Spaghetti with Mackerel

Happy New year and all that! For the elusive reader, here's a sincere apology for not posting for a long time. To be fair to us, it's the terrace gardening that kept us from posting new recipes. So one of these days, when we saw Jamie Oliver's 'Fish with linguine' recipe on his FB wall, we knew this should be tried and tested. Tried and tested we did and owing to its awesomeness, we immediately decided it needs to be shared. 

Here it is for you. We have generously adapted the recipe to fit our taste (and to the ingredients that we had in the kitchen). Not a fish eater? Just skip the mackerel and you get a great, light pasta dish for dinner!

Mackerel - 2 fillets 
Spaghetti (or linguine) - 250 gms
Garlic - 3 large or 4 small cloves
Cherry Tomatoes - 4 to 5 (or one big tomato)
Parsley - few sprigs
Thyme - few sprigs
Lemon -  1 (juice and zest)
Fresh Red Chili - 1
Butter - 1 tbsp
Olive Oil
Sea salt
Pepper 

Directions to cook:

• Set a pot of water to boil for the pasta with a teaspoon of cooking oil and salt. Meanwhile...
• Wash the fillet, apply just enough salt and crushed pepper and keep aside to marinate.
• Peel and slice the garlic cloves, finely chop the red chili, parsley and thyme; also, halve the cherry tomatoes and zest the lemon
• Add around 3 tablespoons of oil in the hot wok, add the garlic; once it starts to show some color, add red chili, half of parsley and the fish fillet (skin side down, else your fish will curl up in the heat)
• Toss and cook the fillet in low heat; it's ok if it flakes and breaks, it's supposed to (if it doesn't, use the spatula to break it up into rough chunks. You don't want a whole fillet in your pasta)
• Add the tomatoes and stir for about a minute
• Throw in the lemon zest and stir for exactly 30 seconds, else the zest loses its flavor
• Turn off the heat and add the lemon juice and give it a stir
• Your pasta must be done now, use tongs to add the pasta from the pot to the wok. 
• Add the butter to the hot pasta and toss to coat
• Add the seasoning, salt followed by the finely chopped spices - Parsley and Thyme

Serve warm!

Spinach and roasted pumpkin sandwich

In the Indian context sandwiches are considered a snack. One that you can whip up in minutes if you have the chutney. Typically a sandwich is just a couple of slices of pure white bread (preferably with the crust trimmed off!!) with green corriander chutney and butter in between and a few measly slices of tomatoes, cucumber, onions and boiled potato. With a good appetite you can easily polish off 5-6 triangles and then some more.
Subway managed to introduce the solid and substantial western of the sandwich. However they have managed to only reach out to a fairly upward crowd and their sandwiches are exclusively referred to as Subway with clear opposition (and rightly so) to the "Indian Sandwich".

Here is one sandwich recipe which attempts like Subway an acceptance of "The Sandwich" as a meal. The preparation is also as elaborate as you would reckon for a meal. The ingredients list for this sandwich:
-Whole wheat sandwich bread (preferably home made, I have a posted a recipe already)
- Pumpkin 300 gm
- Cheese - as much as you like and the kind you like. I used Parmesan.
- Green peppers - 2 Nos. (any colour actually)
- Garlic - 2-3 cloves
- Red chilli flakes or Chilli oil
- Basil leaves - 8-10 leaves
- Cream - 1 Tbsp (optional)
- Olive oil
- Salt

The recipe has three parts: veggies and cheese, dressing and the bread. If you are not using chilli oil, start with the dressing. Mix the chilli flakes in about a tablespoon of olive oil and keep aside. We will come back to this later. Chilli oil is just olive oil with chilli flakes soaking in it for a couple of days or more, so the oil gets infused with the spice.
Now we being with the vegetables and cheese part. Peel and chop the pumpkin in 1/2 cm thick slices i.e. really thin. Just quarter the green peppers, you want longish broad slices. Put the pumpkin and peppers in a roasting pan, drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some salt and pop it into an oven at 180 degrees celsius. (Pre-heating or semi-pre-heating is good, I never bothered in which case it takes a little longer).
While the vegetables roast, prepare the spinach. Trim he roots and the tough stems and chop roughly. Put a little oil or butter in a pot and add the spinach. On low heat, the greens will take 2-3 mins to wilt and release a lot of water. Cook the spinach through, but save about a tablespoon of the water. Grate cheese and keep aside.
Start dressing. To the chilli oil or the olive oil with chili flakes add crushed garlic cloves and about 4-5 finely chopped basil leaves and mix well. Add the cream if using, the spinach water and mix again- the dressing is ready.
Bread: Lightly toast the bread slices dry. Brown them only slightly. Very stiffly toasted slices of bread don't make good sandwiches.
We are now good to assembles the sandwiches if the vegetables in the oven are done. Check on them in the oven. Remember to give them a stir half way through their roasting time (somewhere around the time you wait for the spinach to wilt). The pumpkin slices would be a nice golden brown when done.
Take two slices of bread, spread some of the dressing on them. Place some spinach followed by cheese, pumpkin slices, one whole leaf of basil and finally two long slices of the peppers. Close your sandwich. Enjoy your meal. If the bread used is home made, I bet you will finish your meal with two of these sandwiches.

