Toasties--A toast to Bombay

You may be familiar with the phenomenon called "the sandwich" --two slices of bread with something savoury between them. However, if you aren't familiar with "the toastie" sandwich you are missing out. I remember stealing bites out of my friends's toastie sandwiches on the street in Bombay. We were always forbidden this toasted delight because our mothers were convinced we would get food poisoining from the sandwich wala's sweat, which invariably dripped into a sandwich or two. Although our mothers vainly struggled to reproduce those delights in our home kitchen, they never really tasted the same. There was something about the sandwich-wala's (sandwich man) toastie which made even beetroots and carrots taste delicious in the toastie sandwich. So by now you must have a sense of the toastie-- a toastie is a sandwich ++, it's an uber sandwich. Here's how a typical toastie is made.

Last night my friend Hamza was over and he was hungry. I only had odds and ends in my fridge to offer him, so I decided to combine them Bombay style in a toastie sandwich.

1. 2 slices brown bread (white will do)

2. Beans (see my recipe for Beans posted under Tax Time)

3. a few tiny squares of jalapeno cheese (any kind of cheese will do--this is just what I had at hand)

4. corinader chutney (store bought)

5. sandwich masala (this is indeed a unique Bombay specialty--sandwich masala tastes like chaat masala except that its saltier and grainier. If you don't have sandwich masala--chaat masala will do).

Method:

Slather chutney onto bread. Add in the filling. Place into a toastie maker (you can buy one at Target for under 10$) and wait until the red light goes off on the machine. Wedge out and serve with tomato sauce for a typically Bombay experience.

Remember a toastie is infinitely variable--you can put any combination of ingredients and it will still taste good. I'm thinking of pesto with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and baby spinach in 9 grain bread or perhaps the classic tomato, onions, chutney and cheese with a dash of beetroots. Go ahead and experiment! I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Summer Delights

It is summer in Ithaca--well, at least it is supposed to be summer in Ithaca. We have been greeted with chilly Fall weather days and the occasional peek or two of sunshine. So today's blog post is for the peek of sunshine days. Imagine it is 30 degrees celsius (something suitably high in F I am sure), and you are longing to get out of the heat and cool off.

Of course, Ithaca apartments have no A/C's installed in them, so we are always looking for innovative ways to cool off. :) In that case I recommend you try the following. Choose a deep red watermelon. To ensure that it is sweet try and smell what you can through the plastic wrap. If it has a sweet smell it will be sweet. Come home and slice the watermelon into chunks. Sprinkle with a little black salt and eat. The black salt will enhance the sweetness of the watermelon and give it a sharp, tangy edge. Enjoy :)

Mmmmm....Kulfi

I love kulfi (frozen Indian ice-cream). The taste, the texture, the creaminess--they are hard to find in a regular western style ice-cream. Kulfi was especially popular in the Mughal courts and it is said that emperors ordered ice from the snow-capped mountains of Kashmir just so that they could savour this frozen delight. Well, I decided to replicate some of those delightful flavours in my own kitchen My masi was visiting me from Chicago and I wanted to make her something special that she couldn't simply buy from the Indian store (Well, she could technically buy kulfi from the Indian store, but those mass produced blobs of ice don't compare to the home-made creamy delight I had in mind). So I whipped out my nuts, whole milk, cardamom and saffron and started the process--it took me 2 hours, but the results were well worth it! Here's the recipe:

(For those planning to serve this kulfi at parties you can freeze it in a muffin tray and then scoop out individual portions for your guests--it looks very fancy, especially if you then also top it with slivered almonds :)).

