Radish and Potatoes

This is my second post on radish. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of radish. So when I cook any radish recipe, I try to flavor it up with something other than the normal. I can’t remember the radish recipes which were cooked at home when I was a kid, but it was definitely not something I liked back then as well. I think it was mostly radish added to mixed vegetables or just normal radish curries (which were damn boring)! But I realized with the right spices and ingredients, radish is not that bad!

So I cooked this recipe few days ago on one of the weekdays. Weekdays are always tight in schedule, so I had to make something which was not so time-consuming. I had one radish in stock, so I decided to add in some potatoes to add volume to the dish.

Hope you enjoy cooking this the way I did 🙂

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: around 25 minutes

Serves: 3

Ingredients:

Cooking oil – 1.5 tbsp

Radish – 1 large, cut into cubes

Potatoes – 2 medium, sliced

Onion – 1 medium, sliced into rings

Cumin seeds – 1 to 2 tsp

Garlic – 4 cloves, crushed

Cumin powder – 2 tsp

Mint flakes – dried, 1 to 2 tsp

Dried Chili – 1

Paprika – 2 to 3 tsp

Tutti frutti – around 1 tbsp

Water – around 1/2 to 1 cup

Sugar – 1 tsp

Salt – as required

Step 1: Heat oil in a non-stick U-shaped vessel or pan. Add the dried chili and cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add the potatoes. Follow by adding the paprika and mix well. Cook for around 2 minutes by stirring intermittently.

Step 2: Add the onion and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.

Step 3: Follow by adding the cubed radish, garlic and cumin powder. Mix well for around 1 to 2 minutes. Now add half to one cup water and cover the pan. Cook under low flame for around 10 to 15 minutes. Uncover the pan and stir every once in a while. Add salt to taste.

Step 4: Once it is almost done, add the tutti frutti and sugar. Mix well and cook for another 2 minutes or so.

Step 5: Serve hot with Indian or any other freshly baked of your choice.

A few tips:

Add cream (1/4 to 1/2 cup as you desire) instead of water, if you want to give a thick and creamy texture to your dish.
Add some chili powder and ghee (clarified butter) if you want to spice up your dish and add extra flavor.
You can add raisins if you don’t have tutti frutti in stock.

To print this recipe click here: Radish and Potatoes

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Quick vegetable noodles

It’s such a pleasant day today….finally it has rained again!! I can smell the sweet and fresh fragrance of the rain….it’s so refreshing!! A cup of coffee and here I am writing this post after a long long time. Yes…. the past few weeks have been very busy with work and other stuff and I haven’t done much cooking either. A hectic phase I guess!

Today’s recipe is a dish I prepared few days ago for dinner. I wanted to keep the noodles simple and hence prepared it only with vegetables and egg tossed in the usual sauce. When you have stuff going on and not much time on hands, this is just the right dish as it doesn’t take much time and is quite alluring to the taste buds as well.

I’m sure you will enjoy cooking this dish as much as I did 🙂

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 to 12 minutes

Serves: 3

Ingredients:

Cooking oil – 3 tbsp

Noodles – 4 blocks (you can choose the noodles of your choice)

Kailan – 200 g, washed and cut as desired

Spring Onion – 300 g, chopped

Egg White of 2 eggs

Garlic – 4 tsp, finely chopped

Vegetable stock – 2 cups

Salt – to taste

For the sauce:

Mix all the ingredients below in a bowl.

Dark Soya Sauce – 1.5 to 2 tbsp

Rice Wine – 2 tsp

Sesame oil – 2 to 3 tsp

Chili sauce – 2 tbsp

Step 1: Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan. Add 2 tsp of the minced garlic and stir for 10 seconds. Add the kailan and mix well with the oil and garlic. Cook for 1 to 2 mins until the leaves are soft. Transfer to a dish and keep aside.

Step 2: Heat the rest of the oil in the pan. Add the minced garlic and spring onion. Mix well for around 30 seconds. Add the vegetable stock followed by adding the noodle blocks. Once the noodles are a little soft, add the sauce mixture. Cook for another 1 to 2 minutes until the noodles have absorbed only a part of the sauce mixture.

