Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Food

A new batch of graduate students is preparing to leave the Indian shores. Only to be condemned to bad and unhealthy food. Paratha, pickles and Pizza. Now, if you have seen me, you may be wondering, given my big boned looks, who gave me the right to comment about unhealthy food. But given those same characteristics, I submit that I have the right to speak about bad tasting food.

It upsets me that people who have grown up eating their mothers' amazing food are actually ok with eating processed food stored in their freezer. And it makes me really angry when the reason offered is that grad school takes up too much of their time.

Now that I have insulted you enough, I will offer a solution.

Before you leave India, all you need to get  with you is a pressure cooker. Everything else is available here. However if you are willing to go half a mile extra, then get sambhar powder, rasam powder and garam masala.

Once you reach your destination buy a blender and a rice cooker.

And you are all set to make good meals in 30 minutes.

So typically a good meal is considered as something that has carbs + proteins + vegetables. The carbs are easy. As soon as you are ready to cook dinner put 1 cup of rice in the rice cooker and set it to cook.

Then come the protein and vegetable part. The easiest way to tackle this is to make kootu. I usually do this 2 - 3 times a week. The vegetables easily avalable in the U.S with which you can make kootu are - beans, broccoli, chayote squash, zuchini and cucmbers. The way to make the kootu is:

In a pot pour water and 1.5 cups of moong dal and let it boil. As it boils start cutting your vegetable of choice. Beans need to be cut into small pieces (2.5 mm length). The other vegetables into cubes. 10 minutes after the dal has started boiling, throw the vegetables in as well and let the vegetables boil. On the side you can make rasam if you would like additional flavour. Once the vegetables have boiled (which typically takes 10 more minutes, and is indicated by the vegetables changing colour and softening) you need to add the spice. You can make this spice mix in bulk or make it each time. If you are making it each time fry 5 pepper kernel, 2 spoons of urad dal and 2 dried red chilles. Blend them in a blender. If you want bulk to make it easy to blend pour 1 ladle of kootu into the blender as well. And pour the spice mix into the kootu. Add 1 -2 spoons of salt. Simmer for 5 minutes and you can eat.

( For making the spice mix in bulk dry roast pepper, urad dal and red chilles separately. These would be approximately in the ratio 1/4th cup pepper:1 cup dal: 1/2 cup red chilly)

Another easy way to get your daily protein and veggie fix is to make chole, rajma or kali dal. You will get all of these pre - boiled and canned. If you baulk at canned things, well you wouldn't have reached this far in this blog anyway. The fastest way to make these is:

Blend 1 medium sized onion in the blender. Heat 1 spoon oil in a kadai. Add jeera and ginger garlic paste. Add the pureed onions. And let it fry till the onion changes colour. WHile the onion is frying, blend 1.5 tomatoes. Add them once the onion has changed colour. You can add some water too at this step. Add 1 spoon dhaniya-jeera powder, 1 spoon garam masala and 1 spoon salt. Let it boil for 5 minutes. Open the can of your choice, and wash the beans as they may have chemical preservatives. After washing a couple of times, add the beans to the gravy boiling in the stove. Boil for another 5 minutes and voila your chole/ rajma is ready. The gravy is practically the same for any north indian gravy based veggie you are going to make. Only minor details vary. So you can use the same idea to make aloo matar, matar paneer, aloo gobi and so on.

Also if you are a fan of rotis I would recommend you buy uncooked rotis available in refridgerated section of the Indian store. These will make phulkas and taste better than the frozen rotis which are generally very maida intensive.

Maane, thene ponmane setukklam in both these. Which means in kootu optionally you can put a tadka of mustard seed, urad dal and curry leaves. You can garnish the chole with corriander(cilantro) leaves.

If you want to be more fancy then you can make sambhar and a stir fry curry.

For making sambhar, First boil 1 cup of tur dal in the pressure cooker. Make a lime sized ball of tamarind and soak it in hot water. Chop the vegetable of choice. Easily availbale vegeables are capsicum, onions, beans and carrot, and eggplant.  Take 1 sppon oil in a kadai. Fry mustard seeds.When these pop add urad dal and methi seeds. When the dal begins to brown add the vegetables and 1 spoon of turmeric. Extract the tamarind into the water and pour that into the kadai. Let it boil for 10 - 15 minutes. When the vegetables have started to change colour, add 2 spoons of sambhar powder and 1 spoons of salt. let this boil for another 5 - 10 minutes. By this time the pressure cooker would have cooled. Remove the dal and add it to the sambhar. Add some water if necessar. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes. Garnish and eat.

While the sambhar is boiling you can stir fry some veggie. You can do beans, cabbage, vendakkai (ladies finger, okhra) and vazhaakai (raw plantain). For beans and cabbage chop the veggies. Take about half a cup of oil. Fry 1 spoon mustard seeds. After they pop add 2 spoons urad dal and 2 -3 dried red chilly. Add the chopped veggies. Let them fry on med till they are cooked (typically 10 - 15 minutes). Add salt about half way through. Add shredded coconut/ desicated coconut powder at the end and turn of the flame. (If you have an electric stove remove from the stove. The stove takes time to cool and turning off stove is not equal to stopping heat).

For the vazhakkai and vendakkai, the procedure is similiar except that you do not need to add red chilly or coconut. For vazhakkai, you can add karamidhu powder if you have it.

And I will end this blog with the easiest thing to make. Rasam. Puree two tomatoes. Boil them in a pot with a small (1 cm) piece of tamarind and some asfoetida. When the tomato boils (3 - 4 minutes) add 1.5 spoons of rasam powder and 1.5 spoons of salt. Boil for another 3 - 4 minutes. Add boiled tur (if you have it on that day) and water and simmer for another 2 minutes and rasam is ready.

For those who eat meat, you can additionally derive you proteins from the whole gamut of italian, mexican ans chinese cooking styles. Vegetarians can also broaden their culinary skills by learning to make these, but that is not the aim of this post.

If I have the mood I will put another post in the coming weeks for slightly more fancy, but equally easy ways to make things like avial, rava dosai, badaam kheer and other deserts, other types of rasam and sambhar etc.

Hope just reading this blog inspires you to go beyond parathas and pizza!