Mooli matar sabji

This is a veggie I saw for the first time at my in-laws place. This is a nice variation to the normal 'cut vegetables' routine - it uses grated mooli, and prolly that is the reason it takes very less time to cook.

Ingredients -
3 moolis - washed, peeled and grated (do not remove the water that oozes out. We want the mooli to cook in its own flavors)
half cup shelled peas
1 green chilli, half inch piece of ginger - chopped coarsly
Salt as per taste, garam masala - optional
1 tspn jeera, 1 tspn ajwain, half tspn turmeric
2 tspn oil
chopped cilantro leaves for garnishing (optional).


Method -
1. Heat oil in a kadhai/frying pan.
2. Once hot, add jeera, ajwain, turmeric.
3. Add the chopped chilli and ginger and let it sizzle for a minute.
4. Add the grated mooli, mix and cook, covered.
5. After nearly 7 to 8 minutes, when you feel the mooli is semi-cooked, add the peas and salt. Cover again till cooked.
6. Add garam masala and mix. Garnish with cilantro, serve with daal and roti.

Muthiya - methi at its best!

This is another winter delight which can be relished on those cold foggy evenings, and when breakfast is methi paratha and lunch is aaloo methi ki sabji! There are lots of variations of muthiya, different veggies can go into it, but this is the only way my mom makes it, and so do I.

Ingredeints -
250 gms methi leaves cleaned and chopped
50 gms coriander leaves cleaned and chopped
2 green chillis - chopped into small pieces
2 cups wheat flour
half cup besan or makke ka aata
1 tspn each of saunf, ajwain
1 tbspn garam masala
salt - as per taste
1 tspn mustard seeds,1 tspn til, 1 tbspn oil, 1 lemon


Method -
1. Mix all ingredients (except oil, mustard seeds, til and lemon) and knead into a soft dough using water. The dough should not be too soft, it should be like the one you knead to roll out methi parathas.
2. Apply some oil in your hands, roll out the dough into cylinders, thickness indicated in the snap.
3. Heat water in a vessel as indicated in the snap, keep a steamer basket on it and carefully place the dough cylinders on the steamer.
5. As the water gets heated up and you can see steam coming up from the holes of the steamer, cover it with a plate, obviously wide enough to cover the steamer basket.
6. We want the cylinders to be cooked in steam and it should take about 20 minutes, after which remove the cover plate, insert a knife into one of the cylinders and if it comes out clean, they are cooked. If not, let them cook for another 10 minutes.
7. Once done, switch off the heat and remove the cylinders from the steamer basket. If you don't do so, the condensed steam persisting in the steamer basket arrangement will leave them all wet and soggy.
8. Once the cylinders a cooled, cut them with a knife into bite sized pieces.
9. Heat oil in a kadhai/frying pan. Once hot, add the til, mustard seeds and let them sizzle for a minute. 10. Add the muthiya pieces and let them cook, uncovered. Keep turning them over, so that they get golden brown from all sides.
11. Once done, squeeze in the lemon, serve hot with hot ginger tea - it's heaven!

Note - I am not aware of any kitchen instrument called a 'steamer basket'. I used my steel colander for it, after my mom suggested I use it instead of a pressure cooker :)

Yellow daal- daily fare

Daal-sabji-roti is our weekday dinner, unless I get late at work and enter the kitchen at or after 9PM. My man's choice of a quick fix - always - daal chawal. Late or early - the daal has to be there - hence I can easily say I cook it every day and can do so blindfolded now.
I call it yellow daal as I use toor daal and moong daal on alternate days, the color still remains yellow :)
Below is the recipe - as simple as it can get, serves two.

Ingredients -
1 cup toor or moong daal
2 cups water
one tomato chopped to small pieces
0.5 tspn haldi
salt according to taste

2 tspns oil or ghee
1 tspn heeng
1 tspn jeera, 1 tspn rai (Yes, I use both of them together!)
1 or 2 chopped green chillies
half inch grated ginger
half piece lemon
a bunch of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
a pinch of sugar

Method-
1. In a pressure cooker, put the daal. Wash twice with cold water.
2. To the washed daal, add water, salt, haldi and the tomato pieces.
3. Close the cooker and let it cook on low flame.
4. After you get two whistles, put off the heat and let the cooker cool (till you are able to open it).
5. In a tadka pan, heat the oil, ghee. Once hot, add the rai and jeera, green chillies, ginger and heeng.
6. Let this mixture sizzle for a minute and then add this hot tadka to the daal in the cooker.
7. Mix with a spoon, squeeze in the lemon, add a pinch of sugar, bring to boil. Taste and adjust salt as per taste.
8. Add the chopped coriander leaves - done!

