Stuffed Aloo Tikki ( Stuffed Potato Croquette )

Potatoes are my first love. I had never had Aloo Tikkis stuffed before, so when I saw this recipe in 660 Curries, I knew I had to try it out. I was not disappointed at all. Theses turned out quite delicious and the surprise crunch from the sprouted moong adds a nice texture to the dish.

This dish need for some pre-preparation, two day before you make this dish soak some whole moong dal overnight and then drain the water next morning and leave it covered on your counter top for another 24 hrs. It would have sprouted by then and would be ready for this dish. Alternately, you can also buy some ready-made moong sprouts from your Asian grocery store.

Bread Rolls

One of my guilty pleasures in life is ordering tomato soup, in restaurants, for the fried croutons that come with it ( no healthy baked ones for me, that would totally ruin my tomato soup experience ! ). This dish totally tops that pleasure any day. Can you say a giant, stuffed and fried crouton ? Well this is what this dish tastes like. Heaven !!!!!!!

What makes this bread roll recipe better than the rest is the tangy soaking water. Generally all the recipes call for soaking the bread slice in plain water, I have even seen a recipe call for soaking it in milk. However, in this recipe lime juice and cayenne/ lal mirchi powder is added to the soaking water elevating this recipe to the next level. Also you can cut of the crust from your bread or not, this all depends on your personal preference . In my personal opinion, I think that the bread slice without the crust stays enclosed much better than the bread slice with the crust on.


I have adapted this recipe from Sindhi Rasoi. You must check out her blog, she has some really cool recipes.

Gobi Manchurian aka Cauliflower Manchurian

Weekends are the hardest days to cook ... what do you think? I mean the whole week, you have a routine you follow -  make healthy, quick lunches to pack in everyone's lunch boxes. Then the weekend rolls around and everyone is at home and in the mood for something different and that is when my inner confused chef awakens. It is always a big question for me as to what new dish can I make to please everyone.

This weekend I decided to make some Indo-Chinese food. That is Chinese food with an Indian flair. No self-respecting Chinese restaurant will ever serve this , as it is not considered as 'authentic' Chinese, so do not even bother asking for it. Cauliflower fritters tossed in a tangy and spicy sauce is commonly called Gobi        ( Cauliflower ) Manchurian. You can make this dish dry ( that is, with just enough sauce to coat the fritters -  makes a wonderful cocktail snack with toothpicks stuck in it ), or you can make it with a little 'gravy' ( that is, with a little extra sauce, to serve over piping hot white rice or noodles. ). I adapted this recipe from my days training in the kitchen of a five-star hotel in Mumbai.

Along with this I also made some lo mein noodles and some vegetable spring rolls. Recipes to come.......

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.

Dabeli

Another tasty Indian snack food. Dabeli comes from the Gujarat region and can easily be termed as another version of an Indian burger. It is a Spiced Potatoes and Pomegranate Sandwich in Raghavan Iyer's words.

This spicy potato mixture enclosed between a burger bun, smeared with a sweet and tart tamarind chutney and a spicy hot garlic chutney and garnished with pomegranate arils and spicy peanuts is a combination of different flavors and textures to form an extremely delicious and addictive snack. The crunchiness of the spicy peanuts, the unexpected burst of sweet and tart pomegranate juice and the heat from the chutneys will leave you wanting for more. I have adapted this recipe from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer.

This is another weekend dish that does not take long to prepare at all. As they were showing a marathon of House Hunters International on HGTV, one of my favorite shows ever. I quickly assembled these and the sat in front of the TV to see all the people buying beautiful homes across the world. It feels wonderful to live vicariously through the buyers pretending that I am buying a pied-a-terre in Paris, or a countryside home near the Alps or a cottage in the English countryside or maybe even a vacation home in the Caribbean. I love this show.

Ragada Patties

Another popular Indian street food is the Ragada Patties. I love the different flavors and textures in this dish. This ragada is my favorite. I adapted this dish from Raghavan Iyer's book 660 Curries. I love this book and the extensive index of Indian recipes it  contains. The only thing I would say is to taste the dish as you make it, as Raghavanji does like his dishes a tad on the milder side. So when he adds things like butter and cream to his dishes, do go easy on it and adapt it to your taste.

The ragada should not be too thick as you want the gravy to kind of soak into the patty. Also do not make the patties too thick.

Chivda

This tasty snack is quite famous in India. You will find this as a staple in nearly every house. Whenever we went to visit relatives or friends or even attended marriages, this would always be one of the snacks served.

In marriages they would make huge quantities of this and pack them along with some ladoos in small packets to give as small favors to to all the relatives and friends attending the marriage.

I remember my grandmother would call over a pandit ( there are two kinds of pandits, one who conducts prayers and one who cooks food. In this case I mean the latter one ) during festival season to make all kinds of sweets and savoury snacks. He would set up some firewood in the backyard and a make shift kitchen and fry up all the various dishes under the watchful eye of my grandma and aunts.

