Sweet Potato Cutlet

Sweet Potatoes are in abundance this season and in keeping with the year's resolution to eat what is in season, I picked up radish leaves for sarson ka saag and sweet potatoes to make something sweet.The Sarson ka saag and the way we ate it for three days is another story I will reserve for later. The sweet potatoes however lay forgotten among the potatoes. I found them looking almost forlorn when I was skimming the vegetable basket to see what to make as a quick snack for the evening hunger pang. I decided to quickly boil them, season with some chat masala and make a snack. When I shut the cooker, I realized that I had another 10 minutes to kill until they were cooked. So that's when the boiled sweet potato idea turned into sweet potato cutlet idea.

If you have the ingredients at hand, it is super easy to make. I had a cabbage and I added about a quarter of it to increase the bulk and also since cabbages tend to get this really crunchy texture when roasted. Since all the ingredients are cooked, I did not shallow fry the cutlets but roasted them on a thick bottomed tava with very little oil. It takes some patience to fry it this way. If you want, you can add a little more oil and shallow fry it. While it was getting done, I snacked on a little bit of the cutlet dough topped with curd, bhujia and green chutney. Let me show you how I made the Sweet Potato Cutlet.

Preparation Time: 10 Minutes
Cooking Time: 10 Minutes (for sweet potatoes) + 15 Minutes
Makes 6 cutlets

Ingredients for the Sweet Potato Cutlet

Oil - 4 tbsp
1/2 tsp ajwain or carom seeds
A pinch of hing
2 medium sized sweet potatoes
1 small onion chopped
1/4 cabbage chopped
A few sprigs of coriander chopped
1 green chilli chopped
2 pods of garlic crushed
1 inch ginger crushed
salt to taste
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp chilli, coriander, cumin powder each
1/2 tsp chat masala
1 tsp rava or semolina
1/2 tsp gram flour

Recipe for the Sweet Potato Cutlet

Peel and roughly chop the sweet potatoes and pressure cook them until soft. While it is getting done, chop up your cabbage, onion and coriander. In a mortar, crush the ginger, garlic and green chillis.

In a pan, heat 1 tbsp of oil and add the carom seeds and hing to it. Then add the onions and fry. When it starts browning, add the crushed masala from the mortar. To this add the cabbage and fry nicely till all the aromas rise up. Now add the dry spice powders - turmeric, chilli, coriander and cumin.

Sprinkle some water and fry until the vegetables are done. While they are getting done, mash the boiled sweet potatoes. Add the onion-cabbage mixture to the sweet potatoes. Allow it to cool for a few minutes. Top with some chaat masala and coriander and mix well. The chat masala already has some black salt in it. Taste the mixture and adjust the salt.

Mix well so that all the spices get uniformly mixed and you have a dough like ball at the end.

Divide this into 6 small balls and flatten them. Place your griddle on the flame on medium heat. Grease it well with 1/2 tbsp of oil. Mix the semolina and the gram flour on a plate. They will be used to coat the cutlet. Normally, only rava or bread crumbs are used. Gram flour helps it bind and that is why I added a bit of it. Run the cutlet on both sides on the rava-gram flour mixture.

Dust off the excess coating. Now place them on the heated griddle and patiently let them roast.

Brush some oil on both sides and roast them on the tava. Let them brown on both sides. Once they are done, serve hot with some green chutney or tomato ketchup.

Under 15 minutes hakka noodles

There are days when there is very little left over from lunch and I am either too lazy or too caught up with other things to whip up the whole roti + dal/vegetables and raita dinner. On one such days, the husband asks me, why don't you ever make hakka noodles? Well, maybe because I have never made it before, maybe because the sight of the over oily hakka noodles at the restaurants got to me and I was plain not interested in making it. But seemed like it was something that he liked. So the next supermarket visit involved picking up a packet of Chings hakka noodles and a bottle of soy and green chilli sauce each.

When I went through the procedure, I was in for a nice surprise. There was hardly anything to the recipe. And now I make it often, on my lazy days and we happily follow it up with some curd rice and complete the meal. So here is how I make Hakka Noodles in less than 15 minutes. It will take you lesser time if you don't skimp on pots and pans. I do all the cooking in the same pan which doesn't let me do parallel processing.

I make it with very little oil. You may call me a killjoy, but I like it this way. Eaten hot, you won't notice the difference.

