Masala Chai

Last one for today. There is nothing like a great cup of Masala Chai - especially if it's raining.

For 2 cups Chai, you'll need:
~2 - 3 spoons of loose tea powder. Don't you dare use tea bags. Or cut open tea bags - that's just wrong.

~1 C water

~1 C milk

~2 green cardamoms, cracked so they're open, but the seeds aren't falling out

~4 small pieces of cinnamon bark

~2 - 3 whole cloves

~5 spoons sugar

Small metal pot

Fine sieve for straining


To Make:
Boil water, cloves, cardamoms, and cinnamon on stove in pot. When water is boiling, add tea powder. When water boils again, add milk. Heat until milk is hot but not boiling and tea is dark tan in color. Feel free to adjust time for how strong you like your tea - longer cooking=stronger tea. Add sugar to pot and stir well.

Strain tea through sieve into cups and serve hot. Enjoy!

Eggplant Curry

More Cooking Sharing.

Eggplant Curry

You’ll need:

~1 kg (2.2 lbs) small eggplants that look like this:

In India, this is all we find, but you may have to hunt a little in the US. I’ve never used the huge ones. They should be shiny, smooth, and not have holes. If you live in India, stick those suckers in some salt water for about 15 minutes and make sure you check for black spots inside when you cut them - that be bugs.

~About 3 Tbsp channa dal, that look like this:

This is NOT the same as channa (chickpea) beans, nor the fried Channa dal that people use for chutney. If anyone knows what this is called in the US, let me know. You can find them in an Indian grocery.

~About 2 Tbps Urad Dal that looks like this:

Urad dal is a white lentil. You can also find these in an Indian grocery.

~3 red onions, peeled, and chopped to small pieces

~3 green chiles (either Thai bird chiles, or jalapenos) you can change this as per how much you want it spicy, like this:

They should be cut in half lengthwise. Yummy!

~Handful of green curry leaves, 2 – 3 stems, looks like this:

They’re called Curry Patta here and have a strong peppery smell.

~1 tsp salt

~ One large pressure cooker

~One wooden/metal spoon for smooshing the eggplant after it cooks.

~Oil – any cooking oil is fine, but I prefer Olive or Sunflower.

~1 tsp turmeric powder

~Chopped Cilantro for garnish

To Make:

Heat oil in pressure cooker until hot, but not smoking. Fry Channa dal and Urad dal in the pressure for 1 minute. Turn heat to medium. Add onions, chilis, and curry leaves. You’ll probably need an air vent/fan at this point, but hang in there. It’s not so strong when it’s done.

Fry onions, chilis, and leaves until onions are browned thoroughly but not burnt, stirring occasionally. Cut eggplants into small chunks, removing any stems/leaves (insert pot joke here), adding to pan as you cut. They turn brown if you leave them out. Add 1 tsp salt and stir a little. Remember, you can always add more, but too much will screw up a dish big time. Place cover and weight on pressure cooker and turn heat to high. When your cooker starts whistling (or screaming, like mine does), turn heat to low and cook for 15 minutes.

When done, turn heat off. Either very carefully (with a silicone mitt if you have one) let off the steam from the cooker, let it sit and cool on its own for 10 minutes or until pressure is gone, or run it under cold water for a minute or two until pressure is gone. Carefully open lid (there will still be some steam) and set aside. Using wooden or metal stirring spoon, stir well, being careful not to splash on yourself, mashing eggplant chunks against side of pan. Stir in turmeric and cilantro. Taste for salt and add as needed.

Serve with flat bread or rice.

Enjoy

Making Yogurt

Hey There. Lately, I’ve been getting my cook on. A lot. Thought I would share some fun knowledge for those looking to experiment.

Home Made Yogurt (or Heaven for those South Indians who are addicted to yogurt rice, like me)

You’ll need:

~1 qt milk (or however much yogurt you want)

~At least 1 spoon yogurt with active cultures. I like Danone best in India. I’ve heard Whole Foods has a good one in the US. You’ll have to look it up. Active cultures is the key word here. I always put 2 – 3 large spoonfuls, but I’ve been told this isn’t necessary. This is referred to as Starter.

