Couch Traveling

I started out like most children as a couch traveler. Since I was 3 or 4 years old, I pored over fairy tales in big print, thinking about all those imaginary lands and the mysterious ways and means to reach them. When I graduated to Enid Blytons, " The Faraway Tree Series" and the " Adventure Series" were my first picks and I was sad there was so few of them. I loathed the Secret Seven because all they did was stay at home and have not so secret meetings. Well to each his own, but not my cup of tea.

 I have for as long as I remember been fascinated by the travel columns in the Sunday newspaper. All summer the television at home was and still is when I have a holiday tuned to the Travel and Living Channel, which used be the awesomer Discovery Travel. I loved every show on it and watched all of them religiously storing them up in my brain for future use.

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Lost and Found- Part 1

Meet Don, 30 years old. He's about 5 feet 6 inches tall, short compared to the rest of his clan. If you were kind, u would call him broad shouldered. If you weren't, you would approximate a rectangle.

He likes taking walks in the summer sun just as much as in the pleasant rains. So you would find him nicely bronzed off on a good day and badly sun burnt on others. The first thing everyone noticed about his hair was never the color. You just saw that there seemed to be too much of it on that little head of his. But for purposes of your imagination it was coffee grounds brown. If you met his eyes, which you inevitably did, because he always did talk that way, was a softer ice tea brown.

Before he starts sounding like one of those stock photos on the internet or a safe date on an internet dating website, let's see what Don was getting upto now. He was sitting on the edge of his seat on the 10:30 subway going downtown. "Ping!" went his phone. He scrolled through it absentmindedly.

"Not another of these reports!" he thought to himself," I should never have subscribed to this alert service." Though it wasn't really much of a choice anyway. His job as a hot shot financial expert demanded this at a minimum. He had never borne the brunt of a bubble bursting around him, but it would be good to be in the loop when it did. 

So, now that he was 30, in fact that very day was his birthday, Don was thinking very deeply about nothing in particular. Especially not what he was going to do next. He wasn't much of a philosopher, but he hadn't gotten away unscathed from the kind of situations he had been in. Introspection was dangerous, so he tried not to indulge.

He tried to look fascinated again as he caught sight of the skyline. Another day, another dollar!

Mushroom Kurma and Ghee Rice

My mom is very suspicious of Mushrooms. She does not like buying them, but I pain her so much that she gives in and gets me for them anyway. She does not cleaning or cutting them. She just about likes eating them. So if there are mushrooms in the house, I am the nominated cook, cleaner, chief bottle washer.

I love ghee rice and mushroom kurma because the acidity and sourness of the kurma sets off the bland base of the ghee rice. However, the coconut in both of these dishes can make it quite a heavy dish. A siesta becomes inevitable once you have this combo for lunch.

Mushroom Kurma-

Ingredients: 

Onion-1

Tomato-1

Ginger Garlic Paste- 1 1/2 tsp

Oil- 4-5 tsp

Salt

Chilli Powder- 2 tsp

Garam Masala-1/2 tsp

Jeera Powder- 1/2 tsp

Coriander Powder-1/2 tsp

Turmeric- a pinch

Coconut milk- 50 ml

Lemon juice-2 tsp

Seasoning-

Bay Leaf

Saunf

Cinnamon

Method:

1. Dice/ grate onion and tomato to fine pieces

2. Take a kadai/wok and pour oil into it

3. After the oil heats up, add onions and fry till golden

4. Add ginger garlic paste to the mixture and fry till raw smell goes away

5. Add tomatoes and saute till soft

6. Add all the masala powders except salt and cook until the moisture is removed

7. Add finely chopped mushrooms and cook for 5 min

8. Add salt to the mixture and cook for 5 more minutes

9. After the mushroom wilts, add coconut milk. 

10. Dilute with water if necessary and bring to the boil.

11. Remove from flame and add seasoning and lemon juice and mix well

Ghee Rice

Ingredients

Basmati Rice- 1 cup

Coconut milk-1 cup

Water-1-1 1/2 cup depending on rice quality

Ghee- 2 tsp

Seasoning:

Bayleaf

Cardamom

Cinnamon

Clove

Saunf

Green Chilli-2 slit lengthwise

Method:

1. Wash the basmati rice well and place in pressure cooker. 

2. Add coconut milk and water.

3. Add ghee to the mixture and mix well.

4. After the first whistle from the cooker, reduce flame and allow to cook for 7-8 minutes.

5. Remove from flame and add seasoning sauted in 1 tsp of ghee. Mix well before serving.

Peas Parantha

One of the first dishes that I created and experimented on my own with, did not learn from my mom and actually managed to add to her repertoire. She has of course improved on it and perfected it. It was pretty cool because I figured the recipe mostly by taste. I had it at some restaurant that I can't even recollect now and wanted to make it at home badly enough to figure out what went into it.

It was also the parantha on which I perfected the art of making nice, neatly rounded ones, I still can't make round rotis. I noticed the way all the parantha shop guys made paranthas like modaks and picking off the extra doughy bits to make a evenly filled parantha. I can safely say I have mastered the art of repeatedly rolling out beautiful paranthas.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup peas

Jeera powder- 1 tsp

Coriander powder- 1 tsp

2-3 green chillies

Salt to taste

Fresh coriander leaves

Ginger- small piece

2-3 pods garlic

Chapathi dough

Method:

1. Chop green chillies into fine pieces

2. Boil peas for 4-5 minutes on a pan with water, until soft.

3. Drain the water and place peas in mixer grinder jar along with green chillies.

4. Add all masalas and grind to a paste like consistency.

5. Add finely chopped fresh coriander leaves and garlic and ginger.

6. Make balls out of chapathi dough, make a hollow space with your fingers and place stuffing. Close the round and roll out into a parantha.

7. Place on pre heated tava, add oil on sides and surface and cook till brown. Repeat  on the other side.