Dal Dhokhadi

I think I have always been a fan of Gujarati food. Ever since I remember, this has been one of my favorite recipes. It was my brother's favorite recipe too. What was best about it was that we didn't need any chapatis to go with it. You could simply pour it in a bowl and eat it with a spoon, kind of like a stew.

Every other day my mom would ask me, what should I make for dinner, and the answer would be, dal dhokadi. My mom is a great cook. I love everything she makes. Her non-vegetarian Goan fare is to die for. Every once in a while, she would make chat for us. Things like Dahi Puri, Pani Puri... She knew how much I loved chaat food. It was wonderful, a plate full of dahi puri, and I would end up taking second, sometimes third helpings. If any of it was leftover from the night, I would eat it again in the morning. No offense meant to the pani puri wallas, but my mom's chaat food was the best and nothing could beat THAT taste.

I long for it now. No one in my new home likes chaat food. I end up going to the pani puri wala, often alone, to have my fill. Still nothing can ever compare to those good times back at home. This dish reminded me of mom's cooking yesterday.

Ingredients

• 2 cups toovar daal or masoor dal (yellow or red lentils)
• 2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• a pinch of asafoetida (hing)
• 4 to 5 curry leaves
• 1/2 cup groundnuts, soaked
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tsp red chilli powder
• 2 tbsp jaggery
• salt to taste
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp turmeric (for the flour)
• 2 tsp red chilli powder (for the flour)
• 1 tbsp oil
• salt to taste

First knead the flour with turmeric, chilli powder, oil, salt and water as needed. Make a firm dough. Keep it aside.

Pressure cook the lentils with 2 cups of water till they are soft. Heat the ghee in a wok, and throw in the mustard and cumin seeds. Add a pinch of asafoetida, and curry leaves. Now pour in the cooked lentils and the groundnuts, and bring the curry to a boil.

While it is boiling, roll out the dough in the form of a thin chapati (tortilla). Cut it with a sharp knife into diamond shapes. Pick up the pieces and slide them into the dal. Boil the dal till the pieces of dough start floating.

Garnish with coriander and serve hot.

Happy Cooking!

Mince and Mushroom Hot Pot

I have been meaning to make this recipe for  a long time. Ever since my friend Jayanti posted her recipe to me and Laxmi posted it on her blog, I have wanted to  have a bite of it. I finally got a chance today. My brother-in-law Makrand is visiting and I decided that this would be a no-fail formula. And was  I right!

The mince by itself was yum! I could just dip a bread in it and eat it all by itself. But the potatoes, mushrooms the sauce, everything just added to the flavor. I did make a few changes, but they are really very minor changes. Try this recipe, all you mutton eaters and tell me if you liked it.

Ingredients

• 250 g mutton mince
• 4 tbsp oil
• 1 large onion chopped
• 2 tsp ginger-garlic paste
• 7 cardamom pods
• 1 badi elaichi
• 5 peppercorns
• 5 cloves
• 1 javintri (Mace)
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 3 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1/2 cup white wine
• salt to taste
• 1/2 pack potato croquettes (or as in my case herbed potato wedges)
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• Cream of Mushroom soup powder (Knorr or Maggi)
• 2 tomatoes sliced horizontally
• 1/4th cup peas
• 1 cup grated mozarella cheese

First make the mutton mince.  Heat the oil in a wok and throw in the cardamom, badi elaichi, cloves, and peppercorns and saute for about two minutes. Now remove the whole spices from the oil and tie in a muslin cloth. (What I did was to empty a tea bag, put the spices in it, seal it once again and put it in the mutton mince once again.) This is to be able to remove the spices as a whole in the later stage.

Once the spices are removed add the onions to the oil. Saute for two minutes and add the ginger garlic paste. Saute well for about four minutes and add the mutton mince. Add the salt and the dry spices and cook till the mince is almost done. Now add the white wine and cook for few more minutes.

Make the mushroom sauce. Mix half the soup powder in one and half cup of water. Bring to a boil slowly. Stir all the time. This makes the soup become a thick sauce.

Grease an oven proof baking tin and pack the mince in it. Level it. Now add one layer of the potato croquettes. Layer the sliced mushrooms on it. Layer the sauce on top of the mushrooms. Line another layer with the tomatoes and peas.

Slide the tin into the oven and bake it for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, add the grated cheese as the final layer and once again put it in the oven. Bake for five more minutes until the cheese has melted. Serve hot as a one-dish meal!

