27th May 2009 - Dinner - Gajar ka Halwa, Aloo Gravy & Paraathe

In order to celebrate my return to cooking, and the Champions League final, and the fact that it is 27th May, I decided to go for a slightly more ambitious menu. I had wanted to make Gajar ka Halwa since many days, so I went ahead and purchased carrots (die Karotten) and condensed milk (Kondensmilch). 

What?

I decided to make Gajar ka Halwa, Potatoes with a richer gravy (which meant that I added onions, tomatoes and a small piece of carrot while cooking) and Parathe. 

I have special associations with Gajar ka Halwa, since it was the first one I cooked myself (not counting Chaai and Maggi), back when I was in Class VII. Also, this is the only dish I have made for guests.

How did it look?

There you go:

Fresh carrots! Notice the distinct orange colour vis-à-vis the red ones we get in India

All grated and ready to cook

The finished product

Aloo gravy

Paraathey

Improvements

• I erred on the side of caution when adding milk to the Halwa, due to which a lot of milk was left even after cooking it. As a result, I had to boil the whole thing for a long time to reduce the milk, but this excessive boiling made the carrots slightly soggy. Also, the initial plan to add condensed milk later got trashed.
• Got slightly over zealous while adding sugar. A little less would have sufficed.
• Made sure that the mistakes of yesterday's Parathey were not repeated. So, all in all, the Parathey turned out really well.
• Sabji turned out pretty well. I wanted a rich flavour with thicker gravy, so I added onions and tomatoes too (the bare-bones version uses only potatoes). Also, added, apart from the standard Haldi-Mirch and Hing, some lahsun ki chatni, pepper, oregano and chopped green chillies for the fresh and hot flavour. The only problem was that I added a bit too much water, so had to boil this one too, due to which the potatoes got sort of mashed up, but it tasted nice at the end, so I wasn't complaining!

26th May 2009 - Dinner - Parathe and Egg Bhurji

If you checked this blog in the past week, you might have noticed the absence of any post for the past 7-8 days. Not that I am tired of cooking, just that I was in Italy for 5 days and something or the other cropped up before that which left us with little time to cook. So, anyhow, after surviving on Bread for 3 days, I was completely fed up, and decided to get back to the kitchen.

What?
The dish wasn't new, I made Egg Bhurji once more, but this time I thought I should give a try to Parathe (Mukund was the one who suggested it for the first time, I guess). The method ain't very different from the Roti method, except you use oil liberally.

How did it look?

Improvements

• The bhurji tasted fine, I added some pepper at the end. I realised that making it in a deep, large container yields much better results (finer texture) than making it in a shallow one, the latter giving the typical shredded-omlette look.
• Parathe were sort of average. They didn't burn or get too hard, but somehow they didn't taste as fine as I wanted. The best Parathe I have ever had are made by my Nani (who has a magic hand when it comes to cooking).
• I added a bit of milk to the dough when kneading it. I had read somewhere that it helps make the Parathe softer (or keeps them soft, I don't remember), but I didn't see any appreciable change. Probably, I added very little milk.
  

18th May 2009 - Dinner - Aloo & Patta Gobhi

What?
Remember the 3 kg Cabbage we bought? I did a second round of Aloo-Patta gobhi this time. We ate our fill (dinners are the one proper meal we have, so we eat at least 1.5 times that of normal). But, still, exactly half of the cabbage is left.

How did it look?
Improvement

• Made sure that I didn't repeat last time's mistakes. So, turned the burner to a lower setting to ensure it doesn't burn, chopped enough cabbage which, before being cooked, looked as if it would feed half a dozen hungry IITians (you get the idea).
• To improve the taste, added some chilly sauce in the final stage and mixed it well.
• A bit of water helps cook the cabbage more uniformly. Don't add too much though, or it gets soggy. I prefer my cabbage on the crispy side.
  

14th May 2009 - Dinner - Daal Fry

What?

Made Daal Fry once more, this time with Tuar (arhar) daal. Pretty simple recipe, actually. It is sort of a repeat dish, so won't post a lot of details. Onions, tomatoes, garlic and two green chillies (they are hot in ways more than one, considering they cost almost 85 times that in India)

How did it look?

