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.

Boiled Groundnuts or Boiled Peanuts

A family favorite at our home. I love the way the family gets together around the table and laugh and chat while shelling and eating the peanuts.

Remember to use raw peanuts. These peanuts taste good only when it is boiled properly and it has the right amount of salt. Initially I would eyeball both the amount of salt and the boiling times. And the results would sometimes be great, while other times the salt was not enough or the peanuts were still not fully cooked. So nowadays I follow this recipe for perfectly seasoned boiled peanuts.

Groundnut Soup aka Peanut Soup ( Ghanaian style )

This amazingly delicious and nutritious Ghanaian soup recipe was given to me by my dear friend Millicent. In Ghana peanuts are called groundnuts. We use to have this often when we were there. In India we have a similar version of this soup minus some ingredients.

I have changed the recipe just a little to make it more convenient for me. In the original recipe when you boil the water and peanut powder, you add the onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger and green chilies and let it boil along with the rest of the soup. When they are cooked, you pull out the onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger and green chilies and grind them to a smooth paste and add it back to the simmering soup. I used a shortcut method and ground everything first and cooked them later. You can grind the peanuts fine or leave them a little coarse for added texture. I prefer the latter.

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.

Spicy Honey Roasted Peanuts

Recently while cleaning out my pantry, I found two plastic boxes filled with peanuts. Suddenly all kinds of peanuts recipes started running through my mind. I could make peanut soup, peanut cupcakes, peanuts brittle, peanut chikkis the possibilities seemed endless.

The decision to make Spicy Honey Roasted Peanuts was made by my husband. He loves these kind of peanuts to snack on and thought it would be great if we could make some at home. So I adapted this recipe from allrecipes.com. The results were amazing, these taste just as good as the store bought ones. Next time I will vary it a bit and make Spicy Masala Peanuts.