fire!" I leaped to my feet, grabbed my camera, and ran out of the house with them, not caring about my general state of dishevel. I go camping with my neighbors several times a year; they have seen me in my morning face as well as my tired-as-heck-give-me-another-drink look by nightfall, so I didn't particularly care. There was a fire in the hood! As I ran, I saw my neighbor John eyeing the first response truck, wondering what the kids had been up to this time. While we don't see these trucks in our 'hood very frequently, we have had them come out every so often - the weirdest one was to help an eight year old who had swallowed a rare Jamaican coin. She figured she wouldn't lose it if she held it in her mouth as she took a last jump on the tramp before they headed off on vacation. Needless to say, her first day of vacation was spent at The Children's Hospital in Denver.

I apprised John of the situation as I ran past him, only to have him give the girls, who were close on my heels, something to giggle about for the next week. Expletives! Pretty much the same words that ran through my mind when the girls first burst into the house with the news.

Too close for comfort

Read on...

Not your usual Chicken Curry

The rumble and flash, of thunder and lightning, were followed by a distant roar from across the San Luis Valley. The sound persisted and several campers likened it to that of a train, one that was approaching us slowly but surely. A tornado? At 8200ft? Unlikely but unsettling enough for my neighbor Lisa to quietly start gathering her chairs and other belongings as the wind picked up and brought the sound even closer. Soon there was an increased urgency in her movements and I followed suit, neither of us knowing what we were hedging against. It hit us before we knew what it was. We scrambled to our cars and campers, some to the closest tents. Within seconds, the ground was covered with the largest hail I have ever seen, some almost 2 inches big. Many of us had bruises for show-and-tell later. Others, like my husband, had a sore head from sticking it out of the car to try and catch some of that frozen wonder. In my haste to get to our van, I forgot to pick up leftover cherries from our pit spitting competition.

Cherries split by hail

And because you want to know, I am the reigning champion of the pit spitting competition. My neighbors will vouch for me.

Read on...

Colorado

Most of you know how lucky I feel about living where I do. The mountains are just an hour away, within sight every day. Sometimes we can't see beyond the Flatirons but when they can be as gorgeous as this, who cares?

Davidson Mesa in January, 2010

What am I doing posting pictures of winter? It may be spring for most of you but winter didn't really get over for us until a few weeks ago. Four inches of snow on May 15 had several people feeling sorry for us. Colorado is something spectacular, even in the flats. We had radiant sunshine the very next day and were back up in the 70s by the weekend. Lazy folks like me are very grateful for any precipitation we get because that translates into "no need to turn on the sprinklers."

Harper Lake on May 15, 2010

Read on...

Not very German of me

Oktoberfest comes around the hood the first week of every October. Spirits are always high in Colorado but more so now, what with the Rockies surprising everyone by doing well and making it a Rockotober, too. Never mind that each year, I have to ask what game the Rockies play, only to forget it as soon as someone mentions the Broncos. Maybe if I mention it here, I won't forget? Bear with me while I get this straightened out for myself:
Rockies play baseball.
Broncos play football.
At least now I have somewhere to go to get this info from one place. Blogs are beautiful things, I tell you! They serve many a great purpose.

Oktoberfest sneaks up on me each year and I never have the time to research German cuisine, step out of my comfort zone and cook a German dish. The event is hosted by the same family each year and the hostess always makes a mean sauerbraten. This year, I had several excuses. We had closed ourselves up in our home as Medha was sick with suspected swine flu, or the flu, or a flu-like virus. She was never tested so we don't know what she had. Two of her friends were tested and it was the swine. The virus is still sweeping through the schools but it is much milder than the regular flu at this time. I heard the vaccine finally came out this week. It is always stressful when she gets sick but, this time it was worse because the news of the death of an otherwise healthy Texas teen came at a time when her fever was showing signs of breaking but by nightfall would spike again. By the end of the week, she was rearing to go but I was totally beat. I begged for a quiet birthday and along with my wish, received a free bottle of Taj beer from my favorite local Indian restaurant. I had one more chilling in the fridge and so, like an Indian, I took two big bottles of Taj beer to Oktoberfest instead of trying to find good German beer at the liquor mart.

Since my theme was an Indian Oktoberfest, I figured I might as well do it full justice and decided to make tuna tikkis. You can call them fish cakes, if you like.

Tuna Tikkis

• 3 cans of tuna
• 4.5 cups mashed potatoes
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp grated garlic
• 2 Thai chillies, pound into a coarse paste
• 1/4 bunch cilantro, chopped fine
• 1-2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 cup farina or Malt-O-Meal or semolina
• 1/4 tsp red chilli powder
• salt to taste
• Oil to shallow fry

1. Drain the canned tuna and pull apart.
2. Add grated ginger, grated garlic, chilli paste, cilantro, lime juice and salt, and mix well.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Add mashed potatoes and mix well again. Taste for salt and add more, if required.
4. Roll into small balls, the size that would readily fit in an one eighth cup and then press down lightly to flatten into tikkis.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. In a separate bowl, add chilli powder and salt to the farina. Roll the tikkis in this mixture until they are well-coated.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Place a large saucepan on medium-high heat and add 1-2 tbsp of oil in the middle. When the oil is hot, place a tikki in that oil, watch it sizzle and absorb some of the oil and immediately move it to the outer edge.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Repeat with remaining tikkis, adding more oil as needed to the center of the saucepan. Add as many tikkis as will fit in your saucepan without crowding.
8. Let the tikkis cook till the bottom gets crispy. Then flip each tikki over and repeat the process by bringing each to the center to "drink" more oil. Or you could drizzle oil along the edge of the saucepan. I prefer the former as the oil has a chance to heat and the tikkis absorb less oil this way.
9. Once the other side of the tikki has become crisp, drain on paper towels and serve hot with a condiment of your choice. This recipe makes about 40-45 small tuna tikkis.

