Fusilli in Roast Pepper and Garlic Sauce

Truly a bowl of delicious health !!

I am not really a big fan of bell peppers but I just could not resist trying out roast pepper sauce in my pasta this time. I loved the result. Without more blabbering I'll just get on to the recipe.

I need to warn you that this is not the authentic roast pepper sauce. Its just my take on the recipe.


The recipe serves 2 people

INGREDIENTS

Fusilli pasta - 4 cups
Bell Peppers - 2 (any color) (diced)
Onion - 2 large (half diced and half julienned)
Tomato - 2 large (half diced and half finely chopped)
Garlic - 10 - 15 cloves (finely chopped)
Coriander leaves - few sprigs (finely chopped)
Potato - 1 large (optional - You can add any veggies of your choice or skip) (chopped)
Chilli Flakes - 1 tbsp (use as per taste)
Oregano - 1 tbsp
Mozzarella or parmesan cheese (grated)
Salt to taste
Olive oil to cook (You can use any oil of your choice though)
Water to boil

METHOD

Boil pasta as per instructions on the packet. Strain the pasta and keep aside.
Tip: I add a tbsp of salt and a tbsp of oil whenever I boil pasta.
Tip: You can run the strained pasta under cold water to stop further cooking. This will also stop the pasta from sticking to each other.

For the sauce.

1. Take a pan. Add a tbsp of olive oil. Add the finely chopped garlic and the diced peppers. Roast them for a few minutes.
2. Add the onions and roast until color changes.
3. Finally add the tomatoes and roast until all veggies are well roasted. Keep aside to cool. Grind into a slightly coarse paste. Add a little water to the pan and scrape all the caramelised stuff from the pan and use that for grinding. You can grind into a fine paste also.

Tip: You can make the sauce in larger quantities and store in the fridge or freezer. Lasts longer in the freezer.

Tip: I have read on the internet that sauce can be stored in the ice cube tray so that its easier to thaw and use later. Measurement would be easier.

For the pasta.

1. Use the same pan. Add a tbsp of olive oil. Add the julienned onions and fry until they lose color.
2. Add the veggies and cook until they soften a bit. Let them stay a bit crisp.
   Tip: Add the slow cooking veggies first and add the quick cooking veggies last.
3. Add the tomatoes at the end and add salt for taste.
   Tip: Always try to add salt with the tomatoes. It aids tomatoes to cook faster and softens them quicker.
4. Once the tomatoes are cooked, add the sauce and cook for 8 - 10 mins. Add some more salt as required. Add a little water if you feel that the sauce is too thick.
5. Add the strained pasta and mix well.
6. Sprinkle the oregano and chilli flakes and the finely chopped coriander leaves. Mix lightly.

No cheese topping on this bowl

Serve with grated cheese on top. ENJOY !!

GoLi Baje (Mangalore Bajji)

See these yummy looking fritters ? Ever had these ? These are called GoLi Baje. GoLi means round like a marble and Baje means fritters. These fritters are a speciality of Mangalore. Hence they are also called Mangalore Bajji.

My mom makes a very good version of these. Although I like my version better. I add a little more refined wheat flour than her and this makes them softer and fluffier. Lets move on to the recipe now.


INGREDIENTS

Refined Wheat Flour (Maida) - 2 tbsp
Gram Flour (Chickpea flour / Besan) - 1/2 tbsp
Sugar - 1 tsp
Curd - to mix
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Ginger (grated / paste) - 1 tsp

Green chillies (finely chopped) - 2 to 3
Salt to taste
Little water to mix

Oil to cook

METHOD

Mix sugar and curd and keep aside. Let the sugar melt and mix well. Mix the other dry ingredients together along with ginger and green chillies. Add the curd and sugar mixture and mix well with a whisk / fork. I prefer to mix with a fork as it breaks any lumps that get formed. Add some water if needed. The dough should reach the consistency of milk cream.

