Palak paneer paratha

Ingredients:
2 cups of spinach
2 cups paneer
...

Dabeli

Dabeli is a pune special road side dish. It can be called as wada-pav's sister :P As opposed to hot and spicy wada pav, dabeli is sweet and sour because of the tamarind and jaggery. Its a very chatpata and filling snack.

Ingredients (serves 2)
2 big or three small boiled potatoes
1 chopped onion
1 green chilly (optional)
1/2 cup salted peanuts
some oil, mustard seeds and jeera seeds
1 teaspoon jeera powder
1 teaspoon dhaniya powder
1 tablespoon dabeli masala (you cannot make dabeli without this masala)
1 spoon tamarind
1 spoon jaggery
1/2 cup pomegranate (optional)
1/2 cup thin sev
medium sized paav/bun as per required

Directions

Stuffing: Mash potatoes and keep aside. Put some oil in a pan and after it heats, put mustard seeds and jeera. After they splatter put half spoon turmeric powder. Then put chopped onions and fry them till they become transparent and reddish in color. put some chopped green chillies (optional). Now add the mashed potatoes to this and mix them well. Add dabeli masala, red chilly powder, dhaniya powder and some jeera powder. Add salt to taste. Then add some jaggery and tamarind paste to this mixture. mix everything well and let it cook well.

Dabeli: split the paav into two. Apply some tamarind chutney from inside. Put the stuffing evenly and then put some peanuts, sev, onion, coriander, pomegranate seeds on top and close it with the other side of paav. You can roast this on pan for some time with butter to make it crisp and more tasty (and if you are not very calorie conscious :))

Dabeli is ready! it should look something like the photo given below

Sweet and Sour Daal

Sweet and sour daal known as aamti in marathi (ambat in marathi means sour) is a typical maharashtrian daal having jaggery, tamarind and kaala/goda masala as the key ingredients. This daal is liked by every single person for whom I made it :). Some people cannot imagine the usual maharashtrian trend of sugar/jaggery in their everyday food. I challenge that those people will love this daal :P The kaala/goda masala mentioned here is a mom-made masala which I have not seen in stores. So the only way to get it is through a marathi friend. I bring it to US in bulk on popular demand :)

Ingredients
1 cup toor daal (before cooking)
half chopped onion
half chopped tomato (opt)
1-2 green chillies
3-4 curry leaves
1 tablespoon kaala masala
turmeric, mustard seeds, jeera seeds, salt, oil
1 tablespoon jaggery (can vary according to your liking)
3/4th tablespoon tamarind
Coriander for garnishing

Method
Cook daal with enough water in a pressure cooker. Three whistles should be sufficient. Mash the cooked daal so that its even. In a separate vessel, add some oil. When it heats up, give tadka i.e. add mustard seeds and jeera seeds. After they crack, add turmeric, green chillies and curry leaves. Then fry the onion till golden color. Add tomato. Once its cooked, add daal. Now add the tamarind, jaggery, black masala, salt and some water in any order. Let it boil for sometime. Add water if you like it thin. Taste it and add jaggery, tamarind, salt or masala if u think anything is less. Garnish with coriander.

Goes well with rice or roti. Since this daal is sweetish, make a spicy sabji as a side dish. Hot white rice, aamti and some ghee on top is AWESOME. try it! :)

Pattal Bhaji

Pattal Bhaji is a traditional maharashtrian recipe which is made on festivals and in weddings. Again like many other marathi dishes, this is sweet and sour. but you can make another version of it with garlic and red chillies which is spicy and more varhadi style.

Ingredients:
spinach - 1 cup cut
chana daal - half cup (can be replaced by mung daal too)
some peanuts, cut dry coconut, curry leaves, green chillies
chana daal flour - 1 tablespoon
tamarind, jaggery and salt to taste
for tadka - oil, asophoetida, mustard seeds, chilly powder

Recipe:
put spinach, chana daal, peanuts, dry coconut, curry leaves, half green chilly in pressure cooker. add some water to it and cook until 2 whistles. remove lid after pressure is gone. you can use the same cooker to make the bhaji. mix this cooked mixture well with spoon or whisk. add 1 tablespoon besan to this and some water if it has become dry. cook it for some time. add salt, jaggery and tamarind extract now.
on the side, make tadka: take some oil, add mustard seeds to it when it heats up. lower the heat and add hinga, turmeric and chilly powder to it.
when daal seems done (raw besan taste should be gone), add the tadka on top of the daal and mix gently. taste to see if the sweet and sour taste is balanced or not. adjust as needed and the bhaji/daal is ready.
enjoy it with roti or rice and plain toor daal with some ghee on top

spicy version of this: dont add jaggery and tamarind while the bhaji is cooking. in the tadka, add some red chillies instead of chilly powder and add 1-2 cloves of garlic. rest of the recipe is same. 

