Lets Eat/EshoKhai/AaoKhayen » Whats Cooking

Nutritious Vegetable Salad

mitalibanerjee — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:19:19 +0000

The recipe will follow shortly, just posting the pictures of our latest experiment! We tried a Vegetable Salad with a delicious dressing complemented with Garlic bread and Mashed Potatoes… Have a look at the stages here:

3 different pastas, 3 tastes….

mantramugdha — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:42:42 +0000

As a couple, Mitali and I are fairly health concious. Time permitting, we make it a point to hit the gym , though I am somewhat of a slacker in this dept. (then again , who needs a gym with a size/shape like mine ) anyways… we have paid a bomb and joined the recently opened Addiction gym near our place in Noida. Day one saw me hitting it with gusto and then not going for the next two.

Anyways Monday I decided to push Mitali off to the gym and then practice some of my awesome culinary talents ( just kidding…..well..not really ). So I went ingredient hunting and got loads of stuff.

I prepared penne parboiled pasta and 3 types of sauces to provide the variations. One was a Basil and thyme based braised Chicken breasts with pasta, a white sauce with mayo, cheese and boiled veggies and the last one was a boiled grams ( chana) based pasta in a groundnut and tomato base.All three turned out great with my personal favourite being the Chana one, while Mitali favoured the white sauce.

Hey and did I tell you we had mustard and honey dressing also. and washed it down with peach juice. Heaven

Dum Aloo Recipe / Dum Aloo Kashmiri

mitalibanerjee — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:09:54 +0000

Dum Aloo Kashmiri

Dum Aloo Kashmiri is a tried and tested delicious dish with which you can never go wrong! It is a very good option as a Veg main dish along with some Non-Veg dish in your Dinner Party… Let’s see how it is prepared!

Ingredients Required:

Aloo (Potatoes)
Water
Salt To Taste
Ghee or oil for deep-frying
1 cup ghee
1 large Onion (chopped)
4 tbsp tomato puree
Curd (Remember, the gravy is made of Dahi/ Curd and not Tomato!)

Curd- Alternative for tomato in white gravies

1 green Chillie (seeds removed and sliced)

Spices:

Saunff

4 cloves
4 bay leaves
6 black peppercorns
4 green cardamoms
1 brown cardamom
1piece cinnamon stick
Garam masala powder

Paste:
1 large onion (chopped)
12 flakes garlic
2 tbsp ginger
6 black peppercorns
1 tsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 dry red chilies
1 tsp turmeric powder
A pinch of ground mace
A pinch of ground nutmeg

Method:
1. Make a fine powder by blending together the ingredients of the masala in a blender. Keep it aside.
2. Remove the peel from boiled potatoes (not too soft) and prick them.
3. Take oil in a frying pan and heat it for about one minute. Fry the potatoes on a medium heat until their color changes from white to light brown. Keep it aside.
4. Add grated onion, asafoetida, bay leaves and ginger-garlic paste to the remaining oil.
5. Fry the mixture till the paste turns reddish brown.
6. Add the masala prepared and heat for about 2 to 3 minutes.
7. Add turmeric, chilli powder and salt.
8. Fry again for about a minute.
9. Now add fine curd to make the gravy.
10. Keep stirring continuously, add water if the gravy appears too thick.
11. Now add pricked potatoes to this gravy till the oil comes up.
12. Remove from the flame after 4 to 5 minutes.
13. Garnish it with fresh coriander leaves.
14. Dum Aloo is ready to serve. Serve with hot paranthas or Rotis!!

Tips and Variations:

1. What we do is roast the garam masala components like cloves, dalchini etc. on a pan and then crush them in a mixer grinder. This gives a great taste to the dish. Try this in other recipes as well!

2. To make the gravy gritty and thick, a good option is to grind some poppy seeds (khus khus or posto dana) with little water and add to the gravy. This improves the consistency of the gravy!!

Poppy Seeds... A very less known ingredient of most white gravies!

3. Another variation can be to add ground peanuts which will give the gravy a unique taste and gritty consistency!

Peanuts... An important ingredient in some of the best gravies!

ENJOY the delicious and mouth watering Dum Aloo and earn accolades from your friends and family!

Paneer Makhana Gravy/Makhane ki Sabji/Fox Nut and Cottage Cheese Gravy

mitalibanerjee — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:05:55 +0000

Following is the recipe for a mild and delicious paneer dish with makhana (also known as Fox Nut or Gorgon Nut). You need very basic ingredients for this and it takes hardly 15-20 mins prepare.

Ingredients are:

Makhana (Fox Nut): 2 cups
Paneer (Cottage Cheese): 200 gms
Milk: 2 small cups
Malai / Cream: half cup
Tomato: minced , 2
Onion paste: 2 in number
Garlic and Ginger Paste
Ghee
Oil
Cashew Nuts (Optional)

Masala / Spices:

Lal mirch / Red Pepper
Haldi / turmeric Powder
Dhania Powder
Freshly ground Garam Masala (Dal chini, javitri, cloves, kali mirch etc. or you can use the ready made garam masal powder)
Salt to taste
Sugar

Prerequisites:

Roast the makhana for few minutes in miminum ghee by continuously stirring it. This is important to propoerly cook the makhana which otherwise would taste uncooked. Meanwhile, prepare the following pastes separately: Ginger Garlic paste, Onions (2), Tomato and Green Chillies (2 each). Also, cut the panner in small cubes. There is no need to fry these. If the panner is not spft enough, the best option is to boil the cubes in salt water for a few minutes.

Gravy:

Heat the oil in a pan or kadhai (Just 2 table spoons of oil). Add garam masala to the oil, then add Ginger-garlic paste and cook it till iy becomes mild brown. Now add the onion paste and cook the same till it becomes golden brown. The main trick is not to add too much of onion as that would make the gravy pungent. 2 small onions should be enough. Now add the spices to this paste as mentioned above and allow it to cook for 2 mins till the oil comes up. Now add the tomato and chilli paste and cook it for a few minutes.

This is followed by adding malai / cream and two cups of milk. Add salt to taste and a pinch of sugar. Cook the gravy to a boil and then add panner cubes and roasted makhanas to the gravy. Add water just enough to make the gravy a bit lucid. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 5-8 mins till the makhanas become soft.

Garnish the dish with coriander leaves and some malai / fresh cream.

Your sabji is ready to serve!!

Food Fiesta at home and Lucknow part -1

mantramugdha — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:07:36 +0000

Happy Independence Day!!!

Ok so I’ve been away for the weekend, a hard earned break at that and three days of hols meant running of to my home town- Lucknow (capital of U.P.).

On 14th august we had awesome dinner at home (noida). A littlte back ground here.

anyways back after our gym ( we were going to miss it for next three days), we decided to cook rice, chapati, arhar (toor) dal , Aalu Lauer Papor diye torkari ( aalu lauki aur papad ki sabji/ potato, gourd and papad dish)and Kancha Posto to top it all.

Mitali has become quite the expert in making bengali vegetarian dishes and uses mustard oil with every other dish. The Gourd with papad was made by her and turned out great…the veggie was very fresh and tender and the papad was crunchy and soggy in parts , a dash of ghee made it just super….yay

The dal was great as usual. It was the Kancha posto ( kachcha khuskhus/ raw poppy seeds) that was made by yours truly more as an afterthought that turned out so great. it took only 5 mins and was awesome…mitali had it for the first time and loved the crunchy , pungent taste with the rice.

All recipes coming up….