Nidi = Italian for nests

Countless Italian foods, mainly pasta, are named after their shapes of after things of similar shape found in nature. For example, did you know "Farfalle" means butterfly, "Orecchitte" means little ears and "Conchiglie" means shells? Google up their images and you will instantly know how the names came about.
This recipe is one along those lines. Nido means nest and Nidi refers to several of them. These nests are made of pancake strips and house roasted vegetables and a makeshift filling with easily available Indian ingredients to substitute the actual recipe which calls for ricotta, as explained in the TV series "Simply Italian". That's where this recipe is inspired from. It can be served just plain, but pairs just excellently with a classic arrabbiata sauce. So here we go.

Ingredients for the pancakes:
1/2 (120ml) Cup Milk
1/2 Cup White Flour (maida)
1 Egg
Salt
Nutmeg

Ingredients for the filling:
2 Tbsp Mawa/Khoya (unsweetened)
1 Tbsp Thick set Yogurt
1/2 tsp Red chilli flakes
4-5 large leaves of fresh Basil
Zest of half a lemon
Salt

Veggies to roast:
Egg plant, Zucchini, Peppers (Green/Red/Yellow), 1Tbsp olive oil, Salt. Parmesan cheese.

Ingredients for the arrabbiata sauce:
5-6 ripe Tomatoes
1/2 Onion
1Tbsp cooking Butter
2-3 pods of Garlic
Salt and Pepper
3Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil.

We start with the slowest. Slice the vegetables to be roasted. Do not chop them. You want to be able to spread them on the pancakes without piling too high. I have not given any measurement for how much of each vegetable because it depends on the size of the veggies. One whole Egg plant might be too much or too less depending on how big the Egg plant is and likewise for zucchini and peppers. So read till the end of the recipe and use your judgement. Apply a few drops of olive oil on a skillet and spread the veggies as much as possible on it and pop into an oven set to 180 degrees Celsius for 20-25mins. Pre-heating is not required.

We start on the next slowest. My recent discovery and my would-be all time favourite- The Classic Arrabbiata Sauce. This sauce is so simple and so awesome and will never let you down. Perfect to be used in any Italian recipe that calls for a tomato sauce or just toss in any cooked pasta grate cheese and you'll have the your Italian cravings satiated in minutes.
Quarter the tomatoes and put them in the jar of a blender. Pulse for exactly five seconds. We are trying to arrive at the consistency of "crushed" tomatoes, NOT tomato puree or paste. Set a non-stick pot on a medium-high flame and pour in the contents of the blender. Rinse the blender with no more than a tablespoon of water to get the remaining tomato and pour into the pot. Peel an onion, halve it and dunk one half into the pot. No chopping, no slicing- just half the onion as such. Plop in the tablespoon of butter, give the three (tomato, onion and butter) a good stir, cover the pot, reduce flame to simmer and forget about it for 15-20mins.

Next, the pancakes. With a hand or electric whisk mix all the pancake ingredients into a smooth batter. It should be quite runny. Ladle out onto a good non-stick skillet to get a large thin pancake. Use up the batter and you should have two large ones. Keep aside.

Filling. Except the basil leaves, mix the other ingredients well with a fork until well combined. The mawa will give a grainy texture, this is ok. Finely snip the basil leaves with kitchen scissors and mix in as well.

Give the tomato sauce a good stir now. Remove the half onion and return the lid. Let it go for another 5-10mins and turn off the heat. Keep aside with the lid on.

