Wednesday-Mid week culinary crisis

Over a month in Amsterdam and except for a steady stream of visitors trickling in, once in a while, there was not much inspiration for dishing out an exotic dinner menu. And all of a sudden, I was expecting 3 more guests joining us for dinner. While the Perfect hostess in me wanted to offer a generous and sumptous spread, the perfect sloth that I had become, owing to boredom, wanted to do something with whatever was available at home, without going to the shop to buy any specific ingredients for the meal. Faced with such twin personalities within me, I decided to given into both and spent less than 45 minutes and created a well appreciated dinner. The menu read thus:

• Jeera rice


• Dal


• Capsicum, Mushroom, Paneer Saute


• Salad


• Semiya Payasam Here we go with the recipes:

Jeera Rice

Ingredients:

Rice: 2 cups[Basmati or normal Indian rice]

Cumin seeds or jeera: 1 tbsp

Onion: 1, finely chopped

Cloves: 2-3

Cinnamom-1 small stick

Elaichi: 2, crushed

Salt: As per requirement

Oil/Ghee: 1-2 teaspoons, depending on how calorie conscious you are

Method:

1. Wash and soak rice in water for about 10 minutes.
2. Heat a saucepan or wok and add oil/ghee.
3. After the oil/ghee has become hot, add the cumin seeds, cloves, cinnamom, Elaichi and fry well for about 20 seconds.
4. Then add finely chooped onions and saute until tender.
5. Meanwhile, turn on the electric rice cooker and add the sauteed items[cumin, spices, onion] into the cooker and add the washed rice.
6. Add salt[as per taste] and 4 cups water and turn the cooker to "cooking mode"
7. Most rice cookers move to a "keep warm" mode after the cooking is completed.
8. If you are using a normal pressure cooker, you can do the sauteing and cooking in the cooker itself and cook upto 3 whistles only. Else the rice ends up resembling a "Kichdi"

Dal

Ingredients

Any Dal: 1 cup[Toor, Moong, Masoor or Channa Dal or a combination of all of them]

Onions: 1, finely chopped

Tomatoes-4, Cut into big pieces

Green Chillies- 2, slit in the middle

Garlic-2-3 pods

Salt-as per taste

For Garnish

Oil-1-2 tsp

Butter/Ghee-1 tbsp[lesser, if you want to count lesser calories]

Cumin Seeds-1 tsp

Coriander leaves-1 small bunch

Curry leaves-a handful[washed]

Turmeric powder-1/4 tsp

Asafoetida-1/4 tsp

Method

1. Wash and soak the dal for about 10-15 minutes.
2. Add the dal, onion, tomatoes, garlic, green chillies and salt in the pressure cooker.
3. Add about 3 cups water and pressure cook the dal[upto 10 whistles in the cooker]
4. When the dal is done, let it cool for about 10 minutes.
5. Open the cooker and check the taste of the dal and add salt, if necessary. Add more water if required to obtain desired consistency of the dal and boil the dal.
6. Take a small wok and add oil.
7. When the oil becomes hot, add cumin seeds, asafoetida, turmeric powder and curry leaves[in case you feel the dal is bland, you can add come red chilli powder to the oil]
8. Add the seasoning to the dal and top it off with a dollop of ghee or butter and finely chopped coriander leaves.

Capsicum, Mushroom, Paneer Saute

Ingredients

Capsicum-3, finely chopped[I used red, yellow and green to add some colour to the meal]

Button Mushrooms-10-15

Panner or Cottage Cheese-150 grams, grated

Onion-1, finely chopped

Salt-As per taste

Sweet Onion Sauce-4-5 tbsp

Oil/Butter-1 tsp

Method

1. Add oil/butter in a wok and when hot, add onions and saute until tender.
2. Then add capsicum and mushrooms saute for 1 minute.
3. Add sweet onion sauce and salt and saute until the vegetables are crisp and tender and all the water has dried up
4. Finally add grated panner and toss for a few seconds and transfer to a swerving bowl.

Salad

Ingredients

Carrot-1

Cucumber-1

Tomatoes-1

Onion-1

Salt-as per taste

Pepper powder-1 tsp

Lemon juice-1/2 tsp[optional]

Method

1. Wash all the vegetables and cut them into rounds
2. Arrange the vegetables in a salad plate and add salt and pepper powder and lemon juice (and add a few springs of mint and coriander leaves-optional] and store in refrigerator until meal time.

Variations: You can cut the vegetables into thin strips or finely chop them[can also add lettuce in this case] and in that case add any of the following dressings to the salad

• Balsmic vinegar and honey[you can avoid lime juice in this case]
• Salt, pepper, lemon juice and honey
• Salt, Pepper, Lemon juice, olive oil
• Natural salad dressing[then you can avoid salt, pepper and lemon juice]

Semiya Payasam

Ingredients

Roasted Vermicelli-1 cup[if you are using regular one, then you need to dry roast it in a wok until brown]

Ghee: 2 tsp

Water-1 cup

Milk-1 litre

Sugar-3/4 cup

Cashewnuts and raisins-for garnish

Method

1. In a saucepan or a nonstick vessel add the vermicelli/semiya and water and cook until the semiya is soft.
2. The add Milk and let it simmer on medium flame for about 20 minutes.
3. Add Sugar and simer for another 5 mins.
4. Heat ghee in a small wok and when hot, add cashewnuts and fry until light pink in color. Then add raisins until the raisins swell up to 3 times their size.
5. Add this garnish to the Payasam.
6. You can serve the paysam hot or cold.

Variations:

1. You can add condensed milk to the payasam. In that case avoid the sugar and use only half litre milk.
2. You can add some vanilla essence to the payasam to give it a nice aroma
3. Add elaichi essence or powder to the payasam, if desired[I normally avoid elaichi for semiya payasam]

(By the way, I was trying out the Capsicum, Mushroom, Paneer Saute for the first time. )

Most of the times, when I tell people the menu for any of the meals that I am hosting, they think that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. The truth is far from their thinking. While I love to cook and host people for lunch and dinners, I hate to spend too much time in the kitchen. And most of the recipes I try out is a result of my laziness and the desire to cook something good yet quick. I personally feel that the outcome of any recipe, even the ones you try out for the first time stems from the confidence you exhibit during cooking and the belief in yourself and the desire to experiment. I have over the years, learnt to make-up badly turned out kitchen ventures into a recipe worthy of sharing because of this belief in myself as a cook.

My culinary sojourn started long ago and it continues till date with some "inventions" of my own, some borrowed from others' culinary experiences, some so-called "authentic" family recipes and some culinary disasters as well. Well, such disasters form the perfect foundation for learning...on how not to cook a meal. I had to wrap up the blog with some words of wisdom..:)

Bon Apetit!