I detest radish! It’s bitter, pungent and according to me serves no purpose in the culinary world. The Japanese use a lot of radish in their cuisine, and I always wondered what they do to it to make that pungent and mouth twisting bitter taste, disappear ?! Even after tasting that kind of radish, I could still not lift a piece of raw radish from a salad! Until – this lady made me taste her concoction.
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There is something about the farm in full bloom, the birds happy with themselves, bees humming, butterflies swarming around, and our two dogs furtively chasing away the monkeys (who want to uproot our vegetable patches!). The entire happy cycle of nature makes my soul sigh in satisfaction.
This season we got bushels and bushels of corn from our farm in Mahabaleshwar. And strawberries. And radish. And beans. And cauliflower!! And so many other small batches of pure organic vegetables. The taste and inherent sweetness of the freshly plucked organic vegetables is a world apart from what we get in cities.
We had freshly plucked corn, and we all decided to have Corn Pulao.
Fresh corn, fragrant rice, a one pot marvel.
This is a really simple recipe, very easy prep and damn tasty to boot! Just before adding the rice, you will realise that the corn looks so good, and it tastes and smells good too. At this point you can easily not add the rice and serve it as a veggies with any kind of roti! (we almost did that, as the smell was making us go crazy – and we were fast loosing patience).
Serve it with yoghurt and papad! Or eat it plain! You can easily increase or decrease the spices. What I have written in my recipe is not a very spicy version. The yoghurt, balances the spices.
Fresh rice Pulao, made with organic corn.
I hope you like the recipe as much as all of us did!
PS: here is the link to the youtube video to make your life a tad easier!
Cheers and Ciao!
It was evening, and hunger pangs were making our stomach growl furiously. There was no time to make a time consuming snack, we all wanted something healthy and not too heavy. (The dinner menu looked very mouth wateringly promising!).
Rekha, our house keeper jumped to the rescue of our collective moaning tummies. She quickly chopped some onions, made a tadka of spices and curry leaves, took a large helping of puffed rice and to my astonishment, dumped it in a sieve and ran it under running water for a good 3 to 4 minutes.
By now I should not be surprised and astounded by the different ways and methods people around me cook. Rekha and my cousins and family continuously come up with new techniques and unique mixes. My last post was one such experience.
As recipes go, this one is the easiest, quickest snack you can make. You can make the onion mixture ahead of time and soak and mix the puffed rice (kurmura) just before serving.
Most of the ingredients are normally available in all Indian house holds, so there is no need to go rushing to the nearest grocer to buy something. You can of course make it spicer, more sour, add garlic … there is no end to how you can play around with the dish.
On this note, let me announce with the greatest of excitement that I have started my own Youtube channel. Its called The Recipe Larder, same as this blog.
The youtube video link to this recipe is available here. It shows you the step by step method of making this recipe. Do subscribe for more off beat recipes.
Hope you end up making this. Do send me pics!! Cheers! and Ciao!
PS: please tag therecipelarder on istagram, if you wish to share your pics.
Rich blend of spices – sookhi aloo ki sabji
Lot of good things happen in Mahabaleshwar. One of the finest things is – something about that place makes people want to cook.
The kitchen is airy and has huge windows opening out to our kitchen garden. The fact that it’s a biggish sized kitchen also makes it easier to have people milling around and experimenting with various home grown and organic ingredients.
I had my cousin uncle and aunt over. The fact that he is my age does not deter me from calling him uncle. Some childhood habits just don’t get out of your system….
It’s that time of the year again, when our farm in Mahabaleshwar is thriving and blooming. The entire farm is disrupted during the monsoons, which are heavy, non stop and torrential. In fact Mahabaleshwar gets the second highest rainfall in India, next only to Cherrapunji.
Just before the rains are predicted to stop, (and these predictions never come true!), we start planting some seeds in a sheltered area. Once the rains stop, the seeds are now seedlings and can be re transplanted in pots or beds. It’s a lot of work! The soil has to be turned, aired and new top soil has to be spread. Since we plant over almost 2 acres of land, it’s a busy time for all of us.
Seeing the seedlings burst forth into vegetables and flowers is the best thrill and pure fodder for my soul. I love the city but off late ever so often I just want to vacate my senses and vegetate with the vegetation.
This year started with a wild, wild and massive bush of Basil. So much that I did not know what to do with it. I plucked them and got them back to Bombay, still pondering in my head and actually stressing over not wasting this lot. It was fragrant, the leaves heavy with taste. I decided to make Pesto and sell it to my customers.
Pesto made with fresh fragrant organic basil
I came home and experimented with a batch. It was perfect, green and luscious. I bottled it and announced the sale, and it was gone within hours! All the bottles were booked!
Over time, the green becomes pale and dark. So if you want really bright green pesto, make it on the spot and use it. Making it a day in advance allows all the flavours to steep. But if you want to use it as a dip, or in an open sandwich, then make it on the spot.
Basil grows very easily in home cultured pots. And mind you, it can grow wild. Now when you have too much Basil, and your heart is breaking at the wastage, you know what to do with it.
We were all having fondue, and one of our friends did not like the smell of the cheese. So I made Pesto Pasta for her and her husband. I do believe the plate was polished off!!! 😀
Basil Pesto mixed with pasta
I hope you enjoy making this recipe, because there is no better smell than that of, fresh basil, smooth virgin olive oil and fragrant new garlic.
Cheer!
Tawa ka Tikla
This is a classic dish made by Marwaris. It’s healthy, wholesome and extremely satisfying. As a kid, I took it for school lunch almost three times a week. It’s made with whole wheat flour, so – healthy!! Ghee – good fats! Ajwain – great digestive. Whats not to like. And it’s yummylicious to boot!
The name Tawa ka Tikla is derived from the fact that it is made on a tawa (girdle) and there is no roasting on direct fire – like the normal roti’s and chapattis. The other Tikla we make is fried in ghee. Lethally tasty – that one too!
When we were growing up, we had no gas stoves at home. We were as organic as it could get. The food was cooked on a mud stove, and charcoal was used to light the fire. Of course, the kitchen got as black as well -soot, but Oh My! the food that we ate had an aroma which no smoke machine can impart. All fresh, earthy and hearty!
The stove was large and there was additional place around to keep the ready food. All the dal, rice and veggies were kept in that area. It would be hot and therefore kept the food also piping hot. No reheating, no microwave. The chapati was made directly on coal – no smell of gas and no artificial flavours. The cook would dust off the soot, liberally dribble homemade ghee and serve it to us. And nowadays, we crave “wood-fired” pizza!!
My grand mom’s man Friday would clean the stove after every meal with water, washing away all remnants of food, leaving the place clean and shiny. We needed no pest control. The hot stove would allow no cockroaches to roost. The burnt coal was converted to ash, and that was used to wash the vessels. We had to recycle before it became a fancy word.
Once every few months the man Friday, would lovingly renew the stove with fresh mud and fill up the cracks and crevices.
The simple grub was nourishing and rich and healthy. I still maintain that I hated the veggies because it was insipid at it’s best. But that was the fault of the cook and not the system. I have still not eaten that kind of dal and chapati ever again.
My sister still makes this dish – Tawa ka Tikla. I had forgotten all about it until one day I got a longing and craving to eat this ghee laden yummy snack. I could eat only one, but back in school it was a staple and I could polish off a whole lot with pickle, in the name of lunch.
It’s very simple to make. It can be cooled and kept in an airtight container for a week plus.
SOME NOTES:
Enough ghee should be put into the dry ingredients so that the flour when closed into a fist stays intact and does not fall down and disintegrate like powder.
Warm water should be used to make the dough. Add it slowly, making the consistency a bit rubbery. Each flour quality reacts its own way, so a little more or less water might have to use, than specified in the recipe.
Please don’t try to go easy on the ghee. It’s a very indispensable ingredient and if you are following the latest health trends, – then – ghee is a vital and important fat and should be consumed in restrained quantities.
The holes are made, so that the Tikla does not puff up, and gets firm and semi-crisp, as you keep pressing and cooking it.
While rolling the dough, if it’s too sticky and is cracking and breaking up, it means that the dough needs more flour and a dribble of water. Add little at a time according to consistency.
Here is the video
It’s an excellent and nutritive dish for kids tiffins, to keep as a quick snack. Top it with hummus, a mix of cucumber tomato kachumber, serve it with hot garlic chutney, with dry potato veggie – Just go for it. Dig in!!
I hope you make it and enjoy it. Cheers!
natural fly repellent
Ghastly flies buzzing around over every piece of food that is lying around? Spiders making their palaces on hinges of your ration cupboard doors? Join me — in my teeth gritting irritation!
I was- well for a lack of a better word “bugged”.I came back from a long vacation and opened my ration cupboard to find that an extended family of spiders had taken roost and claimed all the corners – the entire lot of cousins and uncles and aunts! Enough was enough! I mean you just look away for a few minutes and they come prancing in, ready to take over without paying any rent?!
I went on a savage google and pinterest hunt! Every single site suggested this trick – peppermint essential oil! Each site had their own version, so I made a hotchpotch of all and came up with my own recipe.
I ordered the peppermint essential oil online, to be delivered within 24 hours. Them spiders were not going to stay in my cupboard longer than I could help it! I got a spray bottle, made the lethal concoction and went psycho with the mixture.
peppermint essential oil with water
Now I am writing this after a month of having sprayed the brew, and my hinges stay unoccupied and shelves devoid of spider debris (they create filth!) Its sheer pleasure to open a cupboard, peek into its — and not get gluey spiders’ web stuck on your nose and ears, leaving you with a feeling that the spiders are crawling around somewhere inside your clothes. UGH!!
My other ugh! is the common house fly. Bloody things are found hovering around every place you can rest your eyes on! Try eating a meal without inviting them? They get offended and land on every morsel about to go into your mouth, and then quench their thirst in your glass of water. I’ve had a few who thought they could swim in my class of cocktail, and then fly away feeling mighty pleased and tipsy!
Ewwww! Right?
Last night I was having a party at home. It is heavy, pelting rainy, season, we held the do indoors and had the bar set up under an awning outside our door near the car park. At 10 am, when I went to check the layout, I almost screamed blue murder! Flies – hordes of flies – gossiping in corners, flying around courting their mates! And this was to be a bar – with sugar syrup, and other nectarous medley of ingredients. Party time for flies. I was about to sit down with my head weighing heavy on my hands when “google” came up in my mind’s eye.
natural organic fly repellent
I was doing a jig in the evening when I went to get a drink! Not a fly- NOT ONE! All it took was a lemon and some cloves.
These hacks are all repellents and not killers. The smell of peppermint drives the spider batty and the cloves make the flies dizzy.Go forth and squash them gnats!
PS: For flies burning camphor has also proven very effective.
Sincere apologies for not posting a recipe sooner.
We were on holiday in Japan – (more details here – in a few days). It was hectic and beautiful, raw, and a completely new experience for us. PS – you must have seen the Instagram updates? I posted all the different kinds of food we ate there. (I hope you are connected to my Instagram? It’s the same as the name of the blog – therecipelarder)
We have a farm in Mahabaleshwar. It’s 2 years old, and we have managed this year, to grow loads and loads of veggies. By the time I made the strawberry jam, the temperatures were already soaring and some of the vegetable plants had lost their jive. But the ones that live, fill me with awe. Awe because – hey! we are growing and eating our own vegetables. That’s a big dream come true for me.
Fresh Garlic bulbs
Cherry Tomatoes
Chillies – green and red
Bottle gourd.
Just a year ago the farm was a barren land of red mud and stones. The only greenery that could be seen was the forest surrounding the farm. As it is, because of the heavy rains in Mahabaleshwar, we have restricted variety of flora and fauna. While the fruits are not plenty, vegetables seem to thrive there. Especially the ones which grow on the ground (bottle gourd, watermelon, strawberry.) and vegetable plants which have not very huge tall growing stems.
Mulberries and strawberries prosper there. They grow easily and aplenty.
mulberries in all stages.
I got this recipe from a long time Mahabaleshwar resident. Mr Jaysing Mariwala. (read about him in the link!) He told me to wait till the fag end of the strawberry season, to make the Jam. The reason, he said was because the strawberries are more sugary, plumb and juicier after the sun gets stronger, post-winter.
The variety we grow is called Sweet Charlie. They are smaller than the other varieties and sweeter and the same time there is a subtle tartness to it. And unfortunately, the shelf life is very small too.
The strawberries are first mixed with sugar and lemon ( since no pectin is used – lemon acts as a preservative). Then they are crushed by hand (and oh! the fragrance!) and left in the sun for a few days. Since Mahabaleshwar sun is hot and intense I love making the Jam there.
Experiment with flavours -
Add a bit of fresh Rosemary, just at the end stage of cooking?
Ginger - grated - again at the end of the cooking stage.!!
Mix some very coarsely crushed black pepper. Imagine that flavour, sweet with a hint of pepper at the end.
The flavours you can play around with are limitless. Let your thoughts run wild.
How to sterilise the jars ?
Well I just put them in the washing machine, with the water set to very hot.
It comes out dry and clean.
Since the jam has no preservative, you will need to refrigerate it. I live in Mumbai, where the humidity levels are very high and the heat higher. So I have no choice.
