(Not so Christmassy) Palak Paneer - so green, so tasty!

Merry Christmas!
At this time of year, I miss my family back in England. I remember parties with fruit punch and party hats, crackers, Hunt the Thimble, screaming & shouting, chocolate cornflake cake, Coca Cola, homemade Baileys, and so much more...
My choice of food to write about today isn't particularly Christmassy and definitely doesn't remind me of Christmas' long gone... but it is festive green!

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As a vegetarian, living in a hot country, with no oven, it's really quite difficult to make the traditional Christmas roast of my childhood... chicken (or nut roast), stuffing, potatoes (boiled and roast), parsnips, brussel sprouts, carrots, peas, Yorkshire puddings, gravy... my mouth is watering at the thought of it!
Last year I wrote about some of my favourite chefs Christmas recipes, so if Palak Paneer isn't your thing then check out my entry on Christmas Foooooooooooooooooooooood.

I'm sure, however, that this recipe won't disappoint. This is a rich and warming dish. I chose to write about this, as this is what I'll be eating for dinner tonight!

I make mine less spicy, but you can easily add more kick to it with more chilli powder or you can make some chilli paste and add alongside the garlic and ginger paste.

Palak Paneer
3-4 bunches palak (spinach)
200g fresh paneer, cubed and soaked in water
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp jeera seeds
2 onions, minced
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
2 large tomatoes, pureed
1/4 tsp haldi
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp dhaniya powder
1 tsp garam masala
Salt to taste
Enough water
Cream / Milk to taste (optional)

1. Cook spinach in a little water, drain and cool
2. Blend to the desired consistency (I puree mine and make a very smooth Palak gravy)
3. Heat oil in a pan, add jeera and crackle
4. Add onion and saute until starting to turn brown
5. Add ginger & garlic paste and cook for a further few minutes until onions are golden brown
6. Add tomatoes, salt and all spices then cover and cook until oil separates
7. Add spinach and loosen mixture with a little water or milk or cream and cook for a few minutes
8. Add paneer, mix well, cook for 1 minute then serve

I usually don't bother with milk or cream, the dish is rich enough without it. Serve with roti and rice and scoff!
Because it's Christmas, I'll push the boat out a little and add some cream today. I'll also be enjoying a few Goan Christmas delicacies like Guava cheese and Plum cake along with a nice glass of plonk.

I hope you all enjoy a nice, relaxed Christmas day. May Peace be with you...

Dal Dhokli - AKA Gujarati Pasta

Nearly Christmas now... I have only a few days left until I take a well deserved holiday. Unfortunately it wont be peaceful, as the Awesome Eight are starting to take over the house. With their eyes open and their legs gaining strength every day, they're starting to show their personalities! We have the yappy worriers, the wrestlers, the chewers, the laid back and the fat puppy types so far.

Coco is being fantastic, but the puppies are really starting to trouble her now. They're just tall enough to grab a slurp of milk even when Coco's standing up, so she really can't escape. And poor MOH is woken up everyday by the incessant yapping. He's feeling a little sleep deprived! I get to run off to work and escape, so I'm trying to make some of his favourite dishes to cheer him up until I'm on leave.

One of MOH's favourite dishes is Dal Dhokli, which is often known as 'Gujarati Pasta'! It's filling and tasty and pretty easy to make!

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Dal Dhokli

Dal:
1/2 cup toor dal, washed and soaked for 20 mins
Handful raw/roasted peanuts (unsalted)
2 cups water
1 tbsp oil/ghee
1/4 tsp rai
1/4 tsp jeera
5-6 curry leaves
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
Pinch of hing
2-3 pieces of cocum (optional)
Jaggery to taste (optional)
1 tbsp ginger & garlic paste
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1/2 tsp haldi
1/2 tsp chilli powder (to taste)
Juice of 1 small lemon
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp garam masala
Coriander leaves for garnishing

Dhokli:
1/2 cup atta
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp haldi
1/4 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp oil


Dhokli
1. Mix together all the ingredients for the dhokli with enough water to knead a soft, firm dough
2. Roll out mixture into chapattis and cut into diamond shapes
3. Add the diamond pieces to a large pan of boiling water (just like you would for pasta) and cook for 8-10 minutes then drain
4. Whilst dhokli are cooking, make the dal