Ingredients

1 cup of veg - carrots, beans, spring onions, cabbage, capsicum, chopped lengthwise
1 packet of hakka noodles
salt and pepper powder to taste
1 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of green chilli sauce
2 tbsp of oil

Method

Clean and chop the vegetables lengthwise. I microwave vegetables like carrot and beans for a minute since I don't like them too raw in the noodles.

Next, in a pan, heat 1 tbsp of oil and add to it the onion (i used the onion from the spring onion) and capsicum. You can add minced garlic to this if you want. On high flame, saute this well. Add to this the microwaved vegetables and stir.

In the end, sprinkle the chopped spring onion shoot from the top. To this, add the soy sauce and green chilli sauce. Mix really well. All of this is done on really high flame. Turn off the gas and remove the vegetables in a bowl.


In the same pan, heat sufficient amount of water and cook the noodles as per pack instructions. I add some oil to the water itself to prevent the noodles from sticking. Cook on high flame. It takes less than 2 minutes for them to cook. Turn off the gas when they start frothing up.

Strain it in a colander, run under some cold water to stop the cooking process and add another tsp of oil on it and mix well with your hands to prevent it from sticking. Now, in the same pan, take your prepared vegetables.

Add the strained noodles to this and toss well on high flame. Season with some salt ( the soy sauce already has enough salt and we cooked the noodles also with some salt, so go easy on it) and white pepper powder. Serve hot!

Quick Snack - Pav Bhaji

If there is one thing that I cannot do these days, it is spending time in the kitchen for too long. The weather in Mumbai simply does not let you do it.But that certainly does not mean saying no to making snacks for the evening. When you have a pav bhaji craving and know that you can down more than a plate of pav bhaji with extra pav thrown in, then you use your common sense and figure out that it is better to make it at home. Does this mean you slave away in your kitchen to make it? Hell no! You take all the short cuts possible and make a really quick pav bhaji in less than half hour.

Prep time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Serves : 4

Ingredients:

2 cups of assorted chopped vegetables
2 big Tomatoes
2 small onions
1 capsicum
2 green chillies slit
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp jeera
1 pinch hing
1 inch ginger grated
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp pav bhaji masala
1/2 tsp jeera powder
1/2 tsp dhania powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
salt to taste

To serve:
Toasted pav or bun
1 small onion chopped
lemon wedges
coriander leaves

Method

Quickly chop up veggies to get you two cups of assorted vegetables - carrots, beans, peas, potato, beets. I like chopping so i chopped them up. You could use your food processor instead to speed up this process. I also added two tomatoes in the mix.

Pressure cook this for 3-4 whistles.
Now chop up two small onions and a capsicum.

In a pan, heat up some oil and throw in a tsp of cumin seeds. Add a generous pinch of hing to this. You certainly don't wanna skip that cause it is proven to be beneficial to nullify the effect of the gassy veggies that go into the bhaji. Once the flavor of the cumin starts rising, add the chopped onions and saute for two minutes. Follow it up with the capsicum and two green chilies and grated ginger. Add a generous pinch of turmeric to it and fry.

Saute for two minutes. To this add the boiled vegetables. Adjust the salt for the entire bhaji.

 Now to this add 1/2 tsp of cumin and coriander powder each. Add half a tsp of red chilli powder and a tbsp of pav bhaji masala. And top it with a generous dollop of butter.Now using a potato masher, mash the bhaji such that it becomes a homogeneous paste like mixture.

Once it is all mixed in, add half a cup of water if you need to adjust the consistency and simmer for five minutes. Adjust the salt. Maybe add some sugar if you need a tinge of sweetness.

Sprinkle some coriander leaves generously on this. Top the bhaji with some chopped onions. Serve hot with butter toasted buns or pav and a wedge of lime on the side. It gets done real fast and you can eat not one, but two or even three servings while catching your favorite tv show with a cup of tea on the side.

Foxtail Millet with Jaggery

I thought a while whether i could call the recipe a pongal. But it was not really a pongal. So i said i would just go with Foxtail Millet and jaggery, cause that is all this simple dish needs.

A friend got a small packet of foxtail millet for me from an organic food store. Unfortunately, it had the husk intact and i could not really make much out of it. I spotted the millets at an organic store in Mysore later and picked a packet up at once. When i got back home to proudly show the mother a new millet discovery, she stumped me by saying that it is called Korai/ korra biyyam and used to be used much in the olden days.
After doing some research, i saw that it was cooked a lot like rava or broken wheat. I was sure that i wanted to make a sweet dish out of it, cause it has the kind of mild sweetness that ragi has.
The recipe is really simple, needs minimum ingredients and gets done super easy.

