I started this blog because I am so interested in adapting traditional Indian recipes to make them healthier, tastier and easier-to-make. During the course of my writings, I have started to solicit reader recipes, since many minds work better than one! Here is a post written by my mother, Madhuram – recipe courtesy, my sister, Indu Sundaresan, author of four books – “The Twentieth wife“, “The Feast of Roses“, “The Splendor of Silence” and “In the Convent of Little Flowers” with a fifth on the way.
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Every culture in the world has some sort of crepe or pancake in its recipe repertoire. In South India, it is the ‘dosa.’ Served in almost all Indian restaurants the world over, the dosa is a fermented batter of rice and a dal (lentils), served usually with sambar (a stew of vegetables and lentils) and different types of chutneys.

When I was young, my brothers and sisters (I come from a family of 10 children!) would wait eagerly by the stove as our mother or grandmother made us piping hot dosas, swept off the pan, crisp, golden and crunchy. When I had children, and learned to cook, dosas were a favorite Sunday treat for them.

Now my daughters make this for their children and below is a recipe concocted by my daughter Indu—more tasty and nutritious than the usual recipe—for her daughter.

The original recipe has only two grains in it—rice and urad dal (black lentils). My daughter’s recipe has five grains to increase the nutrition content of the original dosa—white rice, brown rice, mung dal and whole urad dal and pearl barley in center (shown below, clockwise from white rice on top right corner).

Brown rice is a good source of minerals such as manganese, magnesium, also contains Niacin and has a lower glycemic index than white rice. Barley is loaded with fiber, has no sodium, is very rich in iron and has hardly any fat. Mung dal (split yellow lentils) is rich in protein, dietary fiber and minerals like magnesium, phosphorous and potassium, and urad dal is full of protein.

Here’s the recipe for this Penta-grain Dosa. This can be served with any chutney or even folded with scrambled eggs, or spread with cream cheese, or hummus, or stuffed with mashed potatoes.

Here is what you need:

1/2 cup white rice
1/2 cup brown rice
1/4 cup pearl barley
1 1/4 cup yellow mung dal (equal to the mixture of the brown and whiter rice and barley)
3/4 cup whole urad dal (husked black lentils)
3/4 tsp salt

This will make about 12 to 15 dosas of about 8″diameter. If lesser quantity is needed, use less ingredients, but in the same proportions.

Here is how you make the batter:

Combine the white and brown rice, barley and mung dal in a big bowl and fill with water. Swirl water around and drain to wash the grains. Repeat twice more until water runs clean. Then fill enough water in the bowl to cover about 2 inches above the grains, and let the mixture rest thus overnight.

Put the urad dal in a separate bowl and follow the washing and soaking instructions as above. Fill the bowl with water at the end and let it rest overnight also.

In a blender, grind the first grain mixture with a little water—should grind fine and to a thick batter consistency. Set aside in a large steel bowl or an oven-proof deep dish.

Grind the urad dal with some water also, again to a thick batter consistency. Stir in the urad dal batter with the grain batter. Mix well. Add ¾ to 1 tsp of salt and mix again.

Here is how you ferment the batter:

If the kitchen/room temperature is below 70 degrees F, heat oven to 140 degrees, switch it off, let cool awhile until inside of oven is warm and set the batter bowl inside. Make sure you cover the bowl well with aluminum foil or an oven-proof lid.

Let the batter ferment for 6-8 hours. Upon uncovering the bowl, the batter should have risen an inch or so and become foamy on the top.

This batter can now be refrigerated and used when wanted, or used immediately.

Here is how you make the dosas:
Heat a frying pan or a pancake griddle until hot (but not smoking). Pour a big ladleful of the batter and spread immediately into every widening circles with the flat side of the ladle.

Drizzle a little oil around the edges of the dosa and a little in the center. Keep the flame on a medium to medium high so that the dosa does not burn. When the edges begin to look golden and curl up from the pan slightly (about a minute or so), flip the dosa over to cook the other side for another minute or so.

Take off the griddle—the dosa should be crisp and gold on the edges, a little softer in the middle. Serve with coconut chutney, spicy tomato chutney, sambar, or any of the other accompaniments suggested above.  Enjoy!

I have been sporadic in posting on this blog this past month. That is because I have been planning my sojourn to India, packing and arriving first at New Delhi and then at Chennai. I have many interesting stories to relate, but I first need to get this off my chest: Indian restaurants and eateries have exploded in numbers in both the cities I am visiting. There are all kinds of eating joints: small roadside carts (with dubious hygiene, so please avoid if you visit India), small restaurants (again, eat at your own risk), medium sized ones (a definite yes, you may find a gem), large, opulent, Maharajah style restaurants complete with turbaned waiters running to fulfill your every command, starched lily white tablecloths and napkins, wonderfully cooked meals, fabulous menus….India has become a gourmet delight in all respects.