Dal
5. Cook toor dal and peanuts with 2 cups water in pressure cooker
6. Leave to cool then whisk until dal is smooth
7. Heat ghee/oil, then add rai, jeera, curry leaves, cloves, bay leaf, hing and cocum and cook for 30 seeconds or so
8. Add jaggery, ginger & garlic paste, green chilli, haldi and chilli powder and stir well
9. Add spice mix to the dal along with the lemon juice, salt and garam masala
10. Bring to the boil, add the dhokli and simmer for 10 minutes, adding extra water as necessary (the dal should not be too thick)
11. Serve garnished with coriander


I don't usually put cocum and jaggery in my version, as I'm not keen on the flavours, and I usually just slit the green chillies rather than finely chopping, as we don't like too much of that chilli kick.

If you like, you can add onions and tomatoes to the dal. Just add at step 8 along with the ginger & garlic paste and cook out for around 10 minutes before moving to step 9.

Quite often this is eaten on it's own, because the Dhokli provide your carbohydrates for the meal, but you can eat the dal along with rice if you have any left over!

I often make too much dough for Dhokli and end up using it to make chapatti the following day. Just keep the dough in a container in the fridge and get it out to warm up at least half an hour before you use it.

MOH's favourite dish... Green Mung Bhaji

I can't believe that I've not done this recipe before now... In fact I thought that maybe I had blogged about it, but just deleted from my Blog folder on my laptop, so came online to check my own blog out. It turns out that I've been remiss and forgotten to blog this simple recipe after all.

So why does this recipe deserve blog space? Well it happens to be MOH's favourite. Also, due to time constraints recently, I've managed to turn it into a one pot recipe, which leaves me plenty of time to look after my wonderful doggy, Super-Coco, and her fantastic puppies, the Awesome Eightsome!

Yup, my days are filled with work, work, work and my nights are filled with two-week old pups and catering for their phenomenally hungry mum. All I seem to be cooking is food for Coco... Mangalore Rice and Toor Dal Khichidi with Dudhi, Carrot, French Beans, Cabbage, Capsicum and Boiled Chicken. Oatmeal for a snack! Boiled Eggs, bread and milk for breakfast. Supplemented with Bananas and Carrots, Doggie biscuits, chews and kibble. She's eating about twice the amount she normally does, and she's still sooooo skinny coz she's feeding 8 pups.

On top of all this cooking and feeding, there's a huge amount of cleaning that needs to be constantly done...partly coz Mumbai is naturally soooooooooooooooooooo dirty and partly due to the Awesome Eightsome. I'm very lucky to have MOH take care of most of the cleaning, but we've also got the washing machine on a lot more recently than normal!

In the past week I've discovered the joys of playing with simple photo-editing software too...I've been using Pixlr-o-matic and having a blast making cute puppy pics look even better (in my opinion). I do think I'm having a bit of a second childhood here, coz playing with this sort of thing is clearly for kids, right? Nevermind... whatever makes you happy!

So here we go...

Green Mung Bhaji

1 cup green mung beans
3 cups water
Salt to taste
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp jeera seeds (cumin)
Pinch of hing (asafoetida)
1/4 tsp haldi (turmeric)
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp ginger paste
Few curry leaves
2 green chillis, slit
1 med tomato, chopped
Coriander leaves to garnish
Lime/Lemon juice to taste

1. Soak mung beans for ~4hrs. drain and rinse.
2. Pressure cook mung with 3 cups water and salt for 4-5 whistles. Turn off heat and allow pressure cooker to cool (~15 mins)
3. Heat oil in separate pan, add jeera and sizzle.
4. Add hing, haldi, curry leaves, ginger & garlic paste & green chillies. Cook for 30 seconds or so.
5. Add tomatoes and cook for 1 minute to soften, then add this spice mixture to the mung beans.
6. Add more water if necessary. Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes.
7. Check seasoning and add lime juice.
8. Serve garnished with coriander.

Eat with rice or chapatti. This should be quite a liquid dish, especially if eating with rice.

