Quick Salsa Puri (crunchy canapé)

A quick side to serve as starter or finger food for a party or simply as a relaxing treat with tea after a long day.

30-40 flat chaat puris/canape bases
2 medium green peppers
1 large tomato
1 medium onion
1-1/2 tbsp sweet sour red chilly sauce
1/2 tbsp lime juice
salt to taste

Pre-heat oven at 160 C for 5-7 minutes. Temperature will need to be adjusted according to your oven. But basically on low temperature.

Finely chop the vegetables and mix in the red chilly sauce, salt and lime juice. Top each puri with half teaspoonfuls of the mix. Arrange on the grill and set in the oven to bake. Reduce temperature to 155 C and let bake for about 7 minutes.

Other canape bases like pre-toasted bread or crackers can be substituted for the flat chaat puris.

Baked vegetable cutlets with basil pesto

1 small beetroot

1 small carrot

1/2 sweet potato

1 small green pepper (capsicum)

1 tbsp basil pesto

4 tbsp rice floor

Cooking oil

Salt to taste

(Makes about 10 cutlets)

Pre-heat oven at 180 C for 10 minutes.

Peel, cube and blanche the carrot, beetroot and sweet potato and blend through a mixer/blender. Finely chop green pepper.

The basil pesto was made at home with basil leaves, black pepper corns, garlic and almonds ground together with some olive oil.

Mix pesto and salt with the vegetables. Blend in the flour gradually as needed. The mixture is high on moisture because the vegetables have been blanched _and_ blended through a mixer - mashing them would be a better idea but blending is quicker and veggies do not need to be cooked soft.

Shape the mixture into cutlets and arrange on a grill. Put this in the oven and bake at 180 C for 25 minutes and then at 200 C for just about 7 minutes - or just enough so they are more firm around the outer layer but do not burn.

The pesto gives the cutlets all the flavour, so it is really the magic ingredient of the dish. None of the root vegetables used have a sharp taste and blend well with the pesto. Rice flour is one of the most subtle flours I've known and it almost softens the sharp taste that the baking brings out of basil pesto.

Just before they went into the oven: