BUSTING THE OONDIYOON MYTH.........

I have always been fascinated with dishes that contain a mixture of vegetables. It’s probably the same reason why I am a big fan of salads. In Malabar cuisine, Avial is a very popular dish and a well-made Avial is very tasty. In Chettinad cuisine there are kootus which usually involve more than one vegetable.

Oondiyoon is a very common dish in Gujarati cuisine. Although I have heard about it many times, I have had the privelege to eat it only twice. It’s been so long ago that I can hardly recollect the flavour or textures from that dish.

One fine evening when I was pondering over what to cook for a vegetarian dinner, a friend of mine offered me a rough recipe for Oondiyoon. I have always resisted cooking Oondiyoon in my kitchen for two main reasons. One, it involves deep-frying the motiyas and two, it’s a very lengthy and time-consuming procedure. I try my best to keep deep-frying to a minimum in my kitchen for obvious health reasons. Motiyas are generally deep-fried (sometimes they are steamed or boiled to add to gravies) balls of roasted gram flour (besan) with a mixture of spices.

Anyways, I was running out of ideas for a good vegetarian, north-Indian vegetable dish that’ll go well with chappathi and a dal. So I decided to try out my friend’s recipe for Oondiyoon. I first made the motiyas and then went on to cook the vegetables and toss it all together. When I tasted one of the motiyas right after I finished making them, I knew that the final dish was going to taste spectacular.

Oondiyoon consists of roasted vegetables, mashed motiyas and whole motiyas. Motiyas are a vital part of the dish and I was excited that I got that part right. Also the vegetables used for Oondiyoon are mostly the country-type. Yams, gourds, country-variety of beans, etc play centre-stage in this dish.

And as it turned out, it was not a very difficult dish to cook. Also the motiyas were not very oily. We savoured every morsel of the final dish. If you ever come across a decent recipe for Oondiyoon, do not hesitate to try it out. It’ll make a great vegetarian side dish for a simple meal, as well as a festive meal for friends and family.

THE ART OF FOOD PRESENTATION

First impression is the best impression when it comes to most things in life. Food presentation is a very important part of entertaining and dining. Food should satisfy all your senses. Very often you look at the food first before you smell or taste it. So it is very important to make a good first impression with a creative presentation.

I love browsing through cookbooks in a bookstore just to look at all the lovely and colourful pictures of food in them. The more pictures, the better it is. The dishes are generally presented in a very artistic and creative way these days. I hardly buy cookbooks that have no pictures or not so great pictures in them. Good pictures in a cookbook inspire me to try out specific recipes.

Next time you cook a special meal for your family or friends do make an extra effort to present it in a very appealing way. Your guests will love the meal even before they taste it. Here are some pointers to make your meal look extra-special.

• The dish you serve the food in should look great. Mix white bowls and platters with a few colourful ones.

• Garnishes can make the food look appealing and fresh. We usually sprinkle chopped coriander leaves on most Indian food items. Try garnishing with sprigs of coriander or mint for a change. Slivered nuts make for an interesting garnish.


• Swirls of cream, oil or sauces look great on soups and gravies.

• For chocolate desserts, try sprinkling cocoa powder or icing sugar on top just before serving. Slice cooking chocolate using a bread knife to obtain beautiful shards of chocolate that can be sprinkled on a mousse.

• For desserts with fruits, garnish with slivers of fresh fruit on top. Mint sprigs look and taste great with fruity desserts.

• If you are serving food as individual servings, you can plate up each course with an attractive lay out.

• Some of the vegetable dishes can be arranged as individual servings on a large platter. It’ll look good and be easy for the guests to help themselves.

• A lovely centre-piece in the middle of the dining table is a good idea if you have the time to put together something after cooking an elaborate meal. Try and be creative and use non-floral items too in your centre-piece. Spices, vegetables, shells, candles, pebbles and pinecones are just a few examples.

These are just a few tips that can go a long way in making a lunch or dinner spread look amazing.