I love to dip my tuna tikkis in organic tomato ketchup while my husband prefers stone ground mustard. Medha's preference is by far the strangest. She likes to eat the tikkis uncooked - before they are dipped in farina and fried. Go figure!

No-one at the party really cared that these weren't German and those who don't think tuna is very fishy, found them delicious. If you up the heat by adding more green chillies, they make for a perfect appetizer, especially when the beer is flowing.

Notes:

• Do not shallow fry these in more oil. If you do, they will absorb the oil and disntegrate in the pan. It's worse if you use new potatoes. We fry fish and shrimp this way and it works really well for these tuna tikkis, too.
  
• I used new potatoes of varying sizes to make the mashed potatoes. I used about 7 mostly medium potatoes.
• I don't use any binder although some folks add an egg to the mixture or even cornflour. 
  
• Instead of tuna, you can use fresh or canned chicken or any veggies, for that matter.
• Traditionally, the fish is steamed and the meat picked off the bones to make these.
  
• These could be baked, too but I think they are better fried.
• You could reduce the amount of mashed potatoes but with tuna, the fishy odor tends to get a little overpowering so I erred on the side of caution. 
• Use more Thai chillies to up the heat. I used only two so that more people would be open to trying these.
  

On a Rich Note

A very Happy 2009 to you all! I hope together we can make 2009 as delicious as 2008 was.

(There was supposed to be one neat peak of ketchup for each month of 2009 but I counted wrong as there are only ten. So this kind of fell flat but I like the picture so much that I want you to imagine the other two and I hope your 2009 is filled with new highs and lots of color.)

For some of us, it's time to pull out that trusty tape measure and start making New Year's resolutions. Or stand on the weighing scale and swear to make it to the gym.



Not me. Uh-uh. Never. I don't make New Year's resolutions. If I need to change something, why wait till the end of the year? Besides, I am looking forward to snowshoeing in the mountains every weekend - almost - for the next six weeks so I am hoping that all those extra inches that love my short frame so, will just melt away.



Our New Year's celebrations are usually low-key with just the three of us ringing in the New Year, first at the Indian Standard Time, then at all the time zones within the US. By the time we're done, those we called earlier in the day call us back to wish us and it gets really confusing after a while, as everyone tries to figure out if we've already spoken or if they spoke to someone we spoke to and thought they had spoken to us instead. Anyway, it's just plain mayhem!

Medha and I have been freaking out on Guitar Hero and I'm the cat's whiskers on some songs already - so what if it's at the Easy level! Her Dad, who kicks ass at Wii Sports, can't hold a candle to me! Medha plays the drums while I play bass, cos the drums are too complicated. There are 3 drums, 2 cymbals and a foot pedal. The mind boggles at that! My eye-brain-hand coordination has improved considerably but not enough to work the drums. I now manage to hit both the colored button and the strum at the same time on the wireless guitar. If only my aerobics instructor could see me now! She wouldn't walk up to me, grab hold of my hands to bring them down and say "Stop!" with a deeply pained expression in her eyes. The Eye of the Tiger and Beat it are our favorite songs. So we rocked late into the night and let the phone ring...

But, before the ball dropped in Times Square and the Clintons hugged each other like there was no Monica Lewinsky between them, we had a scrumptious dinner. We said goodbye to 2008 on a rather rich note. Murg makhani. Yup, butter chicken with just enough butter and cream to make it rich and luscious.

It is a two step process where the chicken is made tandoori-style and then released into a delicately flavored buttery tomato sauce. I say delicate because the sauce is sans onions or garam masala. It rides on the tang of tomatoes, lots of ginger and garlic, the inherent buttery goodness of cashewnuts and of course, butter and cream. It's so good that the serving spoon is always licked clean and the bowl in which it is served looks like it was just pulled out of the dishwasher.


I base my recipe on Makhani Chooze from one of my fave recipe books, Prashad: Cooking with Indian Masters by J Inder Singh Kalra.

Jen, my dear, this recipe is especially for you!

Chicken Makhani

Step 1: Tandoori-style chicken

• 1.5 lbs of boneless chicken, breast or thigh meat
  
• 2-3 tsp red chilli powder
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 tsp salt (use more depending on your taste)
  
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 tbsp grated garlic
• 1 tsp cumin powder
  
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
  
• a good pinch of saffron threads
• 2 tsp red paprika
  
• butter for basting

1. Rub red chilli powder, lime juice and salt onto the chicken and set it aside for about 15 minutes.
   
   
2. Whisk together yogurt and cream and then add grated ginger, grated garlic, garam masala, saffron and paprika and mix well. This is your main marinade.
   
