Mushroom omelette

Mushroom omelette is one of my favourites. It's tasty and full of protein. To make this we will need

Eggs -2

Green chillies (finely chopped) - 1 tspn

Tomatoes (finely chopped) - 1/4 cup

Mushrooms (sliced) - 1/4 cup

Salt - to taste

Oil- 1/2 Tspn

Seperate the egg whites from the yellows. Beat the whites until they are fluffy. Add the yellows to the whites and beat again.. Now add the green chillies, tomatoes , mushrooms and salt to the eggs. Beat well

Heat a pan and add some oil to it. Make sure the pan is well heated before adding the egg. Spread the mixture on the pan and let the omelette cook completely on one side. Make sure there is no rawness on the upper side of the omelette. Now carefully roll the omelette and take it out on a plate.

Tastes great with bread and even with rice.

Omelette week

Honestly, I'm tired of eating cornflakes and milk for breakfast every day. I've tried a few other options as well, but we do have to make sure that the first meal of the day is not only healthy, but also filling.

Omelettes perfectly fit the bill. I know I will get bored of this soon, but while the fun lasts, I have decided to start an omelette festival on my blog. One new kind of omelette a day for one whole week. :)

Black eyed peas (alasanda) curry

I was bored with the kind of food I have been cooking regularly. So, I rummaged the kitchen (If you can call it that) closets for new ingredients :D

I found this box of black eyed peas that I bought while ago. I tried a curry a la Rajma.

You will need:

Black eyed peas - half a cup (Pressure cooked)

Onions - 2 (Finely chopped)

Tomatoes - 2(Finely chopped)

Green chillies - 2 (finely chopped)

Coriander(Dhaniya) powder -1 tbsp

Cumin seeds (jeera) - 1 tspn

Oil - 2 tspns

Garam masala, salt, turmeric, chilli powder , to taste

Add oil to a heavy bottomed pan. Once it is heated, add the cumin seeds. When the cumin starts to emanate a nice smell, add the chopped onions. Sauté until the onions are transparent. Add, salt and green chillies, sauté for a minute. Now add the garam masala, turmeric,chilli powder and dhaniya powder. Stir for a few seconds and add tomatoes. Stir until the tomatoes are well cooked.

Now add the peas and close the lid on the vessel. Reduce the heat. Cook until a few minutes.

Serve hot with rotis or rice.

Carrot pachadi

I have a new resolution- eat healthy. I know you might be laughing when you read this. But healthy food is sometimes delicious. My mom makes this carrot chutney during festivals and I just love it.

To make this chutney you need,

Carrots - 500 gms (chopped)

Garlic, 2 pods

Urad dal (Black gram) - 2 tspns

Dried red chillies - 2

Jeera (Cumin seeds) - 2 tspns

Tamarind , the size of a gooseberry(amla)

Salt, to taste

Oil - 1 tspn

In a wok, add the oil and the urad dal, stir until the dal is turning golden and add the red chillies, jeera and garlic. Turn off the heat and remove from the stove, dont let the urad dal burn or turn brown.

In a blender, add the carrots, tamarind , salt and the seasoning (wait till it cools off) and grind to a coarse paste.

Tastes great with rice

Pesarattu

Yummy. Pesarattu has always been one of my favourite breakfast foods. Though deemed unhealthy and fattening by many, if made on a non stick pan with less oil/ghee this spicy pan cake is filling and healthy too.

Anyone from andhra knows that pesarattu -upma is the ultimate combination. Add a little kobbari pachadi and allam chutney.. I bet your mouth's watering?

Ingredients:

For attu:

Whole Green gram (pesalu) 3/4th cup
Rice 1/4th cup
salt a pinch
Onion 1 medium (sliced)
ginger grated
green chillies 5-6 thinly sliced
ghee/oil 1 tbsp


Soak the green gram and rice in water overnight. Grind them into a fine paste in the morning. Add the salt. The batter is ready.