CAULIFLOWER KHORMA

The vegetarian readers are going to love this recipe!!! I had this Khorma for lunch today and I just couldn't have enough. I had an extra cup of Khorma after finishing the chapathis!!!

Here's the recipe.........

Ingredients:

2" piece Cinnamon
6 Garlic cloves
1/2" piece Ginger
2 Red chillies
1 tbsp Poppy seeds (khus khus)
1 1/2 tbsp Roasted channa dal (pottu kadalai)
1 tsp Fennel seeds (saunf)
1 Big Onion, sliced
1 Tomato, sliced
3 cups Cauliflower florets
1 1/2 cups thick Coconut milk
3 cups thin Coconut milk
1 - 2 tsp Ghee
2" piece Cinnamon
2 sprigs Curry leaves

Grind the Cinnamon, garlic, ginger, red chillies, khus khus, roasted channa dal and fennel seeds into a fine paste. Dissolve this ground paste into the thin coconut milk. Add the sliced onion, tomato and the cauliflower florets to the coconut milk mixture. Pour this mixture into a pan and put it on a medium flame. Once this comes to a boil simmer it for about 15 minutes until the cauliflowers florets are cooked and tender.

Now in a small pan, heat the ghee and add the cinnamon and curry leaves. Pour this into the pan with the cauliflower khorma. Add the thick coconut milk and bring the khorma to a boil and remove from flame. Serve hot with chappathis.

This is a great Khorma and is a good vegetarian gravy to serve with chappathis while entertaining guests. Your guests are sure to love it.

KING'S CLIFF, OOTY

King's Cliff is an old colonial house that has been revamped into a charming little hotel with an old-world ambiance. The old trees along the driveway and well manicured garden add to the charm of the hotel. A leisurely lunch in the glass house or a relaxed evening by one of their fireplaces is an excellent option for a meal out in Ooty. Families with children will thoroughly enjoy this place as there is ample space and good service to go with it.



Earl's Secret, the restaurant at King's Cliff offers a wide range of dishes spanning Indian, continental and Asian cuisines. The During my first few visits to the King's Cliff I was hesitant to experiment with different cuisines and mainly ordered only Indian dishes. The kebabs are excellent especially the ones involving chicken. Rotis were soft and the gravies were mild and tasty (without oil floating on the surface). When I did try the continental dishes, I was not very satisfied and have refrained myself from ordering continental food from then on.



Over many visits to King's Cliff we have come to enjoy and relish a few dishes in particular like the Butter chicken masala, Vegetarian Thai red curry, Chicken Reshmi kebab and the simple Chicken hakka noodles. My son in particular is very fond of the Butter chicken masala and was talking about it even a day before we could visit King's cliff during our last trip to Ooty. I am sure he dreamt about it in sleep that night! And he thoroughly enjoyed it when we did order the dish the next day.

The management at King's Cliff is very friendly and efficient and would be happy to organise a bar-be-que for your family and friends in the evening. Lounging around the fireplace is also a fantastic option in the evenings. Since they do not take reservations for the seats around the fireplace it is better to get there early in the evenings. Over the weekends they have a one-man band playing music mostly from the 60's and 70's which seems to pair well with the setting and mood around the place.

SHINKOWS, OOTY

Anybody who has been to Ooty more than a couple of times will know about Shinkows and its food. And those that were in boarding school in Ooty have fond memories of eating in Shinkows during their outings. Shinkows is an institution in itself.

Although I have never been to China myself I feel its the closest thing you can get to real chinese food in this part of the country. Most of the food thats served in chinese restaurants are desi-chinese. Only the star hotels in big metros seem to serve authentic asian food in their specialised restaurants. A trip to Ooty is never complete for me without a meal in Shinkows.

Shinkows has been around in Ooty for over 30 years or so (may be longer, I am not so sure). Its been run by the same person all these years and most of the people who work there have been around for years. Service can be better and the place definitely has a lot of scope for improvement when it comes to cleanliness. The food there has been consistently good that a lot of people tend to overlook these setbacks. The menu is reasonably simple and straight-forward.