Happy Cooking!

Capsicum Tomato and carrot recipe

I haven't been able to post in quite a while now, but now is definitely my time. I am going to post two even three recipes a day sometimes, and cover up for the lost time. Hopefully :-) I am known for not being able to deliver what I promise. Except in my dental clinic. This blog is my chance at redemption.

Please read my other blog for my experiences sending Saee to daycare and school. It hasn't been easy. I am learning though, definitely.

This morning I made a recipe for which I have no name. The truth is, that I didn't have anything in the name of vegetables left for making anything. I was left with one capsicum, two tomatoes and one carrot. This is what I made and I loved it. It would serve wonderfully as a topping over butter fried bread, or as a stuffing in a roll of chapati. Children would love it too, as there is nothing too spicy in it. Just a little tangy, and a dash of sweet from the carrots.

Ingredients

• 1 capsicum
• 1 carrot
• 1 tomato
• 1 tbsp butter
• a drizzle of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano

Chop all the vegetables finely. Get rid of the seeds of capsicum. Heat the butter in a wok and add a drizzle of olive oil to it. Just a dash, to keep the butter from burning. Now add the chopped vegetables, and salt and pepper and saute on high heat till the tomatoes are tender. The capsicum and carrot should still be a little crunchy but not too much. Add the dried oregano and serve hot on pieces of fried bread or in a roll of chapati. 

If you need to up the spiciness a notch, just add a little more pepper. Don't add red chilli powder or it will give you hyperacidity.

Happy Cooking!

Rice Noodles Soup

The soup I read about, was a Thai soup with ingredients like baby Bok Choy and lemongrass, which I didn't have. So I made a Indo-Thai (and veggie) version of the soup. It was yummy and was usurped in no time at all.

Ingredients

• a fistful of rice noodles
• 1 carrot julienned or sliced in oblong manner
• 1/2 cup finely shredded cabbage
• 1 tsp ginger juliennes
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 small onion sliced lengthwise
• 4 cups water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp chilli sauce
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp Maggi Masala-e-Magic (Super ingredient!)
• 1 tbsp cornflour mixed in half cup cold water
• salt to taste

Cook the rice noodles as per the instruction on its packet and keep aside. Heat oil in a wok, and add the butter. Once it melts, add the garlic, ginger, and onion. Once the onion has softened a bit, add the chopped vegetables.

Stir fry on high heat for a minute or two. Now add the soy, and chilli sauce. Add the masala-e-magic powder and four cups of water. Add the noodles and salt and bring the soup to a boil.

Serve hot in individual bowls!

Happy Cooking!

Deviled Eggs

What a lovely breakfast I had this morning! Except, it was too less. I wish I could have made more. I found the recipe for eggs on the internet. Deviled eggs is a recipe where you stuff the yolk in the egg. :-P

Haha. I know, the yolk is stuffed in the egg as it is. But you hard boil the eggs, remove the yolks, add some wonderfully aromatic things to it, and re-stuff it in the eggs. And the result? A creamy, smooth and buttery mixture stuffed in a boiled egg white which provides the base flavor.

The tanginess of the mustard is offset by the earthiness of the yolks. I made a very basic recipe, but you can add a lot more to it to add more definition and variety.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp mustard sauce (preferable Dijon mustard)
• 2 tsp butter
• salt (just a hint)
• 1/2 tsp tobasco sauce (or as per your taste)
• a few flakes of paprika (to garnish)
• 1/2 tsp oregano powder

Place the eggs in a deep vessel and cover them with water to about an inch above the eggs. Bring the water to a rolling boil and then turn down the heat and simmer them for around ten to fifteen minutes.

Once this is done, drain all the hot water and cool the eggs under tap water. Crack the eggs gently and roll them to and fro with feather touch under your palms. This will make the shells to peel off easily.

With a sharp non-serrated knife, cut the egg lengthwise from the base to the tip in just one easy motion. If you move your knife back and forth, you will end up mincing the egg. Just one long deep gash is enough to make a clean cut. Now hold the egg half yolk side down over a bowl and tap on the white lightly over the point of the egg yolk. The yolk will fall into the bowl without breaking the white.

Remove all the yolks in this manner. Put the mayonnaise, butter, mustard sauce, tobasco sauce and salt in this and mix well. I squeezed the yolk mixture through the sieve to remove lumps.

You can just spoon out the yolk mixture into the cavity in the egg white, or do what I did. I poured the mixture in my icing bag and used a star nozzle to squeeze out the yolk mixture onto the whites. This makes for a great presentation.

All that remains to be done is to sprinkle the oregano on top and garnish with paprika flakes. Serve chilled!

Happy Cooking!

Wheat Pancakes

In a good mood today. Saee's first day at school went well. Touchwood. I hope that the rest of the year goes just as well as the first day. That took some (or rather most) of my anxiety away.

This morning I made wheat pancakes. They were soft in the center and crispy outside. Just the right hint of sour and spicy. The onions made for a good texture in it. They weren't there in the original recipe. But one pancake is filling enough for a single person. The measures I have used in this recipe makes about ten pancakes. Calculate how much you would need for your household and then make them.

Ingredients

• 2 cups wheat flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 cup yoghurt or buttermilk
• 2 small onions finely chopped
• water as needed
• salt to taste
• 3 green chillies finely chopped
• 1/4th tsp turmeric
• 2 tbsp grated coconut
• 1 tsp sesame seeds

For the tempering

• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 pinch asafoetida
• 4 to 5 curry leaves

Mix the ingredients for the batter to make a smooth batter of dropping consistency. Heat the oil for the tempering and add the mustard, cumin seeds, asafoetida and curry leaves. Pour this over the batter and mix well.

Now heat a non-stick skillet and spray some cooking oil on it. Pour a ladle of batter on the skillet and spread it to make a thin pancake. Place a cover on the skillet and fry for about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove the cover and turn the pancake over. Fry for a few more minutes on a low flame.

Agreed that this method takes a longer time to make a single pancake, but it also makes it very very crispy and yummy. You can fry for less time and  eat it soft if you prefer it that way.

Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Happy Cooking!

Zebra Torte Cake

Or something like that. I didn't get the whipped cream right. It was just too runny. Not that I cared, this cool weather is pleasant enough to make you forget all your worries.

The making itself was not as difficult as finding a good recipe. I didn't find many recipes that were really good but Nigella Lawson's Basic Chocolate cake recipe was good. So that is what I made for the basic cake. As far as the icing was concerned, there was the whipped cream which didn't fluff up. There was the chocolate ganache topping which was heavenly but so darned messy you want to slap it. Then there was the decorating which didn't go exactly as you see in all those videos you have been spoiling your eyesight over.

I even dreamed of making cake last night. That is to say, I failed to get any sleep at all. Not that I could sleep in the morning either. Getting up early is a bad habit. Everyone else is sleeping fast, and you are wandering around the house on tiptoes like a ghost, afraid to wake anyone up. What's worse, a person who could sleep throughout the day without wanting to eat or drink anything, like me, is now so used to waking up early that the alarm rings about ten minutes after I am done brushing. It's almost as if I am shushing the alarm to go back to sleep!

Then there is the news of one of my closest friends completing her post graduation. In dentistry. It is an achievement. I know, I am a post grad too. But it just doesn't feel like it. Everyone else around me is going places, and I am stuck with a day that is nothing but home, family, peanuts-for-work job, and a blog. The blog is the only adventure I am having right now. But I am not sure if I am that good you know? There are so many other blogs with so much worth! There are so many good cooks in the world. What am I doing that is any different?

I know, the grass is always greener. There may be people around me who might be thinking that I am the luckiest girl alive to have such a great husband and a wonderful daughter. I feel that too, truly. But somewhere I think I strangled my career the day I got married, buried it when I got pregnant, and put a concrete slab on the grave when I delivered.

Husband is finally happy that I am keeping myself busy throughout the day. Mom in law is happy that I am finally waking up at 5.30 a.m. everyday. Saee isn't too happy about me going to work. Mom is happy that I am happy. The truth is, I don't know what I am doing. It's as though I am walking through life with a blindfold on my eyes. Just trusting everyone else around me to show me the way. The only reason I keep myself busy throughout the day is so that I don't have any time to think. That at the end of the day I am tired enough to be dead, and every morning I wake up from the dead.

There is something really soothing about knowing how your whole day is going to unfold. It is as soothing as knowing that the clock will tick and your life will tick with it, with alarming regularity.

The cake turned out okay. I am not sure if I am so much a cake person. I love cakes and I definitely want to make them. Maybe I must do a course. If anyone can suggest a good weekend course in Mumbai where I can learn how to make cakes and decorate them, please tell me people.

