Bisibela bath

Bisibela bath(made by my mom) with potato fry - my second favorite dish.

My mom is a specialist in this dish, and all of my friends and family who have tasted hers, say that hers is unbeatable. So, here I am, to prove that I can make it too, as tasty as hers and assure you that its not a big deal.

Those were the days when I thought making bisibela bath was an ordeal, when I got the paste that they sell in stores, which you have to mix with cooked rice, dhal and vegetables. I wasn't quite happy with the taste. Thats when I read some recipes and tried doing it, and came out exactly like what my mom makes, and took the same time it took with the ready-made paste.

This is how I make it....

(Ingredients highlighted in blue)

Rice, toor dhal in the ratio 1:1/2 - Rice and dhal can either be cooked separately or mixed together. I have tried both, and both works. I prefer cooking them together, as the final mixing becomes easier. Cook it in such a way that its neither too flaky(like briyani) nor over-cooked.

Tamarind(lemon sized) - Extract it using water.

Roast and grind the following - In 1tsp of oil, roast 2-3Tbsp corriander seeds, 5-6 red chilis, 1Tbsp channa dhal, 1Tbsp Urad dhal, 1/2tsp fenugreek, cinnamon(1 inch piece), 3-6 cloves and grind these with a little coconut. You can also avoid the coconut if you prefer to, it doesn't hamper the taste.

Small onions(20 approx) - Peel them and fry them in 1tsp of oil till golden brown.

Vegetables - Bell-peppers, beans, double-beans, carrots, peas, potato, cauliflower, zucchini, ash gourd and anything else that you want.

I generally take a pressure pan or pressure cooker bottom depending upon the quantity. Take the tamarind extract, add the ground paste and salt and when it starts boiling, add the cut vegetables in order depending upon the time it takes for each one to cook. For example, I would start with potato, followed by cauliflower, beans, carrot, then bell-pepper, zucchini, peas and onions will come in the end. Cook covered, making sure they are not over-cooked.

Once cooked, add dhal in case you cooked it separately, if not, add the cooked rice-dhal slowly and mix well. Mixing some ghee with the rice enhances the taste, so if you can afford, please do. If you can't, never mind, the dish is still going to taste real good. Garnish with cilantro and cashew-nuts roasted in ghee. Serve with potato fry, raita, papad or chips.

Tips:

1. Make sure the tamarind extract in which you boil the vegetables is not too watery and that the rice isn't over-cooked. I once ended up doing it and it screwed the entire dish.

2. Cinnamon, cloves and small onions are the major taste giving ingredients, the rest of the vegetables you can use whatever is available.

Happy eating :)

Vegetable Biryani

Biryani is my most-favoritest(sorry for my inability to use a better word) dish. You give it to me anytime and I would be more than ready to eat - whether I am hungry or whether its night or day.

Mom used to make yummy biryani. It was a delicacy back then, a dish made rarely and only during the weekends. She made it in large quantities and I would feast on it the whole day. Each time I thought my tummy had a little space, I would munch in a bowl full. Recently, when my cousin visited, she made delicious briyani for lunch, I ate until my stomach couldn't hold even one extra spoon.

At restaurants too, my first choice would be biryani. A lot of people wonder how I would never get bored of eating the same dish, but I choose to eat it. I used to be in night shifts at work sometimes, when there was one cafeteria that would be open at that time of the day, to cater to the food needs of people working at nights. They would most often serve yummy hot biryani at 12am sharp, and I would be there well ahead. The guy who sells the food tokens would give me an ugly look, but who cares, as long as I get biryani. There was yet another cafeteria that served good egg biryani and my last day at work, I made sure I ate it one last time before I quit. I have even had the biryani they sell in streets. As far as biryani in India is concerned, it has never been bad for me.

US has given me some of the worst biryani experiences. There are only a couple of restaurants where they served average biryani, the best of which was in a restaurant called "Woodlands" in Chatsworth near LA. The house in which I stayed was right opposite to the restaurant, I used to frequent there so much, that the people who served there, no more gave me the menu card, they just confirmed if I was ordering biryani. We were once damn hungry during lunch time, and spotted an Indian restaurant, so ordered biryani. All they did was mix a couple of curries they had for their buffet and called it biryani. A few other restaurants also did the same crap to me. Despite this, I still used to order biryani, hoping that atleast one restaurant would make it eatable, but in vain, and I stopped eating biryani outside.

This is when I was desperate and wanted to make it at home. Tried a few recipes, but I found them complicated and not worth the time spent. I bought "Priya" briyani powder, followed the instructions on it, and ended up with a considerably good one. My cousin mailed me "Parampara" biryani paste from New Jersey(now you know how desperate I was) and she gave me instructions of making it. I tried it and it came out very well. So, with the same steps, I tried doing it with the same "Priya" biryani powder, and I'm glad that I got exactly what I wanted.

Its so easy to make(takes exactly 30mins), really tasty and you don't have to worry about an elaborate side-dish - onion raita, chips, applam is more than enough.

