Happy New Year 2004

I can't believe I haven't posted for more than 3 months. I have been busy busy busy. What have I been doing? I wish I knew! Cooking? Definitely! A family has to eat delicious Indian food, you know!! Sigh! This reminds me of a conversation that took place in my living room the other day...

The Lagaan CD was being played for the millionth time and once more. As 'Ghanana ghanana' died down, my daughter decided to let loose the questions that were building up in her mind.

Her: Why did the people in the song want it to rain? Because they wanted to get wet and then sing in the rain?
Hubby: Kind of...but they really wanted it to rain cos they needed the water for their crops.
What is it with these IIT folks? Why can't they talk to a 5 year old in a language that she might understand?!!!
Her: Daddy, what are crops?
Hubby: Crops are the plants you grow. Like corn, rice, wheat, beans, sugarcane...all those people in the song are farmers and they grow crops.
Her: So they grow crops because they did not have food to eat?
Hubby: They keep some of the crops for food and they sell the rest . They grow crops for a living.
Ayayay! Living? Does she even know what living is???
Her: Daddy, what does for a living mean?
Arrrrghhh! What is he up to?? What is he even thinking??
Hubby: A living is what you do to earn money...
Me (to the rescue): Like your class teacher. She teaches for a living. Your bus driver. She drives the bus for a living. They get money for doing that and so they can write checks and pay their bills and buy food to eat.
Her: Daddy, what do you do for a living? Are you a father?
Me: He does not get paid to do that, sweetie. So that's not his living. He works with computers and does programming so he's a computer programmer and that's what he does for a living.
Her: I get it!! The farmers grow crops for a living. Daddy programs computers for a living! Mumma, what do you do for a living!! I know! I know! Mumma's a cook!! A really really good cook!!

There was no point getting worked up, especially when it was followed by so much heartfelt and genuine praise. Oh well!!

I happened to be making a very refreshing beetroot salad at the time....so without further ado, here's the recipe:

Beet Salad in yogurt
Spice level: A little zing is always nice.

• 1 bunch of beetroot, boiled
• 2-3 tsps of oil
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• pinch asafoetida
• 1/8 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/8 tsp urad dal^**optional
• 1 thai chilli or long hot pepper, de-seeded and split down its length^**optional
• 4-5 curry leaves
• (kadipatta)^**optional
• 1/4 tsp juice of freshly grated ginger
• 1 cup low-fat yogurt
• salt to taste

1. Peel and grate the boiled beetroots. (Discard the leaves. I have no clue what to do with beetroot leaves. I save them every time thinking that I will try cooking them but by the time I get to them, they look awful and very uninspiring)
2. Heat the oil in a small pan.
3. Add the mustard seeds. When they start crackling, add the asafoetida. If the oil gets very hot, simply turn the heat off completely.
4. Add cumin seeds
5. Add the hot peppers/chilli and the curry leaves. Watch out for splattering hot oil. I usually toss these in and cover the pan quickly to avoid the splatter and an oily mess.
6. Add the urad dal. (White lentils)
7. Take the pan off the flame and add the grated beetroot to this yummy flavored oil or the other way around.
8. Add the salt.
9. Squeeze the juice out of the ginger and add just the juice.
10. Add the yogurt and mix well.
11. Chill well before serving.

It's really a delight. I grew up hating beetroot. Its very color put me off. Plus it was always so tasteless. I wondered what the adults found so inspiring in something so bland and yukky. It's an excellent source of iron. It is noted for being more easily assimilated by the human body than man-made forms of iron. I remember making this salad very frequently to help boost my Mom's low hemoglobin numbers.

Try it! According to the health experts and nutritionists, the more natural color you have in your diet, the healthier it is. The color of this salad is a rich vibrant deep pink. It's gorgeous to look at and invigorating for the taste buds!! Indian Food Rocks! It does!!

Tags: Beet Salad, beetroot raita, veggie salad, spicy salad

Herald the flu season

Viruses abound. Everyone is sick with some kind of mutant virus. Last week, I celebrated my birthday with high fever caused by a reaction to a tetanus shot. By the time I was able to stand up again, my 5 year old brought home some ghastly virus. Not only has she been running a fever of 102F, she's been coughing her little lungs out. Her petite body is wracked by bouts of coughing, after which she thumps wildly on anything near her from anger and irritation. Codeine for her, tonight. For me, hot spicy lamb curry. Manisha's special slow-cooked lamb without any extra step for marinating the meat. I need something hot and spicy cos my teeth hurt. Yes, I've caught her infection and it is evil. My head aches. My sinuses are choked.

