Chana Kababs

A tasty vegetarian snack!

Ingredients

• Kaale Chane 250 gms Channa dal 50 gms.
• Onions (finely chopped) - 4.
• Garlic 6 flakes(chopped).
• Ginger (finely chopped) 1" piece .
• Red Chillies (deseeded) -2.
• Green Chillies (chopped) -2.
• Cardamom 4 nos.
• Cinnamon 1" piece
• Cloves 5 nos.
• Coriander powder 2 tbsp.
• Bread slices 6 nos.
• Oil
• Salt to taste
• Lemon juice -3 tbsps

Preparation

1. Soak kaale chane and channa dal for 6 hours atleast.




2. In a pressure cooker add a little oil and fry half the onions till brown.


3. Add the garlic and ginger and fry for one minute
   
4. Add the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander powder and fry till oil separates.


5. Add the kaale chane and channa dal and cook with minimum water(just enough to cook) and pressure cook for 20 minutes.


6. Let the mixture cool down and grind in a mixture to a coarse paste.


7. Soak the bread in water, squeeze out the water and add to the mixture. Add chopped onions and lemon juice. Mix well.


8. Put it in the fridge for about 2 hours.


9. Add salt to the mixture and shape this mixture into small balls and flatten to make kababs.


10. Spread a sheet of aluminium foil on the oven tray and lightly grease the oven tray. Arrange the kababs on this sheet and dab a little oil on them.




11. Preheat the oven(set it to both top and bottom grill) and put the kabab tray inside the oven and bake at 200 degree centigrade till one side becomes brown. Turn the kababs and bake on the other side too dabbing a little oil again



12. Serve hot with green chutney

Variations

• Instead of putting them in the oven the kababs can be shallow fried or deep fried.

Gotchas

• If you put too much water while cooking or grinding the mixture then the mixture tends to become runny and it will get difficult shaping the kababs . So use minimum quantity of water.


• Add salt at the last moment to avoid mixture becoming runny.


• If however the mixture does have a lot of water add more slices of bread and put the mixture in the fridge for longer duration.

TIP: Quick Parathas

How about some quick parathas when you are feeling lazy. This tip talks about using puff-pastry or bladerdeeg (in Dutch) as a paratha. Bladerdeeg is available in all the superstores in the frozen section. There are several brands available and this generally comes in 2 varieties in packs of 10:

1. Normal
2. Met 100% Echte Boter (With 100% Real Butter)

Check out both and decide on whichever suits you better. A word of caution - Bladerdeeg is full of butter and is not for the diet conscious folks.


To make bladerdeeg parathas, roast it in a pan on medium flame. Roast both sides. Each bladerdeeg may take around 4-5 minutes till done. It tastes much like the frozen parathas that you get in some Indian super stores. The advantages of this however are:

• Less expensive
• Readily available

Give it a try and let me know how you like it.

Crispy Moong Dal Vadas

Potato bhajias or pakoras are the favourites when the evening is bit wet or cold. They even are the favourite starters when a guest is being called for dinner. But, what if it rains for some continous evenings or what if you call the same guest again for dinner after some time. You require something different though maintaining the legacy of pakoras or bhajias. Make moong dal vadas and taste the difference.

Ingredients

• Green moong dal: 1/2 kgs
• Cauliflower: 250 gms cut into very fine pieces
• Onion: 250 gms cut into square pieces
• Green peas: 200 gms
• Ginger: 50 gms either grated or cut into very fine pieces
• Green chillies: as per taste
• Potatoes: 2 or 3 medium size cut into small pieces
• Red chilli powder: as per taste
• Salt: as per taste

Preparation

1. Grind the dal in mixer coarsely (not very fine)
   
2. Mix it with 3 cups of water to form a thick batter
   
3. Mix all the above ingredients along with the dry masalas
   
4. Give them oval shape
   
5. Deep fry them till they are golden brown
   
6. Serve hot with green chutney (see recipe below)
   

Green Chutney

Ingredients

• 1 bunch Fresh coriander leaves
• 2 to 3 Green chillies
  
• 1 medium size Red tomato
• 2 to 3 Garlic flakes
• 1 tsp Cumin seeds
• Juice of half a lemon
• Salt - as per taste

Preparation

Mix all ingredients and grind in a mixie. Green chutney is ready!

