We Got a Mention!! :)

Zouqh's been silent for a few months.. But we saw us featured in this month's BBC Good Food India Magazine with our essentially Indian twist on the super awesome Pinnacolada Pops!! Ahoy, Nimbu-colada Pops!! Recipe will be in shortly!! 

Orange Kissed Marmalade Bars!!

I don’t know what it is with me and the plain old freshly milled chapatti (Indian flat bread) flour. I remember in my childhood days when my mother would laboriously get the wheat kernels from the market, wash it, dry it in the huge balconies and then take it to the nearby milling shop to get it milled. She would wait till the time it’s milled to her liking and get it back at home to make fresh hot chapatti, a staple in our everyday food. Huge process!! I can’t be bothered so much. I simply just give the neighbourhood milling shop a call and get a freshly milled, warm pack of whole wheat flour at home. I am not against the ready-made packs available in the market, but really; I have never tried them, nor do I recommend using them. Anything fresh is always more beautiful and rather tasty!!

This cookie is a great way of making a filling snack for in between of bigger meals. The whole wheat flour adds on the fibre, with a fruity dose from the Kissan Real fruit Marmalade Jam.  This is my take on the various cream/jam filled biscuits available in the market. Why buy when you can make them using simple everyday ingredients???

Ingredients:

½ cup of Unsalted Butter

½ cup Vegetable Oil
2 Cup of Whole Wheat Flour
1 Egg
½ cup of Granulated White Sugar
½ tsp of Salt
2 tsp of Baking Soda
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
Zest of 1 of an orange
½ to 2/3 cup Kissan Orange Marmalade Jam

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a 9X9 inch baking pan with butter paper and set it aside for use.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, oil and sugar, till it’s light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and orange zest and mix in until well combined.

Quickly with a wire whisk, mix together the dry ingredients, namely whole-wheat flour, salt and baking soda; before mixing it with the wet mix of butter, egg and sugar. It should form a pliable ball of dough.

Press 2/3 of the batter into your prepared pan evenly. Now smear on Kissan Orange Marmalade Jam all over; then crumble on the remaining dough on top. You can choose to be as messy or as precise as you wish to. Remember to leave a bit of room between the top crumbs for the jam to peek through the cookie dough.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and crisp on top.

Allow it to cool completely, before cutting into mini bars as per your liking.

Cheers!!

Healthy Crumbs: Fig-gy Oats Cookie!!

Cookies have had a notorious reputation all its life!! It’s in actuality a meal in itself, but hardly ever consumed as one. It’s taken more as a tid-bit to be had with tea or coffee; more of a snack to be had in between big meals; an accompaniment for a sumptuous creamy dessert; anything but a healthy meal to be had alone.

I don’t think cookies are that bad if they are eaten in the right way. Even if it’s a traditionally made cookie, with refined flour, white sugar and butter, it has some nutritional content. It just has to be coupled with a high fibre accompaniment like a whole fruit smoothie or a fruit salad, and it makes an amazing meal, perfect for the two hour eating plan that many of us follow these days.

But, old habits die hard, and hence it’s very difficult to not reach for a cookie when we have a steaming cup of coffee in front of us. So here is my solution to this problem, a high fibre cookie which is made with no sugar, but is sweetened with the help of dry fruits and honey, packed with the fibrous goodness of chopped mixed nuts and complete with a little cheat ingredient, chocolate chips!!

I wasn’t confident at all about this recipe of mine. I felt it was too healthy for anyone to like. So sheepishly I took a few pieces along with me to a very health conscious friend’s dinner party and was amazed at the ladies freaking out on it. In fact I dedicate this recipe to the hostess and her friend who requested me to blog about them soon. So here are the healthy little bites which is completely guilt free and can be had and digested even as a midnight snack pang!!

Ingredients:

Dry

2 cups quick cooking oats 

¼ cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup flax seed powder

1 ½ tsp cinnamon powder

½ cup mixed nuts

½ cup chocolate chips

Wet

6 tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup fig

1/3 cup honey

1 egg

¼ cup fresh grated coconut

Method:

This is not one of the classic cookie recipes we have grown with. This requires few different steps, though all pretty easy to follow.

After preheating your oven to a standard 180 to 200 degrees c, get to the dry ingredients and mix them all in a big bowl.

Now melt the 6 tbsp butter and incorporate it well with the dry ingredients so as to get a lumpy wet cluster of oats and nuts. Set it aside to rest while we prep our wet ingredients.

In a food processor or a mixer, add the figs and the honey. Process till its relatively pasty and hardly any big lumps of fig is visible to the eye. Add the grated coconut and egg, and process once more to mix it well.

 Now very carefully fold in the dry ingredients to the wet ones and mix them well together. I find the handiest tool to do the task is good old pair of clean hands. That way, you are assured that every cookie gets equal amount chocolate chips and nuts.

Shape them in little spheres of 10 cm diameter. Lay them neatly on a baking tray, a cm apart, and bake them for 20 minutes or so in a preheated 180-220 degrees Celsius oven. Look for the top and sides to be browned. Once desired doneness is reached, lay it on a wire rack to cool completely. Store it for up to a fortnight in an airtight cookie jar.

Cheers!!

The Art of Layers: Lasagne

I am still in the mode of laborious love!! And this time it’s in the form of layers. Layers of hard work!! If someone tells you lasagne is such an easy thing to rustle up, be sure to understand that s/he never really made the dish themselves. S/he bought it and sent it to u, just to earn the brownie points. And I actually have seen someone do that with my own eyes. Simply, ordered precooked lasagne packs from the restaurant, put into a serving dish side by side and baked in the oven with a slight sprinkling of cheese on top. Imagine the plight of the foodie in me when that lady so boldly claimed later during the party, that making lasagne is a child’s play!!!!#$#%@#$!

It’s not!! And I am not going to lie to you about it. A classic plate of meat lasagne takes a lot of time, energy and love to be prepared. It’s not a dish for a couple to pick on, but a whole hearty dish for the full family to enjoy!! And it’s a loaded dish. Loaded with freshness of a bright tomato sauce, nutrition of proper cheese and milk and packed with layers of love!!

Now my recipe is certainly Indianized to a great extent. The classic Italian lasagne is always made with beef, but I wanted a lighter Indian version, so I opted for chicken. You can very well substitute beef or meat in the recipe; just remember that the cooking time will increase accordingly. I have had chicken lasagne in a lot of restaurants, but trust me when I say that it’s not even 10% of the taste that this particular recipe of mine will give you. I have tailor made it to suit my Indian taste buds, and very soon I will also do a version for the vegetarians to enjoy as well.

Ingredients

450 gms Chicken mince

7 -8 rashers of bacon (either use classic, or chicken or turkey or completely forget about it!!)

3 medium tomatoes pureed

1 big onion, finely chopped

6 cloves of garlic chopped

1 tsp of fennel seeds

A handful of fresh coriander chopped

2 tablespoons sugar
½ tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt according to taste
Ground black pepper according to taste

A splash of red wine

5 lasagne sheet

2 tsp butter

1 tsp oil

3 tsp maida (refined flour)

½ cup to ¾ cup of cold milk

Grated nutmeg according to taste

A good amount of grated Parmeggiano Reggiano, mozzarella and/or cheddar cheese

Method:

In a large pot, scatter chopped bacon and let it render out its fat. If you choose not to use it, heat some oil instead.

Brown the ground chicken, onions and garlic in the oil or with the bacon and its juices, until they start to cook. It takes about 6 to 9 minutes to brown the meat. Use a medium to low temperature to brown the meat. 

Now add the tomatoes and stir well to combine. Cook for another minute or so before adding in the following ingredients to the pot, stirring it constantly:

1 tsp of fennel seeds

2 tablespoons sugar
½ tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt according to taste
Ground black pepper according to taste

Once these ingredients are well incorporated, let the sauce simmer and cook till tender. Chicken takes very less time to cook down, so 5 - 10 minutes of simmering on low heat will do the job. Finish off the sauce by adding the splash of wine and fresh coriander; remove from heat once the alcohol has cooked off.

