Thepla — spicy flat bread from Gujarat

June 24, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Breakfast, Flat breads, Gujarati food Tags: food, gujarati food, gujarati thepla, indian food, indian recipes, methi thepla, spicy thepla, vegan, vegetarian 2 Comments

One of my themes in food is simplicity. Not only because I’m lazy, but also because I like to have each ingredient be meaningful, and not be drowned in a cacophony of flavors.

Few recipes are purer and more basic than the roti recipe. Whole wheat flour mixed with water, kneaded, rolled out, and roasted. Just two ingredients, and yet there is an infinity of variations on that theme.

Add a few ingredients, and a whole new set of possibilities open up. I first tried theplas when I was nine, and a classmates mom made a whole stack to share at school. What I remember is the strong flavor of asafetida (the ‘fetid resin’, or, the ‘devil’s feces’), along with some heat. Just a few additions, and yet, this is an entirely different meal than the basic roti.

Step 1: The flour mixture for one serving.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur’s premium whole wheat), half to one teaspoon asafetida, half a teaspoon turmeric, half a teaspoon or more red chili powder, a fistful of dry methi if you can’t acquire the fresh one, one quarter cup plain yogurt (I prefer Nancy’s plain whole milk yogurt, if not homemade), salt to taste. Knead into a taut dough.

Step 2: Roll out.

Using sprinklings of all purpose flour as a non-stick device, roll them into five-inch rounds on the counter or wooden board. A ball of dough about two inches in diameter will produce a round that large. Try to get it as thin as you can.

Step 3: Roasting.

Get your griddle nice and hot on a medium-high flame. The roasting follows the standard pattern: first side, about 30 seconds, until the dough turns a shade darker and small air bubbles start to appear; flip it. Second side, another 30 seconds, until the air bubbles combine and form a few large ones; spread a few drops of oil on the thepla and flip it once again; 30 seconds more, spread another few drops of oil, and flip it once more for the last time. So we have had four flips, and each side has been cooked twice, once with and once without oil.

This series of pictures shows the progression.

Next (and yes, I got it a little extra burnt):

Stack up the prepared theplas on a platter. A good accompaniment is a sweet mango pickle; yogurt is a standard too.

Here is my Sunday morning meal: theplas, yogurt, and some sour mango pickle.

Seyal bread — the panzanella of Sindh

June 22, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Breakfast, Sindhi food Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, seyal doubleroti, seyal maani, seyal mani, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment

Bread usually goes stale before it starts to rot or mold. And therein lies a whole category of recipes.

When bread goes stale it becomes dry, leathery and unpalatable. Although it seems like the bread is losing water, apparently there is no net loss of water or intake of water from the outside air — it is just that some starch starts to crystallize, drawing water in from the surrounding bread substance. To some extent, this process can be reversed by warming the bread. This book — On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen — has a great explanation of the staling process.

Frugal housewives have always looked for ways to revive that unpalatable brick. Some methods take it all the way to dryness, like croutons and breadcrumbs. Others soak it in liquid. One famous example is panzanella, the Italian bread salad made out of stale bread chunks. Another from Sindh is seyal bread. This is a method of cooking bread with spicy liquid that is often eaten for breakfast.

To get started, cut your stale bread into chunks about and half an inch all around so you have an idea of how much substance you are trying to rescue. I love French bread in this recipe, or leftover rotis, but not enriched sliced breads that have some sugar in them — but that is a personal preference.

For the amount of bread shown above, I used:

half an onion, chopped but not too fine; 3 big cloves garlic, minced; one serrano chili, minced; and two medium tomatoes, chopped. For spices, about half a tablespoon of ground coriander, and half a teaspoon ground turmeric. Add some red chili powder to up the heat if you like. Some salt to taste. And for garnish, lots of fresh cilantro, chopped fine.

Heat about two tablespoons of oil in a thick-bottomed pan. Put in the onion, garlic and chili at once and stir. The idea is to not let the onions caramelize, because that sweetens them, and this recipe is all about the savory. In fact, that is a commonality in all seyal recipes (one can seyal fish, meat, etc.) — that the onion is cooked till translucent, but not browned.

This will happen quickly, in about 3 minutes on medium heat. Now put in the tomatoes. At first juicy, like this:

they will start to dry out in the heat (crush them with the back of your spoon to get them to release their juices sooner).

When most of the liquid is gone, put in your dry spices, the coriander and the turmeric and stir.

They just need to combine and roast a bit.

Now goes in about a cup and a half of water, and the whole mixture is brought to a boil. Let it roil for a few minutes, until it goes from looking like this:

To looking like this:

At this point, the cubed bread can go in. The mixture should now be salted, because one has an idea of the size of the meal.

