cook-you

[cook-you]

I always wanted to try home-made vegetable chips. Tried these extremely easy (5 mins prep time) Kale chips. These are perfect when you crave some chips but don’t want to eat from those unhealthy store bought packets. 

Ingredients:

200 grams Kale leaves

1/2 a Lemon’s juice

2-3 Pinches of salt

1 tsp Extra virgin olive oil (substitute with your favourite oil)

Method:

Wash the leaves and dry on a kitchen towel or with a salad spinner.

Break them into smaller pieces pulling of from stem

In a bowl add the broken leaves, lemon juice, salt and oil

Massage them for a minute, making sure all the leaves are coated

Preheat the oven to 120 degree celsius

Lay the leaves on baking tray and bake for 17 minutes

Flip them and bake again for 17 minutes or until crispy

Turn off the oven and let them cook with the heat for another 10-15 minutes

[cook-you]

Spagetti with home made walnut sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup of Walnuts and some other nuts (optional) I used few pine nuts Fresh Parsley, Fresh oregano, Fresh garlic, Fresh basil, Fresh tomatoes (you can use cherry tomatoes as well, on second thoughts they would be actually better) spaghetti pasta, lots of virgin olive oil, cut and soaked sundried tomato.

Preparation:

Chop everything to grinder friendly pieces, grind one after another according to convenience, i didnt follow any order apart from grinding the walnuts and other nuts separately. Mix them in a roomy bowl with plenty olive oil... you want consistency to be like a thick paste but without any lumps.

Cooking:

Heat up a big pan, layer the bottom with olive oil again... trransfer the pan to the smallest burner and put the heat to minimum. Pour the paste and let it slow cook for about 10 mins with the lid on keep stirring every couple of minutes.

Boil and drain pasta just under aldente with salt. Transfer the pasta to the pan with your walnut sauce cooking. Use your tongs/ spatula to make sure all of the pasta gets coated with the sauce. Fire should be still in minimum all along.

Sprinkle half a cup of water (or tomato pauree/ or cream they could serve well as well but be aware will definitely subdue the walnut flavor) I used simple water. Cover it And let it cook until the pasta is aldente. Serve sprinkled with fresh oregano.

[cook-you]

Sambhar for Idliappam!

1) boiled toor/ ahrar dal/ lentils and drum sticks, with salt and turmeric powder. no no drumming in the kitchen (it's just a vegetable, Google it!)

2) soaked dried curry leaves in warm water drained from dal/ lentils

2) sauteed up different (blanched potato, cauliflower, beans, pumpkin) vegetables (I used my trusted 3 Lt. Hawkins pressure cooker) in hot ghee, sliced fresh onions, fresh smashed and diced garlic, whole cumin seed, whole mustard seeds, semi crushed coriander seeds, Indian bay leaves, dried red chili, fresh green chilies.

4) added boiled and drained dal to the sauteed vegetables when they were almost golden brown. Added salt to taste, added turmeric powder, sambhar masala, Hing (asafoetida powder to taste)

5) important ingredient- tamarind extract/ pulp/ paste to taste careful that thing is sour as @#$! , but this is what primarily differentiates a sambhar from a typical north indian dal.

6) add the soaked curry leaves.

7) let it cook in mid/ low for about 10-20 mins vegetables should be soft by that time. (I personally prefer a tad overboiled vegetables than a bit underboiled ) keep stirring and checking vegetable softness. Switch off fire and serve with warm idli/ dosa/ vada/ uttapam.

[cook-you]

UTTAPAM & ILDLAPPAM

made a batter of overnight soaked skinned split black gram (urad) dal. fermented it over radiator for few hours (better than sun, however be careful to use a big enough container - dalcanic eruptions occured as a result dalava was flowing all over my radiator )

Option 1. Fried > slice some onions lay them on the base of a saucepan, add a dollop of butter, wait until butter melts, pour in a good amount of the batter, sprinkle salt and klotrgi/ kalonji seeds and ajwain on top, cover it let it sit on a min fire for 10/12 minutes

Option 2. Steamed>  take a steamer (i used a gastop steam coocker) fill with enough water > wet a piece of fine cloth (ideal would be a muslin/ cheese cloth) lay it on top of the perforated base, put a good amount of batter on it > sprinkle salt and klotrgi/ kalonji seeds and ajwain on top > cover the lid and fold up the overhanging cloth from sides and lay it on top of the lid after closing

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BEEFSTALK

[cook-you]

KALE, NARIYAL TOOR DAL:

Seperated the kale steams and leaves chopped them fine separately, soaked some dry coconut shreds in warm water it becomes fluffy and soft, some sundried tomatoes, semi boiled split pegion peas (toordal) > hot pan sliced onions and garlic and dried chilli on olive oil > added mixed seeds and cumin > add all ingredients (apart from the coconut shreds add them 10 mins before finishing) cook till you like texture!

[cook-you]

SAMOSAS

Tried making classic potato,green peas and peanuts samosas, dough was made of fine white flour (maida) with clarified butter (ghee) and ajwain.  They all went straight to the freezer! unfortunately never clicked any after actually deep-frying!

[cook-you]

cottage cheese pancakes.