Recipe - I owe it to my cousin :)

Tips:

1. Cook basmati rice in such a way that they don't stick to each other. Use minimum amount of water. An electric rice cooker would be ideal. I don't have one, so I cook it in my pressure cooker. I don't put the weight. Once steam comes out, I reduce the flame to medium, cover it with a cup. 15minutes and rice it done exactly the way I want it.

2. Mint is the most important taste giving ingredient. I have prepared it with and without it - trust me, mint does the magic.

Ingredients:

Vegetables, onions, mint, briyani powder, curd, chilli powder, garam masala, oil, ghee, salt

Method:

I start out by cooking the rice first, so that, by the time the rice is ready, I can chop all the vegetables. Take 3 Tbsp of briyani powder, make a paste by mixing the curd with it and keep it aside. Now chop the vegetables. The vegetables I usually use are potato, cauliflower, beans, carrot,bell pepper, peas, broccoli, etc. and mushrooms. In a pan, take 2tsp of oil and one tsp of ghee and once it is hot, fry the mint and onions and then add the vegetables. Then add the briyani paste, a little chilli powder, garam masala powder, salt for the vegetables, mix well and cook covered. Make sure you don't overcook them. Once cooked, add the cooked rice to it, enough salt for the rice and mix well. Serve hot with onion raita.

This is the easiest and the tastiest dish I have ever made. I prefer to use very less oil, which makes the dish look a little dry, but it doesn't matter to me, as the taste it still good and I anyways have it with the raita and above all, its healthy.

I love to have a lot of vegetables in it, so I use more, but its upto you. And as far as the quantities of the briyani, chili and garam masala powders go, when you make it once, you'll know how it tastes, depending upon which you can use them to suit to your tastes. It doesn't make sense for me to tell the exact right amount here as tastes differ.

Happy eating :)

Happy birthday Krishna!

Patram puspam phalam thoyam

yo me bhaktya prayacchati

Tad aham bhakty-upahrtam

asnami prayatatmanah

- Bhagavad Gita 9:26

Meaning - Whosoever offers Me with love a leaf, a flower, a fruit or even water, I appear in person before that selfless devotee of sinless mind, and delightfully partake of that article offered by him with love.

This verse is close to my heart. It teaches us two important qualities - humility and devotion(love). How you offer something is the only thing that matters and not what you offer. You may offer just water, but the pure love with which you offer the same is what counts. You may offer the most expensive thing on the face of the Earth, but if you think its the material value of the offering that counts, thats not true. Irrespective of the material worth of the offering, offer it with all the humility and the love.

Makes total sense. When somebody gives me a gift, I don't really care of how much it costs or what gift it is. The fact that the person was so thoughtful enough, makes me immensely happy. How annoying would it be if someone gives you an exorbitant gift, just for the sake of showing off to his friends what he is capable of?

Anyways, Krishna Jayanthi preparations for me, started keeping this in mind. I made vella seedai and uppu seedai, the 2 important dishes that are usually made a couple of days before and by the look and feel of it, I thought it came out very well. I was even planning to post the recipe, but unfortunately it was not as I had thought it would be. Who cares man? Its the love that matters :)

Last night I took up this task of drawing "ezha kolam", which of-course I am very bad at. But considering that fact that I didn't have a deadline, I searched up on the internet and ended by drawing considerably good kolams. This is the kolam blog that I referred to. I liked it, beacuse it had the method step-by-step. And I would have looked funny to anyone who saw me in action, as I had my laptop in front of me, and was copying from it.

The actual pooja was today and I planned to make "Mysore Pak" this morning and it was the first time I was into making this. And surprisingly it came out very well. It was neither too hard nor too soft. It was in the right consistency and taste.

Recipe in brief:

Ingredients - besan flour - 1 cup, sugar - 2 cups, ghee - 1 cup, Water - 1/2 cup (This was the exact quantities I used, from some website online)

Heated the water in a heavy-bottomed vessel and added all the sugar to it. After the sugar dissolved and reached the string-consistency, added the flour to it little by little, and kept stirring simultaneously, so that there were no lumps were formed. I wasn't able to handle it by myself, so had an assistant, who did the stirring for me. After it was mixed well, added the ghee, mixed it well again, and once it all fully mixed, poured the mixture in a greased plate and sliced it after a couple of minutes.

(Don't have a picture of it after having sliced it, this was taken before. Sorry about that)

In-spite of all these dishes, lots of fruits and a delicious meal, Krishna's all-time-favorite Aval and butter were the most important ones. The pooja went on really well and we offered everything to Him with utmost love and humility.