  

Heat oil in a deep fryer pan. To test the heat in the oil, add a drop of the batter to it. If the batter rises immediately, then the oil is just right. Drop a spoonful of batter into the oil. It should fluff into a ball shaped fritter. Add several spoonfuls at various places in the oil. They will all fluff a bit. So keep enough distance between them. When they are golden brown all over, remove them from the oil and keep them in a slotted vessel to drain out excess oil.

  

Enjoy with a cup of hot hot tea on a rainy rainy day !! YUM !!!

Homemade corn, paneer and two cheese lasagna

 INGREDIENTS

For the sauce:

8 - 10 large tomatoes - diced
8 - 10 garlic cloves
1 large onion - diced
Salt to taste
8 - 10 Green olives (optional)
Pepper as per taste (can add green chillies also)
Butter - 3 tbsp

To make sauce:

Add the butter to a pan. When the butter melts, add the diced onion and crushed garlic. Fry until brown. Add chopped tomatoes, and salt. Add pepper and green chillies too. Cook until tomatoes are well cooked. Add the olives and switch off the stove. No need to cook the olives too much if you are adding them. After this mixture has cooled down, grind into a fine paste - you can coarse grind it if you like to feel the texture on the veggies added.

For the lasagna:

Pasta sauce (recipe above)
Sweet corn - 3 cups
Paneer - 3 cups
Cheddar cheese - 200 gm (can add more if needed) - grated
Mozarella cheese - 200 gm (can add more if needed) - grated
Oven Ready Lasagna strips (can use the normal strips also, just cook them prior to making the lasagna as per instructions on the box) - 8 - 10 strips (bigger dishes might need more strips)

Take a large baking dish. Apply some butter to the bottom and sides - to avoid the lasagna from sticking and also helps the lower layers to cook well.

Pre-heat the oven to the lowest setting - mine is 200°C. Since all the ingredients are cooked, there is no need to cook much on high heat.

Pour a thin layer of sauce. Place 2 lasagna strips next to each other. My dish holds 2 strips - you can place more if your dish is bigger.
Make layers of the given ingredients as below:
- Spread corn and paneer
- Pour and spread sauce
- Spread some cheese
- Place lasagna strips on top
Repear this until the dish is 3/4 covered.

On the topmost layer, after placing the lasagna strips, spread the rest of the corn, paneer and sauce until empty. Spread the rest of the cheese generously. This forms a cheesy layer on top when baked.

Place the dish in the oven. PLEASE USE OVEN MITTS for safety. Oven will be super hot even at the lowest setting. Bake for 15 mins or until the cheese on top melts and forms a yummylicious looking layer as in pic.

Switch off the oven and leave the dish in there for another 2 - 3 mins for the layer to set. DO NOT remove immediately after switching off, because if the cheese is bubbling, it might spring out on your hands and burn you.

Tukdi (Shankarpule - Namakpare) from leftover maida dough

Ever had tukdi or namakpare... awesome melt-in-the-mouth experience !! I love this snack and I buy and eat it every time I go to Mangalore. BTW, ever had some leftover maida dough when you finished making obbattu / holige / puran polis ? Wondering whats the link... There is but only one connection :) I just prepared some tukdi from the leftover poli maida dough and they turned out amazing !! I just loved them and the kids just couldn't have enough.

Palak Paneer

A simple, but beautiful dish in terms of flavor. Quite rich in taste and creamy in texture... almost melts in your mouth :)


Wonderful side dish to have with either rotis or chapatis... goes well with rice too :)


Enough with the riddled sentences ?? Yes, the dish is palak paneer, made with pureed cooked spinach and cubed indian cottage cheese.

Jeera-Pepper Tambuli (jeer-meerya tambuli)

Keep cool in this hot weather with this amazing dish.

