Pea-n-Feta Cheese Puff

When trying a new recipe, you know you've hit the jackpot when the picky eater reaches for seconds and the husband asks if the next batch is going into the oven soon..  This does not happen too often chez moi... but sometimes it does.. and when it does.. I do my happy dance... then reach out for the laptop to share the excitement with you.

Aloo-r Nimki from Maa's kitchen

This past week I was at home, chatting with Baba, Maa, shopping in Gariahat and eating food that evoked memories from my childhood.

You know there was a time when I hated anything that was deep-fried. My favorite meal used to be "sheddho -baat," steamed rice and boiled vegetables with a generous helping of butter and that I could eat even for breakfast. Back then, before leaving for parties, Maa would always remind me, "Ja deoya hobe khabe" that is 'try what ever is served,' and me being the sweet obedient girl that I was, would begrudgingly try the samosas, pakoras and puris which the kakimas would prepare with care and diligence... until one fine day I began to like what I was eating and was doomed for life... :)

Palak Pakoda (Spinach Fritters) guest post by husband

It does not snow in India,  it rains... and in some states the rainy season is simply crazy. It just does not stop. It keeping pouring for days together until one fine day the sky clears and the sun decides to show up again. Indians are used to it . Unless the rains came down just when they put their heaviest bedspreads out to dry or their locality got flooded away by the continuous showers, they are cool with it. In fact they enjoy it and take it all with a plate of pakoda and a cup of chai....... Pakoda , chai and a good chat with the girlfriends is just about everything that an Indian lass needs to perk her up on lousy, lazy rainy day. 

Here, sitting in our New York apartment, I often get nostalgic for such days.. Here, an impromptu chat session with your girlfriends is unthinkable. Everyone and everything is so formal. Even to visit a friend, you have to make plans atleast a day in advance. A gloomy snowy day is not an excuse good enough to knock at the neighbors door and say hello.. 

On such dreary days when I loathe the relocation, my husband sometimes helps me get out of the blues by putting on my favorite music while he fries some pakodas to go with the chai.. They do not clear the sky or set me singing.. but they definitely help me get back to my life here with husband and our son in our little apartment in New York.

Spinach Pakoda

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Recipe by Nishi (my husband)

Prep time: 15 minutes                                                                  Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes                                                                  Yield: serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• ½ tsp cumin seeds
• ½ tsp dhana-jeera powder
• ¾ cup chickpea flour
• salt to taste
• ⅔ cup water
• 2 green chillies finely chopped(optional)
• 2 packed cups green spinach
• vegetable oil for deep frying
• garlic salt

Cooking Directions

1. Mix the first five ingredients to make a smooth batter.
2. Add the spinach and chopped chillies to the batter, mix well and keep aside till you are ready to fry.
3. When ready to fry, pour oil in a frying pan so that it is 1½ deep. Heat the oil to 325 ° F and drop handfuls of the batter-spinach mixture into the oil.
4. Fry the spinach fritters until the batter looks golden brown, about 4-5 minutes, turning once or twice in between.
5. Remove from the hot oil and transfer the fritters into a plate spread with paper towels.
6. Once the excess oil has completely drained away sprinkle some garlic salt on top and serve with tea.

I shall be sharing these fritters in all these food parties.

Vegetable Croquettes

I wouldn't really call my toddler a fussy eater..but there are times when hot dog and pizzas are the only things he opens his mouth to... such phases though short-lived get me worried and that is when I consult my most trusted recipe book First Meals by Annabel Karmel. I had bought the book at the local library sale and till date consider it as my best buy from the library. It has a wonderful collection of quick and easy kid-friendly meals and at the end of a clean plate, courtesy First Meals,  I always wonder why had I not thought of the recipe earlier. 

Anyway, these vegetable croquettes were born during one such fussy phase of my little toddlers life. The original recipe had carrots, sweet corn and broccoli, which I traded for spinach and greens peas The result was delicious. Both daddy and son approved of it and recently even the toddlers aunt certified it as a simple and tasty snack.