The veggies must be done now too. It's time to assemble the Nidi. Generously oil a baking dish (borosil) and keep ready. On a large cutting board place one of the pancakes, spread on it half of the filling in a thin layer stopping about 2cm before the edge. Place a layer of the roasted veggies without piling them. Gently but firmly roll the pancake, leave the last inch or so. Place the other pancake and repeat the same layers. Overlap the left out inch of the first pancake with the starting of the next and continue rolling. It sounds more complicated than it is. You are trying to simulate rolling up a longish mat by placing the pancakes one after the other. You should have a very thick roll of the two pancakes now. Using a very sharp knife, slice the roll into about one inch thick slices and place these on the oiled baking dish. The slices touching each other to hold shape. Grate parmesan cheese on top of the Nidi and bake for 10-15mins in a pre-heated oven at 180 Degrees Celsius until the cheese has melted and cooked through.

While the Nidi bake, resume the tomato sauce. Put back on the stove on low flame and stir in any juices that have separated. Crush the garlic pods with the side of a knife and add it to the sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and stir in 2-3 Tbsp of Extra virgin olive oil. Never heat Extra virgin olive oil. The virginity is lost! Literally.

Nidi must be done. Serve a couple of Nidi onto a plate and spoon some arrabbiata sauce on them. Serve with good white wine!

Upma + Muffin = Upffin!

Torn between snooty breakfast choice (muffins and coffee) and traditional breakfast choice (upma) we came up with the upffin, which was quite a success. Only one thing was missing, it definitely needs a chutney to go with. We suggest the chat chutneys i.e. the green coriander chutney and the sweet tamarind jaggery one.
It makes a very nice 5pm snack too. The semolina (rava) gives a nice brown crispy outside to these savory muffins.

For four jumbo Upffins you will need:

1 cup Semolina (rava)
3/4 cup plain Yogurt a little on the sour side
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder (Manjal/Haldi)
1/2 tsp Red chilli powder
1/2 large or one small Onion chopped
3 Green chillies chopped (or more as per taste)
1 handful Sweet Corn kernels
1 handful fresh Green Peas
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp Baking soda

For Tempering
3 tbsp Cooking oil, Mustard seeds, cumin seeds and Asafoetida (Kayam/Hing).

Dry roast the semolina in a wok taking care to stir constantly and get an even golden brown colour. Transfer into a bowl and let it cool a bit. Add the yogurt and mix well. You can adjust the amount of yogurt depending on how thick it is. The batter should not be too runny, you should be able to spoon the batter into the muffin tray. Mix in all the other ingredients except those for tempering.
Turn on your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease well and flour a muffin tray and keep ready.
In the wok heat the oil and add the mustard seeds, when they begin to splutter, add the cumin seeds and the asafoetida. Turn off the heat and add the contents of the wok to the batter. Spoon in some of the batter into the wok and back into the bowl to get all the oil. Mix the batter well. Spoon the batter into the muffin tray and pop into the oven (even if not completely heated). Bake for about 20mins or until brown. Remove from the mould and serve with the above suggested chutneys.

Slinging pretzels (Brezelschlingen)

(Lye) Pretzel ((Laugen)Brezel in German: pronounce "brey-tsel")

This post is a story post not a recipe post. Though I have no children connection I believe this post could interest children raisers due to the fable like story. This is not the historical account of the origin of Pretzels (which I am sure is not as interesting) but one of the several stories narrated in Germany to explain its origin. The courtesy goes to of course Elvira again and this book she gave me as a Christmas gift. 

In Germany pretzels are famous mostly in the two Southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg (especially Swabia). It's a savoury bread with a tick chewy middle and thin tapering ends called the "arms" with rock salt strewn on top for a nice salty punch when you bite into the crispy crust and the chewy crumb. Altogether it's a wonderful warmth that spreads in your body and spirit when had fresh from the baker on a cold morning; dunking it in coffee as some like to do. They are had with butter, cheese or Wurst although they are great even just plain.

The main highlights of the pretzel are firstly it's shape of course and secondly the fact they they are dunked in Lye (Lauge) before baking which is what gives it the deep brown colour. Lye is a diluted solution of Sodium Hydroxide (Soda - NaOH). The way the shape is formed is important as this imparts the tension and stretch to the dough required for most yeast doughs. That's why it's called slinging pretzels (Brezelschlingen). This is how pretzels are professionally "slung". It takes some practice but can be learnt and is great fun! (when you get them right)

Now to the story.