I mentioned that I've adapted this to become a one pot dish... Simple. Just do steps 3-5 first in the pressure cooker, then add the mung, water and salt and pressure cook. Once cooled, check water levels and seasoning and adjust accordingly.

I really miss Christmas in England. Last year felt quite Christmassy, because I lived in the middle of a Catholic neighbourhood and the streets and houses were lit-up, but this year I live in more of a Muslim and Hindu area. I'm going to head off now, and get back to decorating my house ready for Christmas.

Punjabi neighbours = nice smells, yummy food & cooking lessons... (Punjabi Rajma)

After finally finding a place to stay and moving in next door to a Punjabi family, my visa troubles got sorted (these two statements are not really connected, but I just wanted to show that my life kinda sorted itself out, and Karma made up for all the problems by giving me wonderful neighbours!). I've been working too hard and for a long time didn't have internet access, which is why December managed to sneak up without me writing a single blog entry in months!

I've been cooking throughout my silent period - Palak Paneer and Dum Aloo are current favourites - I've just not blogged about my kitchen exploits! Well the quiet period must come to an end... and it would have last weekend if it wasn't for the arrival of 8 gorgeous, chocolate brown, Labrabor puppies. On Saturday, Punjabi Auntie was meant to come round and teach us how to make Punjabi Chole. She turned up as expected, but so did some more unexpected visitors - Coco's puppies!


It meant I got to eat fantastic Chole whilst waiting for all the puppies to arrive, but I failed to get the full recipe. I'll catch up with Auntie again in a few weeks and just check the spice combinations for Chole. In the meantime, today was Rajma day and next week MOH (My Other Half) wants to try Dal Makhani...

Punjabi Rajma

1 cup white rajma with red speckles, soaked for 4-5 hours
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp jeera seeds
2 onions, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp garlic paste
1/2 tbsp ginger paste
3-4 tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 tsp haldi (turmeric)
1 tsp chilli powder (to taste)
2 tsp dhaniya (coriander) powder
1 tsp rajma masala powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves to garnish


1. Wash rajma, place in pressure cooker with pinch of salt and 3-4 cups water. Cook for 3/4 whistles and leave to cool.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan. Add jeera and cook for 30 seconds. Add onions and cook until golden brown.
3. Add garlic and ginger paste and cook for a further 30 seconds.
4. Add tomatoes and mix well. Cook for about a minute, then add the haldi, chilli, dhaniya, rajma masala, garam masala and salt. Stir and leave to cook over a medium heat until oil separates (about 5 minutes or so).
5. Once pressure cooker has cooled enough to open, add the paste to the cooked rajma. Stir well and mash some rajma against the side of the pan. Bring to the boil and check seasoning.
6. Garnish with coriander and serve with paratha / roti or fresh, steamed rice.


This version is really yummy, especially as Punjabi Auntie has her own special Garam Masala mix, which we've asked her to get for us!

MOH's family were visiting us today when all of this happened, so everyone was well fed and Auntie got a treat too. MOH's mum taught her how to make a particular Gujarati mithai that she really liked which we'd given as a gift earlier in the year. Unfortunately I didn't get to see how to make this, as I had to stay home and look after Coco and the puppies (poor me!).

I'm back...with Veggie Upma (You hadn't noticed I'd gone??? I'm hurt!!!)

So last few months have been quite a roller coaster ride.

I've travelled to Delhi and back several times to sort my visa, as people at the Mumbai office say one thing and the Delhi office say another. Finally when all the paperwork was in order I had to pay the outstanding amount for the last three visas and for the current one as well. I knew that I'd have to pay, but the amount was a lot more than I'd expected.

I've been made homeless by an unscrupulous landlord who failed to give back the full deposit amount and even went as far as giving me the check then cancelling it without telling me! I'm living out of a suitcase at a friend's house as I wait for my bonus to come through so I can put a deposit down on a new place (due to the unexpectedly large visa bill).

And through all of it I keep smiling...Everyone's been asking me how I manage, but what's the alternative? I'm lucky I have some very good friends. The biggest downside to all of this is I miss my dog! She's staying with my other half (MOH) and his parents right down the other end of Mumbai so I've barely seen her in the last two weeks (MOH's been travelling up and down to try and find us a place to live so I've seen him!).