Leaving aside all those eating places, my vote for the best eating place is at the place I am staying while in Chennai. It is at a home of a friend who has a full-time cook. The cook is a young woman called Ammu, who keeps complete control of the household kitchen. She comes in each morning to whip up delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Ammu’s cooking has the guests and family members charging in unseemly haste to the dining table in eager anticipation of every meal. Every dish that she makes is a gourmet delicacy that leaves one feeling completely content, replete and prosperous.

In the next few posts I plan to post some of her recipes. Here is a recipe from Ammu – a very healthy snack made of ground and roasted Mung beans. This is very easy to make and is absolutely delicious. Try it – it stores well unrefrigerated for over a week and is a great snack for your school going child.

Here is what you need:
3.5 cups green Mung beans with skin (great if you can get Mung flour, otherwise, powder the beans as fine as possible in your blender)
3 tbsp brown rice flour
1.5 cups powdered sugar (white or brown, your preference)
Scant 1 cup Ghee or olive oil
1/4 cup cashews
1/4 cup raisins
7 cardomoms (remove peel and powder fine)
pinch salt

Here is how you make this:
Heat and pan and dry roast the Mung flour and rice flour for about 4-5 minutes. Remove from pan and cool. Heat the pan again and add 5 tbsp ghee or oil. Fry the cashews golden brown and drain on a kitchen towel. Now add the raisins in the same oil. Fry until golden brown and set aside. Cool the cashews and raisins. Chop the fried cashews into small bite-sized pieces. Cut fried raisins in half.

To the roasted Mung flour, add the powdered sugar, powdered cardomom, salt, fried raisins and cashews. Mix thoroughly.

Heat the rest of the ghee or oil in a pan until slightly warm. Pour in a little at the time in the flour mix. Mix and shape into small balls. Set aside. Add more oil or ghee as needed and make the Mung bites until all the flour is used up.

Makes 50-60 Mung bites. Store in a tightly closed container for upto a week.

February has been a month of many delicious new trials and some hot favorites. With the winter snow blanketing the ground, and the slushy, slippery streets to deal with, it has been a month of warm, cozy meals by the fireside, safely ensconced in the family home.

We started the month off with the Goat Cheese Salad with Couscous – an easy and quick dish to put together when you are back home tired after a long day at work. Goat cheese gave this salad that gourmet touch, while the Kalamata Olives provided that tangy, salty taste. All in all, it was a healthy, low fat, and satisfying meal.

The Brain food – Stir fried Curried Okra added that crisp, crunchy flavor to any meal. This accompaniment is the enticing pick-me-up to keep your family’s intellect sharp and incisive.

If you ever needed to entice your taste buds and ensure that you have something at hand to smother over warm bread to make an easy meal, make the Sweet Green Chili pickle. Stock your refrigerator with this pickle and you can lay your hands on a yummy meal in a snap.

For a replete Sunday lunch, after a day spent on the snowy slopes sledding with your children, make the Radish Greens Stuffed Whole Wheat Bread. Serve with the Sweet Green Chili Pickle or with warm jam. Nothing like greens camouflaged in warm, homemade bread to welcome kids home from a long, rambunctious morning of play and fun!

Make the Crisp, Curried Kovakkai, if your family is tired of the same ole’ potatoes, peas and cauliflower. Watching your family down the vegetable without any proddding will be a reward in itself.

Fasting one day a week? Don’t forget to take a swig of the Fresh Homemade Vegetable and Fruit nectar to keep you alert and hydrated.

When the sweet tooth beckons, make this wonderful, healthy Sugar Beet payasam. No trans-fat laden, unhealthy, artery-choking dessert for you and your family! Enjoy every sensation with healthy, wholesome ingredients!

Cold winds howling outside your window panes with sleet and snow bearing down? Eat this satisfying, sweet and spicy, Sweet Potato Spicy Soup to warm the cockles of your heart.

There are days when you crave a delicacy and all you can think of is to visit the local ethnic restaurant for a meal. Resist that feeling and make this wonderful Edamame and Green Onion Pilaf at home to assuage that craving.

And finally, round up your snack attack with this wonderfully healthy Jicama Mint cutlets.

It is a well known fact that the musical score for the song “Jai Ho” in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” won the Oscar for its its creator, A. R. Rahman. But it wasn’t just the musical score of the song that made it so popular. It was also the fact that the words of the song were so apt. The word “Jai” (pronounced with a “J”) means victory. The song bursts onto the screen as the hero of the film, Jamal (pronounced with a “J”) wins the million rupees and his girl. And my name “Jaya” is a derivative of the word “jai”. Again, pronounced with a “J”!

