Not just Vadai but spinach Vadai...

Vadai is a favourite savoury snack with its origins from South India. In Malaysia, many South Indian shops sell Vadai mostly at tea time but some sell them throughout the day as well. You also find Vadai sold in hawker stalls.

I am familiar with two types of Vadai - Ulunthu Vadai that is doughnut shaped and softer as compared with Paruppu Vadai that is rounded and is made with lentils and more crunchy. I'm sure there are other types of Vadai as well but these two are the most common.

Often in Malaysia, whenever you have family of friends coming over in the evening, you will buy a whole stack of Vadai to enjoy with a cup of tea (or coffee or cold drinks as may be the case). Vadai is just as famous as Currypuffs are in Malaysia.

I have to say that Vadai is the kind of thing that we would never imagine making. It looks too difficult and since its so easily available in the shops, we have never ever imagined making it.





The Lovely Wife however, decided she was going to try out a recipe from one of her Indian cookbooks. This Vadai is a little different. It is a version ofParuppu Vadai that uses spinach as one of the ingredients. That is rather uncommon and I believe made this Vadai all the more tasty.

This is her take on the recipe that comes from Indian Shortcuts to Success by Das Sreedharan

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups yellow split peas
250g spinach leaves, with stems removed
1 onion, finely chopped
2 green chillies, chopped finely
1 inch ginger, minced
10 curry leaves, chopped
salt

Method
Soak the pentils in a large bowl for about an hour. Meanwhile, blanch the spinach in hot water until just cooked. Set aside to cook then chop finely.
Drain the lentils and then process in the food processor till it becomes a coarse paste. Don't grind it too fine as you want some texture to the paste. Tip into a large bowl and add the spinach, onion, ginger, chillies and curry leaves. Season with salt and then mix well.
Divide mixture into small portions and roll into the size of a golf ball with your hands. Flatten into a small round patty.
Heat some vegetable oil in a deep wok or frypan till hot. Deep fry the patties until a deep golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.

To say the the Vadai turned out well would be an understatement. They were simply fabulous! As I said earlier, the spinach added a nice touch to the Vadai. Making the vadai was no where near as complicated as we thought it would be and actually it turned out to be rather easy.

This is the kind of food that people will be in awe of when they find that you prepared it at home. The Vadais didn't last very long and the main culprit that kept wolfing them down was none other than Me!



The Lovely Wife reckons that the next time she makes these, she will add some chopped dried chillis to the mix for a bit of a piquant zing. I can't wait till she makes it again...

Tarka Dhall

Lentil based dishes are a staple food in Indian cuisine. I've previously posted about Sambar which is one of my favourite dishes as well as Channa Dhall which is a chunkier Dhall dish.

Lentils are an amazing source of protein and can be a dish all on its own. Tarka, also known as Tadka, is the technique where spices are fried in oil or ghee to bring out the essential oils and flavour from the spices before being poured, together with the oil, into a main component of the dish - in this case the Dhall.

The recipe for this dish, made by The Lovely Wife, comes from 30 Minute Indian by Sunil Vijayakar. This book has yielded many a good recipe and although I scoffed at her when she first bought this book, I have to admit that it has provided some very good recipes and we have all enjoyed her exploits from this book.

This is her take on the recipe.

Ingredients
250g red split lentils
1 litre hot water
4-5 large tomatoes - chopped
2 chillies - chopped
1/2 tsps turmeric powder
2 tsps fresh ground ginger
4 Tbsp fresh coriander - chopped

Tarka
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves garlic - sliced thinly
1 dried red chilli - cut into pieces
Method
Soak the lentils in boiling water for 10 mins. Drain and put into a large saucepan together with the 1 ltire of hot water. Bring to the boil and spoon off any scum that floats to the top. Reduce heat and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes or till soft and tender.
Drain the lentils and process in a food processor. Return the puree to the pan together with the tomatoes, chillies, turmeric, ginger and coriander. Season with salt and pepper and allow to simmer gently.
Make the tarka by heating the oil in a separate pan. Add in all the ingredients for the tarka and fry until fragrant, stirring constantly. Remove the tarka from heat and add into the Dhall. Stir to combine.