Step 3: Now add the egg whites. Mix well and check for salt. Transfer to a serving dish. Add the cooked kailan on top so that it covers the noodles.

Step 4: Serve hot as a standalone dish or with delectable sides of your choice.

To print this recipe click here: Quick vegetable noodles

Pickled Radish

I like getting creative in the kitchen when I have time on hands. I guess reading different cook books helps. I find them to be very good source of knowledge for different ingredients and style of cooking. So while in the kitchen, I like mixing up various ingredients I already have and creating a dish out of it or giving some twist to the already well-known recipes.

Since I’ve made it a point to include enough vegetables in my diet nowadays, I try to cook pure vegetarian recipes (without any chicken, meat, egg etc) as well. So the other day, I decided to get a little creative using the radish, spring onion and few other vegetables I had in stock. Pickles are one of my favorites and I like using them often. So I cooked this dish in Indian style mixing the ingredients with pickle. I decided to add some honey too later on. I wasn’t sure about the output, but the dish turned out to have a very nice sweet and spicy flavor. I guess that is the fun part of cooking. You can mix stuff which are not part of the usual and yet create a delicious recipe! 🙂

Hope you enjoy cooking this dish. If you have flavorful recipe of your own, please do share it. I would love to try it out as well 🙂

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: around 30 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Cooking oil – 2 tbsp

Radish – 2 large, chopped into small cubes

Spring Onion – 200 g, chopped

Potato – 3 small, cut into cubes

Green peas – around 1/4 cup

Cinnamon sticks – 1 to 2 small sticks (as desired)

Cardamom – 3

Cloves – 4 to 5

Turmeric powder – 2 tsp

Paprika – 1 tsp

Chili powder – 1 tsp

Coriander powder – 2 tsp

Cumin powder – 2 tsp

Indian pickle of your choice (I used chili pickle) – 2 tbsp

Honey – 3 tsp

Salt – to taste

Step 1: Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add the potato and turmeric. Cook for around 2 to 3 minutes.

Step 2: Add the cardamom, cloves and cinnamon sticks. Follow by adding the rest of the oil and the radish. Mix and cook for around 5 minutes.

Step 3: Add the spring onions and green peas. Add the rest of the spices (coriander powder, cumin powder, chili powder, paprika) and mix well. Let the mixture cook for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the radish is soft. Stir occasionally as required. You will notice that the radish releases a bit of water. So you would need to cook for a while until you get rid of the excess water, so that you have an almost dry consistency.

Step 4: When the radish is almost done, add the pickle and honey and mix well. Cook for another minute or so. Add salt as required.

Step 5: Serve hot with Indian bread or rice.

To print this recipe click here: Pickled Radish

Pumpkin served with Couscous

Hello there! How has your weekend been so far? As for me, it has been a fun weekend, spending time with my family and friends. But Sundays are the days for testing my culinary skills and I try to prepare something different and unique each time. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I’ve been trying to include vegetarian dishes in my diet and so here’s another one I prepared I was very satisfied with. It’s a very quick one and I prepared it with the ingredients I had at home 🙂

Pumpkin has been one of my favorite vegetables all along. However, most of the pumpkin dishes I’ve had and prepared till date were cooked in Indian style. This time I prepared it differently using red pepper, parsley and a few other spices. The dish turned out to be very colorful; the parsley and the red pepper imparted a very unique sweet fruity taste to the pumpkin…something entirely different from what I’ve had before.

Hope you enjoy preparing this dish and indulging in it too 🙂

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 3

Ingredients:

Olive oil – 1.5 tbsp

Pumpkin – 1 big, cut into cubes

Onion – 1 medium, sliced

Tomato – 1 medium, cut into small squares

Red pepper – 1 big, cut into small cubes

Red chili flakes – 1 tsp

Dried parsley – 2 tsp

Paprika – 3 tsp

Cumin powder – 1.5 tsp

Turkish spice mix – 1 tsp. You can prepare this at home as well by mixing black pepper, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon and cloves in a grinder into a powder.