Once upon a time there was a baker called Frieder. He and his wife baked delicious bread for the entire town. There were few other bakers as good as Frieder. He even delivered his bread to the royal palace. The King was very happy with the bread that Frieder provided for him and his townsmen.

As Frieder got richer, he also got greedier. He began mixing his flour with cheap lime and making his loaves too small. When the king came to know of this, he called Frieder to the court and sentenced him to be hanged. Until the decided day he would be locked up in a cell. During his time in the cell the townspeople had trouble getting bread and even the royal palace faced delays in getting their supply. 

The King not wanting to lose his only good baker decided to give Frieder a chance. He summoned Frieder on the evening before the planned hanging and said: "You may go free under one condition. You bake a bread so delicious that I have never ever tasted, before the third crow of the rooster tomorrow and through which the sun may shine thrice". 

With this task the King let Frieder go home for the night. Frieder went home and made the dough for the bread without knowing how he would proceed. All he could picture in his head was the noose that would go around his neck the next day. His hands formed the dough just like the rope of the noose. His plump wife stood by patiently in the door of the kitchen with arms crossed. Arms that would not embrace him anymore once he was dead. He formed similar crossed arms with the dough with the plump middle. And behold! The sun can actually shine thrice through this bread! Happy with the chance of going free, Frieder and his wife danced about in joy. Alas! They tipped the tray and the shaped dough fell into the bucket of lye meant for cleaning the oven. They hurriedly took the dough out of the lye and replaced them on the tray. There was no time to make more and the bread was baked as such. It tasted like nothing the King had had before. Frieder was free to go!

The below batch was our second pretzel breakfast. The first one was far from perfect. Recipe on request and orders in batches of 12 are welcome :)

Beetroot cake

Eeeew... beetroot in cake? The ugly cousin of carrot somehow didn't make it big in the cake world. Both are vegetables, both are roots, both are more or less neutral tasting and have no strong flavours of their own and take up added flavours well. Why then did only carrot cake make it to the chalk boards of many a café? Somethings are just unfair. Let this recipe change your initial exclamation.


As opposed to plain flour cakes which are more spongy, vegetable and fruit cakes are generally a little crumbly due to the water content in the fruits and vegetables. They pair well with ice cream as a dessert and also are more suitable for drizzling a glaze on them rather than layering and frosting. This cake is no exception. I have not done any glaze on this one. But I will include it in the recipe should you want to try it.

This recipe yields a loaf of 8"x 4.5". You will need


3/4 cup finely grated Beetroot
2 Eggs
1/3 cup unsalted Butter
2 tbsp Olive oil
1/2 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Milk/pouring Cream/plain Yogurt.
1/2  Vanilla pod or 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract or essence
1 cup White cake Flour (maida)
1 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Salt


Leave the butter out in the bowl you plan to mix your batter in while you grate the beetroot and measure out other ingredients. Scrape out the vanilla pod if using. Grease and flour the cake pan.


In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking powder and keep aside. Pour the olive oil over the butter and cream the butter with a whisk (or electric mixer) until fluffy. Add the sugar and vanilla and whisk again until thoroughly combined. Add the eggs one at a time mixing between each addition. Add the flour mixture and the milk alternately in three additions starting and ending with the flour. Your cake batter minus the beetroot is now ready.


A note on the beetroot at this point is in place. You have a choice to make here. You can add the grated beetroot as such or saute it in a little butter before adding it. Sauteing the beetroot beforehand will remove excess water from it and hence improve the texture of the cake. I however didn't bother with this, as I am not much for cooking the beetroot twice; once while sauteing and then again in the oven, which would make it nutritionally null and void. I'd rather have a little crumblier cake than eat beetroot just for its colour. So if you have guests and want to make a better presentation, by all means saute the beetroot in a bit of butter until any oozed juices have evaporated. If sauteing, do it right in the beginning and let it cool down before adding it to the batter else the beetroot will cook the eggs as you add.


So, stir in the beetroot with a rubber spatula, not an electric whisk; the whisk will catch the beetroot shreds and fling around cake batter creating beetroot graffiti in your kitchen! Mix it gently, you can leave a bit of white batter marbled here and there. Pour into the cake pan. Smooth the top and pop into an oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius. Baking time will be more for raw beetroot than for sauted. Bake for about 25 to 40 mins depending on your oven. A toothpick inserted in the middle that comes out clean indicates that the cake is done. Run a knife around the edges and invert cake pan to remove the cake.


