Vada pav is similar to American burger, here we use a pull-apart pav bread stuffed with spicy potato dumpling instead of patties. It is a popular street food in Mumbai, anyone traveling to Mumbai won’t like to return home before relishing the street foods like vada pav, pav bhaji, paani puri, etc. It is so fascinating to find people from every walk of life whether a celebrity or a taxi driver dropping in to such eateries to savor these tantalizingly delicious goodies.
One of the most indelibly joyful moments of any mother would be watching her children enjoying the healthy food prepared by her. Serving home-made whole wheat pav bread with mixed vegetables curry (bhaji) to my family is one such moment that I wish to cherish forever. If we serve oven-fresh flavorful pav breads with delectable bhaji to our children, then there is no need for them to visit an eatery for a plateful of high caloric pav bhaji which is a major cause of juvenile obesity nowadays.
Truffles are French candies made using cocoa, nuts & dry fruits and chocolate truffles are nutty balls coated with chocolate ganache. Since all the ingredients in here are rich sources of vitamins, minerals & anti-oxidants, these candies are not only delicious but also nutritious treats. These chocolate truffles act like protein-rich energy balls and can be packed as a mid-morning snack for school-going children. Here I have shared a recipe for ginger and fig truffles that can be prepared easily so that we can gift them to our loved ones on any special occasion.
Crispy Masala Dosa was the only Indian food appeared in the list of World’s Best 50 foods compiled based on the online poll conducted worldwide by CNN Travel in 2017. Dosa is a savory south Indian crepe generally prepared for breakfast or dinner. It can be prepared thin & crispy (paper roast) or soft & spongy (uttapam). Although there are numerous varieties of dosa prepared in South India, masala dosa is the most popular dosa as savory potato filling is stuffed inside the crispy dosa.
Indians usually celebrate every new beginning by distributing sweet boondi laddu. We follow a tradition of serving sweet boondi to our guests to celebrate the arrival of a new born in our family. I usually make a payasam during every festival and special occasions. On this New Year I follow the same tradition of serving tapioca pearls payasam garnished with sweet boondhi (chickpea flour pearls) to my family.
It is a bizarre phenomenon that some of the vegetarians here, particularly elders, avoid taking the foods spiced with fennel seeds. They do not like to use them in their recipes as they feel these spices are meant to go with meat based recipes only. Nevertheless we all like its sweet flavor and I like to add it into spicy vegetable kurma & paruppu vadai (lentil patties) for the strong flavor. I like to relish hot masala vadai & creamy coconut chutney along with a cup of cardamom tea on a rainy day.
It was quite captivating to see an array of flavorful creamy curries in green, red, orange & yellow colors when we dined at a restaurant in Chiang Mai, Thailand a few years ago. Hence I brought back Thai herbs & spices used for making those curries and prepared vegetable curries. I was extremely delighted that I could manage to bring out the similar flavor, texture and also the perfect color. But now I have prepared an yellow curry with Indian flavor using the locally available ingredients.
Thoothuvalai (Solanum trilobatum) is a quickly spreading herb usually props up in our surroundings after a good spell of rain. It is a medicinal plant used in Indian medicines Ayurveda & Siddha to treat respiratory problems like asthma, cough, cold & flu. So we can add these herbs into our diet during winter or monsoon. Here I have prepared thoothuvali chutney that can be used often for breakfast.
When I noticed a bottle of left-over Nutella kept unused for some days, I badly wanted to use it up in one shot and hence I decided to bake an eggless Nutella cake. Although the idea of combining chocolate & banana together is not liked by some, it worked wonders for me, and I was extremely delighted with the outcome of luscious cake with moist texture & tender crumbs.
Biryani is a medley of rice, vegetables (or meat) & spices popular in India, Srilanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries in south Asia & central Asia. Traditionally biryani is cooked over hot coal in a sealed cooking pot allowing the aroma of spices permeated into both the vegetables (or meat) & rice. This method of cooking in low heat is known as “Dum” process. Now I have prepared Paneer Dum biryani over stove top, but we can also cook dum biryani using slow cooker, or bake it in the oven.
Kofta is a soft potato dumpling, and we serve these golden koftas soaked in delectable curry greatly enjoyed by the children and also others who are not accustomed to the heat of red chilli. In this recipe I have used ginger to make the gravy spicy and used red chilli powder mainly for the color & flavor. However you can add more red chilli powder to suit your palate.
Porivilangai is a South Indian laddu made using pan-roasted rice & palm jaggery. Our grandmother never missed to prepare these traditional laddus every year for the Deepavali festival that falls in October or November. My aunts used to store those delightful laddus for about 6 months till our visit during summer. In those days these flavorful porivilangai were made into hard orange-sized balls but now I have made small soft laddus that can be stored only for few days. You can also check out the recipe for a similar laddu called Neivilangai made using lentil flour.
Aloo paratha, an Indian bread stuffed with spicy potato, is a hearty meal that can be packed for children’s lunch box. We can serve hot aloo paratha for breakfast or dinner along with spicy garlic-tomato dip (instead of pickle) & refreshing onion raita.
Panna Cotta is a creamy Italian dessert similar to custard generally prepared by cooking sweetened flavored cream, set with gelatin, and served with fruit coulis, caramel sauce, or chocolate sauce. Now I have prepared a vegan panna cotta by replacing cream with coconut milk, gelatin with agar agar, and prepared the fruit coulis using locally grown jackfruit bulbs.
I have been planning to bake a mango cake in this summer, but I could not keep a few separately for baking as they were usually devoured in a couple of days. Now my mother sent me the last batch of organic mangoes that were plucked from the trees grown in her backyard when the fruit bearing season of mango is almost nearing an end. Now I have baked an eggless mango cake with two ripe mangoes and left the remaining for my family to relish them to our hearts’ content at the end of this mango season.
Being a vegetarian I like to use walnuts as much as possible as these are quite a few of plant based sources of omega-3 fatty acid. It has always been challenging to prepare a recipe using these slightly bitter nuts, now I have baked an eggless walnut Bundt cake using banana & toasted walnuts as they compliment each other, sweet bananas suppress the bitterness of walnuts and also they both add a delicious flavor & texture to the cake.
Nei kadalai is one of my favorite childhood snacks that I relished along with wheat halwa. It brings me back fond memories associated with this delicious savory as our family get-togethers were incomplete without spicy crunchy flavorful nei kadalai and soft gelatinous wheat halwa. I still cherish all those happy moments with my father when he brought me nei kadalai and Tirunelveli halwa.
Hot sunny days always remind me the summer vacations spent during my childhood days indulging in ice pops (Popsicle) like paal-ice, semiya ice, javvarisi ice, thengai ice, pazha ice, panchamirtha ice, etc. Indian popsicles are so flavourful that we could find delicious chunks of native fruits like mango, grated coconut, chopped nuts, slimy tapioca pearls or smooth vermicelli while relishing chilled pops. Nowadays it is hard to find ice pops with Indian flavours, those milky ice pops are replaced by creamy ice cream, chocolate sticks, etc.