~1 large glass/metal/plastic container that can hold the milk and has a tight fitting lid.

~1 large pot – milk expands as it cooks

~A fine sieve for straining the milk

To Make:

Bring milk to a steady boil, watching constantly. No kidding – milk that boils over is a huge mess and it happens in the 2.6 seconds that you turn your eyes to see something else. Before it comes close to boiling over the edge of the pot (and it doesn’t matter how big the pot is, the milk WILL boil out), turn heat down to low and stir with a wooden/plastic spoon until it has stopped expanding. Leave milk to simmer for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, turn heat off and leave for 15 minutes to cool. Milk should still be hot to the touch after 15 minutes, but not hot enough to burn you. Adjust sitting time accordingly. Place starter yogurt in the bowl and pour milk into bowl through sieve, stopping as needed to pick out any clumps from the sieve. Do not stir, do not put your fingers in there. Cover completely and firmly. Cover with a towel and set in a corner overnight, or for 8 hours where it won’t be disturbed at all. Seriously, don’t pull off the lid and peak, or stick your finger in there and check out the texture. After the time is done, you can take off the lid and check. It will look wobbly (homemade always is) and watery. Stick your finger in and check if you must, but unless the milk was WAY too hot or not hot at ALL, it will be fine. Stir a little with a spoon to mix together water and creamy part and recover. Store in the fridge.

Homemade yogurt lasts for quite a while, but keep an eye on it. If it starts turning different colors (pink, green, etc), it’s time to toss it and make a new batch. If you like it, make sure you cook a new batch before you run out! Do not use starter from a batch that was not good or spoiled.

Enjoy!

Becky

The Wonderful World of Byriani

Listening to: You Belong with Me – Taylor Swift

Mood: Wired, thanks to some extra strong coffee today

My name is Becky, and I’m a foodie. Not in the pretentious New York Hipster way, but someone who truly loves food and the creation of it. No seriously. I love me some food. 

Since I started dating Daddy G almost 13 years ago (my marriage anniversary is in April – fun useless fact), I have been having an extended love affair with everything and anything spicy. My married-into folks (the inlaws) are from Andhra Pradesh India. For those geographically challenged, that is smack dab in the lower center of the country. Now Andhra – ites (not the technical term at all, but I like it anyhow) love themselves some spicy food. Being an honorary Andhra-ite, I have completely lost count of how many taste buds I have voluntarily sacrificed in the name of spicy yummy-ness. Yes, that is the technical foodie term. Yummy-ness.  Anywho, no one does byriani like Hyderabad does byriani.  Guess where my married-into folks are from? You got it. Hyderabad.  It is one of my favorite foods of all time. For those who are Indian food challenged, byriani consists of basmati rice (the nice yummy smelling one), meat (or not, if you're a veg head, then it's vegetables) and a metric ton of spices.

The magical thing about byriani is that I’ve never encountered a really bad one. I’ve had uninspiring “meh” ones, but never bad. The ones that are amazing (the ones that come from the tiny, dirty, you’ll-get-typhoid-there-son are the best way to die, but what a way to go!!!) are enough to make me consider giving my first born for. I didn’t say I’d actually do it, but damn, it’s worth the consideration.  The only thing I can think of that would really ruin a byriani is if they try to Americanize it and lose the spiciness. This would be an abomination. Byriani should be spicy. It has to be. It’s like a law of food physics (not the technical term – but I totally claim this term) or something. 

My favorite is goat or lamb. Something about the gamey, spicy meaty goodness that makes me insanely happy.

 (Hear that? That's my taste buds Sqee-ing.)

Next comes chicken, which I’m going to skip a picture of because it looks just like the one above.

After that comes Vegetable byriani. Now I have some serious concerns about whether vegetable byriani should actually be classified as byriani. This is because meat is a flavor here that belongs in the dish. It’s essential. 

 More Squee-ing.