Eggless Crispy Cheesy Donuts

This month I joined Gayathri's Eggless Baking Group. Well its no secret that I love baking. I bake a lot and every now and then I like my cakes and bakes to be eggless . While I had been hesitating on whether or not to join another baking group, their last months challenge convinced me that to join the group. They had baked eggless Tiramisu. Now that is something I would like to try but I wonder if I would try to bake it unless I was challenged to do so. so yes. I left a message at Gayathri's Cook Spot and soon enough she added me to the group and mailed me the challenge for May... Eggless Crispy Creamy Donuts. The original recipe that Jayanthi of Sizzling Veggies suggested from All Recipes   included eggs and we were challenged to bake rather fry an eggless version of it.

Though every once in a while we love to pick up donuts from our neighbourhood Dunkin Donuts, to be honest I wasn't very excited about trying these at home. The reason. I hate to deep fry. not just because it isn't the healthiest option but because I cannot fry. getting the correct oil temperature always seems like a tricky business and you know everything goes wrong if the temperature is not correct. the fried stuff is either undone or soaking with too much oil. and no one is happy. anyway since it was the challenge for the month I gave it a try. the first batch of donuts and their little star shaped kins came out fine. but i wasn't very happy with the second and third batch. so though 1 made 13 normal sized donuts and several little star shaped ones, it is only the mini star donuts and 6 of the 13 donuts that I am proud of... its however a different question if I'll ever make them again. probably not. but i do intend to try out the baked version .

Beer-Battered Asparagus Pakoda

If you follow Chef Giada De Laurentiis... then you have probably seen or tried her Beer battered Asparagus recipe. enticed simply by the idea of using beer in the batter i had pinned the recipe few days back... and last Saturday i probably would have given her version a try if  LIPA, our electricity provider , would have been merciful enough. but as things did not quite turn out that way... i decided to cook by own recipe of Beer-Battered Asparagus Pakodas. ... and surprised myself with the subtle -complexity of  taste that i had created. 

the pakodas were spicy with a hint of sweet-bitterness rendered by the beer... the presence and proportion of garlic and mustard was just right...  and the flavors in the batter seemed to marry so well with the freshness of the asparagus. 

I had never tasted asparagus before coming to US... but driven by my passion to cook with the local products, i started trying out various recipes soon after we moved...  and continued my experiments with it till i realized that Nishi and I liked it best... when marinated in ginger-garlic paste and then cooked with onion, cumin-coriander blend and a paste of wasabi-greek yogurt-and-mustard sauce... so the choice of spices in the batter was not completely random... i knew they would work for asparagus... and for the beer i trusted Chef Giada's expertise and my husband's recommendation of which beer to use .. so that was that... a brief history of how the savory Beer-battered Asparagus Pakodas were born.

 ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus 

1/4 cup besan(chickpea flour)

1 tablespoon cornflour

2 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste

1 teaspoon onion powder

2 teaspoon dhana jeera powder(also known as Cumin and Coriander blend)

1 teaspoon red chili powder

1 tablespoon mustard sauce(I used Kasundi)

pinch of asafoetida

salt to taste

Dundee Porter Beer 

Oil to deep fry (I used mustard oil)

what i did:

I started by snapping off and discarding the white-hard ends of each asparagus and then cutting them into two halves.

Next I made a batter using all the ingredients from besan to salt, using Porter Beer instead to water. I added the beer a little at a time to get a thick yet smooth batter.(I might have used 1/8 cup of beer. but i wasn't measuring. so i cannot say the exact amount I needed.) The batter was thick enough to be able to 

hold together the spear end and the stem end of the asparagus. 

I then poured mustard oil in a medium sized saucepan to reach a depth of 1 1/2 inches and heated it over medium heat. To check if the oil was ready, I put one drop of the batter in the oil. Once the batter came up without changing color right away I knew that I could start frying my pakodas.