Spicy Lamb Curry
Spice level: must be high to be good

1 boneless leg of lamb (usually about 2 lbs or so), diced into 1 inch by 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
2 cardamoms
25-30 whole black peppers
12-15 whole cloves
1 long stick of rolled cinnamom (2 inch)
1 tamalpatra dried bay leaf
1 whole dried red chilli
1/8 spoon turmeric powder
3 medium sized onions, sliced
1 can Contadina tomato paste
1 can (15 oz) diced tomato
or
1/2 can more of Contadina tomato paste
2 teaspoons of freshly grated garlic
4 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon of Shan Bombay Biryani masala
3-4 tablespoons of Shan Chicken Tandoori masala
yeah I know we're making lamb!
Salt to taste

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a large pot, preferably a copper-bottom kadhai.
2. Toss in the whole spices: cardamoms, black peppers, cloves, cinnamom, bay leaf and dried red chilli. Break the long cinnamom stick into smaller pieces about 1 inch long. Watch out for the black peppers cos they pop - right out of the pot into your eye.
3. Add the turmeric powder
4. Add the sliced onions and sautee on low heat until the onions are translucent and almost pink. About 30-45 minutes. The nice thing is that you don't have to be around while this is cooking. If you work from home, go finish off some tasks and head back to stir this mixture every 15 minutes or so. The longer the onions are sauteed the better the consistency of the sauce.
5. Add the tomato paste and diced tomatoes. Continue cooking on low heat.
6. Add the ginger and garlic and cover the kadhai. Continue cooking on low heat till the oil starts separating out of the mixture. This will take another 30-45 minutes. The longer the better. Stir every 15 minutes or so. This mixture tends to burn where the flame heats the pot. Stir the burnt part right back into the mixture. It gives it a delicious flavor. And yeah, I don't want to hear any carcinogenic anything. ;-)
7. Add the Shan spices and mix well.
8. The lamb must be diced into 1 inch by 1 inch pieces. Trim all the fat off. This takes me about half hour or so because I am fussy. I don't like the chewy fat to spoil the taste of the delicious meat.
9. Add the salt but remember that Shan's spices already have some salt.
10. Let this cook on low heat until the lamb is cooked. About an hour at least.

The meat is amazingly tender and because it is diced into small pieces and slow-cooked, the spices permeate the meat and it's hard to believe that it was not marinated. I usually cook lamb this way cos I handle the meat once and I am done with it. It takes a good 3-4 hours but I can do a ton of other things while I am cooking lamb this way.

For a family of three, this is a huge amount. I make three batches and freeze it. It comes in handy when there is an unexpected visitor or if you have to share it with a sister who is hopping through O'Hare on her way back to NJ from California. The last time we met this way, it was after 3 months and I was more interested in the prawn curry that my aunt sent me from San Jose, and she was more interested in the lamb I had frozen for her! That prawn curry was something else! True Goan style prawn curry!! Unfortunately the coconut around here tastes awful and has a stench of coconut oil so I need to get a good crop before I am willing to make that.

Dinner beckons...

Big John and The Indian Garden

We were flying back from Disneyworld last fall and the sky was absolutely clear when we flew over Chicago. The lake, the city, the 'burbs and fall colors everywhere...it was beautiful. My daughter and I peered out of the window as the plane started its final descent.

"Oh! Look! I can see Big John ..." my voice trailed off as I looked at Big John reflect one of the most glorious sunsets I have seen. I realized that my daughter was looking at me with absolute but questioning wonder. "What is it?" I asked. To which she replied: "Big John...Do you think he can see us, too?"

Check out these scrolling Sample Views of Chicago taken from the Hancock Observatory aka Big John.

Indian food at it's authentic best in the Chicagoland area can be had at The Indian Garden. They have four locations: downtown Chicago on Ontario and another on Devon, one in Schaumburg and Westmont, which is the one closest to us. We've been eating here for the past 3 and half years. The quality has remained consistent, the service is a little on the slower side but I really don't mind as I don't like to be hurried through a great Indian meal!! They also have a fantastic lunch buffet. We've haven't been to their restaurants on Devon Street or in Schaumburg. If we're at Devon, we're indulging in chaat or Indian junk food. If we're in Schaumburg, we're usually at IKEA.

I love Tandoori Pesh Kash at Indian Garden which is a platter of various types of kababs. I haven't really had any of their seafood except that which is served with the Tandoori Pesh Kash. Their Murg Rajala is also delicately flavored and simply exotic.

I prefer the coastal cuisine when it comes to seafood and Indian Garden is more North Indian cuisine than anything else. Their Goan dishes - the vindaloo and the Goa fish curry - sort of fall below my expectations. But then I have roots in Goa and I have grown up eating the real stuff. For anyone without any prior exposure to Goan cuisine, the dishes taste real good!!

Why is everything 'Made in China'?

My daughter asked me this question the other day. That's a toughie. Try breaking down the economics of trade using simple words that a 5 year old can understand. She's just grasping the concept of money and she seems to have no problems living in debt. She gets anything from a penny to a nickel for putting recyclables away. She can spend the money on kiddie rides at the mall or she can save it and buy something she wants from Wal*Mart. She must remember her balance and add her earnings to the last balance correctly. The deal is that she can choose to 'cash' her earnings once she has crossed 50 cents. It took us a while to cross this particular hurdle:
Me: How many cents make up a quarter?
Her: 25 cents!
Me: How many cents is 2 quarters?
Her: 26 cents!! 25 cents plus 1 is 26 cents.