3. Add this marinade to your chicken and ensure that the chicken is coated well with this mixture.
4. Marinate it for at least 4 hours for best results.
5. Arrange the chicken on a rack with a tray underneath to collect the drippings. Discard the marinade.
   
6. Set your oven to broil on high and broil the chicken for 5 minutes. Turn it over, baste with butter and broil for another 5 minutes. If you use chicken breasts then adjust the time accordingly.
   
7. At this point, you have several options: serve it with roast potatoes and salad or eat it as is and hope for some leftovers so that you can move on to Step 2. Or put a hand of steel on your heart and move on to Step 2.
   

This picture was taken in a huge hurry as my guests waited for their meal. I served tandoori-style chicken breasts with aloor dum, a spring salad with a vinaigrette dressing and naan for a simple meal with neighbors. They said they had never eaten chicken this tender before.

Notes:

• If you use breast meat, don't forget to make a few deep incisions so that the marinade can seep in as much as possible.
• The original recipe calls for a drop of orange color. I prefer to use red paprika instead.
• I made this without garam masala last week as we had visitors who were not big on spice and it worked just fine.
  
• While 4 hours is preferable, I have marinated it for as little as 2 hours and the chicken has not been any the worse for it.
• If you like the burnt bits on your meat, broil the chicken until that point.
• I have tried cooking the marinade with the drippings from the tray but it wasn't very popular. The chicken is very moist and tender and has a fair coating of the spices that it does not need any gravy with it when served tandoori-style.
  

Step 2: The Makhani sauce

• 1/2 stick butter
• 3 tbsp grated ginger
  
• 3 tbsp grated garlic
• 1.5 cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
• 3-4 Thai chillies. slit vertically and deseeded (use more if you want to up the heat)
  
• 5 tsp ground cashewnuts
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder (or cayenne pepper and red paprika)
  
• 1/3 cup cream
• salt to taste
  
• chopped cilantro for garnish

1. Melt butter in a kadhai and add grated ginger and grated garlic.
   
2. Stir over medium heat for a few minutes until the fibers turn a golden color.
3. Add diced tomatoes and about 2 cups of water.
4. Cover and cook down until most of the water has evaporated.
5. While this is cooking, chop the tandoori-style chicken into bite-size pieces.
   
6. Blend the cooked down chunky sauce into a smooth mixture using a hand blender or in your blender. If your blender is like mine, you may want to cool the mixture quickly using a few ice cubes.
   
7. Pour the smooth mixture back into the kadhai and add the chopped ginger and green chillies. Cook for a few minutes and then add ground cashewnuts and stir to ensure they mix well into the sauce.
8. If you like, adjust the sauce to a thickness of your liking by adding some water.
   
9. Add salt and Kashmiri chilli powder and bring the sauce to a boil.
   
10. Gently add the chopped chicken into the sauce and simmer for 7-8 minutes.
    
11. Stir in heavy cream and remove from heat.
    
12. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve with naan, roti or with rice. The choice is yours.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for 2 sticks of butter and 2/3 cups cream in the sauce. I think that much is rather unnecessary. Also, I don't particularly care for a floating layer of grease on my chicken.
  
• I used almonds instead of cashewnuts yesterday and it worked just as well.
• I used half the number of green chillies. Add more green chillies to make it spicier if you like.
• And, yes, there really is all that ginger in the sauce. Do not reduce the amount of chopped ginger as it gives a lovely bite to the sauce.
  

What you see in this little one-serving bowl is all that is left of last night's butter chicken. We shared some for a very late brunch earlier today. Then off went Medha for a sleepover but only after hugging me profusely and telling me just how much she loved me and could I please save the rest of the chicken for her.

Election Day Cravings

I can't bear the tension. I wish I could go back to binting my nails all over again. (And, yes, that is deliberate misspelling on my part. It's the only way that I can protest against the gross violation of the word pundit or pandit, to which I have more than just a casual attachment. Pranked Palin said pundints and then Cindy McCain also did. Why? How difficult is it to say pundit. But apparently, it is a common error.) Since binting my nails is out as is sleeping - despite the call of the cosy comforters - I did the next best thing and made extra spicy shrimp that my brother-in-law had made for us when we visited them last summer. Mine are even spicier! I might need more than over-the-counter Zantac by tonight.

Goa Prawn Masala

Recipe from Prashad by J Inder Singh Kalra

• 1 lb medium shrimp, uncooked
  
• 3 tbsp oil
• 1/2 medium onion, sliced thin
• 7-8 dried red chillies
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 7-8 cloves
• 1 stick of cinnamon, 1 inch in size
• 3 tbsp vinegar
• 1/3 cup water
  

1. Heat oil in a kadhai.
2. Add onions and sweat over medium heat until golden brown.
3. While the onions are cooking down, blend red chillies, cumin seeds, turmeric powder, cloves, cinnamon and vinegar into a paste. Add only as much water as needed to help your blender along.
4. Add this paste and salt to the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until the oil separates from the masala.
5. Add shrimp and stir-fry until the shrimp turn a lovely pink and are cooked just right.
6. Serve with your favorite bread or on toothpicks as appetizers.

Notes:

• This is like a quick pickle.
• I used only 4 dried red chillies of the Byadgi variety as I can't handle more than that.
  