It was only after my arrival at the US, I realized that some people, especially those of Mexican origin, either didn’t seem to have a “J” in their alphabet or wrote “J” when they actually wanted to say “H”. And so it was not Jose, but “Hose’ “, not Jesus, but “Hesoos” and now I learned, that it is not “Jicama”, it is “Hee ca ma”!

Well, I sure am amenable to saying “Hose’”, “Hesoos” and “Heecama”. Only don’t call me “Haya”! Indian languages do have a “J” so I am still “Jaya”!

Jicama is a tuber that is mostly grown in Mexico. The great thing about this vegetable is its low calorie count and very high Vitamin C. It is tasty, crunchy and flavorful. Although some sites mention that Jicama lasts about 2-3 weeks, my personal experience has been that it doesn’t seem to have a long shelf life, so try to use it up as soon as you buy it. I read that it is generally eaten raw in salads, but I wanted to experiment with it and see how it tasted in a variety of dishes. So I combined it with fresh mint leaves and made it into really flavorful, fantastic tasting cutlets.

In these days of recession, you can still eat healthy without affecting your pocketbook too much, if you buy local produce, eat most of your meals at home and reduce the frequency of going out to eat. These cutlets that I made cost just under $2. And I made enough cutlets to feed a family of four. Place the cutlets between two slices of whole wheat bread, top with lettuce, tomato and mayo, and Voila! You have a healthy value meal. Sure beats McDonalds!

Here is what you need:
1 large Jicama
1 cup breadcrumbs (make your own and save money: see instructions below)
4-5 sprigs fresh Mint leaves (chopped fine)
1-2 green chilis (chopped fine)
1/2 tsp red chili powder (optional)
3/4 tsp salt
Oil to shallow fry
1 egg white

Here is how you make this:
Wash, peel and grate the Jicama with a hand grater. The tuber is soft and will grate easily. Squeeze out the juice. I hate to waste any food, so I used the juice in my lentil soup.

To make breadcrumbs: Tear 4-5 slices of whole wheat bread into small pieces. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Toast for about 5-7 minutes until the bread pieces are crisp. Remove from the oven, cool and place in a blender to powder fine.

Add 3/4 cup breadcrumbs, chopped mint leaves, chopped green chilis, salt and red chili powder to the grated Jicama. Mix well. Shape into cutlets. Beat the egg white with a fork. Dip the cutlets into the egg white and then coat with the remaining breadcrumbs.

Heat a non-stick pan on the stove. Place the cutlets in the pan. Drizzle olive oil around the cutlets. Cook until crisp and brown on both sides. Remove from pan and serve hot.

Today, I decided to try out the Almond Biscotti recipe I found on the Smitten Kitchen site. Until now, I have tried making these biscottis using various recipes I have found on the web, but have never been satisfied with the result. So, we’ve always settled for buying these biscottis either from Costco or Sam’s or at the very expensive Starbucks.

I have to say though, that I received high praise for these Biscottis from my most honest critic, my husband! He said it was even better than the store bought Biscottis.  My neighbors, who were the recipients of my Christmas largess, enjoyed these Biscottis too.

I tweaked this recipe a bit. I baked two batches of these biscottis. For the first batch, I followed the instructions exactly.  But the logs were a bit undone when baked for 30 minutes and it was hard to slice them because the slices crumbled.

The second time around, I baked the logs for an additional 3 minutes, baking them for a total of  33 minutes. In addition, I pan roasted the almonds, instead of following the instructions in the recipe. I also hand-pounded them coarsely, using my mortar and pestle because I wanted bigger chunks of the almonds.

You can either follow the instructions as listed in the Smitten Kitchen site or tweak them using my tips.  Deb, the cook from Smitten Kitchen says that she got nearly 45 biscottis from this recipe. I got 32.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, nearly everyone in my family likes to eat potatoes and I am determined that we shalln’t look like one.

If you made the aloo parathas I have described in one of my previous posts, and if you are like me, you would either have extra whole wheat dough left-over or you would have extra spiced potatoes left-over. Now, when you have extra dough left-over, there is no problem at all, just follow the same recipe as aloo parathas and make plain parathas without the stuffing.

But what do you do with left-over potato? I remembered the 8 year-old’s advice when I came up with this recipe. Here you go – enjoy these crisp, nutrient rich aloo tikkis without the added fat and huge amount of calories that normally go with the tikkis. Instead of the traditional shallow fried tikkis (cutlets) these are baked with very little oil. Yeah, potatoes without added fat!

Here’s what you need:
2 cups  spiced potato mixture
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated carrots
2 tbsp Olive oil

Here’s how you make the tikkis (cutlets):

Pre heat oven to 350 F.  Mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

Make flat cutlets with the potato mixture. Roll each cutlet in more breadcrumbs.

Brush with Olive oil. Place on a greased tray and bake for about 15 minutes. Take the tray out and flip the cutlets over and bake for another 10 minutes.

Serve with Tamarind date chutney or ketchup.

