Bombay to Goa

It's been a very long satisfying gastronomical journey, first in Bombay and then in Goa. With some new restaurant finds and some seriously delicious home meals, John's yummy herb/roast chicken with roasted vegetables, amazing papad pizza and by far the best burger in the whole world at Indigo Deli, berry pulav at Brittania, Ruchi's Spagetti, Anoop's Fish in green mango and lisa's prawn curry with drumsticks and prawn rechiad stuffed in squid...all in all a feast fit for many kings, some pictures for now, recipes to follow i hope! (john, ruchi, anoop, liza!)

Sunday Lunch ala Nityan

Made a delicious Pork Vindaloo and beans and coconut ala Nityan today for family lunch at home, marinated for a day and cooked for 3 hours...feeling very lazy so will post tomorrow, some pictures for now. Love

Pork Vindaloo

1 kg Pork with fat and no skin ( leg )
1/2 kg lean pork
3-4 spoons vinegar (any white or Goa vinegar)
2 large onions (mash/ pulp)
1 whole pod garlic
Nice large piece of Ginger
grind ginger and garlic together in to a paste
1 teaspoon zeera powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 and a half teaspoon chilli powder ( i used a mix of kashmiri mirchi and normal sabut red mirchi ,freshly ground )
11/2 -2 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Clean pork and marinate with all the above ingredients, mix nicely and let it sit in the fridge for 12-24-48 hours! ( I did 24)

Put Pork in to a large non stick type cooking vessel on the small flame on simmer for an hour, no oil required (the fat will more than compensate!) you will find water has been released, half cover and let it cook for another 30 to 40 mins . Check salt/ vinegar/ red chilli levels and add if needed. after and hour and a half of cooking add
1 1/2 inch piece of Cinnamon
15-20 pepper corns
5-8 cloves

For the next hour slowly stir the meat, the gravy will thicken, take it off the fire when you see the right consistency. It has a thick small amount of gravy . So total cooking time is 2 and a half to three hours. very simple and highly satisfying, thanks Nityan for this superb discovery! It can be mopped up with bread/ pao's/ sannas!

and for the Beans;

Take Half a kilo French beans, chop really fine after removing the strings etc
Half a grated coconut (or a large heaped handful)

Heat a little oil in a kadhai and put in
1 Teaspoon Black urad dal ( which can be soaked for 10 -15 min to soften)
1 Teaspoon Black mustard seeds
3 Broken red chilli's
a dash of hing if you want

Put in the copped beans and cook for 5 minutes on medium to low fire
mix in salt
Cover and cook for a few more minutes/ keep tasting to make sure the beans don't get overcooked, they should remain slightly crunchy
Close the gas and add the grated coconut and mix, that's it!

Goaaaah!

So this one is a tried and tested beauty which always brings back memories of Goa. Even though I'm vegetarian now, I still have to make this prawn rechad for my friends here in Toronto who can't get enough of it. There are various versions, but this is my recipe. And with a collection of these malabar spices, who can go wrong?

Prawn Rechad
Ingredients:
1" stick cinnamon
5 cardamom pods
7 cloves
1 tbsp black peppercorn
3 kashmiri chillies
1 pod garlic
3 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 lb prawns
salt to taste
vegetable oil

So clean the prawns and set them aside. In a bowl, soak the cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, chillies, pepper and cloves of garlic in the white vinegar. Add the salt and sugar, and grind to a paste. (Add more vinegar if necessary). Combine this potent mixture to the prawns and mix well. Heat some oil in a frying pan, and fry the prawns until red, succulent and juicy.
Serve hot.....with ample amount of drinks. Personally urak with soda and lime, or fenny or a good old gin and tonic does the trick.

Let's meet in goa.

Here's to Susegaad!

I have to say this blog has been the most wonderful idea. How lovely that we can be in different parts of the world and share our food stories... especially when the cooking bug has attacked all of us all at once. Thankyou Pallavi for starting this. You deserve a prize... and here it is.
These are pictures of a small dinner we had for our friends at our new home last week. The menu was completely planned around Susegaad ... Pallavi's Babaghanoush (yum!) and Uzi's aligarh ghosht rice (the first time i ever cooked meat!) were the highlights. The food was amazing.. much enjoyed by everyone and we were pleased with our performance. Now thats a Susegaad success story! Oh and last night i tried Prash's coconut rice. So easy and so yummy. Thanks everyone.

