Rainbow Chard Curry

Back to blogging after a long time. Last few days kept me busy in moving to the west coast. Yes! We have moved to Redmond, WA. I wouldn't say we got settled already; our things are yet to arrive. I just have my kitchen ready with groceries and minimal utensils to keep us going. Hope our routine will be back by this weekend. I heard from lot of people about the Seattle rains and got mentally prepared to face them. I always hate rains as it makes roads wet and dirty making us immobile. But still, dry weather with no greenery also irritates me equally. I should say the city looks pretty green owing to the excessive rains. I love the Emerald city. Luckily, so far the weather is sunny and bright. Moving further north from Boston, we have daylight till 9:30 PM. But it is obvious that we are gonna have less of light in the fall. Well, it is good to see places.

I badly wanted to update my blog and actually I started cooking right from the day we moved into our new apartment. I should say cooking keeps me occupied and if I don't cook for more than a couple of days, I feel depressed. Lately, I discovered that I can never do without a kitchen. Enough rambling and lemme break the inactivity in blogging by a simple recipe - rainbow chard curry.

For those of you who do not know what it is, I should admit that even I was unaware of it till a few days back. I ran into this bunch of leaves that have brilliantly colored stalks at the whole foods market.

These glossy green leaves along with their red, golden and white stalks is aptly called rainbow chard and as you all know my craze for greens and colors, I fell in love with it at the very first sight. Needless to say, it went straight into my cart. To me, it looked like beet leaves and I had no idea what to cook with it. Bored of eating just spinach all this while, the new set of greens thrilled me. I used to love eating the dry curry made out of raddish leaves back home and thought why not implement the same formula. You can make use of any variety of chard. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

Finely chopped chard - 1 bunch
Coconut - 1 tablespoon or few pieces
Green chillies - 2 small
Coconut oil - 2 tsp
Mustard and urad dhall to temper.

Method:

1. Clean the chard well several times using water to get rid of mud and dirt.
2. Heat the oil, season with mustard and urad dhall.
3. Add the greens and little water. Cook till done. This takes longer time than spinach. If you want to save time, try using microwave to boil the greens.
4. Add salt. Grind the coconut and green chillies into a smooth paste and mix with the curry.
Serve hot with rice.

Tip: You can also try making molagootal using chard.

Bye Bye Boston Party :)

I wanted to post something related to food and actually didn't want it to be a recipe as always. I thought I could share a picture of my dinner table taken during a family get-together. Two families came over for dinner with their naughty and energetic kids. Should I even mention that my house was in a totally excited state with 4 high energy boys? The get-together turned into a farewell party since we are leaving Boston this weekend. One other family (Bala and Suba) is also leaving Boston soon. It was total fun and the kids had a gala time.

Now coming to the major part; food, I had lined up Pav bhaji, Mushroom pulav, Onion Raitha, Rice, Sambar and Beetroot Halwa for the dinner. For beetroot halwa, I used the same recipe as carrot halwa except that I reduced the amount of sugar to half. I will post the recipe of sambar soon. Roshan served the welcome drink (Mango juice) and dessert(icecream). He was also running behind the kids with a cam, to click them in action.

Though it was not planned as a pot luck, my guests were kind enough to bring some starters. Suba also bought some rasam which all of us enjoyed. Thanks Suba, Bala ,Reshma & Rajiv for making it happen. Special mention to all the lovely kids who made it memorable. One helluva party!

Bye Bye Boston :)

Kwik Fix Series # 3 - Peas Pulav

Back after a short break! Actually we are about to move to a new city and at the verge of winding up things here. So I should say, I'm missing the enthu to try out new recipes. But that's never going to keep me away from my blog and will try to update with some simple recipes.

It's gonna be really hectic till we move and set up our new home. But still, it's lot of fun. New place and new friends. Looking forward to it and if we get settled in a place for a long time, it would start boring after a while; specially when it is not your native place. It is like, we are changing home every 6 months! I started loving to go around and look for new communities and it is altogether a great hobby ;) Better to look at it this way!


This is one more addition to my kwik fix series and it is really quick and easy. If you do not have the time for a side dish, you can have it with plain curd. I normally serve it with a north Indian gravy. I would say there are 100 different ways of making a pulav and each method gives one new taste. This is one such version and I would post variations in the time to come.

