curry for cold

Being a part of a medically-inclined family has its benefits and then it has its massive losses. You never see a common cold as common anymore. You see it as a pest that will torture you for for a week no matter what you do. So every single homely-remedy is a waste for your brain, you know it won't go away for that one week. You know you have to hydrate and keep up your fluid levels and you have to take plenty of rest. And you also know that spicy food ain't so good for those achey throat muscles. Poor throat muscles though, because I never heed this last bit of good old advice.

More importantly, after two days of "restful non-cooking", I am craving some real good curry. So here goes. I am experimenting today with my trusted old chicken, only adding rustic and welcoming flavors to keep the spirits high.

I start by adding whole red chillies to a tablespoon of oil heating up in a large open wok. I think this sort of large open vessel affords me a good surface area, so I don't have to add too much water to cook the chicken and it gets that rustic "bhuna" taste. next i add in some mustard seeds and a spoonful of cumin seeds and as soon as the sputtering catches my attention, in goes one medium sized finely chopped onion. salt makes it way in the wok to sweat out the onions and so do some slit green chilies and curry leaves.

as soon as the onions turn yellow, i proceed to add a cup of shredded coconut, turmeric, some ginger-garlic paste and some fresh coriander powder. now this is going to a very simple plate, with everyday simple ingredients. so i want every single thing to stand out and provide its own special flavor. so i keep the flame on a low-medium, ensuring that the flavors get time to blend and specially so that the coconut does not burn or dry out.

next goes in the chicken and some chili powder, if you still haven't had enough of heat for your taste. now stir the mixture and cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes and you will start to see the chicken changing color. as soon as you have enough browning, add a third of cup of yogurt, a little splash of water and put on the lid. this will ensure that the chicken is cooked through to the inside, but still has the taste of a laboriously cooked meal. check for salt, sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper right on top and serve garnished with chopped coriander.

I love to plate my dinners elaborately. But this one, shall remain rustic. Not for long I fear, it will be wolfed down as quickly as it got cooked.

chop chop your way to weight loss!

Sigh! This is so hard - trying to lose weight post baby is the hardest thing I've ever had to do...well, apart from having the baby! The fatigue is unbelievable, specially since I've chosen to have a super long commute to my dream job (yeah yeah, it is still my dream job!)

I remember when I was in 10th grade and everyone else was so svelt and cool....I was the fat kid. Very round...very very!! I started my first aerobics class and loved it so much that 3 months down the line I was super hot.

Then there was the year before I got married. Atul was to come and see me soon and I knew how much he loved working out....so I jogged. religiously. every morning. And ran up and down the stairs. I also came back home from work and worked out while watching tv -- all this was wonderful then and I was so confident I'll be able to do this any number of times in my life.

The post marriage weight was lost when I re-discovered jogging and unleashed the forces of portion control. But now...now, I'm 30. Yes, an ugly truth is dawning upon me. Things aren't going to be easy this time around. I have surrouded myself with work, I have a terribly long commute and then there's Aarav. Everything makes me realise that I have to really watch what I eat - like most of you out there....my days are spent researching what I am putting into myself. Thankfully I have realised that I don't need to add to this misery by eating things that I will not (probably) be able to burn off. But every bite seems to turn me into an imaginary balloon. And so, as I start my workout routine again tomorrow morning, I turned tonight's meal into something enjoyable, yet...HEALTHY!
A note here on how much I love potatoes. I know I can't have them as much as I would love to, but here's what I did to turn my potato into an active protein.
I love bengali cooking and my fav would be the chops. Fish chops and veggie chops alike!! Chops, the bong way, are basically a fried variety of patties. You add the boiled potatoes to fish or veggies and then you fry! I soooo wanted some chops tonight, but I also sooo wanted to eat healthy. So I used only one fried potato and the rest of my batter was soy :)

Patel cash & carry, carries my favorite soy nuggets for a tiny bit of cash. So I boil them, add in the ONE boiled potato - come on, I had to fool my mind, right? add in some ginger, garlic, green chillies and coriander and toss in a whole packet of maggi seasoning (I AM CRAZY about this flavor packet btw!)

