Potato sandwich filling with chilli sauce

This is a mild-flavoured filling I came up with for an evening when N and I were both down with a cold. Low on effort and high on comfort.

Ingredients:

8 lemon-sized potatoes or about 1 cup of potato mash.
2 tbsp finely chopped onion
2-3 tsp chopped green garlic/spring garlic
3 tsp red chilli sauce
1/2 tsp crushed black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
Cooking oil
Salt to taste

Boil, peel and mash potatoes.

Heat some oil in a pan and on medium heat add chopped onion. Saute until translucent and add the chopped green garlic. Saute for a minute but not too long to avoid drying up the moisture in the garlic or onion.

Add the potato mash and mix well. Add salt, red chilli sauce. Take off heat and add the pepper and oregano or herb seasoning of your choice.

This is a quick, low fat recipe. The filling can also be served as a side dish.

Herbed mushroom in tomato sauce

I wanted to make something with mushrooms, with some gravy so it would go with bread. But not the usual mushroom masala. So I made this without any of the usual spices which would go in a curry.

This just about serves two.

7-8 button mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped green peppers
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp dry oregano and basil
7-8 fresh mint leaves
Salt and sugar to taste

Wash, peel if needed and slice mushrooms. Heat olive or any cooking oil (about 3/4 tbsp) or butter in a pan.

Add the onion and saute until translucent. Add tomato and cook on medium-to-high heat so the juices separate. Add a pinch of salt. Once the oil separates reduce the heat. Add half a teaspoon sugar. Stir for a few seconds.

Now add the peppers and stir. Let cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the mushrooms. Add salt, mix and cook uncovered for about 5 minutes. The consistency should be like a thick gravy. If it is dry add a little warm water and adjust the salt.

Add chopped mint leaves, stir and let cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the chilli flakes, pepper and herbs. Stir and cook for another couple of minutes.

Lemongrass tea

A soothing and refreshing tea which I made up when I was grounded at home with a cold. Lemongrass is said to help treat fever and lemon is good for cokds with its vitamin C and mint is good for the gut.

Some Ayurveda jargon - colds are usually an imbalance of vata and kapha and mint increases pitta while reducing vata levels.

So for a mug-full of tea:

1 and 1/2 to 2 tsp lemongrass cut into small pieces
2-3 leaves of mint
A few drops of lemon

Take a little more quantity of water than you would like tea as the water will be boiled about 10 minutes.

Bring the water to a boil, add lemongrass and simmer for 5-7 minutes.

Add the mint leaves and let simmer for another 3-5 minutes.

The tea should have a greenish tinge and smell of the herbs added.

Strain and let cool a few minutes or until you can't wait any more. Add the lemon drops.

If you want a medicine for cold add a teaspoonful of freshly grated ginger and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder with the lemongrass. Ginger powder can be used instead of fresh ginger. The ginger and cinnamon recipe is courtesy Dr. Vasant Lad's book "the complete book of Ayurveda home remedies".

Sweet potato sheera

This was done in 20 minutes even with some distractions. Inspired by a traditional dish my grandmother made which uses the same ingredients. But the potatoes are sliced in somewhat thick round slices. Adding jaggery in the end as in this recipe it forms a coating on the sweet potato which gives a thin crusty texture to the slices on the outside. We get this red sweet potato around here called as ratalu or ratale.

This type cooks pretty quickly. The usual potato will need to be steamed and cubed/mashed first. Typical sweet potato halwa recipes are with milk, this one is without so much quicker.

Ingredients:

3/4 -1 cup sweet potato peeled and cubed
1 tbsp ghee or butter
1 tbsp jaggery crush or sugar
1 dry fig
A pinch of finely grated nutmeg

Heat a pan, melt the butter/ghee. Add the cubed sweet potatoes, mix well.

Cover the pan and steam for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally so they don't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Grate the nutmeg, wash and chop fig.

Once the sweet potatoes are soft mix in the sugar or jaggery. Add the nutmeg and mix well, toss in the figs and you're done.

Pumpkin sweet paratha

This recipe is an inspiration from my mum and a traditional Marathi poori made with pumpkin.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cubes of peeled pumpkin
1/2 cup or some more wheat flour
2 tbsp sugar or jaggery crush
2 tsp coarsely crushed pistachio or cashewnuts
1/4 tsp powdered cardamom
Salt to taste (optional)
Milk for the dough

Peel and cube the pumpkin and transfer to a thick-bottomed vessel. Add water to about halfway the level of the pumpkin cubes or just short of covering them. The pumpkin should be steamed with as less added water as possible but without letting it stick to the bottom of the pot.

Cover and steam the pumpkin for about 5-7 minutes, stirring if needed so it doesn't stick or burn.

Leave aside to cool. In a small skillet toast 3-4 seeds of cardamom and let aside to cool. Heat a tsp of ghee or butter in it and lightly roast the crushed nuts of your choice, set aside. Finely crush the cardamom.

Transfer the pumpkin to a wide mixing bowl. Mash well. Add the powdered cardamom, nuts and sugar or jaggery and mix. Adjust sugar to taste. Add a pinch of salt if you wish.

