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!

Christmas Foooooooooooooooooooooood

I miss having a 'proper' Christmas. I've been missing the Christmas of my childhood. The weather should be cold, but with a couple of hours of bright, wintery sun that hurts your eyes. You should need to wrap up warm against the biting wind - a padded coat and matching hat, scarf and gloves. You should need the fire on to keep the drafts at bay. You should have an oven, stuffed full of yummy food...

You should not be sat wearing shorts and vest as you type, sipping on iced water. You should not be in a country where having an oven in your kitchen is virtually unheard of. You should not be in a country where people decorate just 3 or 4 days before Christmas day. You should not be in a country where most people don't celebrate Christmas!

So I didn't have anything that faintly resembled a 'normal' Christmas (although I do have some very cute decorations). I did have a good Christmas though, even though I was longing for roast spuds and parsnips, yorkie puds and sprouts! Therefore I looked up a lot of food that I fancied whilst I ate some nice veggie pasta the I made (without an oven!)

So today's post is a bunch of good-looking food to tempt you with links to the recipes - coz I can take no credit at all for any of this food! Most of the credit goes to everyone's favourite Jamie Oliver. I love Nigella's food too, but couldn't find most of the recipes I was looking for on her website. So here it is - my Christmas food wishlist:

Jamie's Baked Camembert

Jamie's Roast Potatoes, parsnips and carrots


Nigella's Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese


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Sprouts made the best way

Jamie's Winter Pudding Bombe


Jamie's incredible mulled cider

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas 2010

Channa Masala - Comfort food for hard times

Well, the NOC certificate from the police to aid my application for a visa extension never happened because my landlord decided to be extremely unhelpful and refused to co-operate..."I've given you everything I need to, I don't have to do anything else." Ggggrrrrr, some people just make life more difficult!

On top of that, I need to go to Delhi to sort out my visa (long and complicated story here) which is easier said than done, as all the trains are fully booked, with waitlists of at least 40. I think paying an agent a small fee may help. Don't think I'll get to see much whilst I'm there - it'll be all business and paying large "fees" for fast processing so I can get there and back quickly.

It's still cool in Mumbai. Breezy, perfect kite flying weather (I can see one out of my window right now). So at 3pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I'm sat here in my standard shorts and vest, but the fan's switched off. In a few hours when the sun sets, I'll have to change into my t-shirt and joggers. Most of the northern hemisphere seems to be going through a cold spell right now... so I'm a little worried about the trip to Delhi, as it's cold there and I really don't have suitable clothes for cold weather anymore.

I am looking forward to some good food whilst I'm there though, and now that I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks I'm looking forward to hunting down and trying out some new recipes. One that I've made a few times recently is Channa Masala, and it's come out pretty good each time. Channa masala is made from chickpeas and is quite filling - the only problem is you have to plan ahead if you're using dried channa, coz they need to be soaked for at least 8 hours. And I'd also suggest using a pressure cooker to reduce the cooking time. If you're using tinned chickpeas, then it's a quick dish to make.

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Channa Masala:

1 cup kabuli channa (dried chickpeas)
4 cups water
1 black cardamom
1 bay leaf
1 inch stick cinammon
1 teabag
salt to taste
1 tablespoon oil
pinch hing
3-4 tomatoes, skinned and pureed
2 teaspoons channa (chole) masala powder
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon chaat masala
1/4 teaspoon amchoor (dried mango) powder

1. Soak the channa overnight in plenty of water
2. Put the channa in the pressure cooker with 4 cups water, cardamom, bay leaf, cinnamon stick, teabag and salt. Mix well.
3. Cook for three whistles, then reduce heat and continue to cook for a further 15 to 20 minutes, then turn off heat and let pressure go down.
4. Once cooled, separate channa and cooking water - don't discard the water.
5. Heat oil on a medium heat and add tomatoes. Cook until oil separates.
6. Add channa masala, chaat masala, chilli and amchoor powders. Cook through for a minute or two.
7. Add channa and mix well.
8. Add water a little at a time.
9. Cover and cook, mixing occasionally, until thickened.

Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with chappati or rice and sliced onions.

Let's hope I get to enjoy some of my time off over the next few weeks - keeping my fingers crossed! I can't believe it's nearly Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone :D

Misal Madness

Last Sunday I predicted calamity for this upcoming week and I was right! I've been doing crazy long shifts at work; been given half an hour's notice that we're rolling out the training material 2 days early; I've been informed that before I can apply for my visa extension this year I need to get a special document from the police called an NOC (haven't got yet, but do have form to fill in triplicate, which is written in Marathi); and the list goes on...

But it's not all been crazy... the weather is beautiful and cool (27 degrees Celsius - and I think this is cool? I think I'm finally acclimatizing to the heat of Mumbai!). There's definitely a nip in the air, a cool breeze, though it's still quite warm in the sun... makes me think of an early autumn day!

Yesterday I received my first two Christmas cards (cards don't really happen in Mumbai) and it prompted me to start decorating for Christmas. Unfortunately I can't find some of the Christmas stuff - misplaced when we moved earlier in the year. I'll find the rest of the stuff when I go on leave. In the meantime, I have my mini tree with tinsel, lights, silver bows and ornaments and stripy candy canes. I've also hung some red ribbon for my cards and I made a few other decorations from cards and wedding invites (which can be quite ornate in India).

And on our long walk this morning, Coco met another chocolate Lab called Bruno - they got along really well which it not surprising coz Labs are the friendliest dogs of all time.

Amongst all the chaos this week I can't really remember what I've had to eat, except for Thursday night when I had some lovely Dal Dhokli (a Gujarati dish which I'll have to learn to make) so I'll tell you about the lovely Misal Pav I made a few weeks back.

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Misal is a Marathi (Maharastian) dish which is fantastic street food. It's a spicy mix of sprouted pulses, tomato, onion, potato and farsan, served with pav (bread rolls) and it's yummy! I was surprised that mine came out so well, but that's thanks to the fantastic recipe I followed - Tarla Dalal's Misal recipe from her book "Mumbai's Roadside Snacks".



In the instructions for plating up it refers to a 'potato mixture' but doesn't give the link. Well this mysterious potato mixture is just an Aloo Bhaji.

Aloo Bhaji:

1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon rai (mustard seeds)
A few curry leaves
2 green chillies, sliced and deseeded
2 medium onions, finely sliced
3-4 potatoes, peeled, chopped and boiled
1/4 teaspoon haldi (turmeric)
salt to taste
handful of chopped coriander leaves

1. Heat the oil over a low heat, add rai
2. When seeds crackle add the curry leaves, chillies and onion. Saute until translucent.
3. Add aloo, haldi, salt and coriander. Mix well and heat for a few minutes more.

Enjoy with Misal or as a sandwich filling or eat with spoon!