Stir the bread into the liquid to get it to absorb, garnish it liberally with cilantro, and look like this:

Have the oven ready at 300 F. Cover the pot, make sure the liquid is simmering, and stick it in the oven to cook for 15 minutes. The last step can also be done on the burner with low heat, and in addition a heat reducer between the burner and the pan. Either way, you end up with a steaming pile of this:

Now, don’t be turned off by its rustic look. Rustic it is, and frugal, but it is delicious; and at least for me, brings back lazy Sunday morning breakfasts with hot tea along with seyal bread.

Red chili powder with heat control

June 16, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Basic methods, Spice powders Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, spices, vegan, vegetarian 2 Comments

What one wants in a red chili powder is for it to be chock-full of that savory, papery chili flavor, but only as hot as one can handle. How to achieve that? The answer is so obvious in retrospect that I almost feel bad about writing it down, but honestly, it has taken me this long to come up with it, so I think it is worth putting down.

There are all kinds of dry chilies available in the market. Some are sweet, some are moderately hot, and some scream. The trick is to combine them. Here is a rough proportion:

Here I have used 3 large aji amarillo chilies, which is a kind of not very hot Peruvian orange chili, dried; and I have used several of the dried cayennes, which are very hot. Ground up together, the larger ones will add a lot of flavor which harmonizes with the flavor and heat of their smaller cousins, to make a somewhat medium hot spice.

With chilies, by the way, a good rule of thumb is, the smaller the hotter.

Dry saute them in a hot pan for a few minutes, turning with tongs, until they are blackened. As they roast, they might make you cough, so turn up the hood if you have one, or else open windows. Turn off the gas when you have something that looks like this.

OK. Handling these packets of multi-pronged heat carefully, remove the stems, and if you want, the seeds and ribs. I shake them off, but I am by no means scrupulous about it.

They are roasted so they will break easily. Put them into a spice grinder (I use a coffee grinder I save only for spices) and grind until you have a fine powder.

A few tablespoons powder is what I got, and I believe it will last for about four to five uses. To save, put it into a small glass jar and for god’s sake, label and date it! You will love yourself later.

A way with greens

June 14, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Garden cuisine, Vegetables Tags: food, Recipes, vegan, vegetarian 1 Comment

How does one cook greens? There are many, many ways to make an insipid, gray mess, and an equal number of ways to undercook them so one is chomping on fibrous stems, peeling them out of one’s teeth. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have them nicely cooked, with a requisite amount seasoning, and maybe — dare one hope — a roasty flavor that you get when vegetables are delicately charred?

Yes, there is a way. The problem with throwing chopped up greens into a saute pan with oil is that they are usually so moist, that instead of being charred, they steam. Good in its way, but no comparison to that elusive charred flavor.

The secret of this recipe is that one dry-sautes the greens in a hot, flat pan, with no oil in it. Do that first, until the greens are bone-dry and starting to show brown spots on the stems at least. That is where the charred flavor is hiding. Once you see that, and smell the roasty aroma, put in your cooking fat, the salt, the spices, and there is no way to go wrong.

Step 1: Collect, wash, chop the greens.

An kind of medium-hearty greens would be ideal. What that I mean by that is, not collards — they probably take too long to cook. And not spinach or arugula, since they will turn to minimal slime in no time. That leaves the broad middle spectrum of kale, mustards, rapini, chard both red and white, and some older radicchios and endives if one enjoys a slight bitterness. I know I do. Nowadays some grocery stores (of the better kind) carry a braising mix, which is a smattering of greens too old to be salad. This way with greens is ideal for the braising mix.

Wash them nicely and chop into half-inch long strips.

Step 2: Dry-saute

Heat a wide, thick-bottomed pan on high heat. I use one of All-Clad’s saute pans, with a stainless steel interior. Calphalon will work but is not necessary, and do not use teflon. You don’t want non-stick, you want stick. The greens can go on the pan even before it has started heating up.

At first the greens will be piled high. Soon the layer at the bottom will start to wilt and shrink. Use tongs or those handy pincer-tools too turn them over every minute or so, until all the greens have had their tryst with the heat, and have wilted. The moisture from washing is also evaporating away. As they get to be bone-dry, they will start charring. If you used a cruciferous green (kale, mustard, rapini) you will start to smell that sulphuric smell of roasting broccoli, which I love.

Greens, when they are wilted:

Step 3: Oil and seasoning.

At this point, the pan is very hot, and any oil poured on it will immediately sizzle. Clear a little spot and put in a few tablespoons of cooking oil. Before sauteing the greens in it, put in your seasoning. There are various combinations that work well together.

1. Red chili powder and half an onion, chopped

2. Mustard seeds (half a tablespoon), garlic, red chili flakes

3. Just lots of black pepper, lemon juice on top

Once the seasoning cooks in the oil, all that is left is to stir the greens to coat them with the hot oil, add salt to taste and cover, while continuing the cook on a gentle flame for a few minutes until the greens are done.