Heat a non stick pan and spread the batter on the pan . Since the batter is thicker than dosa batter try not to make the attu very thick. Add a few drops of ghee/oil to the pan.

In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients. Sprinkle these on the attu. Once the attu is cooked, (you can see little holes on it and it comes clean off the pan) fold it in half and take it out.

Serve hot.

Tomato-Onion rice

I think I mentioned earlier that I am unbelievably lazy. Waking up in the morning to cook rice and curry and some other accompaniment is a little too much for me. So I started experimenting with rice. And here's my recipe for Tomato-Onion rice. Simple, quick and tasty.

This dish tastes equally good if made with leftover rice too.

Ingredients:
Cooked rice : 2 cups
Onion 1 large, thinly sliced
Tomato 1, medium, diced
Curry leaves few
Salt to taste,
Turmeric a pinch,
2-3 green chillies horizontally slit
dhania(corriander) powder to taste.
Oil 1 tbsp

Heat a pan and add the oil to it. Add the curry leaves and green chillies and allow to splutter. Now add the sliced onions. Stir till transparent. Add the diced tomatoes, stir till the tomatoes change color. Now add the turmeric, salt and dhania powder. Stir for 2 minutes or until the mixture seems well cooked. Add the rice to the pan and mix well.Do not stir in too hard or the rice will break. And Voila, that's how fast it is. Hardly takes 15 minutes to cook including the rice.

Paneer masala

Tonight I was not in a mood to eat veggies and I try not to eat meat at night.. Fortunately there was some paneer in the fridge. Wanted some thick gravy to eat so decided to blend some onions and make a gravy.

Helsinki has an Indian market and we do get a lot of Indian spices and condiments. But one thing I really missed is paneer. I enquired at a few shops and found that they do not import it as it's shelf life is low. I tried with a few variants of cottage cheese but the cheese would either melt in the pan or was extremely expensive. I even ended up cooking masala cheese once, which I used as a spread for bread :).

To cut the long story short, the paneer had to be made at home.

For the paneer we need:

• High fat milk 1 litre
• Lemon juice 1 table spoon

The process :

Heat the milk in a non stick pan. When the milk comes to a boil add the lemon juice to it. Milk starts to curdle. Take the milk off the heat and set aside for a while. Notice that the milk has curdled /split. Now strain the milk in a clean cloth.

Hang the strained remnants in the cloth until all the water has drained off. Once the paneer has dough like consistency, make a lump of it and place something heavy on it so that the excess water is drained off. The paneer can now be removed from the cloth and flattened and stored(refrigerated) in an airtight container. This can be used anytime. 1 litre of milk makes around 175-200 gms of paneer

To make Paneer Masala we need

For the Masala:

• Onions (large, diced) 2 Nos
• Tomato (large, diced) 1 No
• Green chillis 2 Nos
• Ginger 1/2 inch
• Sunflower/canola oil 1 tspn

Heat the oil in a pan, add the diced onions and fry until they become transparent, add the tomatoes , sliced green chillies and sliced ginger. Make sure the tomatoes are not too cooked.

Blend the contents to make a puree and keep aside

For the curry :

• Paneer cubes 150 gms
• Cumin seeds (jeera) 1 tspn
• Dried red chilli 1 no
• Ginger garlic paste 1 tspn
• Turmeric a pinch
• Corriander powder 1 tspn
• Chilli powder to taste
• Salt to taste
• Sunflower/canola oil 2 tbsp

In a non stick pan, add some oil and fry the paneer cubes until golden brown.Keep aside. I usually brown the paneer on side so that it is crisply to eat, but most people would like it if it is golden brown.

Add very little oil to the pan and add cumin seed and red chilli wait until they splatter and add the ginger garlic paste, and paneer cubes. Stir for a few seconds, add the puree and a little water. Stir in the salt , chilli powder, corriander powder and turmeric. Cover the pan and leave thecurry to simmer for a while. Keep stirring in between. Take off the heat after 4-6 minutes. Paneer masala is ready to eat.

Tastes great with Nan/roti/rice.