Once my mix is ready, I coat the little patties in sooji (wayyyy healthier than bread crumbs)...note: very very little sooji and shallow fry them in 1/10th of the oil I would have used to deep fry. Crisp, yummy, and happy looking veggie chops are now awaiting me in my plate. Alongside a big bowl of daal....with a small 1/4 cup serving of white rice. And that's the way we'll roll.

Target for 16th April: 6 lbs loss. Days to go: 12, on the stake: unwanted fat and the loss of an hour of sleep every morning.

Let's hope I write back with healthier recipes, from a lighter body!!

Slow, unsteady, but successful!

this has been a month of being ill - first aarav, then me, then aarav and now me again. thankfully, we packed off all our bottles of cough syrups and painkillers and aspirins way before this month's big cake was due.

my colleague's son (a brilliant, handsome 8th grade musical talent) was playing the lead in his high school's recreation of the fiddler on the roof ..... she sought me out to do the cake for the cast & crew and my brain cells immediately stopped all publishing work. yes - that's how distracted i get when i have a new assignment on hand. i researched photographs, jewish toys, nativity pictures and various other things to finally be able to create my own vision for this challenging task.

the cake was a basic chocolate, with whipped cream and fresh strawberry filling.

the toppers were all clay (except the cottage sitting atop the cake - that was more cake, :) )

the day of baking, was pure pleasure. of course my palms still hurt from rolling out and softening all that clay, but i'm in sculpting heaven :)

thanks Karen.....it was an absolute pleasure being able to get into this "fiddler" headspace for the month. i owe you one!

...till you turn it to gold!

isn't that what life is all about - opportunities and options that you can turn back to look at with pride? another such chance is ready to make my March brilliantly creative. a new cake order has been booked for the end of this month and this time, there is less baking and more clay modeling involved. i am palpitating already - scared to put myself out there another time.

i trust myself, that is not the issue. the issue is nerves. i have to steady myself and make a plan. the sketch is ready - ambitious but aptly so. i already have ideas for the characters that i need to build on and the clay is waiting, waiting for me to turn it into gold.

:)

delusional me!

as if my life this year isn't crammed up with enough things to do, my wandering mind led me to the daring baker's challenge and i had a sudden inspiration - since i love baking so much, let me try to cross one baking hurdle every month. good thought? well, not so much. the last time i tried, i packed a good 40 lbs on my petite frame and the result is 5 years later, i'm still shedding, post my wedding.

so here goes. in addition to one baking challenge every month, i will overcome one fitness/ health obstacle each month as well. hopefully this will keep me right.

Baking Challenge for March:

Piping in Chocolate

the french and their foo-foo ways of dressing up their food has always attracted me. not only am i a big fan of any good piping project (never having been patient enough to be able to make my piping look good), i love la technique du cornet - the art of dressing up a dinner plate with chocolate swirls/ floral patterns/ anything foo-foo-ishly awesome. so here goes. while i don't want to waste good money on practicing my piping skills, i can definitely get my hands on some mehendi cones and parchment paper to get the job done. once i feel that my hands are steady with the cone, i will move to a piping bag.

By the end of March, I should have posted a picture of a beautifully decorated dinner plate for all to see. Nice, eh?


Health/ Fitness Challenge for March:

if Atul is reading this (note, his is the only name that has a capital letter adorning it - R.E.S.P.E.C.T!) he will probably be sighing with the thought of...didn't you just buy a fitness dvd yesterday? and am i not going to be miserably upset with you for buying that aerobic step tonight (haha, more to come mon cher) and now what are you going to do with the incline trainer i bought you in november?

well, to answer it all..while i experiment with what goes well in shedding this blob of slob back to a lean human, this month's fitness challenge is to make my way up to 5000 vertical feet on my incline trainer - AT LEAST ONCE in march.

So far, on my most enthusiastic journeys on the trainer, i have managed 2000 vert. ft in one go - 700 calories shot in one shot. phew! mais no, mes enfants, i have to go further than that. this time, it shall be a 5k challenge!!

So watch out for updates and henna colored toddler pictures. this is going to be so much...aggravation. Yahoo!

