Simple Fried Rice

When my dear friend, DK, announced that China was the destination for this month's AWED, I really didn't know what I could contribute. I've tried very hard to replicate Chinese flavors at home, without much success - it always seems to require ingredients that I end up substituting, and then it just never tastes the same.

I love spicy food, but when it comes to Chinese, I'm not a huge Indian Chinese person. I much prefer stir fried Bok Choy and Greens to Cauliflower Manchurian. This is one of the staples we used to make - a very simple fried rice, which was always well appreciated.


Simple Fried Rice

1.5 cups cooked long grain Rice (chilled overnight in the refrigerator (leftovers are perfect) - the rice needs to be cold. I used Basmati)
3/4 cup or more Bean Sprouts
2-3 cloves Garlic, chopped
2 tsp Soy Sauce
2-3 Spring Onions (white and green parts chopped separately)
1/2 cup Mushrooms (I used button, but shiitake are preferable)
1 Egg, beaten with a tsp of water

Heat a tsp of sesame oil in a pan. When hot add the garlic, white parts of the spring onions, mushrooms and soy sauce. Stir fry until mushrooms are cooked. Remove from heat and keep aside.


Add the egg to the pan and swirl around to form a very thin layer. Let it set (about a minute), then gently slide off the pan and roll into a cigar shape. Cut cross-wise to form the restaurant-style strips.


Now add the cold rice to the pan, saute for a minute and then add the mushroom mixture. Toss with the rice for about 2 minutes until combined. Add the egg and toss through. I like to add some more bean sprouts at this point to add some crunchiness, but its completely optional. Now add the chopped green parts of the spring onion.


Serve with stir-fried greens.


This rice can obviously be made very personal by adding or subtracting any of the veggies. It tastes great with peas, carrots as well. Feel free to leave out the mushrooms or eggs if you don't enjoy them. This is a very basic recipe that can be easily customized for your taste.

Yogurt Cake with Berries

I've had this recipe bookmarked for a very long time. When I was doing a bit of "spring cleaning" yesterday, I found this and almost sprinted to the kitchen, wondering why I hadn't bothered to make it all this while. Its one recipe where you will almost definitely have all the ingredients on hand and it promised to be delicious.


Yogurt Cake with Berries
(original recipe from here)

2 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
a handful of mixed berries

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C.

Combine yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil in a bowl until completely mixed.

Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda together.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually until well combined. Sprinkle the berries on top - they will gradually sink into the cake as it bakes.

Pour into a round tin and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


Absolutely perfect, soft and delicious.

This is also off to dear Siri for her Yogurt event - can't wait for the round-up!

Doubly Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies

Another lovely challenge from the Sweet and Simple Bakes team, Ultimate Double Chocolate Cookies. This was my first time baking cookies (yes! I'm a complete novice baker!), and this was just the thing to get me going in the cookie category.

I must first congratulate the S+SB team, Rosie and Maria, who are doing a fabulous job. I've gained a lot of confidence just from their fail-safe recipes and directions. Not to mention that my family thanks them too! (the 2 dozen cookies where gone in 2 hours, by 4 people! Crazy!).

The rule of thumb at home seems to be that the height of the cookies has to be equal to the height of the glass of milk! Nice, huh?


Ultimate Double Chocolate Cookies
(the recipe from here)

9 oz All-Purpose Flour
2 oz Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
6 oz Butter at room temperature
7 oz Demerara Sugar
4 oz Caster Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
11 oz Chocolate Chips


Sift the flour, baking soda and cocoa together into a bowl.

In another bowl, add the butter and both sugars and mix well until creamy. Add the eggs (a little bit at a time), until well combined and then the vanilla. Beat until smooth and fully mixed in.


Add the flour mixture, a little bit at a time, and fold into the wet ingredients. Now add the chocolate chips until combined. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and set aside in the refrigerator for at least an hour, until chilled and firm.


Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

Roll the mixture into little balls (about the size of a ping pong ball) and place them on a greased baking sheet, leaving enough room for the cookies to expand while baking. Flatten slightly with your fingers.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes. They came out perfect! Let it cool for a few minutes on the baking tray and then transfer to a cooling rack until they are completely cool.