Sindhi Besan Kadhi

June 12, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Besan, Sindhi food Tags: besan curry, food, indian food, indian recipes, sindhi curry, vegan, vegetarian 3 Comments

I’m convinced that every little province and village in India has their own variation on the common theme of a gravy made with chickpea flour, with their own specific set of spices, and their own means of adding sourness, sweetness, heat, and random floating stuff. Sindhis do as well. It would be more accurate to say that each region of Sindh had their own version, and my family’s version is more-or-less shared with other Hyderabadi Amils.

First things first. Chickpea flour, or besan, is the fine flour ground from channa dal. It is one of the most versatile ingredients I know of — it can be mixed into rotis, used like eggs to make omelets, thicken stews, deep-fried to make pakoras, and finally, cooked with liquid to make a thick gravy with a deep musky fragrance that can be poured over rice. That, my friends, in all its endless variations, is a kadhi.

A kadhi’s base is besan. There may be as little as one tablespoon for four cups of liquid, or as much as half a cup. There is a liquid — it is, after all, a gravy — which may be yogurt, buttermilk, water, or pureed tomatoes. The besan may be roasted in oil, or not. The spices often used are cumin seeds, asafetida, fenugreek; but any or all may be omitted or others added. There is usually a source of sourness. Sometimes the yogurt or pureed tomatoes suffice, sometimes tamarind is added. The musky flavor of besan goes well with sweet, so a small amount of jaggery is usually added. Sugar is fine too.

On to the main business: Sindhi kadhi.

Step 1: Mise en place and tempering

Collect your spices. Have your besan at hand with a half cup measure. Have your wooden spoon by your side. Put in about a quarter cup of oil in a thick-bottomed pot on medium high. If you have a pressure cooker, use that. When the oil shimmers, put in a sprinkling of asafetida and a half a teaspoon of red chili powder. Then, half a tablespoon of cumin seeds, wait ten seconds, and then half a tablespoon of fenugreek seeds. If you have curry leaves, put in about six of them. Minced ginger — half an inch piece — goes in next. If you want additional heat sliced serrano chilies can go in too. Stir for a minute. The oil has been seasoned.

Step 2: Roasting the besan.

I use about half a cup of besan. I like the stuff. Lower the heat to medium-low. Put the besan into the oil and stir vigorously. It should look like the picture above — all the besan should be dissolved into the oil — if there is too little oil, you will have a hard time moistening all of the besan. In that case, add a few spoons more of oil. Gently sizzling, the besan will roast; you might notice a wonderful aroma of roastiness arising. Keep stirring. Keep this going for about seven minutes. It might darken a shade or two, but be careful not to burn it.

Step 3: water

I use four cups of hot water, and stir vigorously to make sure there are no lumps. Sometimes I resort to a whisk. You can pour in the water all at once, or if you want to make a ritual out of it, do it bit by bit. I doubt it matters. Bring it to a boil, and keep it on a simmer for about 10 minutes. The smell of cooked besan will arise, it is heavenly. And, in about ten minutes, the gravy will thicken, and look like this:

Step 4: Salty, sour and sweet.

Add your salt to taste, add a half teaspoon of tamarind paste, and a half inch piece of jaggery if you have it, otherwise a teaspoon of sugar.

Step 5: Floating stuff — the vegetables.

Now each kadhi needs some kind of floating stuff that cooks with the gravy, and equally lends and borrows flavor. Many, many versions of kadhi use dumplings made out of — well, more besan. The Sindhi version chooses the healthier route of vegetables, known as vakhar. This is a generic term for all vegetables that are chosen to be the free floating blocks in one’s kadhi.

What to use? Of course, this is up to one’s taste and what one has in the pantry. But some commonly used vegetables are: cauliflower; french beans; okra; Indian drumstick (pods of Moringa oleifera); guar or cluster bean pods; young potatoes; tinda which is a type of gourd, easily substituted with zucchini; eggplant. Basically anything chunky and not too starchy can be used.

The key thing is that they must all be cubed into rather large cubes to avoid them melting into the sauce. Two-inch cubes is what one is aiming for. Cauliflowers in particular must be kept rather large because they turn mushy so easily.

Anyway, a plateful of vegetables, in they go. Salt the vegetables separately in order to get your salt estimate correct. If you have a pressure cooker, cover, bring to a whistle, and pressure cook for exactly 5 minutes 30 seconds — I’m serious, that is the number you want. If you don’t, simply bring to a boil and simmer, half covered, for twenty minutes, and keep checking for done-ness of the vegetables. Remember — the besan, though it certainly needs its rawness cooked out of — has already been cooked enough. The rest is about the vakhar.

This is what they look like when they have first been put in:

And after going through the pressure cooker, they will alter into this:

Subtly different, but infinitely luscious. Enjoy with a plateful of long-grained white rice. Pour so much gravy onto the rice that you feel the need to use a spoon rather than a fork. Then you know you have hit the sweet spot.