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one for the state!

often times i have marvelled on how i have never been able to understand politics. power corrupts, that i have seen. but power makes one an idiot? and then, missing all the delicious flavors that were wafting from this silly item in the news, i googled for the images of a vada-pav. instantly, i was reminded of the hundereds who flock to the veggie burger that rules the hearts of mumbai, at a shocking 22 cents a piece and i suddenly understood why everyone would want to label this burger as their own.
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_by-shiv-it-s-now-beedi-vs-vada-pav_1164651

so when do we make vada pav chez nous? hmmm let me think. when we celebrate, when we can't think of anything better to eat, when our taste buds are ready for a super nova explosion and even on valentines day! so here is the tried and tested way to mess up any diet plan - fry the god of all things carb (duh, the potato!) and sit it nice and cozy between pav slathered with chutney(s).

yet another journey in my kitchen begins with boiled potatoes finding their way into a heated wok, slick with olive oil and fragrant with ginger, garlic and (super)finely chopped onions. once the potatoes and the ggo mix (ginger/ garlic/ onion - what? i am my own rachel ray, thank you!) are married and settled into a peaceful and fragrant routine, i pay my salt taxes and add some hing and turmeric for good measure. i love tons of turmeric in my potato mix for the vada - after all, the pav should be home to 3 colors - the green of the coriander chutney, the red of the garlic chutney and the bright yellow of the vada.

since the origin of this burger is in maharashtra, i would not go far without some chopped curry leaves and green chilies. within seconds i am ready to fry. now a note on the frying business. i have always shyed away from woks laden with a ton of oil - something about the business of frying makes me feel that i will look 10 pounds heavier the day after. i had assumed this was another kink in my brain. i figured soon that it is not just me, a lot of people equal frying to unhealthy and keep far away from it. as always, there is a science to it and if fried at the right temperature and quickly, most foods do not absorb alarming quantities of oil. In fact, frying can sometimes leave your food light and airy - again, if done right.

making sure that my potato mixture is now cool, i proceed to make little (an inch and a half in diameter) balls of it. meanwhile, i have assembled the batter for the vada's crust - 3 tablespoons of besan and a little bit of water. let's take a minute here to ensure that the batter is just right in consistency. neither too liquid, nor difficult to put a spoon through. there, we're ready!

now normally i would just proceed with the frying, but ahha ha ha, we wait. after checking the seasoning on the batter, i would add a teaspoon of baking powder at this point. yes, i am the crazy lady who bakes as if there is no tomorrow, but this is frying, right? right! baking powder, in any recipe (baked or fried) works with the water in the batter and on the principle of releasing carbon di-oxide into food, thus acting as a leavening agent. human-speak? adding baking powder is going to make your batter light and airy and super crisp, there!

now quickly, using 2 forks, i roll each ball of the potato mixture in the batter - the forks i use, just so that i don't coat my potatoes in too much or too little batter. if this were a dry coating, i would just use a ziplock bag, but wet coating can be slimy and using 2 forks just makes me feel like a super chef (making vada-pav, ha!). making sure that my oil is super hot - you can ensure this by slipping in one drop of the batter right into the oil, if it pops up instantly, your oil is right - start frying the vadas. rest them on layers of kitchen towels, so that you can mop up any oil that has figured out a way to cling to your wada. crisp, deep friend heaven is staring you in the face.

now if you can manage to steal yourself away for a bit, grind together one whole pod of garlic with some roasted coconut and red chilies (that have soaked in warm water for 5 mins). this would be your yummy red garlic chutney. now grind together a bunch of coriander, a few green chillies and add a dash of salt and lemon juice. there you have your fabulous green coriander chutney.

on dry roasted crisp slabs of pav, slather these chutneys to your heart's content, add one (or two!!) vadas and GO!!

here's a picture from our valentines day dinner, of a very unromantic, but super pleasurable meal. oh yeah, the fried green chillies on top are the cherries on a proverbial cake - i would never eat vada pav without them!

baking builds character...