Kesar Kulfi recipe

1 litre full fat milk (1/2 gallon—I think—those slim bottles, not the fat one)

1-3 tsp cardamom powder (the more you put the better it will taste)

½ tin condensed milk

4 tbsps sugar (more if required, but first taste)

¼ tsp kesar (saffron/zafran)

1 slice white bread

¼ almonds ground + 3-4 almonds sliced (for garnish)

¼ cup cashews ground

1. Boil milk and cardamom powder together and keep stirring, until reduced by a third.

2. You can add ½ can condensed milk and put sugar after this.

3. Mix the kesar in a little warm milk and then add it to the mixture.

4. Chop the edges of 1 slice of bread and mix it in a grinder.

5. Add the bread, nuts to the mixture.

6. Cool the mixture to room temperature and then put in ice trays (for easiest removal) or muffin moulds and freeze.

7. Remove from the freezer and put it in the fridge an hour before you plan to serve it.

8. Serve topped with sliced almonds.

**Variation: Instead of kesar, you can add any pureed fruit (example: strawberries, mangoes) to the mixture. But if using fruit, add the pureed fruit only after the mixture has come to room temperature.

Tax Night

Mukti was coming over to do her taxes and I was really running low on groceries, so I decided to Quesidillas for her. I have decided that I like "desi-style" "Mexican" beans the best. I'm sure if any real Mexican person tasted my beans they would die of horror, so I won't call them Mexican. They are an Indian version of "Mexican" food, which doesn't even taste remotely "Mexican," but to my palate (and to the palate of my desi friends) these beans are delicious. So I whipped up a batch of these beans in just about 20 minutes--perfect for a weeknight dinner. Here's what I did.

Bean stuffing (great the next day over toast or inside a toastie sandwich):

1 can red kidney beans

1 chopped onion

2 garlic cloves chopped

3 cubes of cheese

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp salt (or to taste)

2 tbsps oil

1/2-1 tsp red chilli powder

Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds. Stir until brown and fragrant. Add the onions and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent. Add the tomato paste and about 1/2 cup water and simmer the resultant gravy for about 5 minutes. Add the red chilli powder and saute for a minute. Add the beans, salt and cheese and stir until the cheese has melted. Then mash the beans (this is a crucial step) until they are barely distinguishable. Serve in a whole wheat tortilla wrap or over whole wheat multigrain toast. Enjoy! :)

Needless to say after this carb fest of beans and cheese I fell fast asleep and believe it or not its now April 20th and I still haven't done my taxes!! yipes!

Biryani extravaganza

Today was a cold, rainy and bitter grey day. I wanted to snuggle in my blanket and stay warm, but I was having Saiba and Thea over for dinner, so I had to rustle up something. I have been on a biryani spree ever since Hamza taught me his Ithaca-famous Hamza's special Sindhi biryani. The crunch of  chickpeas, the tanginess of tomatoes all simmered in a soupy, fragrant dahi-inflected gravy and then cooked between mounds of buttery pulao. Mmmm what could be better on a cold wintry Ithaca spring day? So I decided to make Hamza's biryani with a few modifications. I decided to up the spices (where he used 3/4 of a packet of Shan biryani mix I used 1.25 packets--throwing in the leftover from the last batch ;) ) and add paneer to the mix. The result? A tubful of the most delicious creamy basmati pulao punctuated with spicy intervals of eggplant, paneer and potatoes. Here's what I did:

Hamza's Sindi biryani

For the gravy:

1 onion chopped

1 tsp garlic paste

1 tsp ginger paste

1.5 tsps cumin seeds

4 tbsps oil (+more if you feel like it)

1 cup dahi whipped

1 tsp tomato paste (+ some more for extra tang)

1/2 chopped tomato

1 capsicum (bell pepper) chopped

1 slab paneer (about 10-12 thick pieces--I make my own paneer at home, but if you are buying paneer then just buy about 250 gms or so)

1.25 packets of Shan Sindhi biryani mix

1 large eggplant chopped

1 large potato peeled and chopped

1 tbsp salt (or to taste)

1 cup cooked chickpeas (about 1/2 a can)

For the rice:

2 cups basmati rice

1 tbsp cumin seeds

2 tbsps butter

For the gravy

Heat oil. Add cumin seeds and wait until they begin browning. 

Add onions and fry together for a few minutes until onions become translucent. then add tomato paste, ginger paste and garlic paste and fry some more. 

Add eggplants and potatoes and saute. Now add the Shan biryani mix and fry for about 30 seconds. 

Then add the whipped dahi (yoghurt) and about 1 cup of water and stor to mix everything together.

