Carrot-Coconut Curry

Continuing with the sweet & tangy theme, I made Carrot & Coconut curry. Both carrot and coconut are naturally sweet, so I didn’t add any other sweetener to this dish. I made it little tangy by adding lemon juice.

Ingredients:
Carrots – 4 medium, finely chopped
Onion – 1 large, finely chopped
Grated Coconut (Fresh or dry) – ½ cup
Green chilies – 2
Red chili powder – ½ tsp
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 4-6

Method:

• Heat 1tbsp oil in a pan, add urad dal, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves and when the seeds splutter add onions and fry for about 7-10 minutes or until slightly caramelized, but not burnt.
  
• Meanwhile microwave carrots with water for about 6-8 minutes until they are just tender.
• Add carrots to onions and sauté on medium high flame for 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in grated coconut, lemon juice, chili powder and salt.
  
• Mix well and cook for another 5 minutes. Serve with rice or chapattis.

Cooking Around Flavors - Sweet & Tangy

I was watching Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals the other day and she was making a menu around smoky flavors. She used various ingredients like cumin, chipotle in adobo, smoked Gouda cheese etc to get the smoky taste in all the dishes. That made me thinking about Indian menus around one particular flavor.

I don’t usually like having the same flavor in all the dishes. I like to have complimentary flavors like hot & spicy with mild & slightly sweet. Well for this menu, I wanted to have the same flavor, sweet and tangy, in all the dishes.

I made Pearl Onion pulusu and Carrot & Coconut curry with white rice.

Potato fry, Carrot-Coconut curry, Onion Pulusu with Rice

Pearl Onion Pulusu (Chinna Ullipaya Pulusu)

Ingredients:
Pearl Onions – 12, peeled and cut in half
Tomatoes – 2 ripe, chopped
Green chilies – 4
Tamarind paste – 2 tbsp
Sambar powder – 1 ½ tsp
Jaggery – 3 tbsp
Rice flour – 1 tbsp, mixed with water
Turmeric – ½ tsp

For Tempering:
Urad dal – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Dry red chilies – 2
Curry leaves – 6-8
Asafoetida, hing – pinch

Method:

• Heat 1 tbsp oil in a saucepan, add the ingredients for tempering one after another in the same order. When the seeds splutter, add the onions and sauté on medium heat till they turn light golden.
  
• Add the tomatoes, cover and cook till they get mushy. Add tamarind paste, 2 cups water and bring the mixture to a boil.
  
• Stir in sambar powder, jaggery and simmer for 5 minutes.
  
• Add the rice flour mixture, cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in chopped coriander leaves.

This sweet and sour dish goes well with rice and plain dal (utti pappu).

Banana Cake

I wanted to bake a Banana cake and I found this recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook “Baking: From my Kitchen to Yours”. This cake definitely doesn’t fulfill any of my healthy eating resolution requirements, but then I thought to myself, anything in moderation is OK. So I promised myself only 1 piece a day (forgot all about the promise when the cake came out of the oven and my husband and I gobbled down the small corner pieces, mushy middle piece, crumbs et al. I had to hide the remaining cake in the refrigerator out of sight). It’s not dense, but it’s not feather light either. The cake is just right that you keep going back to it.

The other good thing about this cake is that the author makes the recipe very flexible and offers a number of options if you don’t have any of the ingredients on hand.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour – 2 2/3 cups
Baking Soda – 1 1/4 tsp
Fresh Nutmeg – ½ tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Light Brown sugar – 1 cup (or substitute with sugar)
Sugar – ¾ cup
Banana – 4 very ripe, mashed (1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups)
Eggs – 2 (at room temperature)
Butter – 12 tbsp (1½ sticks, at room temperature)
Vanilla extract – 1 1/2 tsp
Milk – 1/2 cup (substitute with sour cream, coconut milk or plain yogurt)

Grated coconut - 1 cup (substitute with dried cherries, raisins or half coconut, half cherries/raisins)

Method:

• Center the rack in the oven and preheat oven to 350ºF. Butter 2 9”x2” round cake pans, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Place the pans on a baking sheet.
• Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg together.
• Beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugars and beat at medium speed for a couple of minutes, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, followed by the vanilla and rum. The batter will have a beautiful satiny consistency.
• Now lower the speed and add the bananas-the batter will curdle at this stage-but will come together as the dry ingredients are added.
  
• Still on lower speed, add the dry and liquid ingredients alternately, adding the flour mixture in 3 portions and the coconut milk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients).
• Mix just until everything is incorporated. Switching to a rubber spatula, gently stir in the coconut. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 pans.
• Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the cakes are a deep golden brown. They should pull away from the sides of the pans and a thin knife inserted into their centers will come out clean.

• Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and cool for 5 minutes, then unmold and invert onto another rack to cool to room temperature right side up.

To serve the cake in a fancy way, top the cake with ice cream (coconut, chocolate, vanilla and coffee flavors work great) and drizzle some chocolate syrup or ganache. What’s not to love about delicious cake, ice cream, chocolate syrup and cherry…..
This is my entry to Meeta’s Monthly mingle-Sweet Love.

Tortilla and Tomato Soup

This month's theme for Weekend Cookbook Challenge (WCC) is to cook a recipe from our newly acquired cookbook. This recipe is by Didi Emmons from February edition of Vegetarian Time magazine.

Ingredients:
Onion - 1 large, chopped fine
Garlic - 2 cloves, minced
Chopped fire-roasted tomatoes - 1 28 oz. can
Corn Tortillas - 2 6-inch, cut into quarters
Cilantro - 3 tbsp, chopped
Hot sauce - 1 tsp, optional
Fresh Goat Cheese - 3 tbsp
Plain low-fat yogurt - 2 tbsp

Method:

• Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in large pot over medium heat. Add onions and saute 7 minutes, or until soft, stirring occasionally. Add garlic, and saute 1 minute more.
• Add tomatoes, 2 cups water and tortillas. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium low. Cover, and simmer 15 minutes, or until tortillas have broken down into tiny pieces.
• Stir in cilantro and hot sauce, if using, and season with salt and pepper.
• Combine goat cheese and yogurt in small bowls. Ladle soup into bowls, then swirl goat cheese mixture into each serving.