...and don't you doubt that!! when you are baking, all the love and dedication you put into a project is just half of what it takes. i came upon a severe baking crisis yesterday and all it would have taken to botch up the project would have been a moments weakness - one tear down and i would have crumbled. but the past wise words of the then sleeping husband drove me into talking myself right out of utter failure.

the project was not for me, but for sheetal (my friend who's going to be a new mommy soon). and for her alone. i got up, charged ahead with a new plan and was ready with a cake - an hour late, but ready!!

i'm very thankful to sheetal and deepak for letting me bake for their special day and for being so generous with their encouragement and their love. it is difficult to push your limits and to try your boundaries. but it is even more difficult without loving friends and their kind words to even find situations to test yourself with.

little baby on the way: you are blessed with really sweet parents (and smart, if deepak is reading this!), so smile and get ready, for your welcome in this world and your journey with your mum & dad is going to be so super special.

much love,
your flour-covered aunt!

ps: photographs courtesy Sheetal's awesome photographer friend: Bhumika

pav "butter" bhaji!

i am a "small town" girl and will always be. but moving to mumbai made me want to blend in - immediately. the energy, the bustling cars and the ever-running local trains....the city was magical for my small-town mind. thankfully, blending into the mumbai crowd isn't very difficult - you get transformed within weeks, its almost like the city takes over your soul and turns it into this practical, street-smart, ready-to-do-ANYTHING-to-succeed vortex of strength.
one of the most obvious things in mumbai is the street food - while my small-town parents have always rescued me from eating any street food at all - WHAT? YOU WANT THAT BACTERIA INFESTED DELICACY? no, come back home and i'll cook something wholesome for you! Yes, that was my childhood. this sudden freedom of eating whatever you want made life surreal for me. street food in mumbai was my favorite part of living in the city - every nook has its flavor, every suburb has its speciality and every vendor his own special touch (yes, pun very much intended!) and most importantly, every time you think that you've tasted it all, up comes something new and exciting!
my very first foray into this street food was perhaps my second week in mumbai, my mother having just gone back after ensuring that life would be ok for me without her. the new freedom, the scant money in my shallow pockets and the bracing sea air got me super advernturous and there i was - ordering pav bhaaji at the street corner where i now lived. while i made faces at how unhygenic the whole process looked, i could not help but feel embarassed at the unabashed groans that my stomach was offering up for all in the near vicinity to hear.
soon enough, heaps of bhaji (medly of mish-mashed and deliciously pan fried veggies) and a couple of pav (dinner rolls, the likes of which only a mumbai baker can make!) made their way into my plate. garnished with coriander and fresh cut onions, this whole thing just was pure heaven. my trials into making this pav-bhaji have been many and finally i have chanced upon a combination that yields - EVERY SINGLE TIME!
i now use this magical combination everytime i want to cook my way into my mumbai-ya man's heart and earn the look of - oh, i love you for making me taste this again!
so here goes.

true and authentic pav-bhaji needs a ton of butter - please, oh please keep your diets at bay. if you want taste, just don't think and bring on that whole stick of butter. yes, the whole big, entire stick of butter.
once it starts swimming in ur pan, add 2 chopped green peppers or as we call them - capsicum! (for a change, i am going to add measures of food - it makes a lot of difference how much of what you add here. but of course, my measurements are going to be very authentically mine - metric and other systems, please excuse my kitchen!)
when these become softer, add grated (yes grated!) ginger (1 cube of ginger ought to do - well, 1 cube about an inch long) and then grate in 5-6 cloves of garlic. there, you already have most of the important bits cooking away.
meanwhile, get some potatoes (5-6 medium sized - now this is the american medium size! indian sizes are 2 sizes smaller when you compare to american veggies - i can feed a family of 4 on half a dozen american oranges!!) and boil them till they are soft as mush. meanwhile, the green peppers in the pan should have now turned translucent and pale...this is the time to chop up one head of cauliflower and 2 big carrots and add them to the pan.
let the veggies cook for about 5 minutes and at this point, already add in the pav bhaji masala. i use everest and now for the second important part after the butter - ADD A TON OF THIS MASALA!! don't please be skimpy on taste.
i don't add peas to my pav-bhaji and never will. i find that they give a sweetish taste that i really don't call authentic. no peas! and definitely no onions - for similar reasons.
once the veggies look almost cooked - you may need to stir frequently and add a bit of water to cook these through, add in the peeled & boiled potatoes.

now comes the part where my muscles take over - use a potato masher and mash all the veggies together till they are a close mish-mash and you can't recognize one from the other! you may now add salt and taste. yes, big important factor still missing - where are the tomatoes, you ask! well, they are too expensive to get the right taste, so i find that adding a whole tin (the small 12 oz one) of hunt's tomato paste does just the right thing for me. let the tomato paste and the masala cook in the mash for a good 15 minutes. if you use a different kind of masala or a different brand of tomatoes, you may want to taste every so often to balance the tanginess from the 'matoes with the spice and zing from the masala.
and there you have it.....bubbling and boiling in front of you will be a big happy pot of pav-bhaji.

