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:

Stir fried french beans with tender coconut

This is like a cooked salad, quick and healthy recipe for any season. Rather a fusion between Indian and Thai cooking. But who knows what influences played in the past upon what is known to be 'Indian' and 'Thai' today.

Ingredients:

150 gm French beans
3/4 cup tender coconut paste
1 large red chilli (Kashmir chilli if you like)
10-12 black pepper corns (depends upon how much heat is desired and how much the peppers offer)
2 tsp cooking oil
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp shredded ginger, optional
Salt and sugar

Blanche beans, I prefer to leave them with a bit of a crunch. Grind the tender coconut just about in a food processor if you are using pieces. Little bits might remain but they will be very soft and unobtrusive. Blending it too much will make it watery in consistency.

Shred the lemon and ginger for garnish. Deseed chilli and coarsely crush the pepper corns.

Heat the cooking oil in a pan and tip the pepper and chilli in it. Toss well. Chilli fries in a few seconds, wait until the oil has a reddish tinge but taking care to not let the chilli burn on any side.

Add beans, stir for a minute and coat them with the oil. Add salt to your taste. Stir in the tender coconut, mix well. Add sugar (brown sugar will also go well), lemon zest and shredded ginger if you are using it.

Switch off the heat within a minute of adding the garnish. Add some lemon juice if preferred.

This will go well as a side. Boiled potatoes and carrots could also be added or used instead of the beans. Fish or chicken? Might need a little marination beforehand?

Multigrain Rawa Dosa

2 cups wheat semolina/rawa (not dry roasted or soaked)
3/4 cup ragi flour
1/2 cup rice flour
2 cups curd, whipped to a liquid consistency

For garnish

1 tsp ghee or butter
1 green chilly chopped
1 tsp cumin
3 tsp coarsely chopped cashewnuts
Curry leaves
Chopped coriander

Mix the rawa, flours and curd adding only a bit of water as needed to make a smooth thick batter. Add salt and let it stand for half an hour, an hour if possible.

Heat the ghee in a pan, make a tadka with the garnish ingredients except for the coriander and stir in into the batter. Add the coriander. Adjust salt and we are good to make dosas.

Evenly spread out a ladle-full of batter on a hot pan into a thin pancake. These dosas don't need to be covered to be cooked, just wait to flip over until it begins to get lifted from the sides.

Serving idea:

Add crushed black pepper to the batter. And top dosas with sweet mustard sauce. Green fresh coconut chutney is my favourite with this dosa.

Banana and tender coconut smoothie

Another tender coconut smoothie.

2 bananas
2 tbsp curd/yoghurt
3/4 cup tender coconut
Cocoa powder to taste

Blend all in a blender until smooth. I had some raisins soaking overnight. They were deseeded and added for extra nutritional punch. Garnished with chocolate mocha cocoa powder. This makes for two small servings but is considerably filling.

Fig and tender coconut smoothie

A cup of cut figs - about two whole figs
Half a cup of tender coconut
Half a cup of yogurt
8-10 raisins and sultanas
1 1/2 generous tsp of dry date powder (or almond?)

Blend all in a blender. Add half a teaspoon of sugar if you must. Honey would be a healthy substitute.

The tender coconut and yogurt help cool the body temperature and are excellent for acidity amongst other benefits. The other ingredients are all very nutritious but I am too lazy to list them here.

Multi-grain stuffed paratha

The paratha cover/wrap is made of flour of two grains and the stuffing with whole (sabut) brown lentil (masoor) and split black lentil (kaali urad daal) so it contains plenty of roughage and protein.

The intent was to cook the flour with some water and then use it to make stuffed parathas but I was running out of time that evening as the recipe inspiration came quite at the last moment as I got back home from work. I also didn't have enough rice flour. So a usual dough was made, standard one for any paratha/roti. But without any oil :-) .

The stuffing needs some preparation - soaking and then cooking lentils. I had some mixed soaked lentil ready as the original plan for dinner that day was daal makhani.

The dough should be mixed just about a few minutes before you're ready to roll out parathas. As it has a higher proportion of ragi which isn't as sticky as wheat and also because no oil is used in it moisture evaporates pretty quickly off the dough and the paratha cover begins cracking as it is rolled out.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

2 cups of Ragi flour

2/3 cup of rice flour

Warm water for kneading

For the stuffing:

3/4 cup split black lentil

1/4 cup brown lentil

1/4 cup chopped red onions or spring onions

1/4 cup chopped coriander

2 small green chillies, slit, stem removed and chopped

1 tbsp lemon juice / 2-3 tsp dry mango powder

2 tsp ginger paste

2 tsp red chilly powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 tsp carrom seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp asafoetida (optional)

2 tsp sugar

Salt

(The measure and proportion of spices really depends upon how strong/weak the spices you use are, and upon your taste.)