Bhutta

May sound strange, but the bhutta (corn on the cob) that is available here is much more delicious than the ones we get in India (When I say delicious its how soft and sweet they taste) You get a couple of them for €2 (1.99) at any super store. This price is pretty standard throughout the year. Seldom you can buy the bhuttas for less that this at the Dirk super store. Keep checking on weekly offers.


Roast the bhuttas over the gas flame and rub salt & lemon before digging in.

Till next time ... enjoy CORN ON THE COB :)

TIP: Ferment Idli Dosa Batter

In Holland where the weather is cold most of the time, it is difficult to get the idli batter to ferment properly. This tip describes how you can achieve a decent amount of fermentation using a simple technique.

The required environment for fermentation is missing and so we need to artificially create one. Everyone has a microwave in their house. The trick is to use the microwave chamber to store the batter to get fermented. For quick start we need to heat this chamber sufficient enough to sustain a decent amount of warmth. Set the microwave to 1000 Watts (or maximum is your oven is of lesser wattage). Set the duration to 10 minutes and set the microwave on. When the microwave is on for this period of time without anything to absorb the microwaves, the chamber itself starts heating up. By conduction the entire microwave may seem to heat up.

Note: It is important that you do not keep any plastic boxes or fruits on top of your microwave oven. These may get spoilt because of the heat.

Once the microwave is heated, open it carefully (do not burn yourself as the glass plate would be pretty hot by this time) and put a decently thick paper (8-10 layers of newspaper will do) on top of the glass plate. Now place the vessel with batter on top of this paper and close the microwave.

Do this in the night so you can leave the batter to ferment overnight.

Note: We keep the paper to avoid melting of vessel (if it is plastic) or to avoid thermal shock (if the vessel is stainless steel).

Gotchas

• Do not by mistake turn the microwave on with the batter in it as it would cook the batter rendering it completely useless.
• 1000 Watts, 10 minutes idle working is the maximum for a microwave. There may be potential risk of permanent damage to the microwave if this is not taken care of. Please read safety precautions of your microwave oven.

Idea!
This trick or tip can also be used to make curd if you have an active curd mixture.

Note: Some people prefer to keep the batter close to the hot water plate of room heating for it to ferment. The tip described here gives better results.

TIP: Substitute for fresh methi

When fresh methi (fenugreek leaves) is not available you can still make aloo methi by adding spinach instead of methi in the dish and then adding a little kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves) at the end.This way the spinach gives the green colour and the kasoori methi adds flavour so that it tastes almost like aloo methi made out of fresh methi. But please note that you should not put too much of kasoori methi as it will make the dish bitter. Put about 2 tbsps in aloo methi for 4 people.

Crunchy vegetable cutlets

How about some good old vegetable cutlets in a different style. Here I show you how to make great crunchy heart shaped vege cutlets.


Ingredients

• 6 medium potatoes (iets kruimig variety)
• 1 cup grated carrots
• 1 cup grated cabbage
  
• chopped green chillies to taste
  
• 2 slices bread
• bread crumbs (Paneermeel)
• Salt to taste
• Oil for frying

Preparation

[1] Boil potatoes. Let them cool and then mash them

[2] Mix grated carrots and cabbage with mashed potatoes

[3] Dip bread slices in water and squeeze the water out. Now mix this moistened bread in the above potato mixture

[4] Add salt and chillies to taste. the cutlet mixture is now ready. Tada!

[5] Now make flat tikkies of the cutlet mixture and use the heart shaped (See variations) cutter as shown below to cut a nice cutlet shape.



[4] Wrap the cutlet in bread crumbs and shallow fry them under low flame in a regular pan.

[5] The cutlets are now ready for consumption. Serve hot with sweet chilli sauce or tomato ketchup.



Variations

• Use various other cookie cutters to get different shapes. The cookie cutters can be easily purchased from HEMA or BLOKKER.

• Add more vegetables like cauliflower, peas, etc to the mixture

• Fill the cutlets with cheese!

Gotchas

If you use cheese, make sure that you consider the amount of salt you add to the mixture!. This is to compensate the salty flavor provided by the cheese.

Intro: Food types

To start with, an introduction to the types (in a way they affect the nature of human beings) of food, as stated in the Ayurveda!

a) Satvic Food: Easily digestible and helps bring balance to temperament. This food isn't spicy, but mild and moderate. Raw food is considered un-satvic (since not easily digestible). Satvic kind of food leads to spiritual development. It leads to 'satvic' temperament i.e. a pure and calm one!
Examples: Most Lentils, sprouts, natural oils and sweeteners in small quantity. Few spices like turmeric, coriander.

And yes intoxicants/stimulants like tea, alcohol etc. are completly opposite examples of Satvic food.

b) Rajasic food: This type of food is fresh and of high nutrient quality, but is heavy to digest. More oil is used for cooking this type of food as compared to satvic food. Food prepared from sour, salty, spicy ingredients increase Rajasic qualities . Rajasic qualities in humans are manifested as positive aggression and ambition, longing for power and prestige.
Examples: Non-vegetarian food like meat, fish eggs, chicken are considered rajasic.Hot spices like chilies, pepper,onions and garlic, are all included under this category.

A Rajasic personality loves to enjoy life, in a positive sense.

c) Tamasic food: Tamas means darkness, implying stagnation in a person and degeneration in health. A tamasic personality has intense mood swings, insecurities, unbalaced persona and a uncontrolled appetite. Such personality indulges in mindless eating and hence has a risk of various diseases.
Examples: Canned and preserved foods like jams- jellies-pickles ,pastries, pizzas, burgers, chocolates, soft drinks, stimulants like tea, coffee, tobacco, intoxicants like alcohol are example of tamasic food.

This type of food is not fresh, but is stale or processed artificially.

Keep reading for more.

TIP: Moisten dry bread

If bread is too dry to make good sandwiches, just hold the bread in the steam over a pan of boiling water for a few seconds.

TIP: Long living ginger-garlic paste

Add a tsp. of hot oil to homemade pastes of garlic, ginger or green chilli, along with salt to make it last longer and taste fresher.

TIP: Few Cooking Tips

1. Add a few drops of lemon a tsp of oil to rice before boiling to separate each grain

2. While boiling milk, always add a little water at the base of the vessel to avoid the milk from sticking at the bottom.

3. To peel garlic faster, keep it in the fridge and then put it in cold water and then peel it. The skin comes off easily.

4. Pakodas will turn out crisper if a little corn flour is added to the gram flour (besan) while preparing the batter.

5. If you are making patties or tikkis of potatoes, always make sure that the potatoes are boiled well in advance and cooled before you use them. It would be better if they can be refrigerated for a short time. This helps the starch in the potatoes to settle down and the tikkis will not be gooey.

Falafel

Falafel has long been a mainstay of many Middle Eastern cuisines, how long exactly will it always be is a guess, but it is fair to claim that this chickpea based, and highly addictive snack has been around in one form or another for at least a few millennia.

Food and Cooking, states that chickpeas have been under cultivation in the near East for 7000 years. That is a pretty generous amount of time to come up with a few solid recipes.

So what exactly is falafel?

Dried pulses or peas are soaked until softened, then pureed with herbs and other flavourings and shaped into small cakes or patties. These are then fried until they are crisp on the exterior, and meltingly herby inside. The shape will vary from country to country. In the main, chickpeas are the dried pulse of choice - but there are variations.

Interesting Facts about Falafel!!
The most conspicuous of these is Egypt, which traditionally uses dried broad beans (fava beans) in their falafel, as they do with many other dishes - indeed the national dish is a breakfast stew of broad beans called ful medames. You will also notice the absence of cooking the chickpeas - before they are fried as falafel that is. The chickpeas are simply soaked before they are chopped into pinhead-sized pieces in the food processor. Be wary of any recipe that asks you to boil the chickpeas first, as this will result in mushy-centered falafel, instead of a textured dish, full of integrity.
In Australia, falafel were introduced by Lebanese migrants during the 1970's, and many shocking versions could be had in late-night take-away shops. They were invariably served wrapped in ordinary pita bread, along with lashings of limp iceberg lettuce, underripe tomatoes and thick wedges of raw onion. Sauce - tomato or barbeque?

It is sad that these travesties ever occurred, because a good falafel roll is not all that hard to achieve. Use good pita bread, fill it with ripe tomatoes, crisp lettuce, picked herbs, homemade hummus and freshly cooked falafel, and you have a gastronomic street-food snack that is nigh on impossible to beat in the flavour stakes. Alternatively, serve them alone as snacks, with a sauce to dip into, such as hummus, or thick yoghurt mixed with garlic, sea salt and tahini.

I used to avoid making falafel at home, being under the mistaken impression that they were difficult, messy and arcane. Don't let yourself be put off for the same reasons. The simple fact is - these sensationally tasty snacks are the essence of simplicity to make, and as a bonus - they will almost certainly taste better than anything that you can buy.

TIP: Make softer puris

Add a little milk to the dough for softer puris.

TIP: Revive a salty gravy

If your gravy becomes too salty, make a few small balls of atta (chappati dough) and put them in the gravy. Give 2-3 boils. Let them remain for some time in the curry. Before serving remove these balls which have absorbed the extra salt.

Quick Pasta Salad

This is a bachelor survival dish.

How we all wish we had a magic wand and could create a tasty dish in a minute. Well, here is one recipe which takes just 10 min to prepare and can be made by one and all (even a cooking novice like me can prepare this). And best is that it appeals to the Indian palate very well.




Ingredients:

• Pasta (uncooked bows or spirals or penne pasta) - 2 cups


• Onion -1 chopped


• Garlic -4 flakes chopped


• Pickled olives(optional)


• Tomato puree -1/2 cup


• Tomato ketchup -3 tbsp


• Salt and pepper (according to taste)


• Oil –Olive oil preferably


• Oregano-1 tsp

Preparation:

1. Boil the pasta with salt and water, till it becomes soft (you can add a little oil to prevent the pasta from sticking)


2. Pour it through a strainer and leave it there for all water to drain out


3. Now saute the chopped onions in a little olive oil (do not overcook)


4. Add chopped garlic and fry for 30 secs


5. Add the tomato puree, salt and pepper. Cook for a min.


6. Add the pasta and then the tomato ketchup. Stir for a min.


7. Turn off the burner and leave for a few minutes


8. Sprinkle oregano and add pickled olives and serve hot
   

Add-ons:

The pasta tastes great with garlic bread. To prepare at home, heat some butter in a pan and add crushed fresh garlic to it (fresh coriander or oregano also tastes great). Spread over a piece of bread and bake it in an oven for a few mins or toast for a minute. Serve it hot with the fresh pasta.

Gotchas:
The pasta should be had as soon as it is prepared, else it tends to turn a little dry.

Cheese Rolls

A snack loved by children. Here is a quick and easy snack, made of ingredients easily available at home. A snack ideal for children birthday parties.





















Ingredients:

• Cooked Rice -2 cups


• Boiled Potato -6 medium sized


• Grated Cheese -1 cup


• Cornflour- 2 tablespoon


• Salt and pepper (according to taste)


• Oil for deep frying


• Bread crumbs

Preparation:

1. Mash the boiled potatoes, boiled rice and grated cheese well


2. Mix cornflour, salt and pepper to the mixture


3. Make rolls or balls out of the mixture


4. Roll them in bread crumb


5. Leave them in fridge for 30 mins so that the bread crumbs stick well


6. Deep Fry and serve along with ketchup or home made chutney

Variation:

You can add finely chopped fresh mint leaves to the mixture to enhance flavour

Desi Oliebollen

So here is the recipe. I would like to classify this recipe of mine as fusion food because it involves ingredients of a local dish and preparation of a desi snack called meethe pakode.

Ingredients

500 gms Oliebollen flour (The one which says - Only water to be added)
100 gms fine crystal or powdered sugar
30 gms saunf (aniseed, aka fennel seeds)
50 gms raisins (optional)
150 ml water (See gotchas)
Oil for frying

Preparation

1. Put all ingredients into a bowl. Leave atleast 50-100 gms flour aside for disaster recovery :)

2. Put water and mix well so that there are no lumps. Leave mixture for 10 minutes (It will ferment and will become sticky and thin). If it feels very thin add some more flour to it and mix to bring it to a proper consistency.

3. Once the oil is at frying temperature, drop in the pakodes using an ice-cream scoop.

If you do not have an ice-cream scoop, two spoons can be used as the next best option.

4. Let the meethe pakode fry for 6 -7 minutes or until Golden brown and then remove on an absorbant paper.

5. Enjoy Desi Oliebollen.

Gotchas (What can go wrong)

• Do not add too much water initially as the mixture ferments after some time.
• If the mixture is to thin, it will not cook well.
• Make sure the balls or pakodes are OK (2 bites) sized. If it is too big it will not cook fromm inside.
• The instructions on the flour packet said, fry at 190 deg Centigrade. If you use the regular kadhai, make sure the flame is low or else the pakodas will burn.
• Keep on turning the pakodas frequently or else if fried more on side it would be difficult to turn them the other side because the dough settles on the fried side making it heavier. This results in a pakoda fried on one side and not so well fried on the other.
• There are some variations of Oliebollen flour available in the super market which require eggs to be added to the mixture. Avoid those.
  