They were ... all gone in 2 hours!


Can't wait for next month and the next challenge! And here are some fun/ interesting cookie recipes - check them out!
Is this an average cookie? Nope, its a Mean Chocolate Chip Cookie!
Cookies Baked in a Car!

Mango Jam with Cumin

This recipe couldn't be easier. Ten minutes away from a lovely breakfast - using the seasonal mango and my personal favorite spice, cumin.


Mango Jam with Cumin

1 cup Mango, skinned and cubed
1 tsp Cumin Seeds, roasted
1 tbsp Jaggery or Brown Sugar
1 tsp Salt


Mix all the ingredients together in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on High for 7 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes.

Transfer to a bowl. Spread on toast and enjoy!


I love the occasional cumin seed that pops into your mouth and adds a depth of flavor to this jam. It also works well with cinnamon powder. Store in a sterilized jar for up to a month.

This is off to dear Valli for this month's Microwave Cooking - Bottled. And to Raaga for WBB's Express Breakfast. And to Meeta's Monthly Mingle which features the lovely, seasonal mango this month.

Puliyodarai

Puliyodarai or Pulihorai is an Iyengar specialty. Its a tamarind-flavored rice made with peanuts and a basic tempering of spices. It's really very simple if one has the necessary paste on hand. Here's the way we make it at home.


Iyengar Puliyodarai

The Paste

1/4 kg Tamarind Pulp
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 dried red chillies + 20 for adding later
1 tsp turmeric
1 pinch asoefetida
4 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp peppercorn

Soak the tamarind pulp in a water (enough water to cover the pulp). Soak the mixture for 15 minutes. Drain the water and keep separately. Grind the pulp to a thick paste.

In a saucepan, heat some sesame oil. Add a teaspoon of mustard seeds, 2 teaspoons of fenugreek, 2 dried red chillies. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add the reserved water, pulp, turmeric and salt. Let it boil for a while until the raw smell of tamarind has disappeared. Add a pinch of asoefetida to the boiling liquid.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan, dry roast the coriander seeds and peppercorn. Grind to a fine powder. In the same pan, roast 20 or so dried red chillies and grind to a fine powder.

When the above liquid begins to thicken, add the dry ground spices. Allow the mixture to thicken to a paste. Remove from heat and let cool. You can store this paste for up to a month in the refrigerator and for longer in the freezer.


The Tamarind Rice

1 cup Rice
2 tsp Urad Dal, roasted
2 tsp Channa Dal, roasted
2 tbsp Peanuts, skinned and roasted
1 tsp white Sesame Seeds, roasted and ground

Cook rice with a pinch of turmeric (use the measure 1 cup rice: 3 cups water).
When cooked, cool the rice and add salt and mix.
Add the roasted lentils and peanuts and mix well. Sprinkle with the roasted sesame seed powder.
Add one tbsp of the paste (for every one cup of cooked rice) and mix thoroughly.

This is obviously easier to make if the paste is available. Though the paste is available in most Indian grocery stores, the home made paste is well worth the effort.


Puliyodarai tastes great served with thick plain yogurt.

This is off to dear Sig for the JFI for July featuring Tamarind. JFI is an event featuring different special ingredients and was originally started by Indira of Mahanandi. I loved this month's theme because this age-old recipe is close to my heart and one that we've made in our house for generations.

Bread!

My affair with yeast started a while ago. We were first wary of each other. Then we tried to work together. Nope - back off and wary again. We tried not to make eye contact every time I opened the freezer.

People inadvertently bombarded me with their yeast success stories - especially here and here. There was a little hope - if this didn't work, I was going to donate the damn thing to someone more worthy!

It worked. And it was Brilliant. And I love Yeast. All's well that end's well.

When I read Siri's post, I knew it was exactly what I was looking for. She also referenced TFL, which is a bread baker's bible. I followed her advice word-for-word. Hey, you might not win any awards with this bread, but you'll feel like you did.

Basic Basic Basic Bread.
(followed from here)

3 cups All-Purpose Flour
2 tsp Fleischmann's RapidRise Yeast (1 sachet)
2 tsp Salt
1 1/4 cups warm Water

Mix all the ingredients together. It shouldn't be too sticky. Just enough water for it to all come together. Knead for 10 minutes. As you knead, you will feel the dough become smooth and elastic - it's an unbelievably cool feeling. It will feel like silk! Okay, I was just really happy!

Put it in a greased bowl and cover and keep in a warm place. In the Chennai heat, any place in my house would be warm enough, but I was so scared of the yeast, that I kept it in a tiny room without ventilation, lights on and covered.

So TWO HOURS later (you need only 45-90 minutes, depending on how warm it is), I finally got the courage to check. And it had not doubled.... it had TRIPLED!!! As my daughter says, Hurrah!!


I punched it down - this is a great feeling too - you can see it collapse in front of you. Then kneaded it a couple more times - I did about 2 minutes of kneading. And put it back in the greased bowl. Leave it alone again in the warm place. I checked after 30 minutes - and.... it had doubled again!

Now take it out of the pan, shape into a loaf (I did a very rough rustic French loaf-type shaping - yes, very rough!). But you can shape it into baguettes or in a loaf pan.

Leave the bread alone again for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 deg C. I also followed Siri's advice and put a tray filled with about a cup of water on the lower rack of my oven. Make long scores on the bread with a very sharp knife to give those gases an escape route. Prepare a little egg wash and brush the top of the loaf with it - this step is purely optional but I was hoping to get the nice crust.


Then put the loaf on the upper rack. I have a toaster oven, which is very small by oven standards. So was a little unsure if it would have enough room, but it did.

It baked for exactly 40 minutes.


And - Voila! - Freshly baked bread! As I'm typing this post, the bread has already been devoured (I'm glad I got those photos!). It was soft and lovely and delicate with a crunchy crust. I loved it.


Thank you, Siri! I hope to have many more bread baking adventures!

I'm sending this to Nupur, who is hosting July's MBP, Less is More. It was incredible how FOUR simple ingredients, can transform into such beautiful food. MBP was originally started by Coffee, for bloggers to blog-hop!

Coconut Milk

In southern India, we add coconut to most curries and sometimes even to sauteed vegetables. Adding coconut adds flavor, but also substance and richness.

I bought coconut milk in a tetra-pack when in the US. And for a while, even in India. Then I learned how to extract coconut milk, and haven't bought a tetra-pack since. I did it out of sheer necessity since a recipe called for using the 1st milk (the thicker stuff) and then the 2nd milk. So I decided to give it a go, and found it pretty simple. I'm sure a lot of you out there know how this is done, but I wanted to document the process.

So here goes a pictorial description.

Extracting Coconut Milk

It's not easy to open a coconut, but watching people in India breaking coconuts at temples, i just threw it hard on the floor and voila! it just split open. Next comes the grating. In India, we use a special blade (called an Aruvamanai in Tamil). Here's what it looks like. Just grate the coconut against the blade to get grated coconut. You could also use a knife to scrape out the coconut from the shell.


After grating the coconut, put it in a blender with some water and blend for a couple of minutes. Transfer the contents into a muslin cloth over a large bowl. Squeeze it to extract the 1st milk (the thicker one).



Next transfer the grated coconut from the muslin cloth back into the blender and add more water. Repeat the process and squeeze the contents into another bowl - this is the 2nd milk, which is much thinner.

(See the difference? The one in the blue bowl is much thinner)


You can repeat this process again depending on how meaty the coconut is. Stop at 3 times, though - after that its just the water that drains through.

Coconut milk is used in a variety of recipes. Here are some that I've made that you might enjoy:

Burmese Khow Suey
Cynthia's Cook-up Rice
Olan
Mysore Rasam
Vegetable Kurma

This is off to Suganya at Tasty Palettes for this month's AFAM event. Thanks, Suganya.