My Auntie Dolly would have the pandit fry up some sun dried onions to add to this chivda, taking the taste of the chivda to another level. I phoned Dolly Auntie to ask her about this recipe and she said I was to dry sliced onions under the hot sun till all the moisture is evaporated and then store in an air tight container. When I want to add it to the chivda, I should just fry a cupful of it in hot oil and mix it in the prepared chivda. Since it is getting cold here, drying it under the hot sun is out, I thought about drying it in the hot oven. However, the lowest temp on my oven is 170 degrees F and that is too hot as I need about 100 degrees F. So I made my chivda without the onion part. Come summer I will make it her way. She is another great cook in our family and her recipes are always delicious.

I got this recipe from my mom. The addition of raisins provide a nice contrast in taste. One can eat this chivda as is or dress it up with some fresh chopped onions, tomatoes and cilantro. Mix these in the chivda and maybe a squirt of some lemon juice and enjoy it as a tasty snack.

Yam and Hot Pepper

Another very popular Ghanaian street food. This is very delicious and easy to make, provided you find the right yam. In America, the sweet potato is called the yam -  this is not the yam we seek. A true yam looks like this or this .

Yam and red pepper ( pronounced peppe ) brings so many found memories for me. I remember outside my dad's office sat a yam seller who made the best fried yam and peppe. The yam would be crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. As for the peppe it was a wonder we did not breathe fire out at every exhale. Our eyes would be red and watery our noses would be runny, our tongues would be on fire but nothing could stop us till we finished the last piece. My mom also use to make it for 'small chop' ( aka appetizer/starter ) sometimes. Ahh, how I miss small chop !

I have tried to re-create this here, far away from Ghana. Luckily I found some yam in our local Asian grocery. I could not believe my eyes. I did a little dance in the store much to my husband's amazement. He later said he has never met anyone who gets so excited at seeing food produce.And then in the next isle I find these peppers called 'jamaican pepper' or Scotch Bonnets, which looked just like the pepper in Ghana. I just couldn't wait to get home and make me some yam and peppe. Serve the yam hot as they taste best when hot.

This recipe is amazing, especially the peppe. I found this interesting article on Wikipedia  that I thought I would share here, "It is common for people to experience pleasurable and even euphoriant effects from eating capsaicin-flavored foods. Folklore among self-described "chiliheads" attributes this to pain-stimulated release of endorphins..." So I say 'Say no to drugs and yes to capsaicin'.

I have also read somewhere that red peppers also helps with weight loss.... one more reason to enjoy it.



Yam and Peppe

Vada Pav

Vada pav is the quintessential Indian burger. It is one of the most popular street foods in India especially Mumbai. In Mumbai you will see these everywhere; outside local train stations, near shopping areas, next to colleges etc.

It is quick, cheap, filling and most of all delicious and many a Mumbaite will have this for a quick lunch on the go. I practically lived off this stuff during my training in that city.

I have tried to create my favorite vada pav recipe. There are a lot of vada pav recipes on the web and they are all pretty much the same except for adding little more masalas or different chutneys. This is based on Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe . He is the king of Indian cuisine and I do love his recipes.


You can use dinner rolls or burger buns, in India they use the 'ladi pav'. If you are using the dinner rolls , you can make your vadas a little smaller, however, if you are using burger buns, like me, make the vadas slighly larger.

Try this popular Mumbai Burger and have it the mumbai-style with a hot cup of chai. This dish brings back so many fond memories.



Vada Pav

Samosas

The perfect samosa cover has evaded me for a long time now, but no more thanks to this special book called  660 Curries. This book has been the answer to many of my food related questions. Raghavan Iyer, the author, has done a wonderful job of compiling such a wide range of recipes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. His section on various indian chaat recipes alone, which he calls in this book 'appetizer curries', is totally worth buying this book.

Some of the best samosas I have ever tasted came from near the Hanuman Mandir/temple near my granny's house. The Samosa-wala ( person who sells samosas) had his little samosa shack just next to the entrance of the mandir. This spot was frequented a lot by college students, especially during exam time, as they got to do two things in one place -  pray to god to help them pass and eat yummy samosas.

Later on, in our college under a big tree near the gates, one bai / lady use to come carrying a huge cloth-lined basket over her head containing hot delicious samosas. In India there are usually round concrete platforms built around the base of huge trees for the public to sit and rest under the shade. So she would sit on this platform along with her samosa filled basket. The cloth helped keep them warm and soaked up the moisture thus preventing the samosas from getting soggy. She was always surrounded by students, drawn in by the tantalising aroma emanating from her basket. Having samosa at the end of college day was our way to unwind, relax and enjoy this special comfort food while venting our day's frustrations. I wonder if she is still there today under the tree selling those yummy samosas to another batch of students who when they leave college will carry a few special memories, one amongst them will be of our Samosa Bai and her magic samosas

I am so glad to have found this recipe so as to replicate those delightful samosas. These samosa turned out as scrumptious as I remembered them. The addition of ginger and garlic to the filling makes it even more tasty. The cover is very crispy and would fall apart in your mouth into flakes. A little word of caution - these are rich in calories but do not deny yourself the pleasure of having one some, just have them in moderation.

Please do note that my stove is electric; Electric stoves do not get as hot as the gas stoves, so please do adjust your tempertures accordingly.


Samosas