Matar ka paratha

My first post! Winter time is here and its time to get away from all the frozen 'safal matar' packets in the freezer and delve into fresh peas..available in abundance in all the vegetable markets. We get so overwhelmed by the sight of them, that we get as much as two kgs in one go and I try to introduce a handful of those heavenly green pearls in every sabji I make. The favorite one, where the peas quit to be 'extras' and get the lead role - matar ka paratha! I love them and so does my hubby - and hence this is on my menu every alternate weekend in winters. Here is the recipe, gotten from my mom - with slight modifications.



Ingredients for the stuffing -
Green peas (fresh preferred) - as much as you like
Two to three green chillies, a piece of ginger, a bunch of fresh coriander (quantities depending on the quantity of peas and your taste)
Salt, jeera, ajwain, garam masala(optional)
Oil, heeng
Ingredients for the paratha -
Wheat flour
Water

Method -
1. Add all the above ingredients except the garam masala, oil and heeng in a mixer jar. Blend it to a paste. If difficult, add a few spoons of water.
2. Heat oil in a non stick pan, add heeng and the paste.
3. Cook it on a low flame, open so that the moisture evaporates and the paste tends to become dry. When the stuffing starts to look dry enough and changes color from a bright green to a darker shade, add some garam masala and switch off the heat. Let this cool.
4. Meanwhile, knead a smooth dough adding water to the wheat flour.
5. Fill in the stuffing in the dough ball and roll it into a paratha. (Shown in the video is a method I learnt from a cook, of pulling out the extra dough from the paratha ball, so that the paratha turns out to be stuffing rich and has a crispy, thin cover).
6. Heat a tawa, and prepare the parathas using as much oil as you prefer.
Note - I make the stuffing one night in advance and once made, use it at least twice during the week.

Here I am!

Ok! So here I am, here’s my food blog and here’s the name –“Aaj kya khayenge?” English translation – What will we eat today?.
My debut in cooking started with these three words…spelled by my husband every evening while going home from work.(he picks me up from my office)
Initially, these words instilled every feeling of confusion, anger and sometimes even terror in me – a software engineer who spent all my time in my office and when hungry – looked up to my mom and later to the cook. My cooking experience was limited to being an assistant to my mom, obediently chopping veggies for her- without caring to find out what does she does with them!
Cut to present times – me, my kitchen, my limited culinary skills and my hubby –an expert cook himself with this great passion for food, who believed food can be enjoyed only if cooked with love, and hence despised restaurant eating. After all attempts to cook a decent meal failed – my rotis refused to blow up and my daals continued to be watery – I started to fear these three words more and more..I used to sit through work thinking..and did the first thing that comes to a software person’s mind – googled on ‘how to make soft rotis’ and ‘toor daal recipe’.

This click on ‘Search’ not only gave me all the recipes I needed, but more – lots more! It opened to me a whole world of food blogs – countless recipes, colorful pictures of food, great write-ups – I felt like Nemo’s dad in ‘Finding Nemo’. The more I explored, the more my fears vanished, giving room to a newly found passion – cooking! I started to start my days with checking out my list of favorite food blogs – one leading to another and trying out the recipes in the evenings..Weekends started to get tastier..and of course – rotis started to get fluffier!

So here I am, thanks to all the wonderful ladies out there running great food blogs, to my dear hubby, who has started to ask this question more often now and to my friend Neha, who pushed me start my blog rite now – and get away with my plans to do so after I retire : )

I don’t think I can boast of having in my kitty great, original recipes which I plan to post. But yeah, I plan to run this blog as an ode to anyone I want to thank after I have cooked a nice dish – sometimes my mom, sometimes my mom-in-law and most of the time – someone on the food blog arena!