Now to the white layer:

Traditionally, a ricotta cheese and egg mixture is used to create this white layer between meat sauces. But I find that cheese super expensive to buy, and making it at home never really has given me a satisfying result. Moreover, lasagne already been this labour extensive, will add in much more pain if you also had to do cheese making. So I settled for a layer of basic white sauce, which does the trick beautifully!!

In another pan, melt 2 tsp butter with 1 tsp oil. Add in the flour and let it cook gently, till a roasted aroma of flour wafts out of the pan!

Now to this hot roasted mix in the pan, add in the cold milk (straight-out-of-the-fridge-cold) and stir constantly to get a lump-free, heavy cream like consistency of white sauce. Once the desired consistency is reached, that is it should coat the back of a spoon without thoroughly dripping off the sides, remove from heat and season with salt, pepper and ground nutmeg.

In the meanwhile, in salted boiling water, boil the pasta sheets till its soft, drain and rinse in cold water. Then lay it out on kitchen towels to soak in the excess water, and its ready to be used.

Now to layering the dish:

Finally, the best part; layering this extensive dish of laborious love!!

In an oven proof dish, ladle out the cooked meat sauce to coat the bottom. Evenly lay pasta sheets on it. Top that with the white sauce and sprinkle over an even layer of the cheese mix. Lay the second layer of pasta sheets.

Ladle out the tomato meat sauce evenly on top of it, and sprinkle over a thin layer of Parmeggiano Reggiano grated. Cover that with the pasta sheets and repeat the layers till you are finished with all your ingredients.

Make sure that the meat sauce comes on top, with a generous layer of cheese mix to top it and finish off the layers. Your dish is ready!! At this point you can wrap in foil and refrigerate it till the time to serve dinner/lunch.

Right before serving it, put it in a pre-heated 200 deg Celsius oven for 15 to 20 minutes, till the cheese on top is melted thoroughly and the layers rise up a bit. Serve hot!!

Served best with toasted garlic bread and tossed salad!!

Cheers!!

Labourious Love: Fresh Strawberry and Orange Ice-cream

I have been really lazy here on the blogging front! I delayed this valentine’s treat of laborious tale of love till 15^th Feb... But I have a valid point; I made it for my valentine’s special dinner. So, I am blogging about it right today, past the D-day!! And anyways, with v day falling on a week day, not a lot of couples were able to celebrate it together. So, this can be a wonderful smear-and-lick-project for the valentine’s weekend coming up.

An ice cream machine is a useless investment in my opinion. In the ever decreasing size of housing in this century, I find no space for a bulky machine which is to be used for just a day in a whole year. So I never really missed having it in my kitchen. And anyways, making it in the classic way, the way it was made in the earlier days when machines were a rarity, adds an adventurous fun to the whole episode. And moreover, divide the labour between both u guys, the men would be happy to do the heavy weight whisking, while women can happily chop away the dainty strawberries. This way or that way, this is the perfect way to celebrate the labour of love. The ingredients are super simple and you can add or subtract any of the flavouring fruits as per you wish!

Ingredients: 

 4 Egg Yolks

1/3 cup of Granulated Sugar
200gms of Light Cream (we get pretty much only one brand, and sadly that is all that I can use.)
Zest of 1 orange

500 gms fresh strawberries, chopped in small pieces.

Method:
Refrigerate the cream for a while to aid whipping.

Fill a saucepan with one inch of water and bring to a simmer over low heat.

In a metal or heat-proof glass bowl (one that fits over the saucepan), whisk together the egg yolks and sugar with a handheld whisk for about 3 minutes or until thick and pale in colour.

Place the bowl over the pan with the simmering water (very important that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water) and cook the custard while constantly whisking for about 10 minutes.

Once cooked, remove from simmering water and fold in the zest of an orange. Let it stand and cool on the counter.

In another bowl, put in the cut pieces of strawberries, and let it sweat out. We don’t want water in our ice cream, as that will make it frosty. In fact I had put in some raw pieces of strawberry and regretted it big time.

Now in a large bowl, add in the cream and whip it for about 10 minutes or until it develops slight stiff peaks.

Fold the heavy cream, custard mixture and strawberry compote together, taking precaution not to lose the fluff of whipping cream. Pour the batter in an air tight box, and place it in the freezer for 8 o 10 hours or until set.

Remove from the freezer and serve immediately!

Cheers!!

The basic Hummus, my way!!!

Adapted from my old blog, ‘Confessions of a bong foodie!’ It is a part of our vegetarian sojourn, a basic recipe of a very popular party dip, hummus!!

After a couple of visits to the liberal UAE, I got introduced to the Arabic food. Sitting here as an outsider, I always guessed that desert food can b easily summed up with strong flavours of meat nuts and minimal use of water. Well, it wasn’t entirely wrong, but there was more to it. Anyways I can never summarize dessert food with the cosmopolitan nature of UAE. There it is less about the real food of the land but more about the western influence it’s got.

Dubai has very little to offer which is its own. The western influence on that part of the desert is so great that u will get everything that could travel from the northern hemisphere. Be it Starbucks or Phat Burgers, u will surely get all sorts of fast food. The few restaurants which strive to provide the indigenous fodder, they falter by hiring expats mainly from South East Asia, who know nothing about the culture and their food. The wrong information and pronunciation led to a lot of confusion in my head. And that is the reason why this post was delayed this long!!

But now that I have a clear idea, let me tell u an amazing dip that I figured out of all this. The incorrigible foodie in me couldn’t stop myself from buying a bottle of fresh tahina sauce from a local grocery shop there (even at the cost of paying extra at the airport to make up for all my purchases..). Though I never really knew what it was, still the thought of carrying something new back home was amazing. It is now that I realized that it can be so easily made here itself!! Tahina is just a fancy name given to a paste of lightly roasted sesame seeds. So all of you who want to try out this amazingly simple recipe of humus can either make tahina at home or try to find it in the gourmet section of your grocery store.

The recipe is fairly simple. But you need to plan ahead. 

The ingredients are:

A fist full of chick-pea or garbanzo beans: these have to be soaked overnight so plan ahead!!

3 - 4 tbsp of tahina paste (roasted sesame seeds, made into a paste with the help of some olive oil)

2 – 3 tbsp thick curd

5 to 6 cloves of garlic crushed

2 tbsp lemon juice

Red chilli powder according to taste

Salt

Sugar, it is one of my additions... What I do is I give a little more lemon and then balance the taste with a little sugar. For our Indian palette it goes well. But if u want to make it the way it shud b... then forget about the sugar.

Water, another of my additions, but trust me its required!

Method:

Boil the beans in a pan or a pressure cooker, until it becomes soft. U can even have it raw as once made into a paste, the taste will not vary much. But I like my beans boiled and hence I always boil it before.

Now take a processor/mixer and put everything apart from tahina in and give it a good mix. Add in a tablespoon or so of water to help you get a nice dip like consistency. Once u see that the beans are nicely minced into a runny paste, add tahina. Tahina will thicken the solution so according to your wish, add a little water if need be. The end result should be a nice and creamy thick mix which can be held in a flat plate.

Oh and of course, decoration is very important, so go wild and do whatever you like. I love to decorate my humus with some chopped cilantro and olives. I also put a little olive oil on top. It serves two purposes, one it keeps the humus nice and moist and second it makes my plate look really gourmet. Try it and let me know how it tasted with your chips or fresh cut cucumber slices. 

Cheers!!!

Vegetarian Sojourn: Oats Masala

Oats and brown rice are the new fad these days. They say it’s healthy, fibrous and dull to be had in the conventional ways. I thought about it, yes the slimy oats porridge in the morning was a bit too much for me to have for a day, let alone making it a daily habit. So I thought of experimenting, and got heavily inspired by my maid’s quintessentially Marathi- ‘Kanda Poha’. And I was happy tucking it in, almost every morning!!

But then, I saw an advertisement of a certain foreign company, selling masala oats in India!!! !@#$@$! And imagine my dismay on looking at the slimy, salty oats porridge that they are selling under the name Oats Masala. Really, oats doesn’t need to be slimy all the time!! With the right amount of technique, we can make a super delicious breakfast in mins. And trust me, you will shell a quarter of the “@#@#er Oats Masala” price, too.

This recipe is a part of my Vegetarian Sojourn, as requested by so many of you lately. Do drop in an comment once you try it out!! Cheers!!

Ingredients: 

½ cup Oats

½ a medium onion chopped

½ a small tomato chopped

2 slit green chillies

A pinch of turmeric

Salt

2 tbsp of chopped cilantro

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tbsp oil

Few curry leaves (tear it for more flavour)

Couple of tbsp of Water

Method:

Dry roast the oats in a wok for 5 mins, on low heat; and keep it aside.

Heat oil in a wok, and add in the black mustard seeds. Let it splutter for 30 seconds.

Now put in the curry leaves and slit chillies, and fry till fragrant (approximately another 30 seconds).

Fry the onions in the now-so-fragrant wok, till they are translucent and tending towards browning. Add in the chopped tomatoes with a pinch of salt, and cover to let the water seep out.

After a minute or so, give it a good mix, and put in the oats.

Once the oat is thoroughly coated in the fresh masala mix, add in a couple of tbsp of water. Start with 2 tbsp, and if you think the oat is not cooked enough to your liking, add in a couple more. Because of dry roasting the oats in the beginning, it would cook down faster and would take in much less water. Make it the way you like your oats, runny or like me, not runny at all.

Hope you too enjoy your breakfast, the way I did!! This is enough to make a portion of Oats Masala. Increase the amounts in the proportion, to cater for a bigger crowd. 

Cheers!!

Breakfasting Glory: Oats Masala, from Scratch!!!

Eating Healthy takes up an almost insanely tasty turn with this Oats Masala. Made with regular rolled oats, its a hearty start to the busy day that follows...

The recipe follows soon...

The Biryani Express On: Pudina Subz Biryani

Lately I received a lot of requests, and somehow all were linked to vegetables. And I thought why wont it be, it’s the perfect weather in India to indulge in beautiful fresh vegetables. And so, I am on a roll. I am going to do three mouth-smackingly fast winter recipes which are 100% vegetarian. This is the first in the series...

Now, a Biryani, is not complete without the perfect rice. Yes! I am aware of the beautiful array of long grain basmati rice available in our supermarkets. Priced anywhere between 100 to 150 INR/Kilo; they are the best variety to use in this recipe. But somehow, it’s beating my point flat. Weren’t my recipes supposed to be exquisite, yet less expensive; exotic, yet using daily routine stuff and time; delicious, yet healthy in every sense. I mean don’t get me wrong, yes I do use a 500-rupee-block of cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano) in my cooking, but that cheese lasts me long and it adds a flavour, I am yet to come across in the cheaper varieties. But when ‘Dawaat’ introduced me to their Rozana rice, I was flabbergasted. Priced at a modest 65 INR/Kilo, it looks and feels really nice. A great smell to the rice as well. And, let’s be honest, after the addition of spices, fragrant veggies & herbs, and saffron, are you still looking out for the smell of rice??  I am pretty happy adding this particular range of rice in my Biryani. But, if you still insist on using proper biryani rice, go for the other ranges by Dawaat.