My favourites there are Young Chow Fried noodles, Chicken with pineapple and Chilly Beef. The Young Chow fried noodles is very similar to an American Chopsuey except the sauce on top is very mild (not sweet and sour) and is loaded with vegetables. The chicken with pineapples is again a very mild dish with loads of onions and pineapple in a mild sauce with chicken (which is not deep-fried). Most chicken dishes on the menu are very similar except for chilly chicken. They all come with a mild gravy, loads of onion and the vegetable the dish is named after.

The chilly beef is a deep-fried spicy dish. The other beef dishes are again similar to the chicken dishes, mild gravy with onion and the vegetable the dish is named after. The quality of beef is very good, always soft and cut very thin. The pork dishes are subject to availability and I have never had the chance to try any. Vegetarians will find limited options on the menu and may not be as satisfied as the meat-eaters.

Another aspect what I really like about the restaurant is the little vegetable plot they have in the same premises where they grow a few greens thats consumed in the restaurant itself. Its a really small area but I like the idea that they trying to grow whatever is possible for their own consumption.

STUFFED ZUCCHINI FLOWERS

About 10 years ago, a friend of mine told me about her excitement in finding Zucchini in one of the restaurants in Chennai. And I had no clue what a Zucchini looked like or tasted like. My first experiences with Zucchini were when I lived in the US for 2 years. My neighbour and I used to rent little plots from the university and grow vegetables in it during the summer months. I could hardly get anything out of my plot while my neighbour managed a big harvest of Zucchinis. She was using her Zucchinis in Indian-style subzis and hence I tried to use it the same way in Indian cooking according to her recommendations.

Over the years of watching a zillion shows on food and reading a few books on cooking, I have come across fried Zucchini flowers. They are meant to be a delicacy in Italy and its really hard to come across Zucchini flowers here in India, atleast for me. They looked quite delicate and I assumed that they don't travel well.

I was in Coonoor, Nilgiris, visiting an organic farm yesterday. And I could see Zucchini growing in little shrubs. When I asked my farm guide about Zucchini flowers, he wanted to know whether I wanted the male or the female flowers. I had no clue what he was talking about. The female flowers are the ones that go on to develop into Zucchinis. The male flowers just wither and fall after a while. So my son and I decided to pick only the male flowers and managed to collect about a dozen and bring it home.

Heres the recipe to what I made with the Zucchini flowers:

Ingredients:

8 Zucchini flowers
30 gms Mozarella Cheese
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup drinking soda
1/2 tsp oil
and oil to deep fry

Gently open out the petals of the Zucchini flowers and remove the filaments from the inside. Cut the cheese into thin slivers that'll fit into the flowers. Stuff the cheese in to the zucchini flowers and secure the petals around it. Make a batter out of the flour, salt, egg, oil and soda. Immediately dip the zucchini flowers into the batter and drop them into heated oil in a pan. Fry until golden brown and drain on absorbant paper. Serve hot.

And as you can see even my 2-year old couldn't keep his hands off it. The melted cheese, crispy batter and the delicate flower made a wonderful combination. This recipe is a must-try if you can lay your hands on fresh, organic Zucchini flowers.

SYRIAN PORK ROAST

I love pork. I think pork is the best among all meat. Many may not agree with me but there have been times when I have tasted dishes made from pork and I would absolutely forget everything around me and so relish it.

Unfortunately the quality of pork we get in India is very questionable. In fact, in my town, Coimbatore, the only safe place (according to me, of course) is the Agri University. They have a piggery and they feed only proper animal feed to the pigs and I trust that they are vaccinated periodically and is free of parasites, etc. The university culls animals once every 4 months or so and I buy a few kilos at a time and put them away in the freezer for later use.

I found an interesting book on Kerala Syrian food this morning at a local book store and bought it. And I of course had to try out a recipe today itself. I found a recipe for pork roast and it was irresistable. I tweeked the recipe a little bit and made it for dinner. It turned out quite well and I thought I’ll share it with everyone.