For the Pakodas, I coated the asparagus with the beer batter in batches and dropped them into the oil and fried them until the batter was golden brown. Then transferred the asparagus pakodas to a paper towel to drain of the extra oil.

notes:

On demand, I fried some zucchini and eggplant slices in the same batter the next day... only i substituted the Porter Beer for Dundee Pale Ale this time.  in comparison the taste fell a little flat this time. i am not sure if the batter does not work with zucchini and eggplant or if the substitution of Porter made the difference. Nishi, our house-authority on beer says its the substitution... but right now i can't confirm. for after two consecutive days of fries i was not in the ready for the test-ride..

If you stop by and decide to take the test-ride do fill me with your comments and notes.. I'll love to hear from you and improvise. 

Happy Frying !!

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Cheesy Pinwheel Puffs

Oh ! Its past midnight. I had a good mind to stop by before twelve and wish you all Happy 26th ! Hope your day was good. Mine was much better than yesterday. The  prescribed medicines and spoons full of honey did a good job and though it might take some time before Pradyot can be declared fit... he was much better today....  and since i was a little relaxed i decided to venture a bit into the kitchen..

Back in fall I had seen an episode of Giada at Home where the chef had baked these Cheesy Pastry Puffs. The recipe had seemed fairly simple. So I had pinned it for posterity,  till I recently chanced upon it again. This time driven by our love for everything Greek, I decided to try it out with a Mediterranean twist. And guess what.. with the richness of their colors and mix of the flavors these gorgeous Cheesy Pinwheel Puffs became an instant hit..  I must admit that though very flavorful, the copious amounts of cheese make them a little heavy and sinful.. However they are so tasty that no one stop at one :)

ingredients

for the puffs.

3/4 cups ground oat flour (I ground them in the coffee grinder), plus extra for dusting

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, chilled

1 cup shredded Sharp Cheddar

2 cloves of grated garlic

4 1/2 tablespoon pureed spinach, chilled (I microwaved some frozen spinach and pureed it)

for the filling. I tried few combinations.

store bought pizza sauce + mozzarella

feta cheese

feta cheese + homemade avocado hummus 

homemade avocado hummus sprinkled with copious amounts of dried coriander.

for the avocado hummus

2 cups of boiled chickpeas
2 avocados
8 green olives
2 cloves of garlic, mashed
2 tablespoon of dried coriander
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

what i did.

For the avocado hummus, I combined all the ingredients in the blender and pulsed at regular intervals till the mixture became smooth. (the mentioned quantities yield  around 26 oz of the hummus. once refrigerated, they can be used over a month.)

For the puffs.  I placed an oven rack in the center of the oven;  preheated the oven to 375 degrees F; lined two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Next combined the oat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl and mixed them till the mixture formed a coarse meal. Then added the grated garlic, cheese and chilled spinach puree, one tablespoon at a time till the mixture formed a smooth pale greenish ball.

Then on a lightly floured plastic wrap,  rolled out the dough and divided it into 4 equal rectangles, each about 1/4-inch thick. Spread the store bought pizza sauce + mozzarella on one, feta cheese on the second, avocado hummus + feta on the third and avocado hummus and copious amounts of dried coriander on the fourth rectangle. Starting with the long side, I then rolled up the dough, jelly-roll fashion, wrapped them in plastic wraps and set them to freeze for 30 minutes.

Next unwrapped the dough one at a time, carefully cut out slices from each of them, about 1/4 inch thick and arranged them 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets.  Then baked them until they were puffed and light green in color, about 18-20 minutes. Finally I let them cool for about 10 minutes before taking the first bite.

Nishi and I both agreed that we liked the pinwheels with the avocado hummus  and feta cheese filling the most. but that might just be our love for feta, hummus and everything Greek.  the others were just as delicious. so do try them and let me know which one was your favorite... I'll love to hear.