Back to the chalkboard to draw two sets of 25 cents and she finally got it!! But, she can only get her hands on the money if she can tell how many cents she is left with when she cashes the 50 cents. She's getting pretty good at it. So much so that now she has found real life applications - how many minutes till my bed-time? We're still doing single digit addition - at least one of the numbers is single digits - but she's going great guns!

Since she now understands expensive and cheap - in very relative terms - I figured I'd tell her that it's cheaper for a lot of goods to be 'Made in China.' And, add that not everything is 'Made in China' - a few things are not. Like...like...this Papermate pencil. Or...or...[Mom! My cup is 'Made in China.' My doll is 'Made in China.' My backpack...]...or...or...Corningware plates on the dinner table waiting patiently for spicy Indian food...Yes! Our dinner plates are not 'Made in China.'

I actually did a search on Google for Why is everything Made in China. Apparently, it's not a unique question. But it was genuine!

I turned my attention to better things in life - like delicious Indian food!!

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Kheema
Ground meat with peas
Spice Level: Medium

1 lb ground meat (turkey or beef or chicken)
4-5 tbps of oil
1 small white onion, chopped
1/2 small can tomato paste
1 tbsp grated ginger
1/2 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp kasoori methi
1/2 tsp garam masala (try any of these blends from the brand Shan: BBQ Tandoori Masala or Shami Kabab Masala or Paya Curry to name a few)
1 cup peas
lots of chaat masala - start with about 1/2 tsp and up it till you like the taste
salt to taste

Saute chopped onions until soft (4-5 mins) in oil. There is no need to over-pamper the onions for this recipe.
Add tomato paste, ginger, garlic, kasoori methi, garam masala and saute for another 4-5 mins.
Add the ground meat and keep 'stabbing' at it & mixing so that it does not form into clumps or balls of meat.
Add salt & least amount of chaat masala
When the meat is safe to taste, see if you would like more chaat masala and keep adding till you reach a point where you feel it is just right. I have mine in a large steel pepper shaker and I just shake the darned thing...so I don't know the amount I end up adding! It lso depends on my mood!
When the meat is almost done, add the peas and cook until both peas and meat are done.

We call this kheema which literally translated is ground meat. Or minced meat or just mince as we called it in Kenya. You can stuff it in pocket pitas, garnish with raw onions and cilantro if you like.

With pitas or nan, this is makes a delicious and nutritious meal. I would prefer it with ground beef or ground lamb but my husband prefers turkey or chicken. And turkey is healthier than chicken ...so we invariably end up with turkey.

Ground meat brings to mind another story of when we first got here and I longed for some Kheema. We were in upstate NY in a wee town called Chestertown. Chestertown had one Grand Union and while it served basic needs - bread, eggs, veggies - there was no way you could get anything remotely exotic there. We usually drove to Glens Falls for major grocery at a Price Chopper or what-have-you. I remember thinking that this was a large store and that they have to have it. I could not see it in the meat racks. So finally I asked a store clerk: "Do you have any minced meat?" "Uh? Huh? Naw, we don't keep that brand."

Ground meat, it is!

I am not looking forward to the teen years...

My 5 year old is already talking back - well, not quite but she does not take anything at face value and the worst part is that she *remembers* the explanation from another conversation, relates it to the current one and points out the flaw in what I was just telling her.

Here's one such conversation as we were driving to the airport.
My angel: Mom, is that a forest?
Me: No, sweetie, those are just a lot of trees in someone's yard.
My angel: Mom is that a forest?
Me: No, darling, that is just someone else's yard with many trees.
My angel: Mom is that a forest?
Me: No, poppet, that is just a plot of land with many trees.
< and it went on...till finally...>
Me: I will tell you when we drive by a forest so you will see what a forest is.
My angel: Is a forest only trees?
Me: Yes! Yes! No houses. Only trees, trees and more trees.
My angel : But, in Goldilocks, she gets lost in the forest and there is a house in which the three bears live...
Me: Arrggggh! I need a Tylenol and some very strong coffee...

Or maybe some of that Chai tea ;-)

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Tried some roasted corn lately? Indian style? We call it bhootta.

Bhootta
Roasted Corn on the Cob
Spice Level: Entirely up to you

What you need:
Fresh corn
Butter
Red chilli powder
Salt
Fresh lemon cut in halves

What to do:
Remove the husk and the silk. Crank your grill on high and place your corn on the grate. It's better if the flames can reach the corn. Keep turning the corn so that it does not burn. It should crackle every now and then. And it's done when most of the individual kernels have a black dot on them but are not burnt or charred. Just nicely roasted. It takes but a few minutes per ear.

Hold the corn by the stem or stick or whatever - for want of a better word!! And dip the lemon into the salt and then the red chilli powder and use it to spread the mixture along the corn, squeezing the lemon as you move up and down the ear. So you get a great mixture of tastes. If you like the flavor of butter, spread some butter on the ear, too.

I prefer mine without the butter. Avoid the red chilli powder for kids - instead smother their bootta with butter. They love that!