Vegetable stock – 1 cup

Couscous – 1 cup

Salt – to taste

Step 1: Boil the couscous with salt according to the packet instructions. Keep aside.

Step 2: Heat oil in a pan. Add the onions and tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes.

Step 3: Add the cumin powder, spice mix, paprika and dried parsley. Mix well. Follow by adding the red pepper. Stir and mix well. Cook for around 3 minutes.

Step 4: Add the pumpkin cubes and mix well. After stirring occasionally for another 5 minutes, add the vegetable stock. Let it cook until the pumpkins are soft and you have the desired consistency. Make sure you stir every few minutes as required. Add salt for taste.

Step 5: Transfer to a serving dish. Serve hot with the couscous or freshly baked bread of your choice.

A few tips:

You can add some dried fruits to the dish as per your preference.
Add 2 tsp of clarified butter (ghee) to the dish while it’s hot to add some extra flavor.

To print this recipe click here: Pumpkin served with Couscous

Baked Cabbage Kofta and Eggplant in Tomato sauce

I’ve started making baked dishes since last year and I’m slowly growing an affinity towards it. You may ask why? Well for the obvious reasons… it is a healthier option as it requires less oil compared to cooking (for many recipes), saves time (I can keep the ingredients for baking and watch my tv show or do other chores) and gives the dish a very unique taste – be it fish, meat or vegetable 🙂

Talking about vegetables, let me tell you I have always been a chicken and meat lover. I can literally count days when there was no chicken or meat in my meals. Even on days I didn’t have company, I remember going to my favorite restaurants alone to enjoy the dishes I like the most 😀

However, with time I’ve realized that having vegetables is important for one’s diet and nowadays I try to balance it out by cooking vegetables as well at home! For this dish, I baked cabbage along with potato, corn and some sauces and herbs. I also had some eggplant in the fridge and so I cooked them separately with tomato sauce and a few other ingredients. After cooking for the last few years, I’ve realized that vegetarian food could also be very tasty if prepared with the right ingredients and in the right way 🙂

Have a great weekend and hope it’s accompanied with good food 🙂

Preparation Time: 30 minutes (all inclusive)

Cooking Time:

Baked Cabbage Kofta – 40 minutes (including baking time)

Eggplant in Tomato sauce – 15 minutes

Serves:

Baked Cabbage Kofta – Around 4 to 5

Eggplant in Tomato sauce – 2

Ingredients:

For the Baked Cabbage Kofta

Olive oil – 1/4 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons (for brushing)

Cabbage – 1 medium, chopped

Corn – 1/4 to 1/2 cup

Ginger and garlic paste – 2 to 3 teaspoons

Cumin powder – 1 teaspoon

Dried Parsley leaves – 1 teaspoon

Chili Lime powder – 1 teaspoon

Potato – 4 medium, boiled, skin peeled and mashed

Salsa – 1 tablespoon

Salt – to taste

For the Eggplant in Tomato Sauce:

Olive Oil – 1 tablespoon

Eggplant – 4 small, cut into discs

Tomato sauce or puree – 2 tablespoons

Sesame seeds – 2 teaspoons

Onion – 1 medium, sliced

Lemon juice – 2 teaspoons or as per preference

Coriander leaves – 1 tablespoon, chopped

Water – 1/2 cup

Salt – to taste

Baked cabbage:

Step 1: Heat olive oil in a pan. Add the ginger garlic paste followed by the chopped cabbage. Cook for around 3-4 minutes.

Step 2: Add the cumin powder, dried parsley leaves and chili lime powder. Follow by adding the corn, mashed potatoes and salsa. Add some salt for taste. Mix well and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a big bowl and let it cool for some time. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.

Step 3: Make small balls or squares (shape it as per your preference) from the above mixture. Brush each of them lightly with some olive oil. Place them on an oven tray covered with aluminium foil. Bake for around 20-30 minutes at 180-200 degrees C until you get a nice golden brown kofta.