Dhall goes really well with rice and also flatbreads - I've probably said that before but its worth repeating. This Dhall is the sort of dish that you can never seem to get enough off and after one serving of rice, I had another smaller one and then another after that! The Lovely Wife didnt stop me from stuffing my face with this Dhall as after all, it is such a good source of protein and healthy, healthy, healthy!




The only complaint that she had was that I had a little too much fun with my princess where I would call out "Takda" and my princess would reply "Dhall" repeatedly like this...

Takda! ...Dhall
Takda! ...Dhall
Takda, Takda, Takda!... Dhall!

You can understand why The Lovely Wife was irritated. I do wonder how she puts up with me sometimes...

A gift of Cheese and a Pasta called Primavera

I'm trying to clear up my backlog of outstanding posts or drafts that I have done where I've uploaded pictures but not the text or worse still not even the recipe! This post goes way back to October 2009 when a close friend, Naomi, came to visit and brought along a slab of Pecorino Cheese for us.

I've never sampled Pecorino before so the gift of cheese was most welcome. My little princess loves her cheese and as soon as she heard that I had some new cheese, she wanted some of it. We ate a little of it with crackers and the cheese was a little strong but very, very tasty.




A few days later, The Lovely Wife asked me if I could make this Pasta dish that she had seen in the California Pizza Kitchen cookbook. The secret to this dish, according to the book, was the roasted garlic sauce. As I never follow recipes to a tee, this is my version of Spaghetti Primavera inspired by the CPK cookbook. Apparently Primavera is Italian for springtime and that is why this pasta is made up of a variety of vegetables and herbs.

Ingredients
1 bulb garlic (about 8-10 cloves)
1 medium onion - chopped
3 stalks fresh oregano - leaves removed and chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
200g button mushrooms
1 red capsicum - sliced into large pieces
1 orange capsicum - sliced into large pieces
1 zuchinni - sliced
2 stalks celery - thinly sliced
200g cherry tomatoes - halved


Method
Cut the end of the garlic and then place the garlic bulb in a small dish. Pour about a teaspoon of olive oil over it and roast in a 200C oven for about 20 mins till soft.
Meanwhile, fry the onion, oregano and thyme together till fragrant. Add in the mushrooms and cook till tender. Add in the celery and zuchinni and mix well. Add in the tomatoes and press them lightly as you stir the mixture to get the juices out. Reserve a few tomatoes. Be careful not to overcook the vegetables as you want them slightly crunchy.
Squeeze the cloves of garlic out of their skin and process together with the reserved tomatoes to make a nice paste. Add in some water if necessary.
Add in the garlic paste to the mixture and cook well. Finally toss in the capsicum and cook till slightly tender. Toss togehter with pasta of your choice.

A most delicious meal and very, very healthy! I grated some of the Pecorino Cheese and sprinkled it over the pasta. The cheese went really, really well with the pasta and The Lovely Wife said she really enjoyed the dish. Who would have thought a vegetarian pasta dish could taste so good!



Thanks for the cheese Naomi - told you I would put it to good use!

I'm also sending this in to Ruth's Presto Pasta Nights. I haven't contributed anything to PPN for a while and this is my first one for 2010! This time around, PPN is being hosted by Sara of Cupcake Muffin. So pop over to her blog on Friday to see the roundup!

Channa Dhall - Chickpea Dhall

I've realised that writing up an interesting post to go with a particular recipe isn't as easy at is looks. I've also realised that I've got a fairly large backlog of photos/recipes that have not been posted. It would be fairly easy to just post a recipe together with the photos but then that kind of defeats the purpose of blogging.

Anyway, now you know that blogging isn't that easy and you also know that I have a backlog of posts.

Recently, The Lovely Wife has developed a penchant for all things vegetarian. No, she is not becoming a vegetarian (not yet!) and neither does she shun meat. She is cutting back on her meat intake though. There are a variety of reasons for this but suffice to say that it has something to do with the latest books she has been reading although she reckons it is more healthy for her - regardless of what the books may say.