Ingredients:

1 kg Pork, preferrably with bits of fat
3 green cardamom
3 cloves
1 no 2” piece cinnamon
1 tsp peppercorns
12 cloves of garlic
2” piece ginger
6 shallots
6 red chillies
3 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tbsp white vinegar
Salt to taste
1/8 + ¼ cup oil
3 big onions, sliced thinly
1 tsp all-purpose flour
1 cup water

Powder the cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon and peppercorns to a fine powder. Also grind the garlic, ginger, red chillies, mustard and fenugreek along with the vinegar into a fine paste. Mix the spice powder, spice paste and salt along with the pork meat and let it marinate for a couple of hours. Heat 1/8 cup of oil in a pressure cooker and sauté the marinated pork for about half hour. Sprinkle some water if necessary. After half hour of sautéing, add 1 cup of water and pressure cook the pork for 15 minutes. Reserve the pork pieces and the gravy separately. Dissolve the flour in about a tbsp of water and mix it with the gravy.

In a pan, heat ¼ cup of oil and sauté the sliced onions until browned and crispy. Now add the pork pieces to the onions and fry for about 5 minutes. Add the gravy to the pan and cook until the gravy thickens and coats the pork well. Remove from flame and drain excess fat from the surface. Serve hot.



I have tried cooking pork with only lean meat (no fat, no skin). But it doesn’t taste quite the same as when you cook pork with all its natural fat. The lean pork ends up dry and less flavourful. Pork gets a lot of its flavour from the fat its cooked in. So what I do these days is mix lean pork with regular pork, say 50 – 50. And I skim the fat from the surface after I finish cooking the dish.

CARROT LOAF

I am a big fan of watching cooking shows on tv. If there is a channel dedicated to only food and cooking, that’s all I would be watching. And that was the case when I lived in the US for a couple of years. Food network is all I used to watch. And they have a good website (www.foodtv.com) with loads of recipes to browse through. Even now I look for recipes on this particular website. If you are looking for ‘Quiche Lorraine’, for example, this website will have at the least 10 recipes for it. There are many celebrity chefs who are part of this network and each one probably has his/her own recipe for ‘Quiche Lorraine’ put up on the website.

I once watched a tv show many years ago when they baked a carrot loaf on it. It appeared reasonably easy to make and it looked delicious. I am constantly looking for vegetarian dishes since I do not have many. This recipe involves eggs and mushrooms so it may not be an option for strict vegetarians.

Ingredients:
900 gms carrots
200 gms button mushrooms
200 gms spinach leaves removed from the stem
5 eggs
100 gms cheese (cheddar/gruyere), grated
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
3 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel the carrots and cut them into 0.5cm slices. Heat 1 tbsp butter in a pan and sauté the carrot slices in it until the carrots are tender and cooked. Allow it to cool and chop coarsely by hand or in a food processor.

Slice the mushrooms thinly. Heat ½ tbsp of butter in a pan and sauté the mushroom slices in it until cooked and the moisture evaporates. Allow it to cool and chop coarsely. Add the chopped mushrooms to the carrots and mix thoroughly.

Heat 1 tbsp of butter in a pan and sauté the spinach leaves in it until cooked and the moisture evaporates. Allow it to cool and chop coarsely. Break 1 egg into the spinach and mix. Add salt and pepper according to taste.

Beat 4 eggs and the grated cheese together with the freshly grated nutmeg. Add this to the carrot and mushroom mixture along with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

Use the remaining butter to butter a loaf pan. Add half the carrot mixture to the loaf pan followed by the spinach and egg mixture. Finally add the remaining carrot mixture on top and even out the surface. Line the top of the loaf with a buttered paper to prevent the loaf from browning too much while baking. Now place the loaf pan in a larger baking dish and pour enough hot water into the baking dish to cover the bottom by about 1 ½ inches. Place the baking dish with the loaf pan into an oven that has been preheated to 180˚C. Bake for about 1 hour and a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Allow the loaf to cool a little bit and invert it on to a serving plate.

You can use half butter and half oil instead of using only butter to sauté the vegetables. But do not compromise on the quality of cheese. Using a good quality cheese is important since this recipe uses a considerable quantity of cheese and its quality shows in the final taste. Enjoy……..

