Spaghetti Marinara with Chickpea Sweet Potato Balls

These Chickpea and Sweet Potato Balls were actually meant to go into sandwiches as burgers. But the first time round I didn't freeze them enough and made a huge burger out of them which threatened to disintegrate all the time I was trying to fry it. It had to be topped off with melted cheese and sauce to make it stay together. So I decided to fix it with a binding agent- mashed rice and top it off with bread crumbs. The Marinara sauce was an experiment I made earlier this week. This was my first attempt at a homemade pasta sauce. The only other time is when I tried to create my own mushrooms in white sauce dish in the first month that I started cooking. Anyone with the least experience in cooking can tell you that a homemade pasta sauce is definitely not level 1 cooking. So you can imagine that the only reason that mock alfredo sauce tasted good was because of all the cream I put in.

Marinara Sauce is one of those 3-4 ingredient recipes which are a quick fix and a much healthier option to store bought sauces. I flicked this recipe out of the New York Times cooking section and modified it. One piece of warning however is that Indian Tomatoes do not work as well as you want them to in this recipe because they are much more sour than their international counterparts. A good idea maybe to replace them with cherry tomatoes or attempt a re-calibration of the taste with a little sugar or ketchup.  The chickpea and sweet potato balls are my own concoction based on some taste memories of aloo tikkis.

Also spaghetti marinara is not a very traditional combination. The marinara sauce freezes well and can be typically used over pizzas and possibly smaller pastas. In fact after I made this sauce, I tasted it for the first time over fusilli pasta. But bolognese is something I cannot make, so I guess this was my way of making Spaghetti Bolognese with meatballs.

On my Kitchen counter:

Spaghetti

For the marinara sauce:

3 medium sized tomatoes

4-5 garlic cloves

Olive oil- 3 tbsp

Salt

Oregano

Chilli Flakes

Mixed seasoning (Italian)-optional

Ketchup- 2 tsp or Sugar 2 tsp

For the sweet potato balls:

2 sweet potato tubers

Handful of chickpeas

Chaat masala

Salt

Red chilly powder

Garam masala powder

Breadcrumbs

Cooked rice

Vegetable oil to shallow fry

Boil the chickpeas and sweet potatoes each for 13-15 minutes until soft and well done.

Mash together and add salt, add the chaat masala, red chilly powder and garam masala powder.

Add the cooked rice and bring together to a moulding consistency. 

Roll it in breadcrumbs and shallow fry over medium heat in vegetable oil.

Keep turning them so they cook evenly.

Can freeze left overs as burger raw material or as pre-made patties/bullets.

Spaghetti must be placed in a pot of boiling salted water with a few drops of oil.

Cook for 10-12 minutes. 

Drain and shock with cold water.

Mash together the tomatoes with a little water. Keep them slightly whole to ensure a good texture.

Chop up the garlic cloves.

In a pan, heat up the olive oil.

Saute the garlic cloves until they turn slightly brown.

Add the tomatoes and the juice.

Also add the oregano,salt, chilli flakes and the mixed seasoning now.

If you are going to add sugar, do that as well now. But I lean towards the sweetness of ketchup.

Let the water evaporate and the sauce start to thicken.

When the oil and the sauce start to turn red, add the ketchup.

Keep stirring to prevent burning and the sauce will continue to thicken.

Once the sauce comes together and the tomatoes are cooked through and turned a bright red, take off the heat.

Once cooled, the leftover sauce can be placed in the freezer for future use.

Mysorepak- Not bad for a Sweet Novice

 

When you don't feel like doing anything and are bored of your work, it is best to distract yourself with something that you do not typically do. I do some of my best creative work when I am irritated and at the end of my tether. It is worrying and good at the same time- worrying because it makes me concerned about my  mental make up and good because I at least know how I can shake myself out of a funk quickly and without annoying too many people around me.

So yesterday was one of those days, where everything seemed tasteless and boring. With Diwali around the corner, I decided that the best way to cheer myself up was with some sweet making. This is only the third time ever that I have attempted making any sort of sweet. My first trial was kaju katli with ground cashew paste, it was an unqualified disaster with half cooked cashew paste and oodles of ghee, resembling some sort of halwa. It was a lesson well learnt though and I tried again with powdered cashew, I ended up with very good looking katlis though I chose to slice them super thin (Almost like cracker thin).

Mysorepak was on the cards yesterday owing to readily available ingredients. I made a very small quantity as I only wanted to cheer myself up not worsen my mood with all the slaving over the hot stove. But it came out surprisingly well, causing even a sweet skeptic like me to go back for more.

What you need on your kitchen counter:

Makes 10-12 pieces

1. Besan (Gram) Flour- 1/4 cup

2. Ghee- 1/2 cup

3. Sugar- 1/2 cup

How to make mysorepak ( Takes a lot less effort than you think, especially if you choose to be lazy like me and make very very little):

1. Line a tray/plate with foil. I used a pie tin for this. We will use this to pour and set the mixture.

2. In a heavy bottomed pan, place the sugar and just enough water to submerge the sugar. Place on low heat and allow to come to a steady boil.

3. On the side, start melting the half cup of ghee. Once melted place on low heat, so you can ladle the hot ghee into your mysorepak.

4. Sift the besan flour to avoid lumps and fry it for a couple of minutes with a couple of tsp of ghee.

5. Once the sugar has dissolved and starts to thicken into syrup, test the syrup between your fingers. You should wait for the syrup to form a string between your fingers (an unbroken string- this is the single strand consistency).

6. Once the sugar syrup reaches this consistency, add the besan flour to the syrup, stirring continuously and breaking up any lumps that might occur.

7. After the besan is completely dissolved in the syrup, start ladling in the ghee little by little, continuously stirring the ghee into the mixture. All this must be done at a low flame and do not stop stirring at any point.

8. Finally once the ghee has all been added, the mixture will start to come away from the sides of the pan, it will still be soft but will start to sort of bubble and have air pockets within.

9. Take it off the heat and pour into the prepared pan.

10. Allow it to cool for a couple of minutes and then slice into it with smooth strokes to avoid breaking up the pieces.

It was therapeutic to write this down considering I am trying to sound like a Mysorepak Maven, the very first time I made it. :P

Try to keep and consume until Diwali, else you could always make another batch if you decide to give in to temptation.