I take this occasion to thank my wonderful friends who gifted the Krishna idol and the Radhe-Krishna picture for my wedding. This is a treasure for me, guys :)

Let Krishna shower his choicest blessings on us, and let us offer all the love that we have to him :)

What is cooking for me

I don't call myself a person who is very interested in cooking, rather a person who cooks out of necessity, because, necessity is the mother of invention ;)

I started cooking 6 years ago. I learnt a little bit of cooking from my dad when I started, and the rest from cook books, internet and of-course, from a lot of people like aunts, cousins, friends, etc. The most pitiful part is that I never learnt an inch of cooking from mom(who was a great cook), because I never thought I would ever have to cook in all my life. When mom used to say "A woman has to end up having to cook, at some point of time or the other", I strongly refuted saying, I would have a full-time paid cook at home when I get married. Those were the good times :)

Back then, somehow, I was into this routine menu. I restricted myself to cooking dishes that I was familiar with and hardly tried out anything new. It was mostly rice, dhal, vegetable, rasam or sambhar. This was also because we had the best restaurants in Chennai, that if I had a craving for a certain food, its easy to go out and eat, rather than cook at home :)

I still remember the first time I made roti. I asked my aunt over phone and started making the dough. As I started mixing the flour and water, at one point I thought there was more water and added little flour, now I thought there was not enough water, and this happened for a while, until I felt the dough was too sticky and I couldn't handle it. Totally annoyed, I called my aunt in hope of asking her a remedy. She had a hearty laugh, after which she came home from work, made the dough and made the rotis for me as well. What a shame! I didn't even know how to make dosa, leave alone making the batter. This was until 3 years back. But I should admit I did start improving. Last month I made 40 rotis with ease, when I invited people for dinner :)

The past year was glorious for me in terms of cooking. I was bored of cooking the same kind of stuff and coincidently the person who was dependent on my cooking preferred variety. I love eating outside often, but having dined at almost all the places that I liked to, some sort of a boredom crept up, with the same same menu that I found in the restaurants. And my favorite dishes here(in the US), lacked the authentic taste. These are some of the factors that forced me to try new stuff, not because someone was waiting on me, but because, I have a huge craving for good food :)

I used to cook for my dad who had restrictions in oil consumption, and ended up cooking with bare minimum oil. Till date I am in the same habit. Of-course this sure does no compromise in the taste. I have had people call me names because of this.

I am at the top in the list of the "laziest people on the face of this Earth" and my cooking sure reflects this. I won't feel like cooking until I'm hungry and once I'm hungry, I have to finish cooking before my hunger can reach the peak :)

So, for all the lazy bums out there, here I go.... planning to document anything interesting that I cook/have cooked, with all the funny tales associated with the process and of-course the tips that I get/got from a lot people.

Hope I enjoy doing this and you enjoy reading too.

Happy cooking.... no.... errrrr..... Happy eating :))))))))))

India vs US

No, I'm not talking about a cricket match(When did America gather the guts to play cricket against India!!!)...

I am just missing home, specially more on the eve of an Indo-Pak World Cup semifinal, when people out there are having so much fun with all the hype on tv, wierd/funny SMSes and every person talking of nothing else but cricket.

Not that US is a bad place to live in, it is, in fact a very good place to be in, but just that I feel more secure at home. Reason? Why should I even have a reason to feel secure whilst at home!

Infact people here are very helpful and warm, but still my heart wishes that I were home, with my family and friends. Those after-office conversations at home, late night phone calls, visiting relatives, hanging out with friends, attending weddings, most importantly, being there when they really need you!

Is the weather here bad? Not at all, very pleasant in fact, but I miss those sunny days and the craving for ice-creams, tender coconut water, sodas, juices, etc!

Is life very hectic here? No way, I have all the time on earth, but I liked it better when I thought I didn't have enough time for myself, and I didn't have to research on the purpose of life either :)

Am I finding it tough to manage the house? Not a chance. Its hardly dirty, so less cleaning, less time to cook, drying clothes and dishwashing is automated as well, yet, I miss laying traps to catch the mouse, getting rid of ants, hunting cockroaches and lizards.

Don't I get good food here? Very good food, infact. Mexican, Itallian, Thai and what not? But I still haven't spotted a place where I can get real good veg biryani, which I can get at every other road in Chennai. More than missing my family and friends, I miss eating at all the restaurants. For a fact, McD at India is tastier, catering more to our kinda tastes. There are also the pizzahuts, dominos, subways, starbucks, to name a few. What more is needed? And who would want to miss all the festival and wedding feasts?

Are there no lakes/beaches? Plently of them, but the visit is never complete without the "molaga bajji" .

All English movies release first in the US(lots of them release in India simultaneously), but even before I catch up with them here, my friends in India do.

Known fact is that all new technologies are available in the US markets first. I read reviews, talk to people who have used it, look up for deals and finally decide on buying a new product. When I announce my decision to my friends in India, I find that two of them are already using it and advise me if its worth buying it or not.

Gone are the days when my aunt used to live in Canada and we waited every summer, for her India visit, curious to know what "foreign goods" she's got for us. When I had to visit India last year, I called a few people to ask if they needed something from the States, and they laughed out saying there's nothing that the Indian markets don't have, that I can get from America.

I feel I'm living a life without purpose(Not that I achieved something great while in India, but ateast had the feeling :)

Mother India, I beseech that thou take me into thine arms soon!

.....And not forgetting to give all the wishes to Team India,

GO INDIA GO!!!