the thing that adds the most authentic flavor to this dish, is the crustiness of the pav. get laadi pav (so called, because they are baked in slabs - ready to sink your teeth into) and without adding any butter to these, grill them on a grill pan. let these get nice and brown and crispy. now break into these bits and sink them down deep in that delectable zingy-tang of the bhaji and your mouth will suddenly explode with the thoughts of ---- ahhh! mumbai again!

PS: pictures to come soon. promise! but i do have a video from an actual-rekdi cook who shows you how he makes his pav-bhaji. my version is a dedication to this artiste! the guy hosting the video also gives us an interesting take on the history of this dish.

ata kothe dhave man

paying my respects to pandit bheemsen joshi

ata kuthe dhave man
tujhe charan dekhli aaj

bhaag gela sheen gela

avadha zala anand!!!

food is not your enemy!

i'm on a writing frenzy today. everytime there is a crunch situation at work and my mind goes into overload, i find that writing helps....like re-organizing and cleaning up a cabinet.
speaking of which, i am trying my best to lose these last 25 pounds in the next couple of months - the workouts are working and so is the healthy eating...hahahaha, i know. my cooking has been most unhealthy with butter and oil showing up every 3 minutes. but wait, food is not the enemy. as i prepare myself to an evening of pav-bhaji swimming in glorious, smooth, delectable butter....i remind myself. its not the food that hurts you, but what you do with it. as with everything else, the ultimate enemy is your brain.

cook, but eat in moderation. exercise and still, eat in moderation!

that shall be the mantra as i prepare to send out another entry into this blog of which i am the sole reader ;) pav-bhaji it is tonight, the likes of which you can find only on a "rekadi" in mumbai.

groaning yet, hungry tummies ;)??

the chicken and its "taaang"

on winter evenings, i am transported back to childhood days when my parents plunked us in the backseat of the trusted old fiat and drove to A-ONE chicken! it was our neighborhood drive-through chicken place. no amount of KFC or hooters wings will ever be able to get close to the experience of all those hearty flavors wafting through the air when we rolled down the car windows. the earthy smell of the tandoor, the red (brilliant red, i might add) chicken legs and whole chickens hanging on iron skewers and the scent of onions wallowing in the acids of vinegar and lemon juice.
note to readers: if you see an incomplete post, it might just be me leaving work and post mid-way to run home for some of what i plan to cook tonight. yum!

(oh, note on this yum! this is the food-bell that goes off in my brain every time i can almost-smell and almost-taste the goodness that i am planning for dinner and as i mentioned earlier - that's all i am doing in my mind all day.)

tandoori chicken has always been a big hit with atul & me. true to our indian roots, we detest the red flavorless chicken legs that most buffets in the US serve up on weekend lunches. shame be to those who deny us another taste of what was an integral part of our childhood. for those who will salivate at the look of these so called tandoori chickens in indian restaurants these days, beware! these are devoid of all flavor and oh, also of any juiciness that tandoori chicken stands for.

So when a dear friend, Amit, cooked some tandoori for us (resulting in a net gain of almost a pound over that weekend!!! what? don't raise your eyebrows at me - you CAN gain weight if you eat a TON of chicken), I decided to get in on the action and develop a recipe of my own. Amit, thanks to your instructions, I already had a good base ready. Tweaked it a bit to make it my own.

it is really simple, u know. all u need is some drumsticks with slits made upon them so that the marinade can sink in (of course, if u end up buying them from shoprite like me, they will look more like ostrich legs and most hens would be very offended that their offsprings could have thighs so fat!)
then grab some of that trusted yogurt and Everest Tandoori Masala. Yes, yes yes...i use boxed masala for most of my dishes - trust me, with a toddler who hates the sound of my spice grinder, i would have it no other way. Everest Tandoori Masala has a nice earthy taste to it - very spicy (so use it sparingly if you tend to tear with heat) and very tangy. just the right balance of all things tandoori. now here we go - 3 more things are really needed - fresh ginger/ garlic paste, chaat masala and a good big dash of lemon juice. now here it is: lemon juice and yogurt together? people raise brows, question my sanity and then tell me, there's enough acidity in your marinade to add more! mais non monsieur. how can one rely on chaat masala to do its bit without adding a catalyst to make it work? lemon juice brings out the best in this masala - a marriage made definitely by the gods of food.
and of course, don't forget some olive oil. adding oil to any marinade will of course bring about meat tenderization and juiciness that you will never be able to forget.