• Soak the dried red chillies in warm water for at least 10-15 minutes so that it blends well into a paste.
• I used frozen tail-on shrimp because I don't have the patience to buy fresh shrimp.
  
• I cook them tail-on as I like to crunch through the tail. Discard the tail or buy shrimp that have been cleaned for you.
  

Arrrgh! I still can't bear the tension so I think I am going to drive to the nearest polling place to see what I can do. I truly hope that by tomorrow we are chanting Obama instead of Oh-bummer.

If you can vote and haven't yet voted, please get out there NOW!

Tunisian Lamb Stew

I have raved about my sister's refrigerator before. She's a maniac in the kitchen. Otherwise, too. Just like my other sister. Our husbands seem to think that it's a trait that runs in the family. It's amazing how corny and tired that conversation is but they never fail to rewind and replay every time they talk. Each has a story that they are sure will win them the award of having married the craziest of the lot - like it's some sort of competition or something! - and that tells me who is totally off his rocker. But after I tell you this story, you might agree that it is my eldest sister who is truly nuts.

She got a call from her podiatrist insisting that she come in to show them the toenail she hurt while playing tennis. They said they would squeeze her in. She shuffled her own patients and went for her appointment. While she waited, she says she started salivating as she read a recipe for a spicy stew, a Tunisian lamb stew. She read and re-read the recipe. 15 minutes passed. She went back to it and read it again. More time went by. She closed her eyes and started testing herself on the ingredient list and method. Soon, she could recite the recipe backwards. After 45 minutes, she couldn't wait any longer as she had patients of her own to see; so she left without seeing the podiatrist, but with a recipe imprinted on her brain. To this day, she insists that she was called to the podiatrist's office just for that recipe.

If you are like me, you might be thinking: why didn't she ask for a pen and paper and copy it down? But she's not like me or you, so she memorized it. It's a skill that works well for her patients, too, because she remembers obscure information that helps her make a pre-diagnosis that the specialists only confirm.

She also left the podiatrist's office in a very calm frame of mind. Again, not like me or you.

The last time we visited her, she had made this Tunisian lamb stew specially for me. I recreated it over six months later and it's vying with marag for the spot of the ultimate comfort food. It's that good!

Tunisia is in North Africa with a coast along the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisia has a rich cultural heritage as well as history, having been conquered by the Romans, the Arabs, the French, and the Turks until the country finally won its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Its people are known for their hospitality and they also have a deep regard and love for spice. Tabil is a popular Tunisian spice mix of onions and garlic dried in the sun. I am still looking for the original recipe as a project for the summer of 2008.

Tunisian Lamb Stew

• 2lbs lamb meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 6-8 cups chicken broth
• 1 bunch spinach, chopped
• 1 cup bulghur (cracked wheat)

1. In a large bowl, season the lamb with salt and very liberally with fresh coarsely ground black pepper. The more black pepper you add at this stage, the better it tastes. But don't add more than you can handle, of course!
2. Dust the lamb with flour so that it is well-coated.
   
3. Heat olive oil in a large kadhai at medium-high heat.
4. Add the lamb, shaking off excess flour.
5. Cook the lamb, turning occasionally, until the meat is brown on all sides. This takes between 10-15 minutes depending on how tender your lamb is.
6. Transfer the lamb to a large platter or bowl. What you will be left with in the kadhai is a thick dark brown roux.
7. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add chopped onion, minced garlic, grated ginger, cumin powder, coriander powder, and red chilli flakes.
8. Cook for 5-10 minutes to toast the spices and soften the onions.
9. Add the tomato paste and 2 cups of the chicken broth and stir well.
10. Return the lamb to the pot, increase the heat to medium, cover, and cook until the lamb is fork-tender. It took about half hour for me.
11. While the lamb is cooking, cook 1 cup of bulghur in 2 cups of chicken broth. Adding more broth, if required.
12. Also, clean, chop and steam the spinach and set aside.
    
13. Add the remaining 2 cups broth (4 cups, if you want a real stew, one that is not dry) and bring to a boil.
    
14. Turn off the heat, add the spinach and bulghur and stir well.
    
15. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.
16. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
    
17. Serve with warm whole wheat pita bread.

Notes:

• It helps to do your prep work in advance and have everything ready for use. Mise en place, if you want to get all French and fancy.
• I used low sodium organic chicken broth, sold in tetrapaks. Usually there are about 4 cups in each tetrapak. Using 6 cups of broth would have left me with 2 cups of chicken broth languishing in the refrigerator, so I decided to use it. It was a great move because the stew thickens and the bulghur also absorbs a lot of the liquid as it expands further after adding it to the stew.
• I roasted 1 tsp of whole coriander seeds and 1 dried red chilli (byadgi), allowed it to cool and then pounded it coarsely in my mortar-pestle. Don't do this if you prefer coriander powder to coarsely ground coriander.
• I added 1 tsp of red chilli powder in addition to the red chilli flakes.
• I followed Anita's recipe for whole wheat pita, except that I did not use any all-purpose flour (maida). I used 2 cups of King Arthur's whole wheat flour and 2 cups of King Arthur's bread flour. That bread flour is so smooth and silky, it's unbelievable! I needed more than 2 cups of water to knead the dough. I used my convection oven at 475F and the pitas puffed up every time like a charm! These are the best whole wheat pitas I have ever had! I am going to be making them over and over again! Not only are they easy to make, the clean up is a snap. Nothing compared to the mess that goes with making rotis, even though the pitas have to be rolled out.
• I wondered whether we really needed the whole wheat pita when there was bulghur in the stew. I tried eating it without pita and you have to believe me when I tell you that there is something very wholesome to dipping a piece of warm pita in that stew, and carrying it to your mouth. It makes the dish complete on some levels that I cannot describe or explain.

