Soft food required... Mung with Aloo and Tamatar

This weekend I've had a bit of a tongue incident. I bent down to pick up Coco's bone and she jumped up at the same time...You can see it can't you - a chain reaction; I bend down as doggie jumps up; hard dog skull (I'm sure it's steel plated) makes contact with soft chin and jaw; teeth clamp shut on soft, pink tongue; I yell in agony and doggie looks at me like I'm mad and goes back to chewing her bone as I hold my head in my hands until I can see straight again.

Today it feels like I've gone several rounds with a heavy-weight boxer; The right side of my face aches. My shoulder and neck ache. I've got a bruised jaw and a chipped tooth, but the thing that hurts the most is the HUGE gash across my tongue - it's practically hanging off!

Ok, ok, I'm being a little melodramatic here. It's really a teeny cut on the side of my tongue but it really, really hurts. I can't keep my mouth shut coz it hurts. I can't keep my mouth open coz it hurts. I can't eat coz it hurts. I can't have a glass of cold water coz it hurts. I can't have a cup of hot coffee coz it hurts. It hurts.

So as I drink my luke-warm cup of coffee (it hurts), I've decided to write today about a great dish - Mung with Aloo and Tamatar. I'm looking forward to eating this later... I'll make it extra soft coz of my tongue. Plus, even though it's got a few chillies in, it's not spicy at all. In fact the reason I like it so much is that it's actually quite sweet due to the fantastic mung beans (and the pich of sugar I add). I often eat this by itself, but you can eat with chapatti or rice.

Mung with Aloo and Tamatar

1/2 cup mung beans (can be soaked for a couple of hours to reduce cooking time)
2 medium potatoes, cut into small chunks
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon jeera (cumin seeds)
1 green chilli, slit and deseeded
1 teaspoon garlic paste
1 teaspoon ginger paste
1/4 teaspoon haldi (turmeric powder)
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon sugar
A few curry leaves
3-4 tomatoes, peeled and cut into chunks (if you prefer, you can leave a few tomatoes out and add some tomato puree)

1. Cook the mung beans in plenty of fresh water, until soft (30 mins). Keep aside. If you prefer, you can cook them in a pressure cooker - If your beans are soaked, it'll take just a few whistles, plus let the pressure go down naturally.
2. Cook the potato chunks in plenty of boiling water. When just cooked, drain and keep aside.
3. Heat the oil in a large pan, over a low heat. Add the jeera.
4. Once seeds start to pop, add chilli, garlic and ginger. Stir for a few mins.
5. Add the haldi, chilli powder, salt, sugar and curry leaves and stir for a min more.
6. Add the tomatoes (and/or tomato puree) and cook until soft. This takes about 5 minutes.
7. Stir in the cooked mung and aloo and simmer for a few minutes until everything is hot. You may want to add a splash of water at this stage to keep everything from sticking.
8. Eat.

Tonight I'll cook the mung and potatoes till they're mushy so I can eat this more easily!

What about you? What's your favourite beany dish?

My signature dish... I don't have one! Will Masala Rice do?

I love watching food programs. Nigella, Jamie, Kylie Kwong, Anthony Bourdain, Man versus Food, Rachel Allen's Bake, Hell's Kitchen... the list goes on. So this weekend I caught a couple of shows of Masterchef Austrailia. The concept's a little different of the Masterchef (UK) of my childhood, as there's pressure tests and cook offs now, I guess to satisfy the reality show generation. It's not good enough to just kick off the worst cooks every week, the viewing audience will get bored... we need some spice!

On one of the shows the 45 contestants had to cook up their signature dish... and they had some strange concoctions. Cheese and snail souffle was one that really didn't appeal to me (ok I'm veggie, but if I weren't I still wouldn't eat this). Another contestant dreamt up a wattleseed, avocado and chocolate mousse... which sounds good, except I have no idea what wattleseed is.


All of their creativity made me realise that I don't have a signature dish yet. I guess I'm just too new at this cooking malarky to have one. So why have I chosen Masala rice this week? Well it's probably the opposite of a signature dish. It's not posh and showy. You wouldn't serve it at a dinner party. It's plain and simple comfort food. And really quick to make if you use left over rice like I do.

Masala Rice:

Left over Basmati Rice
Enough Onion, Potato and Tomato for the rice
Enough oil to cook the onion potato and tomato
Some Rai and Jeera (Mustard and cumin seeds)
A green chilli or two, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)
A little Haldi (Turmeric powder)
Some Dhaniya (Coriander powder) and Chilli Powder
Salt to taste
Fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped, for garnishing

1. Finely chop the onion, potato and tomato. I slice the potato in really thin slices to speed up the cooking.
2. Heat the oil and add the rai and jeera.
3. When seed pop add the chilli, onion and potato. Cook on a low heat until nearly done.
4. Add the tomato, haldi, dhaniya and chilli. Add any salt at this point too.
5. When everything is well cooked, add the rice.
6. Mix well and heat the rice thoroughly.
7. Garnish with Coriander and serve

I usually eat this with curd and it's really yummy.

I know I've not been at all precise with the amounts, and that's because I never have the same amount of rice left when I make this, so I don't know the quantities myself! Just start off easy with the spices, you can add more if necessary, and remember to put less haldi than dhaniya and chilli powder. Sometimes I also use Jeera powder too. If you fancy you could even add some cloves or cinnamon stick for a different taste. Sometimes I make it without the tomato or potato, and it's just as good.

BTW... Wattleseed is the seed of the Acacia tree and when dried and ground it has rich coffee, chocolate and hazelnut aromas & flavours.

Sev Tomato - My Favourite

Tomatoes are my favourite fruit/veg. I'm not going to get into a debate about which they are, I just know that they taste fabulous, and can really make a dish.

A cheddar cheese sandwich on thick, crusty white bread is made a thousand times better by adding a few juicy slices of ripe tomato. Pasta turns from bland to fabulous with a rich tomato-based sauce. Little cherry tomatoes of all shapes and colours add a new dimension to a boring bowl of lettuce.

One of my favourite dishes of recent times is one that I got from my Gujurati friend's mum - Sev Tomato. It is soooooooooooo easy to make. And it's so good that my dog, who knows she's not allowed to eat off my plate, actually stole this from me as I was half way through. Obviously she thought it was her food!


Sev Tomato

1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon jeera (cumin seeds)
pinch of hing (asafoetida)
1 teaspoon of ginger paste
7-8 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1/4 teaspoon haldi (turmeric powder)
1 teaspoon dhaniya (coriander powder)
salt to taste
1-2 handfuls nylon sev

1. Heat the oil then add the jeera, hing and ginger paste. Stir for a few seconds.
2. Add tomatoes, haldi, dhaniya and salt - mix well. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until tomatoes are really soft and disintegrating.
3. Serve topped with sev - eat quickly or the sev goes all mushy.

Eat with roti/chapatti (or if you're like me, straight out of the pan with a spoon!)
As I'm such a tomato freak, I often eat this without the Sev, and it's still really tasty.

For those that don't know, sev is made from besan (gram/chickpea flour), mixed into a dough with a few bits and bobs, pressed through a small sieve to make little, wiggly besan worms, then deep fried.
Picture courtesy of the Bengali Sweet House - USA, where you can buy Sev amongst many other Indian items.

If you want to try making your own sev, then try this recipe from Tarla Dalal, Indian cookery queen.