Now that the world seems to be upside down and we are all focused on the economy, it seems to be a fantastic time to talk about abundance, so we can put the economic crisis behind us. Like the author of The Secret tells us, we get what we focus on, so let’s all focus on PONGAL!

Pongal is also the name of the dish that is made on Pongal day. Traditionally, it is made sweetened with jaggery (molasses) and eaten as a dessert. But, there is a breakfast version of this dish that I am now going to share. The sweet version of pongal is called “Chakkarai pongal” or sweet pongal – duh! The breakfast version, is called “Venn pongal” or white pongal and it is usually made with white rice.

Ever since my foray into the unrefined carbohydrate world, I have looked to see where I could substitute brown rice for white and this experiment of changing “Venn pongal” to Brown rice Venn pongal has been a great success with my family!

Try it – it is simple to make, easy on the stomach, has the right mix of unrefined carbs and protein (from the lentils) and the touch of ginger turns this simple dish into a delicious, aromatic, epicurean delight.

Here’s what you will need:

2/3 cup brown rice
1/3 cup yellow split moong lentils (the ones with the peel removed)
1 1/2 – 2 cups water
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch asofoetida powder (optional)
1 tsp salt
2 dry red chili (broken into smaller pieces)
3 tsp chopped ginger
4 tsp or less cashews (chopped)
1 1/2 tsp Olive oil

To make:

Heat a pan and dry roast the yellow moong lentils until they become aromatic – for about 3-4 minutes. Stir constantly to ensure the lentils do not burn. Remove from fire. Now add the brown rice and dry roast – another 3-4 minutes. Remove from fire.

Mix in the rice and lentils. Add the water (I have provided 2 different ratios for water- add 1 1/2 cups if you like the rice dry and the grains firm, or add 2 cups water if you like the pongal mushy). Cook until all the water is absorbed. Set aside.

In a pan, heat oil. Add the chopped cashews and fry until golden brown. Remove from fire and set aside. Now add the cumin seeds into the same warm oil and stir fry until golden brown. Add the red chili and fry a minute more. Now add the asofoetida powder and immediately add the chopped ginger. Saute for another minute. Now add the cooked rice lentil mixture and salt and mix thoroughly.

Remove and garnish with fried cashews.
Serve hot with Red pepper gotsu or Peanut chutney.
Serves 2.

When my sisters and I were children, we used to love fried foods. Those were the days before we knew that fat was bad for us. We never felt guilty eating all those delicious fried stuff that Mom regularly made for us.

My mother just loves to cook and she just loves to fry. Ever since she moved to the US to live with me and my sisters, we keep on bugging her to use less oil and not frying anything. And she has been a real trooper about it. She had adapted wonderfully to our cooking styles of using very little oil, frying foods very rarely and still whipping up the most wonderful dishes.

Every once in a while though, she’ll succumb to her yearning for making fried foods by convincing my sons that since they are young, they need to enjoy fried foods before they grow older and have to watch their diets. So, whenever Mom visits, I’ll buy a 5 gallon jug of Canola oil from Costco. It usually lasts about 6 months and is used only for deep frying. Once Mom leaves to visit one of my sisters, the Canola oil will sit in my larder until I hit one of those days myself, when I want to gorge on fried food.

Yesterday was one of those days. It had snowed heavily the day before and the whole landscape was white. The trees dripped white snow, the lake was covered with snow and everything was sparkling in the bright sunlight. The great outdoors was lit up and dazzling. It was also far below freezing temperatures outside but the house was warm and toasty. Add a furry, lazy feline, begging to be stroked all the time, into the day and it made it just the perfect day for deeply satiating, hot, spicy, easy-to-make bread rolls. My son Karthik enthusiastically seconded the idea and I consoled myself that I was still being good by using whole wheat bread instead of white.

Here’s how I made the bread rolls -
For the filling:
2 medium potatoes (boiled and mashed with some lumps)
1 small onion (finely chopped)
1 green chili (finely chopped)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chili powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp oil

Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds to the hot oil. When they crackle, add the chopped onions and green chili. Fry for a couple of minutes until the onion is brown. Now add the rest of the ingredients including the mashed potato and stir fry until the potato filling is brown and partly crisp.

For the rolls:
4 slices whole wheat bread (you can also use white, rye, multi grain or any other bread you like)

To make the rolls:

Heat enough oil to deep fry. Take water in a bowl and wet a slice of bread on both sides – just enough to be able to shape it. Be careful not to wet it too much because when you fry wet bread, it will soak up the oil. Now fill the center with potato and shape the roll into an oblong. Here is a picture of how a roll would look before it is fried.

Place in hot oil and fry until the roll is golden brown. Remove from oil and drain on a paper towel.  Each slice makes one roll.

Serve hot with tomato ketchup or any sauce.