One of the upsides to staying with my friend is her cook who comes everyday and makes breakfast and lunch for us. She makes really good food and I really like her Veggie Upma.

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Upma is made from Semolina/Suji/Rava and is often served plain (just with a few things like rai, green chillies, coriander) without the veggies. I'd tried plain upma before and hadn't really enjoyed it, so I was quite surprised when I enjoyed this version. The cook puts carrots, peas and onions in the Upma, but I guess you could put other veggies too (like french beans or bell peppers).

Here are a few links to Upma recipes that I hope to try out in the future...when I have a place of my own :D

Recipe Blog
Indian Vegetarian Kitchen

Enjoy!

Missing Mumbai - especially a Masala Toast Sandwich

So I had to go to Delhi this week, and the whole journey was pretty eventful. It started with our train tickets being confirmed just 2 hours before the train was due to leave...except the agent failed to mention that the train was delayed by 7 hours! It was running late because of the Gujjar agitation (men were sitting on the line campaigning for a percentage of government jobs that had been promised to them to be honoured) and not only would the train be late, but it would be diverted too, extending a 15 hour journey into a 25 hour one...

I'd hoped that we'd leave Monday afternoon and reach Delhi at 8:30am on Tuesday as scheduled. This would allow me to get a train back on the same day and all would be well... Ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (manic laughter)!

So we finally arrived at 1am on Wednesday morning (all of Tuesday was spent on the train). Then there were numerous problems with finding a place to stay, so I didn't get to sleep until 6am! At 10am we left the guesthouse to go to the government office for my work and after a few hours of waiting and form filling, it was my turn. I spoke to the man for just a few minutes, gave him the letter from the office in Mumbai and he said he'd need to check my file and I should wait.

This was different, as most of the other 200 or so people who'd visited the office we're told to come back another day with the correct documents or were told to come back after 5pm to collect the reply to give to their local government office. This was at 1:30pm... and I waited... and I waited... and the office was freezing cold... and I waited... and I waited... and I fed a sandwich to a monkey... and I waited... and I waited... and then everyone else started to arrive at 4.30pm to collect their response... and I waited and finally at around 5.30pm I was handed a letter just like everyone else!

It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo frustrating! I could have gone back to my warm room and slept for 3 hours! Anyway, with work over and no train back for several days, I had no option to be a tourist and eat lots of yummy food :D

Being tourists we visited Connaught Place, India Gate, Akshardham temple and the National Museum. And of course we rode the Metro (clean, cheap, quick but crowded) and argued with rickshaw-wallahs over prices (fun, but really cold way to travel). We wrapped up warm, and even bought gloves because it was that cold!

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There was loads of yummy food to choose from like Rajma Chawal, Chole Bathura, Aloo Paratha. The street food was good too... Aloo Tikki, Pani Puri, Peanuts & Channa & fresh Popcorn.

We moved hotel and stayed at a really nice place (with really thick blankets), called Sagar Palace Hotel, which is opposite Rajendra Place Metro Station. They were really friendly and made us some really yummy Aloo Paratha.

Another place that does really great food is right on Connaught Place. There's a restaurant called The Embassy who have a side window for snacks. We had the BIGGEST samosa ever and a cup of hot masala sweetcorn and both were just spot-on!

The only downer was we missed Mumbai's fabulous street foods... there's no Pav Bhaji or Vada Pav or Masala Toast Sandwiches in Delhi! The first food we ate when we got back to Mumbai, was Masala Toast sandwich! They're warm and filling and easy to make too (although we got ours from the street vendor).

Masala Toast Sandwich

Sandwich Toaster

Bread
Butter
Tomato
Onion
Capsicum
Shredded Cabbage (Optional)
Aloo Bhaji (see my Misal Pav blog entry for recipe - you can add some extra mashed peas to make it extra yummy)
Sandwich or Chaat Masala

Optional extras to sprinkle on top
Nylon Sev
Grated Cheese (finely grated)

It's a toasted sandwich...I'm sure you can work it out for yourself!
In Mumbai, the grated cheese doesn't go in the sandwich as a filling, instead it gets packed on top once the sandwich is cooked :D

Eat hot!