I found the original recipe and I am not surprised at what a great job my sister did at memorizing it. After all, you have to be a muggoo to get into med school in the first place. More so in India...

Ugly is Delicious

What is there to lose, I thought?

Just a few more subscribers to my feeds (I'm sorry you don't enjoy my blog anymore! Maybe you'll change your mind and come back? Or maybe you just switched to another reader where you are not another statistic? I hope so!)

And traffic to this blog.

The former has been on a decline ever since I signed up for NaBloWriMo and then NaBloPoMo. The latter swings wildly based on the day of the week, although I think I have a fairly reasonable trend all mapped out. The name, Indian Food Rocks, could be considered a bit of a misnomer but if you go back enough into my archives - heck! just look at last month! - it's obvious that my blog isn't just about food. It's about life being spiced by food. So while food is one of the themes, it's also about family life, memories and vacations.

And, if Jai can bring out his pictures of food and pretend they are ugly, I can do better: bring out at least one genuinely atrocious picture. It's something I have been hiding for quite a while now, not knowing how it will affect further affect my dwindling readership - whether it will finally kill my blog? I've made this dish so many times that I could make it with my eyes closed; but for the life of me, I cannot seem to take a half decent picture of it! It looks like one of those generic dishes with a brown sauce, which all food stylists will tell you to avoid like the plague. Perhaps that holds me back. The last time I made it I decided to use less oil and make it healthier but instead, it looks like it is drowning in grease!

Chettinad Pepper Chicken

based on a recipe from Flavors of India by Madhur Jaffrey

• 1-2 tbsp oil (and another 1-2 tsp oil for the last step)
• 3 tamalpatra bay leaf
• 3 whole cardamoms
• 1 cinnamon stick, about 1 inch and broken
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 3 cloves
• 2 tsp urad dal
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 medium onions, chopped fine
• 2 tbsp Contadina tomato paste
• 8 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, diced into bite-size piece
• 20 curry leaves
• salt to taste
• For the paste:
  
• 1.5 tbsp cumin seeds
• 5 dried red chillies
• 3 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1.5 tsp fennel seeds
• 1.5 tsp black peppercorn
• 1.5 tsp white poppy seeds (optional)
• 3-4 medium cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 inch knob of ginger, chopped

1. Heat 1-2 tbsp oil in the pan of your pressure cooker.
2. Add bay leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, fennel seeds, cloves and urad dal. Stir and fry over medium heat until the urad dal turns a golden red.
3. Add turmeric powder and the finely chopped onions. Sauté until they are soft and slightly golden.
4. While the onions are cooking down, lightly roast cumin seeds, red chillies, coriander seeds, fennels seeds, black peppercorn, and the poppy seeds till they are fragrant.
5. Allow them to cool slightly and blend into a paste with the chopped ginger and garlic.
6. Add this paste to the onions with a few tsp of water to prevent scorching. Sauté for a few minutes.
7. Add tomato paste and cook for a couple more minutes.
8. Add chicken pieces, salt, 2-3 cups water and stir well.
9. Cook under pressure for one whistle, then turn down the heat and cook for another 5-7 minutes.
10. Allow the pressure cooker to cool and open it only when it is possible to do so safely. Do not rush this process as you want the chicken to be cooked completely. Stir well and transfer into a serving dish.
11. Heat 1-2 tsp oil and add the curry leaves. Fry till the curry leaves are crisp. Pour over the chicken and serve with steaming hot white rice.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for 5 tbsp oil. That can be brought down to under 2 tbsp. Even though it looks like the chicken is swimming in oil in the picture above.
• Madhur Jaffrey asks for the whole spices to be roasted in oil and then ground to a paste in the coffee grinder. I prefer to dry roast my spices and I generally do not put wet ingredients like garlic and ginger into my coffee grinder. I use the blender and the resulting paste is therefore a little more coarse.
• I have halved the number of red chillies and I skip the white poppy seeds cos that's one thing I forget to pick up from the Indian grocery store every time I go!
• Chettinad Pepper Chicken is not cooked in a pressure cooker and has a thick sauce. Madhur Jaffrey recommends removing the chicken pieces from the pan and reducing the sauce till it is very thick. Once the sauce has thickened, the chicken should be returned to the pan, folding it in gently into the sauce and then cooking for another 5-6 minutes. We prefer to drown our rice in curry so I skip this step.
• You could garnish this chicken with chopped cilantro.

It doesn't look very good but it is mind-blowingly delicious. Urad dal adds a great texture to the sauce and the fennels seeds are a treat to discover with every other bite.

Like Jai, I was planning to send this to Cathy for The Ugliest Gourmet event but my internal clock crapped out - the deadline was yesterday. I sent in my entry on Friday in any case but as I expected, it is not included. So take a look at the competition for Who is The Ugliest Gourmet and cast your vote. A comment I posted there earlier this afternoon does not show up so I am passing on the voting. Have fun!

This dish looks better when plated as it is offset by luscious long grains of basmati rice and some salad greens.

Apparently, there is someone called Bee who rants. Never heard of her.

My kind of overdose

After a marathon meeting on Wednesday that was also exceptionally productive, we dined on the patio of Street and Company, by the cobblestone roads of Portland, Maine. We had oysters for the first time and I have no words to describe the flavors or the texture!

We also had Lobster Daviolo (I think!) - lobster, squid and mussels on a bed on pasta in spicy garlic sauce. Heaven.

And some pan-fried sole in a lemony tangy sauce.

It's been seafood, seafood, and more seafood since then!

Hyderabadi Marag in a Slow Cooker

Surfing the Indian food blogs has opened up new frontiers within the realm of Indian cuisine for me. I get a virtual treat through posts that are beautifully engineered with delectable presentations and I also have new recipes to try out. One such recipe was Marag from Nabeela of Trial and Error.

Visitors with vegetarian preferences followed by a much needed vacation for me, kept me from trying Nabeela's Marag. It was, however, the first real meal I cooked on our return. I did put my own spin on it, of course. What is a recipe without one's own special touch? I do have an admiring audience at home, whose expectations must be met in order to maintain my reputation!

Marag is not a misspelling of murg; it is an Arabic term for a spicy stew or curry. It could be tomato based and have a medley of vegetables in it. Nabeela's recipe is the Hyderabadi version of Lamb Marag. It is usually made with lamb meat for stew. Interestingly enough, marag is also a Gaelic term for blood pudding! I am not sure how I feel about blood pudding but one thing is for sure, the marag I made was simply out-of-this-world delicious!

I tripled Nabeela's recipe as I had about 3 lbs of boneless lamb.

Nabeela's recipe calls for most of the cooking in a pressure cooker, with some cooking in the microwave. I made mine in a slow cooker.

The list of ingredients appears daunting but it's a really easy recipe to follow and make.

• 3 lbs boneless lamb, trimmed and diced
• 2 large onions
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp pure ghee
• 3 tsp cumin seeds
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 3 tamalpatra bay leaves
• 6 green cardamoms
• 9 cloves
• 30 peppercorns
• 2 tbsp ginger paste
• 2 tbsp garlic paste
• 7-8 Thai green chillies
• 2 bunches of cilantro, chopped fine
• 2 cups plain yogurt, preferably homemade
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp black pepper powder, freshly ground
• Salt to taste

1. Heat the olive oil and ghee in a saucepan.
2. Add all the whole spices and cook on medium heat until the spices release a heavenly aroma. Do not let the whole spices turn dark in color or burn.
3. Dice the onion and blend it in a blender to a fine paste. Add this onion paste to the oil and spices.
4. Add the ginger and garlic pastes and saute on high for about 5 minutes.
5. Transfer this to the slow cooker and add the meat and yogurt.
6. Blend the green chillies well in about 1 cup of water. Strain this mixture, reserve the chilli water and discard the residue. Add this to the slow cooker.
7. Add the finely chopped cilantro.
8. Add the garam masala and salt. Mix well.
9. Slow cook on High for 1 hour, followed by 2 hours on Low.
10. Do a taste test to see if you like it soupy or with a thick sauce. I loved the flavors so much that I could see myself slurping on the sauce. So I added 2 cups of water to make it more soupy. Adjust for salt if you do what I did.
11. Add freshly ground black pepper just before serving with hot naan or toasted sourdough bread.

This is my new comfort food! It's easy to make! It's hearty, spicy and delicious! Never before have we consumed 3 lbs of lamb within a week. Last week, we had marag for at least 3 meals and quite honestly, I could have had it for a few more, too!

This recipe is a keeper and it's something I will be making on a regular basis, especially in the cold autumn days.

Thank you, Nabeela!

Maple Glazed Salmon with Black Pepper and Ginger

I don't know why but I have been very hesitant to cook salmon. Until yesterday. I knew I had to do it soon or I'd go crazy thinking about it. My inspiration came from a delicious recipe for Maple Glazed Salmon that I found on Alanna's Kitchen Parade. It reminded me of the halibut my brother-in-law had made for us when we visited them a couple of months ago.

This is grilled halibut with ginger, citrus and watercress, a recipe from Williams-Sonoma's Fish, a book I highly recommend.

Like the halibut, I wanted to grill the salmon but the weather gods decreed otherwise. We had a major thunderstorm with lots of wind, hail, and bright bolts of lightning; so I decided to give in to the universe and baked it instead. What follows is my adaptation of Alanna's recipe, influenced by the halibut recipe from Fish.

• Small filet of salmon, between 1lb and 1.5lb
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger (optional)
• 1/4 cup coarsely crushed black pepper
• oil to grease foil

1. Heat your oven to 500F and place the rack in the top most position. (I love to use the convection bake feature of my oven so I heated my oven to 475F instead of 500F.)
2. Mix the maple syrup, soy sauce and ginger in a large bowl.
3. Put the salmon in this marinade and marinate for 20 minutes.
4. Line a baking tray with foil and grease with oil of your choice.
5. Place the salmon on the tray, reserving the marinade for a sauce.
6. Press the coarsely ground black pepper onto the salmon and bake for about 6-8 minutes depending on the thickness of the filet. The rule of thumb is 10 minutes per inch of thickness. The salmon is done when it turns pale pink.
7. Heat the marinade in a saucepan till it boils and simmer it until the salmon is ready to be pulled out of the oven. This ensures that any fishy leftovers in the sauce are thoroughly cooked.
8. Pour this marinade over the salmon just before serving for an additional kick.

I can't tell you just how ecstatic I am. This was quick, easy and Alanna's right, it is miracle food!

Alanna recommends marinating the salmon for 4 to 48 hours in the refrigerator. I didn't have that much time on hand because, as usual, I was scrambling to get dinner on the table before everyone fainted due to starvation. Fish from Williams-Sonoma recommends marinating fish for only 20 minutes; after this, they say, the fish begins to cook in the acids in the marinade. I usually marinate my fish upto 24 hours in the refrigerator. I have done this with delicate fish like pomfret, too and the flavor only gets enhanced. I have never seen any 'cooking' but then again my marinades have not been overly acidic. Since I did not have much time on hand, I decided to forego the marination; also, I knew that I was going to pour the sauce over the fish so I didn't think marinating was critical. Isn't it funny how we manipulate things to suit the situation at hand?!

Medha helped me crush the black pepper in my mortar and pestle. Oooh! Can I do that? She started coughing shortly thereafter because "it smelt bad" and left the rest of the job to me! Since Alanna recommended overdoing the pepper, that's exactly what I did! However, I didn't coat about 1/4 of the filet with black pepper in deference to tender taste buds.

I served the maple glazed salmon with black pepper and ginger on a bed of organic romaine lettuce and peach tea. This recipe is a keeper! I am very thrilled!

Thank you, Alanna!

More maple glazed salmon recipes:
Maple-glazed salmon from Green Mountain at Fox Run, a women's retreat in Vermont. This recipe uses some ginger, not as much as I did, along with dijon mustard and scallions but no black pepper.
Pepper-Crusted Maple-Glazed Salmon from Food Network, which recommends an ideal marinating time of 24 hours.

Tags: Salmon, Spicy Salmon, Baked fish

Prawn Balchao in the Jungle

I know I sound like a broken record but really, life has only been exciting since we moved to Louisville, Colorado. The mountain lion sightings continue, with the latest one being near an underpass on South Boulder Road, west of Washington Street on Monday June 13 at about 7:30 a.m. I first heard of this from an excited Medha when I picked her up from a camp she's attending at her school. Sure enough, Daily Camera confirmed it but the animal was not found. There have been sightings in Lafayette, a city to the east of Louisville. One woman reported seeing a mountain lion stroll by her home when she reviewed the tapes on her security cameras.

We went for a bike ride yesterday and steered clear of mountain lion country! But this is not freaking me out as much as the other visitors we've recently encountered in our neighborhood.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a lot of banging on our front door, followed by squeals, lots of jumping and footsteps running here, there and everywhere. My neighbor's daughter had a run-in with a creature of the slithering variety in their driveway:

Fingers and toes curled, I stepped outside to see my neighbor lying prostrate on his driveway in an attempt to get as close to this reptile as possible. He petted it as did both the girls. So did my husband. None of us knew what kind of a snake it was nor did we know if it was venomous. Please do not do what these crazy animal and reptile lovers did. Stay as far away from a snake in the wild, especially if you don't know what kind it is.

This was a bullsnake. Though not venomous, they do bite!

This bullsnake proceeded to cross the street with the girls watching out for cars...

...and sought shelter from the crazy humans in some irises.

When I related this to another neighbor down the street, she told me she had not one but two bullsnakes living under her porch. I lost it when I heard that. That, to me, means there will be babies very soon. Her husband had caught one, put it in a sack and let it loose in the Open Space behind our homes. At the time, he didn't know that there was a fatter, second one still under his porch. We think that the bullsnake we encountered was the one he released into the Open Space and it was trying to make its way back to its nest under her porch. No-one seems perturbed by the presence of these snakes. They actually like them as they say it keeps the rodent menace at bay.

I am just so glad that our property does not back up to the Open Space. I haven't gone near my irises since then. I tap everything in the yard before I go near it or touch it. I freak out if something seems to move suddenly and very close to the ground. In short, I'm a wreck.

And yes, despite all this, I let the kids campout in my backyard last weekend. I am the only one who is disgusted and scared of snakes. None of the kids are. According to everyone around, the snakes are far more scared of us than we are of them. They rarely come out at night. Yes, there are rattlesnakes, but they are rare; we have more bullsnakes in our neighborhood. The kids were in good quality tents, well zipped up such that no critters could get into them.

You know, I grew up in Africa, but this here is the Jungle!

Food is my source of comfort. Especially when I have everyone from my 8 year old to my husband to my neighbors laughing at me. At such times I need protein and I need spice, lots and lots of spice. What better than prawn balchao?

Prawn Balchao

Prawn balchao, for me, conjures up the images of old Bandra in Bombay. Narrow streets, lined by all kinds of shops that spilled out onto the street. A guitar being strummed by an old man sitting in his verandah in striped shorts, his beer within reach. Chatter in Konkani all around me. Smell of fish being fried...look where you're going, men! Getting pushed off the street into a gutter by a young man on a bicycle...I'm almost there. Take that last left turn near Junta Clothing Store into a narrow alley, take the first left into an even narrower alley, and then follow my nose to my friend Hazel's home. I loved going to Hazel's home. Auntie, as I called her Mom, would always go behind one of the many curtains that were used as screens in the home and emerge with a jar of delicious something. On one such visit, she pulled out prawn balchao and I was hooked. This is my adaptation of her recipe.

• 2lbs medium sized shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 1 medium size onion, chopped fine
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1.5 inch piece of ginger
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 10 Kashmiri red chillies
• 1/2 tsp jeera
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• salt to taste

1. Warm about 3 cups of water and add the Kashmiri chillies to it. This softens the outer skin and allows the chillies to blend better with the rest of the masala.
2. Heat oil in a saucepan and add the onions. Sweat them till they are soft and almost translucent.
3. Put the turmeric powder, ginger, garlic, mustard seeds, chillies, sugar and vinegar in a blender and blend into a fine paste.
4. Add this masala to the onions. Watch out! Don't inhale when you are doing this as the fumes from the spices are very strong!
5. Stir continuously on low heat for about 10 minutes till the masala has cooked.
6. Add the shrimp and salt and cook on high until the shrimp turns pink and is cooked. This usually takes about 5 minutes, less if you have smaller shrimp.
7. Add the tomato paste and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
8. Serve hot or cold, with rice, as a side. It's up to you!

Hazel's Mom made this with a lot more oil and she also used dried shrimp for added flavor. She blended the dried shrimp with the rest of the masala and her recipe did not need refrigeration. Hers is the original Goan recipe. My adaptation uses a lot less oil and I prefer to refrigerate my prawn balchao because I don't want to take any chances with it spoiling. I savor every bite! The picture above does it no justice. It looks like shrimp in a tomato sauce. But it's much more than that. It's a tangy spicy piece of heaven.

Hazel and her family don't live in old Bandra anymore. Their building was one of the many chawls that was torn down to make way for multi-storey multi-room apartment buildings. I remember visiting Hazel and her family on my last trip to India, over 3 years ago. Junta Clothing Store, which was my landmark in old Bandra, no longer exists. Gone were the old men with beers and guitars. The road was a tad wider and much dustier. And while I didn't get pushed off the street by a bicycle, I almost got run over by a motorbike.

BolderBoulder and Barbecued Shrimp

Memorial Day in Boulder County is very exciting, no matter which camp you belong to. For some it means the BolderBoulder 10K marathon which is the largest citizens' road race in the US. For others, it means peace and quiet as the crowds have all converged in downtown Boulder to run, jog, walk and even cartwheel the 6.2 mile race. For a change, we were with the crowds. We trained precisely 3 times. Once, we went into mountain lion activity zones, saw 5 deer leap past us and then wondered how far away the cats might be! The next time we went the opposite way into downtown Louisville and saw deer there, too. That session got wiped out by a freaky windstorm that had us scurrying into Old Louisville Inn for shelter. We ended up eating dinner instead of completing our training session! Another time, we just walked around the neighborhood and realized that there is a fairly large prairie dog preserve not too far from us. The most we walked must have been 4 miles in 2 hours. Most of the kids in the neighborhood usually run the race in 60-75 minutes. I wondered whether we would even complete half the course.

We were in the last few waves of walkers flagged off at just past 9:06 am. We had to reach the intersection of Walnut and Folsom by 10:45 am. That was 9 km or a little over 5.5 miles in 99 minutes - much less than 2 hours. If we didn't make it there, we would not be let into the CU Stadium for the celebrations. I figured we'd make a quick exit at that point - beat the crowd at getting out of Boulder. But, wait! We made it! Yes, we managed to stay ahead of the course cutoff guys and gals and we made it into the Stadium. We saw the parachuters come down and land safely on the turf. A big Phew!, especially if you know about the accidents from Memorial Day a few years ago.

I was so proud of my daughter! She walked the entire 10K! For someone who had barely managed to walk 4 miles in 2 hours, she did exceedingly well! My body is still aching but she played all day thereafter at the various neighborhood barbecues and I just wished I could crawl into bed and sleep forever!

There were two barbecues going on at the same time - both were at our immediate neighbors. I took turkey meatballs which I made using the same recipe as my Turkey Burgers. However nothing at the barbecues was quite like the barbecued shrimp we had on Friday to celebrate a friend's new job. What was mind-blowing was just how simple the recipe was.

Barbecued Shrimp

• 2lbs of large shrimp, shell-on (about 25-30 count)
• Wishbone Italian dressing

1. Pour Italian dressing over the shrimp so that each shrimp gets a good coating of the dressing
2. Marinate for about 60 to 90 minutes
3. Sprinkle some pepper on the shrimp and skewer them
4. Barbecue on hot coals until cooked - usually about 5 minutes each side

That's it! The shrimp was moist, tender and very delicious! This is my friend's recipe and this post is a huge shout out to her as she begins a new phase in her life on June 1 when she returns to working in an office (as opposed to from home) and that too, in clothes that are not pyjamas! Congrats and Best of Luck!

Tags: Barbecued shrimp, Memorial Day, BolderBoulder, Italian dressing