Much love to all

Yum's the word and a happy christmas!

The last week has been a gastronomical bonanza second to none, with mum's amazing spread, radhika bhatia's delicious leg of ham and good old wengers Christmas cake. All we did was eat,now slowly recovering from all that delicious excess...

Uzi's Aligarh Gosht Rice

Our trip to Aligarh a couple of years ago to see the Numaish, a sensory overload type of mela they have every year was very exciting but what lingers and remains in my mind about that trip was the food we got to eat at Uzi's home, made by her long time lovely cook Ruby. So when the cooking bug bit, (finally..) i knew that her recipes had to be tapped. I have no idea how close this is to the original but its a lovely light one dish meal, best eaten with papad, raita and kutchumbir...really looking forward to our next Aligarh trip to tuck in to ruby's food again :)

The only thing I would add before putting this recipe down is that it is very low on spice, i added green chilli's to give it a little zing, so depending on your spice levels you can add as you like

Mutton 1 kilo
2-3 large Onions ( cut in to big chunks)
1 Inch ginger (grind)
A whole pod or more of garlic ( the more the better/ grind)
4 Tejpata
10 or 15 pepper corns
4 Big elaichi

wrap the following ingredients in a little linen cloth and make a sealed potli/bundle
1 teaspoon dhanya sabut
1 teaspoon sauf
1 teaspoon zeera

Put all the above ingredients plus 2 teaspoons of salt in the pressure cooker with the meat,
add 4 -6 small cups of water ( such that the water is is just about covering the meat)

Give it a whistle or two and lower the flame, leave it on for 5-7 min and then take it off the gas.
Let it cool and open when cool.
Take out he little potli of spices

In a Big pan/kadai put some oil and the following
2 tejpata
4 small elaichi
2 Big elaichi
4-5 long
2-3 pieces dalchini ( Cinnamon)
Zavitri a little

Green chill to taste

Fry the bits of meat lightly with the masalas and after all done put back in the pressure cooker. Leave the water in the cooker as is.

Then take two cups of rice which you can soak for a half an hour ( 2 cups for 4 glasses of water, basically however many cups of water was put in earlier to cook the meat, half the amount of rice) and put in to the pressure cooker and cook on an open fire till water dries op/rice cooks

Separately in enough oil fry lots of onions ( 5-6 ,cut long) till brown and crispy to sprinkle on top.

Bon appetit..:)

PADWALKAI WARKA

'Padwalkai' is Kannada for 'Indian Snake gourd'. .. the long green gourd which i have'nt managed to find in London yet, not even at the Taj Stores on brick lane. Padwalkai Warka is what i miss most when i think of home food... and reason enough for this wonderous recipe to be my first contribution on this blog.and because i cant cook it here, instead of pictures of the dish i have for you a drawing of akka when she was very small.. another true warka lover.
Padwalkai Warka is a very local dish from 'Konasagara' (literal translation: sea of buffaloes'!), the village my father comes from. It was when my mother married my father and went to the village (she was 17 and this was 46 years ago), that she was taught how to make this dish. It is best eaten with ragi balls, with a bit of pickle and fried chillies on the side. It is also wonderful with white rice.


So here's the recipe:

1 snake gourd: Peel this strange wonderful vegetable, cut it open and deseed it.
Cut it into small-medium pieces. ( to give you an idea of small- medium:about 2.5 cms roughly)

In a small bowl, pour a little bit of water for soaking in the following ingredients:
6 pods garlic
1 spoon whole black pepper
chopped ginger
4 green chillies
2 spoons raw rice
1 spoon ghasghas

Keep the bowl aside and let these soak in a bit.

Heat some oil in the pressure cooker.
Fry in a bit of mustard seeds, curry leaf and few pods of chopped garlic.
Put in the cut gourd and fry it for just one minute.
Pour in 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of milk (coffee cup)
Pressure cook this for just one whistle.
Open the cooker and mash up the cooked gourd.
Add salt to taste and a little sugar (quarter tea spoon)
Put 1 table spoon of fresh grated coconut into the soaking bowl mixture, and grind all the bowls ingredients in the mixer.
Mix the ground mixture with the cooked gourd and give it one more boil.
Check for salt and spice. If more spice is desired split a fresh green chillie and drop it in.

Eat with hot steamed rice, pickle and papad.

and think of meg.

with love.