 Cover and let simmer on a medium heat for about 25 minutes or until the potato is softened. Occasionally check on the water level and add more water. There should always be enough water to boil the potatoes and to ensure that the veggies don't stick to the bottom of the pan. 

Once the potatoes are done add the chopped capsicum, chickpeas, tomatoes and the diced paneer. Gently stir to incorporate everything into the gravy and let simmer for another 10 minutes or so.

For the Rice

In the meantime fry the butter and cumin seeds until browned. 

Add the rice and saute the rice in butter for about 30 seconds or so until the rice is coated with butter.

Add exactly 4 cups of water and a bit of salt and cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes or until rice is almost done (like 90%). If the rice has begun to clump then spread it on a baking tray and let cool for a bit.

How to assemble:

In a large oveproof bowl (preferably pyrex glass so your guests can see the layers) spoon in about 2 ladlefuls of gravy. Then layer with rice. Repeat until you have a final layer of rice. Drizzle any left over gravy over the pulao for decoration :). Cover with aluminum foil and place in an oven at 250 F for about 20 minutes. Serve with raita. Yum!

Food in Frisco...

I happened to spend 10 days in Frisco on work and had the opportunity to taste some of the city's many culinary delights. Since my friends and I were on a massive budget we focused primarily on cheap eats. One of our favourite places came to be the San Francisco Pakistani chain Pakwan. Pakwan is an unpretentious hole in the wall, which serves desi style food at very cheap prices. The ambience in Pakwan is nothing to boast about, but if you haven't ever been to India/Pakistan this joint will give you a good sense of what a dhaba (a cheap eating house) there is like--the propietor is furiously barking orders at employees, customers are jostling one another to grab tables and help themselves to the free onions and green chillies :).
The food at Pakwan was delicious and the price unbeatable! On our first visit there I got the Paneer Tikka Masala (spiced cottage cheese in a tomato gravy) with garlic naan. The paneer was soft, tender and melted in your mouth. The gravy was unusually flavoured with spices that I hadn't eaten before. Now as you know I love experimenting with cooking and foods, so I have come across many a paneer tikka in my culinary adventures, but this paneer tikka outbeat all the paneer tikkas I had previously eaten! The garlic naan was perfection too--crispy, buttery yet soft enough to enfold the paneer tikka. I finished the meal with a mango lassi, which was like a sip of heaven--creamy, milky and oh-so- delicious! I really miss mangoes in the US, so this mango lassi was absolutely perfect! On my second visit to Pakwan I got their vegetable biryani--it was amazing! For only 6.99$ I had enough food for two meals (if you have never had cold biryani before I really recommend that you don't reheat biryani the next time you have leftover biryani and try it cold for it is only when this biryani is cold that the flavours come into their own). So if you are visiting the Bay area and happen to be on a budget go ahead and stop by at Pakwan's--it's worth every penny!

When Fish Fall in Love

Last night I saw the most sensuous film imaginable. When Fish Fall in Love was a delight for all the senses--lush visuals, outstanding music, a delicious storyline and above all the most decadent food imaginable. The film focused on a collective of women who run an Iranian restauant from their ancestral house. The meals they served up in this film made my mouth water, even though as a vegetarian I couldn't have eaten any of them :). Not for them the lean salads, soups and breads that are common to American culture, but instead rich gravies of meat and vegetables, opulent salads with fresh mint and creamy yoghurt, tomatoes stewed in rich, spicy sauces and served with grilled kebabs, saffron pilafs studded with pistachios and golden raisins and pots of golden-orange marmalade brimming with the goodness of real oranges. The kitchen in the film was another delight--rows of spices and jars of pickles lined up one against another in tall towers. The loveliest warm wooden mortar and pestle I have ever seen and these deep cast-iron pots in which generations have stewed dinner. The film made me very hungry and as I walked home in the cold Ithaca night I dreamt of making Dhansaak Rice--a Parsi specialty that you will never find in a restaurant in the US, but which is common fare in Bombay. I promise to post on that if I try it out--in the meantime watch When Fish Fall in Love for a sensuous feast of the senses.