Spaghetti

Pasta can be made in n number of ways the reason being the number of variables involved. Different combination of pasta type, sauce and the veggies/meat used can give you different flavored pastas. I am describing just one of those ways here. This is a noodle pasta (Spaghetti) with marinara sauce and many veggies. The proportions of ingredients doesn't matter much if you are not making the proper authentic pasta (which is quite bland and not liked by Indians usually :P). So feel free to tweak the proportions given in this recipe. The pasta I make is quick since I use ready-made pasta sauce..makes life much easier! :)

Ingredients
1 small packet of pasta noodles (Use wheat pasta if you dont prefer maida)
1 cup red pasta sauce (choose any of the pasta sauces you get in the grocery store or even a combination of multiple sauces)
1 tspoon minced garlic
shredded parmesan cheese according to liking
2 tbspoons olive oil
red/white wine (opt)
1 or more of these veggies - onions, red pepper, green pepper, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes (cherry tomatoes taste better in pasta), basil

Method
Boil the pasta for 10-12 min in a large vessel so that the noodles completely immerse in the water. Add some salt to this water while boiling. After 10-12 minutes, try to break the pasta and see if it easily breaks or taste it to check if its cooked well. If yes, take it out and put it in a strainer so that extra water drains out. Pour cold water on this pasta so that the noodles dont stick to each other and form a lump.

In a separate flattish non-stick pan, add the olive oil. Add garlic and let it cook. Then add all the veggies one by one and saute them. Close the lid for 2 minutes so that they cook with the steam. Then add the pasta sauce and some wine. Let the pasta sauce cook. Once its cooked, add the noodles and mix well. Again close the lid for 2 min. Add some salt and pepper if you like. Add cheese in the end. serve hot.

Goes well with italian salad, bread sticks, garlic bread, soup.

Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancakes) made in Desi style

Ingredients
3/4 th cup besan (gram flour)
3/4 th cup pancake mix
1 cup red cabbage
1/4th cup spring onions
pinch of baking soda
2 eggs
salt, pepper, chilly powder, turmeric, dhania jeera powder (opt) according to taste
water, oil (use olive oil if you want to make it healthy)

Method
To make the batter, add gram flour, pancake mix, salt, spices, baking soda to water and make a paste like you make for bhajia batter. Keep it aside for 10 minutes.
Cut the veggies into small thin pieces and add to the batter. Heat the pan and add some oil to it. just before putting batter on the pan, add eggs to it. Put the batter on the pan like you will do for uttapam or pancake. Use a non-stick pan so that the pancake does not stick to it and comes out as a single piece :) Turn and cook the opposite side.

Alternate way to make this will be to make the pancake without veggies and egg and while its cooking on the pan, put the veggies and an egg. this way the veggies remain separate, it looks attractive and is healthier. In this case, dont turn the pancake, just cook it from one side. For the other side to cook, you can close the pan with a lid so that it cooks wit the steam.

The picture shows the first method

Preface

Cooking is a combination of Art and Science. I love both and hence it caught my attention a few years back. I used to watch my mom make these amazing dishes and wonder if I could be as good as her some day in life. Though there are several areas in cooking that are still unexplored by me, I think I am ready to write a blog in order to share my experiences and enthusiasm in preparing new dishes or twisting the known recipes and trying something new.

I feel cooking should not be perceived as a burden in everyday life. Instead if you put your own creativity in making something as simple as white rice and as complicated as biryani, you will definitely find cooking refreshing and enjoyable.

I hope this blog inspires you to cook or at least makes you want to visit me in order to eat some different and interesting food ;) This blog is a compilation of all the different recipes I have tried. Its a combination of my own recipes and the ones that I have got from different sources.

So all you foodies, enjoy the blog!!! :)

- Shruti