I am suffering from cold and cough lately and the cold is the kind that you get from excessively hot and humid weather. Also, I was alone this weekend and in need of some serious pampering - so I thought I will cook myself some good food and get rid of my cold :P

The best internal cooling for the body is either by a glass of buttermilk or this "sorta" cold soup. Its a famous Konkani dish. Its eaten raw (uncooked) and the ingredients are mostly healthy spices which help to keep your body cool and also aid in digestion. So theres your two reasons to try this dish out :)

Beans Upkari

Beans Upkari is a very simple dish, which gets ready in like 15 mins or so and is a very delicious dish (for people who love beans that is). It is prepared by tempering the green beans and cooking them just tender enough to leave them crunchy and then topping them off with grated coconut.

We konkani people are always accused of using a lot of coconut, but what can we do... our tongues have gotten used to that flavor and we just cannot get enff of it :) We LOVE coconut !! and use it in almost every dish that we make, either grind it for the masala gravy or top it off like garnish !! Beans upkari is my sister's favorite dish and she likes it with potatoes added.

Beans SagLe

SagLe in konkani means "whole" as in we add larger pieces of veggies to this dish than we do in other dishes. I guess we are supposed to add the veggies as a whole, but I guess over time it has evolved into using larger pieces - keeping in mind the amount of time it would actually take to cook the whole veggies.

Whenever I make this dish, my friends in the US relish it a lot. This dish can be prepared with a variety of vegetables: eggplant, beans, okra are some of the commonly used ones. This dish has a strong coconutty flavor, but it is not that of raw coconuts and is also masked a bit by the spices used in the dish. So, if you are the kind who does not like coconut-based dishes, you should still try it once.. you might just end up liking it.

Badnekayi Palya

Just love this karnataka style dish, for its simplicity and mouth-watering flavors. I hate capsicum (green peppers) in almost everything else, except for this dish. I just love the twist it gives to this dish and how it enhances the flavors.

Whenever I prepare this dish, I feel like eating Akki rotti along with it - the kind they make by pre-cooking the rice flour and rolling it out into chapathis. I absolutely love the combination - you should try it sometime :D

Simple DaaLithoy (Konkani style daal)

I am absolutely positive that most of the Konkani people know how to prepare this. But I just wanted to put up the recipe for non-konkani people just to say its the simplest kind of daal ever. You dont have to cut onions or tomatoes or even garlic and it still tastes yummy (not to generalize but well, atleast all konkani people are in love with it).

This daal can be made into either thick consistency or thin consistency and I used to love the thicker version of it and my sister used to love the thinner version of it. As usual, like I have mentioned so many times, me and my sister are like this (X): total opposites !! Anyways, we still used to enjoy the dish so much and even now I eat it like plain lentil soup. Just cannot get enough of it - EVER !!

Medu Vada

Medu Vada, meaning soft vadas, are a very famous snack / breakfast item in South India. They are generally served as a side item with Idlis / Dosas with either chutney or sambar. Generally people eat a single medu vada with a heavy breakfast and still crave for more :)

Medu vadas are soft inside and crispy on the outside when they are hot. They are super yummy and you cannot just have one :) Here is my recipe for medu vadas. I used to hate idlis back in India. So if we went to a hotel for breakfast, everyone used to order idlis with one vada each and I would get 2 vadas and skip the idlis altogether :P I just love medu vadas.

Bellam Gaarelu !!

Heres for all of you a popular Deepavali dish from South India, mainly from Andhra Pradesh state. Its called Bellam Gaarelu - literally meaning jaggery vadas. They are made by soaking and grinding urdh daal, making vadas from them and soaking them in jaggery syrup to get mouth-watering bellam gaarelu.

The recipe is from a close friend of mine who hails from Andhra Pradesh, and traditionally for Deepavali, his mom makes these mouth-watering gaarelu every year.

Making Ghee

Most people I know today do not know how ghee is made from butter. It is a very simple process where large amounts of butter is heated continuously until a clear liquid is obtained and the solids separate out from it.

The process of making ghee takes me back to my childhood days when the aroma of fresh ghee used to fill the house every Friday morning. My mom used to make fresh ghee for the diyas (oil lamps) on Fridays. She used to light ghee lamps on every Friday. She never used the old batch of ghee because it was already used by us for cooking / eating.