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.

My guileless childhood and callow youth was spent immersed in books. Glorious home spun tales, soaring visions, untraveled lands and boundless imaginations captured my every waking moment. I remember spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom and being yelled at by my sisters who were waiting for their turn because I had a book in my hand and couldn’t set it down for long enough to get out the bathroom.

Books, and their authors, spoke to
me in vivid pictures. My mind wove and embellished the tales I read. I saw, heard, felt and smelled every single event in the book. Thus it was, that the descriptions of the smell of cooking cabbage was always associated in my mind with poor households.

This was because then, as now, the humble cabbage is one of the cheapest vegetables you can get. Humble it might be, in terms of cost, but there is certainly nothing humble about cabbage’s nutritional profile. It is the star of nutrition and you would do well to incorporate it routinely in your diet. Cabbage has cleansing and cell detoxification ability, promotes cardio vascular and gastro intestinal health and is a huge powerhouse of Vitamin K.

Regardless of its fantastic nutritional profile, the reason cabbage is generally disliked is because it is cooked so much out of recognition that it loses its texture, taste and color and ends up looking and tasting like a mish-mash of a foul smelling goulash.

So here’s a well known secret tip about cabbage: dont overcook or over boil then you wont have to deal with the smell of cooking cabbage, the smell that has been described and immortalized in many many books by many many authors!

The cabbage recipe that I provide today is, in my opinion, the ultimate in culinary perfection. The taste, the color, the crunch and above all the enhanced nutrition because of being combined with fresh edamame beans makes this dish a gourmet addition to your dinner. Best of all, this is one of the easiest and quickest dishes to make. So go ahead and give it a shot. Next time you go grocery shopping, succumb to the temptation of the fresh green cabbage. Buy a whole head and indulge!

Here is what you need:
1/2 head of fresh green cabbage (washed, drained thoroughly and chopped fine)
handful fresh, frozen edamame beans
1 green jalapeno pepper (chopped fine)
1 tsp Olive oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 pinch asofoetida powder
1 tsp skinned, split black lentil seeds (optional, to provide extra crunch!)
3/4 tsp salt

Here is how you make this:
Heat olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait for them to crackle and add the asofoetida powder, green chili and lentil seeds. Brown lentil seeds until they are crisp and golden brown. Add the chopped cabbage and edamame beans. Add salt. Cover for no more than a couple of minutes. Remove the cover and stir fry on high heat for another couple of minutes.

Remove from pan and serve with spiced yogurt rice or spicy tamarind rice.

Cost:
Cabbage: $0.60
Edamame: $0.15
Oil : $0.05
Spices: $0.10
————————–—————
Total : $0.90

Makes 6 servings.

Cost per serving: $0.15

Winter days always bring to mind, images of my older sister, wrapped cosily in a blanket, on a “charpoy” (rope cot) placed on the lush green lawn, sunning herself after a wonderful lunch.

Those were the days we used to live in Jodhpur, a city in the desert state of Rajasthan. Summers in Rajasthan were usually spent indoors to avoid the frequent sandstorms and blistering heat. But we invariably spent the winters outdoors taking in the sun!

The winter sun in Jodhpur was warm without being too hot and bright without being too dazzling. And Sunday afternoons in winter were meant for dozing in the sun, replete after a great meal. Winter meals too, were different from summer meals. Summer meals were light and cooling with lots of liquids and juices. In winter though, we could indulge in the winter vegetables that were available in plenty: the squashes, pumpkins, the gourds and the sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes were our favorite dish for the winter. They were usually brought in fresh from the fields with the mud still sticking to them, by the local farmers pushing their hand carts.

Sweet potatoes are one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat. They contain almost twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42 percent of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin C, four times the RDA for beta carotene, and when eaten with the skin, sweet potatoes have more fiber than oatmeal. All these benefits for only about 130 to 160 calories!

In honor of my sister, here is a recipe for a sweet and spicy winter soup: this is a low calorie, zero fat meal by itself. It is also very quick and easy-to-make. Serve with bread or just eat it hot off the stove!

Here is what you need:
1 large sweet potato
1/4 cup pink lentils
1 habanero or jalapeno (optional – beware the habanero is very spicy!)
2 medium sized tomatoes
2 – 3 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chili powder (if you are omitting the habanero or jalapeno)
1 tsp turmeric powder

Here is how you make this:
Wash and chop the sweet potato. Do not remove the skin. Wash the pink lentils. Add everything in a large pot and cook until the sweet potatoes and pink lentils are soft. Serve hot.

Are you one of those people who think that Beets are only useful for making sugar because of their high sugar content? If so, you have sadly underestimated this wonderful vegetable.

Beets contain a powerful cancer-fighting pigment called Betacyanin. In addition, Beets protect against heart disease, help lower cholesterol levels, especially triglycerides by nearly 40%, and because of their high folate content, help protect against birth defects. Eating folate-rich foods is especially important during pregnancy since without adequate folate, the infant’s spinal column does not develop properly and leads to a condition called neural tube defect. The daily requirement for folate is 400 micrograms. Just one cup of boiled Beets contains 136 micrograms of folate.

So here is your excuse for making this very tasty, calcium-rich, healthy, easy-to-make dessert. Try enticing your children with this payasam. They are sure to love it and ask for more. This is also a wonderful dish to make with your young children. Set them to work grating the red beet with a hand grater. They’ll love the mess of having the juice run down their arms and stain their hands! Beats finger painting with chemical paints hands-down!

Here is what you need:
1 large beet (peeled and grated fine)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 tbsp coconut powder (optional)

For the Garnish:
1 tsp cardamom powder
8 – 10 cashews (chopped)
handful golden raisins
1 tbsp butter

Here is how you make this:
Place the grated beet in a large pan. Add milk, coconut powder and sugar bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the beet is cooked soft and well blended. Remove from the stove.

In another pan, melt the butter. Add the chopped cashews and fry golden brown. Add the raisins and fry for about 20 seconds until the raisins puff up. Remove from the stove and pour the garnish over the payasam. Sprinkle cardamom powder and serve hot or cold.