What books? Well, Total Body Makeover (Bob Greene), Fit For Life (Harvey Diamond), The Enzyme Factor (Hiromi Shinya), The China Study (Colin Campbell, Thomas Campbell) and The Jungle Effect (Daphne Miller) are just SOME of the books that she recently read that have influenced her behaviour - and eating habits.

So anyway, to cut a long story short, I made this Chickpea Dhall as a meal one day. There is some debate as to what actually constitutes Channa Dhall. Some say that Channa is the same as Chickpeas while some say that Channa is actually yellow split lentils. I've always known Channa to be Chickpeas (or Garbanzo beans) so if I'm wrong, I stand corrected.



I've only ever made this once before, but I'm very used to making Sambar that is not terribly different but at the same time not the same either as Sambar is much smoother than Channa Dhall and Sambar contains a mix of vegetables while Channa Dhall doesn't. The similarity of course is that both take a fairly long time to cook although Channa Dhall takes a bit longer to become soft due to the thickness of the lentil.

This is my take on Channa Dhall.

Ingredients
1 inch ginger
3 cloves garlic
sprinkle of mustard seeds
4 cloves
1 large onion - sliced
2 tomatoes - chopped roughly
2 tsp tumeric powder
1-2 tsp curry powder
Chickpeas
Water
1 red chilli - chopped
2 tbsp milk
coriander leaves for garnishing
Method
grind ginger and garlic to a paste. Heat some oil and fry the mustard seeds, cloves, tumeric powder and curry powder. Add in the ginger/garlic paste and continue to fry. Add in onion and mix well then add in tomatoes and cook to a nice paste.
Add in the Dhall with lots of water. Mix well and allow to simmer for about 2 hours until the Dhall is very tender and mixture is thick. Add in some milk to thicken if required. Season with salt and black pepper. Serve with coriander

Channa Dhall is perfect as a meal on its own or as a side dish with other vegetable or meat dishes. It goes really well with Rice, Breads - like Naan, Chappati, Pita or even sliced bread. You really can't go wrong with this...!

Potato Gratin and Cauliflower Gratin

One of my favourite dishes to cook whenever I am stumped for a side dish or if I need to 'beef up' a meal is to make a Gratin. To get a bit technical, culinary wise, a Gratin is usually layers of a vegetable mixed with cream and topped off with a browned crust, often using breadcrumbs or grated cheese. The gratin is baked and is traditionally served in its baking dish.



My preference when making gratins is to use potatoes as I love the starchiness of the potatoes and the cream and butter just seem to meld so nicely with potatoes. I also love to top it off with crispy bacon. This is what I do for a Potato Gratin.

Ingredients
6 potatoes thinly sliced
1.5 cups cream
40g butter
6 slices bacon - chopped
150g Cheddar Cheese - grated
Salt
Pepper

Method
Grease a shallow baking dish. Fry the bacon until well cooked - it will crisp a little more in the oven but not much. Heat the cream and butter over low heat until butter is melted whisking to combine. Layer the potatoes in the dish and then pour over the cream between layers. Top with cheese and bacon. Bake in a 190C oven till potatoes are nicely cooked through.

If you prefer a variation on the same these, just substitute the potatoes for cauliflower, or broccoli or any other vegetable you like really. Sometimes I add some garlic to the mix or even fry some onions first and add it in.

This is how the Cauliflower Gratin looks like. I didnt fry the bacon quite as long as I did for the potato gratin and so it turned out slightly less crispy. Still delicious though!



This dish is really simple and yet makes quite a stunning side dish. Enjoy!

A Nob or Knob of butter?

Usually for Christmas Eve Dinner, no matter what we have, there is the obligatory salad. The Lovely Wife is normally tasked with making a salad as her salads are oh so wonderfully good. This year however, I chose to do something different. Something simple yet tasty and satisfying. As the old Kellogs Corn Flakes advert in Australia goes - The simple things in life are often the best.