marinate this not for long, as usual, i have no patience to wait. if you are a heat lover like me, you will go ahead and add a big heaping spoon of red chilli powder to top any heat from the tandoori masala - i am cookey, yes!

of course at this point i have pre-heated my oven at 400 and have ensured that enough windows and doors are open for the smoke to escape - lest you want the smoke alarms going off every 3 seconds (this is another thing that freaks out my little toddler, and i try to stay away from such eventualities)

i now proceed to hungrily await as i spread the marinated drumsticks on a baking tray and ensure that there is some aluminium foil to catch any drippings! but hold on, the end is not in sight yet. there is a good wait of about 35 minutes if you want succulence. these are the times when i walk about the house like i await news from a critical medical procedure.....or i switch on foot network, because i absolutely must be distracting myself with more thoughts of food. sigh, the link between my stomach and my brain will be the end of me.

but wait, do i see the clock telling me that its halftime? run run run to the oven dear chef and turn over those beauties. they need to be done from all sides, no? by now, i am salivating and have tasted the marinade a 100 times - oh, don't laugh. i'll see how dignified your waiting can be when you get there.

in about 20 more minutes, i am finally rewarded, but the good child that i am, i wait some more. when i take the chicken out, i instantly cover it with some more aluminium foil - this trick i've learnt from the grillmasters on foot network.  if you cover the meat as soon as it is out of the heat, the juices go right into the depths of that succulent leg awaiting your teeth to sink into it - and then we get DRIPPING GOOD CHICKEN!

here's what it looks like when it is done. you can make a very healthy meal of it if you roll some of the forked out meat in a thick roti with onions and tomatoes and you've got (yes, another ding in my head) YUMMMM!!!

try it, you won't regret this one.

for the love of INSTANT

for people like me, food should be now. i know i love to indulge in long hours of cooking, slaving over a pot of chicken curry till it turns succulent. but most days, after a hard day's work, i want home-cooked awesomeness now! more importantly, i don't like to indulge in frozen varities or packaged goods. this makes the word INSTANT very difficult for me.

but when you are married to someone who loves, lets say idlies, things start getting tough. i've always been on the lookout for the quick and easy way to make soft fluffy idlies that can cure the question of CAN I HAVE SOEMTHING TO EAT - NOW?? I have been trying these rava idlies for a while now and they always turn out good - well, more OK than good. Beginning the blog with a post that encouraged experimentation, i just had to add my two cents of yumminess to the regular rava idli. here's how i managed it. so instead of soaking the rava in yogurt at all, i just did a total INSTANT on this dish. i took a cup or so of rava (sooji if you must!) and added an equal amount of nice thick yogurt. after the usual additions of salt and hing, i wanted soemthign extra. so i channeled dosa express (our favorite weekend takeout joint) and thought of those yummy chana daal bits in the rava idlies he sent home. the pantry gods produced not only chana dal, but some washed urad and methi seeds as well. this was definitely going to be yum.

so i heated up some oil, added the trusted companions on any southern indian journey - green chillies and curry leaves and lo presto! the kitchen smelled awesome. the addition of the 2 daals and methi seeds brought out the fragrances even more. but i wasn't done experimenting. just because there was the addition of daal, this time, i had to add hing for aiding digestion - and i did. turning off the heat, i added this tempering to my rava+yogurt mix and it instantly felt like a home run. i also added a dash of ginger - ginger has always proved so helpful while making chef sanjay thumma's rava dosas and i wanted a similar flavor going for me this time.