Eggplant in Tomato Sauce:

Step 4: While the koftas are being baked, heat another tablespoon of olive oil in a pan. Add the onions and eggplant. Cook for 3 minutes or so until the it is soft and starts changing its color.

Step 5: Add the tomato sauce or puree and mix well for another minute. Add the sesame seeds and coriander leaves. Add 1/2 cup of water after few seconds. Cook for another 5 minutes or so until you have the desired consistency. Transfer to a serving bowl.

Check your koftas now. Once they are done, transfer to a serving dish.

Step 6: Serve both koftas and eggplant hot with fresh bread of your choice.

Coco-nutty Egg

Last few weeks I’ve been quite busy with work, going out with friends and doing other chores!! In the midst of all this I hadn’t cooked at home for almost ten days. Well… yea you can say I’ve been a bit lazy! 😀 But soon I realized that I was missing the ‘cooking at home’ part. Eating outside or ordering in almost every other day just wasn’t working for me or my family. And hence I’m back into my cooking schedule and am thoroughly enjoying it as usual. 🙂

The recipe I’m posting today is something quite quick and appetizing. I had lots of vegetables in the fridge and some eggs, didn’t really know what to do with it! I knew I had to prepare something but didn’t know what except that I had to boil the eggs (preferred it that way). I sat thinking for few minutes but unfortunately it was a Saturday and my brain didn’t seem to be doing it’s part. Without further delay I started looking around in the kitchen on what sauces, spices etc I had and the frozen coconut caught my eye. I don’t prefer to keep coconut for a long time (even though stored in the fridge), so why not use it in preparing this recipe? Yes my brain cells were finally activated 🙂

I used only the egg white in this dish and added few spices to make it more flavorful. The best part about this dish was the color. It was so colorful, had five colors in it! I’ve mentioned before as well…. the color of a dish is something which always excites me…. the more colorful the better!!! The dish had a slight coco-nutty taste (of course it would as I had added the coconut) but the spices and other ingredients gave it a unique mixed flavor.

Happy cooking! 🙂

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 23 minutes

Serves: 3

Ingredients:

Cooking oil – 1.5 tablespoons

Eggs – 5, boiled, cut horizontally into four halves, yolk discarded

Mushrooms – Around 10, cut into halves

Green beans – Around 20, cut into 1 inch long pieces

Carrots – 1 medium, sliced into 1 inch long pieces

Baby corn – 8 to 9, cut into discs

Coconut – grated, fresh or frozen, 1/4 to 1/2 cup (as desired)

Butter (low fat) – 2 teaspoons

Ginger garlic paste – 2 teaspoons

Red chili – 1, sliced in the middle

Paprika – 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder – 1 teaspoon

Fennel powder – 1.5 teaspoons

Chili powder – 1.5 teaspoons

Salt – to taste

Step 1: Heat oil in a wok or U-shaped pan. Add the butter followed by paprika, coriander powder and fennel powder. Stir for few seconds.

Step 2: Add the green beans, carrots and baby corn along with the ginger garlic paste and cook for around 10 to 15 minutes or until almost cooked, stirring well every few minutes.

Step 3: Add the mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes until it has softened and mixed well with rest of the ingredients. Follow by adding the grated coconut. Mix well.

Step 4: Add the egg whites and lightly mix with all the ingredients. Add salt for taste.

Step 5: Transfer to a serving dish. Serve hot immediately with bread of your choice.

A few tips:

I had run out of cream while preparing this dish. You can add whipped cream or coconut cream to the dish if you do not like it too dry.
If you do not like the eggs boiled, you can scramble them and add them to the dish too at Step 4.
If you’re a real spice lover, add more spices (which suits your palate) to the dish.