Making the stuffing:

The lentils are soaked for about 4-5 hours in water and cooked "dry" - take some water in a cooker/larger pot and on a ring/stand place in it the vessel with lentils. Add about 2 or 3 teaspoonfuls of water to the lentil but no more. Shouldn't take more than 5 whistles with a pressure cooker, or about 20 minutes cooking slow over a flame. Once cooked and cooled, mash the lentils. They should turn out a dry powdery consistency. This is important to be able to roll out the parathas with this filling inside.

Roast the cumin and carom seeds and lightly crush them but not to a powder. Mix in this crush and all the other ingredients for the stuffing with the mashed lentils. Don't add all of the lemon juice and onion at once - leave out some of it if the lentils feel a little moist as onion and lemon juice will release further juice when mixed with salt and the spices.

The dough:

Mix together the flours with some salt and add warm water to it gradually to make soft dough. It should be a consistency that allows being rolled out. The rice flour provides bonding to the mix. Dough can be covered under foil or wet muslin cloth to keep it from drying.

Parathas:

Roll out the dough in about 3-inch diameter circles. 

Place a portion of stuffing upon it and close in the cover from all sides. Gently flatten at the top. 

Sprinkle some rice or wheat flour on the rolling board and roll out the paratha gently. Rolling out by the moving the pin in relatively vertical or linear motion and not in a circular movements. Roast on a flat pan (tawa). This variant of paratha can literally go zero oil.

Miscellaneous Comments: 

Even if the stuffing does make an appearance at a few places it does not quite ruin the paratha. As this is dry cooked lentil it begins to bond and form a layer once on the heat and catches up with the cover in terms of texture. The reddish colour given by ragi isn't very appealing, but the taste of the filling more than makes up for the looks.

Using a nonstick pan is recommended to roast/shallow fry these parathas to minimise risk of frustration and worse, delayed or missing dinner. Ragi in the covering is rather fussy and difficult and tends to stick if the pan is too hot as a cast iron pan might get.

Nutrition Facts:

The lentils are a little hard to digest being protein-heavy, so the carom, cumin, ginger, coriander and asafoetida are added to aid digestion. The paratha cover itself is very light to digest. Ragi and rice, rich in calcium and minerals and cooling. But the stuffing is a bit spicy and with the lentils used some people might not be very inclined to make this at the height of summer.

White ragi flour could be used instead of red, both have their own nutritional benefits.

The parathas do taste better when topped with ghee. Some things will never change.

Soyabean fried rice or pulao?

I wanted to make a soyabean fried rice but something more pulao than a Chinese fried rice. Yet something that used up the red chilly sauce as well as homemade white butter which was available. Many times I tend to stick to authentic cooking styles when cooking a dish. The intention is to get authentic taste. But anyone knowing a little bit about history and food history will question when claims are made of something being "purely" Indian. Influences from other cultures have been absorbed and assimilated in all aspects of human life everywhere across the globe since centuries, food being no exception. 

Using this thought as inspiration I decided to do just as I pleased and came up with the below outcome. Others who ate the rice thought it was "interesting", a second helping was had and the bowl was scraped empty. One must warn though that the dish has a fairly earthy taste so it is not for those days when you are more inclined towards fresher flavours. It is hot but not spicy and subtle once you get used to the soyabean.

Ingredients:

2 cups of cooked rice (white rice recommended over red rice)
1 1/2 cup mince of blanched soya chunks
1 cup chopped red onion
1 large red chilly
1 inch of ginger, grated
1 clove of garlic peeled and crushed
1 tsp red chilly sauce
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
2 tbsp butter
7-8 cashewnuts, halved or coarsely chopped
5-6 sprigs of coriander
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp butter or olive oil or ghee for cooking the rice
Salt

Preparation:

Soak the red chilly in warm water for about 45 minutes and chop finely or coarsely grind to a paste.

Soak rice in twice as much water for ten minutes before cooking. Add some butter/oil/ghee and a pinch of salt to it while cooking. Butter/oil/ghee prevents the grains from sticking to each other. Leave rice uncovered once cooked so that the steam escapes and no excess moisture is retained. My rice was soft, moist yet the grains well-separated from each other. Using red rice will enhance the earthy/dense taste the dish acquires because of soyabean so I recommend white rice instead to balance it out.

Blanch soya granules/chunks for about 5-7 minutes, drain away all the water and run through the blender for just a bit.

Steps:

1. Heat half the butter in a pan. Fry cashewnuts to a light golden brown, remove to a bowl and fry 1/4 of the chopped onions to a light pink. 

2. Heat the butter in the pan again and add the ginger and garlic to it. Add chillies and the remaining of chopped onion. Fry the onion to a light pink (not brown as it would dry the onion of moisture and also change its taste) and add the soya mince. Saute for a minute and ensure any remaining water evaporates. 

3. Now add the rice and mix gently to avoid breaking the grains. Add salt but remember some was added while cooking the rice.

4. Add the chilly sauce, cumin and coriander powder and the remaining butter and mix well. Garnish with the fried cashewnuts, onion, lemon juice and plenty of coriander. I agree mine didn't have plenty of it.

Here's what I got: