Cilantro chutney

Some of you know that my Mom was visiting us and I took this opportunity to learn a thing or two about cooking from her!

While she was here, she made this fabulous cilantro chutney. It tastes great with the usual Indian treats like samosas, pakoras (I plan to do a post on this soon - stay tuned!).

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
Chopped Cilantro (1 cup)
Onion - 1 small (about 1/2 cup)
Garlic - 1 big clove
Ginger - 1/2" piece
Tamarind juice - to taste (
Green chillies - to the desired spice level!
Salt - to taste
Mint (1/2 cup) (optional)

Method:
Blend all the ingredients and you're done!
While the chutney tastes just fine right out of the blender, it tastes better when served slightly cold.

Variants:
1) You can subsitute tamarind juice with:
- lemon juice or
- raw mango pieces or
- dried and ground pomegranate seeds
2) You can substitute green chillies with red chilli powder
3) You can add some shredded coconut for a slightly different taste

Filed in

• chutneys
• cilantro

Guacamole and more...

Friday night was our Freak out Mexican night. I made guacamole, tomatillo salsa, sauteed chicken and veggies, and some seasoned rice and with a couple of tortillas, black beans, and lettuce, we were all set to make our own burritos at home.

I followed this simple and excellent recipe for Tomatillo Salsa Verde

I also had a recipe for guacamole given to me by a friend over a year ago. Here's the recipe as I followed it:

Ingredients:
2 Avocados
1 Tomato
1/2 Onion
Garlic (to taste - I prefer very less or none)
Picante sauce

Mash avocados with a fork. (I must say that having never done any cooking with avocados before, this guide on How to Cut and Peel an Avocado by Elise was very useful)
Cut tomatoes and onions into small pieces and mix them in with the avocados. Add in the diced garlic at this point at well. Add 1-2 tsp of Picante sauce and salt and pepper to taste

Here's a picture of the fillings:



and this is what the close to final product looked like:

Saag Paneer

As promised...

Ingredients

2 10 oz. packs frozen spinach (chopped or leaf)
3-4 tomatoes (diced)
1-2 green chillies (chopped)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 small piece ginger (chopped)
Fresh or dried fenugreek (Methi) leaves
1-2 tsp. cooking oil
2-3 bay leaves
1/2 cinnamon stick
2 cloves
2 medium onioins (chopped)
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
Paneer - As desired
Salt
Turmeric
Red chilli powder
All spice powder (Garam masala)

Optional:
Fresh cilantro
Fresh or dried mint leaves

Method:
Add the thawed spinach along with tomatoes, garlic, ginger, green chillies, and fenugreek leaves in a pressure cooker. Add some water, salt, turmeric (1/2 tsp.) and let it cook for 10 - 12 minutes.
Puree the cooked spinach in a mixer while adding the fresh cilantro and mint leaves.

In a large nonstick pot, heat the oil and fry the cumin seeds, bay leaves, cloves, and cinnamon stick. Add the onions and fry until light brown. Add some salt and all spice powder and fry a little longer. Then add the pureed spinach and cook for 10 mins on medim heat. Add additional water to achieve desired consistency. You may also add some tomato puree at this stage if the tanginess is not enough.

Add cubes of paneer about 5- 10 mins before serving. You may fry the paneer cubes before adding, but we find they taste pretty nice without frying as well.

Happy cooking!

Filed in

• Paneer
• Spinach

Here's for you Inky

My foray into the world of food blogging...I have to thank Inky for this. She is a colleague at work. I mentioned to her the other day that I cooked Saag paneer last night and it actually came out very nice. She has been asking me to give her the recipe ever since and I have been really lazy (sorry!). So, I was wondering if there was some way to write that recipe once and share that over and over easily (I know I could have even done that with email, but blogs are much more fun). Moreover, with this blog, I am sure I will be excited to try new recipes just for the fun of sharing them with you all and make my husband a happy man :).

Here's what to expect - mostly low to medium fat and calorie recipes, except for a few occasional splurges that I may try when we have guests over. And because I am so lazy and mostly short of time, I will use frozen/chopped food whenever possible and for the most part, the cooking time would be limited to under an hour.

The Saag Paneer recipe is coming right up!

Filed in

• Introduction