Ingredients:

Basmathi rice - 1 cup
Peas - 1/2 to 1 cup
Jeera - 2 tsp
Ghee - 1 tablespoon
Cloves - 3
Cardomom - 1
Slit green chillies - 3
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Soak the rice in 1.5 cups water for 5 to 10 min and cook.
2. Microwave the peas until done; if you do not have a microwave, cook it on stove top till done.
3. Heat ghee, add jeera, cloves, cardomom and green chillies. Fry a bit and mix peas.
4. Cool the rice a bit and mix with peas. Reheat and serve hot. Jeera, ghee and peas adds a great flavour and this simple dish is sure to impress everyone.

Baghare Baingan

Baghare Baingan is a rich Hyderabadi cuisine. Owing to its Moghalai and Persian heritage, Hyderabadi food has the royal Nizami style imbibed in it. This dish has shallow fried brinjals simmered in coconut-peanut gravy. It has the addition of lot of oil secreting ingredients - sesame, peanut, coconut plus khus khus and cashews making it rich, delicious but at the same time heavy in calories. But occassional indulgence of such a delectable dish should not be counted as a sin. Right na?

Ingredients:

Brinjals(small violet ones) - 4
Grated Coconut - 2 tablespoon
Dhania seeds - 2 tsp
White sesame seeds - 3 tsp
Khus Khus - 1/2 tsp
Peanuts - 1 tablespoon
Turmeric powder - 2 tsp
Chilli powder - 3 tsp
Tamarind Paste - 2 tsp
Cashews soaked in water - 5 to 10
Onion - 1 big
Ginger Garlic paste - 1.5 tsp
Oil - 2 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Coriander to garnish

Method:

1) Heat a tsp of oil and fry the chopped onions till dark brown. Set aside. Fry dhania,sesame,khus khus,peanuts and coconut one by one. Grind all this together including onions and cashews into a smooth paste. Mix tamarind paste, turmeric and chilli powder with this.
2)Slit the brinjal like + at the base.Retain the stem if you like it or have it cut.
3)Heat oil in a pan and arrange the brinjals. Turn occasionally and cook all the sides. Keep aside.
4)Heat the remaining oil, season with jeera and dry chillies.Fry the ginger garlic paste. Add the ground coconut paste and cook for 2 min.
5)Add 1 to 2 cups water, salt and bring it to boil. Add the brinjals and cook for a while till the masala gets into the brinjal.
6)Garnish with coriander and serve hot with roti or rice.

I served it with peas pulav, which would be my next entry for kwik fix series. So, look forward to it.

Kwik Fix Series # 2 - Schezwan Fried Rice

Do you believe in love at first sight? No, I am not up to a romantic story. I am quite aware that this is a food blog and I must ideally post culinary related stuff. I am actually talking about a dish with which I fell in love at the first sight. I have written enough about my fervour for Chinese food.

I remember having Schezwan Fried Rice in a Singaporean restaurant at Chennai about a decade back. Till then, I never knew such a dish existed. It looked colorful and I loved the tangy and spicy taste of the dish. It's a fiery hot dish for spice lovers like me. From then on, I got hooked to it.

This is actually a quick dish to make and you can accomplish a great meal in limited time frame. Easy for even a novice cook. So, here comes my second recipe under the kwik fix series.

I haven't used readymade Schezwan sauce for the recipe. I made my own spice mix and if you don't have a food processer, you can use the ready sauce; that way making it bachelor friendly. For any Chinese food, fry the vegetables on high flame till crispy for a short time.

Ingredients:
Basmathi rice - 1 cup
Carrots, Beans, Cabbage finely chopped - 3/4 cup
Spring Onions - a few
Soya sauce - 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Oil 1 tablespoon
Grind to a paste
3-4 redchillies soaked in water for 15 min, half garlic

Method:

1. Soak the rice in water fo 10 min and cook with double the amount of water in an electric rice cooker. If you are using a pressure cooker, use 1.5 times water.
2. Heat the oil and melt the sugar. Add a red chilli broken into two. Finely chop the bottom thick portion of the spring onions and fry it in the oil. Reserve the top portion for garnishing. Add the ground paste and fry a little
3. Add the veggies and fry on high flame. Mix the soya sauce and salt and fry till the veggies are crisp and cooked.
4. Switch off and mix the rice. Reheat and garnish with spring onion.

Serve hot. You can make this in 30 min. By the time the rice is cooked, you can finish the frying part and do the mixing.



Sending this off to Monthly Mingle - Ravishing Rice hosted by Nags of Edible garden originating from Meeta's blog.