Food of Love

A great way to say you love and care is to cook a fantastic meal for your loved one(s). Be it a birthday or an anniversary or valentine’s day. You can either just cook his or her favourite dishes and make a meal of it or you can cook a 3 course or 5 course sit-down dinner depending on your resources and time. If you are cooking Indian food, the best way is to put an array of dishes together and present it as a complete dinner. If you decide to go with Asian or continental or some other cuisine then definitely try out a 3 course or a 5 course sit-down dinner.

To make things more exciting pull out your best crockery and cutlery and lay out your table very well. You could also get a lovely centerpiece made out of flowers or candles to add the right mood to the dinner setting. Also if you have a black board or a white board, write out your menu for the evening on it.

To give an example, last year I cooked a 4 course meal for a special occasion and the menu was as follows:

• Prawns with onion and cumin marmalade
• Green salad with red wine vinegrette, blue cheese and walnuts
• Grilled fish with a red pepper romesco sauce
• Dark chocolate mousse

Serve each course as individual servings one after the other. You may have to spend about 5 minutes each for each course, plating up in the kitchen. This wait between courses is definitely worth the end result. Also if you are trying out a chocolate dessert like the mousse for instance, try presenting it in a martini glass or a shot glass. As an alternative to the meat dish as your main course, you could cook pasta or rice with a sauce.

The recipes can be looked up on cookbooks or from the numerous websites on-line. I think it’s a good idea to try out new recipes rather than repeating old recipes. And remember, presentation is of utmost importance. Try to be as creative as possible and use herbs, spices and sauces as garnishes to make each serving a sight to cherish. This blog may have been useful for Valentine ’s Day but it’s never too late. Treat your loved one on his/her birthday or your anniversary to a memorable dinner.

Moplah Cuisine

During my childhood years seafood was not a significant part of our diet. We may eat seafood once in 2 months or so. Fresh seafood was not readily available in our town and we were discouraged from ordering seafood in restaurants since the quality and freshness of the seafood was questionable. But from the time I got married, I was introduced to a whole new array of seafood by my husband and now there is no looking back. I never imagined that I would be cooking squid in my own kitchen, one day.

I first heard about ‘Moplah cuisine” from my mother-in-law who has a friend from the Calicut region in Kerala. This is a cuisine from the muslim households in the northern regions of Kerala. It has strong influences from the Arab, Persian and the Moghul cuisines. There is an array of meat and seafood dishes along with a long list of sweets. Moplah cuisine is very rich and uses many exotic spices and dried fruits. Having heard all this, when I saw a cook book on Moplah cuisines (which is not very common in book stores) I immediately bought myself a copy.

Title – Malabar Cuisine – Traditional Moplah Favourites

Authors – Rasheed, Roshna Khader, Reshmi Joseph and Salim Pushpanath.

Published by Salim Pushpanath at DEE BEE INFO PUBLICATIONS, Kottayam, India.

www.dbventure.com

The book has a lovely introduction to the Malabar region and the Moplah cuisine. There are many recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack and desserts. The recipes are predominantly for meat and seafood dishes and also include a variety of desserts. I tried the squid roast (Koonthal Varuthathu) today. And it turned out well and my family enjoyed it with ghee rice and a beetroot pachidi for dinner.

If you are interested in trying out Moplah cuisine in your kitchen, this book is a good buy. I have tried some other recipes from the meat and seafood sections and they have all come out well. The ingredients are listed well and the instructions are detailed and easy to follow. And it has great pictures that tempt you to try out new dishes everytime.

Prawn Balchao

The first time I ate ‘Prawn Balchao’ was at the Karavalli restaurant in Taj Gateway Hotel, Bangalore. It is one of the best seafood restaurants in India that I have been to. And no trip to Bangalore is complete for me without having one meal, preferably dinner there. Prawn Balchao is a tangy dish with a thick masala that can be served as an appetizer or as a side dish with plain boiled rice or a mildly spiced pulao. It is almost like pickled prawns, both spicy and tangy. It will stay well in the fridge for up to a week because of the presence of vinegar.

