Baigan Ka Salan ( Eggplant Curry Hyderabadi Style )

This is a spicy eggplant curry with Hyderabadi influence in it. The ingredients look elaborate but it really is not that bad and the end result is very delicious.This is one dish we would be making again at our home.

I do apologize for the bad photos. I was late to serve lunch that day so I clicked it as I was cooking and never did a final presentation for the good photos. I promise when I make it again I will take a better photo that will do justice to its deliciousness and post it.

 

 

 

 

Hyderabadi Mirchi Ka Salan

Mirchi Ka Salan is a rich gravy based dish comprising huge long peppers floating in a deliciously nutty gravy made up of mainly peanuts and sesame seeds. It is quite popular in Hyderabad and is generally had with Biryanis.

Of late I have been neglecting my blog and for that I do apologise. I feel terrible for that but ever since I started this blog I have put on 10 more pounds ! something that makes me feel even more bad. But I love food.......it is so difficult to stay away from it. So from now I will blog once a week and thus will thus have my cake and eat it too. So this is my recipe for this week, Hyderabadi Mirchi Ka Salan.

This recipe is adapted from Zaiqa. Thank you so much Mona for sharing this wonderful recipe with us. One of the must do things to do when you go to Hyderabad is to have their Biryani and Mirchi Ka Salan, among other things. This recipe is really delicious and tastes authentic. Do try it.

Dhingri Badami

This is a recipe I had written on a piece of paper and had it tucked away from sight at the back of my kitchen drawer for god knows how long. One good thing about this blog is now I can catalog this and throw away this scrape of paper. However, I find that I am still holding on to these scrapes. There is something about seeing my hurried writing, little corrections and comments I have made on the page and the oil or turmeric stains, that tells the whole behind-the-scenes picture. Something that I will never be able to capture on the blog.

Anyway , what I wanted to say was that this recipe, although adapted a little by me, is not mine, however I do not know to whom I should credit it too. But to whomsoever it belonged, I would like to say thank you for such a delicious recipe.

Subzi Pakora Chaat

Tempura-like-batter-coated fried vegetables called pakoras layered with hot, sweet, salty and sour chutneys is another popular snack food in India.

This is another great recipe from  660 Curries cookbook, I adapted it a little to my style. You can serve this as an appetizer, or a snack. Just be prepared to make this a lot as this will be the most requested dish at your home.

 This is so simple to make once you have all the chutneys in place. I put off making this dish for the longest time thinking that it would not taste that special. After all pakoras are quite common in our household. However, the other day when I was making some onion pakora, I decided to go all out and make the Sabzi Pakora Chaat. It turned out to be such a hit with both my husband and my son. My son even came for seconds !

This dish does have a couple of chutneys, which are easily available in any Indian grocery store, or you can make them at home. Once the chutneys are in place this dish comes together rather quickly and disappears twice as fast. Do not be intimidated by the number of steps in the recipe, it is fairly easy to make. So once you fry enough of the pakoras , assemble them and pour the chutneys on them and serve. These taste best when hot or warm.

Paneer Jalfrezi

This is a super delicious and a very simple paneer stir fry sabji. Another great brunch idea, where you can make this and get out of the kitchen in the least amount of time so as to enjoy the weekend with your family.

All you need is some onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and some paneer. This will go very well with some naans or puris. The original recipe calls for red chili powder but i added some fresh red chilies also for the extra kick. Skip the turmeric powder as it colors the whole dish in a pale yellow color. What you are looking for is the crisp colors of the white of the paneer, the greens of the bell peppers and red of the tomatoes.

Paneer is a star at our home, the day it is on the menu I have no trouble gathering everyone at the table, as a matter of fact they are patrolling the kitchen asking me when it will be ready. Make this sabji and enjoy it with your family.

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Potato Kurma

This is a popular breakfast item in India. I love it throughout the day. This yummy sabji is served with hot puffed puris. At our home we have it for brunch on the weekends. It is easy to make and very filling and tasty. That way you can come out of the kitchen soon and enjoy the weekend with your family.

I used 6 green chilies, you can adjust according to if you want it more hot or a little mild. I made whole wheat puris to go with this dish. I have seen various recipes for Potato Kurma, some have a green gravy and some a yellow gravy. This recipe has a green gravy and you can keep the consistency of the gravy as you desire, mine is on the thicker side.

Methi Matar Malai

This yummy methi sabji is a favorite at our home. I have adapted Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. This recipe comes from the Punjab region of India. This dish is made up of methi leaves, or as they call it in English, fenugreek leaves and green peas cooked in a rich cream based gravy.

Methi leaves are not always available and tend to be very costly. In the summers I sometimes grow my own in my backyard. But the other day there was some fresh methi leaves on sale here so I grabbed up as much as I could. We had methi that whole week and my son got sick of it.

I love the bitterness of the methi leaf combined with the sweetness of the plump peas. It is very easy to make and it tastes like you slaved in front of your stove for hours. As it was a weekend, I wanted to spend most of my time with my family, so I made this dish with some hot puris. Traditionally this would go very well with some hot naans, but I did not make it this time. We all sat cross-legged on the carpet in front of the TV watching a Hindi movie eating our delicious lunch.

