Lately, I tried out a few things in the Microwave, following my attempt to make chips. Turns out Chapatti doesn’t really work, but papad does! In my case I tried out 40 secs of microwaving for a single papad. If you stack them it doesn’t work so well, unfortunately.
Now, I can enjoy some great tasting papad with no burns and no hassle.
Another useful bit of info that I wanted out of my mailbox and into the world. Thanks to Anna da Costa for compiling this.
Stores:
Delivery/Services:
There was a document along with this mail which I will upload once I get permissions to do so.
Recently I came across some cool info about Gluten Free food in Delhi. Here it is:
*** Marks the ones that were recommended by the most people
Courtesy of http://delhiquitecontrary.posterous.com/
For me, Modaks have always been associated with Ganesh Utsav, the festival of Lord Ganesha. Mom made these for us by the kilo! On my mom’s last evening in Delhi, we decided to make some so I would never be deprived of them!
Filling:
Shell:
For the filling, mix the ingredients listed until the form a nice consistent mix.
For the shell, mix the dough, oil and semolina and add the water gradually as you mix it in.
Next, make small balls of the dough and using a rolling pin, make small round puris. Stuff the mixture into the puris and fold them at the top.
Next, fry these in a deep frying pan until they turn golden brown.
Enjoy these delicious and fattening Modaks!
With the oven now available, I’d not really done much with it, except to ask our trusty Geeta to bake us a quiche. Geeta tends to dominate the kitchen and appears to frown at and look critically at any experiments I choose to conduct. Today, I decided, I’d just have to experiment and get her to help – or as it turned out, I ended up with the instructions and Geeta managed the execution.
Looking up a few recipes of baked vegetable chips, I settled on two that we’d work on:
Geeta then proceeded to prep the veggies using a peeler and a mandoline. Once prepped, I readied a mixture of the following:
Mixing them up to taste, we added a bit of oil to the carrots and turnips and mixed the spices in, coating them evenly.
We skipped pre-heating the oven and plunked it all onto the dish and grill tray, spreading it out evenly, and set the oven to 200 degrees (top & bottom) with a 25 min timer.
The outcome was disheartening. At first the veggies were still raw looking, and after some more heating, they started looking charred. We need to beat a strategic retreat and rethink this. I’m guessing that the charred waste can be powdered and used as fertilizer – they certainly look high in carbon!
This recipe (the part in the tips section) with the use of a Microwave worked reasonably well. The challenge was that our chips were too thin – tasty nevertheless.
Discussing my vegetarian diet with a friend recently the topic of Tofu raised a few flags. I was unaware that there were any health risks associated with eating soybean curd.
Here are articles I found online that seem to discuss this in a balanced fashion:
So, unless more reading turns up something new, Tofu remains a healthy food to consume (2-3 servings per day) as long as one consumes Iron, Calcium and Iodine in adequate quantities. Milk, Eggs and Carrots are good sources for the three. Here are some references that may be useful:
My search query on minerals turned up an interesting read on Paleolithic diet. Here’s an interesting blog post which has a 3 pager on it.
Update [15/02/2012] – response from a friend:
Concerning soy you will find a vast content in the internet. Keep in mind that behind soy there is a large industry (like Monsanto etc.).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1CJ7IEt0c
About Monsanto:
http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/facts.shtml
Here some articles etc. I came across:
Soy and environment:
Soy and health:
Maintaining a vegetarian diet, I’m going to table this for a while. There’s no reason you should though!
There were a few minor errors in the recipe: no liquid was listed for the marinade, grammar needed fixing and some of the directions needed correction.
Ingredients:
Method of preparation:
Number of servings – 2
Another one of the recipes exchanged. I can’t get over how many delicious dishes I’m discovering this way.
Ingredients:
Method:
If you want to make this into a full-on Lahksa you leave out the eggs and add coconut milk and stock at step 6. The sender uses about 50/50. You then add the noodles (cooked or uncooked) once the liquids are in and cook until they are soft. In this version you may want to add crispy vegetables a few minutes before serving as they will retain their crunch.
Increase the ratio in favour of stock if you want a more soupy dish or in favour of the coconut milk if you want something thicker and more like a curry. Add fresh coriander to serve and feel free to add soya sauce to taste.
More recipes from the exchange!
Here’s the one for Spinach Pie. I recently had Spinach quiche, made with whole wheat crust and that was delicious. I expect this one will taste great too.
One of my favorite veggie dishes is Pav Bhaji. I’ve got to try this one sometime soon, but my mom makes it amazingly well and I’ll get her recipe off her in February when she visits. In the meanwhile, here’s one that makes my mouth water just reading it!
PAV BHAJI – This recipe will serve 4 hungry stomachs.
Find any fresh vegetables which are around in your kitchen like:
Spices:
Get ready spice mixture "PAV BAJI" or mix it yourself.
The easy preparation for the Bhaji:
For the buns:
Heat a pan, add the butter or ghee and fry each bun half so it becomes a bit brown and crispy on both sides, if you burn it it tastes like charcoal.
Spread Bhaji heavily on the bun and sprinkle raw onions over it. Best eaten while Baji and buns(PAV) are still hot.
Once cooked and eaten PAV BHAJI never leaves your mind. It is very simple and fast to prepare and on top its vegetarian.