the batter, inspite of adequate water additions seemed just about right, but very heavy. one batch of idlies was good, but it wasn't EXACTLY what i had in mind. and while rummaging through my spice cabinet, i was inspired - yet again! there is something about the cabinets in this house i think. when i feel less than happy about things and rummage through my stocks, i always chance upon things that make a lot of sense once i do chance upon them. yes, i was looking at ENO fruit salt.
before i added any, i thought to myself. really? my brain kept telling me, go ahead, its like making instant khaman. but i wanted to be sure. so i googled fruit salts and here's what the mighty internet had to tell me:

fret not o'hungry idli seeker. a loving dash of fruit salt will make ur batter instantly lighter.

my feeble voice (needing glucose badly now, but not letting go of the yearning to learn): but pray o' might lord, how will that happen?

the lord repli-eth: o'hungry one, fruit salts cause instant effervescence which will afford your batter the overnightness of fermentation without the mess.

convinced now with the big words and chemical compositions that this website enlightened me with, i added a big heaping dash of fruit salt and stirred. the hissing goodness of effervescence greeted me and belive you me, the spoon suddenly felt lighter and easier in the batter!

these idlies, when steamed, came out soft and sooper fluffy, with small pockets of chana dal, urad dal & methi seeds that made for little bites of nuttiness in the middle of soft indulgence.

for a change, i ran to my camera (so delighted was i, that i actually gave up the thought of eating for a change) and clicked a couple of pictures of a heaped plate of my rava idlies.

note to the mummies: toddlers will fall in love with these "rice-cakes" specially if you serve them with some ghee.

note to those suffering with gout/ arthritis: fermented foods are a no-no if you are ailed by too much uric acid in ur blood. these instant idlies and dosas are a big help for those of us plagued with this condition.

the invictus and her victus - simple daily food

waking up from a bad bout of flu, the likes of which can only be found under the 20 odd inches of snow in the tri-state this year, i heard from Atul that in my delirium i was asking for my mother. naaah, i would never. at 30? my grumbling stomach reminds me that it was probably her simple everyday food and its complex flavor pockets exploding in my mouth that i was craving after the tasteless abyss that my tongue had been punished with. venturing into the inner depths of my fridge, i notice i have a whole cabbage awaiting its dreaded fate into the plates of: i don't really like cabbage THAT much!

i decide that since this is the year of sheer perfection (aha, you didn't expect THAT to be my resolution, did you?) i shall turn this swirl of green into something no one shall be able to ignore.

i closed my eyes, prayed to the god of all things food - Ron Weasley, who else. i was rewarded the minute i opened my spice drawer. there sat in front of me, the oft ignored hing. hing or asafoetida as the shoprite label calls it, is the powder of a herb root. with its pungent smell and tasteless identity, it gets introduced only when cooking troublesome (read: for digestion) food. i have seen it work wonders when introuced accidentally - so why not!
so i heat up some olive oil, add my regular dash of mustard seeds and slit green chillies. note to self: never, never ever listen to people who want to de-seed green chillies. yes, they have a ton of heat. they also have a ton of acid that helps the oil seep into food resulting in brilliant flavor every single time. as soon as my green chillies turned to a light green softness, i added a heaped teaspoonful of our pungent friend. the kitchen smelled awesome already and the cabbage was still just sitting on the chopping board.

it decidedly had to jump in - which it did (ahem!) i was patient this time (remember the resolution??) and added a good teaspoonful of turmeric. another note to self: this is not just a spice that you use for color. the flavor that haldi or turmeric can lend to most veggies is irreplacable. not covering the cabbage and letting it sweat with some salt and brown sugar, i began chopping coriander. WHAT? no coriander in a dish of cabbage? i'm sorry, maybe i wasn't clear earlier. there is ONE rule to this kitchen, there are no rules before the basic rule of uncompromised flavor. after 20 minutes of cardio time in the wok, my light yellow colored cabbage (thanks to the haldi) was following all the proper ettiquette that a vegetable should and i was beginning to see what i call moisture.
i reduced the flame, added a big dash of cayenne and finally sprinkled a good handful of chopped coriander.
it is at times like these that i have no resolve and the term LADY or even WOMAN does not apply to my being any more. i HAVE to eat and eat we did.
in glorious heaps on our plates was the kobhi bhaji looking pretty in its yellow and green-ness.

i regret to say that i did not make good use of the brilliant phone camera to caputre this moment. i shall cook this again over the weekend, and not just because i want to post a picture. it is almost time to go home and guess what my stomach is questioning me about!