Paneer Makhani or Paneer Butter Masala

If you are searching for  a lip smacking, a little sweet, a little tangy and fiery Paneer Makhani ( Paneer Butter Masala ) then your search ends here.....

According to me, Sundays are the best day of the week. It is not like Monday to Friday when I am rushing about at a maniacal pace, counting down the days till weekend. Neither like Saturday, when I am so joyous that the weekend is finally here that I cannot wait to get out there, catching up on the local museums and shopping at malls. Then comes Sunday,the pace of this day is unlike any other of the week, we have worked, we have played now its time to kick back and take it slow.

The story with my cooking also runs along the same line. All week long I cook at break neck speed, trying to finish cooking before hubby goes to office and son goes to school. Then comes Saturday and I declare my kitchen to be under strike and take a break from cooking. Sunday however I am all rested and can take all the time to cook up some dishes whose ingredient lists will have you emptying half of your pantry on the kitchen countertops. My husband takes over the childcare and lets me be one with my stove......

Paneer Makhani or as I love to call it Paneer Butter Masala is a one of those dishes. Please do not be deterred, I was exaggerating about the ingredient list, it is no more than any other sabji with gravy. The only things different about this dish is a couple of extra steps, but its totally worth it.

I got this recipe while training in a hotel in Mumbai. I still have the scrape of paper on which I quickly jotted down the recipe while our chef rattled it at break neck speed. The paper is stained, dog eared and the ink smudged in places where it came in contact with my wet fingers. Still this piece of paper is very precious to me. I have adapted it by reducing the oil and omitting the red food color.


Paneer Makhani

Rajma

I apologise for not posting anything new on my blog this whole past week. Schools opened this week and suddenly I find this huge block of free time on my hands. In the past I have often fantasized about this time and how I will spend it and now that it is here I just cannot for the life of me remember what I wanted to do with my free time. Cook and bake was on top of my list but my 'mojo' seems to have vanished, anything I touch turns all wrong. I burnt the cookies, under baked the cake and over salted the sabjis.

But now we are one week into school and my little one is adjusting to life in kindergarten and I am adjusting to life at home ! So I am relaxing a bit and redoing all the dishes I messed up. I have finally gotten my mind and heart back into my kitchen. However, it is still a work in progress, so I am taking baby steps. I made Rajma as it is his favorite sabji after paneer. I usually do not add that much red chili powder as I have mentioned in the recipe as the kids will not like that.

Whenever I am in a rush I use the canned red kidney beans and a small jar of salsa, all you have to do is add some garam masala and your Rajma is ready; this eliminates that need to soak the beans overnight and cook them in a pressure cooker, cut up onions, tomatoes etc.

This is a really tasty recipe, it is spicy but the spices do not overpower the taste of the kidney beans. Rajma is a good source of protein and fiber and in our house we cook this at least once a week,. Do not cook out all the water as a little gravy to this sabji is desirable.



Rajma

Paneer Bhurji

Paneer is an Indian cheese. According to Wikipedia " It is a fresh cheese of Indian origin. It is unaged, acid-set, non-melting farmer cheese or curd cheese made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice or other food acid."
" Unlike most cheeses in the world, the making of paneer does not involve rennet as the coagulation agent, thus making it completely lacto-vegetarian and providing a source of protein for vegetarian hindus. " Thanks to Wikipedia for that !


Yesterday was one of those days, I woke up late and then everything was a mad dash after that. In all this hurry I had to think of what to make today. One of the biggest questions of my life, what to cook today? What can I make that is quick, nutritious and tasty. Well luckily I had some paneer chilling in the fridge and everybody in our house loves paneer. Now the quickest dish with paneer is the Paneer Bhurji. There are various variation of this dish, but this is the way I love it. I have kept the dish simple so as to allow the flavors of the onions, tomatoes and paneer to shine through.


Try this recipe and I assure you that you will not be disappointed, it is a quick and simple and not to mention so tasty that even your pickiest eater will love it.


Paneer Bhurji

Sai Bhaji

When we lived in Ghana we had quite a number of Sindhi friends and they would cook these yummy delicious Sindhi food. One of the Sindhi dishes that really made an impression on us was Sai Bhaji.

Sai Bhaji became part of our menu whenever we had some spinach on hand. Sai mean green and the Bhaji means vegetable, so this green vegetable is not only tasty but healthy and wholesome too.

I have adapted my mom's recipe to the ingredients available here . Generally along with spinach a couple of other sour tasting green leaves are used, as those were not available to me I substituted with tamarind concentrate and some kasturi methi  ( dried fenugreek leaves).

The Sai Bhaji tasted great, just like I remembered it and everybody loved it at home. I served it with some hot steaming rice. You can also have it with warm rotis. So if you have some spinach at hand and want to try something new with it, try Sai Bhaji, you will not regret it.




Sai Bhaji