Variations

• Add Kajoo to the mixture
• Add some orange food color to the dough
• Sprinkle powdered sugar on top of desi oliebollen

Notes
One can store the desi oliebollen at room temperature in a dabba and they can be even had after a week. Since they last long, you can make lots of them for the entire week.

Cheezy Bites

A "Fast to Cook and Good to Eat" Evening Snack

Ingredients
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 packet of 'Haust' snackcups oval/round shaped
Diced pickled cucumbers
Black pepper
Sweet chili sauce.


Haust Snack Cups can be purchased from Albert Heijn or any super market. The Snack Cups can be oval as well as round shaped.

Preparation

1. Arrange the cups nicely on a plate.


2. Take the snack cups and fill it with pickled cucumbers. Take care to drain out the water from the cucumbers .


3. To it add black pepper powder, then the grated cheddar cheese.


4. Cheezy Bites is now ready to be served with a topping of sweet chili sauce.

5. The Final Product.

Variations
You can also make this snack using corn kernels (tinned corns), onions with chat masala, and salsa sauce.

Gotchas!!!!

Note that there is only flip side of the snack and that is .... u have to consume it real fast b'coz the cups start becoming soggy due to the pickled cucumber and thus loses the crunchiness. Happy cooking!!

Starters all the way

Its December 8^th and we all met today evening to show our skills in preparing a starter. Sarang, Asheesh & Tripti, Fakhruddin, & Dhwani were excused. Rest of the group can be seen in the picture below:


The following starters were prepared by the group members:

• Ritu - Crispy Moong Dal Vadas
• Aditya - Quick Pasta salad
• Prakash - Desi Oliebollen
• Vandana - Crunchy vegetable cutlets
• Pooja - Cheese rolls
• Vahbiz - Cheezy Bites
• Ashwini - Wada Pav

The starters were very much appreciated by the TCS office staff who happened to be there. Overall this second meeting added food in the food club.

Try out the recipes (Some yet to be posted) posted by the chefs of the starters they had prepared.

Oliebollen - Indian Style

OK ... its Sinterklass time and we have all those good Dutch things to buy and eat. One of the things that is a hit during these winter months is Oliebollen (lit. Oil balls). I decided to make those sometime at home. On consulting one of the Dutchmen, I was informed that Oliebollen mix is readily available in supermarkets and everybody in Holland uses those. Great I said.

Bought a packet of the mixture which said that only water needs to be added. Fried the first olie bol ... tasted it ... something was not right. The chef inside me told that the mixture consistency was not OK (It was too thin). At the same time the taste reminded me of meethe pakode that my mom used to make during some festival time at home.

I was also looking for a starter to be made for our meeting tomorrow. I decided to make meethe pakode using the Oliebollen mixture that is readily available. I called this dish Desi Oliebollen. Check out the its recipe.

This (see photo) mixture was purchased from Albert Heijn and costed a mere € 1.49. The packet contained 1 kg of Oliebollen flour.

TIP: Get friendly with onions

Did you know that not all onions make you cry when you cut them! This is because they contain varying amounts of the crying substance in them. The crying sbstance is Sulphur based.


What happens when we cut an onion is that Sulphur dioxide (SO₂) is released which reaches our eyes. This causes irritation and the eye reacts by producing tears. Tears (H₂O) combine with SO₂ to produce Sulphurous Acid (H₂SO₃) which is still irritating.

If one wishes to avoid the irritaton one can wash away this with some cold water. This is the quickest way to avoid the burning.

To avoid crying altogether you have to think of a topping SO₂ reaching your eyes. Think of anything to achieve this:

• Wear goggles
• Keep your eyes away from the onion
• Have something like bread in your mouth that can absorb the SO₂
• Cut the onion under running water
• Chill or partially cook the onion before cutting
• etc.

I would recommend to cry and quickly wash away the Sulphurous Acid. Its good for your eyes anyway. Onions that make you cry are BTW more tastier!

This SO₂ and other sulphur based compounds are also responsible for the strong smell of onion.