Preparation Time  10 Mins
Cooking Time       20 Mins

Ingredients

Foxtail Millet/ Korra Biyyam     1/2 cup
Ghee                                        1 1/2 tbsp
Grated Jaggery                         1/4th cup, increase as per taste.
Dry coconut/ kopra                  1/4 cup, chopped into tooth size bits

Method:

I just added the millet into the rice cooker and poured twice the amount of water and allowed it to cook.
Once done, transfer into a microwave safe bowl, add to it the jaggery shavings and a tbsp of ghee.

Microwave on high for two mins. That is about how long it takes for the jaggery to melt. Mix well so that the liquid jaggery comes together well with the millet and also lends it its color. Fry the dry coconut in the remaining ghee and add it to the mixture.

It makes for a good 11 o clock snack or a light after meal snack when you crave for "something sweet". Pack it in a dabba and carry it as a sureshot solution for that odd timing hunger pang.

I thought i could also try a slightly richer version with some more ghee, cardamom and nuts and make it as a prasadam for any festival. Light, flavorful, easy to make, healthy and a welcome change from the regular grains!

Quick Snack - Masala Pori

Every morning, breakfast is religiously eaten at home. 10 o clock snack and 12 o clock lunch is packed in different dabbas and off we go to work. The snack is normally some fruit or milk shake. Lunch comprises some mixed rice or roti-sabji along with curd rice. My body perhaps has some alarm clock internally that signals every two hours that food needs to be consumed. What happens is that the gap between lunch and the time when i return from work is much longer. As a result, first thing after freshening up every evening is to attack whatever is available to eat. Most cases, it will be a packet of cookies or dry fruit or some deep fried item picked off the shelf in the supermarket. While dry fruits are good, how much can one eat? Somehow for me, the snack should be of a large quantity- consumed before and after tea.
Pori or puffed rice is one such thing which is light, yet filling. You can eat a bowlful without upsetting your calorie count much. So it is wise to make it in big batches and store it for munching.
It is super easy, with most ingredients available readily. Just grab a pack of puffed rice and you are almost good to go!

Preparation Time: 10 Mins
Cooking Time: 5 Mins

Ingredients:

Puffed Rice/Pori         4 cups
Red chillies                 4-5 or according to your taste
Garlic                         4-5 pods, crushed
Mustard                     1 tsp
Curry Leaves             1 sprig
Peanuts                      1/2 cup
Dry coconut               1/4 cup, thinly chopped
Salt                             to taste
Sugar                          1 tsp
Oil                               for tempering
Turmeric                      1/2 tsp

Preparation

The sole intention of the above picture is to show off the newly acquired Pure Komachi chef's knife. She cuts like a dream!
All you need for this recipe is to get the ingredients ready, at hand.
In a large kadai or pan, heat oil. Add in all the ingredients except the puffed rice- starting with mustard first, everything else after the mustard crackles and then the sugar in the end.

Once the peanuts change color and look done, add the puffed rice. Now increase the flame and work on the kadai by stirring it constantly on high flame. This is to crisp up the pori. Turn off the gas after 2-3 minutes.

Check the salt and adjust. You could add some amchur powder if you want some tang to this. But it tastes good without that too - a little sweet and a little spicy. The flavors are mostly in the tadka ingredients, so make sure you mix the pori well to incorporate all the flavors.
Serve with a cuppa chai, munch it while reading your favorite book or simply eat it if you are bored! Top it with some bhujia if you are not really watching your waistline :)

Foxnut or Makhana Seeds as a Snack

I am the five meals a day person. Small portions, almost healthy food. One disadvantage of this method is that you are never full. Always on the lookout for the next thing to much on. It is at times like these that small batches of healthy snacks come handy. I normally have a box of spiced avil/flattened rice, dry fruits or khakhra. My recent addition to this list is Makhana seeds. They are white seeds, appear like puffed pop corn and are available in most super markets. At places like Food World and MK Retail, i have found them to be pricey. My neighborhood supermarket, for some strange reason, sells a 100 gram pack for 35 rupees. If you have seen Makhana, you know that 100 g is a lot. It is known to be fat free and packed with protein and carbs.

So what i do is really simple. Spread it out on a microwave safe plate. Microwave on high for 3 mins. Take it out. Sprinkle black salt and pepper or chaat masala and red chilli, any combination of spices of your choice. Mix well. Microwave again for 2 mins.
There you go! Your healthy snack is ready! Pop it in as is like pop corn to accompany a hot cup of chai. Or mix in it with veggies and pudina chutney.