Last Sunday, I went to the fish monger with the hopes of buying fresh white pomfret to make a crispy fried dish. But to my disappointment there was no white pomfret on that particular day. I found the prawns fresh and good so I bought a kilo of it to make our favourite balchao. Very often I change my menu depending on whats available fresh in the market.

I have tried making balchao earlier with different recipes from cookbooks and on-line websites. On Sunday, I arrived on my own version combining a few recipes. Here it is……..

Ingredients:

600 gms prawns, shelled and deveined
½ cup oil
1 inch ginger
15 garlic cloves
1 tsp cumin
10 red chillies
5 cloves
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp mustard seeds
¾ cup malt vinegar
2 onions, chopped
4 tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp brown sugar
2 sprigs curry leaves
Salt to taste

Serves : 3 - 4

Cooking time - 1 hour

Wash and drain the prawns thoroughly. Add salt and keep aside. Grind the ginger, garlic, cumin, red chillies, cloves, cinnamon and mustard to a fine paste using half the vinegar.

In a pan, heat half the oil and sauté the prawns until all the moisture dries up. This will take a while since the prawns will give out about a cup of liquid and all this liquid has to dry up. It should take about 15 mins or so. Now remove the prawns and keep aside. In the same pan, add the remaining oil and sauté the chopped onions until lightly browned.

Add the ground masala and sauté for about 5 mins until the raw smell leaves. Add the chopped tomatoes and remaining vinegar and sauté until the oil separates. The tomatoes should be cooked through and pulpy. Now add the prawns back in to the pan along with the brown sugar and curry leaves and sauté for a few more mins until the oil separates again.

It is perfectly fine to substitute malt vinegar with white distilled vinegar and brown sugar with regular white sugar. The flavour of the dish may be slightly altered but it’ll still taste fantastic. The oil used in this dish may be a little too much for some people but this dish needs ½ cup of oil to get the desired taste. I have tried cooking it with less oil but the taste is not as good at the end.

Good times with the grill..........

Grilling has always fascinated me. My family was introduced to grilling by two Swedes (thank you Christopher and Martin) when I was about 10 years old. We were taught to make only one marinade which is similar to barbeque sauce and the only meat we grilled was chicken. We used to build our own make-shift grill using loose bricks and home-made metal skewers (not sure what we used to make the skewers). All the kids in the family were very involved in the process and I have very fond memories from my grilling days back then.

Anyways, grilling today is a totally different experience. Thanks to Weber, I have an efficient and easy-to-use grill that I can just pull out in a jiffy and get grilling. Although a gas grill is a lot less work and user-friendly, I am a fan of charcoal grills and hence I bought myself a charcoal grill. I just love the flavour the charcoal adds to the food while grilling. Smoked food is even better. What I really love about this recent advance in grilling is the briquettes. Back in those days, lighting up the grill was a laborious process. It took a long time and sometimes starting the fire was a bit tricky. We would use kerosene to light the fire and sometimes end up with food that smelt of kerosene. Starting the grill today involves very little effort and a lot less messy!

The first time I used the grill, which was about 2 weeks ago; I was entertaining a group of 14 for lunch. I marinated prawns, chicken and mutton in marinades from different cuisines and also did a paneer tikka and asian-flavoured mushrooms for the vegetarians. To go with the grilled food, I served pita chips with hummus, couscous with grilled vegetables and a baked dish that contained baked beans.

Last night when I entertained a group of 4 people, I decided to do an Indian-themed barbeque dinner. For this, I marinated the fish cubes in a paste of onion, coriander leaves, garlic, green chillies, turmeric and cumin. I marinated the chicken in Bombay flavors which involved paprika, garlic, coriander powder, cumin powder and turmeric. I marinated the mutton in a blend of spices and ground fried-onions to prepare ‘Pathar Ka Ghosht’. With paneer, I just repeated the paneer tikka because it was a real hit the last I grilled it and paneer was so soft and was just melting in our mouths. To go with the grilled food, I made corn pulao, warm carrot salad and a potato and curd curry.