Now add flour to the pumpkin mixture until a soft dough can be formed. To retain the taste and texture of the parathas mix in only so much flour as the pumpkin mixture can take. If it turns out flaky and needs more water add milk instead of water and roll into a ball. This dough doesn't need kneading.

Roll out into flat discs about 5-inch diameter. Heat a non-stick pan and dry roast the parathas evenly on both sides. Finish with some ghee when serving. These parathas can be eaten without any side but if you want to go over-the-top this would go well with some mango marmalade.

Raw banana cutlets

Just wanted to try out something interesting with unripened bananas and wanted to find out how different they tasted from potatoes. And although green/unripened banana mash resembles mashed potato the taste is far from similar and the two have a distinctly separate texture.

So I tried cutlets trying to keep the ingredients mostly green or rather avoiding the use of anything like red chilli and garam masala powder.

3 unripened bananas (gave just under 1 cup of mash)
1 large green pepper
2 tsp green chilli paste
2 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp powder of roasted fennel seeds
1 1/2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
4 tsp lemon juice (or adjust to taste)
Salt to taste

For coating:

Rice flour or all purpose white flour or egg whites if you prefer
Fine suji or bread crumbs.

Cook bananas along with the peel until soft. I cooked them in a pressure cooker with water only at the bottom of the cooker but none added to the bananas.

Peel, cut and mash bananas once cool. Finely chop green pepper. Mix in the pepper and flavoring ingredients (pastes and powders), lemon juice and salt with the mash.

Make a runny paste with the flour. It should be a consistency like egg white. Spread suji or bread crumbs in a thin layer onto a plate.

Shape the banana mash into flattened cutlets. Give each one a quick dip in the flour paste and then a roll over the suji or crumbs.

If the paste appears to thicken add some water or milk to maintain consistency. The cutlets should not be too wet or the covering will not be crispy enough.

Heat a pan and coat with oil. A nice non-stick pan will mean hardly any more oil will be needed. Arrange the cutlets on the pan and reduce heat to just over sim. Flip over after a few minutes, repeating again once for even roasting. The cutlets should be done in just over 15 minutes.

Green banana is said to have cooling and astringent qualities which calm the pitta dosha but encourage the vaata dosha. It is rich in carbohydrates and minerals. Cutlets were quite filling in any case. And were a welcome change of taste.

Baked whole wheat apple pie pockets

These are as the title says baked whole wheat pie pockets. I had to come up with a recipe of my own because none of the posts I found on the Internet used whole wheat. Also the recipe draws inspiration from Indian sweet dishes so is a fusion so to say.

Because no fine white flour or baking powder is used the pie pockets don't become very crispy. When shared with friends at work the next day I got a comment saying the stuffing was worth trying out but in deep-fried pockets. You can add 1/2 the proportion of fine white flour to get crispiness and still bake it. The baking duration might be 5-7 minutes lesser depending upon the oven if fine white flour is used.

Took me about an hour for preparation. Baking time was 45-50 minutes.

Ingredients:

For the stuffing:

4-5 medium-sized red apples
3/4 cup coarsely chopped dry fig, cashewnuts and dates
1 1/2 tbsp poppy seed
1/4 cup or less of sugar
1-2 tsps cardamom or nutmeg powder

For the cover:

2-2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
Salt
Milk
Cooking oil
Butter for shallow-frying

To do:

Warm the milk just a bit and mix in the vanilla essence.
Add some salt to the flour for taste and mix it well. This is optional.
Mix in the milk with the flour gradually as you knead it into a dough. The dough shouldn't be too moist but soft enough that it gets moulded into shape without getting cracks.
Shape into lemon-sized balls and set aside covered with a moist cotton cloth.

For the stuffing:

Chop the apples into small pieces. I didn't peel them.

Add about half a tbsp butter to a pan. Heat it and before it reaches smoking point shallow fry the poppy seeds first and then the chopped cashewnuts separately. Set aside to cool.

Tip the apples in the pan and let cook until the juices are released. Add sugar if you are going to use any sugar. Let cook until apples are tender and most of the juice evaporates. But not for longer than ten minutes after the sugar is added.

Take down pan off heat, mix in all the dry fruit and poppy seeds. Add cardamom/nutmeg powder and mix well.

Take some milk in a small bowl before beginning with the pie pockets.

Roll out the dough into discs or squares about two inches in diameter. Lay out the stuffing flattening it gently at the center of each disc. For semi-circle shaped pockets lay out the stuffing at the center of the lower half of the disc.

I shaped them semi-roundish:

Pre-heat oven at 180 C for 15 minutes.

With your fingertips or a teaspoon line the sides of the disc with a few drops of milk. Close the pockets to wrap into square-shaped envelopes or semi-rounds. Use a drop of milk as glue at places where any open ends need sealing in.

Brush cooking oil on all sides of the wraps and lay them out on a mesh. Put in the oven to bake for 25 minutes. Get them out and flip over.

You'll know if the temperature is too high or the other side needs to be baked longer than 25 minutes. Brush oil on the surface again if needed.

Let bake for another 20-25 minutes and let the pockets be in the oven for another 5 minutes before they are taken out.

The pockets taste better when warm or just give a quick round of re-heating before serving.