Mushroom Mattar

I am not so fond of mushrooms- When I tried my hand at this north Indian recipe, I have started enjoying Mushrooms and this one is real simple and tastes great with rice or naan! 

                               Mushroom and peas cooked in a gravy-

Ingredients- Sliced mushrooms (about half a kilo), 1 cup frozen peas (thawed and ready to use)

For the Gravy- 3 onions finely chopped, 1 tomato finely chopped, cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, bay leaves, pinch/dash of cardomom powder for flavor, crushed garlic 2 big pieces, a little bit of chopped ginger, garam masala, curry masala powder, corriander powder, chopped green chillies (about 2) and corriander leaves for garnishing-

First step is the Gravy- In a wok, add liberal dose of oil. Once the oil is hot,  add cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, one bay leaf, green chillies, crushed garlic and ginger. Allow the oil to absorb the garlic and ginger. Add the chopped onions and fry it till the onions lose their raw taste and becomes translucent. Put in the tomato and fry it till it mixes thoroughly with onion and forms a paste. Now comes the masala- add a spoon of garam masala, corriander powder, curry masala powder and allow the contents to cook into a thick paste.

Add salt according to taste. Now pour in two glasses of water to make it to a thick pouring consistency liquid gravy. Toss in the chopped mushrooms and peas to this gravy and allow it to boil till the ingredients blend well. Towards the end, add a dollop of butter and chopped corriander to enhance the taste!

Vibrant Vermicelli

With the football fever around you hardly feel like cooking at home- We land up ordering pizzas before the game. Absolutely sick and tired of eating pizzas, I decided to do some fast cooking- I remembered having a packet of vermicelli (rice noodles or fedelini) and decided to toss it up with some vegetables in fridge- Took me half an hour to prepare and simply vanished within seconds when served :)

Ingredients- Grab all the vegetables that you can find in your fridge- Peas, carrot, beans, Cauliflower, broccoli... cut them and keep it aside. Empty the packet of vermicelli on a hot frying pan and dry roast it till it is light brown. In a wok, heat some oil. When the oil is hot - toss in cumin seeds, peanuts (optional), cashew nuts, green chillies or red dried chillies and fry it till golden brown. Now toss in the vegetables and give a good swirl. Add salt according to taste. Once the vegetables are tender, pour in two cups of water (for two cups of vermicelli) and allow it to boil. When the water is boiling add the roasted vermicelli and allow it to cook with the vegetables. When the vermicelli is cooked and water has completely dried up add in some butter or oil and give it a good toss. This will stop the noodles from sticking to each other and give an enhanced taste. Before serving, add in chopped corriander leaves and enjoy your football game! Tastes great with hot chilli sauce-

spicy powder....

        

I love the spicy powder with my Idli/dosa- For those who wonder what exactly is this powder, here are the full details- Spicy powder or gun powder (nick name) is a powder made of lentils and dried red chillies- Mix it with oil and it can be used as a sauce with south Indian dishes like dosa and idli. I tend to add this powder when making vegetable stir fry as it adds special flavor with appropriate spice! All you need is two kind of lentils- Channa dal (also called as split chick peas without seed coat) and white urad dal (white lentils). We need one cup each of the above lentils dry roasted till golden brown. Now comes the spice- dry red chillies. I use 5 big ones- If you need the powder to be really spicy add more and vice versa for less spice. Dry roast these red chillies and set aside. In addition to the above ingredients, dry roast 50 to 70 grams of sesame seeds. Grind all the dry roasted items to a fine powder and viola you have the spicy powder! Check out my spicy idli's- This powder sure adds a special spicy kick :) - 


Check out this version from one of the blogs I follow- http://eq-myblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/molaga-podi-or-red-chilli-powder-is.html