The best part of the dinner last night was the dessert. I grilled fresh figs on the oiled grill until lightly browned before I put the meat and paneer on it. I put away the figs while we were eating the other grilled food. At the end of the meal, I served the grilled figs with rum-flavoured ice-cream, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon and a drizzle of honey. It was simply fantastic. That to me was the highlight of the dinner and I’ll definitely be serving that dessert again as long as I can lay my hands on some fresh figs. Grilled pineapples can be a great alternative and I think its flavours will blend well with cinnamon and honey. Also just plain vanilla ice-cream should go well with the above flavours if you can’t find rum-flavoured ice-cream.

I am looking forward to many more encounters with my new grill. It sure is good times with the grill…………….

Ragi for breakfast

I love eating ‘Ragi Idiyappam’ for breakfast. It’s such a healthy dish and it fills me up enough to last until lunchtime without any snacking in-between. For those of you who don’t know what ‘Ragi Idiyappam’ is, its dried vermicelli made out of ragi. The English term for Ragi is finger millet and it is also referred to as African millet. I buy the ‘ANIL’ brand ragi idiyappam which is available at the local grocery store.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups ragi idiyappam
1/8 cup green gram / moong dal
¼ cup grated coconut
2 tsp brown sugar / jaggery

Cooking time: 30 mins

Serves 1

Soak the ragi idiyappam in water (room temperature) for 5 mins and drain. Place it in a steamer (idli vessel is handy) and steam it for about 10 mins. Meanwhile, cook the dal in about ½ cup water until its cooked through and drain. Make sure that it does not get over-cooked and mushy. Now, toss the cooked Idiyappam, dal, grated coconut and brown sugar together and serve.

The ragi while steaming tends to stick to the container (the idli vessel for instance). To avoid this you can rub a little bit of oil on the container before placing the soaked ragi in it to steam. Other than the oil used to coat the container, there is no oil in this dish. The fat content of this dish is very low and I get to eat ragi which is otherwise absent in my diet. As an alternative, you can even make other dishes like upma out of ragi idiyappam. I have tasted bread made out of ragi flour. It was a substitute for rye bread. and it tasted good.

I have heard and read that millets are a good and healthy source of energy. A friend of mine once mentioned that it is particularly good for diabetic patients since it releases energy slowly while being digested. I’ll try to write more about millets at a later date.

Nutritional value of Ragi per 100 g

Protein 7.3 g
Fat 1.3 g
Carbohydrate 72 g
Minerals 2.7 g
Calcium 3.44 g
Fibre 3.6 g
Energy 328 kCal

Introduction

This is a blog where I want to share my thoughts on food. I enjoy cooking and am actively involved in the kitchen every day. I like to try out new recipes from the many cookbooks I have and I also enjoy searching for recipes on-line. I like to cook food that is healthy and complete for my family’s need. During my travel, I plan my meals meticulously and enjoy eating in both new restaurants and old-favourites. And I am fond of collecting little kitchen gadgets that make life a lot simpler in the kitchen. Some of these gadgets can also be fun to use. I want to share my thoughts and experiences during my escapades in the kitchen.

I have enjoyed cooking right from when I was about 12 years old. I would come back from school in the evening and whip up something for my evening snack. Both my mother and mother-in-law have been huge influences in cultivating a love for cooking in me. They are both fantastic cooks and have been great inspirations. And trust me, cooking is a great way to a man’s heart!!!! ;-) Now I also enjoy cooking for my children and try out various child-friendly recipes.

I’ll be posting my thoughts on some of the things I cook in my kitchen on a daily-basis for my family, on dinner menus I plan for a gathering of friends or family, my opinion on specific restaurants, on kitchen gadgets and some must-haves in the kitchen, on food ingredients, on cookbooks, on food shopping and on a whole bunch of things related to food. I would appreciate feedback and suggestions from readers and ideas on more arenas for me to explore in the world of food.