There are three words in my recipe name. We have talked about Subz (meaning: vegetables) and Biryani (meaning: one pot rice dish). So, let’s talk about the last of it left Pudina (meaning: mint). In Indian cooking, we have always used this herb in the form of chutney (loosely translated into a spicy dip). Now at times, it’s used as a marinade, or as a thing to dunk a kabab in. But, we never really cook with this herb. That privilege is given to cilantro, and it stays with it. But the experimentative me tried a meat biryani with mint. Widely used in Muslim (mostly Arabic or Persian) cooking styles, I instantly fell in love with the fresh taste it imparts in cooking. And so here I am, with my experiment of a one pot wonder which has the health of fresh winter veggies, aroma of fresh mint and the hearty meal of Dawaat Rozana Rice.

Ingredients: 

For the Biryani Part of the dish:

1 cup Dawaat Rozana Rice

Salt to taste

A bunch of whole spices like a star anise, a cinnamon stick, couple of cloves, a dried red chilly and ½ tsp of shahi jeera.

2 onions chopped

Big handful of mint leaves, chopped

Big handful of coriander leaves, chopped

A pinch of saffron with warm water

2 tbsp oil to fry the onions

For the Vegetable part of the dish:

Half a cup of cauliflower florets cut roughly in 1 inch long pieces

1 potato cut roughly in 1 inch long pieces

Half a cup of red carrots cut roughly in 1 inch long pieces

Half a cup of baby onions

4 -5 big mushroom, halved

¼ cup of green peas peeled

Marinade the veggies for 15 minutes in a mix of: 

4 - 5 tbsp curd

Turmeric to taste

½ tsp Cumin powder

½ tsp Coriander powder

¼ tsp all spice powder (Garam Masala)

Cinnamon powder to taste

Salt to taste

1½ tbsp of olive oil (love the fruity flavour it adds, groundnut oil will work too)

½ tsp garlic paste

½ tsp ginger paste

And 2 tbsp of oil for roasting the veggies slightly

Method:

I always mix these spices in the curd and whisk it well to incorporate. Then slowly add in the uncooked veggies to sit and absorb the flavours of these spices.

Before you start prepping the ingredients for the dish, soak the rice in some water and let it rest there for at least 10 mins, longer the better.

Meanwhile prep the herbs and onions, and get a pan of water to come to the boil.

Once the water starts boiling, throw in the whole spices and a generous amount of salt. Remove the residual water in which the rice was sitting and add it to the boiling pan of flavoured water. Let it cook for 3 - 4 minutes on a high flame, till the water comes back on a rolling boil. By this time, the rice should be 40% done, with a resisting bite in the middle part of the grain. Remove the rice from boiling water (but don’t throw away the flavoured water) and let it drain thoroughly.

While your rice is cooking, heat a wok with oil and caramelise your onions till light brown. Once you are happy with the colour, mix in a pinch of salt to season and remove from the wok.

Now, in the wok where you fried the onions, pour in another tablespoon of olive or groundnut oil and roast the veggies slightly to enhance the flavours. This is an optional step but I strongly recommend you to do so.

Once all these tedious prepping is done, start layering your Pressure cooker. I suggest use a pretty one, which can later be also used as a serving dish.

  
Now to layering: 

Oil the bottom of the pressure cooker well. Now pour in the roasted veggies, along with the marinade. Sprinkle on a good helping of cilantro & mint leaves, and fried onions.

This should be followed by 2 -3 tbsp of the flavoured cooking water of the rice. This small amount of starchy moisture is important to ensure the veggies cook down perfectly.

Layer on the rice, and repeat sprinkling of cilantro & mint leaves, followed by fried onions.

At this stage feel free to add in any nuts if you may want to. Finish of the layering with 2 – 3 Tbsp of Saffron water.

Tightly secure on the lid and let it cook on a high flame till it blows the whistle for the first time. Remove from heat and let it release the steam slowly, unaided.

One of the most express ways to make a Biryani.. Cheers!!

Note- Since I bought a cheap electric steamer in my house, I have converted to putting this rice and veggie mix in the steamer rather than in a pressure cooker. But the microwave option is not as tasty as the steamer or pressure cooker. 

Coming up next...

Only Three Words: Pudina Subz Biryani!!

Coming up soon!!