Diwali Part 1: Moong Dhal, Palak Paneer, Chana Masala/ Chole

I have about 25 or so photos in my edit box, waiting for me to write up and post!! (Banging head) This is getting old, yeah? Listening to my excuses :) One day maybe I will post about all these goals I have in my to-do list and these past few weeks, I sorta have the opportunities to cross some of them out. But of course, having food blog has always been one of those goals too. So, pardon me and let's talk about better things.



Diwali Dinner Part 1, from our small 4 people Diwali Dinner on the 28th. Vik was not expecting an Indian dinner - thinking it'd be just some celebratory dinner with friends. Since we are having 'the' more authentic Diwali Dinner on Saturday with family friends, he thought I'd just wait to fix up Indian menu for that Saturday. But see..I believe in celebration, especially the fact that it was indeed a New Year. A small nice surprise is always a good thing, right? So I came home earlier and quickly whipped up some Indian dishes. Lit up few dozens of diyas around the house, some on balcony. He would have been fine if I didn't do it, ya know? But he was grinning when he got home and saw all these little candles everywhere. Now, let's hope sometimes before Christmas, I'd come home to a fully decorated Christmas tree in our living room, yeah?

I ended up making some bhajias, rotlis, Moong Dhal, Chole and Palak Paneer. Since I simply did not have the time to fix up dessert/sweets - which is extremely essential in Diwali festival. The other couple brought in tiramisu and eclairs. Mmhh...

Anyway, so maybe the most Gujarati dish in this dinner is the Moong Dhal. I have never been a huge fan of this dhal - in my head, mung beans are eaten as sweet dishes. While he thinks it should be savory. Well, it's New Year, so savory it is then. Chole/ Chana masala is a dish of chickpeas cooked in spicy slightly dry gravy. Which I prefer to eat with chips or thinly sliced baguette - and I did exactly that with some leftover the next day for lunch. Weird, huh?

Palak Paneer has sometype of sentimental value in it. ;) It was our first cooking together dish. Many moon ago on one Sunday he decided that we'd have some friends over for simple Indian meal. At the time, I did not have very well stock Indian pantry, ya know? Tons of spices, as Indonesian cuisine shares quite similarity to Indian's, but that's basically it. Just spices.

So it got to be something simple and did not involve too much running around to get the ingredients. We both love Palak Paneer and it is fairly easy dish, so we just went to grab some spinach and paneer. However, it did involve an episode of some of this green stuff jumping out from blender when my then-boyfriend did not put the lid secure enough onto the blender! Can't let him in kitchen, see?

Moong Dhal recipe is similar to this Dhal recipe. Simply swap the lentils/ beans. Pressure cooker is better way to go in cooking this dish - much faster process, but I just use regular soup pot. That said, it requires parboiling these moong beans for a while until it softens up before dumping in the spices.

Chole/ Chana Masala
What:
- 1 canned chick peas, drained and set aside in a bowl
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1" ginger, grated
- 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
- 1 small ripe tomato, chopped
- 4-5 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tbsp coriander powder
- 1 tbsp cumin powder
- 1 1/2 tbsp garam masala
- 2 green chilies
- pinch of turmeric
- few sprigs of cilantro, chopped
- 2 tbsp tamarind juice (mix warm water to 1 tsp tamarind paste)

How:
- Heat oil and fry onions, garlic, ginger and chillies until onions is soft. Add this mixture to drained chickpeas and set aside for now.
- In same pot, heat a little bit oil and toast coriander seeds for few seconds. Then add in all other spices. Fry.
- Toss in tomatoes and cook until soft, add tomato paste. Stir.
- Add in the chickpeas onion mixture to the pot. Stir and mix well. Add in tamarind juice. Cover for couple minutes.
- Add just enough water to moisten it up and form slightly dry thick gravy coating the chickpeas. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Toss in cilantro right before serving.
Palak Paneer
What:
- 1/2 block of store bought paneer, cubed and pan-fried for few minute and set aside. (home-made paneer of course tastes much better and I could have had put some efforts to make it on my own, but really...)
- 1 bunch of spinach, coarsely chopped
- 1/2 small onions, chopped
- 1 small tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1" ginger, grated
- 1 tsp of each turmeric and groud coriander
- 2 tsp cumin
- pinch of garam masala
- 2 jalapenos (optional), chopped
- 4 tbsp of cream/ half and half (sour cream works well too)

How:
- Heat little oil and toss in onion, garlic, ginger and jalapenos. Fry for couple minutes until onion is translucent.
- Add in spices. Fry. Toss in tomatoes. Stir well.
- Toss in spinach and cook until it is slightly wilted. Add in about 1 tbsp of cream, just so that it has some liquidy consitency, for easy blending.
- Using hand blender, blend the mixture. We don't like it too smooth, so just blend until the consistency you prefer.
- Add in some more cream. Stir. Toss in cubed and fried paneer. Let simmer for few minutes.
- Just right before turning off the heat, add in chopped up cilantro and stir well.

Diwali Part 2 is coming up soon!!

Aloo Gobi Curry (Potato Cauliflower)

I guess there is a basic recipe for Aloo Gobi or shall I say, a base recipe for this dish. Then there are many different take on it. I think I have had at least half dozen of its variation. Most of them on the drier side - without too much gravy. Then there are some with gravy/ curry in it. I am not very picky about it though. However, of course, the person who does not cook (aka my husband) just happen to have a version that he likes. It can not be oily, that's for one. The vegetables can't be too soft. Bit crunch with softer texture inside. Sure, I am a miracle worker. :)

I learned my basic from my mom in law and have been adapting it a little bit here and there. Sometimes I make the dry version, sometimes bit gravy version, depending on the other dish. Since I am pairing it with Tandoori Chicken, I thought some gravy will be a nice touch.

What:
- 1 cup cauliflower, cut to florets
- 1 cup potatoes, cut to chunks
- 1 jalapenos, minced
- 1/2 small onions, chopped
- 1 tsp ginger, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp of chilies powder
- 1 tsp garam masala
- pinch of turmeric
- 1/2 small container of yogurt (sour cream or cream can be use interchangably)
- salt and pepper
- handful of coriander leaves, chopped.

How:
- Put cauliflowers and potatoes on baking sheet. Toss lightly with olive oil and paprika. Slide into 400° preheated oven - to somewhat roast it. Just for about 15 minutes or so. Take out from oven and put aside.
- Heat a little oil in pan. Toss in mustard seeds and cumin seeds until sizzles.
- Add in onion, garlic, ginger and jalapenos. Saute until soft.
- Add in coriander powder, chilies powder, garam masala, turmeric, salt and pepper. Stir.
- Toss in vegetables. Stir. Add in yogurt and turn the heat up - keep stiring to prevent burning. The (personal) idea is to 'force' all the ingredients to mingle together quickly without making the vegetables too soft and mushy.
- Turn the heat off. Toss in handful of coriander leaves, stir. Squeeze some lime juice just before serving.

Bhajia - Potato, Onion and Cauliflower

So yeah theweathernetwork dot com did say it is going to be raining today. I have learned to pay little attention to weather channel (rarely accurate, dont they?) despite the fact that I do check it everyday. However, I don't need weather network to tell me it's going to rain today, it has been looking all gloomy and dark all morning. Took the umbrella with me for varous meetings. Yet I managed to leave it in the car while going into post office, dropping in few boxes - was quite shock to know 1 kg costs $15 and 5 kg = $22!! Anyway, I thought, heh, 5 minutes, how bad could it be?! It won't be pouring rain all of sudden, will it? It took me longer than 5 minutes. As I inched my way out the door, there were at least a dozen people standing under the awnings in the hope to protect themselves from nasty rain!! So, should I stand there too? Or should I just run?

Car was not too far and I was to pick up Vik from his meeting. So, I dashed!!! Hoping to put all my training to the test. Well, I never train under pouring rain so I skidded a little bit and by the time I got into the car, my jeans was soaked all the way to my knee. All in less than 1 minute time.

Vik quickly pointed out that he was hungry - at 4.30 pm!! Asked me what's for dinner and I told him that I have some chicken marinated overnight for Tandoori Chicken. He was just thrilled. Not because it is my 'special' dish or anything, but he has been disappointed on Tandoori Chicken from our favorite Indian Restaurant. It has always been very good until the past couple months, it becomes a hit and miss dish. Then Vik says 'Can you make some bhajia too? Piping hot bhajia sounds good in this rainy weather'

In normal circumstances, I'd have shove him out off the door. What?!!! I was half soaked, had to deal with a grumpy client not too long ago, and I already have a perfect dinner planned: Tandoori Chicken, Aloo Gobi curry, rice and naan. Have all these steps in my head - put chicken in oven, roast the vegetables, make the sauce, take quick hot shower. Then I am all done. But see, this is not at all..not at all...a normal request from Vik. Flashnews: Vik does not like fried food. He'd never ever order pakoras or bhajias in restaurants. There are some exceptions, but never pakoras, bhajias, samosas, etc. So in conclusion, he must be in serious cravings for it. I just could not say no. Also..I love fried food. :)

Oil issue aside. We both don't like heavily battered fritters - and most restaurants tend to have a thick coat of batter. So I went to work on fritters after popping in chicken to oven as well as cauliflower and potatoes.
I mix and match the ingredients. Just cauliflower. Potatoes, onions and jalapenos. Cauliflower, zucchini and jalapenos. The 'just cauliflower' ones is really for me. I like it that way. But at the end, I only ate about 3..

What:
- chickpea/ gram flour
- water (my ratio of flour: water is something like 1/2 cup flour to 1 1/2 cup water - very thin batter, basically it's just a thin coating for fritters)
- garam masala
- hot chillies powder
- salt and pepper
- cumin powder
- assorted vegetables:
- potatoes, slice thinly
- cauliflower, cut to bite size florets
- onions, slice
- jalapenos, slice
- zucchini, julienne

How:
- Heat oil in pot.
- Mix flour, water, garam masala, salt, pepper, hot chillies powder, cumin. Whisk.
- For cauliflowers, dip it to batter, give it a quick shake (to let excessive batter drips) and drop it carefully to hot oil.
- For the mix: Mix the vegetables in separate bowl. It can be done two ways: Either mix in the batter to vegetables. Spoon a spoonful of it and drop to hot oil. Or, I use slotted spoon, scoop dry vegetable mix, dip to batter, lift and let excess batter drips off through spoon. Then gently drop fritter to hot oil. Fry until golden.

We eat it with trio sauce of coriander chutney, sweet and hot sauce, and sambal ABC.

Debras and Aloo Dish

We were watching Vik's cousin's (Pankti's) wedding DVDs and there was this one part in what I believe, is Griha Shanti, a pre-wedding ritual, and there was lunch being served to family and guests. I was pointing at Dhokla (one of my favorite snacks!) while Vik was more interested in this Aloo dish. The actual dish name escapes me; I was thinking Dum Aloo, hm..will have to confirm it with mom in law. :)

I happen to have 1/2 bag of new potatoes from our camping meal. So, there we go.

What:
- about 25 small new potatoes, halved
- pinch of hing (asafoetida)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp grated ginger
- 1 chillies, chopped finely
- 1/2 cup onions, chopped
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/2 to 1 tsp hot chili powder (we like it very hot and spicy, adjust to taste)
- 2 tbsp yogurt (make sure it's very thick kind of yogurt)
- salt

How:
- Heat oil in pot. Add pinch of hing. Toss in onions, garlic, ginger, chillies. Fry until soft.
- Add all spices (except yogurt and potatoes). Stir.
- Add in tomato paste. Stir and fry until oil separated.
- Add potatoes to pot and stir until it is well coated with spices. Add in salt. Fry/cook for about 5 minutes.
- Add in yogurt. Stir thoroughly.
- Pour about 1 cup of water. Lower heat to medium low, cover. Stir occasionally. When fork can be inserted easily through potatoes, dish is ready.

Debras
It is really just a version of simple rotlis (wheat flour, water and salt), mixed with chopped up spinach, finely chopped green chilies, some yogurt, and masala (ground coriander and turmeric powder.)

Gujarati Kadhi

What:
- 2 cups yogurt
- 3 tbsp besan flour (gram flour)
- 4 cups water
- 2 tsp grated ginger
- 2 green chillies, finely chopped
- 1 cinammon stick, break to half
- 3 cloves
- 5 curry leaves
- jaggery (about 3 tsp), can be substitute with sugar if have to

For tempering:
- ghee/ oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 green chillies, chopped
- 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
- pinch of asafoetida
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

How:
- Mix the yogurt, water, salt and gram flour in mixing bowl, beat well until there is no lumps.
- Add grated ginger, green chillies, curry leaves, cinnamon stick, cloves, jaggery/sugar.
- Pour the mixture into cooking pot and cook on low heat, stir occassionally.
- While yogurt mixture is simmering, temper the spices.
- Heat oil/ ghee, add mustard and cumin seeds. Once they crackle, add asafoetida, chilies, fenugreek seeds. Let it fry for couple minutes.
- Add tempered spices to yogurt mixture. Stir. Let it come to slow bubble.
- Garnish with finely chopped cilantro before serving.

Gujarati Dhal

What:
- 1 cup red gram dhal
- 1 medium size ripe tomatoes; I like to quarter it to nice thick chunks.
- 1 green chillies
- little cut of ginger, chopped to small pieces or grate it.
- jaggery
- turmeric powder
- chili powder
- pinch of asafoetida
- cumin seeds
- mustard seeds
- small piece of cinammon stick
- curry leaves
- coriander leaves; unfortunately, I don't have any when I am making this, so I leave this out :)
- lime

How:
1. Soak the red gram for a while. Boil and cook it with pinch of salt. Once cooked, I use hand blender to mush it.
2. Put in green chillies, tomatoes, ginger, salt and jaggery.
3. While dhal is cooking, heat one teaspoon of oil, add cumin seeds, mustard seeds. Once it splutters, add cinnamon stick and curry leaves. Add on turmeric powder, red chili powder, asafoetida.
4. Carefully pour the hot oil and spices mixture to dhal mixture. Let it simmer for a while.
5. Right before serving, squeeze in some lime juice. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Vik's aunt like to add some shelled peanuts to it, which I find it quiet good! Vik likes to add a dollop of plain yogurt in his.

Instead of using pressure cooker to cook this dhal, I use regular medium sized pot. The traditional 'correct' way of making this dhal is actually using pressure cooker (less time consuming and no need of mushing it with hand blender), which I did for few years, until we moved across the country. And somehow, along with many other cooking tools, we didn't pack it with us. Sure I could have buy a new one. But, honestly I don't use it much and the less things my tiny kitchen has, the better. And it seems to work just fine, with the pot and hand blender. :)