Easy peasy black-eyed peasy

June 11, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Black-eyed peas Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment

A nice and creamy black-eyed peas recipe. Its greatest virtue is its simplicity. None of that lengthy caramelizing of onions, no tomatoes, just simple, simple, simple.

Step 1: Half cup of black-eyed peas — soak either overnight or for an hour in near-boiling water. Its volume will quadruple. As seen below — I started with half a cup.

Step 2: Boil:

Drain the peas and put it into a pot with half a teaspoon of turmeric and one and half cups of water. Cover partially and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer, keep it mildly bubbling away for about an hour. They may not look much different but if you squeeze one pea it should be very very squish-able. Add salt to taste and either turn off the flame or keep it on very low.

It will go from this:

To this in 45 minutes to an hour:

Step 3: Seasoning

This is the set of seasonings I used: Mustard seeds, red chili powder, garlic and serrano chili. No fuss, no muss. Heat a few tablespoons of oil (I use pure olive oil) to a thick-bottomed pan and heat it on medium-high till the oil shimmers. Throw in a teaspoon of mustard seeds. Wait till they start to pop, then a half a teaspoon of red chili powder. It will darken immediately. Put in a few cloves of garlic, chopped, and a fat and juicy serrano chili, sliced into thin rounds. Stir to coat with oil.

At this point the heat should not be very high, or the garlic will burn. Let it cook for a few minutes until the chili and garlic look somewhat shriveled. Turn off the heat and pour the contents into the black-eyed peas. Stir.

If I had curry leaves, I would have added about 5 of them along with the garlic and chili.

Step 4: Finishing.

At this point the only task left is to draw the right creaminess out of the cooked peas. If it is too watery, boil off some of the water or crush some peas with the back of a spoon to meld into the liquid. At any rate let it sit with the seasonings for ten minutes or so to combine the flavors. Garnish with chopped cilantro if you wish. Or, lemon juice, parsley, chives? Go for it. Basil? No, not quite.

As you can see, I didn’t garnish at all.

We had it with chapatis, which is really the only way.

Sour mango pickle

June 9, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Pickles Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, pickles, vegan, vegetarian 5 Comments

At last, after years of disappointing attempts, I made a good mango pickle.

I really appreciated that wholesome flavor — I could recognize the taste of the sour mango through the pickling spices, and taste the sharpness of mustard oil. And the fennel seeds maintained their crunch.

Step 1: Prepare the mangoes. Start with three big unripe mangoes (Kent is fine) that are still green and hard although they may have grown to their full size. I only say this because it may be difficult to obtain the smaller half-grown ones outside of India (or a farm). Inside, the color should either have no flush of orange at all, or a slight peach tint. Wash them, dry them thoroughly (wait a while so they air dry a bit), then cut them up into half-inch side cubes or whatever that shape is. I don’t feel the need to peel but I did remove the seed. If the mangoes are a lot smaller, cutting right through the seed is fine.

Step 2: Collect whole spices.

Combine 1/3 cup fennel seeds, 3 tbsp fenugreek seeds, 2 tbsp black pepper (whole) and 2 tbsp nigella seeds in a mortar and pestle to crack them slightly (no need to pulverize).

Step 3: Combine mango pieces with dry spices.

Lay out the mango pieces in a flat tray. The idea is that we are going to sun-dry them in this format, so keep that in mind. Put in the whole spices. Also add: 1/2 cup sea salt, couple teaspoons (or more) red chili powder, couple teaspoons turmeric. Mix thoroughly with the mango pieces.

Step 4: Sun-dry for a period of 4-6 days.

So, our mango pieces are coated nicely with the spices. Cover them with a few layers of cheesecloth and put it out in a sunny window. Once a day, open the cloth, give them a stir, spread them out and cover with cheesecloth again.

What is going on with the mango as they sun-dry? You will see them slowly alter: they start to shrivel and turn a little translucent. In fact, they are cooking in slo-mo.

I believe what happens is that the salt draws out the moisture from the mango, and the sun dries them out. In tandem, the sun and the salt are cooking them. When you stir the mango each day, you notice the moisture trapped on the shady side of the pieces, while the top surface — the part that is exposed to the sun — is dry. We turn them to expose all sides to the sun over a period of a few days.

Here is a series of pictures that shows the progression. Day 1 is above.

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Day 5:

Do you notice how the mango pieces turn more leathery, more translucent, more shriveled over the days? In essence, they start to cook.

Step 5: Cover with oil

The last step is the easiest — empty the mango pieces into a clean, completely dry glass jar. Pour mustard oil over it until it comes at least a half inch above the topmost layer of mango. Shake the jar to settle the contents. Cover, place in a sunny window for another few days, shaking once each day.

Enjoy.