Before I proceed on to the dish I made, I want to relate a small 'argument' that ensued between The Lovely Wife and me. We were playing a game of Boggle with the kids and The Lovely Wife wrote down nob. I disputed the word and she raised her haughty eyebrows and condescendingly asked me whether I had ever heard of a "Nob of Butter." I snorted at her and said that it was a "Knob of butter and not a Nob." To which she insisted that she was correct. I was quite adamant that I was correct as I pride myself in speaking and spelling according to British English - which as far as I'm concerned it the only English there is...Nonetheless, I let it go for the sake of family unity!

For the record though, it IS knob of butter which is a very British term describing a lump of butter about the size of a walnut maybe or a teaspoon. Quite an arbitary measurement really much like a splash of olive oil or a dash of oregano or a swig of rum. You get the idea.

There is a reason for my ranting as you will soon see.




What I decided to make was simply some steamed vegetables tossed in butter.

All I did was to steam some broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and throw in a can of sweet corn kernels. Then I threw in a couple of KNOBS of butter, a little salt and black pepper and tossed the whole lot together coating it evenly.

So now you know why it was important to hear the story about a Nob versus a Knob of butter.



This dish was very well received and few believed it was nothing more than steamed veges tossed in butter. Simple, yes? Delicious too! It's true that the simple things in life are often the best!

Sambar for World Food Day

I posted about the World Food Day Event that my friends Valli and Ivy are hosting together earlier on this blog. I think this is a very noble cause in raising awareness of hunger and deprivation that exists all over the world.

Although I already posted about this, I thought that since the intent is to 'Feed that World' albeit in a virtual manner, the more food brought to this event the better. So in addition to my earlier post, I'm bring along a Sambar.


Sambar is definitely one of my favourite foods. This lentil based dish has many variations and is often considered one of the staple dishes in South Indian cuisine. It is akin to the Dhall in North Indian cooking. It is also very Malaysians since Malaysian food is so darned varied and includes Malay, Chinese and Indian Cuisine not to mention a whole host of other ethnic cuisines. This is my own homemade version of Sambar and since I am as Malaysian as can be, I reckon this qualifies as a National food!

Sambar is great in that it can be a meal all on its own, eaten with rice. Although usually vegetarian, there are some variants that add meat into it as well.

When I was a student, I used to cook this dish rather frequently. It was great comfort food and was relatively cheap as well while at the same time providing lots of protein. In fact, many friends from my Uni days, still remember my ‘legendary’ Sambar that we all used to tuck into and enjoy. Coupled with a fiery curry, this was just pure heaven on cold wintry nights!

This is what I do:

Ingredients
300g Lentils (yellow or orange lentils)
1 Large onion
2 slices ginger
2 tomatoes
2 potatoes
2 eggplants
2 carrots
2 tsp turmeric
Handful curry leaves
1 tsp curry powder
2 tsp Black Pepper
3 cloves
1 tsp fenugreek
1 tbsp oil
3 cups water
3 dried chillies
Salt


Method
Wash lentils and let soak for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, Pare potatoes and carrots and cut each potato into medium sized pieces and the carrot into longish slices. Do the same for the eggplant and quarter the tomatoes. Set vegetables aside.
Slice onion, chop garlic and cut chillies into large piece. Heat oil and fry onion, garlic, chillies, curry leaves, black pepper, cloves and fenugreek till fragrant. Add the curry powder and turmeric and fry lightly. Add the vegetables and fry lightly. Add in the water and lentils. Cover and let simmer till lentils are soft. You may need to add some water from time to time. Season with salt


You can add more water to make a thin Sambar or let it simmer longer for a thicker version. There are just so many possibilities! Sometimes, to add a little more flavour and ‘richness’, a little ghee (clarified butter) is poured over the Sambar and mixed with rice. I sometimes like to add ladysfingers (Okra) to the Sambar as well.





Sambar is just perfect eaten with rice or even flatbreads. A delicious and very nutritious food, it goes a long way and is the perfect food to serve for a lot of people.

So please lay this dish together with all the other ones to get "A conga line of international dishes to feed the world!!!!

Coleslaw

Just something very simple this time around - Coleslaw! I grew up only knowing the coleslaw at Kentucky Fried Chicken. To me, that was what coleslaw was. But how wrong I was! When I grew up, (or maybe I should say became a little older because I don't think I've ever really grown up!!) I realised that coleslaw could be so, so much tastier and nothing quite beats home made slaw!

The Lovely Wife made this some time ago, as she IS after all the Salad Queen in our house. This version has sliced apples in it too for a whole lot more flavour. Theres no real recipe to this as its pretty much a matter of taste. As I said, she used Cabbage, Carrots and Apples. I like some onion in my Coleslaw but the Lovely Wife didnt put any in this time. This is kind of what he did:

Shred Cabbage and Carrots. Chop apples into small cubes. Mix together (rough measurements)
3 Tbs. white vinegar
4 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 tsp. mustard
dash of Worcestershire sauce
pepper, to taste
2 Tbl. sugar
lemon juice

and add in the shredded vegetables. Mix well. Then add in enough mayonaisse to taste.



There you have it. A quick and easy coleslaw recipe that makes a great side dish or even a quick light meal!

Vegetable Paella

I'm a meat man and to be honest, in all the years that I have been cooking, I have rarely ever bothered to make anything vegetarian. However, all that changed when we became very close friends with a Vegetarian! Although her husband is a meat-eater, like the rest of us, I now take special care to prepare Vegetarian dishes for her. More often than not, when we invite them over for dinner, I make everything vegetarian with just make a small meat dish as a side to assuage the meaty requirements of the rest of us! :)
That was what led me to make this Vegetable Paella.

Paella is actually the name of the vessel used to cook the dish. Apparently, Paella is the Valencian name for Frying Pan and also has roots in Latin, French, Italian as well as Mexican Spanish. A true Paella is made with Saffron. The meat, vegetables or seafood is cooked and then water added to which the rice is added and then cooked. That anyway is how I have read it is supposed to be made.

I cheat of course. I think it is too complicated to boil rice to get a nice consistency. So this is what I do.

First, I make the rice in the rice cooker, but I reduce some of the water to make sure the rice is really, really grainy - and maybe a little undercooked. I usually use Basmati rice to get extra flavour and fragrance.

Then I stir fry carrots, capsicum, , eggplant, celery and mushrooms with lots of garlic, oregano and rosemary. I add in some water and let everything cook up nicely, extracting the flavours from the vegetables.

Add in the cooked rice and mix well, allowing it to 'steep' in the juices and absorb all the flavours. Keep adding enough rice till the mixture is grainy and not mushy.



And there you have a Vegetarian Paella. Maybe not the true way it is supposed to be made but it turns out great anyway!

Pomelo Salad

Pomelo's are widely available in Malaysia, and are particularly famous in Ipoh, Tapah and Bidor. On a recent (end Oct) work related trip to Ipoh, I was instructed by not only my wife but my son and daughter as well - "Make sure you buy some Pomelo's on the way back."

I've learnt that safest thing to do is to do as I am told. Especially as far as my children are concerned!

I'm not a big fan of the Pomelo but the lovely wife and kids love it. For those that don't know what a Pomelo is, it's like a large lime. Perhaps a better way to describe it would be like an Asian Grapefruit? The peel is thick while the flesh inside is sweetish with a slide bitter aftertaste.



The picture above doesn't quite give an idea of how large a Pomelo is. The picture could simply be a magnification of a lime for all you know. So... compare the Pomelo to the head of an almost 4 year old. Yes, this is a pomelo next to the head of my 4 year old (going on 52!!) daughter, Sarah.



The lovely wife and kids polished off one whole pomelo at one sitting and then on the weekend my wife decided to make a pomelo salad. Basically, its the flesh of the pomelo placed in a bowl.



Then seasoned with some fish sauce, lemon juice, chopped shallots, chopped chillis and some peanuts.



Easy Peasy! Lovely on its' own or as a side dish.