If glazing, a lemon glaze works well. Take about three to four tablespoons of icing sugar and add the juice of one lemon to make a paste. Add water as necessary to get a thick syrupy pouring consistence. Drizzle over the warm cake. Cool the cake on a wire rack before slicing.

Lemon ginger cream sauce

Two weeks preceding Christmas of 2011 I was in Stuttgart, Germany on work and made a friend. Elvira Ruhnke-Hauptvogel was one of the few colleagues with whom I laughed a lot and also got a dinner invitation from. Picking up on my inquisitiveness about the food she made and served, she aptly gave me this parting Christmas gift.

This post is hence dedicated to her and though I am not as much in touch with her as I promised to be, I would like to tell you Elvira that the books you gave me are on the top of my pile of cookbooks and very soon I even plan to attempt Spätzle!
This books is about 50 sauces and the kind of pasta (Nudeln = German for Pasta) they go with well. I had Thai rice sticks and was rummaging for a suitable sauce for the same. I zeroed down on this recipe to which I have made significant modifications by including more spices, vegetable and seeds.

It is a typical fusion dish with Asian spices and yet a very European slant due to the cream base. It pairs well with flat rice noodles (Thai rice sticks) as well as with regular wheat pasta. As you might notice even the book files this recipe under "euro-asiatisch". It is a cold dish; it is served at room temperature. The concept of distinguishing a warm meal from a cold one is also typically German and it is considered healthy to eat at least one warm meal a day. A cold pasta dish is not necessarily a pasta salad and neither is this one. It calls for only minimal cooking of the ingredients- just browning the onions and cooking the noodles.

For this dish (for two) your pantry should include...

Ingredients

-Flat Rice Noodles or Pasta (if using pasta a similar flat pasta like fettuccine would work well)
-About 20-25 fresh Basil leaves
-A stalk of Lemongrass
-1" piece of Ginger
-1 Lemon
-3-4 dry Red chillies (you can go up to 6 if you like it really spicy)
-3-4 cloves of Garlic
-1 Onion
-1 Green Pepper
-1 Tbsp Black Sesame seeds
-150-200 ml Fresh Cream
-1 Tbsp Honey
- Salt

Boil a liter of water in a large pot. Place the red chillies (stem removed), the garlic cloves (peel only the outer wispy skin, leave the tight snug skin on) and some salt in a mortar (I use rock salt in the mortar as it helps grinding the spices) and add one tablespoon of the boiling water to it. Peel the ginger and chop into fine pieces and add to the mortar as well and keep aside.

Thinly slice the onions. In a skillet, heat about a teaspoon of any oil and add the onions to it. Spread the slices. You have to get the onions brown, so lower the flame to the lowest and start also thinly slicing the green pepper while keeping an eye on the onions, stirring when needed. When the onions are nearly brown, add in the sesame seeds and toss around till they crackle or show some form of acknowledgement of the heat and turn the flame off. Take out the onions and sesame and add the green pepper slices to the skillet and let them get just very slightly done in the residual heat. I like green peppers just slightly done, even raw is fine.

Remove the outer leaves of the lemongrass and chop the stalk as fine as you can. Even the basil has to be cut very finely. A good idea to finely cut basil is to stack up 3-4 leaves at a time, roll them like you would a cigarette and cut finely using a pair of kitchen scissors. Add the basil and the lemongrass to a mixing bowl. Zest the lemon and squeeze the juice. Both go into the mixing bowl as well.

By now your boiled water would have cooled down a bit, add the rice sticks and keep covered. Rice sticks don't need a flame to cook in. Just immersing them in hot water (not even boiling water) will cook them. But again this depends on the variety and quality of the noodles. I have described what worked for these Thai rice sticks. Follow the instructions on the pack for cooking the noodles.

Back to the spices. Now the chillies in the mortar would have softened. Crush and pound with a pestle to make a fiery red paste. You are now nearly done; it is now mixing time. The red paste and the onions- sesame mixture go into the mixing bowl. Add in the cream and honey and mix well. This is what allows you to add so many spices and yet not burn through while eating. Your sauce is now ready. Add the green peppers and drained noodles to the sauce. Toss well and voilà!