13th May 2009 - Dinner - Pizza with Fruit Salad

I was going to skip this one, because we purchased the Pizza from the Supermarket, and it wasn't really cooking, but am putting it for the sake of completeness.

Anyhow, we were very happy when we saw 12 mini pizzas, with 4 types of cheese, available at € 1,79. It seemed too good an offer, and we purchased the thing. What we did not take into account was the mini-ness of the pizza.

It turned out to be hardly bigger than a slightly generously-sized cookie, and as for the 4 types of cheese, well, that was all the pizza, or the pizzino, as the cute sounding title said, had.

Anyhow, we bought some fruits, and made some sort of a fruit salad. Took some milk, added sugar, heated, chopped apples, bananas and just mixed the whole damn thing together. Except, we realized later, it was nothing more than fruits and milk, and tasted just the same, so we ended up eating the fruits, and then drinking the milk later. :D

Anyhow, the pic

In the background you can see the Pizzinos in all their petite glory.

12th May 2009 - Dinner - Pitla

On today's Dinner menu was Pitla (the ending is a schwa not a long a sound), a quintessentially Maharashtrian dish, though it is also made in Gujarat, albeit slightly differently.

What?

Most North Indians might not be aware of Pitla, a staple dish for Maharashtrians. Made  using Besan, which is nothing but ground Chana Daal, it is pretty filling. And is pretty hassle-free to make; all the spices can be added to the besan mixture itself, so it minimises the number of utensils you need to clean afterwards (that is the primary factor for me while choosing one out of two recipes!)

How did it look?

The Tadka

Improvement

• Nothing much, except I added a final tadka on the top, just for the effect. Took a small frying pan, heated some oil, put in rai (black mustard seed), jeera and then poured it on top of the dish (pic above).
• This can also be made in a dry form, which has a longer shelf life, and can be carried on a trip.
• When we make this, a bit of the besan sticks to the frying pan too, but unlike normal stuff which burns on getting stuck and makes your life more difficult when you want to clean the pan, this one does not. If you continuously stir the mixture, what you get on the sides is a nice vertical version of besan ka cheela, a dish not restricted to Maharashtra. Vaibhav liked it a lot, and we had fun scraping and eating that stuff.

11th May 2009 - Dinner - Egg Bhurji

Egg bhurji, or anDa bhurji, the Indian version of scrambled eggs is a very easy-to-prepare dish, that acts as quite a filler, plus gives us our dose of protein in an other wise carbohydrate-high diet (potatotes, potatoes and more potatoes).

What?

Today, decided to make Egg Bhurji. Chopped seven-ninths of an onion and a tomato, and stir fried them, finally adding 4 eggs (not-whipped) and then vigorously stirred it, so that it does not congeal into one mass. 

How did it look?

Voilà

How to NOT make it the way it is made in IIT messes and canteens

OK, so all the while you make this, remember that ultimate aim!

• Chop the onions finely, thick ones don't work equally well. Ditto with the tomatoes
• Stir fry the onions and tomatoes, don't let them be too uncooked
  
• Add Haldi
• The most crucial, or mission-critical step is to vigorously stir the contents of the pan after adding the eggs. This has to be done to ensure that [1] the thing doesn't congeal, [2] the resulting bhurji is not coarse, but very fine and light, [3] the egg does not stick to the walls of the pan. 
• Preferably made in a deep pan rather than a shallow one so that the stuff does not spill when you stir it.
• If not stirred well, it will end up tasting like shredded omlette, which pretty much removes the fun out of it
• I personally prefer it relatively drier. YMMV, but for people who are not very used to the smell of eggs, or who are probably trying out eggs for the first time, it is better to not make it sort of wet. The drier version has a fainter smell too.

The bhurji that is made in the mess is made on those large flat surfaces used for making Dosas etc, and the onions never get cooked enough, nor the mixture shredded enough, leading to raw onions and the congealed thing I was talking about.