As far as this cake is concerned, today, instead of writing down the ingredients, I am going to post the link for Nigella's  recipe. This IS her recipe after all. I'll just post the picture of my cake.

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/old-fashioned-chocolate-cake-119

Happy Cooking!

Creamy Chickpea Curry

Saee's birthday is just around the corner. There is so much to do and so little time to get it done. I need party ideas... again. I do know what to cook though. I have made the entire list ready. But the surprise will be unfolded on the day after the party.

Couple of months ago, I saw that everyone around me is busy having a life. They were working hard, partying hard. I felt miserable. I felt worthless. And now, I know I may not be earning much. I don't. It's 'peanuts time' at the end of every working month. But I am doing something everyday, and it makes me happy. Even if it makes my bones and muscles ache with aching regularity. Even if it makes me feel too tired to get out of the bed each morning. I am happy. I am satisfied. I am doing something with my life, and it is not entirely a waste.

But sometimes I do think, what the hell was the need for this blog? Does anyone read it or find it any good? I mean, the comments that I get are all from those who I know? And what will happen when at the end of the year I am done with my project? Will I find myself as without an anchor as I did before I started this blog?

I watched Julie and Julia again yesterday. It did offer me some solace, though not much. :-(

Ingredients

• 1 cup chickpeas soaked in water overnight
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 medium onion pureed
• 2 tsp ginger garlic paste
• 2 tbsp cashew nut paste
• 1/2 cup tomato puree
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• salt to taste
• fresh cream (optional)

Cook the chickpeas till tender. Heat oil in a wok and add the onion puree. Saute for two minutes and add the ginger garlic paste. Saute again for two to three minutes till oil starts separating.

Add the tomato puree and dry spices and fry well for 5 minutes. Add the cashew paste and stir fry for a minute or two. Add one cup of water. Allow the curry to come to boiling point.

Lower the heat and simmer for about five minutes. Stir in fresh cream and taste. Adjust seasoning if required. Serve hot with rotis. (You can substitute chickpeas with paneer or cottage cheese)

(Picture to follow)

Happy Cooking!

Aloo Chorchori

What a name! Ever since I read this recipe in the morning I have been singing 'Chori Chori Chupke Chupke!' a song which I do not like at all. That apart, the recipe is actually quite nice and very very easy to make. Pressed for time in the morning, this is the easiest and quickest recipe I could find.

Ingredients

• 2 large potatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp dried pomegranate seeds powder
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp oil
• 2 cups water

Heat the oil in a wok and add the onions. Saute for three minutes till they are golden. Now add the potatoes, the dry spices, salt and saute for two more minutes. Add two cups of water and bring curry to a boil. Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat and simmer till the water halves in quantity.

Serve hot!

Happy Cooking!

Vanilla cupcakes

This morning my family woke up to the most amazingly soft cupcakes with the world's most horribly-gone-wrong buttercream icing. I don't know what went wrong. First of all, it didn't peak. The margarine turned lumpy and clumpy. I added more sugar, but it kept going runny! Please someone, anyone, if you know how to make a good butter cream icing and know how to get it exactly right, please please guide me.

Nonetheless, I'll post the cupcake recipe. They turned out quite fantastic actually.

Ingredients

• 160 g flour
• 120 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 and 1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Sieve the flour with the baking powder and keep it aside.

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. Beat the butter with the sugar till soft. Now add the egg and the vanilla extract and beat some more. Add one fourth the flour mixture and beat again. Now add one third the buttermilk and beat again. Keep alternating between the flour and buttermilk, ending with the flour.

Line a cupcake tin with individual cupcake liners. Spoon out the cake batter into each till they are about three-fourth filled with the mixture. Push the baking tray into the oven and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes till a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Cool for ten minutes before icing them. (If you get the icing right)

Serve with tea, or eat them just like that.

Happy (sob) Cooking!

Project Indian Cooking: Garlic Bread Rolls

Project Indian Cooking: Garlic Bread Rolls: "My best friend Shweta is in town and I am going to meet her. For this special occasion I thought I'd make something (edible) and take them t..."

Garlic Bread Rolls

My best friend Shweta is in town and I am going to meet her. For this special occasion I thought I'd make something (edible) and take them to her. Bread rolls immediately came to my mind. So I scoured the internet for some good recipes, and stumbled upon this site called The Purple foodie. A blog by Ms. Shaheen Peerbhai. Not only is the lady in question extremely talented, she also helpfully pointed out a few hints as to where I can find the ingredients in Mumbai.

But before I write this recipe, I must MUST thank a few people who have made all the difference into making me what I am today.
1.) First and foremost A BIG THANKS AND LOTS OF LOVE AND KISSES TO MY MOM for  making me who I am today. You are my true inspiration. Love you, Mom!

2.) MY DEAREST HUSBAND SHRIKANT Thanks for eating all the crap called practice, in the way of making what I made today. Thanks for always being supportive even when I am being a giant pain in the ass.

3.) THANKS SAHANA, ANITA AND ANUSHREE the oven that you guys gifted me for my wedding, has unfailingly served me all these years and will continue to be my most favorite kitchen appliance of all times. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

4.) THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO READ MY RECIPES even though sometimes they are downright crappy! Special thanks to Jayanti, Rhythm, and Laxmi, please keep commenting so I know you are reading the recipes. :-)

Now that all the thanks have been said, let's go on to the recipe.

Ingredients

• 400 g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 and 3/4th tsp sugar
• 210 g milk 
• about 9 g instant yeast (about 1/2 tbsp)
•  1/2 egg (to mix in the dough)
• 1/2 egg (for the glaze)
• 45 g butter
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup garlic minced
• 2 tsp mixed dried Italian herbs
• 2 tsp paprika
• salt to taste

Plan your day. If you are making these for the breakfast, and say, you want your breakfast ready by 9, start the process at 5.30 a.m. That's right, I started the whole thing at 5.30 a.m. at a time when a yellow colored bowl, to me, appeared as pink! But luckily I got the recipe right. Practice they say, makes a man (and a woman) purrfect!

Measure all the ingredients first. Warm the milk to lukewarm. (This is when a drop of milk put on the inside of your wrist does not feel so hot.) Do not heat it too much. Put the yeast in the milk and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile add the salt,  sugar, half the beaten egg and butter to the flour and mix it with your fingers till it resembles bread crumbs. Now pile up the flour to form a mountain. Make a deep well in the center of the mountain and pour a little bit of the milk with the yeast in this well. Start by mixing only a portion of the well keeping the walls intact. It should look like a sludge or a porridge. When it starts getting dry, add some more milk to the sludge, and take in more flour from the sides of the well. Keep doing this till all the milk and all the flour has been used up. Knead well for about 4 to 5 minutes, slapping, punching and hitting the dough with all your might. Think about the person you would like to do that to, and imagine that the dough is your chance to lash out. Your anger will make the dough soft and satiny (kidding :-P)

Now place the dough in a greased bowl and cover the bowl with cling film. Let the dough rest for two hours in which time you should let it prove itself. Pun intended. It does 'prove' itself to double its volume. (Proofing a dough means letting a dough with yeast rise in volume)

You have two hours, you can catnap for one and half hour if you are still feeling groggy. After that, you can make the garlic mixture. Mix the garlic, dried herbs, paprika and salt in the olive oil and keep it aside. That's it.

After the two hours are up, remove the cling film and punch the dough for thirty seconds to remove all the extra air. (It seems like such a shame! I hate doing this!)

Now roll the dough in a rectangle 1/4th of an inch thick. Spread the garlic mixture on to the upper surface. Slice the dough into strips (make cuts parallel to the shorter side of the rectangle). Knot or roll this strip in any way you like. As you can see from the picture I have let my imagination run wild and made many shapes out of the dough. (Which also gave me a great idea for breakfast on Saee's birthday which is coming up!)

Place the dough knots on your baking tray keeping space between them to allow for rising. Cover them with cling film and allow them to rise (or proof) for thirty more minutes. After the thirty minutes are up, brush some of the beaten egg on top of the knots. This gives an amazing shine to your bread rolls.

Preheat your oven to 400 F and place the dough knots into it. Bake for about fifteen to twenty minutes till the topmost part appears nice and evenly browned. Remove and cool them on a rack for about 10 minutes or do what I always do. Serve them hot! Yummy garlic bread rolls are ready for the taking.

Comments from my family
Mom in law: Wow, these look so professional. They taste yummy too. Good job.
Saee: Mummy, they look good!
Hubby: Hmpf!

(Nah, kidding!) Hubby said they looked really great and that he is proud of me! What the hell, I am proud of me too! :-P

Here are the pictures.

Happy Cooking!

Aviyal

I can safely say that this is one of my most favorite recipes. I could just eat aviyal out of the bowl... the texture, the taste, the creaminess... Yum!!

Avial is kind of a stew, where you put in vegetables (mostly starchy ones) in a thick coconut gravy. Unlike other Indian recipes, especially South Indian, there is no tempering. It is plain boiled veggies in a coconut gravy. Am I mad  to like plain boiled vegetables? You have got to try this recipe to believe me. :-)

Ingredients

• 2 raw bananas sliced into several pieces
• 1 large potato chopped into large pieces
• 4 small brinjals chopped
• 1 carrot chopped
• You can also add any other veggies you have like french beans, or drumsticks
• 1 cup fresh grated coconut
• 2 tbsp rice flour
• 1 cup butter milk or 1/2 cup curds (yoghurt)
• 4 to 5 green chillies
• 1 large tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 8 to 10 curry leaves
• 2 tsp coconut oil
• salt to taste

Boil the veggies in two cups of water with curry leaves and salt, till they are soft and cooked.

Grind together the  coconut, yoghurt, rice flour, green chillies, cumin seeds and turmeric to form a paste. Pour this coconut paste into the boiled vegetables and boil the curry once again. Bring the heat down to a simmer and cook for another five to ten minutes.

Once the vegetables and the gravy are completely cooked, drizzle two teaspoons of coconut oil (no, any other oil will not give you the authentic taste. So if you don't have coconut oil, you would be better off not putting any!)

Serve hot with rice.

Happy Cooking!!!

Peas Parantha

Finally heralding the onset of monsoons, it rained here for the first time in months yesterday. Everything was so parched for the first sign of a drizzle, everything seemed happy. That included my daughter Saee, as she soaked pleasurably in the rains, danced and splashed water everywhere.

This morning too, getting up to go to the gym seemed like a crime. But get up I did, and I was rewarded, as the scale showed me three kilos less than when I started one week ago. It may seem sudden, but trust me, it was all hard work. The first being giving up on all things sweet. Except for that one cup of tea in the morning with sugar, I have given up all the other kinds of sweets. Chocolates, cakes, and Indian desserts included. Coming to think of it, I don't miss them much. I used to think that I loved sweets and confectionery, but I am not so sure now.

I do miss the junk food. Especially pani puri. But then I do have one plate of pani puri occasionally, I haven't completely given that up. Neither will I. But other than that, all the fried foods are on the hit list too. There was a chance yesterday. I was attending a dental conference where they were serving tea and potato vada for snacks. I could have had that potato vada. That I didn't, got reflected well on the scale today, and I am proud of it. I just hope to keep it up for the months to come and make that target I have set for myself.

The recipe I made this time, called for a lot of oil. I made it with less oil, and for myself, I made a parantha without any oil.

Ingredients

• 1 cup peas
• 1 inch ginger grated
• 4 green chillies chopped
• 1 cup freshly chopped coriander
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp dry mango powder (amchur)
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds (roasted)
• 1 tsp sesame seeds (roasted)
• 2 tbsp gram flour (roasted)
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp honey

For the parantha

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp carom seeds (ajwain)
• 2 tsp olive oil
• salt to taste
• water to knead

Boil the peas till cooked, and immediately put them in ice cold water to refresh them. This reserves the green color of the peas. Grind the peas together with the rest of the ingredients except gram flour till they become well blended but are still somewhat coarse. Do not add water, but if you must, just a teaspoon or two of water should be enough.

Remove the mixture from the blender and add gram flour. Mix it well.

Knead the ingredients for the dough with enough water to make a soft and smooth dough. Divide it into 10 equal portions and roll them into balls. Make a depression in the center and spoon out one to 1 and half teaspoon of the peas mixture into it. Pull up the edges of the dough and pinch them shut. Roll the ball in dry flour till the dry flour coats it well. Now make it flat with the help of a rolling pin. But do this slowly to avoid the peas mixture from spilling out. Roll it out into a 4 to 5 inch diameter parantha.

Now heat a skillet and pour 1/2 tsp oil on it. Place the parantha on this and fry on this side for only about 30 seconds. Put some oil on the top of the parantha and flip it over. Fry this side till brown spots appear and the parantha puffs up in blisters. Now flip the parantha over once again and fry again till brown spots appear on the other side as well.

Remove it on a plate and serve hot with a dollop of butter (if you can afford the calories!)

Happy Cooking!