My maid cooks for us 2 – 3 times a week. As I mentioned in a previous post about her, she is also an Andhra-ite. The woman knows how to cook some Andhra food and I love her for it. A few weeks back, she made some vegetable byriani for us. It was gone in 2 days and I have to fight the urge everyday to beg her to make it every day. It’s that amazing.  

I don’t eat much rice. I’ve been trying to cut back in order to lose some weight. (Yes, I needed to. I’ve lost 35 lbs so far, and am far from done). Having the amazing yummy-ness around the house is making it challenging to say the least. With any other curry or vegetable fry, I am totally cool with eating whole grains (Cracked wheat and brown rice the only ones I can actually find in India. I miss Quinoa! And Barley! And Bulger! And we’re done here.) in place of rice. Some people (ahem husband) have what I call a “rice gene”. This gene makes them crave white rice in a crazy way and become unwilling to substitute anything with the connotation of being “healthy” and or “Wholesome” for those beloved empty white carbs. I don’t have this gene. I love whole grains.  Unfortunately, you cannot just make byriani with whole grains. Or anything else for that matter. White basmati rice is the only acceptable carbohydrate in byriani. If you try a substitute, it is not technically byriani. In fact, you may spontaneously combust for your presumptuousness. Seriously. Just wrong. 

One of the best byriani’s I can recall came from a Pakistani restaurant on Chicago’s Devon Street – the Indian destination for everyone up to 3 states away.  The place was Gareeb Nawaz. It has the most amazing, balls out spicy, tasty byriani. It’s best to take it to go (unless you like dirty, loud, crazy cafeteria situations – more power to you!) because it’s not a fancy place. You better make sure they give you yogurt too – you’re gonna need it. If you are anywhere near Chicago and love spicy - you simply have to try it. It's really not even optional. 

I can’t even begin to rhapsodize about India’s byriani restaurants. There’s nothing quite like the real deal.

Sigh.

Becky

Another Lamentable Loss

Listening to: Fat Bottom Girls – Queen (hells yeah!)

Mood: Mildly annoyed and fading (the annoyance, not me)

So another thing I really, really miss about the US is the milk. It comes so nice and clean and pasteurized. If you want skim milk, you buy that. No skin to be found unless you boil it.

Let me describe the milk situation here for you. It took me a good 2 weeks to even figure out how to get milk delivered. Even then, it came about rather as accident. I happened to stumble upon the milkman in the basement. He sold me a book of tickets. The idea is, you place however many tickets out that you want in the night in some container. Now no one told me this, so I put ALL the tickets out in the bowl, figuring that he would take some and leave some milk. The next day, I complained to my husband about the milk man not coming. He had a good laugh, and then scolded me – it was really lucky someone didn’t come along and just take all of our milk tickets. Sigh.  So next night I put out a few tickets. Each is good for 1 liter of milk. Voila, the milk was there in the morning.

Now, the milk here hasn’t been cleaned in any way, shape, or form. There are quite a few stories in our family of liver problems from not properly boiling milk. I’m not sure if I believe them or not, by I sure don’t want liver trouble….so the milk must be boiled. 15 minutes covers it and you have to watch it or it boils up out of the pot and covers your stove, most likely making your housecleaner roll her eyes because you let it happen again. Not that I would know… Ahem.  Anywho. We have the option of getting skim, or “diet” milk. I have asked for this as I have been drinking skim milk since I was little and love it. I have yet to once get skim milk. They just toss in toned (whole) milk and call it a day. I hate, hate, hate whole milk. I hate seeing the fat float on top, and yes, that is not at all an exaggeration. So the milk goes in the pot. As anyone who has ever cooked milk knows, the minute it boils (which is non-optional here), it gets a gross skin on top of it. WE filter it through a fine sieve, but you never really get it all out. I have theories that it sits and makes skin at night in the fridge, but that’s just my imagination. I think. Then there's the taste of fat in your mouth that comes with skim milk. Ugh.

Oh to grab a liter from the store….

Becky