Vegetables in a Creamy Coconut Sauce

Cooking vegetables is always something which gets me thinking…. what should I cook it with? With meat it has always been very easy to think and implement. I have always been running away from cooking and eating vegetables, as I always prefer meat 😉

But after I prepared this dish, it actually didn’t seem so tough with vegetables either. I decided to use coconut cream and I was right! It was so easy to cook and it gave the perfect taste! The dish reflects the taste of the coastal Indian cuisine, as coconut cream is widely used for most of the dishes there.

If you’re looking for some quick Indian yummy vegetarian recipe, I would definitely say… Go for it! 🙂

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

Cooking Oil – 3 tablespoons

Potato – 4 medium, boiled, skinned and cut into small cubes

Cauliflower – 300 g, cut into small pieces

Spring Onion – 11 sticks, chopped into 1 cm long pieces

Tomato – 1 large, cut into quarters

Onion – 1 large, sliced

Ginger – Grated, 2 teaspoons

Green Chili – 3, chopped

Coconut Cream – 200 ml

Cumin – 1 teaspoon

Cumin powder – 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder – 1 teaspoon

Turmeric powder – 1 to 2 teaspoons

Chili powder – 1 teaspoon

Five spice powder (Garam Masala) – 1 teaspoon

Salt – to taste

Step 1: Heat oil in a wok or U shaped pan. Add cumin powder.

Step 2: Add the onion and turmeric powder and fry for around 3 to 4 minutes.

Step 3: Add the cauliflower and green chili and cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until the cauliflower is half cooked.

Step 4: Add the spring onions and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the boiled potatoes and tomatoes. Stir for 2 minutes.

Step 5: Add the coconut cream. Cook for 5 minutes or so until it has mixed well with all the vegetables. Add salt for taste.

Step 6: Add the five spice and give it a stir. Serve hot with rice or bread.

A few tips:

Feel free to add vegetables of your choice to this dish.
You can add a little tamarind sauce to give a tangy taste to the dish.
I used the light coconut cream for this dish. You can use the same as a healthier choice.

Kai Lan with Garlic and Sauces

Recently, few of my friends told me that I don’t have any vegetarian recipes on my blog. And it’s true 🙂 I haven’t posted any vegetarian recipes yet on my blog. I did suggest vegetarian alternatives for few of the recipes I’ve posted… not sure if that’s counted as vegetarian 😉

My first choice of vegetable was Kai Lan (Chinese broccoli) since it is easy to cook. It is widely used in Chinese and other South East Asian cuisines. I mixed some cauliflower with it and cooked it the usual way with garlic and sauces. Addition of cauliflower gave a nice combination of green and white color to the dish making it colorful and attractive.

I had fun cooking this one… hope you enjoy it too 🙂

Preparation Time: 25 to 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 to 15 minutes

Ingredients:

Cooking Oil – 2 tablespoons

Kai Lan – 300 g, the leaves separated from the stems

Cauliflower – 320 g, cut into small pieces

Ginger – 1.5 teaspoon, grated

Garlic – 3 to 4 cloves, chopped finely

Cornstarch/Cornflour – 2 to 3 teaspoons mixed with 3 tablespoons of water

Salt – to taste (as required)

For the sauce mixture:

Dark Soy Sauce – 1 tablespoon

Oyster Sauce (optional) – 1 tablespoon

Rice wine – 2 teaspoons

Sesame oil – 1 teaspoon

Cornstarch/Cornflour – 1 teaspoon

Sugar – 1 teaspoon

Water – 3 tablespoons

Mix all the ingredients of the sauce mixture together in a bowl and keep aside.

Step 1: Heat one tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add ginger and garlic and fry for around 30 seconds.

Step 2: Add the cauliflower and Kai Lan stems and add rest of the oil. Cook for around 2 to 3 minutes.

Step 3: Add the Kai Lan followed by the sauce mixture. Add the cornstarch/cornflour mixture and cook until the Kai Lan and the cauliflowers are soft but not mushy. Add salt as required.

Step 4: Serve hot with rice or noodles.

A few tips:

You can add vegetables like carrots and corn to the Kai Lan instead of cauliflower.
You can also add a teaspoon of chili sauce to the sauce mixture if you want to give it a spicy touch.